Finally, she put the phone down and rolled her eyes. “Some suppliers… ”
She was wearing a yellow sun-dress with thin straps that left most of her nicely tanned and freckled shoulders and throat bare. About forty, Banks guessed, she looked as if she watched what she ate and exercised regularly, tennis probably. Her straight blonde hair, parted in the middle, hung just above her shoulders, framing a heart-shaped face with high cheekbones. It was a cheerful face, one to which a smile was no stranger, and the youthful, uneven fringe suited her. But Banks also noticed marks of stress and strain in the wrinkles under her blue-gray eyes and around her slightly puckered mouth. A pair of no-nonsense glasses with tortoiseshell frames dangled on a cord around her neck.
“Your phone call piqued my curiosity,” she said, leaning back in her chair and linking her hands behind her head. Banks noticed the shadow of stubble under her arms. “What has Danny-boy been up to now?”
“I’m sorry?” said Banks. “I don’t follow.”
“Didn’t Betty tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“Oh, God, that woman. Gormless. About Danny and me. We’re separated. Have been for about two years now. It was all perfectly amicable, of course.”
Of course, Banks thought. How often had he heard that? If it was all so bloody amicable, he wondered, then why aren’t you still together? “I didn’t know,” he said.
“Then I’m sorry you’re probably on a wild goose chase.” She changed her position, resting her hands on the desk and playing with a rubber band. There were no rings on her fingers. “Anyway, I’m still intrigued,” she said. “I am still fond of Danny. I would be concerned if I thought anything had happened to him. It hasn’t, has it?”
“Do you still see one another?”
“From time to time.”
“When did you last see him?”
“Hmm… ” She pursed her lips and thought. “A couple of months ago. We had lunch together at Whitelocks.”
“How did he seem?”
“Fine.” She stretched the rubber band tight. “Look, you’ve got me worried. All this interest in Danny all of a sudden. First those clients of his. Now you.”
Banks pricked up his ears. “What clients?”
“On Saturday. Saturday afternoon. Just a couple of businessmen wondering if I knew where he was.”
“Did they know you were separated?”
“Yes. They said it was a long shot and they were sorry to bother me but they’d had an appointment scheduled with him that morning and he hadn’t shown up. He’d mentioned me and the shop at some time or other, of course. He often does, by way of sending me business. What a sweetheart. Anyway, they asked if I had any idea where he was, if he’d suddenly decided to go away for the weekend. As if I’d know. It all seemed innocent enough. Is something wrong?”
“What did they look like?”
She described the same two men who had visited Betty Moorhead. It wouldn’t have been difficult for them to find out about Melissa’s shop – perhaps even Betty had told them – and if they were looking for Clegg, it was reasonable to assume that his ex-wife might know where he was. She must have convinced them quickly that she neither knew nor cared.
The rubber band snapped. “Look,” she said, “I’ve a right to know if something’s happened to Danny, haven’t I?”
“We don’t know if anything has happened to him,” Banks said. “He’s just gone missing.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. “So that’s all.”
Banks frowned. “His secretary seems worried enough. She says it’s unusual.”
“Oh, Betty’s a nice enough girl, but she is a bit of an alarmist. Danny always did have an eye for the ladies. That’s one reason we’re no longer together. I should imagine if he’s gone missing, then something came up, so to speak.” She grinned, showing slightly overlapping front teeth.
“Wouldn’t he at least let his secretary know where he was?”
“I’ll admit that is a bit unusual. While Danny was never exactly tied to his desk, he didn’t like to be too far from the action. You know the type, always on his car phone to the office. Who knows? Maybe he’s having a mid-life crisis. Maybe he and his bit of crumpet have gone somewhere where there are no telephones. He’s such a romantic, is Danny.”
The phone rang and Mrs. Clegg excused herself for a moment. Banks caught her half of the conversation about an order of méthode champenoise. A couple of minutes later she put the phone down. “Sorry. Where were we?”
“Mrs. Clegg, we think your husband might have been mixed up in some shady dealings and that might have had something to do with his disappearance.”
She laughed. “Shady dealings? That hardly surprises me.”
“Do you know anything about his business activities?”
“No. But dishonest in love… ” She let the thought trail, then shrugged. “Danny never was one of the most ethical, or faithful, of people. Careful, usually, yes, but hardly ethical.”
“Would you say he was the type to get mixed up in something illegal?”
She thought for a moment, frowning, then answered. “Yes. Yes, I think so. If he thought the returns were high enough.”
“Is he a greedy man?”
“No-o. Not in so many words, no. I wouldn’t call him greedy. He just likes to get what he wants. Women. Money. Whatever. It’s more a matter of power, manipulation. He just likes to win.”
“What about the risk?”
She tipped her head to one side. “There’s always some risk, isn’t there, Chief Inspector? If something’s worth having. Danny’s not a coward, if that’s what you mean.”
“Did you know Keith Rothwell?”
“Yes. Not well, but I had met him. Poor man. I read about him in the paper. Terrible. You’re not suggesting there’s any link between his murder and Danny’s disappearance, are you?”
She’s quicker on the ball than Betty Moorhead, Banks thought. “We don’t know. I don’t suppose you’d be in a position to enlighten us about their business dealings?”
“Sorry. No. I haven’t seen Keith since Danny and I split up. Even then I’d just bump into him at the office now and then, or when he helped with my taxes.”
“So you’ve no idea what kinds of dealings they were involved in?”
“No. As I said, Keith Rothwell did my accounts a couple of times – you know, the wine business – when Dan and I were together, before things became awkward and our personal life got in the way. He was a damn good accountant. He saved me a lot of money from the Inland Revenue – all above board. Now, it doesn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to figure out that if the two of them were in business together it probably involved tax havens of one kind or another, and that they both probably did quite well from it.”