“And what has DS Jackman come up with?”

“She’s been digging deep into Caxton’s past, and she’s come up with plenty since we talked to him yesterday. You know we think he was involved in the murder of Tony Monaghan?”

“Yes.”

“Naturally, there’s no hard evidence. It’s all disappeared, if it ever existed. But we do have a little more powder to add to our arsenal.”

“Circumstantial?”

“Most of it is, yes. But there are witnesses. Linda Palmer. Simon Bradley.”

“OK. So what did your ‘elves’ dig up?”

“Three things of immediate significance, I think. In the first place, remember Linda Palmer saw that photo on the front page of the Yorkshire Evening Post for the twenty-seventh of October, 1967, just two weeks after Monaghan’s murder? It shows Caxton, with a big cheesy grin on his face, handing over a check—well one of those enormous, fake checks, if you know what I mean—for ten thousand pounds for the Police Widows and Orphans Fund. As you can imagine, that was a lot of money in those days. We’ve got a bit more on it now.”

“Where did this money come from?”

“Caxton raised it through telethons and fund-raising drives, personal appearances and the like.”

“Well, we can hardly fault the man for raising money for charity.”

“It’s not so much that, it’s who’s in the picture with him. I’ll have a copy sent up to you later. For a start, Caxton’s handing the check to Chief Constable Edward Crammond, who Simon Bradley told me was behind axing the investigation into Monaghan’s murder around the time the picture was taken. Also present was Detective Chief Superintendent Dennis McCullen, DI Chadwick’s SIO on the case.”

“Are you saying that the charitable donation was a bribe?”

“No, not at all,” said Banks. “You couldn’t do things like that, even then. It’s just one of a number of things that show how close Caxton was linked to the local constabulary at the time. He was known to be a mate of Crammond’s, same golf club and all, best seats at Headingley for the test match every year. Winsome’s still digging to see if she can find more.”

“It’s not much, though, is it,” said Gervaise, the tip of her pencil against her Cupid’s bow lips.

“What do you mean? Not worth a refill?” Banks held out his empty cup.

“Cheeky bastard.” Gervaise grinned. “But you can get it yourself.”

Banks did. “So that’s one investigation we’ve still got going on,” he said. “Caxton’s relationship with local men of influence, especially high-ranking police officers. And you can bet that’ll spiral when the other counties get as deeply stuck into their investigations as we have and start looking for lost statements and the like.”