A Genuine Mistake by Ted Tayler (miss read books txt) 📗

he was chatting to her friend. That’s our starting point. Get Nick Barrett to tell us about those girls. What part of the country did they come from, or were they local girls?”

“See if Barrett can recall which resort it was, which bar, and give us an approximation of the date,” said Luke.

“First names would help,” added Alex.

“What do we do with these scraps of information?” asked Neil. “We can’t hope to trace them through hostel records. Airlines don’t retain passenger records for long because of privacy concerns either, so we can’t check who was in the country at the same time as Hogan and Barrett.”

“Their trip was pre-internet days too, Blessing,” said Lydia. “So, there won’t be a pictorial record of someone’s gap year on Facebook, unlike kids who have travelled Down Under in the past fifteen years.”

“If I were travelling that far, I wouldn’t go alone,” said Blessing. “The person I chose to fly with would be a close friend. We would bond even more during the time away from home. I reckon those girls are still friends today, even if they’re coming up to sixty years of age and living on different sides of the world. They’re the sort of person who uses Facebook to keep in touch with old friends. If I had first-name pairings and places they visited, maybe Divya could write a search routine to find possible candidates.”

“You needn’t worry about upsetting one of them by asking if they knew a Gerry Hogan,” said Neil. “According to Nick Barrett, Gerry went for the most attractive girl in the bar. It shouldn’t be difficult to work out which one of the two he chose.”

“It’s a long-shot, Blessing,” said Gus. “At the moment, though, I have got nothing better to suggest. We’ll run with it for a couple of days.”

“Wish I had the magic bullet, guv,” said Alex. “I’ve only spent half a day so far studying the firm’s website. They follow the traditional spiel for these sites. I don't know how much of what I can currently see is Sean’s recent input, that of the manager Rachel Cummins installed in the interim or even Gerry’s original concept for the business. You can confirm that when you interview them.”

 “Firms such as Gerry Hogan’s are investing in your financial future,” said Luke. “There’s always a price to pay for that advice, plus none of them forgets to add the important rider. Always seek a professional opinion. Tax rules can be complex; they can depend on individual circumstances and are subject to change. The value of investments and the income from them can go down as well as up. Nothing is guaranteed. You might not get back your initial investment.”

“Have you had personal experience?” asked Alex. “That sounded to be from the heart.”

“Not me, but a shifty advisor royally screwed my parents. It’s all very well warning people to seek professional advice. Even someone with the right diploma can be a scam artist or simply give you the wrong advice by not giving your account due care and attention.”

“If we take Nick Barrett’s comments at face value, then nobody suffered under Gerry Hogan’s watch,” said Gus.

“I didn’t go directly to the Hogan website, guv,” said Alex. “I did hunt for the dirt on them first. I didn’t find anything. Nothing has ever been serious enough to make it to a court or the media.”

“Follow the money,” said Gus. “That’s what they keep telling us. Something must turn up, Alex. It has to. Nothing that Nick Barrett told us this morning helped to explain why someone wanted to kill Gerry Hogan.”

“Are you convinced Barrett is telling the truth, guv?” asked Lydia.

“If he was lying through his teeth, Lydia, he fooled me. Neil’s going to put him under the microscope, but it’s another long shot.”

“What should we do, guv?” asked Blessing.

“Are you asking for a worthwhile task that might dislodge a clue?”

“As opposed to a general cry for help, yes, guv,” said Blessing.

“Well, something you said about a possible chain of events in Australia is still nudging me in the ribs. It can’t hurt to search for news items between the dates when our intrepid explorers were Down Under. It might not be a spurned lover; just an incident that made it into the newspapers. You’re looking for incidents where backpackers fell foul of the law or got on the wrong side of the locals. Check for sexual assaults, that sort of thing.”

“Everything we’ve learned so far doesn’t mark Gerry Hogan as a sexual predator, guv,” said Neil. “He got more than his fair share anyway.”

“We only have Nick Barrett’s word for that,” said Gus. “It’s worth checking, especially when we have little else to go on.”

“Nick Barrett told us he was unsuccessful the whole time he was in Australia,” said Neil. “Perhaps he was hiding something.”

“It still begs the question, Neil,” said Alex.

“Why wait for thirty years,” sighed Neil. “I know.”

“And why kill Gerry Hogan if Nick Barrett was the guilty party?” asked Lydia.

“Unless they got the wrong man,” said Blessing.

“The man on the doorstep asked for Gerry by name. Let’s keep going with the lines of enquiry we started with,” said Gus, “plus the items we’ve added this afternoon. We’ll debrief what we’ve learned on Thursday morning and reassess if necessary. For the rest of what remains of today, I suggest each of us updates our digital files and then heads home. Tomorrow will be a better day.”

Wednesday, 15th August 2018

Gus had arrived home at twenty-past five last night and started cooking the meal he’d promised Suzie. He resisted settling for the cheese omelette and chips that she fantasised over. There were ample supplies of healthier ingredients in the fridge and freezer.

Suzie drove through the gateway at twenty minutes to six. Gus had a bottle of Chardonnay