Ryan gunned the car down the side street and drove to the storage garages, pulled the bag out of the backseat, unlocked one of the doors, and went inside. In the dim light he tore the Christmas wrapping off a few of the presents and stuffed them into a shopping bag, followed by a couple of other things he thought he could sell, then left, locking the door. He drove the car some distance away from the garages, turning into an office car park, where he abandoned it, running through the back alleys of Malworth toward home.
He was putting the shopping bag into his bedroom closet when he heard the front door open and close, and the click of his mother’s heels on the floor. He knew it must be ten past nine; his mother did evening cleaning at the Riverside Family Center and always came home at exactly the same time. The heels clicked again and her voice floated up.
“Dexter? Dexter, are you in bed, love?”
Ryan heard her footsteps on the stairs, heard her open Dexter’s bedroom door. He was locking the closet door when she came into his bedroom, and he turned to look at her.
Not forty yet, and she looked worn-out. Washed out. Her pale bare arms were hardly any wider at the top than they were at her wrist, and her elbows always looked to him as though the bones might start poking through, there was so little flesh between them and her skin. One day, he told himself, he was going to buy her a big house with someone to do her cleaning, instead of her having to do other people’s; one day she would lose the worried frown that seemed almost permanent.
His dad had left home when he was four years old; all Ryan remembered of his parents’ marriage had been tears and shouting just after Dex was born, and he had known it had something to do with Dex being black. He hadn’t understood why it upset his father so much; he had thought the baby was a nice color. Much better than a silly pink baby. Now, he couldn’t believe that his mother had actually waited until Dex was born before facing the music, but he supposed it was in character; she had a tendency to think that if she ignored things they would just go away. And, in that instance, his father did indeed go away.
After a while she had married Edward Gibson, Dex’s father, and she was happy then. Ryan had liked him, too; everything was fine until Edward went to work one morning and never came home again. He had told his supervisor he didn’t feel well, and was clocking off to go home when he just dropped down dead. That had been five years ago, and his mother never really got over it.
There had been the odd man since, but nothing serious, and these days there wasn’t anyone at all. Ryan wished there was; maybe then she would have something else to think about, and wouldn’t come sailing into his bedroom whenever she felt like it. He should have somewhere of his own. Somewhere he could take girlfriends. Somewhere he could do what he liked. One day, he thought. One day it would happen.
One day he’d have a penthouse flat and she would have a house in the country and no problems at all. His dreams of that coming about were tempered a little by realism; he knew that more often than not he was the cause of his mother’s problems, and he knew that his lifestyle was not one likely to produce penthouse flats and cottages in the country. But deep down he still believed it could all be turned around. One day.
She looked with deep suspicion at the locked closet door. “What have you got in there?”
“Nothing,” he said.
“Why are you locking it, then?”
“It’s private.” He put the key in the coin pocket of his jeans.
“Ryan,” she sighed. “Have you been up to something?” She advanced farther into the room. “Have you?”
“No!” he said, with the same injured innocence that he used in court. It depended on the magistrates whether or not it worked there. It never worked with his mother.
“You have. Have you been getting Dexter into bother? Where is he?”
“Why would I be getting him into bother?” Ryan asked, puzzled. “Isn’t this Monday? He’ll be at rehearsal for the panto.”
All Dex wanted was to be an actor, to be in the movies. He’d joined the amateur dramatic society when he was ten years old, and he loved it. He’d even had publicity photographs done; he did a Saturday job with a photographer, so they hadn’t cost him anything. He sent them out now and then to people who produced TV ads and things, but nothing had come of it yet. It would, though, Ryan thought. He was a good actor, and he could sing. Maybe Dex would get rich and famous and make everything happen.
“He isn’t at the rehearsal. I saw that Marianne woman when she arrived at the center, and she asked if he would be well enough to get to their next rehearsal. He’d called her to say he couldn’t go because he wasn’t feeling well—she thought he might have this flu. I thought he must be in bed when he wasn’t downstairs.” She regarded Ryan with deep suspicion. “Have you had him out with you on some job? Is that it?”
Ryan sighed dramatically. She was convinced he was going to corrupt Dex. “He’s not been with me,” he said. “I don’t know where he is.” He frowned. It was a bit odd. But perhaps it wasn’t that inexplicable. “Maybe he felt better and went anyway.”
His mother picked up his mobile. “How do you use this thing?”
He told her, and watched as she dialed the number of the Riverside Theatre, listened as she asked if Dexter was there, and didn’t need to hear the answer as she thanked whoever she’d spoken to and handed back the phone to him, so he could terminate the call. The look said everything.
“You had him with you, didn’t you?”
Ryan shook his head, baffled. “What makes you think that?”
“If there’s nothing wrong with him, he wouldn’t miss a rehearsal unless you told him to. Where is he?” She came around the foot of the bed and stood looking down at him as he peeled back the Velcro of his trainers. “Answer me, Ryan Chester! Where is your little brother?”
Ryan reached past her for his new trainers. “I don’t know where he is!” he said again. “He’s not been with me.”
“Did you run away and leave him?” Her hand flew to her mouth as a thought struck her. “Oh, my God, has he been arrested?”
Ryan had laces on the new trainers; he took some time to thread them, then looked up at her. “He’s fourteen—if he’d been arrested they’d have contacted you, wouldn’t they?”
He should know. He was always being arrested when he was fourteen. His way of life hadn’t changed very much, but he was better at evading arrest than he had been; he hadn’t been caught for over a year. His court appearances used to be constant.
He remembered the first time he’d been arrested after his seventeenth birthday. When he’d realized that the police weren’t going to get his mum, that he was on his own, it had been a little bit scary. But he’d felt proud, too. He’d grown up, reached the age at which he no longer needed an appropriate adult present. And he’d felt relieved. Now his mum didn’t have to know every time he got into a little bit of bother, and he didn’t have to hear her insisting that he tell the cops the truth. But Dex was still a juvenile. They’d have rung her at work if they picked him up. Besides, Dex didn’t do anything like that.
“Dex isn’t like me,” he said. “He won’t be in trouble.”
“I hope not,” she said. “But he’s been a bit funny lately, Ryan. Secretive. He doesn’t talk about what he’s been up to, like he used to. It’s not like him to be like that.”
Ryan smiled. “He’s fourteen, Mum,” he said again. “He’s not going to come and tell you everything that happens to him anymore.”
“But haven’t you noticed?” she said.
Ryan couldn’t say he had, but then he was very rarely home. “He’s okay,” he said. “I don’t think he’s sniffing glue or anything, if that’s what’s worrying you.”
“He’s doing something,” she said. “Something he doesn’t want me to know about.”
Ryan smiled. “What’s the matter?” he said. “Do you think he’ll go blind?”
“I wish I could believe that’s all it is,” she said. “You’d tell me, wouldn’t you, if he was taking drugs or anything like that?”
“He’s not taking drugs,” said Ryan. “He’s just growing up, Mum.”
“Maybe. But I keep remembering you at his age. I was never out of the police station. And Barry takes drugs. He’ll probably be spending Christmas in prison because of it.”
“He smokes pot, Mum. It’s not the same thing. And Dex isn’t into any of that.”
She frowned. “What did you put in the closet?” she asked.
Ryan had bought the lock after he’d found her going through the closet and then questioned him about what she’d found. He still had to put up with the questions, but at least she couldn’t go into it anymore. “Nothing,” he said as he finished lacing his shoes and stood up. “Nothing to do with you. Or Dexter.”
“It had better not have anything to do with Dexter.” She looked from the closet to him, and walked toward the bedroom door. “Why hasn’t he come home? Is he scared to? If you’ve been getting him into trouble, you can just pack your bags now.”
She didn’t mean it, even if he had gotten Dexter into trouble—Ryan knew that, and so did she. And, as it turned out, her threat didn’t have to be put to the test, as they heard the front door open and slam shut.
“Dexter? Is that you?”
Ryan shook his head. Who did she think it was, for God’s sake?
“Mum?”
Ryan shrugged. “See?” he said. “He’s not been arrested.”
She turned to call through the open door. “I’ll be right down, love,” she said. “And I’ll be going to the chip shop in a minute, so think about what you want.” She turned back to Ryan. “I don’t know about him,” she said, “but you’ve been up to something. And if I have the police round here again, you can find somewhere else to live, because I’m not putting up with it anymore.”
Ryan shook his head and walked past her to rattle downstairs with his mother following him at a more sedate pace. He stopped dead when he saw Dex. “What the hell happened to you?” he asked.
Dex looked away. “I fell,” he said.
“You fell?” said Ryan. Dex’s eye was almost closed; blood from his nose was drying on his face, and he had a bruised mouth. He gently held Dex’s chin between his fingers, turning his head left and right, checking the extent of the damage. He had taken a beating from someone. “You fell on to someone’s fists,” he said. “Who did that to you?”
“Dexter?” His mother ran down to him. “Are you all right? Oh, dear God. Do you need a doctor? Who’s been hitting you?”
“No one,” Dex said, pulling his head away. “I fell down some stairs. I’m all right. I don’t need a doctor.”
“Why didn’t you go to rehearsal?” she asked.
“I didn’t feel well. Then I felt a bit better and I went out for a walk.”
“A walk?” said Ryan. “It’s chucking it down out there!”
“It wasn’t. Not when I went out.”
“Since when have you gone for walks?”
“I just wanted some fresh air.”
“Leave him alone, Ryan,” said his mother, putting a protective arm around Dex. “Oh, you’re all wet.” She unzipped his bomber jacket and began to take it off, as if he were a child.
Dexter caught his breath with the movement, then impatiently shrugged off her assistance and took the jacket off himself. Very carefully.
Ryan took the jacket from him.
“I was at the shops!” Dex said defensively, though Ryan hadn’t said a word. “The pavement was wet and I slipped and fell down those steps by the hairdresser’s.”
The jacket was wet, as his mother had said, but there were no smears of dirt on the shiny green material. No scratches, no indication of a fall. There was some blood, and stains down the front. “Were you sick?” he asked, handing the jacket to his mother.
“A little bit,” said Dex. “But I want chips,” he added, anxiously.
Ryan wondered briefly if his mother was right—kids gathered at the shops to sniff glue. But his mother didn’t seem to have thought of that, and he wasn’t about to put the idea back into her head.
“You weren’t well,” his mother scolded him. “You shouldn’t have gone out. Come and let me get you cleaned up. Are you sure you want to eat? Maybe you should just go to bed with a hot drink and aspirin.”
Ryan watched as she shepherded Dex into the living room, and shook his head. Whatever he’d been up to, Dex had not fallen down any stairs. He followed them into the room, sitting down beside Dex on the sofa as his mother bathed his injuries and glared at Ryan as though it was his fault. If his mother went out again, he would have the opportunity to interview his little brother in circumstances in which he might find it easier to talk. Not that Dex was going to find it easy to talk at all with that swollen lip.
“Are you sure you want food?” his mother asked Dexter again. “You must be shaken up.”
“Yes, I’m sure,” said Dex, his eyes widening, alarmed that he might find himself going without his supper. “Burger and chips.”
“Well, all right. Do you want anything?” she asked Ryan.
“No,” he said. “I’m going out. I’ll get something at the club.”
“You’re not going anywhere until I get back. You’ll stay and keep an eye on your brother. He could have a concussion.”
He could, thought Ryan. He’d been hit hard enough. “Did you get knocked out, Dex?”
Dex shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said.
Ryan performed perfunctory ringside tests; he passed a finger in front of him, and Dex’s eyes followed it; he held up three fingers, and Dex didn’t see six. “He’ll be okay,” he said, and ran a hand over his brother’s short, tightly curled hair. “Won’t you, champ?”
Dex nodded.
“Even so. He’s not well. You just wait here until I get back.” His mother picked up her coat, then put it down again. “On second thought, you can go,” she said. “You’ll be quicker than me.” She opened her bag, taking out her purse, and selected exactly the right money. “Cod, beefburger, and a large bag of chips. Straight there and straight back,” she said.
Ryan smiled. She used to say that when he was ten. “Cod, beefburger, and a large bag of chips,” he repeated. “Are you sure you don’t want to give me a note for the man in case I forget what I’ve gone for?”
“Less cheek. Just hurry up.”
Ryan was back in ten minutes with the fish and chips, and helped his mother put them on plates, something only mothers ever did. “Keep an eye on him, Mum,” he said. “If he looks drowsy or he’s sick again, you should get the doctor.” He saw his mother’s face, the worried frown deeper than ever. “But I think he’s okay,” he added reassuringly. “Honest.”
He went up to his room and retrieved the carrier bag from the closet, then rattled down again, popping his head around the door to say cheerio. He glanced at Dex as he went out, and Dex looked away immediately. But there would be another opportunity to talk to him.
“I told the officers who came earlier.”
Tom nodded. “I know, sir, but I’d just like you to go over it again with me, if you wouldn’t mind.”
He was with Geoffrey Jones, the neighbor who had called the police. Everything about him, from the hair he’d combed over his bald patch and his horn-rimmed glasses, through his cardigan and slacks, right down to his nylon socks and polished shoes, instantly irritated Tom.
Mr. Jones gave a short sigh of resignation. “You’d better come in, then,” he said.
Tom closed the front door and followed Mr. Jones into the immaculately tidy sitting room, where his wife, wearing a sculpted hairdo and a fussy blouse and skirt that quarreled with one another, was hovering anxiously as Mr. Jones moaned about the intrusion. Her face was pale and drawn, and her eyes red; Tom doubted that she had received much in the way of sympathy.
“I don’t see why the other chap can’t tell you what I told him. Why should I have to go through it all again?”
“Geoffrey,” said his wife. “Estelle’s dead.”
“Well?” he said. “Telling umpteen policemen what I saw isn’t going to bring her back to life, is it?”
Mrs. Jones looked hurt and shocked. Tom cleared his throat. “Detective Sergeant Finch, Stansfield CID,” he told her, since her husband was clearly dispensing with introductions, and turned to Mr. Jones again. “I’m sorry we’re taking up so much of your time,” he said. “But if you could just tell me in your own words what—”
“In my own words? Whose words do you suppose I’m going to use?”
Tom produced something approaching a friendly smile, for which he felt he deserved a medal. “Well, perhaps you could just tell me what made you call us,” he said.
“Sit down, Sergeant Finch,” said Mrs. Jones. “Would you like a cup of tea?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, woman! We’re not running a café! We might have to have policemen all over the place, but you don’t have to make them all tea in the bargain!”
“It’s only polite.”
Tom took a deep breath. “No, thank you, Mrs. Jones,” he said, but he did sit down as invited. “Now, Mr. Jones, if you could tell me what happened tonight—it is quite urgent.”
“I know it’s urgent! How many break-ins have there been round here? And what have you done about them? Nothing, that’s what!”
The evening paper had been running a campaign about the rise in the burglary statistics, complaining about police performance. Last year it had been street crime, and the Chief Constable had decided that street crime must be targeted. If you took resources away from one thing to deal with another, this was what happened. Next year it would be burglary they were targeting. And thefts from vehicles would go up.
“I can assure you we have been working on them, Mr. Jones, but if we could just get back to tonight …”
“Tonight, a young woman has died because of these … these animals! And it’s all very well you and your colleagues coming here now—now that it’s finally happened. The place is crawling with policemen when it’s too late! Why didn’t you try harder to catch these people in the first place? And why aren’t you looking for that black lad instead of making me tell you all about him again?”
Tom was used to getting the blame for all the ills that befell mankind; it didn’t bother him. In a way, it made him feel more comfortable with Mr. Jones; until now, he had seemed to regard the death of his next door neighbor as more of an irritation than anything else. But under all that bluster was someone shocked and frightened, and Tom knew if he didn’t calm Mr. Jones down, he’d get nothing useful out of him. This wasn’t his strong point; he would be much more at home with the burglar. He understood how to talk to lawbreakers and those suspected of having broken the law. Witnesses were different.
“Believe me, Mr. Jones, my colleagues are looking for him. But it would make a big difference if we had a little more to go on. And we find that if we ask people to go over what they saw, they sometimes remember a little bit more than they did originally. So, perhaps you could start at the beginning? I believe you were coming home from work?”
“From my place of business,” said Mr. Jones, bridling once more.
Tom, with a slight movement of his hand, apologized for calling it something so lowly as work, and correctly guessed that Mr. Jones didn’t work for anyone else. “You’re in business for yourself?”
“I have a shop in the High Street. Toys and games. I was open late tonight, so I didn’t get home until about ten past eight. I drove into the garage—”
“That’s at the rear of the house?”
“Yes. There’s a service road running along the back of these properties. The garages are at the rear, of course.”
Tom nodded.
“And as I came back out I could hear an argument.”
“Did you recognize the voices?”
“No. He was angry, and she was crying—it could have been anyone, really. He wasn’t shouting—if anything, he was keeping his voice down. But he was very angry.”
“Did you hear what was being said?”
“Just the odd word—mostly swearing. From him. And I heard noises. A scuffle or something, and what might have been blows. I heard her cry out.”
“You should have gone next door, then,” said Mrs. Jones. “If you thought someone was assaulting her.”
“I thought it was her husband.”
“And that would have made it all right, would it?”
“No, but—” Mr. Jones looked helplessly at Tom, appealing for some male support. “I would have done something,” he said, “said something, if it had gone on for any length of time. But it didn’t. It lasted a few seconds, that was all. Then it went quiet, and I thought it had calmed down. That’s when I came into the house.”
“Did you hear any of this, Mrs. Jones?”
“No,” she said. “But I had the television on. I thought maybe that’s what Geoffrey had heard, because they’d been having a row.” She smiled a little. “Well, they always are in soaps, aren’t they?”
“And that couldn’t have been what you heard?”
“No, of course it couldn’t! I know the difference between the television and real people. Besides, they don’t use that sort of language in soaps.”
“What sort of language?”
“Well, you know,” said Mr. Jones, and lowered his voice, glancing apologetically at his wife. “I heard him call her a ‘fucking bitch.’ ”
“You’re certain it was from next door?”
“Well, I couldn’t see anything, because of the hedge, but it was definitely coming from that direction—and it sounded as though they were outside. It certainly wasn’t the TV.”
“Right,” said Tom. “Then you heard the glass breaking?”
“Well, I went upstairs and I heard it then. It would be about five or so minutes later, I suppose. I looked out of the back bedroom window to try to find out what was going on, and I saw this boy running out of Eric Watson’s garden and off down the back road. Mr. Watson was in the garden—he shouted at him to stop, but he didn’t, of course.”
They hadn’t been told that the first time around. All they had known was that Mr. Jones saw him running down the back road. But the back gates to the Bignalls’ garden were locked, so jumping the wall into the neighboring garden would be the quickest way out. Was that how he had come in as well? The hoped-for evidence on the gate wouldn’t be forthcoming if that was the case. And the bit about Watson shouting at the intruder hadn’t been mentioned before either. But perhaps Mr. Jones was embroidering the story second time around, Tom thought.
“Can you remember exactly what he said?”
“I think he shouted, ‘Come back here, you little bugger,’ or something like that.” Another glance in his wife’s direction.
Mr. Jones clearly wasn’t used to swearing in the house; he was almost enjoying the freedom that factual reporting had given him to indulge. And it seemed definite enough, thought Tom. Unless he was a pathological embroiderer of stories, it did seem that he’d heard Watson shouting.
“And from up there I could see the Bignalls’ French window was wide open, and all the rain was getting in. And there was no light on, so obviously they didn’t know. I didn’t know it was broken, though. It’s just one pane—it wasn’t obvious.”
“I made him go next door then,” said Mrs. Jones. “To tell them about their French window being open.”
“So I went and knocked on the front door, but I couldn’t get a reply,” said Mr. Jones. “The front bedroom light was on, but everywhere else was in darkness.”
“He wouldn’t phone you,” his wife said. “He kept saying they were probably making up after the row and didn’t want to answer the door, didn’t you, Geoffrey?”
Mr. Jones looked a little embarrassed. “Well, you know,” he mumbled. “They’re that sort of couple.”
“Oh?” said Tom. “What sort of couple?”
“Well—you know. Rows and things.”
“Violent rows?”
“Oh, no,” said Mrs. Jones. “Never. He was always trying to calm her down when she had one of her turns. She was just a bit—well, highly strung. Sometimes she got a bit depressed, you know. You’d hear her now and then, going on at him. She thought the world of him, really, but she was very suspicious—you’d hear her sometimes screaming at him that he didn’t love her, that he just stayed with her for—”
“Christine!” said Mr. Jones.
Mrs. Jones looked mutinous. “Well, it’s true!” she said.
“Just stayed with her for what?” asked Tom. This was getting very interesting, assuming it wasn’t all just exaggeration.
“Her money,” said Mrs. Jones. “But she didn’t mean it—I know she didn’t. She was always telling me how much she loved him, and how she wished she didn’t say things like that, because she knew they weren’t true.”
“Was she the one with the money, then?”
“Well,” said Mr. Jones, “I don’t know about that, particularly. She had a nice income from a trust her grandfather set up for her. Poor girl lost her parents when she was very young. Her grandfather brought her up on his own—he lost his wife in the same accident. I think that’s why she confided in Christine like she did. A sort of mother figure.”
“How long have you known her?”
“They moved in when they got married,” said Mrs. Jones. “Seven years ago, now. They’re a nice couple, really.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Well,” she said. “You know. They were. But she made his life a bit difficult—she knew she did. They almost split up at one point, but they got over that. She would come and see me when she needed to get something off her chest.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Jones. “Like I say, they argued all the time, and then they’d make up. So that’s what I thought they were doing.”
“But I didn’t think that was very likely,” said Mrs. Jones. “There was the breaking glass and that boy running away and everything. And even if they were doing what he thought they were doing, they could still have been broken into, I said. So eventually he phoned you.”
“Were you at home earlier in the evening, Mrs. Jones?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t notice anything today about teatime, did you? We’ve been told that kids were making a bit of a nuisance of themselves.”
She shook her head. “No,” she said. “I’ve seen gangs of boys from the London Road estate here quite often, though. They’re a bit rowdy, and they can make a bit of a mess, but they don’t really do any harm.”
“They’re probably the ones doing the break-ins,” said Mr. Jones. “Don’t do any harm, my foot.”
“Would you mind letting me see the view from the back bedroom?” asked Tom, getting up.
After a show of reluctance, Mr. Jones agreed that he didn’t mind enough actually to prohibit it. Upstairs, Tom looked out of the window, getting the lay of the land. A six-foot-high wall ran along the rear of the properties on this side of the road, punctuated along its length by wooden gates to the driveways leading to the double garages. The high hedge between the Jones’ garden and that of the Bignalls would have meant that Mr. Jones had no view of the Bignalls’ garden, or of the French windows, until he came up to this vantage point. A low wall separated the Bignalls’ garden from their neighbor’s on the other side. Bricks were piled up neatly beside it; one pile, however, lay scattered on the ground, about halfway down. The intruder could have knocked them over in his haste to leave.
Tom could see reasonably well because now the lights at the rear were on, but that had obviously not been the case when Mr. Jones looked out of this window earlier. The back road itself was a short, unlit service road, and behind that lay a small wood, so no light was to be had there. He would have been able to see someone running through Watson’s gate two gardens away, but it was hard to see how he had seen anything more definite than that on this rainy, starless, moonless night.
“It’s very dark,” he said. “How could you be sure the boy you saw running away was black?”
“Watson’s got one of these high-power security lights,” he said. “Goes on as soon as there’s any movement, floods the place with light. I could see that boy as clearly as if it was daylight.”
“Can you describe him?”
“He was black. I told you.”
“Yes,” said Tom, his patience once again severely tested. “Anything else? What he was wearing, perhaps? Did he have short hair, or dreadlocks, or what? Was he fat, thin, tall, short … how old would you say he was?”
“He was black,” repeated Mr. Jones, with a shrug.
“Mr. Jones, can’t you just tell me a bit more than that?”
Mr. Jones sighed again. “Definitely young, smallish—maybe a child, maybe a teenager. Wearing the sort of thing they wear.”
The sort of thing who wore? Black people? Teenagers? Burglars, maybe. The newspaper cartoon image of a burglar complete with mask and striped jersey and his bag of stolen goods over his shoulder came into Tom’s mind. He frowned as he realized something.
“You saw this boy immediately after hearing the window break?”
“Yes.”
Tom didn’t know what, if anything, was missing from next door, but he did know that the intruder had time to make the usual sort of mess. Drawers had been pulled out, cupboards opened, shelves disturbed, and it certainly looked as though items were missing from them. So if this youth had run away the minute the window was broken, it seemed more likely he was a lookout who had gotten cold feet rather than the actual burglar. Whoever was doing the actual burgling might still have been inside. If Mr. Jones hadn’t wasted almost half an hour between hearing the altercation and phoning the police, they might have arrived with the intruder still on the premises. Or at least in time to save Mrs. Bignall.
“Was this boy carrying anything?” he asked.
Mr. Jones frowned, and thought. “No,” he said eventually. “No, now that you mention it, I don’t think he was. He was running very fast—you know? Arms going like pistons. He couldn’t have been carrying anything.”
Well, at least they could try finding the lookout, if only Mr. Jones could see past the color of his skin to give a decent description. Once they had him, there would be no problem. He was obviously already alarmed, and once he found out that his partner in crime had caused someone’s death, he would be very eager to shift the blame.
Tom tried again, dredging up the interviewing techniques he was supposed to apply when dealing with honest, upright citizens who had inadvertently become mixed up in a criminal investigation. “Now that you’ve got a picture of him in your head, can you remember anything about what he was wearing? Anything at all about him?”
Mr. Jones was shaking his head slowly, but then he stopped and frowned again. “One of those bomber jacket things,” he said. “Shiny. Green, maybe. Yes. Yes, I think it was green. But Mr. Watson might be able to give you a better description—he was much closer to him than I was. He was standing by his greenhouse, and the boy was at his gate.”
Yes, thought Tom, looking over at the greenhouse. He would only be about ten feet away from the boy. The only problem was that Mr. Watson said he hadn’t seen or heard anything or anyone at all, and he had once been a policeman himself, according to the uniforms. But while Mr. Jones might not be someone Tom had taken to readily, it seemed unlikely that he’d imagined all this, so Watson was definitely worth a visit.
“Thank you,” he said, making his way back to the stairs. “You’ve been a great help. And I’m sorry if we’ve inconvenienced you.”
“It’s a terrible business. In this neighborhood, too.”
Lloyd pulled up in the once-quiet street with its handful of well-to-do terraced houses, now alive with vehicles and urgency, and looked at Carl Bignall. “If you’d prefer to go to a neighbor or a friend,” he began, “I can—”
“No.” Bignall opened the car door. “No, I’m all right, thank you.” He got out and walked slightly unsteadily toward the house.
Lloyd had driven him home because Bignall had received such a shock when he heard what had happened; he definitely wasn’t all right. Lloyd caught up with him. “Dr. Bignall, if you could follow me, it might be as well,” he said. “The SOCOs—the scene-of-crime officers—might want us to keep clear of any area they still need to examine.”
“Yes,” muttered Bignall, falling into step behind him. “Yes, of course. I understand.”
They met Tom as he emerged from the house next door. “Ah, good,” Lloyd said as all three reached Carl Bignall’s front door. “Could you look after Dr. Bignall, Tom?”
Tom took Bignall into the sitting room, and Lloyd continued on to the kitchen at the end of the hallway, where Estelle Bignall’s body lay. He was walking under streamers and holly; how sad it all looked.
“You can come in, sir,” said the young constable who stood guard. “The SOCOs just finished in here.”
Lloyd went in and looked at the small, slim young woman who lay on the floor, naked under her bathrobe, her hands bound behind her back with the belt, her ankles taped up. Hanging loosely around her neck was a man’s tie, still knotted tightly at the back, and on the floor beside the body lay a rolled-up ball of material and a man’s glove. The photographer was snapping away, impassively and efficiently.
“Did the FME remove the gag?” Lloyd asked. “I’m sorry—I don’t know your name.”
The young man stood almost to attention. “PC Gary Sims, sir. I removed the gag and got the material out of her mouth. I then attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but it failed.”
Lloyd nodded, smiling a little. “I’m not a court of law, Gary,” he said.
Sims relaxed a little. “I wasn’t sure what to do, sir. I thought she was dead, but you know—you’re told you mustn’t assume that, you must try to preserve life, but you’re told not to disturb a homicide scene, and I couldn’t do both, so I just did what I thought I had to do.”
“That’s all you can do,” said Lloyd, and looked down at the body again. “Was she still warm, then?”
“Not exactly warm. But not cold.”
Lloyd nodded, and looked again at the victim. She was in her mid-twenties, fair, probably very attractive before this happened to her.
“Do we know who that glove belongs to?”
“No, sir. It was there when I found her. I didn’t touch it.”
“Why would he remove one glove, do you think?”
“Maybe he couldn’t tie her up properly with his gloves on.”
“But if you had to remove one glove to tie a knot, wouldn’t you have to remove both of them?” It was a little puzzle, he thought. And little puzzles sometimes solved the bigger ones.
“Not if you used your teeth, sir. He would have been hanging onto her with his other hand while he tied her up, wouldn’t he?”
Yes, presumably he would be doing that. So it wasn’t a little puzzle after all, then. Who needed Judy? Everyone could point out flaws in his reasoning. Even little boys in police uniforms.
“There was one of these Sellotape dispensers on the table, and scissors,” said Sims, nodding over to the kitchen table, on which lay a roll of Christmas paper. “Someone had been wrapping presents, I think. The SOCO took them.”
Perhaps, thought Lloyd, the burglar had left a set of his doubtless already-filed fingerprints for them to find when he used the tape. And whether he had or not, Lloyd had every intention of having whoever did this behind bars before the holiday began.
Through the adjoining door he could see the crime scene technicians dusting the window and everything else that had been disturbed, examining the carpet, collecting samples of the mud that had been walked through from the garden into the dining room, carefully bagging up the broken glass that lay on the rain-soaked carpet, the brick that lay on the patio. He would wait until they finished before he went in.
Freddie arrived as he went back out into the hallway.
“Lloyd! We meet again. Good of you to let me fit in my game of squash before you called.”
“She’s in the kitchen, Freddie. Constable Sims is with her.”
“Is Constable Sims male or female?”
“Male.”
Freddie pulled a face. “Your police force is sadly lacking in talent at the moment, you know that, don’t you? I think I’ll report you to the Equal Opportunities people.”
“Sir!” called Sims. “They’ve finished next door—they’ve moved out to the patio now.”
“Thank you,” said Lloyd, and left Freddie and Sims to their work, as he went into the large dining room, also decorated for the season. One of the Bignalls obviously made a big thing of Christmas. More garlands, balloons, baubles, and a tall Christmas tree whose lights changed color through the spectrum. Books lay scattered on one shelf, and the other shelves were empty save for a vase of flowers. It looked almost artistic—minimalist, Japanese. He had never been struck by the artistry of a burglary before. Tom came in from the hallway.
“Dr. Bignall’s with PC Warren,” he said. “He’s pretty shell-shocked, but Warren’s checking the rest of the house with him.”
Tom had unloaded Bignall; Lloyd wasn’t surprised. Victim support was not Tom’s strong suit at the best of times, and with the new haircut, Tom looked exactly what he was: a tough, uncompromising detective sergeant. The curls had been disarming; people had let their guard down a little, were taken by surprise when he’d shown his mettle. Lloyd felt that he might have thrown away an advantage.
“Guv—I think there might have been two of them. Dr. Bignall says there were a lot of presents under the tree in here, and they’re not here now.” He nodded over to where the tree, slightly lopsided, sat in its tub, two Christmas-wrapped presents beneath it. “Someone else must have removed them, because this kid who ran away wasn’t carrying anything. And I want to talk to the other neighbors, especially Watson. We’re getting conflicting stories.”
Lloyd listened to what had been overheard, to how Tom thought the burglars had gained entry to the property, and to the information he’d gleaned about the Bignalls’ marriage.
“Right, Tom—you go ahead and talk to the neighbors. I’ll try and find out what’s gone missing.”
“And one other thing,” said Tom as they walked out together into the hall. “Jones said the disturbance sounded as though it was going on outside, and it was definitely before the window was broken. If it was the intruders, one of them was female.”
Lloyd went into the sitting room to ask Carl Bignall if he could tell them what presents had been stolen. His reaction to Lloyd’s question was predictable.
“Oh, for God’s sake. Your sergeant just asked me that! Why on earth are you so bothered about what’s missing? I told him—I don’t care.”
“It’s just that it might help us catch whoever did it if they try and sell any of it. I believe you’ve had a chance to check out the rest of the house?”
“Yes—they don’t seem to have been anywhere else.” Bignall closed his eyes. “Sorry. I do know what some of the presents were, but I can’t think. Some of them were wrapped, and some weren’t. We always put them all under there until Christmas Day. Some of them had been opened—I just can’t think what they were.” He rose wearily. “Can I see her?” he asked.
“We will need you to make formal identification,” Lloyd said. “But you might prefer to wait.”
“No. I’d like to see her now.”
In the kitchen, he nodded briefly. “I just had to see for myself,” he said. “Or I’d have gone on thinking it was all a mistake.”
Lloyd could understand that. Having someone tell you your wife had been killed during a burglary was something you could choose not to believe; seeing her would draw a line under it at least. He ushered Bignall into the dining room. It really was important to know what was missing.
Carl waved a hand at the shelves. “They’ve taken some ornaments,” he said. “I can’t really remember what was there.” He looked down and frowned. “There’s mud all over the carpet,” he said.
“It might help us catch them,” said Lloyd.
Bignall shook his head, and glanced over at the Christmas-decorated tree. “They’ve taken almost all the presents. I know that Estelle had got her—” He broke off, his eyes widening. “There was a portable stereo,” he said, pointing to the floor beneath the tree. “It’s gone.” He looked at Lloyd, his face pale.
“Was it particularly important to you?” asked Lloyd.
“It … it was Estelle’s present to me.”
“I’m very sorry,” Lloyd said.
One of the SOCOs came toward them. “Was it about so big?” she asked, spreading her hands. “Dark green?”
“Yes,” said Bignall, nodding, his eyes wide.
“Then I’ve got some good news at least,” she said. “It’s gone to the lab, sir. We found it beside the open window, so we think there’s a chance the intruder dropped it when he was disturbed. And he left a glove behind; there could be fingerprints on it.” She smiled sympathetically. “It won’t come to any harm.”
Bignall nodded, still looking bewildered.
Lloyd went out to the garden where a crime scene officer was asking for the photographer. At least they’d found something to photograph, he thought as he made his way down past the bricks to the bottom of the garden.
“Got something?” he asked.
“The rain’s been helpful,” said the officer. “We’ve got footprints. We found one set on the patio, but these have been made by someone else. I’ll be able to make a pretty good cast of them.”
Footprints at the bottom of the garden tied in with Tom’s theory regarding the means of entry. And the SOCO seemed to be endorsing his two-intruder theory. Now for his other one. “Is either set likely to be female?”
“Not unless she’s got very large feet. I’d guess a size ten or eleven shoe here, and maybe a nine on the patio.”
So the altercation the neighbors heard had probably not been between the intruders, Lloyd thought, unless there had been at least three of them, one of whom didn’t leave footprints. It was perfectly possible not to step in mud, even crossing from one garden to the other, so there could have been a third intruder. But a disagreement followed by a death was always worth looking into. He looked back up the garden to the dining room and wondered.
It could, of course, have been one of the reportedly frequent quarrels between Carl and his wife that happened to occur immediately before Carl left the house. And it could have been coincidental to the break-in; a quarrel being the last contact someone had with the deceased before being suddenly bereaved was not at all unusual, and very guilt-inducing. But if it was the Bignalls whom Mr. Jones had heard, it had been different from usual: this one had apparently sounded violent.
So the question had to be asked, but he hadn’t asked it yet. Lloyd didn’t believe in asking questions when people expected him to ask them. Much better to catch them off guard, when they’d decided he wasn’t going to ask at all.
Denis Leeward hadn’t got drunk; he’d sipped his beer through the pub quiz, in which his team had come second, and gone home to Meg, who asked what he’d done to himself when he was unable to mask the pain he felt when he sat down. He’d checked; he didn’t have any broken ribs. But they hurt like hell all the same.
“Walked into the proverbial door,” he said, and smiled weakly. “I was leaving the treatment room just as the nurse was coming in. The door handle caught me right in the rib cage. No real harm done.”
“How was Alan?” she asked as she went into the kitchen, and he heard the kettle being filled.
Alan? Oh, of course. “Oh, he’s fine. Sends his love.”
“Have you eaten?” she called through.
No. No, he hadn’t eaten. And he was, now that she mentioned it, surprisingly hungry. “No—we just had a drink at the pub,” he said. “Played in a quiz team, would you believe? I wouldn’t mind some supper, if there’s any going.”
“There’s cold chicken. Would you like a sandwich or would you rather have a salad or something?”
“A sandwich would be fine.”
He sank down into the armchair and looked around his comfortable, somewhat untidy sitting room, seeing it for the first time in years. Through the kitchen door he could see Meg making his sandwich, making tea, and he was seeing her for the first time in years, too. He loved Meg. He loved being a doctor. He’d risked it all, and for what?
He was halfway through his chicken sandwich when the phone rang, and he wouldn’t, couldn’t, answer it. Meg looked puzzled, but she didn’t say anything. He always answered the phone. It was just one of those things that evolve over the years; if Denis was there, he picked up the phone. But not this time.
She waited just a fraction longer, then went out to the hallway.
“Oh, hello, Carl,” he heard her say, and the mouthful of chicken sandwich he had just swallowed seemed to lodge itself in his throat.
Carl didn’t tell Meg what had happened; she went to get Denis, and Carl tried to come to terms with what had gone on in here tonight. He didn’t understand why this was happening to him.
Lloyd had shown him the glove the woman said they’d found, asked if it was his, which it wasn’t, but he had the feeling that Lloyd hadn’t believed him, and the more he denied all knowledge of it, the more he sounded, even to himself, as though he was lying. He understood why people confessed to things they hadn’t done; if saying that the glove was his would stop Lloyd looking at him the way he was looking at him, he would very probably have done so. He had never felt so confused in his life.
The sergeant was a brisk, no-nonsense man with little time for finer feelings, and Carl could handle that; he felt at least that the sergeant believed him. But Lloyd—well, Lloyd didn’t say much, but Carl felt as though every question he did ask was loaded.
After what seemed hours, Denis came to the phone.
“Denis,” Carl began. “I don’t quite know how to tell you this. There’s … there’s been a break-in here. Estelle—well, she … that is, the police think she surprised the burglar, and he—” Carl took a moment. “She’s dead, Denis,” he said. “They tied her up and gagged her. She couldn’t breathe.”
There was silence. For a moment Carl thought he’d been talking to thin air and was going to have to say it all again, but finally Denis found his voice.
“That’s dreadful,” he said. “I don’t know what to say.”
“There’s nothing anyone can say,” said Carl. “But I wondered if you could do me a favor.”
“Anything.”
“It’s young Dexter Gibson. I’ve just had a call from his mother to say that he had an accident tonight, and she’s worried he might be concussed. Perhaps you could go and check him out for me?”
“Of course,” said Denis.
“She’s probably worrying about nothing, but if you could go, I’d be grateful.”
“Of course I will. Are you going to be all right?”
“Yes. Thanks. I—I’ll talk to you later.”
“Right. Look—if there’s anything I can do, just say. I know it’s a useless thing to say, but I do mean it. I mean—don’t stay there on your own, will you? I know there’s probably somewhere else you’d rather go, but there’s a bed here for you if you’d like to stay with us. And don’t, whatever you do, worry about work. I can handle everything.”
“Thanks, Denis.”
Carl hung up and went back into the living room. “Sorry about that,” he said. “A patient wanted me to go out—Denis Leeward’s dealing with it.”
Chief Inspector Lloyd looked faintly puzzled. “You don’t subscribe to one of these emergency night doctor units?”
“Yes, I do,” said Carl. “But Mrs. Gibson cleans for us. That’s why she called me direct.”
“Your cleaner? Does she work here or at the surgery?”
Carl stared at him. Why on earth did he care about that? What did it have to do with the police? Or Estelle’s death? “If it’s of any consequence,” he said testily, “she works here.”
“Fingerprints,” said Lloyd. “We need to eliminate any that have a right to be here. When did Mrs. Gibson clean here last?”
“Oh,” said Carl, feeling foolish. “This morning, I imagine. She comes every day.”
“If you can let us have her address? And we will need your fingerprints, too. Not tonight, obviously, but if you could come to the station tomorrow perhaps?”
“Yes, of course. Sorry. I didn’t mean to bite your head off.”
“Oh, forget it. Now—do you think you could try to sort out what’s missing?”
Sergeant Finch, young and fair-haired, with a crew cut that made him look like an American marine, asked Eric when he had heard the window break.
“I’m not sure. About ten, quarter past eight. Something like that.”
“And you went out into the garden?”
“Yes. Like I said, I thought it was my greenhouse.”
“I believe you have a security light that’s activated by movement?”
“Yes.”
“Did it come on when you went out, or was it already on?”
Eric didn’t know how much Mr. Jones had actually seen; he might have told the sergeant that the light was already on. Though it went against the grain, he felt obliged to tell the truth. “It was on.”
“So someone or something must have activated it before you went out to investigate the breaking glass?”
Eric shrugged. “I suppose so.”
“Three minutes, if it doesn’t detect any further movement.”
“And how close does the movement have to be? Would movement in the Bignalls’ garden trigger it?”
“No. It did, but she complained, of course, so I had to change the setting.”
“She?”
“Mrs. Bignall. Whatever I did, she complained. Anyway, now it comes on about a third of the way up the garden, I suppose. And from the side …” He thought about it. “I think it would come on if anyone got within a foot or so of the garage.”
The young detective looked thoughtful. “So someone running diagonally from the Bignalls’ house over the wall into your garden would trigger it when he crossed your driveway,” he said, almost to himself. “But someone getting into the Bignalls’ garden from yours probably wouldn’t, because they’d probably stay near the back wall.” He looked at Eric. “Does that seem reasonable?”
Eric agreed that in such a hypothetical situation, that would probably be the case.
“We have a witness who saw someone leave by your gate. You were in the garden at that moment, according to him, and your light was on. But you didn’t see anything.”
“No. I was checking out my greenhouse.”
“Did you hear anything before that?”
“Like what?”
“Raised voices?”
Eric shrugged. “I doubt if I’d notice,” he said. “That mad cow next door is always crying or yelling.” He smiled. “You move to a neighborhood like this, you’d think you’d get a bit of peace, wouldn’t you? Not with her next door, you don’t.”
“How long have you lived here?”
“Since February. These two next door are always shouting—and she has the nerve to complain about me,” Eric added.
Sergeant Finch didn’t seem too interested in his squabbles with his neighbors. “Did you hear anything later on?” he asked. “When you were checking out your greenhouse?”
“Like what?”
It was the sergeant’s turn to shrug. “I don’t know,” he said. “Running feet, maybe?”
Eric’s policy had always been to let the police find out things on their own and to give them no help whatsoever, even when he’d been in the job. Besides, the less you told them, the quicker they went away. “I didn’t hear anything,” he said. “I didn’t see anything. I just checked the greenhouse and came back in.”
“Then why did you shout to whoever it was to stop?”
If Geoffrey Jones had more to do with his time than spy on his neighbors, Eric reflected, he wouldn’t be in this position. “Someone had broken a window or something,” he said. “I just shouted.”
“I’m told you shouted, ‘Come back here, you little bugger,’ ” said Finch. “That isn’t just shouting, Mr. Watson. That’s shouting at someone.”
“Buggers,” said Eric. “Plural. It was kids breaking bottles against the wall, I thought. And nothing scares them off more than inviting them to come back and talk to you.”
“And you didn’t notice the Bignalls’ French window standing open though the house was in darkness?”
“No.”
“If you didn’t see someone leaving your garden, didn’t you wonder what had made your security light come on?”
“No.”
Finch sighed. “For someone who was a cop and security conscious, you seem to have been very uninterested in what was going on.”
“Wasn’t my problem,” said Eric. “My property was intact. I’m not in the job anymore. And everyone round here’s security conscious. Why do you think Bignall had his gates locked? There have been burglaries round here, Sergeant. Just like tonight.”
“To be honest, I was wondering why he bothered to lock his gates, since it’s so easy to get on to his property via yours. And you don’t keep your gates locked.”
“I do if I’m leaving the house empty. A bloke up the road had his house broken into a month ago and the thieves backed a bloody van up his driveway and filled it up with his belongings. We don’t have to make it that easy for them.”
“And yet,” said Finch, “you hear a window breaking, come out to find your security light on, and don’t notice an intruder in your own garden?”
“I’m sorry if I don’t come up to scratch as a witness, Sergeant.”
“And you don’t notice that your neighbor’s French window is wide open with the rain getting in?”
“I’m not the bloody neighborhood watch! As long as it isn’t me, I don’t give a bugger who’s been turned over.”
“So you did see something.”
Eric shook his head and smiled. “All right, yes. I saw the French window open, and I just didn’t give a shit. But I saw nothing else, and if you sit here until hell freezes over, you can’t make me say I did. I’ve got better things to do with my time than sit around the bloody magistrates’ court waiting to give evidence against some kid who’ll get off with a smacked wrist anyway. My time’s money.”
“What do you do for a living these days?”
“I’m a photographer. I’ve got a studio in Welchester.”
The sergeant looked interested. “What got you into that?”
“I was a police photographer, but they civilianized the job fourteen years ago. I didn’t fancy being back in the front line, so I left and started up a business.”
“You’ve done all right, then?”
“Can’t complain.”
“The thing is, this’ll be going further than the magistrates’ court.” Finch was watching him closely as he spoke. “This is manslaughter, at the least.”
“Manslaughter?” Eric repeated. “I thought it was just a break-in. Who’s been killed?”
He could see the sergeant try to work out if it was genuine surprise or not, but it didn’t really matter what he thought. With the police, all that mattered was what you said. And that only mattered if they’d cautioned you.
“I’m sorry,” Finch said. “I thought someone would have told you. Mrs. Bignall was found dead.”
“Bloody hell.” He hadn’t known there was anyone at home.
“Does her death change your mind about what you saw?”
Eric shook his head. “I didn’t see anything,” he said. “How can it change my mind?”
“Thanks very much,” said Judy, who could have walked home by the time Marianne finally stopped flapping and left the theater.
During the day it was actually quicker to walk, especially since there was a shortcut through the park. Because not only couldn’t cars use the shortcut, but the one-way system meant it was necessary to drive for a considerable distance in the opposite direction before finally making it into the center of Malworth where she lived.
“It’s very good of you to give me a lift home,” she said. “It’s taking you out of your way.”
“Oh, no trouble at all, darling!” Marianne started the car, and the windshield wipers cut two semicircles in the fine spray of rain on the glass. “We couldn’t have you walking home through the park, not at this time of the night—I don’t care if you are a police officer. A warrant card isn’t a suit of armor, and there are some very funny characters about. And you couldn’t really run, could you, darling? Not in your condition.” She backed carefully out of the parking space, and that maneuver completed, the brief silence was over. But when she spoke, it was about neither of the things Judy expected to be exercising Marianne’s mind.
It wasn’t about Carl Bignall’s sudden departure with Lloyd, despite the fact that Carl’s car remained on the rooftop car park, something that must surely have been driving the ever-curious Marianne mad with a desire to know what was happening.
And it wasn’t about the impossibility of mounting a production when Cinderella had the flu, her understudy had phoned to say the train had been delayed by at least fifty minutes and she wouldn’t make it to rehearsal after all, and Buttons’s under-understudy had to go rushing off on police business, unaccountably taking Buttons’s actual understudy-cum-Ugly Sister with him. This had left Marianne with no Buttons, Judy’s inadequate Cinderella, only one Ugly Sister, and no choice but to abandon that evening’s rehearsal, but none of that seemed to be uppermost in Marianne’s mind.
Indeed, for a moment after Marianne spoke, Judy had no idea what she was talking about.
“It’s going to be very difficult,” she said. “Both of you being in the police, having to drop everything at a moment’s notice.”
What was going to be difficult? Then it struck Judy that Marianne was still talking about her condition. She was beginning to realize the immense pulling power of babies, and consequently of mothers-to-be; other people seemed to be endlessly fascinated by the whole thing. She, of course, never had been, and still wasn’t. Normally, she hated discussions of this sort. But at least she wasn’t being pumped for information about Carl.
“It’s not as difficult at the moment as it might be. I’ve been transferred to HQ—it’s nine to five. And I’m working from home most of the time anyway.”
“And will you still be doing that when the baby’s born?”
“I’ll be on maternity leave starting next month. But even when that’s up I can probably work mainly from home until next September,” said Judy. “Then I’ll be back in Stansfield.”
“But still nine to five?”
“Basically,” said Judy, not exactly truthfully, but she had no desire to discuss the pros and cons of working mothers, child care, nurseries, or anything else with Marianne.
The current canteen wisdom was that Lloyd would be offered early retirement and she would get his job, but there was a lot of time for them to change their plans between now and next September. And CID was nine to five, more or less. But circumstances had temporarily forced Stansfield CID to become a serious crime squad in all but name, expected to handle all serious crime committed in an area with a population of 300,000; as a result, its Detective Chief Inspector did get called out at odd hours. Come the reorganization, due to be revealed in March and in place by April, it was rumored there would be a small Serious Crime Squad based at Barton HQ, and if that happened, the Stansfield CID chief would have an easier time of it. The problem was, she would prefer to head up the serious crime squad.
“When is the baby due?” asked Marianne.
Judy was brought firmly back to reality. She was an expectant mother—if there was a police force on this planet that had ever entertained the idea of having their serious crime squad run by someone who had to breastfeed an infant, she didn’t know of it. “Early February,” she said.
“Aquarius! How wonderful! What are you?”
“Scorpio, I think.”
Judy smiled. “Lloyd’s the one who believes in all that sort of thing,” she said.
“Unusual,” said Marianne. “Men usually pretend not to believe even if they do. You must let me do a reading when he or she is born.”
“She,” said Judy.
“Oh, did you ask what sex the baby was? Most people don’t.”
Judy gave a little shrug. “They asked me if I wanted to know, and I did,” she said. The more she knew about what to expect, the better; that was why she’d gone to the relaxation classes. Why she had made Lloyd go with her. The ease with which he could assume the persona of someone to whom child-rearing was second nature had, as she had suspected it might, deserted him. Lloyd thought babies were women’s work, whatever he said.
“Will you let me do a reading for her?”
Judy supposed she should, in view of her desire to know what to expect, and since she thought the whole thing was nonsense anyway, she might as well. She was just about to agree to Marianne’s offer when Marianne spoke again.
“Is it true?” she asked.
“I’m sorry?”
“Someone said that Estelle had been found dead. I wasn’t going to ask you about it, because I know you probably aren’t supposed to discuss it with other people, but … is it true?”
Judy had thought Marianne was flapping even more than usual; she should have known that someone would have overheard snatches of the conversation between Lloyd and Carl, and passed the news on without delay. Marianne had been trying desperately to mind her own business; that explained her sudden interest in the baby.
And Judy wasn’t sure what to do. But there seemed no doubt; if there had been any mistake, if it hadn’t been Estelle Bignall, if it had been some sort of false alarm, Lloyd would have let her know by now. She watched rain bead the window, fragmenting the light from the street lamps, then get swept away by the hypnotic wipers, and decided it was going to be in the local paper tomorrow, so she might as well confirm it.
“I’m afraid it is,” she said.
There was a silence as the car made its way over the river, passing the neo-Victorian lamp standards that lit the bridge. The wet tarmac gleamed, revealing unsuspected little dips and valleys in the apparently smooth surface.
“That’s dreadful. Dreadful. Did you know her?”
“No. I never met her.”
“I’ve known her since she was fifteen.”
Judy hadn’t realized. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “It must be a terrible shock for you.”
Marianne signaled left, and the bypass bore them determinedly away from High Street, just half a mile away across the parkland that bordered the river. Shopkeepers had presented petitions; residents had made representations to the local council, which in turn had asked the county council, responsible for road planning, to reconsider the scheme. No dice.
“She was one of our leading lights,” said Marianne. “She was very pretty, and good—but well … things changed, not very long after she married Carl.”
Judy used her usual technique; she didn’t speak after Marianne had spoken. Marianne would want to fill the silence, and what she filled it with would give her a clue to what Marianne wanted to tell her.
“It was six, seven years ago she married him, I suppose. Yes, it must be almost seven years. It seems like just the other day. She was an absolute picture on her wedding day. They both were, I suppose. He’s so handsome. But she … well, she was radiant. So young, so in love.”
Judy felt she was being prompted to inquire, so she did. “Was Carl equally in love?”
Marianne sighed dramatically. “Who knows? He’s a darling, but he’s very vain, you know. I think … I think Estelle looked the part, if you see what I mean. They made a very attractive couple, and he knew it. But he’s ten years older than her, you know. And he was divorced. I’m not sure that was a good thing.”
Judy smiled. “Lloyd’s ten years older than me and divorced.”
“Oh, that’s quite different, darling. For one thing, Lloyd’s an absolute peach—you only have to meet him to know that—and, well, you’re not Estelle.”
Judy stored that description away to tell Lloyd, and was torn between finding out why Carl wasn’t an absolute peach and the other thing that puzzled her. She went with it first. “What was special about Estelle?” she asked.
“Well, she was eighteen when she married him. Eighteen and twenty-eight is different, you know, darling. I mean—you and Lloyd are both mature.”
She had been twenty when she’d met Lloyd; not that much more mature than Estelle.
“Oh, but you would be, darling,” said Marianne, when Judy pointed that out. “Dexter’s more mature than Estelle.”
“And Carl? Why isn’t he as good a bet in the marriage stakes as Lloyd? Did he treat his first wife badly or something?”
“Oh, no—that just didn’t work out.”
“What, then?”
“Well, Carl—I mean he—” She brought her lips together. “No,” she said. “No, I mustn’t be bitchy about Carl, not when something as dreadful as this has happened. I just don’t think he made her very happy.”
“Do you mean he made her unhappy?”
“No!” Marianne took her eyes off the road to look accusingly at Judy. “Am I being interviewed?” she asked.
“Sorry,” said Judy. “It goes with the job.”
“I don’t think he made her unhappy in any specific way,” Marianne said, apparently unconcerned now about whether she was being interviewed. “I mean—I don’t think there was another woman or anything. I don’t think he meant to make her unhappy at all.”
“But?” said Judy.
“But he did. Not immediately. But after they’d been married about six months, she became quite ill. Took to her bed at the least provocation, always thinking she had some imaginary illness or other. Got very nervy and depressed. Eventually, she seemed to get over that, but this year she’s been very down again. She left the society—said she wasn’t good enough, which was absolute nonsense.”
Judy frowned. “And you think Carl was to blame for that?”
“Well, I certainly don’t think he helped. I think once Estelle got to be a bother to him …” Again she shook her head. “No, I really mustn’t say things like that.”
Like what? Judy thought perhaps defending Carl might do the trick, since Marianne was desperate to be bitchy about him. “He did stay with her, though,” she said. “Despite the way she was. Not all men would do that.”
“Well, of course he did, darling. If he divorced Estelle, he divorced his second income.”
“Second income?”
“Estelle has … had … a private income from a trust fund.” There was a pause. “For her lifetime.”
The line had been beautifully delivered. The mistake over the tense, underlining the fact that Estelle was now dead; the payoff timed to perfection. And Judy’s line was obvious. “So what happens to it now?”
“The principal forms part of her estate.”
And Judy learned of the accident that had robbed Estelle of all but her grandfather, of how he had made what Marianne called a “not inconsiderable” fortune from a chain of grocery stores in Welchester County, which he had in the end sold to one of the big supermarkets as local offshoots. Of how he had been unwilling to leave this money to Estelle, whom he didn’t think was stable enough to handle it; he was afraid she would be conned out of it in no time, so he set up a trust fund for her from which she received a “not-to-be-sneezed-at” income. The principal would form part of her estate in order to benefit his presumed grandchildren, which, of course, had not materialized. Marianne had been the executor of his will.
“He died when Estelle was seventeen,” Marianne said.
And Carl Bignall had married her when she was eighteen. Judy knew better than to jump to the conclusion that Marianne had set up for her, aware that Marianne could make a three act drama out of crossing the road. But it was interesting. And under all the theatrical delivery, Marianne was hurting, and angry.
“I was very surprised to hear she wasn’t well tonight,” Marianne said. “Her Monday nights are very important to her. I thought maybe she really did have the flu, or something, but—well, Carl seems to think it was just Estelle being Estelle.”
The car made its way around the third side of the square it had been forced to follow, back to where it had come from, and this time was allowed to make the turn into High Street, where she was going to be dropped off. Judy had very little time left to find out what Marianne was trying to say now. “When did you see her last?” she asked.
“Just today. She came to see me this afternoon, and she was fine. No sniffles. In fact, she’s been much better for the last few weeks. Much happier in herself. She was still worrying about everything and anything, but she didn’t seem so lonely, somehow.” She smiled briefly as she drew up outside the greengrocer’s store above which Judy had her flat and pulled on the hand brake. “I think that’s why Carl failed to make her happy,” she said. “He let her become very lonely.”
She refused the offered cup of coffee, so the interview was terminated at 10:17, and Judy let herself in to the flat wondering about those imaginary illnesses. Doctors had been known to poison their wives; perhaps Estelle’s illnesses weren’t so imaginary. She had felt unwell again tonight, and now she was dead.
Or perhaps she was letting Marianne’s melodramatic take on life affect her judgment, she told herself sternly. Off-the-wall theories were Lloyd’s stock-in-trade, not hers.