By evening Sloan was back at his home in Berebury, a disappointed man. Sitting at his own fireside going over a case in his mind for the umpteenth time was in his view no way for a married man and father to be spending a family Saturday night.
‘Bad day?’ asked his wife, after he had sat silent, staring at the fire for too long.
‘What? Oh, sorry. Yes.’ He sat up straighter and said, ‘We’re not getting anywhere with the death of Susan Port. In fact, we seem to be going backwards. I had high hopes of ergot being found in either the loaves in her house or the flour she was using for baking, but it hasn’t been.’
She nodded intelligently.
‘Not only that,’ said her husband. ‘On top of it all there’s now a badly injured man lying unconscious in hospital who may or may not have anything to do with the case.’
‘The godson?’
He nodded. ‘Terry Galloway, we’re pretty sure. At least there’s not a lot of doubt about that. We think he’s the man who left his rucksack at the Bellingham when he checked in there on Thursday evening. Passport, letters from Mrs Port saying she was looking forward to seeing him, spare kit – the lot – all in his room. No, that’s not quite true. He’d lodged his passport and money in the hotel safe.’
‘Nobody’s fool, then,’ observed Margaret Sloan.
‘It didn’t do him any good. He’s still hasn’t come round, although the ward sister at the hospital did tell me that they thought he would be doing so pretty soon. Apparently, they can see signs of it after a head injury that a layman can’t.’
‘Everyone’s a specialist these days,’ she said.
‘Sure, except policemen. We’re just maids of all work.’
‘Now, now,’ she chided him.
‘I’ve just come from the hospital, anyway, checking that the bed watch is set up there for the night.’
‘You think he’s still in danger?’
‘I don’t know what to think,’ growled Sloan morosely. ‘We can only surmise that it was the intruder who dotted him on the head.’
‘It seems likely,’ observed his wife.
‘“Seems likely” isn’t evidence,’ he came back quickly.
Too quickly.
‘Sorry, love. I’d forgotten I wasn’t still at work.’
‘You are,’ she said drily.
‘So we don’t even know whether this man Galloway knew whether his godmother was already dead or if he knew that he was her sole beneficiary.’ He paused. ‘Actually, he still may be that, but he won’t be getting any of the Mayton money, for sure. That’s because she’d died—’
‘Or been killed,’ pointed out Margaret Sloan.
‘Or been killed,’ he said, accepting the amendment, ‘before the trust could be wound up. There’ll be nothing for him now from that quarter.’
‘So that it still means that there’s more money for the others?’
‘Yes, it doesn’t change anything else in that way,’ he said.
‘So why was he hit on the head?’ Margaret Sloan frowned.
‘The only reason that I can think of is that he saw someone at or in the house whom theoretically he might be able to recognise at some stage but who didn’t want to be seen.’
‘And what was anyone doing in the house anyway?’
‘That we don’t know either.’ He sighed. ‘If whoever it was had come looking for the computer, they were out of luck. That’s sitting safely down at the station.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘And much good that’ll do anyone, anyway. I’ve already told you that I’ve stared at it until I’m blue in the face. All the Mayton legatees look as if they’ve got cast-iron claims to the money. Simon Puckle had got all their descents from old Algernon laid out in just the same way – an unbroken line through whichever parent – father or mother – descended from him. We don’t even know if it’s relevant.’
‘Difficult.’ Margaret Sloan knitted her eyebrows together. ‘Anything else in the computer that might come into it?’
‘We’ve got the specialists looking at it now, but they always take their time. There was just the one thing that I told you about – the pencil question mark on the family tree after Tom Culshaw’s name that Susan Port’d printed out from the computer.’
‘But she didn’t say why?’
He shook his head. ‘Nope. Obviously, we’ll be interviewing him soonest.’
‘So what else beside the computer might the intruder have come to Mrs Port’s cottage for?’
‘Search me. It’s just one more of the things we don’t know.’ He sighed again. ‘I can’t even say that I know what the death of Susan Port is all about. I wish I did.’
‘Money,’ said Margaret Sloan decisively, unconsciously echoing Superintendent Leeyes. ‘Must be, if there’s such a lot of it about.’
In the ordinary way Saturday evening was the best one of the week for Clive Culshaw. This was because it was the only night that he could stay up late and have a drink or two with impunity, Sunday morning not requiring him to be early at the bakery. It was the one evening, too, that by long convention his wife didn’t head out to her bridge club. She usually made a point of staying in unless, that is, there was a really important match.
‘It’s against the Calleford Duplicate Club, dear,’ she began tentatively, ‘and I’d really like to play. The captain wants me to partner him. That’s a real feather in my cap – he’s such a good player.’
Clive Culshaw couldn’t have been more magnanimous. ‘You go, dear,’ he said kindly, ‘and have a good evening. Mind you and the captain win, now …’
She had barely left the house before he headed out himself. He made first for the Bellingham Hotel, parked his car in their car park and had a quick drink at the bar to validate its being left there. Then he walked into the town, making for the east and least salubrious quarter of it by the Postern Gate. It was down by the river that the members of the congregation of St Peter’s Church there handed out soup to the down-and-outs on cold nights. He soon found a man he decided was John Holness, of his charity Latchless, presiding over a line of men he himself mentally categorised as undesirables. John Holness on the other hand, clearly saw them as human beings in need of the help that he and his friends gave them.
Culshaw waited until there was a little lull in the queue for hot soup and then went up to him and asked if indeed he was the John Holness from Latchless.
‘Yes, I am. Have you come to give us a hand? We’re always glad of any help.’
‘Not exactly. I’m looking for someone.’
Holness’s face hardened. ‘Then I can’t help you. It’s strictly a policy of “no names” for helper or helpless here.’
‘It would be to his advantage.’
‘They all say that and what they mean is that we’ll take him home, clean him up and get him off the drink and he’ll be all right for ever afterwards. What we’ve learnt at Latchless is that it doesn’t work like that.’
‘Very much to his advantage,’ persisted Culshaw.
‘Not always, it isn’t, mate. If a man chooses to live like this, then who are we to stop him?’
‘His family,’ said Clive Culshaw.
‘They,’ declared Holness richly, ‘are nearly always what drove the man here in the first place. As far as I’m concerned, you can stuff families.’ He looked suspiciously at Culshaw. ‘You family?’
‘Only in a manner of speaking.’
‘So like I said, it’ll be to your advantage to find him, then, will it? Not his.’
Culshaw changed the subject. ‘All I want is a name and whether or not you’ve seen the man.’
‘Well, you won’t get either info from me, mate, I can tell you, whoever you are. Our help, unlike that of most people, is unconditional. We are adjured to feed the hungry and that is exactly what we’re doing. I’m afraid we can’t harbour the harbourless, though – not here.’ He suddenly moved quickly across the table and shouted to a man stuffing bread into his pocket. ‘You, there! Two slices of bread a head. Not ten for tomorrow.’
‘I heard you,’ said a man with a grizzled beard, shuffling away. ‘No need to shout.’
Culshaw quoted a line in the song ‘One Meatball’. ‘Except,’ he added lightly, ‘it looks to me as if they don’t get the meatball here, either.’
‘Hunger,’ Holness said stiffly, ‘is not a suitable subject for humour.’
‘I suppose not. By the way, the man I’m looking for is called Daniel Elland.’
‘Most men here don’t use their real names, especially if the police should happen to want to talk to them, too.’ Holness gave a half-smile. ‘Mickey Mouse is quite popular, although we do get Bonnie and Clyde now and then if there’s a woman about. Or Napoleon. That’s very popular and doesn’t need a psychologist to explain it.’
‘But,’ Culshaw went on as if Holness hadn’t spoken, ‘if you do hear the name mentioned, I’d very much like to know.’ He fished a business card out of his pocket and handed it over to John Holness.
The man from Latchless took it in his hand and read his name out aloud. ‘Clive Culshaw? You’re the bloke that owns that big bakery the other side of the railway, aren’t you?’
Culshaw nodded.
‘We’ve often wondered what you do with your leftovers – bread and cakes you haven’t sold and such like,’ said Holness.
‘There’s a farmer out in the country who takes it for his pigs.’
‘Really?’ Holness leant back on his heels and regarded Culshaw for a long moment. ‘There’s an old adage about pigs being equal.’
‘Is there?’
‘Well, I don’t think they are.’
‘No?’
‘No. What I think is that people should have first go at good food.’
Culshaw, a salesman at heart, automatically tried to do a deal. ‘And if I were to steer it your way, would I get to know if anyone called Daniel Elland hangs out here?’
‘You most certainly would not,’ barked Holness. ‘We respect a man’s privacy even if you don’t.’
As far as Clive Culshaw was concerned that left him with just the one option: finding the man himself. He drifted off into the shadows much as those taking their soup had done and considered what to do next. He went up to a man squatting in a doorway, his dog beside him.
‘It isn’t Daniel Elland, is it?’ he began politely. As an approach he thought it was as good as any. The man’s dog apparently didn’t think so because it drew its lips back in a snarl that exposed quite a lot of teeth. Culshaw withdrew without getting any response from the man himself.
He next tried the same approach on a bearded man too firmly attached to the neck of a wine bottle to speak. The man’s companion shouted something so offensive at him that Clive Culshaw decided that it was better not to have heard it. Catching sight of a little convenience store in the distance he changed his plan and went over to it.
The shopkeeper presiding over it was more useful when Culshaw explained his quest. ‘You won’t get much help finding your Daniel Elland from anyone living on the streets. They’ve mostly fallen out with anything that smacks of authority long ago. This man you’re looking for – how old would he be?’
‘Late fifties, I should say. Sixty, perhaps.’
‘Then look for someone looking ten years older. You don’t age well without a roof over your head.’ The man behind the counter moved over to serve a single can of beer to a man smelling to high heaven. ‘What does he look like, this guy you’re looking for?’ he asked when he slid back along the counter in front of Culshaw.
Clive Culshaw had to confess that he didn’t know. ‘It’s a bit of a needle in a haystack job, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘It’s a long shot that he’s round here at all.’
‘The place where you would have been likely to find most of them congregating is in that shelter behind the Berebury supermarket because it’s dry, but the firm have rigged up one of those sonic deterrents to keep them out and now they’re kipping all over the place. Doorways, mostly.’
Culshaw thanked him and resumed his search, turning into a promising-looking alley hoping to find someone who would talk to him without being seen. He hadn’t gone very far when he felt himself being grabbed from behind. A hoarse voice hissed into his ear, ‘You looking for Daniel Elland?’
Clive Culshaw gave his head a jerk in assent and tried to turn his head to face whoever it was who was speaking to him but found himself too tightly pinioned to move. ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘So are we,’ said his attacker. ‘And we want to talk to the clever sod before anyone else does. Get it?’
It was the last thing Clive Culshaw remembered hearing before being poleaxed and flung to the ground.