‘Probably nothing, ma’am. There are some questions around Mr Summers’s death, that’s all.’
‘I won’t be much good. I never even knew what he looked like.’
‘You never saw him, ever?
‘Nope. I’ll miss him, though. He was an easy client.’
‘How so?’
‘He never cried when he lost. Some of my clients cry the house down every time they lose a thousand dollars.’
Christ, so would I, lady. ‘Can you remember the last time you talked to him?’
‘Sure, last Friday when he called from Montreal.’
‘Did you do any business then?’
‘No. We didn’t buy anything or sell anything. I had some good news for him, though. He made two thousand dollars that day.’
‘How?’
‘On the sovereignty referendum. He bought two Canadian dollars, and when the sovereignty results came in he had made a full cent.’
‘Two cents?’
‘A thousand dollars a cent. A hundred points.’
‘I see. He bought two hundred thousand dollars the day before and now they were worth two hundred and two thousand. Right?’
‘That’s right, Inspector. More or less.’
‘That’s a lot of money, isn’t it?’
‘It’s two contracts.’
‘He must have had over two hundred thousand dollars on deposit with you?’ Salter saw Mrs Summers smiling to herself.
‘Inspector, I’m very busy, but I’ll give you a short course in commodity trading. To buy a hundred thousand Canadian dollars you only have to put up thirty-five hundred, the amount you might lose in a bad week, say. David used seven thousand, or about half of his equity on those two contracts. He was one of our teeny-weeny accounts. If everything went bad he could lose the lot in three days.’
‘Could he, by Christ. But this time he won?’
‘That’s right. And you know why he was so happy? He did it himself. I advised against it and he always took our advice, but this time he wanted to make a bet on his own. I can’t get it up for the Canadian dollar, but he was sure of this one. He was happy as hell when he won. I’ll miss him.’
‘Thank you very much, Miss Stone.’
‘OK, Boss.’
Salter had a thought. ‘By the way, if I wanted to get in on this, would you take me on?’
‘Sure. We’ve upped the ante, though. You’d need a bit more cash.’
‘How much?’
‘Seventy-five thousand would get you started. A hundred would be better.’
‘Thanks.’ Salter hung up, and returned to his chair. ‘That clears up David’s lucky day,’ he said. David? Since when did the corpse have a first name? This was all getting a shade cosy.
Mrs Summers said, ‘He’s won that much before. I wonder why he made such a big deal of it? Still, that’s it, then. End of mystery. Would you like some lunch, Inspector? I could make some scrambled eggs.’
Salter shook himself. ‘No, thanks, ma’am. I have work to do. I know now about his lucky day, and I also know about one of the phone calls—it was to her, the broker.’ He felt the wallet in his pocket, and handed it to her. ‘Your husband’s wallet, Mrs Summers. Would you check it, and give me a receipt for it? We’ve photostated everything in it.’
She took it gingerly, and turned it over. Then she laid out the contents on the table and checked them against the itemized list that formed the receipt. ‘Money, credit cards, driver’s licence, charge slips, receipts, lottery tickets—I’ll have to check those, I suppose—library cards, squash club membership. Here you go, Inspector,’ she scribbled her name, and put the wallet in a wicker basket full of bills and unanswered mail. ‘I’ll look at it all later.’ There was a pause. The interview seemed over, but Salter did not feel like going immediately.
She sensed this, and asked, ‘More coffee? Might as well finish it.’
Salter put out his cup. ‘Was your husband reading a paper in Montreal?’ he asked, by way of keeping things going.
‘Oh no. He didn’t go to Montreal to read papers. I don’t think many of them do. David just wanted to see if there was anything left of Baghdad there.’
‘Baghdad?’
‘A family joke. David coined it with a friend one day when they were talking about travel. His friend said that he had never wasted a dollar he spent on travel, and David felt the same way. But he was always looking for a Baghdad to travel to. Baghdad was the place, the mysterious city—always a city—where things were new and strange, the place where something interesting could happen to you. Paris was Baghdad. David had been several times and it turned him on so much he hardly went to bed. He used to wander round meeting people, finding himself in places, letting things happen to him. New York was Baghdad, so was San Francisco. Some places stopped being Baghdads before you got around to them—Dublin was one of those. He wanted to go to Dublin for years, and then he didn’t. Other places were Baghdads once, but not the second or third time. London was one of those. Well, Montreal used to be a Baghdad and he wondered if there was anything left of it.’
Salter asked delicately, ‘Did you go with him to these Baghdads?’
‘Yes and no. We went to New York together— I have to go sometimes on business, but though we had a great time, it wasn’t Baghdad when I was around. I think he got a bit of it in the daytime when I was busy. The only place I know of that was Baghdad when I was with him was Corfu.’
‘So part of Baghdad is being alone?’
‘Sure. Some part of it was the lovely dark-haired lady who beckoned from the doorway. That’s why he liked to take a trip by himself once a year, even to an academic conference. You could always keep your eyes open for Baghdad.’
‘Mrs Summers, are you telling me that he might have found a bit of Baghdad in Montreal, and she killed him?’
‘No, Inspector. It’s possible, but unlikely. I’m just saying that Baghdad was a romantic fantasy, and at the right age it includes sex. But it didn’t have to, and for the last twenty years it probably didn’t. To come down to earth, David would not have found anything interesting or mysterious about a Montreal whore. Anyway the idea of David in bed with a prostitute anywhere is absurd, unless he had spent the previous six months in the Arctic, and not even then, probably. He would never have been happy in bed except with someone who liked him. It’s just—well, there are no whores in Baghdad. Am I making sense?’
Too much, thought Salter.
‘Thank you, Mrs Summers,’ he said formally. ‘You have been very helpful.’ He finished his coffee and stood up. ‘One last thing. One of his colleagues told me your husband kept a journal, a diary. I didn’t find it in the office. Have you come across it? If so, may I look at it? There’s always the chance that he may have been involved in something he told no one else about, not even you. But he might have put something in a diary.’
She laughed and got up. ‘I read it last night.’ She took a thick notebook from the wicker basket where she had put the wallet. It seemed to be her filing system. ‘Here. Nothing very scandalous or embarrassing in it. Maybe it will give you some ideas of him. Have a look at it, but bring it back, please.’
He put it in his pocket and moved to shake hands as he left, but suddenly overcome, she shook her head and pushed him through the door without, speaking. He left