SEVEN

‘I know why you’re here.’ Margaret Yately gestured them into seats in the untidy cramped lounge of the narrow house in the narrow terraced street in Newport.

Horton pushed aside a blouse, skirt and a pile of cheap magazines before easing himself into a chair that was so worn he thought he was going to end up sitting on the floor. The room stank of cigarette smoke, stale perfume, fried food and alcohol. Horton pulled his body to the edge of the seat, as Uckfield, ignoring the clothes, plonked himself squarely on top of them, stretched out his short legs and eyed Margaret Yately coldly. In front of them, high on the wall above a dusty and grimy fireplace, were the flickering images of repeats of a detective drama on a large plasma screen television that wouldn’t have been out of place in a small cinema. The thought reminded Horton of Russell Glenn’s superyacht and the forthcoming charity auction, which he might now be in danger of missing, if he was to continue working on the case and if it was still unresolved by Friday.

Margaret Yately reached for a packet of cigarettes from the mantelpiece with nicotine-stained fingers and long fingernails that looked painful rather than attractive. Horton swiftly took in the tall woman. She was in her mid fifties with scraggy bleached blonde hair, fashionably dressed in tight jeans, tucked into calf-high boots, with a low-cut off-the-shoulder T-shirt displaying black bra straps and a tattoo of a butterfly on one shoulder and a cat on the other. All this was squeezed on to a figure with rolls of fat around the hips and midriff. The sand had run out of this hourglass long ago.

‘Hannah called me to tell me Colin was dead. She says he was murdered. I can’t think why. He had no money.’ Margaret Yately shook a cigarette from the packet and perched it on her pink-lipsticked mouth. Grabbing a cheap plastic lighter from the mantelpiece she flicked it on her cigarette and, still with it perched in her mouth, added, ‘It was his body I suppose, the police do sometimes get it wrong.’

‘When did you last see your husband, Mrs Yately?’ Horton asked crisply. There didn’t seem any point in wasting sympathy on her. He held her gaze.

‘Ex-husband,’ she said pointedly, jerking her head upwards to exhale. ‘Last year, October. He was in town, shopping. He begged me to have him back. I said no way. I gave up my youth for him; I wasn’t going to give up what I’d got left of my life.’

Horton didn’t believe the bit about Colin begging her to take him back. That was just her vanity speaking. Admittedly his views were coloured by what Hannah Yately had told him but he was more inclined to believe daughter than mother. He wasn’t sure he could believe her alleged last sighting of her husband either, though he couldn’t see that she had any reason to lie about that. There was no evidence in this room of another man being on the scene, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one. Or a few, come to that.

Uckfield said, ‘Did you know where he was living?’

‘Yes, why?’

‘Did you visit him there?’ asked Horton.

She widened her eyes, ‘You must be kidding! Why should I want to do that?’

‘Is this your marital home?’ asked Uckfield.

‘What’s that got to do with Colin’s death?’ she said defensively, glaring at him, then a malicious glint crossed her face. ‘Oh, I see, you think I’ve shacked up with a man and jealous of Colin he’s gone out and killed the poor sod. Well you’re wrong.’ She picked some tobacco from her yellow teeth. ‘The house was sold when Colin and I split up and we shared the proceeds. Not that there was much, him only being a postman. I rent this house and live alone, and Colin rented his flat.’

And Horton reckoned she spent most of her money on clothes, booze, fags and a good time. Not that that was any of his business, but he wasn’t going to pussyfoot around being gentle with her, because clearly she didn’t need it.

‘Did Colin have any life insurance?’

‘No idea.’

‘Did he have a will?’

‘How should I know?’

‘You were married to him.’

‘Were, yes. The only life insurance he had then was to cover the mortgage if he snuffed it before it was paid up. And he didn’t have a will then.’

‘Do you work?’ asked Uckfield.

Her head snapped round. She bristled. ‘Why do you want to know that?’ Neither Horton nor Uckfield answered, forcing her to add angrily, ‘Instead of badgering me with pointless questions you should be out there looking for his killer.’

‘We are,’ Uckfield said evenly.

She snatched a drag at her cigarette and irritably puffed out the smoke before answering with a scowl. ‘I work in a pub on the River Medina, waitressing and bar work. It gives me a social life. I could have done better but I had Hannah to bring up and working with a child is not always easy, especially when you’ve got no relatives to take care of it and no money to put it in a nursery. Colin used to finish work early, being a postman, unless he was doing overtime, so when he came home, I’d go to work; pub hours suited me. And I like the company. All right?’ She glared at them.

Horton said, ‘Can you give us the names of any of Colin’s friends?’

‘There weren’t any.’

Horton raised his eyebrows, forcing her to add, ‘He was always a loner. No conversation, quiet, dull, while I’m the opposite. We were never suited but we stuck together for Hannah, well you do when you’ve got kids.’

‘What were his hobbies, interests?’

‘He didn’t have any, not unless you mean doing crosswords and reading books.’ Which, by her tone, she clearly considered unworthy pastimes.

Horton recalled the books on the chest in Yately’s flat on naval ships and local history, which fitted with the notes and the telescope.

She made an elaborate show of consulting her watch.

‘Working tonight?’ Horton asked, studying the clock on the mantelpiece. It was three forty-five.

‘I phoned in, told them about Colin. They said not to come in.’

Horton could see she wished she had gone to work now. ‘Do you have any photographs of your former husband?’

‘Hannah says you’ve got one,’ she replied sulkily.

‘Yes, but it might be helpful to look through photograph albums.’ Horton was wondering if it might show them the dress Colin had been found wearing.

She scowled, clearly irritated. ‘Colin took most of them.’

‘Then you do have some.’

‘I don’t know how that can help you.’

‘Perhaps you could get them,’ Uckfield insisted.

‘I don’t know where they are,’ she exhaled in exasperation.

In dangerous silky tones Uckfield said, ‘If you could look them out and call us when you’ve found them that would be very helpful.’ He handed across his card.

Her brow furrowed, then she shrugged as if to say please yourself and snatched the card from him. Horton didn’t think they’d get any sight of her photograph albums. Uckfield’s phone rang and he ducked out of the lounge to answer it. A few seconds later Horton heard the outside door open. Clearly Uckfield didn’t want Margaret Yately earwigging the conversation. He said, ‘Did Colin own a laptop computer when you lived together?’ She eyed him as if he’d just asked if her ex-husband had indulged in naked limbo dancing.

‘He wouldn’t even have a mobile phone and I had to throw the television on the tip before he’d buy a new one.’

That confirmed what Hannah Yately had said. Now for the tricky bit. Rising, and extracting a photograph of the dress from his pocket, Horton said, ‘Do you recognize this dress?’

She stared at it, puzzled, and then at Horton. ‘No. Why?’

‘It’s not yours?’

‘I wouldn’t be seen dead in that,’ she declared. ‘It’s very old-fashioned.’

‘It might be something you wore years ago.’

‘I don’t think so,’ she scoffed, stubbing out her cigarette with vigour as her lips curled in a sneer. ‘What’s it got to do with Colin’s death?’

Horton was reluctant to tell her, not because he thought she’d be shocked or upset, but because he could already anticipate her ridicule and he thought she was the type to blab, maybe even tell the national media. He hoped the shame of once being married to someone found dead wearing a woman’s dress might stop her but he doubted it. He could see her playing the role of poor deceived wife. But Cantelli had given him the lead. He said, ‘We found it with your former husband.’

‘What was he doing with that?’

‘We wondered if you might tell us.’

‘No bloody idea.’

‘It wasn’t his mother’s dress?’

‘She’s been dead years and her stuff went to the charity shop.’

There was obviously nothing she could tell them about the dress. Recalling the notes on Yately’s desk, he said, ‘Did Colin ever express an interest in local history?’

‘He liked watching that history channel on television.’

That wasn’t the quite the same thing but it was a link nevertheless, and when you had nothing to go with a link was grabbed like a lifebelt. ‘What about an interest in Ventnor?’ he asked as Uckfield returned. Then Horton remembered something else he read, ‘Or the caves and chines on the Island.’

She eyed him as if he was two sheets to the wind. That was a ‘no’ then. He caught Uckfield’s glance, which said this was a waste of time, and he agreed. Horton politely thanked her for her help, wondering if she’d sense his sarcasm, but all he saw was relief in her bloodshot eyes. At the door he asked her if she had keys to her husband’s apartment.

‘Why would I want them?’ she answered, incredulous.

Horton expressed his sincere condolences at her loss despite the fact they were no longer married, which seemed to cause her no embarrassment. He told her that they’d liaise closely with her daughter.

‘Then she can tell me if you ever catch who killed Colin.’ And with that the door closed on them.

Horton climbed into the car, noticing a twitch of net curtain opposite.

Uckfield said, ‘That was Trueman on the phone. The landlord says he’s not been in Yately’s apartment and the second set of keys hasn’t left his office.’

So they could rule out the landlord and daughter.

Uckfield said, ‘Yately was well shot of her. Think she killed him?’

‘Why?’

‘Maybe she got fed up with him pestering her to take him back.’

‘If you believe that. It’s not much of a motive though.’

‘It could be enough for a new boyfriend.’

Horton considered that. ‘I think she was telling the truth when she said she didn’t have a key to his apartment but we should still check her out, chat to the staff at the pub where she works, and ask the neighbours if there’s a new man on the horizon.’

‘No need, looks as though he’s just arrived.’

A saloon car passed them and pulled up outside her house. Horton watched a man in his mid forties climb out. He was wearing a dark overcoat but as he turned on the doorstep Horton noticed the smart suit beneath it and the slightly furtive expression on his round face before he stepped inside. Something nudged at Horton’s memory, and with a shock he realized it was connected with his mother. What was it about the man he’d just seen that had triggered it? His size, his appearance? His manner? Or all three.

‘Married,’ declared Uckfield. ‘God knows what he sees in her.’

Was that it, Horton thought, as Uckfield turned the car back towards Ventnor. Had married men come calling on his mother? Not in the flat they hadn’t, except for one man, and Horton had discovered who he was, and he was now dead. But they’d lived in a little terraced house before they’d moved to the council flat and he remembered it clearly, sitting in a row of similar houses in a crowded area of Portsmouth. There had been men, and he now recalled raised voices on one occasion, and he’d been sent out to play. How old had he been? Seven or eight? Younger? He couldn’t say. He needed to check where they had lived. The census information would give him that.

‘I’ll ring in the car registration number,’ he said, reaching for his phone. Trueman would trace the owner and they’d ask him whether or not he knew Colin Yately and when he’d last seen him. He hadn’t looked as though he’d kill Yately out of jealousy or for money, but who could tell?

After he hung up, he told Uckfield what Margaret Yately had said about the dress.

‘Trueman’s sending it over to the university as soon as the lab has finished with it, which should be tomorrow. What was that stuff about caves and chines I heard you ask her?’

‘Just something I read in those notes.’

Uckfield’s phone rang. Horton leant over and put the call on speaker. It was Sergeant Norris and he sounded excited. ‘We’ve got a witness who saw a man entering and leaving Yately’s flat early this morning at about nine thirty-five. We’ve got a good description of him, about five-eleven, slim, grey-haired, in his early sixties, and what’s more we’ve got a name. The neighbour got the car registration and we’ve traced it to an Arthur Lisle. He lives in Bonchurch. He was carrying a briefcase.’

Uckfield bellowed, ‘Do nothing. We’ll be there in ten minutes.’

Ambitious, thought Horton, though by the way Uckfield was driving maybe not.