Heck couldn’t help but voice these doubts. ‘Unless there’s something we don’t know, Tim Baker has everything to lose by Harold Lansing’s death, and nothing to gain.’
‘I’m sure there’s quite a lot we don’t know,’ Gail replied.
They met Tim Baker in the hedged rear garden of his large Victorian townhouse in the suburb of Southwater. The lawn was expansive and bordered by deep beds of flowers. The banker, who looked older and more tired than in the photograph they’d seen online, was wearing slacks and a polo shirt, and hosted them at a small wrought-iron table set out in the middle of the grass.
Gail sat facing him, while Baker’s rotund wife, a pleasant woman called Milly, provided them with beakers and a pitcher of orange squash filled with ice cubes and slices of real fruit. Heck preferred to stand, but accepted a beaker of juice.
Baker shook his head solemnly. ‘Harold … well, he just wasn’t into anything strange.’
‘You seem very sure of that, Mr Baker,’ Gail said.
‘I ought to be. Every idea he ever had, he bounced off me first.’
‘Every idea?’
Baker gave this some thought. ‘Obviously I can’t say every single idea; but, well, Harold was a straight bat. All his career – and I was there for most of it – there was never a hint of impropriety or shady dealing.’
‘I understand he had various offshore bank accounts,’ Gail said.
‘My dear, that’s not unusual. It’s just to take advantage of different tax regimes. There’s nothing illegal about it if it’s all declared. I’m sure if you consult your financial intelligence people, you’ll find there’s never been anything in Harold’s business past to arouse suspicion.’
‘What were you doing on the morning of 6 July, Mr Baker?’ Heck asked him.
‘Ahhh … I might have thought I’d be a suspect.’
‘I’m sorry we have to ask this.’
‘No it’s all right. I completely understand.’ Baker fingered his brow. ‘I was on holiday with Milly. We were on a month-long cruise, the Caribbean and American East Coast. We had no idea Harold had even had his first accident, let alone the second one. Only got back a couple of days before he was due to be buried. I must say …’ He eyed them warily. ‘I’m rather surprised by these enquiries. I mean with Harold in his grave. Everyone was under the impression it was all just ghastly misfortune.’
‘We’re not ruling out anything at this stage,’ Gail said.
‘But you suspect foul play?’
‘We just don’t know,’ Heck replied.
Baker blew out a sigh. ‘Well you obviously have to cover every possibility. It’s unbelievable, to be honest. Harold was a genuine good egg. If you look at some of the things he did in his spare time … he was a governor of the local grammar school, he sat on several church committees, put money into numerous charities. Why on earth would anyone want to hurt him, let alone kill him?’
‘Could it be a disgruntled ex-employee?’ Heck wondered.
‘Harold was always popular with his staff. He was a good leader, a firm decision-maker. He respected them as individuals, he was concerned for their welfare, he took responsibility during a crisis.’
‘Because you see, Mr Baker,’ Heck watched him carefully, ‘it’s occurred to me that if someone was trying to get even with Mr Lansing for some past grievance – maybe an imagined grievance – they might want to get even with you as well.’
‘Oh, Sergeant …’ Baker sighed again, as if this was a minor concern. ‘No face or name springs to mind in that regard, not even from the mists of time.’
If nothing else, Heck thought, this guy is not frightened. He’s telling me what he believes to be the truth.
Baker shook his head. ‘I can’t think of a single person who Harold and I might have upset so much that he would resort to vengeance on this scale.’
‘Lansing’s too good to be true, isn’t he?’ Gail said as they drove back towards Reigate.
Heck glanced round at her. ‘How do you mean?’
‘All that “holy Joe” stuff,’ she said cynically. ‘I don’t know why they don’t just give him a sainthood.’
‘There are good people in the world you know.’
‘You really believe that?’ She chuckled. ‘After some of the cases the Serial Crimes Unit’s investigated? I’ve looked you up, in case you were wondering. The Nice Guys Club, the Desecrator killings … that business up in the Lake District? And you still have idealistic notions about human nature?’
Heck didn’t reply. Fleetingly he was lost in thought.
‘This is a different ballgame, of course,’ she added. ‘These white-collar criminals – they’re not drooling nutters running around with meat cleavers. They’re clever. They can squirrel all sorts of important stuff away where it won’t be found. I can see you have doubts about that, Heck, and you must do whatever you feel is necessary; but I intend to go through Lansing’s business transactions with a magnifying-glass. Let’s see who gets to the bottom of it first, eh?’
That final comment caught his attention. ‘You mean like we’re in a contest together?’
‘Well, not exactly a contest …’
‘I should hope not. We’re on the job, in case you’d forgotten. Not playing stupid bloody games!’
‘All right, take it easy!’
‘You know …’ Heck forcibly moderated his tone, not wanting to pull rank so quickly when he’d promised that he wouldn’t. ‘Gail, if you want to follow that line, be my guest. But good luck to you. I’ve no experience investigating white-collar crime, if that’s what you want to call it, and I’ve been a detective fifteen years. To start with, you’ll have to liaise with FIU, the Serious Fraud Office, probably the City of London Police – and on the basis of what? Unfounded conjecture. On top of that, you’re going to attract a lot of publicity you don’t want.’
‘Like I care about bad publicity.’
‘Think about this, Gail. Harold Lansing is the victim, possibly of a catastrophic accident, but more likely of a skilfully stage-managed murder. Either way, it resulted in him being burned alive. And you’re trying to uncover evidence of criminality in his past.’
‘It’s only a means to an end.’
‘You’d better hope there is an end. Because you blacken the name of a pillar of the community like Harold Lansing, someone with high-powered friends all over the county, and it’s not inconceivable that your career, which I have a feeling you are very concerned about, might suddenly hit the buffers.’
Gail drove for several minutes without speaking. ‘Okay. So what’s your theory?’
‘I don’t have one yet. But I think we need to go back to the beginning.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Back to where it all kicked off. Let’s try to understand exactly what’s happened.’
The River Mole was one of the most scenic waterways in southern England, snaking eighty miles from its headwaters near Gatwick Airport in