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guessed. ‘He’ll have read all about you in the papers.’
    â€˜Possibly you’re right,’ Hough agreed. ‘But at any rate, he was polite enough to listen, and while we were talking, it suddenly struck me that we could do each other a bit of good.’
    â€˜In what way?’
    â€˜One of the biggest headaches in any expansion programme is the manpower problem. You can get men, easily enough – but you can’t always get the
right
men, especially at the shop floor management level. When I realized that Terry was working in a somewhat similar company to my own, it started to seem like a lucky chance that we’d met.’
    â€˜So you were about to offer him a job last night?’
    â€˜Not exactly. It was more a case of firming up the offer I’d already made in principle.’
    â€˜An’ your job offer was based solely on the grounds that you knew him, an’ he was already in the right kind of work?’
    Hough laughed. ‘Just because I’m in a wheelchair, you mustn’t think I’m a simpleton, you know,’ he said.
    â€˜I assure you, I don’t,’ Woodend protested.
    â€˜Knowing Terry was part of it,’ Mark Hough said, ‘but it was
what
I knew about him that was important. Terry was never a great brain, but he was conscientious and hard working and reliable, even in our Sudbury Street days. So if, on top of that, he was an even half-way decent engineer, then he was a real prize.’
    â€˜An’
was
he a half-way decent engineer?’
    â€˜He was better than that. They were so pleased with him at his present firm that they were about to promote him. So I told him I’d more than match whatever they were offering him, and he seemed delighted. That’s why it came as such a shock to hear that he’d committed suicide. It just didn’t seem like him.’
    â€˜Had you put this offer of yours in writing?’ Woodend asked.
    â€˜No, it was all done over the phone.’
    â€˜So you never sent him a typewritten letter?’
    â€˜No.’
    Then who the bloody hell had sent him the one that his sister-in-law claimed had worried him so much, Woodend wondered.
    â€˜What more can you tell me about Terry?’ he asked aloud.
    â€˜Very little at all about his recent life,’ Mark Hough admitted. ‘As I said, we’d only met once in recent days, and all our telephone calls were of a strictly business nature. Perhaps that’s why I don’t feel the loss as much as I’d have thought I would. Even now, when I picture him, it’s the young Terry I see. I never really knew the Terry who hanged himself.’
    He paused again, and looked thoughtful – as if an idea had suddenly struck him.
    â€˜Or perhaps Terry Pugh didn’t hang himself after all,’ he continued, speaking slowly and deliberately.
    â€˜What makes you think that?’ Woodend wondered.
    â€˜You do,’ Hough told him. ‘Why would a Chief Inspector be wasting his valuable time investigating a suicide?’
    â€˜My time’s not as valuable as you seem to think,’ Woodend said, trying to make light of it.
    â€˜He was murdered, wasn’t he?’ Hough asked. ‘He was murdered, and for reasons of your own, you’re keeping quiet about it.’
    â€˜No comment,’ Woodend said.
    â€˜And
that
is a comment in itself,’ Hough told him.
    â€˜Do you know why it’s so great workin’ here, Constable Beresford?’ Bob Smothers asked.
    From the man’s tone, Beresford sensed that a joke – and probably a very weak and tired one – was on the way.
    â€˜No, why is it so great working here, Mr Smothers?’ he asked, playing the comedian’s dupe.
    â€˜Because this company’s always on a roll!’
    Beresford did his best to sound amused, but the other men sitting around the table in the staff canteen of Whitebridge Ball Bearings Ltd had heard the line