Free Malice Aforethought by J. M. Gregson Page A

anxious to demonstrate it. ‘I checked the hotel in Killarney. Mr Reynolds and Mrs Giles checked in there late on Friday night. No ‘Mr and Mrs John Smith’ for them — I suppose hypocrisy isn’t the flavour of the month now in these things, even in the Emerald Isle. They stayed until Sunday and had dinner there on Saturday night, which seems to leave both of them in the clear.’
    ‘Unless of course one of them hired a contract killer. Sue Giles certainly seems to have the money to do so, but I doubt if she has either the contacts or the inclination to dispose of a troublesome ex-husband in that way.’
    ‘There doesn’t seem to be anyone else on the staff of the school who’s a likely prospect at present,’ said Bert Hook. ‘Two of the staff have had words with him in the last few years, and one or two parents have found fault with his treatment of their little darlings, but there’s nothing very serious. Most people say he was a popular and successful teacher.’
    ‘We certainly haven’t turned up a motive in the school for anything as serious as murder,’ said Rushton.
    ‘Any clue yet as to the source of this extra income over the last two years?’ said Lambert.
    ‘Nothing. It doesn’t seem to be anything educational. He didn’t do A-level examining, which was my first thought. In any case, that wouldn’t have raised sums like the ones involved here, and it would have come in one or two big cheques, not the fairly regular dollops of cash Giles was putting into the building society account. And he didn’t do evening class teaching or work for the Open University, which might have meant monthly payments, but again not of the size he was enjoying.’
    ‘So something criminal,’ said Bert Hook, not without satisfaction. Large, unexplained sums often meant some activity on the wrong side of the law. And where lucrative crime was involved, violence and even murder were never very far away. This might be the most promising line of enquiry.
    ‘No suggestion of criminal associates from anyone we’ve interviewed,’ said Rushton dolefully. ‘Even the rare people who didn’t like Giles didn’t suggest anything very shady. But I must say he does seem to have succeeded in keeping his private life exactly that in the last few years.’
    At that moment, the phone on John Lambert’s desk shrilled insistently. ‘Sorry to interrupt you, sir,’ said the girl on the switchboard, ‘but I have a caller who insists on being put through to the office in charge of the Giles murder investigation. She won’t identify herself, and I’ve told her you’re in conference, but—’
    ‘Put her through, please. And put a trace on the call,’ said Lambert.
    A high-pitched, female voice, discordant, near to hysteria. ‘Ted Bloody Giles. Paper says he’s a bloody saint. You find out about his work with Rendezvous, then see if you think he’s such a fucking saint!’
    ‘Please try to be calm. We—’ But at the other end of the line, the phone was crashed down.
    The Rendezvous was an escort agency in Gloucester. The trace on the call revealed only a deserted phone box. But it looked as though they might have the source of the late Mr Giles’s extra income.

 
    Seven
     
    Colin Pitman was a successful businessman. Over thirty-five years, he had built up his haulage company from a one-man, one-vehicle business to a limited company which employed thirty drivers and owned sixteen heavy-duty vans and lorries. The Pitman name was familiar to the public on the sides of pantechnicons, and Colin had worked, thought and scrapped his way to a fortune. He was a rich man, proud of what he had achieved. He was also the father of Sue Giles.
    A doting father, John Lambert decided, after three minutes in his company. They sat in his office, with its prints of Malvern at the turn of the century on the walls, a red leather Chesterfield which looked as if it had never been used, and a desk and swivel chair which matched the formidable