‘I told you before, I like to hear them. I don’t always agree, but sometimes I do.’
‘Fair enough. Then what would you have thought if Harry Goodhaven had disappeared for ever yesterday afternoon and you’d found his car later by a cliff, real or metaphorical?’
‘Suicide,’ he said promptly. ‘An admission of guilt.’
‘End of investigation? Books closed?’
He stared at me sombrely. ‘Perhaps. But unless we eventually found a body, there would also be the possibility of simple flight. We would alert Australia... look for him round the world. The books would remain open.’
‘But you wouldn’t investigate anyone else, because you would definitely consider him guilty.’
‘The evidence points to it. His flight or suicide would confirm it.’
‘But something about that evidence bothers you.’
I was beginning to learn about his expressions, or lack of them. The very stillness of his muscles meant that I’d touched something he’d thought hidden.
‘Why do you say so?’ he asked eventually.
‘Because you’ve made no arrest.’
‘That simple.’
‘Without your knowledge, I can only guess.’
‘Guess away,’ he invited.
‘Then I’d say perhaps Harry’s sunglasses and pen and belt were with Angela Brickell because she took them there herself.’
‘Go on,’ he said neutrally. It wasn’t, I saw, a new idea to him.
‘Didn’t you say her handbag had been torn open, the contents gone except for the photo in a zipped pocket?’
‘I did say so, yes.’
‘And you found chocolate wrappings lying about?’
‘Yes.’
‘And traces of dogs?’
‘Yes.’
‘And any dog worth his salt would bite open a handbag to get to the chocolate?’
‘It’s possible.’ He made a decision and a big admission. ‘There were toothmarks on the handbag.’
‘Suppose then,’ I said, ‘that she did in fact have a thing about Harry. He’s a kind and attractive man. Suppose she did carry his photo with the horse, not Fiona’s, who’s the owner after all. Suppose she’d managed to acquire personal things of Harry’s, his sunglasses, a pen, even a belt, and wore them or carried them with her, as young people do. They’d only be evidence of her crush on Harry, not of his presence at her death.’
‘I considered all that, yes.’
‘Suppose someone couldn’t understand why you didn’t arrest Harry, particularly in view of all the hounding in the papers, and decided to remove any doubts you might be showing?’
He sat for a while without speaking, apparently debating how many of his thoughts to share. Not many more, it transpired.
‘Whoever took Harry’s car,’ I said, ‘removed my jacket and boots as well. I took them off before I went through the floor into the dock.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me that?’ He seemed put out, severe.
‘I’m telling you now.’ I paused. ‘I would think that whoever took those things is very worried indeed now to find that I was with Harry and that he is alive. I’d say there wasn’t supposed to be any reason to think Harry had gone to Sam’s boatyard. No one would ever have looked for him there. I’d say it was an attempt to confirm Harry’s guilt that went disastrously wrong, leaving you with bristling new doubts and a whole lot more to investigate.’
He said formally, ‘I would like you to be present at the boatyard tomorrow morning.’
‘What do you think of the place?’ I asked.
‘I’ve taken statements from Mr and Mrs Goodhaven and others,’ he said stiffly. ‘I haven’t been to the boatyard yet. It has, however, been cordoned off. Mr Yaeger is meeting me there tomorrow at nine a.m. I would have preferred this afternoon but it seems he is riding in three races at Wincanton.’
I nodded. Tremayne had gone there, also Nolan. Another clash of the Titans.
‘You know,’ Doone said slowly, ‘I had indeed started to question others besides Mr Goodhaven.’
I nodded. ‘Sam Yaeger for one. He told us. Everyone knew you’d begun casting wider.’
‘The lass had been indiscriminate,’ he said regretfully.
Tremayne lent me his Volvo to go to the boatyard in the morning, reminding me before I set off that it was the day of the awards dinner at which he was to be honoured.
I’d seen the invitation pinned up prominently by Dee-Dee in the office: most of the racing world, it seemed, would be there to applaud. For Tremayne, though he made a few self-deprecating jokes about it, the event gave proof of the substance of his life, much like the biography.
Sam and Doone were already in the boatyard by the time I’d found my way there, neither of them radiating joy, Sam’s multicoloured jacket only emphasising the personality clash with grey plain clothes. They’d been waiting for me, it seemed, in a mutual absence of civility.
‘Right, sir,’ Doone said, as I stood up out of the car, ‘we’ve done nothing here so far. Moved nothing. Please take us through your actions of Wednesday afternoon.’
Sam said crossly, ‘Asking for sodding trouble, coming here.’
‘As it turned out,’ Doone said placidly. ‘Go on, Mr Kendall.’
‘Harry said he was due to meet someone in the boathouse, so we went over there.’ I walked where we’d gone, the others following. ‘We opened this main door. It wasn’t locked.’
‘Never is,’ Sam said.
