Worthless Remains Read Free

what happens,’ Haarbottle said sweetly.
    I looked up from the photograph. Haarbottle was a tall thin man in a pale blue M&S suit and looked totally harmless, but he was an insurance man through and through – suspicious, vicious and stingy. ‘He’ll claim a sudden improvement brought on by the shock,’ I told him. ‘That’s not the way to get your money back.’
    Haarbottle grunted contemptuously and jabbed a moistened index finger at the crumbs on his plate. ‘Just make sure he’s not booking himself on a flight to Lourdes so he can come back miraculously cured. I tell you, these people stop at nothing.’
    â€˜Steady on.’
    â€˜Anyway, onwards and upwards. Call me personally; my numbers are on the file.’ He grabbed his briefcase and strode out of the Pump Rooms without paying for his bun. No matter, I was now on expenses, so I ordered a fresh pot of tea and some crumpets. While I piled blackcurrant jam on to those I went through the file. It made depressing reading.
    Mike Dealey had been minding his own business one sunny day, riding his Ducati along the A4 towards Bristol when a builder’s van pulled out in front of him. It was a classic T-bone sorry-didn’t-see-you-mate accident. Dealey was lucky to survive. He spent three months at the Royal United and left it in a wheelchair. According to the file he was a broken man in more ways than one. He had been a heating engineer yet the head injury had left him unable to walk, with painful spasms in his legs and a host of other ailments, like a fear of loud noises and bouts of depression. His fiancée left him while he was still in hospital, which might not have helped.
    Three-quarters of a million pounds didn’t seem much money, considering, and I was beginning to hope, for his sake as much as mine, that he
was
only faking it. But how did you fake a girlfriend dumping you?
    It did occur to me as I left the Pump Rooms that we didn’t exactly have a sworn statement to that effect – it was only hearsay, things the Griffins people had perhaps picked up at the hospital. Who was to say that she was the dumper? Mike Dealey could easily have decided to make a fresh start by himself with the aid of all that money. Not that these days three-quarters of a million set you up for life but it did give you a certain head start.
    I had parked the bike opposite the Pig & Fiddle and while I walked there the sun disappeared behind dark rain clouds. I didn’t see it as an omen since at that moment I still felt at one with the world, something that new expense accounts and fresh assignments often do to me. My first task was to find Dealey and that was a job for Tim. Not that I was incapable of finding people without him, but Tim was so much better (and quicker) at it that I had come to rely on him a lot. And since he often worked for no more than a few beers and food I called him at work, told him what I wanted and invited him up for a barbecue after work. Then I popped into the nearest supermarket and bought stuff Tim could incinerate and then drown in barbecue sauce.
    A few hours later the barbecue was sizzling with lamb kebabs. Ever since our return from Corfu we had been eating
à la Greque
. The earlier rain clouds hadn’t come to much and late evening sunshine gilded the valley. Tim eased his broad shoulders into a wicker chair on the Mill House verandah and shook his woolly head. ‘Drew a blank. Couldn’t find him on the register or anywhere else. He’s keeping a low profile. We’ll find him though.’ Tim had been gesturing with his closed bottle of Pilsner and when he opened it he sprayed himself and surroundings with beer froth.
    â€˜Cheers, Tim.’ Annis mopped at her jeans with a napkin.
    Tim’s chrome, leather and hardwood flat in Northampton Street was stuffed with computer gear and he kept it to laboratory standards of cleanliness by eating out and drinking in the pub