AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’LL FOLLOW UP ON the accounts,” Monk told Hooper the next morning. “Laker can handle looking into whatever is known about Lister. We ought to find something useful. There’s been a break-in at Johnson’s Warehouse, down on the south bank. Got to send Marbury and Walcott that way. I want you to find out all you can about the bank manager, Doyle. But be discreet, make up some story that won’t get back to him.” He stopped, his face gray. “He could be behind this, and on the other hand, he could be another potential victim, or one already!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Everything you can find out. Where does he live? Has he any income other than his salary? Does he own the house? Married or not, and has he a mistress on the side, or a more serious affair? If he’s married, what is she like? Extravagant? What children has he? Are there commitments to family, or past debts? Does he gamble? Drink? Anything? Has he spent money lately, or does he appear to have skimped? Debts? Who are his friends? What color socks does he wear?”
“What?”
“I want to know the man. Bella Franken is right. It looks as if he fiddled with the books for the exact amount of the ransom money for Kate Exeter’s life. That can’t be a coincidence. He’s involved somehow, knowingly or not, and willingly or not. We need to know.”
“Yes, sir.” Hooper was glad he had something definite to do, something that could possibly lead to progress. Everyone was on edge. No one spoke of the actual kidnap or murder openly, but the undercurrent of it was always there, the tiny instances of mistrust, the remarks that might have been all right but were taken the wrong way. There was no teasing, no irreverent humor, in fact very little humor at all. No one was overtly suspicious. In fact, if anything, they were overcareful, but it was in the air. Whoever was responsible, Hooper hated him for that. These men were as close as he had to a family, and it made him more aware of loneliness than he ha
d been in years. He found he was self-conscious of even the smallest acts of kindness, and thought perhaps people were unnaturally guarded with him, as if he were trying to conceal a reality, when the reality was friendship, the need to touch another person in thought at least.
Everything about investigating Doyle was easy to begin with. It was simple to discover where he lived. It was a pleasant house, larger than Hooper expected, but there had been several children, all grown up and gone. It would have been a good place for them to grow up, perhaps a little ambitious at the time. Doyle might have incurred some debt to own it. From the outside, it looked a comfortable and prosperous man’s home.
Inquiries of the neighbors and the local tradesmen took him until the early afternoon. Doyle sounded bland, a man with nothing exceptional about him, other than diligence in his work. He was ambitious and had risen to become manager of the bank, attracting many clients of great means, largely through his discretion and reliability, desirable qualities in a banker. An unremarkable man, easily lost in a crowd: in fact, boring.
Hooper caught himself with surprise that he should, in a way, condemn a man delineated by other people’s words. If someone were to make such inquiries of him, would they come up with the same answers: good at his job, but boring? No remarkable achievements, nothing to make him interesting or different, looked pretty much like what he was: a merchant seaman. Indeed, he might have risen in the ranks, but didn’t. They would not know why. No extravagances, no obvious weaknesses, no unusual relationships, all very ordinary. How facile to describe anyone like that! He knew how complicated he was himself, how full of dreams, regrets, wishes that he could not share, hopes that perhaps he would never realize. And loneliness.
Maybe Doyle was just as complicated if he could ever share those parts most men keep hidden, the soft inner core that so easily could be hurt.
He should look at Doyle again, with more imagination this time! Do the job properly, not merely fill in the blanks on a police record that could fit ten thousand men and touch the reality of none of them. He should look at him as if he liked him, as he had looked at the men he worked with and been afraid of what he might find, in case any of them were the one who had betrayed Exeter, and Kate, and all of them.
He worked into the evening, looking more carefully, listening to what was said, and even more to what was not said. He found a barmaid at the local public house where Doyle sometimes stopped for a drink on the way home, especially if he was tired and knew he had missed supper.
“Always came at the same time,” Betsy said, leaning on the bar and smiling patiently at Hooper.
He looked back at her. “Habit can be comfortable,” he observed, hoping she would understand what he meant. They had already established a certain rapport, because they had discovered that they both liked walking down the beach when the rare opportunity offered itself. Hooper had recognized Betsy’s Essex accent, which had quickly led to finding they loved the same parts of the east coast.
“Bless you, luv,” she said. “Not for me. Sounds too much like house rules, if you know what I mean? Bit like having the same thing to eat, depending on what day of the week, like. Hot roast on Sunday, cold meat and leftovers on Monday, shepherd’s pie on Tuesday, sausages on Wednesday—and like that.”
Hooper gave a little groan, which he knew she would understand.
“Exactly,” she agreed. “Sometimes it looks safe, like you lock the door at night so nobody can break in.”
“Or out?” he suggested.
She sighed. “You’re a wise one, you are!”
“Did Mr. Doyle want to break out?” Hooper asked.
“I think at times maybe he did. Or leastways, he daydreamed about it.”
Hooper wondered more exactly what Doyle daydreamed about. “Going to faraway places? Having adventures?”
“More like some of them fancy clubs up in the city. For gentlemen, like.” She rolled her eyes. “You’ve got to be special to belong to them.”
Hooper imagined the very ordinary Doyle thinking of such a place. Perhaps Harry Exeter had described one—or, better still, taken Doyle to one as his guest. “I expect he’s heard about them from his customers. Been there, even.”
“Should’ve seen his face when he told me about it.” She smiled, but there was a certain pity in it, a gentleness, because in her mind he would never belong, and she was probably right.
“I can imagine,” Hooper said quietly. “Never been to one myself. More comfortable here!”
She smiled and blushed very slightly, offered him another drink and, when he accepted, busied herself with pouring it.
Hooper spent the next morning following up on the various things he’d learned about Doyle. He seemed to have few friends, and they were largely within the banking business, people he had met because of his position. He dined with them occasionally, and at predictable places, such as local sporting clubs, a historical appreciation society, although he seemed uninterested in their journeys to local battlefields.
He liked good food but seldom tried anything new. He had made one journey across the Channel to France, several years ago, and never repeated it.
