by Frank Smith
‘Yes, please,’ Molly said. ‘If it’s anything like the tea they serve at the Golden Dragon, I’d like to try it.’
Irene smiled. ‘I think you’ll like it,’ she said. ‘Anyway, come through to the kitchen and we can talk while the kettle boils. Is it too early to ask if you know what happened?’ She used her foot to hook an old-fashioned bar stool from beneath a high counter, and nudged it towards Molly, then proceeded to fill the kettle and plug it in.
‘It is, yes,’ said Molly as she sat down. ‘Sorry.’
Irene remained standing, arms folded as she leaned with her back against the edge of the counter. ‘Is there any way I can help?’ she asked.
‘As you said when I came in, one of the things we would like to clarify is your relationship with Mr Corbett,’ Molly said. ‘He was married to Lisa, but he seemed to be equally at home with you, and both you and Mrs Corbett appeared to be quite happy with the arrangement. Would you mind explaining that, Miss Sinclair?’
‘Irene, please. And as for our “relationship”, it’s quite simple: Lisa was Roger’s wife and I was Roger’s mother. Not literally, of course,’ she added quickly, ‘but that was the role we played. Although,’ she continued thoughtfully, ‘I think it would be safe to say that our roles were changing, possibly reversing in fact, because Roger was spending more and more time with me than he was with Lisa.’ She shrugged. ‘Hardly surprising, I suppose, considering her involvement with her dancing partner, Ramon.’
‘Involvement . . .?’ Molly queried.
‘Lovers, then,’ Irene said. ‘Have been for years, although Roger didn’t twig until fairly recently.’ The kettle began to boil, and Irene turned her attention to preparing tea. ‘I presume you know she was planning on divorcing Roger?’
‘Yes, Mrs Corbett told me herself the other day. How did Mr Corbett feel about that? I understand he found it hard to hold a steady job; in fact it’s my impression that he was dependent on his wife for support.’
‘Oh, he was. Totally. But what you have to understand is that Roger was a child in many ways. He tried to shut things out. He knew Lisa was going to divorce him, but he wouldn’t allow himself to believe it. He abhorred change, so he ignored it.’
‘Would you mind elaborating on this role of motherhood? I’m afraid I don’t understand it. From what Mr Corbett told DCI Paget, he was sleeping with you the night someone tried to set the Grant house on fire.’
Irene set out two cups and saucers and poured tea. ‘That’s true,’ she said, ‘with sleeping being the operative word. Roger was impotent; had been for many years. And he had nightmares; terrible nightmares. He would often wake up in tears. We didn’t have sex, if that’s what you’re after.’
‘But this back and forth business,’ Molly persisted. ‘You and Lisa Corbett were both happy with the arrangement? You are actually friends?’
‘Good friends,’ said Irene firmly. ‘In fact, while I know Lisa was very much in love with Roger when she married him, I think as time went on she was grateful for the respite when he came to me.’
‘Do you know what his nightmares were about?’
Irene shook her head. ‘He would never say. I asked Lisa if she knew, but she said he wouldn’t tell her either. But that’s why he drank; something happened in his past, but I have no idea what it was.’
‘Did he ever talk about the robbery and killings that took place here in Broadminster thirteen years ago? Did he ever mention the name of Barry Grant before it came up at the house-warming party?’
‘Chief Inspector Paget asked me that, and the answer is still no,’ Irene said. ‘And I would tell you if he had. How do you like the tea?’
There was a ‘To Let’ sign in the corner of the window of the Brush and Palette, and a larger, splashier sign pasted across the window, proclaiming: CLOSING DOWN SALE – 50% OFF! Hardly surprising, Tregalles thought as he switched off the engine. Sheep Lane was off the beaten track, and there were several other more accessible shops in town, where the same art supplies could be bought, probably for less than David Taylor could afford to sell them.
Sitting in his car outside the shop, the Sergeant ran his finger down the list of Roger Corbett’s phone calls immediately following Paget’s departure from Corbett’s office the previous Tuesday.
Top of the list: David Taylor. The conversation had lasted less than a minute, but that would have been long enough to arrange a meeting. The next call was to Irene Sinclair’s answering machine. Following that was a call to Kevin Taylor’s office. His secretary remembered the call, because the caller had ‘muttered an obscenity’ when she’d told him that Kevin would be out of the office for the rest of the day. Sixteen minutes later, Corbett rang Irene Sinclair, using his mobile, so presumably he had moved to the Unicorn by then. Four minutes later, he’d tried again and Irene had answered. She’d told Molly that he’d been almost incoherent at first, and he’d only just begun to calm down when he said he had another call coming in, and had cut her off. And that was the last she’d heard from him.
‘I was used to Roger’s mood swings, and to the way he was when he’d been drinking,’ she’d told Molly, ‘but it was different this time. Oh, there’s no doubt he’d been drinking, but there was something else in his voice. Fear . . .? Desperation . . .? Perhaps a mixture of both. I can’t describe it. It worried me.’
The next call Corbett had made was to John Chadwell’s office at the town hall. Tregalles still had to check that one out, but it too was brief, followed by a call lasting six minutes to Chadwell’s home.
Then nothing.
Tregalles folded the printout and slid it into his jacket pocket. ‘So, let’s see what you have to say for yourself, Mr Taylor,’ he said under his breath as he got out of the car. ‘Because I would like to know why you were the first person Corbett rang after Paget rattled his cage.’
‘Sharon? Sharon? Remember me? Molly Forsythe?’
The woman in the bed winced as she tried to open her eyes. Bruises covered three-quarters of her face; the flesh surrounding both eyes was swollen and puffy, and there were three stitches in the brow above the right eye. A momentary glint of reflected light appeared through narrows slits of swollen flesh, then disappeared again. Sharon Jessop rolled her head slowly from side to side on the pillow as if to say the effort was too much.
She shivered.
Molly pulled up the blanket, careful to avoid touching the splint immobilizing Sharon’s left arm and shoulder. Sharon’s eyes remained closed, but a murmur deep inside her throat was taken by Molly as thanks.
‘I know you must be in a lot of pain,’ she said gently, ‘but we do need to know who did this to you, Sharon. Who was it? Please tell me.’
Sharon tried to move her lips, but they, too, were cut and swollen. ‘Water,’ she managed huskily.
Molly picked up the water bottle on the bedside table and eased the tip of the flexible straw between Sharon’s lips. Sharon sucked greedily on the straw, then choked. Molly slipped an arm around her back and eased her into a sitting position. The coughing subsided. Sharon took one more pull on the straw, pushed it out with her tongue, and fell back panting.
Molly withdrew her arm. ‘Look, Sharon,’ she said, ‘I’ve been told that they want you downstairs for more tests in a few minutes, so I won’t stay long. But you must tell me who did this to you.’
‘Don’t remember,’ Sharon mumbled.
‘You don’t remember? I’m sorry, Sharon, but I don’t believe that. Don’t you want that person caught and punished? You could have been killed. Was it your husband, Al? He was seen leaving your house that night.’
Sharon closed her eyes. ‘Don’t remember,’ she said again.
Molly tried another tack. ‘I spoke to Rachel. Remember Rachel? The girl you used to party with? She remembers some of the boys you went with back then, and she says you kept a diary of sorts. Do you still have it?’
Sharon turned her head away.
‘If it’s in your house we’ll find it, Sharon
,’ Molly said. ‘It would be better if you tell us where it is.’
‘Can’t do that. You’ve no right.’
‘You were attacked there,’ said Molly. ‘It’s a crime scene, so yes we can.’
Sharon squinted painfully at her. ‘Burned it years ago. Honest to God. I’m telling the truth. Afraid Al would find it.’
‘All right, so let’s say I believe you,’ Molly said. ‘What about the man who whispered to you during the robbery. Have you remembered his name? How about one of these?’ Molly opened her notebook and read out the names Rachel had given her.
‘Don’t remember,’ said Sharon once again. Tears trickled down her cheeks. ‘Don’t remember,’ she repeated. Her nose started to run; she tried to reach for a tissue from the box on the bedside table, but the effort was too much and she fell back.
Molly handed her a tissue and placed the box beside her on the bed. ‘But you do know who beat you up, don’t you, Sharon?’ she said quietly. ‘We know that your husband was seen leaving the house that evening. You could have been killed. Do you really want this to happen to you again?’
Sharon didn’t answer. She lay still, eyes closed, her cheeks were damp with tears. Frustrated, Molly rose to leave.
‘It was Al.’
The words were spoken so quietly that Molly almost missed them. She bent low over the bed. ‘Say that again, please, Sharon,’ she said.
‘It was Al. He did this. He wanted money; he didn’t believe me when I told him I’d lost my job and there wasn’t any.’
‘Look, I was busy with a customer when Roger called, and I haven’t had many of those lately, so I put him off and told him I’d call him back, all right?’ said David Taylor heatedly in answer to Tregalles’s question. ‘I meant to call him back when the customer left, but then my landlord came in and we got talking about when I could be out of here, and I’m afraid I forgot about Roger until closing time. I rang him back, but he must have had his mobile shut off, because I couldn’t get through. I assumed he would call again if it was very important, but he never did. And that’s all there was to it.’
Tregalles eyed him curiously. ‘Was it?’ he asked softly. ‘Because if that’s all there was to it, as you say, why go all defensive on me over a simple question? What did Roger Corbett tell you when he rang? What is it you’re holding back, Mr Taylor? Because I know there is something you’re not telling me, and that could lead to serious consequences if it turns out it has a bearing on how or why Corbett died.’
David shook his head impatiently. ‘He didn’t tell me anything,’ he said tersely. ‘In fact the man was drunk and I could barely understand him. All I could make out was that the police had been round to question him about Barry Grant and the killing of my father and Mrs Bergman, and he kept saying he had to talk to me. That’s it; that’s all I can tell you.’
‘But why you?’ Tregalles said. ‘Corbett made several calls after that, but you were number one, so why did he call you first?’
David shrugged and spread his hands. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘If I did I would tell you.’ He sucked in his breath and let it out again in a sigh of resignation. ‘To tell you the truth, I thought he was getting all wound up over nothing. Everyone who was at the house-warming was being questioned; we all knew that, so I couldn’t see why Roger was getting so upset? It wasn’t as if he could be suspected of anything. Not Roger, for God’s sake. The idea’s ludicrous. Besides, as I said, he was drunk, so I put him off and told him I’d call him back.’
He shrugged apologetically. ‘Look, Sergeant,’ he said earnestly, ‘I’m sorry, but I’m as much in the dark as you are. I suppose I’m more angry at myself than I am about your questions, because I can’t help wondering if it would have made a difference if I hadn’t cut him off like that. Would Roger still be alive today?’ David’s eyes were bleak as they met those of Tregalles. ‘Unfortunately, this is the second time it’s happened, except last time it was Barry Grant on the other end of the line, and I’ve never stopped wondering if Barry would be alive today if I hadn’t cut him off when he rang me the night he died.’
He fell silent, but Tregalles wasn’t going to let him stop there. ‘Go on,’ he prompted. ‘Why did Barry call you in particular, and what did he want?’
‘He wanted my help and I failed him,’ David said bleakly. ‘And I think he called me because he had no one else to call.’
‘When was this, exactly?’
‘Sunday evening, the day after Dad and Mrs Bergman were killed,’ David explained. ‘Kevin and I were still in shock. Aunt Edith and Uncle Victor were there. Aunt Edith is Dad’s sister, and she and Uncle Victor had come down from Sheffield to help with the arrangements. I mean we were both young; I was twenty-one and Kevin was twenty-two, and we didn’t have a clue about what to do. And that inspector whatever-his-name-was kept coming back with questions, so when Barry rang me that night and said he had to talk to me, I brushed him off.’
He sucked in his breath. ‘The fact is, Sergeant, I tore a strip off him. I told him I was fed up with him pestering me and my friends, and I didn’t give a damn about him or his problems, because I had more than enough of my own. But he kept on and on until, finally, I told him to bloody well grow up, and slammed the phone down. Next thing I heard, he’d killed himself later that night.
‘And that’s it, Sergeant. Every word of that conversation has been burnt into my brain ever since that night, and when Claire came round to tell me that Barry had left some notes behind, and the investigation was being opened up again, the guilt came rushing back. So how do you think I feel about putting Roger off when he was asking for my help? I failed him in the same way I failed Barry Grant, and now they’re both dead, and it’s entirely possible that they might be alive if I hadn’t turned my back on them when they were looking for help.’
‘Which brings me back to my original question,’ Tregalles said. ‘Why were you the first person Corbett called after he was interviewed by DCI Paget? Were you and he particularly close friends?’
David shook his head. ‘No more than anyone else,’ he said slowly, ‘and I’ve been wondering that myself. I’ve known Roger for years, and we would run into each other from time to time, but I’ve no idea why he chose to ring me.’
He sighed, and some of the bitterness went out of his voice as he said, ‘God knows Roger didn’t have much of a life as it was, and to die like that . . . He was such a nice kid at school, happy, cheerful, full of fun; everyone liked Roger. We lost touch when we left school. I went off to Slade and he and most of the others went off to Leeds. But while Kevin and the others were taking things like law, business administration, and engineering, Roger took philosophical and religious studies, and he was really excited about it that first year, and he was looking forward to going back after the holidays.
‘But something changed that second year, and he was only back in uni for a month or so before he dropped out. I remember Kevin and some of the others were quite concerned about him at the time. But then he disappeared, left Broadminster without a word to anyone.
‘The next time I saw him was a couple of years later, but he was a changed man. Nervous, uncertain, not at all like the irrepressible chap he used to be. I thought he must be ill, not physically, perhaps, but suffering from depression or something like that, but he always insisted he was all right, even when it was clear to everyone that he was not. He never did say where he’d been, but years later he mentioned something to me about working on his uncle’s farm in Dorset, so I assumed that was where he’d gone when he left Broadminster.
‘But then he met Lisa, and the two of them hit it off right from the start. They were married within three months, and you could see the change in Roger. He was much more like his old self, and I think the two of them were genuinely happy for a while. But it didn’t last. You could see him going down again. He couldn’t hold a job; he became moody and argumentative, and I know I wondered at one point if he was on drugs. Until it finally dawned on me that Rog
er was an alcoholic. He’d hidden it very well for a number of years, but it reached a point where he couldn’t hide it any longer. Lisa did everything she could to help him, but nothing seemed to work, and I think she just gave up in the end. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Irene Sinclair, I think the poor chap would have drunk himself to death years ago. I don’t know if you were aware of it, but Roger’s parents died when he was quite young, and I think Irene became a sort of mother figure to him.’
David made a face. ‘It’s a damned shame,’ he said. ‘Basically, Roger was a good man. He didn’t deserve to die like that. Are you quite sure he was murdered, Sergeant? Isn’t it possible that he simply fell into the pond and couldn’t get out?’
‘Not according to the forensic evidence,’ Tregalles told him. ‘Which brings me to my next question. Where were you and what were you doing between four o’clock and midnight last Tuesday, Mr Taylor?’
The big box van pulled into the middle of the yard. The driver dropped it into reverse, then backed smoothly into the narrow bay and stopped within inches of the loading platform. He cut the engine, opened the door of the cab and jumped down.
‘Very impressive,’ said one of the two men in suits who had been watching.
The driver, a tall, fair-haired, skinny man, apart from what appeared to be a good start to a beer belly, acknowledged the words with a wink and a nod. ‘Nothing to it,’ he said. ‘You should see me handle the really big rigs.’ He made to move on, but the man barred his way.
‘Mr Jessop?’ he asked. ‘Mr Albert Jessop?’
‘That’s right. Who wants to know?’
‘Detective Constable Jones, Broadminster CID,’ the man said, holding up his warrant card. ‘And this is DC Albright, and we’d like you to come with us down to the station.’
Al Jessop took a step back, eyes narrowed as they flicked from one man to the other. ‘Why should I?’ he demanded. ‘I haven’t done anything.’
