The day had been a long one and that night Cross went to practise the organ. As always in situations like this, where cases became more difficult and the solution didn’t seem anywhere in sight, he found playing cleared his mind. At these times he would always play pieces that were familiar to him, so he didn’t have to think. He just played instinctively, freeing up his mind to juggle the facts of the case in hand. The sounds of the organ, particularly the low pedal notes reverberating off the walls, in an almost physical way, put him in a familiar safe and comforting solitary place. He began thinking about the Moreton case. For him there were currently only two possible leads to follow. Who came to Moreton’s door in the days leading up to the murder? A visit which threw Moreton, according to Napier. The other was the dog. Moreton was bitten by a dog during his fatal attack. Swift had concluded categorically that it was a Rhodesian Ridgeback. Did it belong to Brook? He was surprised to learn that there were now over eleven thousand of that breed in the UK.
As it was the first Thursday of the month, he had been expecting his mother that night. But neither she nor Stephen were there after he finished practice. So, he cycled home. Back at the flat he made himself a cup of tea and a ham sandwich. He only ever had a sandwich after organ practice because Stephen normally gave him a slice of cake and his appetite was thus diminished. The sandwich had become part of his routine, a habit, and habits were something Cross had a problem changing.
He sat down and began looking at several links about Richard Brook he’d saved on his laptop. There was as little information about his private life as you would expect from a man who had spent his entire career in the civil service. People like that had a tendency to be in the shadows and deliberately not seek the limelight. It made their job easier and less complicated that way. But it was on his Wikipedia page, not always an entirely reliable source of information, Cross felt, that he saw a tiny detail which had hitherto evaded him. In his biography were the names of his parents, Martin and Hilary. His father was still alive but Cross noticed that his mother had died that year – just a month before Moreton’s death. The mother who had been so insistent on sending Adam Brook to Moreton’s crammer. It was exactly the kind of small detail that Cross knew often proved to be significant.
He picked up his phone and dialled Cal Napier’s number.
‘Mr Cross!’ exclaimed the voice on the other end of the line.
‘DS Cross,’ he corrected him.
‘That’s the one! What’s up? What can I do for you, sir?’
‘I’m going to send you five photographs of different men. I want you to tell me if you recognise any of them as the man who came to the cottage and discombobulated Alistair Moreton,’ Cross said.
‘Disco—what?’
‘The man who came and seemed to upset him. But I want to make it clear that it may well not be any of them,’ Cross stipulated.
‘Okay, bro. Fire away!’
Cross then sent over five pictures of various men taken from recent online articles which he numbered one to five. Three minutes later his phone rang.
‘That’s him, definitely,’ Napier said.
‘Which one?’
‘Number four.’
‘Are you certain?’
‘Definitely. I had eyes on him the whole time.’
‘Were you able to hear what they were talking about?’
‘No, but it started out all right then the man, number four, he got quite upset. Started shouting and jabbing his finger at the old man. Filip thought he might have to step in at one point.’
‘Did Gallinis see him as well?’ Cross asked.
‘Yep.’
‘Give me his number,’ Cross demanded.
‘What? I can’t do that. Data protection an’ all that,’ Cal protested.
‘Mr Napier, this could be vitally important.’
‘Okay, because it’s you, right? And remember this is a favour. You owe me, man,’ Cal laughed.
Ten minutes later Gallinis confirmed the same thing. Cross double-checked that he hadn’t spoken with Napier about it, and he swore he hadn’t. He confirmed that the man in the picture who had a confrontation with Alistair Moreton at the cottage was Sir Richard Brook.