Over the Edge (23 page)

A single human cell is small. Ten of them could stand on the sharp end of a pin and still leave room for a viruses picnic. But packed into every one of those cells, crushed and contorted, is over a metre of DNA. It must look a bit like a Jackson Pollock painting inside there, I thought.

At midnight I made myself a mug of coffee and took the Rasta blaster into the garage, with Vaughan Williams on the CD deck. At half-past three I declared the paintings finished and went to bed.

We do follow-up interviews. Not always, but we say we do. It’s a good excuse to go back and let a fresh pair of eyes and ears assess a witness. Or a suspect. Lloyd Lloyd Atkins were a firm of accountants with swish offices in Leeds. Atkins was long gone, but the two Lloyds were Crozier’s partners who had owned the Painted Pony nightclub. Nigel had spoken to them – they were associated with his case, not mine – but had learnt nothing, except that they were streetwise when it
came to answering questions from a policeman. They were helpfulness itself, and answered his questions fulsomely, until it mattered. Then the shutters came down.

The 1944 Education Act has a lot to answer for. Before then we had the criminal classes. After it, when education became a universal right and not the privilege of the wealthy, the top villains could recite Milton or large chunks of the periodic table, while the children of the aristocracy slowly sank into comfortable dottiness, where they belonged. The ones with criminal genes, the clever ones, got themselves an education and moved into the professions where the pickings were easy. They went where the money was.

Two hundred years ago they’d have been highwaymen. A hundred years ago they might have stalked the streets of wherever armed with knobkerries to stun their unlucky victims. Nowadays their methods are less violent, more subtle and infinitely more rewarding. Paul and Desmond Lloyd said they could fit me in between clients on Saturday morning.

Where once were factories for the making of locomotives and printing presses that moved the world, literally and emotionally, there are now shiny new brick and glass office blocks advertising millions of square feet of floorspace for today’s movers and shakers. Leeds has changed from being
a manufacturing city into a centre for the service industries, whatever they are. I found Agincourt House, home of the headquarters of Lloyd Lloyd Atkins, and pressed the number I’d been given into the keypad. Normally there’s a front desk with a person manning it, but service industries don’t run to working Saturday mornings. I introduced myself to the voice coming from the hole in the wall and the gate slid back. ‘We’re on the third floor,’ the voice told me.

They were good-looking lads, of about half my age. Identical twins, I realised, and they did nothing to allay the confusion that their similar appearances created: similar modest hairstyles; designer spectacles; blue suits and shirts; big cufflinks and identical tans. No doubt there were matching Porsches somewhere, with adjacent registration plates, and a pair of wives like glamorous animated bookends.

After the introductions Desmond, or was it Paul, said: ‘Would it hurt, Inspector, if I left you in the capable hands of my brother? I’ve been invited for a game of squash and it’s so damn difficult to book a court on a Saturday. He knows everything I know.’

I said: ‘To be honest, Mr Lloyd, it might even simplify things for me.’

‘Good show. I’ll be off then. See you tonight, Bro.’

‘I’ll bring the wine,’ his brother called after him.

The office was all light oak, stainless steel and pot plants. The workstations were by DELL and everything matched and was cordless. Flat screens. They had flat screens, and they were big ones, too. We were in the inner sanctum, where the brothers worked. Outside, I’d hesitated for about a minute in a small waiting area adjacent to the receptionist’s office, furnished by Habitat and with a supply of up-market magazines.
Yorkshire Life
right through to
Forbes
magazine. OK, so the
Forbes
was six months old, probably picked up on an airliner by one of the twins, but it gave an insight into what life could be like for potential customers. I was sorry the receptionist wasn’t there. Receptionists can be a fertile source of information and gossip. Another door probably led to the office where any other staff worked. I assumed there would be other staff; I couldn’t imagine the Lloyd brothers toiling over balance sheets and cashflows at this stage in their careers.

‘Coffee, Inspector,’ Paul Lloyd asked. Or was it Desmond?

‘Um, no thanks. It’s Paul, isn’t it?’

‘That’s right, but I might deny it if pressed.’ He was smiling as he said it.

‘That could lead to an interesting point of law,’ I replied, returning the smile.

We sat down at either side of his desk and he
extracted a cellphone from a pocket. He inspected the display for a couple of seconds before switching the phone off and placing it back in the pocket. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘Now, how can I help you?’

‘You were business partners of Joe Crozier,’ I began.

‘Poor old Joe. Yes, I suppose you could say that. Desmond and I held shares in a nightclub with Joe. The Painted Pony.’

‘How did that come about?’

‘We were his accountants. He opened this club in the old Alexander cinema, but it didn’t take off. It looked as if Joe might go bankrupt, but he had a good product, we thought. So we worked out a rescue package and put some capital into it. Eventually, when the Alexander was demolished, the opportunity arose to relocate to the Waterside Heights building. Joe lived there, so it was a great opportunity. We held equal shares and changed the name to Painted Pony. My wife thought of that one.’

I remembered the Alex with affection. When I lived in Leeds I occasionally took a girlfriend there. We’d grab a double seat on the back row, and if my luck was in I wouldn’t see much of the film. That’s why I remembered reading about it, four or five years ago, when it burnt down. I wondered if arson was part of the rescue package
that they’d worked out. It certainly looked like it.

‘What happens to Joe’s share?’ I asked.

‘It’s part of his estate. Depends who he’s left it to.’

‘I believe you’ve sold the club, haven’t you.’

‘That’s right. It was Joe’s baby, really. He lived on the job, got a kick out of sitting in the sound box at night, watching the chicks, as he called them. Desmond and I didn’t have much to do with it.’

‘But it was lucrative?’

‘It certainly was, but an offer came in and we decided to accept it. We weren’t looking forward to working with a new partner, whoever it was, and all the aggro that might ensue, so this way sewed things up neatly.’

‘Was it a good offer?’

He sucked his cheeks in before answering. ‘It was a substantial sum, Inspector, but we could have done better. We just wanted it out of the way.’

Interesting answer. They’d sold it for peanuts, at a guess, and he was torn between pretending he was happy with the price and having a little grumble about it.

‘So who is the new owner of the Painted Pony?’

‘A man called Peter Wallenberg. Do you know him?’

‘Yes. He’s just bought Heckley football club.’

Lloyd looked puzzled, then pointed a finger at me. ‘I knew I’d seen you before,’ he declared. ‘You
were at the do there three weeks ago.’

‘That’s right, but I didn’t see you.’

‘Well, it was a bit of a scrum.’ Enlightenment spread across his face like sunrise across the Serengeti. ‘You won the raffle,’ he recalled. ‘And your wife went up to collect the prize. Now I remember – my wife commented on how attractive she was, and I agreed. You won the signed shirt – you’re a lucky man, all round.’ He threw his head back and laughed. ‘Ha ha! What has she done with it? Used it to polish the kitchen floor?’

No, she’s dead, I wanted to say. The beautiful, vivacious lady you saw me with is lying in a refrigerated drawer in Scarborough hospital mortuary. Instead, I said: ‘Weren’t you rather hasty in selling the club?’

‘I don’t think so. Wallenberg had made us several offers, and we’d discussed them between ourselves. It was usually Joe who didn’t want to sell, and although we out-voted him we were content to keep the club. As I said, it was Joe’s baby.’

‘His final offer,’ I began. ‘Was it made after Joe died?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Positive.’

‘How do you think Joe died?’

‘He fell in the river. He was drunk, went for a wander in the dark.’

‘Are you scared of Wallenberg?’

‘Scared of him? No.’

‘Are you sure he didn’t make you an offer you couldn’t refuse, as they say in films?’

‘Absolutely.’

It was like Nigel had said: the shutters were down. Up to now he’d been chatty and cooperative, but when his answers counted he was evasive. He could have said: ‘Scared of Wallenberg? Why should I be scared of him? We have a drink together sometimes, have a laugh. Old Pete’s a business acquaintance, wouldn’t hurt a fly.’ But he didn’t. He just said no. And the same with Joe and the river. He could have told me how dangerous it was, how Joe was in the habit of going for a midnight stroll, or feeding the ducks, or sailing model yachts on the tainted waters of the River Aire, but, again, he just said the bare minimum. Joe was drunk, end of story.

I said: ‘Have you ever met Tony Krabbe?’

He jumped to his feet, saying: ‘Would you like to change your mind about that coffee, Inspector?’

‘Not for me, thanks.’

‘Do you mind if I have one?’ He disappeared into the reception area, leaving me alone with all those computers and filing cabinets. I should have leapt up and rifled through them, opening drawers, playing tunes on the mouse, until, a split second before he reappeared, the exact document I was
looking for, the one that incriminated the villains, fell into my hands. That’s what I should have done. Instead, I sat and watched the pigeons wheeling over the glistening rooftops of south Leeds.

‘Tony Krabbe,’ he reminded me, as he returned carrying a steaming mug. ‘A terrible tragedy, don’t you think? Ironic. All the dangers he’s faced in his career, and then some punk with an ice axe murders him on his own doorstep. Yes, I knew him. Fact is, we did his accounts for him, but Desmond handled them, not me.’

He’d had a think, decided that he’d better own up to doing Krabbe’s accounts, because we could have discovered it via other sources.

‘Did you handle Wallenberg’s affairs?’ I asked.

The same logic applied. He thought about it for a second before admitting that they did. ‘Well, some of them,’ he added, defensively. ‘Mr Wallenberg’s affairs cover a wide spectrum of activities. We’ve handled some of his property transactions.’

‘Do you meet him socially?’

‘No, not if I can help it.’

That came from the heart, I thought. ‘You don’t like him?’

‘Well, let’s just say that we don’t see eye-to-eye about certain things.’

‘What things?’

‘I’ve said too much.’

‘So tell me more.’

He shook his head, but added: ‘Have you spoken to his wife?’

‘The lovely Selina? No.’

‘Perhaps you should.’

I made the short drive to the Royal Armouries car park and walked along the embankment towards the Waterside Heights block where Joe had lived, where we believe he was dumped in the river. It used to be the gay quarter along there, long before most cities had a gay quarter. It wasn’t a pleasant way to go but I didn’t feel sorry for him. Joe Crozier didn’t become the owner of a nightclub and a string of betting shops by driving a tram or standing alongside a lathe for ten hours a day. More than a few old men, and one or two widows, will have settled in their armchairs a little more comfortably after they read about his body being dragged from the river.

I walked back to the car and pointed it towards Heckley, wondering how I’d get to Selina without her husband knowing.

Sunday I visited Rosie’s house and had a good look around. One bedroom was lined with bookshelves, and there still wasn’t room for them all. I let my eyes run along the spines, hardly taking in the titles or authors. One section was on geology and there was a whole series of travel books, from Bill Bryson to Eric Newby and Paul Theroux. Then
there were dozens of English classics: what must have been complete sets of Jane Austen; the Brontes; Trollope and so on; but in varying editions. She’d gone through various phases: Tolstoy; Dostoevsky and Pasternak sat comfortably alongside Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Steinbeck. As I looked I realised how much cleverer than me she was; how much of a waste her death had been. Two complete shelves were filled with feminist literature: Germaine Greer; Naomi Wolf; Helena Kennedy’s
Eve Was Framed.

We shared similar tastes in music so her CD collection was less humbling. I even found a couple of Dylans down at the bottom, just above the freebies from the Sunday papers and the lemons we all have that we’ve bought, played once, and abandoned.

Her bed was made and all her clothes put away. I wanted to open a drawer, take up a handful of her clothes and bury my face in them, but I didn’t. I tiptoed through the other rooms, feeling like an intruder, carefully turning the door handles as I closed them, as if not to disturb somebody sleeping in one of the rooms.

I shouldn’t have been there, but I was, and I wasn’t stealing anything. I had a quick look round the garden and then drove to B&Q. I came back with an incinerator in the back of the car and a couple of big plastic boxes. The incinerator was
really a galvanised dustbin with holes in the bottom, but it would do.

Rosie had masses of photographs. I sat at the kitchen table and went through them all. One in a silver frame was of her with the man I presume to be her husband, sitting on some rocks in what could have been Scotland. I put it in one of the plastic boxes, together with one of Rosie posing with two schoolgirls. The sun was shining and they looked as if they were sharing a joke. Hubby might turn up one day, and I’d be able to give him the photo in the frame. The other one was for me. I stuffed all the others in a bin liner and left it standing by the kitchen door.