‘Unlikely,’ Hannah said. ‘He’s famous for his tight fists. I can’t believe he’d part with his life savings, however good she was. Free board and lodging would be closer to the mark.’
‘Maybe he saves up for the little treats that girls like Gabrielle can provide,’ Bob Swindell suggested.
‘And the money was never found?’ Maggie looked up. ‘Could we have stumbled across a different motive for murder here?’
‘Good question.’ Gul was eager. ‘All along, we’ve assumed this is a sex crime. The nature of the killing, the place where the body was found, everything points in that direction. But what if someone killed her for the cash and then laid a false trail?’
‘Did she have a criminal record?’ Linz asked.
‘Of course we made a routine check at the outset,’ Hannah said. ‘Only to draw a blank.’
‘I blame the bloody Data Protection Act,’ Les said. ‘All this European shit about human rights and civil liberties. People are scared stiff of putting anything down in black and white. Everyone’s afraid the written records will come back and bite them when the bureaucrats find out. Result: you have to rely on word of mouth. So I talked off the record to people who worked in vice ten years ago and more, just to see if the name meant anything to them. Guess what? A DS I used to work with remembered her vividly.’
‘That’s the trouble with being drop-dead gorgeous,’ Bob Swindell said. ‘Too memorable. No use for undercover work. Aren’t you glad you’re not a blonde, Linz?’
Linz stuck her tongue out by way of reply, but when Les glared at them, they shifted uncomfortably and shut up.
‘Now then,’ he said. ‘Gabrielle was seeing a crooked businessman by the name of Webber. He was half-Jamaican, half-Tyke, and he had his finger in various pies, if you’ll pardon my French. Including a brothel in Bradford and a night club in Leeds. He made his money as a small-time builder and he kept the business going mainly as a convenient way of laundering drug profits. He was implicated in a number of serious assaults and at least two murders of business rivals, but there was no evidence. Surprise, surprise, the CPS wouldn’t dream of prosecuting without being presented with a cast-iron case and the CID would never have found anyone willing to testify. People used to wet themselves at the prospect of crossing Eldine Webber.’
He paused for effect, building suspense like a Yorkshire Hitchcock. Linz shuffled her feet impatiently, prompting Maggie to frown a rebuke.
‘And then one day, Vice got a lucky break. Webber was found dead in his penthouse near City Square. A cocktail of booze and drugs had done for him. Sad to say, he choked on his own vomit.’ A melancholy smile. ‘The verdict was accidental death, but the circumstances of Webber’s passing were a tad mysterious. He was alone when he was found, but rumours began to surface that Gabrielle had been seen with him on the night he died. By the time of the inquest, she’d disappeared.’
After the team had digested this, Gul asked, ‘So did she murder her sugar daddy?’
Les shrugged. ‘Everyone had their own conspiracy theory. She’d killed him deliberately, she’d killed him accidentally, he’d died during a sex game and there’d been a cover up. One suggestion was that his enemies had paid her to kill him while his pants were down.’
‘West Yorkshire never got to the bottom of it?’ Bob smirked.
Les’s dour expression didn’t flicker. ‘Let’s just say, not many tears were shed about his passing.’
‘Simon Dumelow is in the property business too, isn’t he?’ Maggie asked.
Hannah nodded. ‘These days he plays the local squire. Opens the village fete and pays for the bouncy castle at the primary school sports day. His buildings win awards and he has a high ranking in the North West rich list. It wasn’t always that way. Construction’s a rough industry and most people in it get their first leg up the ladder by breaking a few rules. Occasionally a few heads. But Dumelow’s never been convicted of anything worse than speeding.’
‘That’s a hanging offence, mind, if some chief constables are to be believed,’ Bob muttered.
Linz said, ‘Any connection between him and Webber?’
Hannah said, ‘There’s no evidence whatsoever to suggest it, but then we didn’t know about the rumours of Gabrielle’s involvement with Webber’s death. Simon Dumelow maintained that the first time he met Gabrielle was when she turned up on his doorstep to renew her acquaintance with his wife. At the time we had no reason to doubt that. And his wife gave him an alibi for the night of the murder.’
‘But?’
‘But she was ill in bed with flu, so how watertight was that alibi? Worth our taking a closer look at Mr Dumelow, especially in light of what we’ve learned about his movements yesterday. Maggie?’
‘He was supposed to be attending a business meeting with his accountants in Manchester yesterday,’ Maggie said. ‘That’s what his wife thought. But he cancelled, said he’d gone down with a stomach bug. We do know for sure that he wasn’t laid up at home. So — where was he?’
Chapter Nineteen
‘We should call at the farm first,’ Hannah said as they passed the sign saying that Brack was just a couple of miles away. ‘See whether Jean Allardyce is back at home.’
‘You don’t sound optimistic.’
‘Are you? She may have told Daniel Kind that she fancied getting away from it all, but I can’t see her being brave enough to take the plunge.’ Hannah’s stomach rumbled. She still hadn’t eaten anything today, but at least the headache had faded. ‘Besides, if Tash Dumelow’s right in saying that Jean left a suitcase behind, it doesn’t look good. After we’ve checked the story with her, we may have to consider a search of the premises.’
‘And finish up with egg on our faces if she’s safe and sound and sunning herself on the front at Morecambe?’
The walls of the cottages on the approach to Brack glinted in the sun. Hannah and Nick were both wearing their dark glasses. On a day as lovely as this, she reflected, there wasn’t so much to choose between Morecambe and the South of France. Except maybe ten degrees Celsius.
‘Yeah, that’s the snag. I can picture Lauren’s face if I say we need a warrant. And hear all her arguments against. Jean Allardyce is a grown woman, she has every right to up and leave at a moment’s notice, blah, blah, blah.’
‘It’s true, we don’t have any evidence that her husband wished to harm her.’
‘Even so, I’m worried.’
‘Maybe you worry too much,’ he said gently. ‘Everything all right?’
‘What do you mean?’ she asked.
‘You look shattered. Didn’t you get any sleep last night?’
She brushed a stray hair out of her eyes. ‘That bad, eh?’
‘’Fraid so.’
‘It’s nothing, I’ll be fine. Things are complicated, that’s all.’ She hesitated, debating whether to say more. They were driving into the village, close to The Moon under Water, where her partner had betrayed her in a squalid upstairs room. ‘Dale Moffat is Marc’s ex.’
‘Ah.’ He was looking at the road ahead, braking to allow an old woman with a wicker shopping basket, heedless of the zebra crossing thirty yards away, to make arthritic progress across the market square. She seemed oblivious to danger, as if the motor car had never been invented.
‘No big deal,’ she said. ‘It was all a very long time ago. Water under the bridge.’
‘Fine.’
She cursed inwardly for having protested too much. ‘I thought you could talk to her, get more info about this money she saw in Gabrielle’s room. Tomorrow?’
‘No problem.’
‘Thanks.’
The old woman gained the pavement outside Tasker’s and acknowledged their presence with a toothless grin. Nick winked in response. That was what Hannah liked about him. No impatient revving of the engine, no fuss, no hassle.
‘This Daniel Kind,’ he said, as they started up again. ‘You talked to him again last night?’
The question disconcerted her. ‘Yes, that’s when he told me about meeting Jean, and what Tash Dumelow had said.’