A lizard.

It was the only word that came to Hennessey as he sat opposite Michael ‘Galway Mick’ Richardson and pondered the over-wide mouth and bulging eyes and leathery skin, sitting with knees together beneath a huge frame and broad head and shoulders, so that his legs resembled a tail. It was not dissimilar to looking at children’s books in which animals inhabited human surroundings. Here a lizard sat in a swivel chair in a cramped office. Richardson’s tumbling, black curly hair and confident I-like-myself attitude also told Hennessey that here was a man who most probably enjoyed success with women.

‘Yes. I knew Williams. I don’t deny it. Why should I deny it? And now he’s deceased.’

‘You know that?’

‘Lunchtime news.’ Richardson nodded to the small radio on his desk.

Hennessey read the room. It was Richardson’s office in his house on the edge of Overton. Very strong, very substantial, very ordered. A portable TV on a shelf at eye level if sitting at the desk. A builder’s house.

‘What exactly was your relationship with Mr Williams?’

‘Didn’t have one. Not at the end.’

‘The reason I ask is that we have a very reliable witness who tells us that you threatened to kill him.’

‘So?’

‘Did you?’

‘Yes, I did.’

Hennessey paused. ‘You killed him?’

‘No. I threatened to.’ He had a soft-spoken manner.

‘Oh.’

‘Disappoint you?’ Richardson smiled.

‘No…no, I’ve been a policeman long enough to know that nothing is that easy.’ Hennessey relaxed in the easy chair at the side of Richardson’s desk. Tell me about the argument you had with him at his front door, last week, I believe.’

‘He owes me money. He owes me a lot of money. An awful lot of money, so he does now. I’ve had to pay labourers, I’ve had to pay my skilled men. I need the money owed to me. It’s called cash flow.’

‘How much money are we talking about?’

‘Enough.’

‘How much is enough?’

‘Enough to finish me. Six figures. That’s enough. See, if I build a brick rabbit hutch and the fella doesn’t pay I can survive, if I build a garage and the fella doesn’t pay I may be able to survive. But if I build a house and the fella doesn’t pay then I have a problem. And I don’t just mean any house, I mean a four-bedroom detached house, bay windows, Jacuzzi, double garage, fancy fittings in the bathroom…primed, papered, ready to move in. Even gave him the keys so he could start measuring up for carpets. He put the carpets in, paid for that. They’ve been living there to guard the place, there’s a double mattress in the upstairs room, a duvet, some food in a small fridge, a few plates, electric kettle…she mainly, the clothes in the bin liner are all female…so I build the house to the plans he has had drawn up and then I say…OK, now pay me. So he says, “When I’ve sold it I will.”’

‘Oh.’

‘I thought all along that it was for him to move into…he’s known in the Vale…he’s a man with money…a venture capitalist and he likes throwing it around. So I thought I was safe. Any other guy I’d want money upfront, or lodged with a solicitor to be retained on satisfactory completion…my error…he paid twenty thousand upfront, but that still leaves me with a shortfall of six figures.’ Richardson’s voice hardened. ‘So, it’s a breach of contract or something. It’s unlawful.’

‘It’s not criminal,’ Hennessey replied softly.

‘There’s two things I can do. I can pursue him through the civil courts, but that won’t get me anywhere but a hefty legal bill because I built it on an assumption. So you built it on an assumption, so you’re wrong, it’s possibly not breach of contract. The other thing I can do is what I’m going to do, which is sell it. Technically speaking, it’s my house, so I can sell it. But the house market is depressed, nothing is moving. It’ll be at least eighteen months before anybody shows an interest. If I sell it quickly it’ll be only because I’ve reduced the price so much that I’ll be selling at a loss. He betrayed me. He was clearly hoping to sell it, pay me off and pocket the balance. But all along he let me believe he was going to move his family in.’

‘So you went round to his house and threatened to kill him and his wife with a scaffolding pole.’

‘Yes, I did. Wouldn’t you?’

‘No, I wouldn’t. That length of scaffolding, where is it?’

‘God knows.’

‘I’m sure He does, but do you?’

‘No. Maybe in the back of the truck.’

‘I’d like to take it with me.’

‘Help yourself, there’s about half a dozen bits of scaffolding. I don’t know which one I picked up.’

‘Handy length, though, about two feet.’

‘Handy?’

‘To batter someone’s head in.’

‘Suppose it is. I’ve never done it.’

‘No?’

‘No.’

‘This will finish you, you believe?’

‘It will. I’ve built the business up from scratch. I’ve got a couple of small jobs on the go, but the brickies will need paying…I’ve got no cash to pay them, the bank won’t advance me any…do you know what brickies do if they don’t get paid?’

‘Wreck the site?’

‘They don’t need to do that, they just take a sledgehammer and knock the bricks out of line six inches above the ground. makes the whole structure invalid, won’t pass Building Control Inspection. Can’t sell it, have to demolish it. That’s worse because you have to pay for the demolition. You know, if they wrecked the site they’d actually be doing me a favour.’

‘Save the demolition cost?’

‘Yes. It’s the sort of thing that’d drive a saint mad, so it would.’

‘It’s the sort of thing that would make you want to kill someone.’

‘It is that.’

‘So did you?’

‘What?’

‘Kill them.’

‘That’s not funny.’

‘It isn’t. It isn’t funny at all. Where were you last Sunday?’

‘I don’t know. Here. All day. At home. I have Sunday at home.’

‘Anybody vouch for that?’

‘No.’

‘Live alone?’

‘The and my wife. Our children are up and away.’

‘Your wife wasn’t here on Sunday?’

‘She was in Ireland. She came back this morning.’

‘So you were in all Sunday?’

‘I went to Mass at ten o’clock. I was in all Sunday after that.’

‘What about Monday night?’

‘What about it?’

‘Where were you?’

‘Here.’

‘All night?’

‘All night.’

‘And Tuesday, last night?’

‘Same. Stayed in alone, watching the TV so I did.’

‘I see.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Nothing. How long have you been in the building trade?’

‘I’m forty-nine. I dug my first hole when I was fourteen. You work it out, I was never any good with numbers.’

‘A long time.’

‘Long enough. Never done anything else.’

‘Ever been in trouble with the police?’

‘Few times. I came over here as a labourer. When a bunch of labourers have had enough stout…you must have seen the results…being a copper, like.’

‘Convictions for violence, then.’

‘Yes. When I was a youngster. I calmed down once I got married. Calmed down more once I started out on my own.’

‘So we’ll have a record of you?’

‘Nothing you can use in court. They’re all spent now, my convictions, they’re all spent.’

‘But your fingerprints will be on file.’

‘Reckon they will.’

‘Tell me about Mr Kerr. Thomas “Toddy” Kerr.’

‘What about him?’

‘Did you kill him too?’

‘I didn’t kill anybody.’ Said with controlled temper.

‘Look at it from our point of view, “Toddy” Kerr owed you money.’

‘He owed a lot of people, and he didn’t owe me anything like what Williams owed me.’

‘But he owed you, and his brains got beaten out of his skull with an instrument that would not be dissimilar to a short length of scaffolding.’ Hennessey paused, but Richardson didn’t react. ‘And you couldn’t offer an alibi.’

‘So?’

‘Well, Williams owed you money, you were seen and heard to threaten him with a short length of scaffolding and shortly afterwards his brains were beaten out of his head, and you have no alibi for the time the murder is believed to have taken place.’