Final Account

1

There was always something sad about an empty farmyard, Banks thought as he got out of the car in front of Arkbeck Farm again. There should be chickens squawking all over the place, the occasional wandering cow, maybe a barking sheepdog or two.

He thought of the nest egg he had held at his Uncle Len’s farm in Gloucestershire on childhood family visits. They used it to encourage hens to lay, he remembered, and when his Aunt Chloe had handed it to him in the coop, it had still felt warm. Banks also remembered the smells of hay and cow dung, the shiny metal milk churns sitting by the roadside waiting to be picked up.

As he rang the doorbell, he doubted that the Rothwells felt the same way about empty farmyards. The place seemed to suit Alison’s introspective nature; her father had no doubt appreciated the seclusion and the protection from prying eyes and questions it offered; and Mary Rothwell… well, Banks could hardly imagine her mucking out the byre or feeding the pigs. He couldn’t imagine her handing a child a warm porcelain egg, either.

“Do come in,” Mary Rothwell said, opening the door. Banks followed her to the split-level living room. Today she wore a white shirt that buttoned on the “man’s” side and a loose gray skirt that reached her ankles. Alison lay sprawled on the sofa reading.

On the way to Arkbeck Farm, he had considered what to say to them regarding his talk with Pamela Jeffreys in Leeds, but he hadn’t come up with any clear plan. Vic Manson hadn’t got back to him yet about the prints, so he still couldn’t be absolutely certain that Robert Calvert and Keith Rothwell were the same person. Best play it by ear, he decided.

“How are you doing?” he asked Mary Rothwell.

“Could be worse,” she replied. He noticed her eyes were baggy under the make-up. “I haven’t been sleeping well, despite the pills, and I’m a mass of nerves, but if I keep myself busy, time passes. I have the funeral to organize. Please, sit down.”

Banks had come partly to explain that a van was on its way to pick up Keith Rothwell’s computer disks and business files and spirit them off to the Fraud Squad’s headquarters in Northallerton, where a team of suits would pore over them for months, maybe years, costing the taxpayers millions. He didn’t put it like that, of course. Just as he had finished explaining, he heard the van pull up out front.

He went to the front door and directed the men to Rothwell’s office, then returned to the living room, shutting the door firmly behind him. It was dark in the room, and a little chilly, despite the fine weather outside. “They shouldn’t bother us,” he said. “Perhaps a little music?”

Mary Rothwell nodded and turned on the radio. Engelbert Humperdinck came on, singing “Release Me.” Banks often regretted that humans hadn’t been born with the capacity to close their ears as they did their eyes. He did his best, anyway, and reflected that it was all in a good cause, blanking out the sounds of Keith Rothwell’s office being dismantled and carried away.

“Have you found Tom?” Mary Rothwell said, sitting down. She sat at the edge of the armchair, Banks noticed, and twisted her hands in her lap, a mass of gold and precious stones. She seemed so stiff he wished someone would give her a massage. Her skin, he felt, would be brittle as lacquered hair to the touch.

Banks explained that they had tracked down the car rental agency he had used and that it wouldn’t be long before someone spotted the car.

“He should be home,” she said. “We need him. There’s the funeral… all the arrangements…”

“We’re doing our best, Mrs. Rothwell.”

“Of course. I didn’t mean to imply anything.”

“It’s all right. Are you up to answering a few more questions?”

“I suppose so. As long as you don’t want to talk about what I went through the other night. I couldn’t bear that.” Her eyes moved in the direction of the garage and Banks could see the fear and horror flood into them.

“No, not that.” She would have to talk about it sometime, Banks almost told her, but not now, not yet. “It’s Mr. Rothwell I want to talk about. We need a better idea of how he spent his time.”

“Well, it’s hard to say, really,” she began. “When he was here, he was up in his office most of the time. I could hear him clicking away on the computer.”

“Did you ever hear him on the phone?”

“He had his own line up there. I didn’t listen in, if that’s what you mean.”

“No, I didn’t mean that. But sometimes you just can’t help overhearing something, anything.”

“No. He always kept the door shut. I could hear his voice, like I could hear the keyboard, but it was muffled, even if I was passing by the office.”

“So you never knew who he was talking to or what he was saying?”

“No.”

“Did he have many calls in the days leading up to his death?”

“Not so much as I noticed. No more than usual. I could always hear it ring, you see, even from downstairs.” She stood up. “Would you like a cup of tea? I can-”

“Not at the moment, thank you,” Banks said. He didn’t want her crossing the path of the removal team. For one thing, it would upset and distract her, and for another she would start telling them off about trailing dirt in and out.

She walked over to the fireplace, straightened a porcelain figurine, then came and sat down in the same position. Alison went on reading her book. It was Villette, by Charlotte Brontë, Banks noticed. Surely a bit heavy for a fifteen-year-old?

“I understand your husband would drop in at the Black Sheep or the Rose and Crown now and then?” Banks asked.

“Yes. He wasn’t much of a drinker, but he liked to get out of the house for an hour or so. You do when you work at home, don’t you? You get to feel all cooped up. He’d usually walk there and back. It was good exercise. Businessmen often don’t exercise enough, do they, living such sedentary lives, but Keith believed in keeping in good shape. He swam regularly, too, in Eastvale, and he would sometimes go for long runs.” She started picking pieces of imaginary lint from her skirt. Banks heard a thud from the staircase, and this time he couldn’t stop her from dashing to the door and yanking it open.

“Watch what you’re doing, you clumsy little man!” she said. “Just look at this. You’ve gouged a hole in my wall. The plaster’s fallen off. You’ll have to pay for that, you know. I’ll be talking to your superior.” She popped her head back around the door and said, “I’ll make that tea now, shall I?” then disappeared into the kitchen.

Banks, still sitting, noticed Alison look up and raise her eyes. “She’s been like this since yesterday,” she said. “Can’t sit still. It’s even worse than usual.”

“She’s upset,” Banks said. “It’s her way of dealing with it.”

“Or not dealing with it. I saw him too, you know. Do you think I can forget so easily?”

“You’ve got to talk to each other,” Banks said. He noticed the book was shaking in her hands and she was making an effort to keep it still.

“If Tom doesn’t come home soon, I’m going to run away,” she said. “I can’t stand it any longer. She’s always going on about something or other and running about like a headless chi-” She put her hand to her mouth. “My God, what a thing to say. I’m awful, aren’t I? Oh, I hope Tom comes back soon. He must or I’ll go mad. We’ll both go mad.”

A bit melodramatic, Banks thought, but perhaps to be expected from a young girl on a steady diet of Charlotte Brontë.

Mary Rothwell came in bearing a tea tray and wearing a brave smile. Alison picked up her book again and lapsed into moody silence while her mother poured the tea into delicate china cups with hand-painted roses on the sides and gold around the rims. Banks always felt clumsy and nervous drinking from such fine china; he was afraid he would drop the cup or break off the flimsy handle while lifting it to his mouth.

“Why are they taking all Keith’s files anyway?” Mary Rothwell asked.

“We’re beginning to think that your husband might have been involved in some shady financial dealings,” Banks explained. “And they could have something to do with his murder.”

“Shady?” She said it as Lady Bracknell said, “A handbag?”

“He might not have known what he was involved in,” Banks lied. “It’s just a line of enquiry we have to follow.”

“I can assure you that my husband was as honest as the day is long.”

“Mrs. Rothwell, can you tell me anything about what your husband did when he was travelling on business?”

“How would I know? I wasn’t there.”

“Which hotels did he stay in? You must have phoned him.”

“No. He phoned me occasionally. He told me it was better that way for his tax expenses.” She shrugged. “Well, he was the businessman. I’ve already told you he travelled all over the place.”

“You never went with him?”

“No, of course not. I have an aversion to lengthy car rides. Besides, they were business trips. One doesn’t take one’s spouse on business trips.”

“So you’ve no idea what he got up to in Leeds or wherever?”

She put down her cup. “Are you implying something, Chief Inspector? Keith didn’t ‘get up to’ anything.”

Banks was dying for a cigarette. He finished the weak tea and put his cup and saucer down gently on the coffee-table. “Do you know if your husband was much of a gambler?” he asked.

“Gambler?” She laughed. “Good heavens, no. Keith never even bet on the Grand National, and most people do that, don’t they? No, money for my husband was too hard earned to be frittered away like that. Keith had a poor childhood, you know, and one learns the value of money quite early on.”

“What sort of childhood?”

“His father was a small shopkeeper, and they suffered terribly when the supermarkets started to become popular. He eventually went bankrupt. Keith didn’t like to talk about it.”

Banks remembered the cigarettes he had found among the contents of Rothwell’s pockets. “Did you know that your husband smoked?” he asked.

“One minor weakness,” Mary Rothwell said, turning up her nose. “It’s a smelly and unpleasant habit, as well as a possibly fatal one. I certainly wouldn’t let him do it in the house, and I was always trying to persuade him to stop.”

I’ll bet you were, Banks thought. “Have you ever heard of a woman called Pamela Jeffreys?” he asked.

Mary Rothwell frowned. For the first time, she sat back in the chair and gripped its arms with both hands. “No. Why?” Banks saw suspicion and apprehension in her eyes.

Outside, the van door closed and the engine revved up. Banks noticed Mrs. Rothwell glance toward the window. “They’re finished,” he said. “What about Robert Calvert? Does the name mean anything to you?”

She shook her head. “No, nothing. Look, what’s this all about? Are these the people you think killed Keith? Are these the ones who got him involved in this criminal scheme you were talking about?”

Banks sighed. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe, but I don’t know.”

“Why don’t you go and arrest them instead of bothering us?”

Banks didn’t think he was likely to get anything else out of Mary Rothwell, or out of Alison. He stood up. “I’m sorry we had to bother you,” he said. “We’ll be in touch as soon as we track down your son. And please let us know if you hear from him first. Don’t worry, I’ll see myself out.” And he left.

Maybe she hadn’t heard of Pamela Jeffreys, he thought as he got in the car, but he was certain that she suspected her husband might have been seeing another woman. It was there in her eyes, in the whiteness of her knuckles.

He slipped a Thelonious Monk tape in the deck and set off for his next appointment. As the edgy, repetitive figure at the opening of “Raise Four” almost pushed his ears to the limits of endurance, he wondered how long Mary Rothwell would be able to maintain her thinly-lacquered surface before the cracks started to show.

2

“Well, now, if it ain’t Mr. Banks again,” said Larry Grafton when Banks walked into the Black Sheep that lunch-time with The Sunday Times folded under his arm. “Twice in one week. We are honored. What can we do for you this time?”

“You could start with a pint of best bitter and follow it with a plate of your Elsie’s delightful roast beef and Yorkshire pud. And you could cut the bloody sarcasm.”

Grafton laughed and started pulling. Elsie’s Sunday lunches were another well-kept secret, and only a privileged few got to taste them. Banks didn’t fool himself that he was an accepted member of the elite; he knew damn well that publicans liked to keep on the good side of the law.

“And,” he said, when Larry handed him his pint, “I’d like a word with your Cathy, if I might.”

“About the Rothwells, is it?”

“Yes.”

“Aye. Well she’s just having her dinner. I’ll send her through when she’s done.”

“Thanks.”

Banks took his drink and sat by the tiled fireplace. Before he sat, he glanced at the collection of butterflies pinned to a board in a glass case on the wall. The pub wasn’t as busy as most on a Sunday lunch-time. Of course, there was no sandwich-board outside advertising “Traditional Sunday Lunch.”

Banks’s roast beef and Yorkshires came, as good as ever. Not for the first time, he reflected that Elsie’s was the only roast beef in Yorkshire, apart from Sandra’s, that was pink in the middle. As he ate, he propped the paper against a bottle of HP sauce and began to read an analysis of the growing political unrest on an obscure Caribbean island, feeling an irrational rage grow in him as he read. Christ, how he loathed these tinpot dictators, the ones who stuffed their maws with the best of everything while their subjects starved, who tortured and murdered anyone who dared to complain.

Just as he had picked up the books supplement, he noticed a tourist couple walk in and look around. They went to the bar and the man asked Larry Grafton what food he offered.

“Nowt,” said Grafton. “We don’t do food.”

The man looked toward Banks. “But he’s got some.”

“Last plate.”

The man looked at his watch. “But it’s only twelve-thirty.”

Grafton shrugged.

“Besides, you said you don’t do food. You’re contradicting yourself. You heard him, didn’t you, darling?”

His wife said nothing; she just stood there looking embarrassed. He had the kind of upper-class accent that expects immediate subservience, but he obviously didn’t know there could be nothing more calculated to get right up a Yorkshireman’s nose.

“Look,” said Grafton, “does the want a drink or doesn’t tha?”

“We want food,” the man said.

His wife tugged at his sleeve. “Come on, darling,” she whispered just in Banks’s range of hearing. “Don’t cause a fuss. Let’s go. There are plenty of other pubs.”

“But I-” The man glared petulantly at Grafton, who stared back stone-faced, then followed his wife’s advice.

“Really,” Banks heard him say on his way out, “you’d think these people didn’t want to make an honest living. They’re supposed to be in the service industry.”

Larry Grafton winked at Banks and ambled off to serve one of the locals. Banks reflected that maybe the tourist was right. What the hell was wrong with Larry Grafton? Nowt so queer as folk, he decided, and went back to his roast beef. A couple of minutes later, when he had just finished, Cathy Grafton came from the back and joined him. He folded up his newspaper, pushed his empty plate aside and lit a cigarette.

Cathy was a plump girl of about sixteen with a fringe and a blotchy complexion, as if she had been sitting too close to the fire too long. She also had the longest, curliest and most beautiful eyelashes Banks had ever seen.

“Dad says you want to talk to me,” she said, wedging herself into a chair. Her accent was thick, and Banks had to listen closely to understand everything she said, even though he had been in Swainsdale for four years.

“You helped Mary Rothwell do the housework at Arkbeck Farm, didn’t you?”

“Aye. I do for a few folk around here. I know I should be paying more mind to school, like, but Mum says we need t’money.”

Banks smiled. Not surprising, given the way Grafton scared business away. “What was it like, working at Arkbeck?” he asked.

Cathy frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Did you like working there?”

“It were all reet.”

“How about Mary Rothwell? Did you get along well with her?”

Cathy wouldn’t meet his eyes. She shifted in her chair and looked down at the scored table.

“Cathy?”

“I heard. It’s just I was always told not to speak ill.”

“Of the dead? Mary Rothwell isn’t dead.”

“No. Of me employer.”

“Am I to take it that you didn’t get along, then?”

“Take it as you will, Mr. Banks.”

“Cathy, this could be very important. Mr. Rothwell was killed, you know.”

“Aye, I know. It’s got nowt to do with her, though, does it?”

“We still need to know all we can about the family.”

Cathy contemplated the table for a while longer. More locals came in. One or two looked in Banks’s direction, nudged their friends and raised their eyebrows. “She were just bossy, that’s all,” Cathy said at last.

“Mary Rothwell was?”

“Aye. She’d stand over you while you were working, with her arms folded, like this, and tell you you’d missed a bit or you weren’t polishing hard enough. I used to hate doing for her. Will I still have to, do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Banks said. “What about Alison?”

“What about her?”

“You’re about the same age, surely you must have had things in common, things to talk about. Pop stars and the like.”

Cathy emitted a loud snort. “Little Miss La-di-da,” she sneered, then shook her head. “No, I can’t say as we did. She always had her nose stuck in a book.”

“You never chatted with her?”

“No. Every time she saw me she turned up her nose. Stuck-up little madam.”

“How did the family members get along with one another?”

“I weren’t there often enough to notice. Not when they was all together, like.”

“But you must have some idea, from your observations?”

“They didn’t say much. It were a quiet house. He were in his office, when he were at home, like, and I were never allowed up there.”

“Who cleaned it?”

“Dunno. Maybe he did it himself. I know he didn’t like people to go in. Look, Mr. Banks, I’ve got to get back and help me mum. Is there anything else?”

“Did you notice any changes in the family recently? Did they behave any differently?”

“Not so far as I could tell.”

“What about Tom, the son? Did you know him?”

“He were t’best of the lot,” Cathy said without hesitation. “Always had a smile and a good-morning for you.” She blushed.

“He’s been away for a while now. Did you notice any changes before he left?”

“They used to argue.”

“Who did?”

“Him and his father.”

“What about?”

“How would I know? I didn’t listen. Sometimes you couldn’t help but hear.”

“Hear what?”

“Just their voices, when they were shouting, like.”

“Did you ever hear what they were arguing about?”

“Once t’door were open a bit, and I heard his dad mention a name then say something like, ‘I’m disappointed in you.’ He said ‘shame,’ too.”

“What was a shame?”

“No. Just the word. I just heard the word ‘shame,’ that’s all. I could tell Mr. Rothwell were very angry, but he sounded cold, you know.”

“Did he say why he was disappointed?”

She shook her head.

“What was the name he mentioned?”

“Sounded like Aston or Afton or summat like that.”

“Did you hear what Tom said back?”

“He said, ‘You’re a right one to talk about being disappointed in me.’”

“Did you hear anything more?”

“No.” The chair scraped along the stone flags as she stood up. “I’ve got to go, really. Me mum’ll kill me.” And she hurried back behind the bar with surprising agility.

3

“Vic Manson matched prints from the Calvert flat with the ones from the body,” Gristhorpe explained back at the station later that afternoon. “There were a couple of other sets, too, mostly smudged, not on file.”

It was hot, and Banks was standing by the open window of his office. Gristhorpe sat with his feet up on the desk.

“So Rothwell was Calvert and Calvert was Rothwell,” Banks said.

“It certainly looks that way, aye.”

Banks leaned against the window frame and shook his head. “I still can’t believe it. All right, so we know Rothwell had a secretive side to his nature, and he was greedy, or desperate for cash, to the point of dishonesty once. But this Calvert sounds to me like some sort of playboy. If you could have heard Pamela Jeffreys. Casinos, races, dancing… bloody hell. And you should have seen her, the one he chucked over.”

“So you’ve told me already, two or three times at least,” Gristhorpe said with a smile. “A proper bobby-dazzler by the sound of her. I’ll take your word for it.”

“Well, she dazzled this bobby, anyway,” said Banks, sitting opposite Gristhorpe. He sighed. “I suppose we just have to accept it: Rothwell led a double life. Like Alec Guinness in that film about the ship’s captain.”

“The Captain’s Paradise?”

“That’s the one. The question we have to ask ourselves now is what, if anything, does that fact have to do with his murder?”

“Has the girlfriend dazzled you so much you haven’t considered she might have a part to play?”

“The thought’s crossed my mind once or twice, yes. I just can’t see how. Apparently Roth… Calvert found another woman five or six months ago. Pamela Jeffreys seemed to think he’d fallen in love. It’s her we need to find, but she hasn’t come forward yet.”

“There’s always jealousy as a motive, then.”

“I don’t think so. It’s possible, though. Maybe Mary Rothwell found out about him and arranged a hit.”

“I was thinking more about this Pamela Jeffreys.”

“Couldn’t afford it. She’s a classical musician. Besides, she didn’t really strike me as the jealous type. She said Calvert was just fun to be with. They never made any commitments.”

“She could be lying.”

“I suppose so.”

“And don’t forget the possible porn connection. If Rothwell was mixed up with beautiful women, even under another identity, who knows?”

Banks couldn’t believe it, but he didn’t bother protesting to Gristhorpe. “I’ll have to talk to her again anyway,” he said.

“Poor you.”

“What did the Fraud Squad have to say?”

Gristhorpe scratched his hooked nose. “Funny lot, aren’t they?” he said. “I spent a good part of this morning with DI Macmillan. Used to be in banking. Boring little bugger, but you should have seen his eyes light up when he heard about the locked files. Anyway, they’ve had a quick look at the stuff from Arkbeck Farm, and Macmillan and I had another chat about an hour ago. They haven’t much to go on, yet, of course, and they’re as anxious as young Phil for that by-pass software, but Macmillan’s even more excited now.”

“Where has the software got to, by the way?”

“On its way, according to Phil. Apparently they were out of stock but they managed to scrounge around.”

“Sorry. What did Macmillan have to say?”

“Well, he said he won’t know anything for certain until they manage to open some of those locked directories. He thinks that’s where the really interesting stuff is. But even some of the written documents in the filing cabinets gave him enough to suspect Rothwell was heavily into money-laundering or abetting tax evasion. Apparently, there was a fair bit of cryptic correspondence with foreign banks: Liechtenstein, Netherlands Antilles, Jersey, Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, among others. Dead giveaway, Macmillan said.”

“Tax havens,” said Banks. “Isn’t that what they are?”

Gristhorpe held up a finger. “Aha! That was my first thought, too. But they’re only tax havens because they have strict secrecy policies and a very flexible attitude toward whom they take on as their clients.”

“In other words,” offered Banks, “if you want to deposit a lot of money with them, they’ll take it, no questions asked?”

“That’s about it, aye. Within the law, of course. They do insist that they verify the money’s source is legal. When it comes down to it, though, banks are basically run on greed, aren’t they?”

“I won’t argue with that. So Keith Rothwell was putting a lot of money in foreign banks?”

“Macmillan thought he might have been acting for a third party. He could hardly have made that much money himself. It’s a very complicated business. As I said, either he was involved in aiding and abetting some pretty serious tax evasion, or he was part of a money-laundering scheme. There are still more questions than answers.”

“Did Macmillan tell you how this money-laundering business works?” Banks asked.

“Aye, a bit. According to him, it’s basically simple. It’s only in the application it gets complicated. What happens is that somebody gets hold of a lot of money illegally, and he wants it to look legal so he can live off it without raising any suspicions.” Gristhorpe paused.

“Go on,” Banks urged.

Gristhorpe ran his hand through his hair. “Well, that’s about it, really. I told you it was basically simple. Macmillan said it would take forever to explain all the technicalities of doing it. As far as legal money is concerned, he said, you can either earn it, borrow it or receive it as a gift. When you’ve laundered your dirty money, it has to look like it came to you one of those ways.”

“I assume we’re talking about drug money here,” Banks said. “Or the profits from some sort of organized crime – prostitution, pornography, loan sharks?”

Gristhorpe nodded. “You know as well as I do, Alan, that the top cats in the drug trade pull in enormous wads of cash every day. You can’t just walk into a showroom and buy a Rolls in cash without raising a few eyebrows, and the last thing you want is any attention from the police or the Inland Revenue.”

Banks walked over to the window again and lit a cigarette. Most of the cars were gone from the cobbled square now and the hush of an early Sunday evening had fallen over the town. A young woman in jeans and a red T-shirt struck a pose by the ancient market cross as her male companion took a photograph, then they got into a blue Nissan Micra and drove off.

“What’s in it for the launderer?” Banks asked.

“According to Macmillan, he’d get maybe four percent for laundering the safer sort of funds and up to ten percent for seriously dirty money.”

“Percent of what?”

“Depends,” said Gristhorpe. “On a cursory glance, Macmillan estimated between four and six million quid. He said that was conservative.”

“Over how long?”

“That’s four to six a year, Alan.”

“Jesus Christ!”

“Money worth murdering for, isn’t it? In addition to Rothwell’s legitimate earnings as a financial consultant, if he were in this money-laundering racket he also stood to earn, let’s say five percent of five million a year, to make it easy. How much is that?”

“Quarter of a million quid.”

“Aye, my arithmetic was never among the best. Well, no wonder the bugger could afford a BMW and a new kitchen.” He rubbed his hands together. “And that’s about it. Macmillan said they’ll start putting a financial profile together first thing in the morning: bank accounts, credit cards, building societies, Inland Revenue, loans, investments, the lot. He said they shouldn’t have any trouble getting a warrant from the judge, given the circumstances. He’s also getting in touch with the Yard. This is big, Alan.”

“What about Calvert?” Banks asked.

“Well, they’ll have to cover him too, now, won’t they?”

A sharp knock at the door was immediately followed by Phil Richmond holding a small package. “I’ve got it,” he said, an excited light in his eyes. “The by-pass software. Give me a few minutes to study the manual and we’ll see what we can do.”

They all followed him to the computer room, once a cupboard for storing cleaning materials, and stood around tensely in the cramped space while he booted up and consulted the instructions. All Rothwell’s computer gear and records were with the Fraud Squad, but Richmond had made back-up disks of the relevant files.

Susan Gay popped her head around the door and, finding no room left inside, stood in the doorway. Banks watched as Richmond went through a series of commands. Dialogue boxes appeared and disappeared; drive lights flashed on and off; the machine buzzed and hummed. Banks noticed Gristhorpe chewing on his thumbnail.

“Got it,” Richmond said. Then a locked file called SUMMARY.924 came to the screen:

“What the hell is all that about?” Banks asked.

“It looks like financial records for the last quarter of 1992,” Gristhorpe said. “Companies, banks, dates, maybe numbered accounts. Keep going, Phil. Try that ‘LETTER’ file you mentioned.”

Richmond highlighted the locked file, tapped at the keyboard again, and the file appeared unscrambled, for all to see.

It was a letter, dated May 1 and addressed to a Mr. Daniel Clegg, Solicitor, of Park Square, Leeds, and on first glance, it seemed innocuous enough:

Dear Mr. Clegg,

In the light of certain information that has recently come to my attention, I regret that we must terminate our association.

Yours faithfully,

Keith Rothwell

“That’s it?” Gristhorpe asked. “Are you sure you didn’t lose anything?”

Richmond returned to the keyboard to check, then shook his head. “No, sir. That’s it.”

Banks backed toward the door. “Interesting,” he said. “I wonder what ‘information’ that was?” He looked at Gristhorpe, who said, “Get it printed out, will you, Phil, before it disappears into the bloody ether.”