Hunted

‘You seem very sure of that, Mr Baker,’ Gail said.

‘I ought to be. Every idea he ever had, he bounced off me first.’

‘Every idea?’

Baker gave this some thought. ‘Obviously I can’t say every single idea; but, well, Harold was a straight bat. All his career – and I was there for most of it – there was never a hint of impropriety or shady dealing.’

‘I understand he had various offshore bank accounts,’ Gail said.

‘My dear, that’s not unusual. It’s just to take advantage of different tax regimes. There’s nothing illegal about it if it’s all declared. I’m sure if you consult your financial intelligence people, you’ll find there’s never been anything in Harold’s business past to arouse suspicion.’

‘What were you doing on the morning of 6 July, Mr Baker?’ Heck asked him.

‘Ahhh … I might have thought I’d be a suspect.’

‘I’m sorry we have to ask this.’

‘No it’s all right. I completely understand.’ Baker fingered his brow. ‘I was on holiday with Milly. We were on a month-long cruise, the Caribbean and American East Coast. We had no idea Harold had even had his first accident, let alone the second one. Only got back a couple of days before he was due to be buried. I must say …’ He eyed them warily. ‘I’m rather surprised by these enquiries. I mean with Harold in his grave. Everyone was under the impression it was all just ghastly misfortune.’

‘We’re not ruling out anything at this stage,’ Gail said.

‘But you suspect foul play?’

‘We just don’t know,’ Heck replied.

Baker blew out a sigh. ‘Well you obviously have to cover every possibility. It’s unbelievable, to be honest. Harold was a genuine good egg. If you look at some of the things he did in his spare time … he was a governor of the local grammar school, he sat on several church committees, put money into numerous charities. Why on earth would anyone want to hurt him, let alone kill him?’

‘Could it be a disgruntled ex-employee?’ Heck wondered.

‘Harold was always popular with his staff. He was a good leader, a firm decision-maker. He respected them as individuals, he was concerned for their welfare, he took responsibility during a crisis.’

‘Because you see, Mr Baker,’ Heck watched him carefully, ‘it’s occurred to me that if someone was trying to get even with Mr Lansing for some past grievance – maybe an imagined grievance – they might want to get even with you as well.’

‘Oh, Sergeant …’ Baker sighed again, as if this was a minor concern. ‘No face or name springs to mind in that regard, not even from the mists of time.’

If nothing else, Heck thought, this guy is not frightened. He’s telling me what he believes to be the truth.

Baker shook his head. ‘I can’t think of a single person who Harold and I might have upset so much that he would resort to vengeance on this scale.’

‘Lansing’s too good to be true, isn’t he?’ Gail said as they drove back towards Reigate.

Heck glanced round at her. ‘How do you mean?’

‘All that “holy Joe” stuff,’ she said cynically. ‘I don’t know why they don’t just give him a sainthood.’

‘There are good people in the world you know.’

‘You really believe that?’ She chuckled. ‘After some of the cases the Serial Crimes Unit’s investigated? I’ve looked you up, in case you were wondering. The Nice Guys Club, the Desecrator killings … that business up in the Lake District? And you still have idealistic notions about human nature?’

Heck didn’t reply. Fleetingly he was lost in thought.

‘This is a different ballgame, of course,’ she added. ‘These white-collar criminals – they’re not drooling nutters running around with meat cleavers. They’re clever. They can squirrel all sorts of important stuff away where it won’t be found. I can see you have doubts about that, Heck, and you must do whatever you feel is necessary; but I intend to go through Lansing’s business transactions with a magnifying-glass. Let’s see who gets to the bottom of it first, eh?’

That final comment caught his attention. ‘You mean like we’re in a contest together?’

‘Well, not exactly a contest …’

‘I should hope not. We’re on the job, in case you’d forgotten. Not playing stupid bloody games!’

‘All right, take it easy!’

‘You know …’ Heck forcibly moderated his tone, not wanting to pull rank so quickly when he’d promised that he wouldn’t. ‘Gail, if you want to follow that line, be my guest. But good luck to you. I’ve no experience investigating white-collar crime, if that’s what you want to call it, and I’ve been a detective fifteen years. To start with, you’ll have to liaise with FIU, the Serious Fraud Office, probably the City of London Police – and on the basis of what? Unfounded conjecture. On top of that, you’re going to attract a lot of publicity you don’t want.’

‘Like I care about bad publicity.’

‘Think about this, Gail. Harold Lansing is the victim, possibly of a catastrophic accident, but more likely of a skilfully stage-managed murder. Either way, it resulted in him being burned alive. And you’re trying to uncover evidence of criminality in his past.’

‘It’s only a means to an end.’

‘You’d better hope there is an end. Because you blacken the name of a pillar of the community like Harold Lansing, someone with high-powered friends all over the county, and it’s not inconceivable that your career, which I have a feeling you are very concerned about, might suddenly hit the buffers.’

Gail drove for several minutes without speaking. ‘Okay. So what’s your theory?’

‘I don’t have one yet. But I think we need to go back to the beginning.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Back to where it all kicked off. Let’s try to understand exactly what’s happened.’

Chapter 9 (#ulink_00b03bb0-25f1-54e2-9739-0ed4e515351a)

The River Mole was one of the most scenic waterways in southern England, snaking eighty miles from its headwaters near Gatwick Airport in West Sussex across the rolling Surrey Weald to its confluence with the River Thames close to Hampton Court. It boasted an abundant diversity of wildlife, from water voles, herons and kingfishers on its banks to all types of game fish – eels, brown trout, lamprey and pike – in its cool green depths.

There were several rapids along the Mole, but Deadman’s Reach, which Heck and Gail finally located after leaving the Punto in a National Trust car park and walking several hundred yards along a well-trodden towpath, was located in a broad, shallow valley through which the river meandered at a sedate pace, though Heck felt this was probably deceptive. He’d researched the Mole the previous night, and had learned that its flow rate was highly responsive to rainfall. Though this past June and July had largely been warm and dry, there’d been heavy rain in April and May, which might suggest why Harold Lansing had so easily been swept away.

The Reach itself was a jutting promontory of aged brickwork, a quayside in the past, though with hunks of rusted metal where mooring ropes had once been tied and tufts of weed growing around its footings there was no sign it was used for that purpose now. Some eighty yards to the north-west, the river plunged over the lip of a weir into a flat rocky basin before curving away through lower lying water meadows.

Heck halted and glanced around, wafting at midges. Both to east and west, the gentle slopes of the valley were thinly wooded. Immediately beyond the footpath, thick stands of gorse ascended to the skyline. He weaved his way up through these, Gail following, until they reached a stile, beyond which lay level pasture land. This was most likely the spot where the Doversgreen Aviators flew their model planes, though there was nobody here at present.

Heck shielded his eyes against the sun. Several hundred yards to the west, occasional vehicles flashed by along a main road. A similar distance to the north-east, more sporadic traffic passed over a bridge with iron latticework sides which crossed the river, running west to east. Satisfied, he turned back to the stile and, rather to Gail’s irritation, commenced a slow, cautious descent back to the riverbank. It wasn’t easy for either of them, he in his suit and lace-up leather shoes, she in her skirt.

At the bottom, Heck leafed through their sheaf of paperwork. ‘This guy who saved Lansing after he fell in … Gary Edwards. Where was he exactly?’

‘That headland.’ Gail pointed past the weir to a bend in the river about fifty yards short of the iron bridge.

‘But he didn’t actually see Lansing fall into the river?’

‘No. Nor the plane as it made contact. Apparently Lansing screamed for help as he was going over the weir. That’s when Edwards noticed he was in trouble. He told me he’d seen the model planes buzzing around overhead, but hadn’t thought much about them. He said they’re here every other weekend, usually too high up to pose any kind of problem for walkers or anglers.’