by J.G. Ellis
*
Waiting is inevitable in a police station – even when who someone is matters. An interview room with aforementioned cup of tea. When I walked in, she might have been forgiven for thinking – perhaps a little contemptuously – that her level of mattering was oiling the wheels, or perhaps she took me for a tea lady offering a top up.
“Ms Markham?” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “Who are you?”
“Detective Chief Inspector Black. I understand you have some concerns over the whereabouts of Adrian Mansfield.”
“Yes,” she said.
It is at this juncture that I, like the Devil in the song, beg your indulgence to introduce myself. My name is Barbara Black. I was in my mid-forties at the time of the events under discussion, and, according to my few friends, hopelessly middle-aged. They liked to jest about nominating me for one or some of those television programmes where fashionable, bossy ladies, or gay gentlemen, pull you about and tell you how to make the best of your bosom and bottom. I’m wont to wear knee-length skirt suits, which I regard as smart and formal, but which have been less generously described as schoolmarmish and frumpy. My hair is shoulder-length and mousy and – outside the private domain – invariably worn tied or clipped back. I had been a, the, DCI in Amberton for two and half years, having briefly been a DI in the Met. Amberton has a population of eighty thousand or so souls and a slower pace of life than the capital. Friends and colleagues had correctly assumed that I had craved a quiet, or quieter, life. I had, indeed, begun to find London brittle and dispiriting.
I considered Ms Markham and wondered what to do. Would it really be quite decent or prudent to tell her he was dead? Was she not already emotionally over-wrought? Of course, the issue of her concern for his welfare was now very pressing.
“Can I ask you, Ms Markham, why you’re so inordinately concerned about this young man? Do you have grounds to fear for his safety?”
Ms Markham tilted her head slightly to the right, as though trying to gain another perspective on me, or give me the benefit of nebulous doubt. She made much of eye-contact while doing this, and then, as though reaching an unsatisfactory conclusion for all concerned, said, “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
I paused, long enough to assure myself that she wasn't about to unravel on the spot, and said, “Yes, Ms Markham, he is.” And then, in a vulgar political world, a vulgar political question: “Does your mother know you’re here?”
She snorted with contempt. “No, of course she doesn’t. And the first thing she’ll do when she finds out is consult her PR advisor. Damage limitation, you understand. She’ll want to be seen to be standing by me, of course. You can’t be too obvious about ditching your family for the sake of your political ambitions.”
Melinda Markham MP, recently appointed junior minister for something or other. Ambitious, as most of them tend to be, and generally considered to be “on the up”. Frequently pictured in the local press on walkabouts with senior members of the government, and twice with the PM himself. Not forgetting the locals, the Chief Constable had got a look in, as had some ordinary people, including two front-line officers, both of whom had smiled gamely for the camera.
Lisa Markham said, “I suppose I’m a suspect now.” Indifferently, as though it would all come out in the wash without too much damage to the delicate fabric. “How did he die?” A not unreasonable question.
“He was stabbed,” I said, which was true. He was; but we didn’t yet know if that’s what had killed him. Raymond had his doubts. A deep stab wound to the chest. Raymond suspected it might have been inflicted post-mortem. So – and this was very early speculation – drugged and drunk, he had been set up as a fool – an arse – in the rowing boat, and then someone with a grudge had come along and, as it were, plunged the dagger deep. Plunged and removed and disposed of. Did the tableau allude to something, I wondered – a myth perhaps?
“Where?” Testily, suggesting – quite correctly – that I was being less than forthcoming with the details. Surely, I thought, a pardonable trait in a police detective.
“The boating lake,” I said. “Any idea what he was doing there?”
“Boating, I suppose. It’s the weather for it.”
“On his own?”
“Yes. Why not?”
“People don’t usually go boating on their own.”
“He did. He liked the exercise, and he said it gave him time to think. He liked to be alone. He believed most people avoided being alone. Saw it as a modern human failing.”
“Any idea why anyone would want to kill him?” I asked.
“No, of course not.” Dismissively, as though the suggestion were absurd.
“You’ll forgive me, Ms Markham,” I said, “but I do have to wonder at your change of demeanour. You came into this station in a highly charged emotional state determined that we should do something about finding your missing friend. Indeed, in extremis, you flouted your connections to achieve this. You gave the distinct impression that you thought him in some peril.”
She tilted her head to the right and fanned the curtain of her hair with her fingers. “Should I be thinking about asking for a lawyer, Chief Inspector?”
I watched her without speaking. What had prompted this change in mood? Definite news of disaster? Was she posturing in its debris? My silent scrutiny disconcerted her. She straightened up and asked, “Do his parents know yet?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve just come from there.”
“It’ll probably push her totally over the edge,” she said. “She’s fragile. Adrian called her a broken sparrow. He said he’d never known her unbroken.”
