On Beulah Height

SEVEN

Shirley Novello had always believed you needed a High Court Order, if not a Papal Dispensation, to persuade banks to break the seal of confidentiality on a client’s account.

But now she discovered, as many before her in Mid-Yorkshire, that all seals flew asunder at the Open Sesame of Dalziel’s name.

Or perhaps it was the smile that did it, she thought, as she followed Pascoe’s instructions to the letter and smiled knowingly at Willie Noolan of the Mid-Yorkshire Savings Bank.

He smiled back, more lecherous than knowing, then turned to a computer keyboard.

‘Old Agnes Lightfoot? She still alive? By God, you’re right,’ he said, peering at the screen. ‘Not much there, but. No one’s going to get rich when she snuffs it.’

‘It’s fifteen years back, Mr Dalziel’s interested in,’ said Novello.

‘Before we got computerized,’ said Noolan nostalgically.

‘So, no record?’ said Novello, disappointed.

‘For shame! You don’t get to be a bank by throwing stuff away. It’ll be in the cellar. My lad, Herbert, will soon ferret it out. Herbert!’

Herbert, far from being a lad, was perfect evidence of the bank’s reluctance to throw anything away, appearing to a neutral eye more years the far side of a rail-pass than the near side of a requiem.

He moved on nimble feet, however, and in a very short space with even shorter breath he was laying on Noolan’s desk a file as creased and dusty as his own suit.

‘Thank you, Herbert,’ said the manager. ‘Go and have a lie down till you get your wind.’

‘Isn’t he a little old to be working?’ said Novello after he’d panted his way out of the office.

‘You think so? And aren’t you a little young to be asking?’

‘Sorry,’ said Novello.

‘Nay, lass, don’t look so crestfallen!’ laughed Noolan. ‘Herbert’s long retired. Only he prefers it here to home. Says his wife makes demands. I can’t imagine what he means. Now, let’s take a look, shall we? Oh yes. There it is, I thought it rang a bell. Fifty thousand paid in as compensation by the Water Board. That was the end of July. Then a short while after, forty-nine thousand withdrawn. In cash. Aye, I recall it now. Cash withdrawal like that, everyone wants someone else to sign. More signatures here than a peace treaty. It all comes back now. I tried dissuading her, but she told me if I didn’t want her business there was plenty as did. And off she went with the loot in a carpet bag.’

‘And this was fifteen years ago?’

‘So I said.’

‘And the money’s never come back into her account?’

He checked, right through to the time when Agnes’s account was transferred to computer recording.

‘Not a thing.’

‘Well, thank you very much for your co-operation,’ said Novello. ‘Mr Dalziel will be pleased.’

‘I’m glad of that. Always happy to help the police, but tell him the slate’s beginning to look a bit bare. You don’t save with us, do you, luv?’

‘I don’t earn enough to save with anyone,’ said Novello. ‘Sorry!’

She examined the facts as she left the building. This let Winifred off the hook. Like Billie Saltair had said, she might be greedy but she’d done nothing dishonest. In fact, old Aunt Agnes had rather taken advantage of her cupidity. She probably guessed that it was only the thought of the compensation money that had made her niece take her in. And for all the years she’d spent in Branwell Close, she’d made damn sure Winifred never got a look at her bank statements. But her guard had dropped when she’d had her second stroke and once Winifred saw the state of her accounts, the road to Wark House had been opened. Or rather, the road back from it had been closed.

So now the crazy scenario in which Benny Lightfoot, with the help of his gran’s money, fled to Australia whence he had returned to start killing children again took another step towards realization.

This meant someone had to talk to Agnes. Someone! It meant she had to talk to the old lady.

Which meant first of all talking to Billie Saltair.

She rang rather than making the journey back to Sheffield. It was a wise move.

‘Not today,’ said the matron firmly. ‘We’ve just put her to bed. She’s not at all well, very feverish. If she gets any worse, we’ll call in the doctor. Ring me in the morning.’

Would the Holy Trinity have insisted? Novello wondered. Big Andy was quite capable of interrogating a frail old woman on her deathbed, but was even he capable of pushing past Billie Saltair?

It would have been a battle worth paying ring-side prices to see.

Novello knew better than to fight outside her weight unless forced by dire necessity.

‘I’ll ring you tomorrow,’ she said.

As if mollified by this ready compliance, the matron said, ‘One thing might interest you. Probably nothing to do with Agnes’s visitor, but one of our handymen I was chatting to recalled seeing a white van, like a camper van, he said, bumping down the drive that Friday morning.’

Novello smiled. Detective work was contagious. Even Billie Saltair wasn’t immune.

‘Thanks a lot,’ she said, putting some warmth into her voice this time. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

She put the phone down, picked it up again and got through to the Danby incident centre. Wield was around somewhere but not immediately visible, so she left her update with DI Headingley, who thanked her avuncularly like she was a little girl tolerated in the adult world for her lisping voice and golden locks. But to some extent this was preferable to the anticipated response of the sergeant who, she felt, would rather she didn’t come up with any more evidence to support a Benny’s Back scenario.

And was he back? she wondered. Certainly someone was back.

She stood at the window of the CID room, wide open in hope of encouraging a cooling draught. All she got, however, were fumes and noise from the traffic in the street below. She raised her eyes to the Madonna blue sky above the Franciscan grey roofs and said, ‘So where are you now, my wild colonial boy?’

If she’d been a little humbler and cast her eyes down instead of up, she might have seen the ‘boy’ in question pause outside the main entrance of Mid-Yorkshire Police Headquarters and peer up at the old blue lamp which still hung there. She might have observed that for a moment it looked as if he was making up his mind to enter and share whatever was troubling him with those within.

Then the moment was past. He turned away and in a few steps was lost from view.