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“YOU KNOW, I’VE BEEN thinking,” said Des, as he handed Megan a cake tin filled with the results of a morning spent in the kitchen. “I do all my best thinking when I’m baking.”
“Ooh, lavender Madeleines and lemon bars,” said Megan, taking one of each.
“I’ve tweaked the lemon recipe,” said Des. “Sylvie said the last lot were too tart, so I’ve added a little more honey to these.”
Megan took a bite and gave a little sigh of contentment. “Mmm, perfect. Anyway, you were saying.”
“I was just going to say it occurred to me that it’s odd that whoever attacked Gordon used the dish to kill him, don’t you think?”
Megan lifted a shoulder. “Not really. Whoever it was probably wasn’t expecting to bump into anyone at that time of the morning, so they went empty-handed. Once they’d taken the dish, it was the only thing they had to hand to stop Gordon from calling for help.”
“Yes, but assuming they knew it was a priceless antiquity, you’d have thought they’d be a bit more careful with it, wouldn’t you? I mean, it’s survived since the twelfth century, and for decades on my kitchen counter, but if I’d ever dropped it, it would have smashed to smithereens.”
“Well, of course it would—it was delicate, wasn’t it?”
“Delicate enough that you wouldn’t want to be flinging it around to incapacitate someone with,” said Des. “For all we know, it might not even be in one piece any more. That could be why there were traces of iron oxide in the wound on Gordon’s neck; because the dish was chipped.”
“Hmm, I suppose so,” said Megan, taking another lemon bar from the tin. “But why would someone go to all the trouble of stealing something so valuable and then risk ruining it? The value would drop significantly if it was damaged, wouldn’t it?”
Des scratched his chin and tapped his pen against his notebook. “Maybe the killer didn’t care if it got damaged, which leads me to believe they weren’t interested in the dish for financial gain.”
Megan chewed her mouthful thoughtfully. “Well, if a dish worth a quarter of a million pounds wasn’t stolen for financial gain, why on earth was it stolen?”
“For a reason yet to be discovered, I suppose,” said Des.
They stared at each other, Des breaking the silence first.
“Do you think we should pop in and see DI Cambridge?”
“I absolutely do,” said Megan, sneaking one more cake from the tin. “Come on.”
ººººººº
“Interesting theory,” said Sam, rising from his chair and digging his hands into his pockets as he strode around the room. “So, if the dish wasn’t stolen for financial gain, it’s unlikely that the motive was greed.”
Des nodded. “I agree. If someone was prepared to use it like a weapon, they obviously weren’t too worried about damaging it. That being the case, I doubt they were thinking about taking it out of the village to be valued. While every antique dealer in the country is on the lookout for it, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s still in Bliss Bay, right under our noses.”
Sam gazed out of the window and twiddled his thumbs as he contemplated Des’s theory. “So, it was important to someone, but not for its value.” He shook his head. “But why else would someone want to steal a priceless antiquity, if not to benefit financially from it? That’s the question we need to find the answer to.”
Harvey waited until Des and Megan had left before presenting Sam with another theory. “It’s odd, don’t you think, that whoever killed Gordon Campbell possibly wasn’t bothered about profiting from the dish, and whoever killed Bruce Connery could easily have taken his wallet full of cash and his gold ring, but didn’t.”
Sam rubbed his chin and sat back in his chair. “Two killers, neither of whom, it seems, took the opportunity to help themselves to easy money. Another similarity between the two cases. And one which poses quite a conundrum ...”
ººººººº
The following morning, Sam was at his desk long before anyone else arrived. Something had been bothering him since his conversation with Harvey the following day, and he finally knew what it was.
He was pouring a cup of coffee when Harvey arrived and pulled up a chair at his desk.
“Boss?” Harvey took off his jacket and loosened his tie before sitting down and stretching out his legs.
“Do you remember the day that Gordon Campbell was killed and we went to speak to Vince Berman about the conversation he’d had with him in the pub the night before? When Gordon was there with Des Harper?”
“Yep. What of it?”
“I was thinking about what he said about living a modest lifestyle. Not needing fancy things or much money, just enough to live comfortably.” Sam tapped his pen on the desk. “And I was thinking about our conversation yesterday.
“You think he could be our killer?”
“Well, it might explain why two men were killed, but the killer showed no interest in the valuable items in their possession; in the case of Gordon Campbell, the dish, and in the case of Bruce Connery, the wallet and the ring. Bear in mind, though, that when Mr Connery was killed, Vince Berman would have been in his late teens, early twenties. Also, there’s no motive that we’re aware of for him wanting to kill either man.”
They sat in silence for a while. “He wasn’t keen on his daughter renovating the basement, was he?” said Harvey. “He said it was because he thought she was taking on too much, too soon, but what if the real reason was because he knew what was down there? Too risky to have Lydia and her boyfriend poking around in case they found something they shouldn’t.”
“Still doesn’t give us a motive.” Sam tapped his pen on the desk. “But let’s go and have a chat with him.”
ººººººº
“Well, I’m more than happy to help if I can, but I didn’t know Bruce very well. And he was a few years older than me, so not in the circle of friends I hung around with.”
In the kitchen of his humble mid-terraced house, Vincent Berman cleaned his paintbrushes in the sink before putting them in a jam jar to dry. “Apart from which, he was a pretty intimidating guy, so I kept well away. I’m a whimsical artist and poet, detectives, and I’ve always been a lover, not a fighter.” He chuckled and shook his hands before wiping them dry on the front of his trousers. “Eddie—Alison’s dad—and his wife, Janet, knew him, though, so I’d see him around from time to time. But then Janet left, and everything changed.” Vince pulled a face and said no more.
“Would you mind telling us what changed?”
Vince sank into the couch cushion, scratching the ancient-looking cat that jumped up beside him. “Well Eddie changed, for a start. Which meant that Alison changed. Even I changed a little. It was a difficult time for Eddie—a very emotional time—so everyone in his immediate circle was affected. Between you and me, I think it’s safe to say that he went off the rails a little. He’d never been the reckless type, but he went that way for a while.”
“Reckless in what way?” asked Harvey. “Can you give us any examples of how his behaviour changed?”
“Oh, crazy things, really. He’d speed up when he was coming up to a traffic light instead of slowing down, to see if he could get through before it turned red—he almost gave Alison and I a heart attack when he gave us a lift to poetry club one evening. And he’d go outside and run around during a thunderstorm when the lightning was crackling right above his head. That kind of thing. Nothing that hurt anyone else—although the traffic light caper could have backfired—and it didn’t last long, but it was worrying while it did. Especially for Alison.
“And after Janet left, he stopped hanging around with Bruce and Martha, so I saw Bruce even less.” Vince raised a shoulder, and lifted the cat onto his lap. “Things just changed, y’know?”
“Do you know why Mr Landon’s wife left him?”
“I heard it was because he had an eye for the ladies, but I wouldn’t know much about that.”
Sam nodded and scribbled in his notebook, then looked up and held Vince’s gaze. “Would you mind explaining why you were so against your daughter carrying out renovations to her business premises? The last time DS Decker and I were here, I recall her saying that she wanted to build a workshop.”
Vince’s eyebrows dipped. “Well, I’m not sure why that’s relevant but if you must know, I was against it—as was her mother—because it’s a new business. And Lydia’s always been headstrong, so we wanted to be sure she wasn’t biting off more than she could chew. Alison and I usually adopt the slowly-slowly approach in life, and we consider everything we do carefully, whereas Lydia’s more of a risk taker. We always say she must get it from her grandad.
“Anyway, to answer your question, we’ve always been cautious with our finances, so we could hardly encourage Lydia to do something we wouldn’t. It completely went against our principles. Mind you, if we’d known there was a body in the basement, she’d never have bought the shop in the first place.”
“It was a very unfortunate accident that her boyfriend had, wasn’t it?” said Harvey.
“Max? It was awful. We all felt so helpless. Poor guy was only trying to help, and look where it got him. He lost his parents years ago, so we’ve been helping him out by paying for his pain meds—the cost mounts up after a while. He’s much better now, though. Regular physio is helping him a lot.”
Vince looked at the clock on the wall, then from Sam to Harvey. “Look, I’m happy to answer whatever you want me to, but do you mind if I start dinner while we chat? We’re taking food round to Lydia and Max tonight to save her cooking, and I’d like to get a bit of work done on my home study degree before we leave.”
Sam and Harvey exchanged a glance. “I think you’ve told us all we need to know for now, Mr Berman,” said Sam. “Thanks for your time.”
ººººººº
“Call it intuition, but I don’t think Vince Berman’s our man,” said Harvey.
Sam shook his head. “Me neither.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever found any case as frustrating as these two are proving to be,” said Harvey. “It’s been almost three months and we still haven’t got a sniff of who could be responsible for Gordon’s death. I always knew that Bruce’s killer would be harder to find, but what the hell are we missing?”
“Whatever it is, once we find it, all the clues we have will suddenly fit together,” said Sam. “And I know we’ll find it, because I won’t stop until we do.”
