Dead Money (A Detective Inspector Paul Amos Lincolnshire Mystery) (14 page)

There was a display cabinet and a television cabinet that was at this moment closed. Of books there was not a trace. Amos strolled across to the display cabinet and peered in. There was little on show, just a tea service spread thinly to fill the available space.

At this point the Smiths returned to the room.

“We used to have Mr Smith’s tankard he was given when he switched jobs and his silver trophy when he was county surveyor of the year but they mysteriously disappeared,” Mrs Smith said in a tone of voice that seemed to blame Amos personally for the losses.

 “We keep the cabinet locked now. Still,” she added as if graciously forgiving Amos for the outrage, “I don’t suppose you came to talk about our missing items.”

“No,” Amos replied, “I came to talk about last Friday evening, the night Raymond Jones died.”

“Like I said to you at the door, I can’t understand why you want to talk to us. I told your constable earlier, we weren’t here anyway.”

“But I understand you were here, at least until late in the evening,” Amos rejoined. “You were seen leaving these premises quite late.”

“Well, yes,” said Mrs Smith as one patiently explaining the obvious to a person of inferior intelligence. “But we had left long before Mr Jones died.”

“You know what time Mr Jones was killed?” Amos blurted out with incredulity.

“Not exactly,” Mrs Smith replied, her patience gradually evaporating. “Of course we don’t know exactly when it happened. But it must have been during the night, surely, when everybody was certain to be asleep. It’s obvious.”

“What time did you leave?” Amos brought the conversation back from speculation to fact.

Mr Smith decided to take a grip. “It was about half past ten, or quarter to eleven. We generally travel at night to avoid the traffic. I came home early, had three hours sleep while Mrs Smith packed and we took the cases down in the lift. I can’t tell you the precise time because I couldn’t see my watch. We were just about to put the case into the boot when we had the power failure.”

“Power failure,” Amos echoed in surprise.

“Power failure,” Mrs Smith said firmly. “So you work out what time we left just by checking with the electricity people what time the power failed. We remarked how lucky we were to get to the bottom of the block before it happened. We would have had to carry the case all the way down from the top floor in the dark - or even worse we could have been trapped in the lift.”

She shuddered visibly at the thought.

"You know about the power failure, of course."

Mrs Smith had no difficulty detecting Amos's discomfort.

"No-one has put a precise time on the power cut," the detective improvised.

"Hmmm," snorted Mrs Smith, unconvinced. "Anyway, we drove off to our daughter's in Bristol and didn't return until the Wednesday. She had rung us on the Thursday night because she was feeling poorly. Luckily my husband had a few days off owing to him from work so we got off as soon as we could.

"Daphne - our daughter - has a little boy and a new baby. So like I told you in the first place, we had long gone when Mr Jones was ..." she baulked at the cold word murder and finished, "... was killed."

"Mr Smith, did you ever work for or with Mr Jones,” Amos inquired innocently.

Mrs Smith looked fit to explode but her husband put his hand gently on her arm without even a glance at his wife.

Rather, he looked unflinchingly into Amos’s eyes and replied coldly and steadily: “I have done some work for Raymond Jones in the distant past.

“I have a wife and daughter. If my wife was starving, I would have worked for him again. If my daughter was starving I would have worked for him again. But as I was able to feed them both, for my part I would rather have starved.”

“Did you have any business dealings with Mr Jones?" Amos persisted. “On a business to business footing rather than personal.”

Mr Smith looked at him suspiciously.

"Not particularly," he answered vaguely. "Of course, our company did work occasionally for one of Jones's companies or one of the companies that was in with him. You couldn't avoid it. If you worked in this town you couldn't avoid him altogether.

"But I never worked for him and I never had any direct business dealings with him," Smith concluded with some vehemence.

"Did you know him personally?" Amos persisted.

This time it was Mrs Smith who answered.

"Not particularly. We spoke if we saw him, of course."

This repetition of "of course" was beginning to annoy Amos.

Mrs Smith went on: "We didn't see him much. He didn't mix in our circle but we were civil, of course."

"Thank you for your time," Amos said, rising. "You're not likely to be disappearing for another weekend, are you? If you get another emergency call you'll let me know, of course."

Chapter 28

Amos took the lift only as far as the third floor, the bottom one that had flats. He trotted down the stairs to Nick Foster's cubby hole of a home and knocked sharply on the door. Presently he could hear the lone occupant shuffling to the door.

"Who is it?" came the grumpy tones from within. "I'm off duty."

"Inspector Amos. I'm on duty."

"I've locked up."

"Just open the door," Amos said wearily. "I'm not coming in but I can't talk to you through a lump of wood."

The door opened immediately and without the aid of a key but it swung only six inches ajar. Nick Foster stuck his face into the gap.

"I can't open it any further," was the next excuse. "I've got boxes behind it. I'm sorting out my collection."

"Why didn't you tell me about the power cut?" Amos demanded. "Anyone could have been moving around in the dark."

"What power cut?"

"I have just been informed," Amos said firmly, "That there was a power failure on the Friday night that Ray Jones died. Just after half past ten. You never mentioned it."

"I never mentioned it because it's the first I've heard of it. I would have been in bed fast asleep but I'm surprised no one else told me about it. They usually come to me soon enough with their moans," Foster grumbled.

"They'd have had to reset their videos and electric clocks if the power went off. And their central heating timers. Hang on a minute."

Foster disappeared for a few moments then returned.

"The clock on my electric oven is still OK so the power can't have been off. I hate cooking with electric. We used to have gas when the council had the place."

Amos turned away puzzled, ignoring the end of Foster's rambling. It was a curious thing to make up if it was not true. Why would the Smiths invent such a silly lie? The inspector determined to make further inquiries next day.

But he was back at Killiney Court before he had chance to do so. An urgent call from an agitated Mrs Brown was relayed to his home as he was eating an early breakfast.

Chapter 29

Amos rang Mrs Brown back as soon as he got the message. She was very excited and not entirely coherent.

"Mr Brown says you must come at once. He's standing guard and won't let anyone touch anything until you arrive. He's already stopped the dustbin men taking it away. There's all sorts. Please, inspector, you must come quickly. Mr Brown daren't even go to the toilet in case someone takes anything away while his back is turned.”

Amos reckoned the best way to find out what the commotion was about would be to drive to Killiney Court right away rather than trying to interrogate his excitable informer.

He stuffed the bacon from off his plate between two slices of bread, wiped the grease from his fingers and slung on his jacket and coat, leaving the egg and baked beans to coagulate. He drove quickly along the still empty roads, eating his sandwich in defiance of the chief constable's safety exhortations at the same time.

It was just gone 8 am when he reached the block of flats that were now becoming only too familiar to him. The same sentinel was on duty from last night and it was not the one who had stood vigil in vain on the fateful Friday.

Mrs Brown hurried from under the block to greet him.

“Thank you, inspector, thank you,” she puffed as she grasped his hand. “Here, round the back.”

The two walked behind the lift shaft to where Mr Brown was standing triumphantly over a dozen or more cardboard and wooden boxes.

“They were here, this morning, waiting to be taken away by the dustbin men,” he proclaimed. “It was sheer chance I spotted them. You see,” he went on confidentially, “We put our rubbish into black sacks and drop them down a chute. Once a week the dustcart comes to take the bags away. They just open the doors at the bottom of the chutes.

“Well, I knew they would be coming this morning and we wanted to get rid of this old television set. It won't work and it's cheaper to buy a new one rather than get this repaired. So Mrs Brown and I carried it down. We're not supposed to have any extra rubbish but the men don't mind if you throw it on yourself.

“That's when I found all these boxes. They were all taped up but I decided to have a look inside one. Now you remember we told you about the meeting we had with all the people in the block who had had things go missing? I immediately recognised some of the items in the box.

“So I opened another. Would you believe I actually found a couple of the things of ours that had vanished.

“The dustbin men turned up at that moment but I stopped them from taking the boxes. They didn't need much persuading because they would have had to throw them onto the lorry themselves. In all the excitement we forgot to put our own TV on!”

Mr Brown looked ruefully at the useless electrical appliance still lying beside the sealed boxes.

Amos peeped inside the two opened boxes. There was no doubt where they had come from. They were the boxes that he had seen in Nick Foster's flat a few days earlier. No wonder Foster had not wanted him in the previous evening.

Perhaps the boxes really had been behind the door, stocked ready to be dumped early that morning.

Sgt Swift arrived at that moment.

"Sorry you beat me to it, Sir," she apologized unnecessarily. "I came as soon as HQ rang me but I got stuck at the roadworks on Grantham Road. The only piece of road in the entire county being resurfaced and I picked it."

"Ring Martin and get him down here with a couple of lads and a van. All this lot," he indicated with a sweep of his hand, "will have to be stored along with Jones's files. I want a list of every item. We'll have to get all the residents here to identify their belongings but they can't have them back yet.

"You'll be called in due course," he added politely to the Browns, "but I hope you understand that this could be important evidence and we shall have to hold it for the time being."

Mr Brown nodded his assent.

"I'm being ungracious," Amos said suddenly. "I'm most grateful, Mr Brown," he added with a slight bow. "Well done."

The inspector thought for a moment then added: "By the way, do you know if there was a power cut on the Friday that Mr Jones died? It's probably nothing but it might just be important."

“Our electricity didn't go off,” Mrs Brown replied quickly. “Not before we went to bed, anyway.”

“Not after, either,” Mr Brown added. “The clock on our video needs resetting if you unplug it. So if the power had failed the clock would have been flashing to be reset. What on earth made you think the electricity had gone off?”

“What indeed,” replied Amos thoughtfully, and the Browns were too polite to press him further.

With Swift left in charge of the booty until it could be carted away, Amos went off in search of Foster. For once, the caretaker was not broom pushing or even broom leaning, his ear wagging for gossip.

Amos felt anxious. He took the steps two at a time to the mezzanine floor and rapped loudly on Foster's door. There was no response. Amos turned the handle. The door was unlocked and the officer entered. A quick search of the small flat revealed that all of Foster's "collections" had gone. So, too, had Foster.

Chapter 30

Amos barked out an order to get a description of Foster to all officers.

“He can’t have got far. He doesn’t drive. Try the bus and train stations at Lincoln. We’d better alert Skegness and Boston. It’s just possible he’s got an early bus to pick up a train there. Skegness is our better bet. It only needs one bus change and he gets further away from here faster but it backs him into a corner.”

Amos remained alone to make a cursory search of the flat. There was not a single photograph of the missing man. He led a lonely existence with not even his own image for company. No wonder he spent so much time under the block, sweeping away and scrounging a little human contact. It would drive me crackers, Amos thought.

In a drawer was an address book. The inside front cover was inscribed in a child’s handwriting: “To Uncle Nick, from Chloe.”

The same handwriting had supplied a family name and address in Wakefield under the letter D. A couple more names and telephone numbers had been added, presumably by Foster, but that was the sum total of his recorded acquaintances.

Amos went down to the car park guard. It seemed that Foster had fled when Mr Brown discovered the packages waiting for the dustbin men. He could not, therefore, have got far.