Playing with Fire (18 page)

Annie knew the Jennings Field blaze had been too late to make the national Sunday papers. “Well, I'm afraid there's been a fire at the caravan where your ex-husband was living.”

“Oh, no,” said Alice. “Is Roland hurt?”

“There was one person in the caravan at the time. As yet, we can't be certain if he was Mr. Gardiner, but I'm afraid that person is dead, whoever he is.”

“I don't believe it. Not Roland.”

“I'm sorry, Mrs. Mowbray, but it's true. If it is him. Are you all right?”

Alice had turned pale, but she nodded. “Yes, I'll be fine.” She looked at her husband. “Darling, can you fetch me a glass of water, please?”

Eric didn't look too happy at being asked to fetch and carry in front of another woman, but there wasn't much he could do about it without looking a complete arsehole, except his wife's bidding.

“I'm sorry to spring such a shock on you like this,” Annie said, “but there are some questions I need to ask.”

“Of course. I understand. We've been apart for over two years now, but it's not as if I don't…well, still have some feelings for Roland. Was he…you know…?”

Annie knew all about divorced men's feelings for their exwives at first hand, through Banks, and they could be complicated. She felt lucky that Phil had never been married. “I'm afraid the body was badly burned,” she said, “but if it's any consolation we think he was unconscious before the fire started.”

Alice frowned. “Unconscious? But how…?”

“Sleeping pills, perhaps. But we don't know anything for certain yet. That's why I need to talk to you.”

Eric came back with a glass of water and a pill and handed them to Alice. “What's this?” she asked, looking at the pill.

“Your Valium,” he said. “I just thought you might need it.”

Alice set the pill aside. “I'm fine,” she said, and sipped some water.

“He was a useless pillock,” Eric said.

“Pardon?” Annie said.

“Her ex. Roly-poly. He was a prize pillock.”

“Eric, don't be so disrespectful.”

“Well, he was. I'm only telling the truth, Allie, and you know it. Why else are you here with me while he was off living in a poky caravan in a godforsaken field somewhere? He was a loser.”

“Mr. Mowbray,” Annie said, “I don't think you've quite grasped the situation here. A man, possibly Roland Gardiner, is dead.”

“I heard you the first time round, love. And I say it doesn't make a scrap of difference. He was a useless pillock while he was alive, and he's a useless pillock dead.”

Annie sighed and turned back to Alice, who was glaring at her husband. “I don't know what's wrong with him,” she said. “He's not usually rude like this.”

“Never mind,” said Annie, giving Eric Mowbray a dirty look. “Maybe he's just trying to hide his grief.”
Or something else,
she thought. She turned back to Alice. “One problem we do have is with identification. Dental records are often useful in such cases. Could you tell me who your family dentist is? Doctor, too.”

“I don't know if Roland ever went after he left,” said Alice, “but we went to Grunwell's, on Market Street. Our family doctor's Dr. Robertson, at the clinic on the Leaside Estate.”

Annie knew the place.

“We don't know much about your ex-husband,” Annie went on. “Is there anything you can tell us that might be of any use?”

“He was just ordinary, really,” said Alice.

“You can say that again,” said Eric Mowbray.

“Shut up, Eric,” said Alice.

Annie was fast starting to think that Eric Mowbray had outstayed any usefulness she might have erroneously attributed to him in the first place. “Mr. Mowbray,” she said, “perhaps you could leave us for a while? I have some questions to ask your wife.”

Mowbray got up. “Fine with me. I've got work to do, anyway.”

After he'd left the conservatory, the two women let the silence stretch a few moments, then Alice said, “He's a good sort, really, Eric. Just got a bit of a sore spot where Roland's concerned.”

“Oh? Why's that?”

“Because he's my ex. Eric's the jealous type.”

“I see,” said Annie. “Does he have any reason to be?”

“Not of Roland.”

“What does Mr. Mowbray do for a living?”

“He's in computers. He makes very good money. Look at this conservatory. It certainly wasn't here when me and Roland were together. Nor the Volvo. And we're having our holidays in Florida in February. We're going to Disney World.”

“Very nice. Do you own any other vehicles?”

“Eric used to have a Citroën, but he sold it.”

“No Jeep or Range Rover?”

“No. Why?”

“Was Roland a successful businessman?”

“I often thought he was in the wrong business,” Alice said. “He just wasn't that much of a salesman. Didn't have the oomph. Didn't have an ounce of ambition in his entire being. No get-up-and-go at all. Sometimes I thought he'd have been far better off as a schoolteacher, maybe. And happier. Still, he wouldn't have earned much money at that, either, would he?”

Money seemed to figure large in Alice Mowbray's view of the universe, Annie gathered, and perhaps in her second husband's, too. Jack Mellor had already hinted as much the previous night. “Did he not try to get another job?” she asked.

“It would have been a bit difficult for him, wouldn't it?”

“Why? Lots of people get made redundant and find new jobs.”

“Redundant? That's a good one. Where on earth did you get that idea?”

“Your husband
didn't
lose his job?”

“Oh, Roland lost his job, all right, but it wasn't through redundancy. No. He was fired. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I never thought he had it in him.”

“Had what in him?”

“He'd been on the fiddle, hadn't he?”

“Had he?”

“Yes. Something to do with forging orders and cooking the books. Stealing from the company. I must say he didn't have a lot to show for it, but that's typical Roland, that is. Small-time, even as a crook. No ambition.”

“Can you tell me the name of the company he worked for?”

Alice told her. Annie wrote it down.

“Did Roland have any enemies?”

“Enemies? Roland? He was too much of a mouse to make enemies. Never offended a soul. He'd never stand in anyone's way enough to make an enemy. No, Roland was likable enough, I'll give him that. He had a natural charm. People liked him. Perhaps because he was so passive, so easygoing. He'd do anything for anyone.”

“This forgery business, did he have a partner?”

“Did it all by himself. As I said, you could have knocked me over with a feather.”

“How long were you married?”

“Ten years.”

“Quite late in life, then?”

Alice narrowed her eyes. “For Roland, yes. He was thirty-two when we married.”

Annie didn't dare ask Alice how old
she
was. “Had he been married before?”

“Neither of us had. I must admit, he turned my head. He could be a real charmer, could Roland. Until you got to know him, of course, then you saw how empty it all was.”

“Was the divorce amicable?”

“As amicable as these things go. He didn't have anything I wanted, despite his little business on the side, and he seemed quite willing to let me keep the house.”

“You didn't want the caravan?”

“The caravan? I hated the bloody thing! That was typical Roland, though. Soon as we did have a bit of extra cash, off he goes and buys a bloody caravan. That was his idea of a good time: two weeks in a caravan at Primrose Valley or Flamborough Head. I ask you.”

“So there was no unsettled business between you?”

“I got on with my life, and he got on with his.”

“Mr. Mowbray, your present husband, when did he come on the scene?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you meet him before or after you split up with Roland?”

Alice paused a few moments before answering. “Before,” she said. “But things were already over for Roland and me.”

Annie supposed that Alice needed someone to go off with, an excuse to end her marriage, and somewhere to go. Many people did. They didn't want to stay in a relationship, but they didn't want to go it alone, either.

“What did you do last night?”

If Alice found the question offensive, she didn't let on. “We were out to dinner at a friend's house.”

“Can you give me the address? Just routine, for the paperwork.”

Alice gave it to her.

“Do you think Roland might have committed suicide?”

“I don't think he had the guts. It might have been something he'd think of, but when it came to it, he'd bottle out. And certainly not in a fire. He wasn't exactly the most physically brave man I've ever met. He used to make enough fuss about going to the dentist's, for crying out loud.”

“Can you give me a list of his friends?”

“Friends? Roland? There was no one close. I can probably come up with a few names of people who knew him, mostly from work, but I don't think they'll be able to tell you any more than I can.”

“Was he secretive, then?”

“I suppose so. Just quiet, though, mostly. I don't think he really had much to talk about.”

“Do you happen to have a photograph of him? As recent as possible?”

“I might have one or two,” Alice said. “Would you excuse me for a moment?”

Annie heard her go upstairs. She also heard her husband question her as she went. Annie sat and admired the view as two sparrows fluttered in the birdbath out in the garden. She thought she could see a hawk circling over distant Tetchley Fell. A couple of minutes later, Alice came back with a handful of photographs.

“These were taken at the last office Christmas party we went to,” she said. “Three years ago.”

Annie flipped through them and picked one of the few that was actually in focus: Gardiner sitting at a table, a little flushed from the wine, raising his glass to the photographer and smiling. It was good enough for identification purposes.

“Has anyone been around asking for him since he left?” she asked.

“No. But there was a phone call.”

Annie's ears pricked up. “When?”

“In July, I think.”

“Did the caller identify himself?”

“No. That was the funny thing. When I told him Roland no longer lived here, he just asked me if I knew where he did live.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him. I mean, I knew where Roland was. I had to, with the divorce, the solicitors and everything.”

“Did he ever call back?”

“No. That was all.”

Interesting, Annie thought. July. Around the time Roland Gardiner started being a bit more optimistic, according to Jack Mellor, and the same time Thomas McMahon got a spring in his step. What happened last summer? Annie wondered. She asked Mrs. Mowbray a few more questions about Roland's past: where he went to school, where his parents lived, and so on; then she left. She didn't see Eric Mowbray on her way out, and she couldn't say it bothered her.

 

“One of the main problems an art forger faces,” Phil Keane explained to Banks and Annie that Sunday lunchtime at the Queen's Arms, “is getting hold of the right period paper or canvas.”

Banks looked at him as he talked. So this was the mysterious man Annie was now seeing? She had referred to Phil merely as a friend, but Banks sensed a bit more chemistry than Platonic friendship between them. Not that they were fawning over each other, playing kissy-face or holding hands, but there was just something in the air—pheromones, most likely, and something in the way she listened as he spoke. Not so much hanging on his every word, but respectful,
involved
.

Banks had noticed that one or two of the women in the place had cast appraising glances when Phil walked in ten minutes late and insisted on going to the bar to buy a round of
drinks. He was handsome, Banks thought, but not outrageously so, well dressed but not showy, and he talked with the easy charm and knowledge of a habitual lecturer. He did, in fact, give occasional lectures, Annie said, so it was hardly surprising that he seemed so confident, even a bit pedantic, in his delivery. What was there not to like about this man? Banks wondered. This man who was probably shagging Annie. Let it go, Banks told himself; they'd moved on ages ago, hadn't they? And he had Michelle.

The trouble was that Michelle was far away right now, and here was Banks sitting in the Queen's Arms with Annie and her new fancy man, desperately looking for things to dislike. In his experience, anything or anyone who seemed too good to be true
was
too good to be true. Well, the man was too old for her, for a start, but then so had
he
been too old for her, and Phil Keane was a few years younger than he.

“Anyway,” Phil went on, “not everyone can do a John Myatt and forge modern masters with emulsion paint on any old scrap of paper he finds lying around, so the typical forger tends to be careful, especially in these days of scientific testing. He has to make sure his materials, and not just his techniques, pass all the requisite requirements. Not always an easy task.”

“You were saying about the paper…?”

“Was I? Oh, yes.” Phil scratched the crease between the side of his nose and his cheek. It was a gesture Banks immediately disliked. It said,
Until I was so rudely interrupted.
The pontificator's irritation at being interrupted in his digressions. He was damned glad he'd found
something
to dislike about the man at last, even though it wasn't much.

“Well, until the end of the eighteenth century, all paper was made by hand, usually from rags, and after that it was slowly replaced by machine-made paper, some of it made from wood pulp.”