Read Online Last Reminder by Stuart Pawson - Free Book Online

with a few possible suspects. Criminal Records would be a useful starting point. Maud and Brian were visiting local bank managers. One or two of them were going to have a nice day. Hopefully they’d be able to match the dates and amounts in the cash book to transactions over the counter.
    The phone rang just as we were winding up. It had to be Nigel because we’d arranged to be undisturbed except for his call.
    ‘Have you met the new pathologist, boss?’ he enthused in my left ear.
    ‘Professor Simms. Yes, I’ve met her.’
    ‘Heather,’ he announced, with barely disguised triumph. ‘She’s ever so attractive, isn’t she?’
    ‘Er, yes. Very pleasant. What did she say.’
    ‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ he gushed. ‘She just pulled the sheet back, looked at his hands and then at his face and said, “Sedentary work. Verytrustworthy looking. Meets lots of people. Self-employed, possibly in the financial sector.” She’s brilliant!’
    I said, ‘No, Nigel. She just has a reasonable memory. I told her all that, yesterday.’
    ‘Honest?’ His voice had lost its enthusiasm.
    ‘’Fraid so.’
    ‘Bloody hell!’
    ‘Come on, Nigel,’ I urged. ‘There’s a room full of people here, hanging on your every word, so hide your disappointment and tell me what she had to say about the stiff.’
    ‘Right, boss. But you’re not going to like it.’
    He was right, I didn’t. And when he’d finished I wished I hadn’t asked.
    The troops were all on their feet, waiting to disperse. I turned to them and said, ‘Just as we thought: time of death sometime Sunday evening. Ring in with anything interesting; otherwise, same time tomorrow. Go to it, my bonny boys and girls, and make sure to put it all down on paper, tagged for the computer. Remember, reports mean arrests. What do reports mean?’ But nobody answered. I turned to the super. ‘Can we have a word in your office, Gilbert?’ I asked.
    Trudging up the stairs, Gilbert said, ‘Well?’
    ‘In your office,’ I replied. ‘I’m playing for time.’
    We need major enquiries. If we didn’t have one, every once in a while, it would be necessary toinvent them. A murder investigation opens doors, and we often solve several other, less serious crimes, on the way to catching the killer. During the hunt for the Ripper the crime rate in West Yorkshire fell dramatically. That was because anybody out late at night became accustomed to being stopped by the police.
    ‘Do you mind if we have a look in your boot, sir?’ we’d say. ‘Oh. And could you explain what these forty-eight turkeys are doing in here?’ Or these silver chalices, or this jemmy and balaclava.
    ‘Coffee?’ Gilbert asked, closing the door behind us.
    ‘You’ve just had one,’ I protested.
    ‘Well, I’m having another. I’ve a feeling I’m going to need it.’
    I sat down and looked at the pictures on his walls while he prepared a brew. Most officers of his rank have framed photographs of themselves adorning their offices, taken at peak moments in their careers. Yours truly meeting the Princess Royal; the class of ’82 at Bramshill; me, when I won the Silver Truncheon at Hendon.
    Gilbert collects pictures of fish. I was studying an evil brute called a thornback ray when he flopped into his chair.
    ‘Can you eat those?’ I asked, nodding towards it.
    ‘Mmm, delicious. Caught two last year. Go on then, break my heart.’
    I said, ‘According to the post-mortem, Hartley Goodrich died of a cardiac arrest while seated in his favourite chair, sometime Sunday evening. He was hit on the head by the plant pot about twelve hours later – Monday morning. Somebody wasted their energy.’
    Gilbert took a sip of coffee, grimaced and produced a dispenser of sweeteners from his drawer. He clicked one into his cup and gave it a perfunctory stir. Now he was playing for time. ‘Is that an offence?’ he wondered, although he knew the answer.
    ‘Depends on what the intention was,’ I