‘And that’s legit?’ I gasped.
She shrugged. ‘Everybody benefits, Charlie. It’s a brutal world out there.’
‘The insurance companies benefit, Maggie. Why can’t they pay the full amount early, minus payments? They’d have to, eventually, if some poor sod didn’t need the money.’
Nigel said, ‘We’re not the morality police, Boss. If it’s legal, it’s legal.’
‘OK. So what next?’
‘Michael Angelo Watts knew Goodrich,’ Sparky told us, writing the information on his chart.
‘And,’ I said, pausing for effect, ‘he also knows K. Tom Davis.’ They looked at me, inviting an explanation. ‘I had a ride round there, Wednesday afternoon,’ I went on. ‘Did a little spying. Saw him pay them a visit.’
‘That’s interesting,’ Nigel said.
‘And he’s a drugs dealer,’ Maggie added.
‘Allegedly,’ I said, smiling. ‘Go on.’
‘IGI go bust,’ from Nigel.
‘Right.’
‘Michael Angelo Watts very annoyed,’ Sparky suggested.
‘I’d bet he was,’ I said. ‘The surprising thing is that we found Goodrich dead in his chair and not standing on the riverbed with his feet in a concrete block. So how did he sweet-talk Watts into leaving him be?’
‘Blame IGI — K. Tom Davis — for the failure?’ Nigel wondered.
‘Can’t see Watts falling for that,’ Sparky said.
‘Nor me,’ I confirmed.
‘How about an alternative method of payment?’ Maggie proposed.
‘Such as?’
‘Well, what’s this about the gold?’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell you what we know. Mr Smart Arse Caton said right from the beginning that the drugs dealers would prefer payment in gold, because they’re awash with cash, but, on the other hand, anybody holding gold would welcome the opportunity to convert some of it into cash.’
‘Jack Spratt and his wife,’ Sparky said.
‘Precisely. It’s a marriage made in heaven. And now there are rumours that K. Tom was involved in the Hartog-Praat bullion robbery. Only rumours, sadly, but the fact is that someone, somewhere out there, is sitting on a ton and a half of a very desirable metal.’
‘So what’s next?’ Sparky asked.
‘Next,’ I replied, ‘is that I am going to interview K. Tom’s daughter-in-law, Lisa Davis, later this morning. She reckons to know something, but I’m not sure. Then, when I have the time, I want to talk to a man called Jimmy the Fish, in Bridlington. Hopefully, they’ll put some flesh on the rumours. Have you all got plenty to be going on with?’
They always say they have. I turned to Dave. ‘I’m seeing Lisa Davis at ten, so I’d better be off. I want you to give me a ring on my mobile at ten thirty, no later. In fact, better make it twenty past. Say there’s been a murder, and I’m urgently needed. OK?’
‘Will do, Chas,’ he replied.
We were on our way to the door when Nigel said, ‘Have we time for a quicky?’ He meant a joke, not sex. Nigel tries, bless him, but his timing lets him down. We all stopped.
He turned to DC Maddison. ‘Maggie, how many menopausal women does it take to change a light bulb?’
‘I don’t know, Nigel. Please tell me.’
‘Three.’
‘How do you work that out?’
‘No, you’re supposed to say? “Why three?”’
‘Oh, sorry. Why three?’
‘BECAUSE I SAY SO!’ he yelled.
I smiled — it wasn’t bad, for him — but I was alone.
‘Very funny,’ Maggie stated. ‘Tell me, how many menopausal men would it take to change the same light bulb?’
‘I don’t know,’ he obligingly replied.
‘Ten.’
‘Why ten?’
‘It’s just a fact of life, Nigel. Just a fact of life.’
Sparky decided to join in. ‘I don’t understand all these silly jokes about light bulbs,’ he told us. ‘About a year ago I was in Sainsbury’s and I saw a man with one arm changing a light bulb with no trouble at all.’
‘You mean…single-handed?’ I said.
‘Exactly. No trouble at all.’
‘How did he manage that?’ Nigel wondered.
The merest twitch of a mouth corner betrayed Sparky’s triumph. He said, ‘He just showed them his receipt, same as anybody else would.’
CHAPTER NINE
One of the hill farmers chose that very morning to transport twenty tons of hay from the outskirts of Heckley to his barn up on the moors, so I was stuck in the half-mile procession that followed his tractor and trailer most of the way, bits of dry grass swirling in his wake like confetti. It’s a sign of a hard winter when they stock up with hay. I was ten minutes late when I parked outside Broadside and Lisa would be worried I wasn’t coming, if she remembered I was supposed to be. The big gate was half open, but I left the car outside. The gate swung shut on well-oiled hinges and the galvanised catch held it there, like a man-trap gripping an ankle.
A lilac Toyota MR2 stood outside one of the garages, with ‘Lisa Davis Agency’ and a phone number emblazoned on the side. It pays to advertise.
The front door of the bungalow was ajar. I knocked and pressed the bell, simultaneously. After about forty-five seconds I repeated the exercise.
‘Mrs Davis!’ I shouted through the gap.
No reply. I eased the door open a little and called again. ‘Lisa! Are you there?’
There was a movement in the shadows at the far end of the hallway. I pushed the door wide to admit more light, and saw the parrot on the floor, waddling towards me.
‘Lisa!’ I yelled.
The macaw was nearly on me. When I’d told Sparky about it he said they cost about two thousand quid, and this one looked bent on freedom.
‘Good boy,’ I said, followed by, ‘LISA!!!’
It kept coming, picking up each foot with the deliberation of a deep-sea diver, the long tail swishing from side to side on the carpet. I stepped inside and tried shooing it back, but it wasn’t having any.
I closed the door behind me, and a few seconds later the bird had me pinned against it. That’s when I did the bravest deed of my career. I pulled the sleeve of my jacket over my fist and offered my arm to it, like that hapless fool at the dog-handling centre who spends his working days rolling about under a slavering Alsatian. The macaw gently gripped the material in a beak that looked as if it came from Black and Decker’s R and D department and decorously placed one foot on my arm. Its claws went straight through to the skin as it juggled for balance, then it stepped aboard with the other foot and the pressure eased a fraction. I stood up, the bird wobbling alarmingly, but it may have been me. I had a sudden panic attack as I realised why so many pirates wore eye-patches.
Parrots like to climb, and that means upwards. Unfortunately that’s in lesson two, and I was still struggling with the first. I should have raised my arm, but I didn’t. The bird pulled its way up my sleeve like a rock climber — beak, claw, claw, beak, claw, claw — until it reached the back of my neck. I stood there, bent over like Quasimodo meets Long John Silver, and wailed, ‘Lisa! Help! Please!’
But no help came. You’re in this on your own, Priest, I thought, and slouched towards the door into the lounge, where the bird’s stand was. The door was open, the room much as I’d seen it before, except for some magazines strewn on the floor. Fashion and gossip. It was easy for me to read them because my eyes were pointing downwards. I sidled against the perch and made jerking movements to encourage the bird in that direction. It banged its beak against the bell once or twice and stepped off my neck, on to the perch. I straightened my back gratefully and said, ‘Phew! Good boy.’ I was speaking to myself.
The poor bird’s food tray was empty, so I gave it an apple from a bowl on a low table. The macaw held it down with a foot and its beak carved a great wedge out of it as easily as a spoon passes through a bowl of custard. I’d had a narrow squeak.