Matthew Earnshaw was apparently stone cold sober when he presented himself at police headquarters that Saturday morning for an interview with DCI Michael Thackeray. Dressed in jeans and open-necked black polo shirt, he appeared anxious to give the impression of being calm and relaxed, but there were dark circles beneath his brilliant blue eyes, and from time to time he ran his fingers through his hair, as if to brush lingering cobwebs from his brain.
“You don't want a solicitor with you?” Thackeray asked as he ushered Earnshaw into an interview room and Sergeant Kevin Mower dealt with the tape recorder.
“I've got nothing to hide,” Earnshaw said, flinging himself into the interviewee's chair and lighting a cigarette. Thackeray noticed that his hands were shaking slightly and he drew the smoke into his lungs as if his life depended on the hit.
“You're entitled to change your mind at any time, Mr. Earnshaw,” he said.
Earnshaw scowled and nodded.
“I'm fine,” he said.
Thackeray sat down beside Mower and opened a file which contained little more that Matthew Earnshaw's first statement to the police.
“Are you broke, Mr. Earnshaw?” he asked, without preamble. The younger man tensed slightly and then gave a thin smile.
“What makes you ask that, Chief Inspector? And is it any of your business?”
“If I consider it's relevant to my investigation of your brother's death, then it's my business,” Thackeray said.
“Then no, I'm not broke,” Earnshaw said. “As you know I'm a major shareholder in Earnshaw and Son, which is still a going concern and has valuable property.”
“Which we've now learned from Jack Ackroyd was on the market.”
“You know about all that now, do you? Well, that wasn't something we wanted trumpeted about to all and sundry. As far as the outside world was concerned we were trying to save the mill not sell it. Anyway, as far as your question is concerned, when the sale goes through I'll have considerable liquid assets.”
“But until the sale goes through?” Thackeray pressed.
“Little local difficulties,” Earnshaw said. “Nothing I can't cope with.”
“Such as?”
“I'm a bit pressed since the divorce settlement, that's all. Nothing I can't handle.”
“You kept the house, didn't you?” Thackeray was obviously not going to give in.
“I bought Lizzie out, if that's what you mean. Cost me an arm and a leg, if you really want to know. So I've got a ballbreaking second mortgage.”
“And expensive habits?” Thackeray pressed.
“I don't know what you mean,” Earnshaw said.
“But you were very keen for the mill to be sold?”
“Yes, I was, I supported my father all the way on that,” Earnshaw said. “It was my grandfather who stood out against it. Tried to persuade me to change my mind, but I told him to get stuffed, if you really want all the family dirt. Told him he'd had the best of the business and it had no future now, and I wanted my share before the whole thing went down the pan.”
“You had a row with your grandfather?” Thackeray asked.
“Several,” Earnshaw said.
“And what about your brother?”
“He kept out of the old man's way, as far as I know,” Earnshaw said.
“No, you misunderstand me,” Thackeray interrupted. “I meant did you row with your brother about the sale. As I understand it, he was never as keen as you were on the deal Jack Ackroyd and his colleagues were offering.”
“No he wasn't,” Earnshaw said. “There's no secret about that. First of all he wanted all sorts of clauses written in about benefit to the community - blasted hippie - and then he began to haggle about the price. I couldn't understand that. Money didn't seem to be the main issue with him at first.”
“But it was always the main issue for you?”
“Bloody right it was, Chief Inspector. I make no apology for that.”
“So when did Simon begin to worry about the price?” Thackeray asked. Earnshaw hesitated, as if trying to work out the time scale in his head.
“A couple of weeks ago, I suppose. All of a sudden the deal didn't seem good enough for him, and by that time we'd got it all lined up to meet Ackroyd and his partners and get a quick conclusion. Jack Ackroyd wouldn't have flown up from Portugal if the thing hadn't been pretty well settled, the papers ready to sign, would he?”
“And that's why you were so anxious to meet your brother in the Clarendon Hotel the night you realised he had disappeared?”
“Damn right. I wanted it sorted out.” Earnshaw ground out his cigarette in the ashtray on the table in front of him and lit another. “My father and I both wanted it sorted out.”
“One thing puzzles me about that meeting, though, Mr.
Earnshaw,” Thackeray said. “You say yourself it was important, your father confirms it was important, and yet when you were waiting for your brother everyone who saw you there confirms that you were drinking heavily. Was that the best way to go into an important meeting?”
Eamshaw flushed and he did not answer.
“Please answer the question, Mr. Earnshaw,” Thackeray said. “There are two possible interpretations of the state you were in at the Clarendon that evening, when, by the way, the barmaid says she tried to persuade you not have any more to drink ⦔
“That bitch,” Earnshaw said. “Yes, that's right. She almost refused to serve me, the interfering cow.”
“So why were you so drunk? Was it because you were worried about the meeting with Simon? Or did you know by that time Simon wasn't going to turn up?”
“What?” Earnshaw said, his surprise apparently genuine. “What the hell are you suggesting now? That I knew he was dead by then?”
“Did you?” Thackeray snapped.
“No, of course I bloody didn't. I got drunk mainly because I'd waited for him so long.”
“So tell me again what arrangement you made to meet Simon. When did you call him?”
“On the Sunday, late on. I'd spent the evening at my parents' place and my father and I decided it might be best if I had another go at Simon rather than him. I called him and he made no objection.”
“Did you call him at his flat or on his mobile?”
“On the mobile as far as I can remember. I don't call him at the flat much. He's not often there.”
“So you made the date on Sunday, and Simon's body was found on Wednesday morning, but according to the
pathologist Simon probably died on the Tuesday evening. Did you know your brother went jogging, Mr. Earnshaw?”
“No, I didn't. What are you suggesting now? That I pushed Simon over that bloody cliff? You must be crazy.”
“I'm not suggesting anything, Mr. Earnshaw, yet,” Thackeray said. “But I'd like you to go over your movements on that Tuesday for me, if you would.”
Earnshaw looked mutinous, but eventually pulled out a diary from his jacket pocket and flicked through it until arriving at the right date.
“I was at work that day at the mill until about three in the afternoon,” he said. “I had a meeting with my father and the maintenance engineers at two, I remember now. Then I left early and drove over to Leeds, had a few drinks and then went to a casino.”
“Can you be a bit more specific, please? Where did you have your drinks? Which casino?”
Earnshaw reeled off the names of a couple of pubs and a casino and Sergeant Mower ostentatiously wrote them down.
“Did you see anyone in Leeds who would know you? Did you go there to meet friends?” Thackeray asked.
Earnshaw shrugged.
“Nope, I was on my own, at a loose end, you might say. I go to the casino quite often, though,” he said. “They'd recognise me there.”
“And what time did you get home?” Thackeray asked.
“I really don't remember,” Earnshaw said. “It was late and I wasn't keeping an eye on the time. No reason why I have to now Lizzie's gone. Back to an empty house, more often than not.”
“And of course you'd been drinking,” Thackeray said drily.
“Too late to effing breathalyse me now,” Earnshaw said.
“We'll need to check these details,” Thackeray said.
“Check away,” Earnshaw snapped back. “I'd nothing to do with Simon's death, I can assure you of that.
“But you have to admit that selling the mill will be easier for you and your father now he's gone and you look like inheriting his shares.”
“In the end, maybe,” Earnshaw said. “But if that's the tree you're sniffing round you've got it wrong. I was the one who wanted a quick sale, remember. That's exactly what I'm not going to get now. Persuading Simon to cooperate was certainly in my interests, but everything could be buggered up now he's dead. We may not be able to do anything until probate's settled.”
“But you and your father can take the decisions? Your grandfather's objections don't hold water any longer.”
“That's true,” Earnshaw said.
After a few more routine questions, and gaining permission to look at his mobile phone records, they let Earnshaw go. Back in his office Thackeray looked at Mower with a hint of doubt in his eyes.
“What do you reckon?” he asked. “I don't like that young man but is he a killer?”
“He could be,” Mower said. “It all depends on the timings, and if and when we can get confirmation he was in Leeds. As alibis go it's all pretty vague. And we've only his word for it that they set up the meeting for Wednesday at the Clarendon. It could just as easily have been fixed for the day before and Wednesday's little performance all be a charade. That might explain why he got pissed out of his head. He knew damn well Simon wasn't going to turn up, and why.”
“And if they met and had a blazing row anything could have happened,”
Thackeray said. “He seems to be permanently drunk, that young man, and you can do things when you're drunk that you'd never dream of doing when you're sober.” He spoke, Mower knew, with the voice of bitter experience.
“Check his movements for the Tuesday,” Thackeray said. “That list he's given us is like a sieve. People may well remember seeing him in Leeds but you can bet their recall of the time and even the day will be vague. We've got no weapon and no forensic evidence to speak of on the killer. A sharp blow to the back of the head too clean, Amos thinks, to have been caused by the fall â plus other bumps and contusions â and a few unidentified fibres clinging to his clothing, probably from an old blanket, according to the lab. We may be lucky with those in the end but I don't think we've got a strong enough case to search Earnshaw's car or house just yet. But I still think he had the motive and the opportunity. We'll have to pin him down more precisely to find the gaps when he could have met Simon the day before he claims he planned to. Given that Simon was dressed for jogging I'd guess early evening on the Tuesday, before he drove to Leeds. That would fit Amos's time of death. Get the team onto it and ask Leeds for some help with the pubs and the casino.”
When Mower had gone to pass on these new tasks to the overburdened murder detectives, Thackeray leaned back in his chair, lit a cigarette and allowed himself the luxury of a moment's thought. Laura edged her way into his mind every time he relaxed and he knew that he was doing neither his job nor his lover justice. Endless stress, endless overtime wrecked marriages. They had helped wreck his own. It was certainly arguable that Laura would be better off without him. But without her, he would be adrift again on an endless sea of despair. He did not think he was strong enough to let her go.
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DC Omar Sharif was feeling more overburdened than most as he ploughed through statement after statement on his computer screen, hoping to pick up the slightest missed clue from those who had been close enough to see anything of the assault on Mohammed Iqbal. It was still early on Saturday morning and he was waiting his chance to claim the attention of Sergeant Kevin Mower to fill him in on what he had discovered from his freelance activities of the previous day. But so far Mower had been fully occupied with the DCI and an interview with Matthew Earnshaw, and Sharif began to wonder whether the murder of a wealthy young white man might not be taking too great a priority over the killing of an Asian union leader from Aysgarth Lane.
“Sarge,” Sharif got in at last as Mower passed his desk with a sheaf of papers in his hand.
“Omar?” Mower said. “Found something?”
“Not in this lot,” Sharif said. “But I put out my own feelers in the community when I went up there yesterday. I'm sure someone up there knows something about those bikes but no one's got back to me yet.” He felt this sounded inadequate and sensed that Mower's attention was already wandering.