a yuppie colony. It’s easy to fall into the river when you’ve done a few lines of coke on top of all that nouveaux Beaujolais. I thought no more of it, defrosted a chicken rogan josh for lunch and spent the afternoon doing damage limitation in the garden. I cleared the borders of dead stuff, mowed the grass – I never refer to it as lawn – and raked up the first flush of dead leaves. I was complimenting myself on being ahead of the game when it occurred that they were probably left over from last year.
Dave came to pick me up to go to the Tony Krabbe lecture, and Jeff Caton was already with him. Dave was wearing his Gore-Tex anorak.
‘Thought I’d look the part,’ he explained. ‘Professional, like.’
‘Wally, you mean,’ Jeff said.
‘Take no notice,’ I said. ‘You look just fine, and if it snows in the town hall you’ll be prepared for it.’
‘Did you hear about Joe Crozier?’ Dave asked asked.
‘No. Who’s he?’
‘One of the names that cropped up when we weretalking about Peter Wallenberg, yesterday. Don’t you listen?’
‘Not always. Sometimes, when Jeff and John are speaking I have a tendency to drift off. Give me it again, please.’
Jeff took over. ‘Peter Wallenberg inherited his fortune from his father, Frank, who was a crook. His partner was Joe Crozier and between them they had Leeds and most of the old West Riding just about sewn up. Prostitution, protection – you name it, they controlled it. Well, yesterday, they fished Joe’s body out of the river. A bunch of schoolkids were being shown around this old museum when up came a floater.’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘Connections. Old friend Nigel is investigating detective. I rang him to see if he fancied a drink, later.’
‘As you do.’
‘Yes. As you do.’
‘Young Mr Newley?’ I grinned at the thought of it. Nigel was one of my protégés and destined for high things, if he could shake off the cosy dust of Heckley and a few of the bad habits I’d passed on to him, and make his own mark in the force.
‘I heard about the body,’ I said. ‘At a guess it went in somewhere near the city centre. So what’s it to do with us?’
‘Nothing,’ Jeff said. ‘It’s just one of those strangeoccurrences. You go all your life without hearing a name and suddenly you hear it twice in two days. It happens all the time.’
‘Well,’ I pointed out, ‘when a person dies in strange circumstances they do tend to get their name in the papers. I bet you hear it a few times more in the next few days.’
‘Ah, but the first time was unrelated to his death.’
‘That’s true. We must have put the mockers on him. Is foul play suspected?’
‘No, I don’t think so. According to Nigel they’re looking into it because of Crozier’s background. He lived near the river…enjoyed a drink or eight…Splash.’
‘Nige will sort it. Have we time for a snifter before this lecture starts?’
The talk was brilliant. Or the pictures were. For nearly an hour he showed us breathtaking shots, gathered over his early years, of some of the most beautiful places on Earth. You could imagine a climber being content to sit down on some of the peaks and freeze to death rather than turn away from the view and drop back down into humdrum normality. We saw vast snowfields, hanging by a breath on the mountain sides; jagged arêtes leading to unnamed peaks; ranges that stretched away forever into China and Tibet; tiny coloured specks of humanity dwarfed into insignificance on immense rock faces.
And then the mood changed. We were on Everest, it was late in the day and the weather was turning. He was climbing with his best friend, called Jeremy Quigley, but Jeremy was having trouble and dropped back at the Hillary Step, a 40-foot rock wall within spitting distance of thesummit. Krabbe summited, took the pictures, then got down as fast as he could to camp IV, expecting Jeremy to be already there.
But he wasn’t, and Krabbe never saw
Dave came to pick me up to go to the Tony Krabbe lecture, and Jeff Caton was already with him. Dave was wearing his Gore-Tex anorak.
‘Thought I’d look the part,’ he explained. ‘Professional, like.’
‘Wally, you mean,’ Jeff said.
‘Take no notice,’ I said. ‘You look just fine, and if it snows in the town hall you’ll be prepared for it.’
‘Did you hear about Joe Crozier?’ Dave asked asked.
‘No. Who’s he?’
‘One of the names that cropped up when we weretalking about Peter Wallenberg, yesterday. Don’t you listen?’
‘Not always. Sometimes, when Jeff and John are speaking I have a tendency to drift off. Give me it again, please.’
Jeff took over. ‘Peter Wallenberg inherited his fortune from his father, Frank, who was a crook. His partner was Joe Crozier and between them they had Leeds and most of the old West Riding just about sewn up. Prostitution, protection – you name it, they controlled it. Well, yesterday, they fished Joe’s body out of the river. A bunch of schoolkids were being shown around this old museum when up came a floater.’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘Connections. Old friend Nigel is investigating detective. I rang him to see if he fancied a drink, later.’
‘As you do.’
‘Yes. As you do.’
‘Young Mr Newley?’ I grinned at the thought of it. Nigel was one of my protégés and destined for high things, if he could shake off the cosy dust of Heckley and a few of the bad habits I’d passed on to him, and make his own mark in the force.
‘I heard about the body,’ I said. ‘At a guess it went in somewhere near the city centre. So what’s it to do with us?’
‘Nothing,’ Jeff said. ‘It’s just one of those strangeoccurrences. You go all your life without hearing a name and suddenly you hear it twice in two days. It happens all the time.’
‘Well,’ I pointed out, ‘when a person dies in strange circumstances they do tend to get their name in the papers. I bet you hear it a few times more in the next few days.’
‘Ah, but the first time was unrelated to his death.’
‘That’s true. We must have put the mockers on him. Is foul play suspected?’
‘No, I don’t think so. According to Nigel they’re looking into it because of Crozier’s background. He lived near the river…enjoyed a drink or eight…Splash.’
‘Nige will sort it. Have we time for a snifter before this lecture starts?’
The talk was brilliant. Or the pictures were. For nearly an hour he showed us breathtaking shots, gathered over his early years, of some of the most beautiful places on Earth. You could imagine a climber being content to sit down on some of the peaks and freeze to death rather than turn away from the view and drop back down into humdrum normality. We saw vast snowfields, hanging by a breath on the mountain sides; jagged arêtes leading to unnamed peaks; ranges that stretched away forever into China and Tibet; tiny coloured specks of humanity dwarfed into insignificance on immense rock faces.
And then the mood changed. We were on Everest, it was late in the day and the weather was turning. He was climbing with his best friend, called Jeremy Quigley, but Jeremy was having trouble and dropped back at the Hillary Step, a 40-foot rock wall within spitting distance of thesummit. Krabbe summited, took the pictures, then got down as fast as he could to camp IV, expecting Jeremy to be already there.
But he wasn’t, and Krabbe never saw
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