The Returned Dead. Rafe Kronos
mad story.
“No, Jack was an only child and I don’t think he had any other family, apart from his father and mother of course, but they died a few years before him.”
It was time to leave the subject of Rankin. I showed him the other photos one by one. He looked carefully at each but told me he had never seen any of the men depicted in them.
I gathered up the photos, slid them into the file and leaned back into the over-soft seat they provided for customers, presumably to make it hard for them to get up and leave until they’d agreed to buy a car.
“Thanks for your help, Geoff; at least I’ve been able to eliminate your firm from my inquiries.” I looked round the lounge; at the other end it opened into the show room. Three highly polished new cars sat there, lit by bright spotlights, waiting to entice buyers. “This looks a pretty good place,” I commented casually. He rose like a hungry salmon to the bait.
“And we provide a terrific service, real five star, top of the range.” He was still hoping I might want to buy a car.
“So did Beasley buy the firm after your Mr Rankin died?”
“Yes, about six months after. This is their first outlet in England; they have dealerships in Scotland but they wanted to get into England.”
I wanted to extract more info. about Rankin without questioning him directly; I did not want to do anything to make him suspicious. “So which outfit do you prefer working for?”
The question seemed to make him uncertain. After a while he said, very carefully, “Well, Beasley are a much bigger company, of course, so they – we -- have more resources. Since they took over we’ve upped our game. Now we’ve got even better quality control, higher service targets and we’re getting even greater customer satisfaction feedback.”
It was obvious that the phrases had been hammered into him at training sessions.
He smiled and for the first time the smile seemed entirely natural. “But working for Jack was more personal, more direct, if you follow me.” He leaned forward, “And it was more interesting in some ways. We all liked Jack. He was a very smart bloke – in many ways.”
I gave him an inquiring look.
“Very smart in business, and personally too. Dressed very well, always very keen to be presentable, liked to be smart for the ladies.” For a moment his face twisted into a leer before it resumed its normal doughy expression. “He even used to have – what do you call them – you know, when you get your finger nails tidied up and polished?”
“Manicures?”
“Yeah, that’s it. He had a manicure every week. And he always spent a lot on making sure his hair looked good.”
He gave a wink. “We all knew why. There was always something going with young Jack, he was a bit of a lad. No harm in it, but he did put it about. Always had a bit on the side, always at it, if you follow me.”
Now this was interesting. I winked back and smiled: we were two men of the world sharing a joke.
“He liked the ladies, did he?”
“Well, he did put it about,” he repeated. Then he said, “Funny, I hadn’t thought about it for years but it came up again a few weeks back. A bloke – a sort of private investigator – came round asking questions. He said his client was getting divorced from his missus. She’d been unfaithful for years and he’d finally had enough. Apparently the husband thought she might have been one of Jack’s birds. He wanted to be able to prove to the divorce court that she’d been at it for a long, long time. So this investigator bloke wanted to know if I could tell him anything relevant”
“And did you?”
“Not really, no. Well, I mean, it was all a long time ago and Jack’s dead so I just told him I knew Jack had a lot of lady friends but I didn’t know anything much about any of them. I wasn’t going to say anything more, I mean, the man’s dead. All water under the bridge, you know. He didn’t get anything from me, not a thing. Best that way, eh? Least said, soonest mended.” He touched the side of his nose again.
I was instantly alerted by this mention of another investigator and I wanted to know more. “A divorce investigator? Good Lord. I always imagine those blokes wear dirty raincoats, smoke roll-ups and smell of stale sweat, all a bit grubby if you know what I mean,” I said as casually as I could. Well, a lot of the people in the business are exactly like that.
“Yeah, yeah, I expect so,” he laughed, “though not this one. He was quite smartly dressed really, though he looked more like a jockey than anything. Still I suppose it might help if you’re so small: it’d help you slip in and out of places when you’re snooping.” He smiled broadly at his own wit.
I smiled back to make him feel relaxed then fished for a bit more. “Good Lord, he wasn’t called Billings by any chance, was he? One of the insurance companies I work for used to employ a little bloke called Billings who went private.”
“Nah. He said his name was Eves.”
I wondered if that was his real name; somehow I doubted it.
“Obviously not my man. So this Jack Rankin, was he married?”
He suddenly realised he might have said too much about Rankin’s personal affairs and tried to back-track. “Well, he did get married,” he said, leaving out any detail. Then, as if he’d just seen an open door he could escape through, he added quickly, “But then his wife died. And then he died: heart attack.” He seemed to think this would put an end to our discussion.
I decided I’d learned all I could for the moment. If I asked any more questions he’d become suspicious. I thanked him for his help and assured him if I ever decided to buy a new car I’d come to him first. I pocketed the card he offered me, drove away and parked in a lay-by. I needed to absorb the severe shock I had just received.
Against all my expectations Prentice had immediately identified the photo of the man who’d hired us as Jack Rankin. His unhesitating identification supported our client’s impossible story. I still couldn’t see how our man could be the dead Rankin but on Geoff Prentice’s evidence he was. And if he really was Rankin then had someone turned him into Baxendale? If so, how?
When I set out from the office I’d thought I would destroy Baxendale’s story as soon as I started digging. It hadn’t happened. Kate’s findings about the doctor and Prentice’s identification of the man in the photo were doing exactly the opposite. I had a growing feeling that things were going wrong.
Since nothing was making sense there was only one way forward: I would check another part of Baxendale/Rankin’s story. I turned the car and headed for what our client claimed had been his old home.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Stanmore Avenue, at the heart of one of Chester’s posher and wealthier suburbs, was a wide tree-lined road that gave out an unmistakeable air of quiet prosperity. I could almost smell the money and the sort of security that the money provided.
I’d looked the place up on Google Streetview before leaving the office and had seen that all the houses were large, detached and surrounded by substantial gardens. I’d even spotted something that might be the sycamore tree growing in front of number sixteen, the house our client claimed had been his home.
I drove slowly past the house and there it was: a large sycamore bang in the centre of the front lawn, just as he’d described it. Could this be another sign that there was some truth in his story? The possibility increased my unease.
I drove on to the end of the road, turned round, drove back and parked in front of the house. Only strangers would need to park