"Was this after the party?" I asked.
"Yeah, I suppose so. I was starting to have doubts about him by then, though."
"In what way?"
"I realised he was strange. He was into keep-fit and martial arts, things like that. Yoga. He didn't feel pain. He could snuff out a candle with his fingers, very slowly. It was his party trick. And the same with cold. Christmas Day he used to join the swimmers in the sea at Southend or somewhere. I tell you, Charlie, Nick Kingston is a weird cookie."
"It sounds like it. You don't know where he is now?"
"No, 'fraid not."
"Did you fall out or just drift apart?"
"It was a fairly gradual process. I saw him one evening and Melissa was with him again. We fell into conversation, naturally, but it was obvious that she'd told him all about that night. They were laughing at me behind their hands, so to speak. I decided he'd been patronising me; I was just another backward nigger to him. They weren't my kind of people, so I split."
"They sound a lovely couple."
"Made in heaven, Charlie. I'll tell you who might be able to help you.
A girl called Janet… Wilson, I think it was. She had been to school with Melissa. They shared a house. She was a lovely person, just the opposite of Melissa. I have an address somewhere, but it'll be twenty years out of date. God, she'll probably have a grown-up family by now."
"I've met Miss Wilson," I told him, unable to hide my grin.
"You've met Janet?"
"Mmm."
"Did she…" A broad smile spread across his face, like the sun breaking through and illuminating the savannah. "Was it Janet who put you on to me?"
I nodded.
"Hey, that's great," he declared. "How is she?"
"She's fine. Family grown up and her husband's left her, but she's doing nicely."
"Fantastic! She was a lovely girl; a real sweet. Not like Melissa.
Will you give her my number, please?"
"Sure. No problem."
I thanked him for his help and left. Outside, I rang Dave on my mobile and told him that Kingston had dominated the conversation once again.
He said he'd put his new friends on to it and agreed to meet me at the car.
He was waiting when I arrived, eating an ice-cream while sitting on someone's garden wall with his jacket over his shoulder, hooked on a thumb.
"Sorry I'm late," I said.
"That's OK. Graham had a quick look at the Nicholas Kingstons; there's only a handful of them. Going by approximate DOB, making him in his fifties, the most likely one is a Nicholas James William Kingston who lives in Kendal. They're having a closer look at him right now.
Anything else?"
I told him about Kingston's fascination with the witch doctors, and his indifference to pain. It was stop-start motoring along the Marylebone Road and no better along the Edgware Road, except that we were now heading north. Every junction was controlled by traffic lights and the bits in between were clogged with buses trying to get past parked vehicles, for mile after mile. It was nearly as bad as Heckley High Street when the school turns out.
I was hungry, and Dave can eat anything, any time. He's what they call a greedy so-and-so, unless he has a twenty-foot tapeworm eating away inside him. I said: "They're paying, so which do you fancy; the Savoy Grill or the Little Chef?"
"If it's on the SFO," he replied, 'we might as well splash out. Bugger the expense."
"Right," I agreed, 'so Little Chef here we come."
All the postman had brought me was a credit card statement and there were no messages on the ansa phone Dave's wife, Shirley, had invited me in for some supper when I dropped him off, but I'd declined.
Sometimes they're just being polite. The all-day breakfast had been over two hours ago and I was peckish again, so I had a banana sandwich with honey and a sprinkling of cocoa. "Condensed milk," I muttered to myself. "Why can't you find condensed milk these days?" The cut-and-thrust of the M1, plus three hours of near-total concentration, had left me on edge. I was stiff and tired, but knew I wouldn't be able to sleep. Jacquie's number was still on the telephone pad, and I thought about ringing it. For a friendly chat, that's all. Make sure she was all right.
But it would have been self-indulgent and inconsiderate of her feelings, so the phone stayed where it was. Part of me wished I'd gone in for that coffee at Elspeth's. It would have ended in tears, probably, but would that matter? Is ending in tears worse than never happening? I doubt it. In fact, I'm sure of it. I wondered if she'd finished her painting.
Dave was right. I'd make an excuse to see Mrs. Holmes again. Time it so we could repair to the riverside pub for a ham sandwich, with salad and a glass of orange juice; unless she had eventually developed a taste for beer. Then, perhaps, she'd show me some more of her drawings.
Things were moving on all fronts, which is how I like it. I found my box of oil paints in the back bedroom and a stretched canvas, about two by two, which hadn't been used. All this talk of pictures had inspired me. I under painted the canvas with a big red circle and then divided it into segments. It was going to be an abstract inspired by a cross-section of a tapeworm. I edged the segments in blue, didn't like it and tried orange. That was better. By one o'clock it was mapped out and I knew exactly how it would look. The circle had become broken and scattered, a jumble of interlocking triangles and rectangles. All it needed now was the colour piling on, thicker than jam. It was a happy and optimistic me that fell into bed, still smelling of natural turpentine, to dream of girls and art galleries and long student days.
Sparky was rapidly becoming the bringer of good news. I was having my morning coffee with Mr. Wood when he knocked and came in, looking pleased with himself. "Pour yourself a cup, David," Gilbert invited.
"Not often we see you up here."
"No thanks, boss," Dave replied. "I prefer it from the machine. It has this pleasant… under taste of oxtail soup."
"Don't know how you drink the damn stuff," Gilbert declared.
"He doesn't drink it," I said. "He drinks mine. What is it, Dave? You came in grinning like a dog with two bollocks, so you've obviously something to tell us."
He tilted his head to one side, thought about it for a few seconds and stated: "Generally speaking, dogs do have two bollocks."
"Not on the Sylvan Fields estate," I snarled.
"Oh, right. Nobody has two of anything there. Nicholas Kingston. The one with a Kendal address, that is. Our little friends at the Serious Fraud Office have done the homework that I set them yesterday and scored ten out of ten. They've got better contacts than we have, that's for certain."
"Go on," I invited.
"Well, first of all, this Nick Kingston earns a respectable income as a university lecturer, which is what we had hoped for. Bit more than you take home, Charlie, but not quite as much as Mr. Wood. The interesting bit is the university. He's at Lancaster."
"Lancaster!" I exclaimed.
"Yep."
"Struth!"
"What's special about Lancaster?" Gilbert asked.
"On Monday," I replied, 'or perhaps Tuesday, we had a phone call from Duncan Roberts junior, known as DJ. He's the teenage son of Andrew Roberts, brother of Duncan senior who topped himself after putting his hand up for the fire in Leeds."
Gilbert nodded, pretending he understood.
"He wanted to talk about his Uncle Duncan, see if we could tell him anything. His parents live in Welwyn Garden City," I continued, 'but when we checked, young DJ was ringing from Lancaster." I turned to Dave. "Can you see if he's at university there, please?" I asked.
"Dunnit. He is, reading mechanical engineering."
"Blimey!" I exclaimed. "That's interesting. I don't know what it means, but it's interesting."
"Could be a coincidence," Gilbert warned. It's his job to remind us of the mundane possibilities.