If Dave Allen had wanted to scream and shout, he showed commendable restraint, merely dismissing Kate to do the most tedious tasks he could find – reading Mrs Duncton’s file and running to earth the missing sister, Edna. She was just leaving the incident room, tail between her legs, when he called her grudgingly back.
‘Do you want to work with Jane McCallum again?’ he asked. ‘Two heads being better than one?’
She smiled, and then, seeing the kindliness in his eyes, allowed her smile to deepen and her dimples to appear.
‘Hey,’ he said, diving into Black Country again, ‘you’m a real bonny wench when you do that. If I wasn’t going to have my silver anniversary, I swear I’d be round this desk and joining the rest of the blokes sniffing after you. Tell you what, though, chick,’ he dropped his voice confidentially, so she had to return to his desk, ‘you want to keep away from us married ones.’
She started. ‘What the hell—?’
‘You look like a bloody terrier, all stiff-legged,’ he said mildly. ‘Sit down, wench. I’ve hit some nerve, haven’t I? I only meant to have a bit of a joke, like. And at my expense, too.’
She sat reluctantly, but said nothing. Had she overreacted? It might well be that it was just possible for Lizzie to have five minutes’ conversation without spreading muck, of course.
‘You got some fellow giving you grief?’ he asked, kindly enough. ‘I haven’t heard anything and I don’t want to. But I’ll tell you something for nothing. Married men stay married. You want to get yourself one of your own.’ He smiled again. ‘I’ll tell you summat else, an’ all. A pretty wench like you should only have to knock and they’ll come out of the bleeding woodwork. Now, get on with the job, and no more letting suspects go off to bloody Cheltenham. Oh,’ he called her back, ‘you’ll find young Zain Khan’s real hot stuff when it comes to deciphering medics’ scrawls, and he’s got a bit of a dodgy foot at the moment. You could do a lot worse than ask him to cast his beadies over that there file. That way we’ll get him back to his cricket a bit sooner and convince him he’s being useful. What d’you think?’
‘If you really want to know, Gaffer,’ she said. ‘I think you’re a boss in a million.’
‘Thank God for computers and computer records,’ Jane said, sitting down at her keyboard and easing her skirt by running a finger round the waistband. ‘It’s no good, is it – this last half stone’ll have to come off. It was Crete that fixed me. I always thought salad would be slimming …’
It wouldn’t be kind to point out that it was what came with the salad that counted: who could resist feta and olives anyway?
NCIS, national health, national insurance, DVLA: any one of those could have a record of the missing Edna. But none did, not by her maiden name. So, while Kate checked and rechecked house-to-house statements for any details of strange women that might make a coherent picture, Jane continued her trawl through name changes by deed poll and by marriage. By one o’clock they’d come up with nothing.
‘Disappeared off the face of the earth – our bit of earth, at least,’ Kate told Dave Allen, as he stopped by their corner. ‘And I’ve got a short blonde woman about five foot ten, with a dark mop of hair who looks as if she sells double-glazing or might be on the game. Such goings on in sunny Sutton.’
‘So what next?’ He looked at her very steadily. ‘I know you don’t like the idea of your Cornfield being a serial killer, but …’
‘Come on, Gaffer, Michael Barton said she left home, not that she disappeared at the same time Max Cornfield was digging a trench for his runner beans!’
‘Talk to Barton again. Precise details. And did I hear you say you’d checked his alibi?’
‘You didn’t.’ She checked a pile of paperwork. ‘But the DC taking his statement the afternoon he ID’d his sister did. Said he was – hang on – shopping in Lichfield at the time. And he had till receipts with the time of transaction on them. And there’s nothing in these,’ she tapped the pile she’d been working through, ‘to indicate the presence in this neck of the woods of any man between fifty and seventy at the relevant time. But it’d be nice to put him under a bit of pressure too: shall Jane and I bring him down here?’ She wasn’t unaware of her reluctance to pull Cornfield in under similar circumstances: yes, she’d been letting her standards slip, hadn’t she? Why had she been so lax with him?
‘That means a double journey, and we’re supposed to be watching our petrol budget. No, you talk to him out there. You can always wheel him in if he wants to make a sudden confession! Tell me, Kate,’ he added, bringing up a chair and sitting down with a sigh, ‘why does young Lizzie want you to hare round Europe when a simple phone call might do?’
‘More serious, Gaffer, than that. Neither man mentions the presence of the other when he talks about witnessing the will. I’ve got the strongest suspicion that Horowitz wasn’t actually there. The question, to my mind, is really not whether Cornfield bumped off any of these women, but whether he persuaded Steiner to become his accomplice in taking over twelve million quid.’
‘Conspiracy. OK. Do you really want a couple of days jetting round Europe?’
She grinned. ‘Wouldn’t say no. And even if I did phone, to be fair, if either of them said anything incriminating, I’d have to go off with my commission rogatoire and a friendly foreign cop and talk to them, wouldn’t I?’
He dropped his voice. ‘Don’t tell anyone I said this, but Lizzie has been known to cut corners. And it isn’t her that comes to grief. Remember that chick.’ He patted her arm. ‘Now,’ he said, raising his voice to include Jane, ‘would you wenches like a bite down the pub before you go and talk to the good doctor? I could just fancy a plate of chips.’
‘So long as I can phone the hospital first,’ Kate said. ‘I’d like to know how the old lady’s doing.’
Which was not particularly well. The young man at the other end of the phone didn’t seem overly concerned. My God, what if they thought she was too old to resuscitate if she had another attack?
‘Remember she’s a key witness in a murder inquiry,’ she told him. ‘And we prefer our witnesses alive.’
Dr Barton’s case still stood ostentatiously in his elegant hall. Suave had slipped to peevish by the time they’d explained their mission, and he made no offer of tea or coffee as he showed them into the same room as before. Nor did he invite them to sit down.
‘This preoccupation with the prodigal sister,’ he said. ‘I can’t understand it.’
‘Dr Barton,’ Kate said carefully, ‘it can’t have escaped your notice that if the will is overturned you and your sister stand to inherit a considerable amount of money. The least we can do is tell her the good news.’
‘I told you, I’ve no desire to challenge the will. That was Maeve’s idea. Now she’s dead, surely—’
‘Once the law discovers an element of doubt about anything, it can’t just stop in mid-process.’
‘You mean there is an irregularity? My God! But – for goodness’ sake – I told you, there’s no doubt whatsoever in my mind that my mother would have wanted him to have everything. Or that he deserved everything. So what was wrong?’
Kate withdrew behind the sort of official tone and language Rod would have deplored. I’m not in a position to reveal any details, sir. But we do need to determine your sister’s whereabouts if we can. Now, if we might just ask you a few more questions? May we sit down?’
He nodded, as if still too stunned to do proper honours, collapsing into a chair himself. Jane sat out of his immediate sight-line and produced her notebook.
‘Now, would you simply tell us the circumstances in which Edna left home? A family row?’ Kate prompted him. ‘A row over a boyfriend? That sort of thing.’
Barton stared at one of the majolica plates, as if it might guide him.
‘Dr Barton? What caused her to leave?’
He shrugged. ‘I suspect that the man with whom my mother found her in bed – actually in flagrante – was Max Cornfield. The blue-eyed boy. An alternative could have been my father. And believe me I don’t discount that. My father was the most evil, disgusting-—’ He pulled himself awkwardly from his chair and made for the window. Kate could see his shoulders move as he took a deep breath. God knew, she could do with a deep breath herself: what a family! Barton faced the window as he spoke. ‘My father bullied and buggered me; he bullied and fucked my sisters; he bullied and fucked my mother. Forgive me if I use such crude verbs. Another would do, cleaner but no less explicit. Rape. He raped all of us from time to time. Maybe even Max. It doesn’t take a great psychiatrist to work out why I prefer a bachelor existence, Maeve married a total nonentity whom she bullied unmercifully and Edna – and this is pure supposition – embarked on a search for a loving and gentle man.’ He turned, going to stand by the court cupboard.
‘And your mother?’ Imagine what that woman had been through. No wonder she was on the weird side of eccentric.
‘Found a focus for her affection in Max. What else developed between them who knows.’ At last he looked at her. ‘Has he told you yet? No, I thought not. I tell you again, ladies, that Max Cornfield should have every last dime. And I’ll tell you something else: if he has done anything wrong and the inheritance reverts to me – and to Edna, if she’s still alive – then I’ll give him my share. I hold you to witness. Yes, Constable, write it down.’ His voice cracking, he pointed a quivering finger. ‘Go on: I insist. Write it down: Michael Barton promises to give anything he inherits from his mother to Max Cornfield. There. And I’ll sign it and you can both witness it.’
Kate made herself say quietly, ‘Now, sir, let’s just get back to business—’
‘Not until we’ve all signed. I insist. I demand – give me that damned notebook!’
Jane flashed a desperate glance at Kate, who nodded. Surely it wouldn’t do any harm to humour the man? Three solemn signatures were recorded, plus the time and date. Barton fumbled in the cupboard for whisky. He sank half a tumbler neat, only as he set down the glass turning to the women with the bottle raised in invitation.
If only she could have a double!
But Kate shook her head for both of them. Pitching her voice as low and calm as she could, she said, ‘Now, Dr Barton, we were talking about the date of Edna’s departure. Month and year. Even the year would be a starting point.’
As if his outburst had drained him, he said, ‘Maeve used to keep the family records. Yes, you should run some photos to earth. When they no longer include Edna—’
‘They’re not dated, Dr Barton, or we could have used them as a starting point.’
‘Oh, surely you women can get a good idea from the clothes.’
‘Come on. You must have more accurate touchstones. How old would you have been, for instance?’
‘Oh,’ he said pettishly, ‘I suppose it might have been while I was away at medical school. I’d have been in my early twenties. And I’d already left the bosom of the family. There’d be nothing to link it to, not in my memory.’
‘A sister disappears and you’ve nothing to link it to in your memory! Don’t give me that, Dr Barton. When was it in relation, say, to your father’s death?’
‘I can’t even remember which year he died.’
‘Your amnesia seems a little unusual, Dr Barton.’
‘Oh, I can remember the season. Winter. I was shivering in my digs in Nottingham when the news came through. Snow on the ground. The campus lake had frozen over. So it was that hard winter, in those days when we had hard winters. Early sixties. Anyway,’ he demanded, ‘I’m sure you’d be able to find his death certificate on some computer file if you really wanted to know.’
So Max Cornfield knew the year of Barr’s death, but his own son couldn’t – or wouldn’t – be precise.
Kate confined herself to a noncommital nod, but kept her eyes on him. ‘And your sister left at this time? Before or after your father’s death?’ There was a flicker of anxiety there, she would swear it. ‘Dr Barton?’
‘I’ve really no idea. I was away, remember. And I told you we were never close.’
‘But you know enough about the circumstances to tell me precisely why your mother threw her out. Did your mother know about your father’s assaults on you all, by the way?’
‘I can’t believe she didn’t. I truly can’t. But she never – I can’t remember her ever …’ He gathered himself up to his full height. ‘Officer, I can’t believe this is of any relevance in an enquiry into a trivial irregularity in an old woman’s will. I have answered your questions with considerable patience and would now like you to leave.’
‘Of course, sir,’ she said easily. ‘I’m sorry we’ve had to ask questions which have dragged up unpleasant memories. Just one last question. Thinking back now, where would you think your sister might have gone? Did she ever – you know how young people do – threaten to run away to a particular place to be with a special person?’
He seemed to be making a genuine effort. ‘One of them was in love with Cliff Richard, the other with Adam Faith. I can’t remember which, off hand.’ He managed a rueful smile. ‘So I can’t even tell you she might have run away to be with Elvis Presley, can I?’
‘No flesh and blood special men—’
‘I’ve told you, Edna thought every man was special enough to take into her bed the first time she met him. Why not let her go, Sergeant?’ He snorted. ‘If what you say about the will is correct, I should imagine there’ll be more than a modicum of publicity. That might produce precisely the information you want.’
Max Cornfield said more or less the same thing when Kate and Jane picked him up at seven that evening. He’d clearly been eating when they’d rung the doorbell, and Kate saw no reason why he shouldn’t be allowed to finish his meal. It was the sort familiar to all solo-eaters, if an up-market version: salad, with so many different types of leaves it almost certainly came from a bag, a baked potato, steak and a glass of red wine. Edward lay by the stove, apparently too well-mannered to purloin the steak he was eyeing. Jane was on her knees in a flash, cooing with delight.
‘I wish I could invite you to join me,’ Cornfield began.
‘Not at all. Enjoy your meal,’ Kate smiled. She wished she didn’t have to add, it may be the last you enjoy for some time under her breath. ‘Did you have a good day in Cheltenham?’
‘The usual. I took the opportunity of a quiet train journey to check her share portfolio against current prices. I think you’ll agree her broker did her proud.’
‘Broker? I’d have thought she’d want to do it herself.’
‘She lost sharply one year. That was when I suggested a little expertise might not come amiss.’ He addressed himself to the rest of his meal, mopping the juices from the meat – he preferred his steak on the rare side – with a chunk of baguette. ‘I was going to have the rest of this with some cheese,’ he said. ‘But it can wait. I don’t want to keep you waiting any longer.’ He got up to put his plate and glass in the sink. ‘There. Now, ladies, how may I help you?’
‘There are a number of things we need to talk to you about, Mr Cornfield,’ Kate told him, feeling like Judas. ‘So we’d like you to come along with us to the police station.’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t understand.’
She kept her face blank.
‘I may be gone some time?’ he quoted with a vestige of a smile. ‘Well, I’d better make sure Edward has the quickest of visits to the garden. At his age his bladder … If you’re in a hurry, perhaps you’d be kind enough to open that tin for him. This is his bowl. And he can have those scraps from my plate.’
He was so relaxed, wasn’t he? Innocence personified. As if he hadn’t a care in the world. Was that how he’d survived, an island of sanity in that bizarre family? By being innocent? Unless, and Kate reminded herself fiercely of the evidence mounting against him, apart from being a manservant to put the admirable Crichton to shame, he was a consummate actor as well.
As for herself, she’d be glad to take a back seat in the forthcoming interview: it would be nice to see what other, less partial officers made of him.