‘And did Isobel swallow it?’
‘I reckon so. I said I’d take her out on the yacht on Sunday. I knew the owner was away and wouldn’t be needing her till next
week so …’
‘You were going to borrow the
Lazy Fox
?’
‘Why not? As long as my mate doesn’t find out.’
‘Where did you meet Isobel?’
‘I saw her in Winterleas – chatted her up over the frozen peas and asked her out for a drink.’
‘How did your date with her end?’
‘I don’t mind telling you that I thought my luck was in. I was going to invite her back to the
Lazy Fox
. But she said she had to meet someone. She buggered off.’
‘Just when you thought you were going to get your leg over, eh?’ Gerry gave him what he considered to be a sympathetic look.
‘Did she say who she was meeting?’
Jakes shook his head. ‘She just said she’d been waiting for a chance to see this person for a while and she was meeting him
by the waterfront.’
‘She didn’t mention a name?’
‘Nope.’
‘What time did she leave?’
‘About nine o’clock.’
Gerry turned to Paul. ‘See if we can get hold of any CCTV footage from the waterfront for around nine o’clock on Thursday,
will you?’
Paul nodded and hurried from the room.
‘You weren’t tempted to follow her by any chance?’ Gerry said as soon as they were alone. Man to man. ‘Like you followed Clare
on Sunday night … to teach her a lesson.’
‘Why should I?’ he said defensively. ‘We left the Angel together then I went straight to the Anchor. There’s a bloke who goes
in there who owes me money. Since other things were off the menu I thought I’d go and get it back.’
‘Was he there?’
‘He was as a matter of fact.’
‘And he’ll back you up, will he?’
Jakes nodded.
‘You do this sort of thing often … meet a woman and lie about who you are?’
Jakes shrugged. ‘It’s a game, isn’t it? They love it really.’
‘Spend much time in Neston?’
‘Not been there for years. Why should I?’
Gerry didn’t answer. He stood and walked out of the room and when he reached the corridor he put in a call to Paul up in the
incident room asking him to show Jakes’s photograph to Andrea Washington, the Neston assault victim. She’d been chatted up
in a pub by someone fitting Jakes’s description. Perhaps there was a link between the two cases after all. While he was talking
Guy Kitchener emerged from the other door and stood, arms folded, leaning against the wall, waiting for him to finish.
Gerry ended the call and looked at Guy. ‘What do you think?’
‘Well, he doesn’t like women.’
‘I thought he did,’ said Gerry, puzzled.
‘You told me about how he treated Clare Mayers and now he’s going round pretending to be someone he’s not. He sees women as
prey to be lured into his trap by the bait of this other persona he took on – Adrian the successful businessman. I’d say he
despises women.’ He paused. ‘Maybe he’s even afraid of them.’
‘Aren’t we all?’ Gerry muttered, looking at his watch. ‘But is he our killer?’
‘It’s a possibility,’ Guy answered. ‘But lying to a woman’s not a crime. You’ve no reason to hold him.’
Gerry scowled. He didn’t need a psychological profiler to tell him bad news. He knew it only too well himself.
Wesley had been forced to push Ian Petrie’s investigation to the back of his mind. Murder took precedence over smuggled Egyptian
antiquities, especially murder of a senseless and brutal kind. Ian had just chosen the wrong time to arrive in Tradmouth.
But as soon as he’d learned the circumstances of Raymond Seed’s arrest and what had been discovered in his cellar, he’d called
Ian and now the man was sitting by Wesley’s desk with an eager glow in his eyes. He might be looking tired and older these
days, but he still hadn’t lost his passion for the chase.
Seed himself had been very anxious to assure them that he had no connection whatsoever with the recent murders. He had already
admitted that the story he’d told the school about being ill was a lie: he’d been in London and they could check with his
hotel if they liked. And they had checked: he had been in London, and Wesley guessed there was a link between his trip to
the capital and the fake Egyptian artefacts found in his cellar.
‘Seed’s downstairs in the interview room,’ Ian said. ‘Your DC Johnson’s a good lad but I need someone who’s au fait with the
art world and smuggled antiquities. Will you conduct the interview?’
Wesley sat there for a while fingering a forensic report he’d just received. The last thing he needed now was a distraction.
But there were questions he needed to ask.
‘I’ll check with Gerry but I’m sure it’ll be OK.’
‘This should tie it all up. There have been quite a few fat payments into Seed’s bank account that can’t be explained by a
part-time teacher’s salary. There’s also evidence that he’s been travelling to Egypt on a regular basis – always in the school
holidays, I may add, which should have given us a clue, I suppose. It looks as if he takes the stuff over with him and no
doubt he creates a few more sculptures while he’s there to conceal the genuine antiquities and paints them up to look identical
to the fakes. Clever. After what we found in that cellar, it shouldn’t be difficult to get him to make a full confession and
once we find out who he was meeting in London, we’ve cracked the entire organisation.’ There was a long pause. ‘I’m wondering
about that chap Delaware’s involvement.’
‘He knew Seed’s address but he obviously didn’t know he couldn’t provide him with an alibi because he’d gone off to London.’
‘I know you’re holding Delaware on another matter and that he’s been taken off to hospital but I’d still like to speak to
him.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Wesley hesitated. He knew he had to ask sooner or later so he thought he might as well get it over and done
with. ‘Something’s been worrying me, Ian.’
‘What?’
‘Last Monday you told me you’d only just arrived in Tradmouth but someone at the hotel said you’d been there since Saturday.’
Ian glanced round. Even though they’d been talking in hushed voices there was still a chance they’d be overheard in the busy
incident room. ‘Can we go somewhere more private?’
Wesley abandoned his paperwork and led Ian out into the corridor. He found an empty office and switched on the strip light
overhead. The two men sat down, facing each other. Wesley noticed that Ian’s eyes were bloodshot and his flesh seemed a pallid
yellow in the harsh light. He didn’t look well.
‘Look, Wesley, I’m sorry if I’ve put you in an awkward situation turning up like this.’
‘That’s OK. Under normal circumstances we’d have been only too happy to provide assistance in an enquiry like yours. It was
just the timing that was a bit awry. With these murders and—’
Ian bowed his head. ‘I made assumptions.’
‘Come on, Ian, as far as you knew I was stuck here bored rigid in some West Country backwater. You weren’t to know I’d be
involved in a double murder case.’
Ian gave a weak smile and Wesley saw that his eyes were watering. ‘I’ve been trying to get to the bottom of this Egyptian
antiquities scam for a long time. We’ve known the stuff was coming in and we had the name Ra. Then we caught on to the Neston
connection by chance … only he wasn’t an artist with a studio in Neston as we’d thought – he taught at Neston Grammar.’
‘And Ra’s short for Raymond.’
‘Egyptian antiquities – someone’s got a sense of humour.’
‘I expect you want to take him back to London with you.’
‘Yes. I know you’ll probably need him for your murder enquiry so I’ll ask a car to come over and pick us up when you’ve finished
with him.’
‘You still haven’t told me why you didn’t tell me you’d spent the weekend in Tradmouth,’ Wesley asked after an awkward silence.
He looked Ian in the eye. His eyes were green, something he’d never noticed before.
It was a few seconds before Ian answered. ‘I just needed time to myself and I felt that a couple of days in a hotel down here
would give me the opportunity to consider my options.’ He paused, a smile playing on his dry lips. ‘I used to come here on
holiday as a child, you know. Year in, year out. I caught crabs on the waterfront and watched the boats sailing down the river
out to sea. It was a magical place back then. I can understand why you settled here, Wesley, I really can. When this case
came up I couldn’t resist coming back and I gave myself a couple of days just to … I don’t know, to gather my thoughts,
I suppose.’
‘What about?’
There was a long silence. Wesley had a sudden dreadful feeling that the nebulous suspicions that had started to form like
unwelcome ghosts in his head were about to be confirmed and he could feel his heart beating faster.
‘Whether to opt for treatment or let nature take its course. And whether to tell my ex-wife.’
‘You should have told me something was wrong.’
‘And have you pussyfooting around feeling sorry for me? Come on, Wesley. I needed your local knowledge to help me clear up
this case I’ve been working on for over a year. I didn’t need a nursemaid.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Wesley said almost in a whisper. He cleared his throat. ‘You said ex-wife. I thought you and Sheila were solid
as a rock …’
Ian gave a bitter laugh. ‘Turns out she’d been carrying on with a chartered accountant for years. I’d be on some all-night
stakeout or tracking down art thieves and he’d be round at my house … in my bed. She finally walked out last year.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Will you stop saying that?’ Ian hissed the words and Wesley realised that his sympathy was getting on Ian’s nerves.
‘It must have hurt … Sheila I mean.’
‘It did.’ His lips formed into a bitter smile. ‘Just make sure you don’t let your missus think you’re putting the job first,
Wesley. Your Pam’s a good ’un as far as I remember – pretty girl … and clever. And you’ve got a couple of kiddies – don’t
let them forget what their dad looks like. That’s my advice to you – take it or leave it.’
After another long silence Wesley asked the question that had been on his mind since they’d entered the empty office, trying
to sound matter-of-fact. ‘What exactly is wrong with you?’
‘Bowel cancer.’
Wesley tried to search for suitable words but he rejected each comforting phrase that popped into his head as too trite or
clichéd.
Eventually it was Ian who spoke.‘Maybe I should tell Sheila.’
‘She’d want to know.’
Wesley’s mobile phone began to ring and he cursed silently. It wasn’t the moment for interruptions. But Ian jerked his head
towards the instrument.
‘You’d better take that. Could be important.’
Reluctantly Wesley answered the call to find that Ian was right, as Wesley had usually found him to be when they’d worked
together. He saw Ian watching him expectantly, his face so pale and drawn that Wesley cursed himself for not noticing that
something was wrong before. But he’d been engrossed in his own concerns.
When the call was finished he turned to Ian. ‘They’ve found documents in Seed’s place addressed to someone called Ra …
and they think they’ve found some artefacts
that look genuine in a hidden part of the cellar. But they could be wrong so we’ll need an expert to tell us if they’re just
good forgeries. Do you want to go down and have a chat with Seed?’ He felt like a parent offering a treat to a sick child.
‘That’s what I’m here for.’
‘Are you sure you’re up to it?’
‘Of course I bloody am. Don’t treat me like an invalid. I wish I’d never told you now.’ Ian sounded annoyed, whether about
his former colleague’s concern or about the weakness of his own body, Wesley couldn’t tell.
Five minutes later they were facing Raymond Seed. He was a slightly-built man in his late thirties whose ponytail emphasised
his receding hairline. He wore a faded blue Breton smock and tattered jeans, as though he had chosen to dress in what he imagined
was the uniform of an artist.
Wesley was surprised at how co-operative Seed – or Ra as he was known to his associates – had become now that he realised
that there was no point in lying any more. But he was insistent on one point. Robert Delaware had given his name as an alibi
because they were old friends. Delaware knew absolutely nothing about the antiquity smuggling. Wesley, however, didn’t believe
a word of it. He suspected that Seed was indulging in a spot of damage limitation: there was no point in them both being prosecuted.
But Wesley had more questions to ask.
‘You teach at Neston Grammar, I believe?’ he began. ‘Do you know a girl called Clare Mayers?’
‘Yes, I teach part-time there. Clare’s in the sixth form. Art’s one of her subjects so I see a lot of her.’ His thin face
suddenly became solemn. ‘I was sorry to hear she’s been in hospital. I hope she’s all right now.’
‘She’s made a good recovery.’ He paused, his eyes fixed on Ra’s face. The man looked nervous. Wesley had the two Anubis figures
found on the bodies of Analise Sonquist and Isobel Grant in his pocket protected in plastic evidence bags. He took them out
and placed them on the table. ‘Do you recognise these?’
‘May I?’
Wesley nodded and Seed picked them up, turning them over to examine every detail.
Eventually he put them down and pushed them back to Wesley. ‘Yes. They’re mine. I made them.’
‘You had a stall at the craft fair in Tradmouth church hall in January, I believe.’
Seed looked surprised. ‘That’s right. I sold quite a few of these.’
‘Do you make Anubis masks?’
‘I have made some for the export market. You found a couple in my cellar, I believe. As Inspector Petrie here will no doubt
be only too keen to tell you, anything bulky like a mask is ideal for concealing smaller antiquities for smuggling back into
this country to sell on to collectors who don’t concern themselves too much with the legality of where things come from.’
‘Would someone be able to wear the masks you make?’
‘I wouldn’t fancy wearing the plaster ones. They’d be far too heavy. If I was making one to wear I’d make it out of papier
mâché.’