Maggie and Sparky came in with long faces. They’d plenty of misery to report, but no confessions.
Eastwood was leathering his Audi when I arrived, still wearing his suit and tie. Some office types can’t wait to get out of a suit when they go home, but he wasn’t one of them.
At the back of his house I noticed a brand new greenhouse standing on a concrete base. It must have been new because there was nothing in it. Eastwood apologised for the non-existent mess and showed me inside.
‘How can I help you, Inspector?’ he asked.
I didn’t prat about. I just laid the photo of the pirate attack on the table and said, ‘Do you recognise this lady?’
He swallowed and placed two manicured fingers over his lips, as if a great gob of bile had just made a bid for freedom. ‘Y-Yes,’ he stuttered, stifling a burp. ‘It’s m-my ex-wife.’
‘Oh, could you explain?’
‘Well, er, yes. Did you find this at Hartley’s?’
‘Mmm.’
‘Well, er, 1993 I think it was. Joan and I had booked to go on a cruise, and Hartley remarked that he hadn’t had a holiday for years. We saw quite a bit of him in those days — he used to make up a bridge foursome, twice a week. So, Joan and I discussed it between ourselves and suggested he come on the cruise with us. He leapt at the idea.’
I bet he did. ‘So why did you stop seeing so much of him?’ I asked.
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Just one of those things. We grew bored with him. All he ever talked about was work, kept trying to involve me in his schemes, pump me for information, that sort of thing.’
‘And you like to leave it all behind you in the office,’ I suggested. ‘Work on your models.’
‘Quite, Inspector.’
‘Pardon my asking, Mr Eastwood, but was your divorce anything to do with Goodrich?’
The bile was still causing him a problem. ‘No,’ he replied, swallowing and grimacing at the same time.
‘Mrs Eastwood wasn’t having an affair with him?’
‘No, certainly not.’
He’d replied just a little too quickly, so I waited for him to enlarge.
‘She…he… She went through a bad patch — nerves, you know. Then decided she wanted a completely fresh start. I think he influenced her, made her feel dissatisfied, but no more than that. We quarrelled a lot. She didn’t appreciate the pressures I was under.’
No, it must be difficult trying to make all those little figures with peg-legs and eye-patches and parrots on their shoulders. ‘So where is she now?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, where did she go?’
‘To a flat in Heckley, but she’s moved since then.’
‘And you don’t know where?’
‘No.’
‘Where would you look if you needed to find her?’
‘I really don’t know.’
‘Think, Mr Eastwood. Has she any relatives?’
‘Oh, yes. A sister in Bradford. They were fairly close, she might know where Joan is.’
‘Do you have the sister’s address?’
‘I suppose so, somewhere.’
‘In that case, I’d be very grateful if you could find it for me.’
On the way out I cast a backward glance at the concrete pad under the greenhouse, and wondered how thick it was.
CHAPTER FIVE
I stopped at a corner shop and bought an A to Z. The sister, Dorothy, lived somewhere off the Haworth Road, on the far side of the town, and Eastwood didn’t know her phone number. Some enquiries are like pushing a Tesco’s trolley up the down escalator. Bradford has developed a system of by-passes, but I wanted to go through the city centre. There was gridlock at Forster Square, caused by a broken-down bus. Just after the buses were de-regulated the ones in Bradford carried the message: Privately run for the benefit of the customer, or something similar. Immediately underneath were the words: No change given. I noted that they’d had the decency to remove the benefit of the customer bit. A young girl in a sari and a Nissan let me filter on to the roundabout and I gave her a wave. We were off again.
I drove through the Land of a Thousand Curries, past cinemas converted into mosques or carpet warehouses, and halal butchers that had been Coops and Thrifts when I was a kid. Old men in pyjama trousers, sticking out from under Umbro anoraks, strolled the pavements, followed by women who might have been sixteen or sixty, ravishing or dog-ugly. The veil is a great equaliser. I felt uncomfortable. I think I subscribe to the melting pot theory of integration. If we have to have ghettos, let them be multinational. The Romans knew a thing or two. When they conquered a country they adopted the local gods. It must have saved them a lot of hassle.
Dorothy opened the door as far as a chain would allow and a cat shot out through the gap. It was a bow-fronted terrace house in a street that was running to seed but not quite decay. I’d had to park three doors away, and a couple of cars standing on blocks told me that the rot was starting.
‘I’m DI Priest from Heckley CID,’ I told the pale face that peered at my warrant card through the gap, almost level with my own. ‘I’m trying to trace your sister, Joan Eastwood. I wonder if I could come in and have a word with you?’
She took the chain off and let me in. The front room was barely furnished, with unframed prints by Klimt and Modigliani on the emulsioned walls, and I had the choice of sitting either on an upright chair or something between a futon and a palliasse. I chose the upright and Dorothy dossed on the floor, next to her coffee mug and ashtray. She was wearing jeans and a baggy sweater that was perpetually falling off one shoulder, revealing a pale-blue bra strap.
‘Sorry,’ she said, waving the mug at me and removing the fag from her lips to have a drink. ‘Can I offer you a coffee?’
‘Thanks all the same, but no. Can you tell me if you know where Joan is?’
‘Is this to do with Hartley Goodrich?’ she asked.
‘Yes. We believe your sister was friendly with him and may be able to tell us something about his lifestyle.’
She smiled and took a drag of her cigarette, which brought on a coughing fit. For a few seconds I thought she was going to choke, but another swig and a puff restored her equilibrium. Sometimes I think there must be a link between smoking and coughing. Perhaps it’s something the medical profession should look into. ‘Ambleside Road,’ she said. ‘Number twenty-three. That’s Leeds, Alwoodley. A nice area. And, boy, will she be able to tell you about Hartley’s lifestyle.’
‘Go on.’
‘No, I’m only guessing about them. You’d better ask her yourself.’
‘So you think they were having an affair?’
She nipped the butt of her cigarette into the ashtray and reached out for the packet of Benson and Hedges that was nearby. ‘More than likely, in my opinion.’
‘Have you ever met Goodrich?’
She nodded and smiled, dabbing the end of a fresh cigarette against a five-for-a-pound plastic lighter.
‘When was this?’ I asked.
‘Bout four, five years ago. Maybe longer. They used to play bridge on Saturday evenings and tried to fix me up with him. Joan was full of how wonderful he was. Hartley this, Hartley that. In fact, he was a slimy little toad, except that he wasn’t little, apart from his intellect. I couldn’t stand the guy, but for a couple of weeks I had a certain sadistic pleasure in pandering to his political views. Then I exploded and told him what a fascist shite he was.’ She turned her hands palms upwards. ‘That was the end of my journey into suburbia.’
I laughed, conscious that she probably regarded me as a fascist shite, too. ‘I bet that was worth seeing,’ I said.
‘I enjoyed it, but I’ve a feeling I may have driven Joan into his arms. Have you met her ex, Derek?’
‘Yes. He gave me your address.’
‘Has he finished the Temeraire, yet?’
‘No, not yet,’ I chuckled.
She heaved a big sigh and put the cigarette between her lips. I rose to leave, thanking her for her assistance. The fug in the room was like it used to be in pubs twenty years ago.