by Rosie Harris
DI Morgan would find she was taking on he wrong man if she thought she could make Paddy Hardcastle jump through any hoops. Paddy had joined the Force the same time as he had, fifteen years ago. They’d trained together, watched each other’s backs, and they had both made the rank of sergeant within three months of each other. He’d considered Paddy to be mad when he’d opted for the plain clothes division, but looking back he thought that perhaps Paddy had done the right thing. There appeared to be more to get your teeth into, and it was better than driving round in a panda car all day, acting as nursemaid to new boys, or agony aunt in times of crisis.
Like tonight! Making tea! Sergeant Miller shuddered. He didn’t even do that at home. Mind, the poor woman hadn’t been in any state to make him a cup of tea, that was for sure.
He’d been to a good number of suicides and murders, but he’d never attended one quite like this. It was the state the poor chap had been left in. Quite disgusting, really. Especially for his wife to find him like that. She seemed such a nice respectable lady.
Still, he reflected, you could never tell what these outwardly proper, middle-class professional types got up to in the privacy of their own homes.
Although outwardly she looked calm, and completely in control, Detective Inspector Ruth Morgan felt her stomach churn as she looked down on the sprawled body of John Moorhouse, and noted the state of disarray of his clothing.
Her immediate reaction was to cover the body over to save his wife from further distress. One swift look in the direction of her sergeant, Paddy Hardcastle, and the procedural training she had so recently undergone at Police College came rushing back into her mind, and restrained her.
Observe, but don’t touch when examining the scene of a crime; make careful notes in writing, don’t rely on memory; call in specialist officers to take fingerprints and photographs before anything is moved.
She noted that Paddy looked completely unmoved by the shocking sight in front of them. Notebook in hand, he stood his ground squarely. His broad shoulders strained the brown tweed jacket he wore with dark-green trousers, a lemon-coloured shirt, and a tightly-knotted green and brown tie. His handsome, square-jawed face was inscrutable. Only his darting green eyes showed that he was taking an avid interest in every aspect of the room and the people in it as well as the body on the floor.
Paddy was something of a legend, and she had felt some misgivings when he had first been assigned as her sergeant. She’d heard of his reputation and knew he didn’t suffer fools gladly. She’d been warned that he was no respecter of rank when it came to plain speaking. And he made no secret of the fact that he held those who had risen from the ranks in much higher regard than those who’d achieved their status by coming into the Force straight from university.
He was also reputed to have one of the keenest brains in the business when it came to detection work, and Ruth was quite prepared to learn from his methods.
Not that she would tell him so! Technically she was the one in charge; even though they both knew she was indisputably dependent on him and his expertise.
Her sympathy was with Marilyn Moorhouse as Paddy began to ply her with questions. His words, though spoken softly, were both probing and barbed. It was almost as if he suspected she might be the one who had murdered John Moorhouse.
‘You say you always went out on a Thursday night, Mrs Moorhouse?’
‘Yes!’ She nodded emphatically. ‘It was the night the boys went to Cubs.’
‘And you stayed there with them?’
‘That’s right. I . . . I’m the Cub Mistress.’
‘You run the show on your own?’
‘Oh, no . . . I simply help out.’
‘So who is the Cub Master?’
‘Henry Wood.’
Paddy nodded thoughtfully as he made a note of the fact. ‘Is this a regular arrangement . . . every Thursday night?
‘Yes.’
‘Your husband never took part?’
‘Oh no. He sees enough of children all day . . .’ She hesitated, frowning as though she wondered if it was a trick question. ‘I only do it because my two boys Malcolm and Danny belong to the Cub Pack. I thought that since I had to sit and wait for them I might as well help out.’
‘So you’ve done it ever since they joined the Cubs?’
‘No. At first I dropped them off, then went to visit a friend for an hour, and then went back and picked them up. After she moved away I decided to stay, and help out.’
Marilyn Moorhouse pushed her long blonde hair back behind her ears in a defensive gesture. ‘It seemed madness to drive all the way home and then have to turn straight round to go back to collect them.’
‘Yes. Very sensible,’ Ruth intervened, trying to take the sting out of Sergeant Hardcastle’s questioning. She smiled gently, trying to put Marilyn Moorhouse at ease. ‘So there was nothing unusual about tonight?’
‘Well, not really except . . .’
‘Except? Go on!’ Paddy pounced on her brief hesitation.
‘The house was in darkness when we got back. I thought John must have fallen asleep.’
‘Did he usually take a nap while you were out at Cubs?’
She shook her head. ‘I thought perhaps he had a migraine. That was why I stopped the boys going into the sitting room . . .’ She dropped her face on to her hands, and a shudder shook her slim shoulders.
‘It was as well you did,’ murmured Ruth, remembering the sight that had met their eyes on arrival.
The arrival of the forensic medical examiner and the scene of crime officer cut short any further questioning.
Ruth welcomed their intervention. The thought that the children might be wakened by all the commotion, and come downstairs and inadvertently see what had happened to their father, filled her with alarm.
Thankfully, as soon as the FME and SOCO had completed their examination the body could be taken away.
The interval gave Marilyn Moorhouse breathing space to compose herself but Paddy returned to his interrogation the moment they left.
‘You were on the point of telling me that you came into the house, went straight into the kitchen, made the boys some supper, and then packed them off to bed.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Before you went to see if your husband was all right?’
Marilyn Moorhouse nodded.
‘You weren’t curious about why the house was in darkness?’
‘I told you! I thought that perhaps John had a migraine.’
‘You were quite sure he was here when you arrived home, then?’
‘Oh yes! His car was in the garage.’
‘And even after you’d put the boys to bed you still didn’t go into the sitting room?’
‘I thought I would make a pot of tea first, and take it through.’
‘And while you were waiting for the kettle to boil you washed up and cleared away the boys’ supper things?’
‘That’s right.’
‘You didn’t think to put the kettle on before you took them up to bed?’ he asked disarmingly. ‘That way it would have been boiling when you came back down.’
Marilyn Moorhouse pushed her blonde hair back from her face in a weary gesture. ‘I . . . I just didn’t think to do that . . .’
‘It wasn’t because there were other things you wanted to do first . . .’ Paddy’s voice trailed off.
She shook her head, a bewildered look in her blue eyes.
‘You are quite sure?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Weren’t you terribly angry because your husband had come home, and fallen asleep, while you were taking the boys to cubs?’ he said softly. ‘Weren’t you feeling a little irritated because he hadn’t even got supper ready for them, or a cup of tea waiting for you?’
He paused, as if to let his words sink in. When he spoke again his voice was a shade lower and even more intense.
‘You were tired out, and yet you were the one who had to prepare their supper, an
d then see them into bed. And after all that, instead of being able to sit down, and put your feet up, you had to start getting the evening meal ready.’
Marilyn Moorhouse shook her head. ‘We never planned anything on Thursday evenings. John liked the chance to have an hour to himself, to relax, listen to music . . .’ She stopped, and pressed her hand to her mouth, and Ruth noticed that the look of utter bewilderment was back in her blue eyes, and knew she must intervene.
Sergeant Hardcastle’s form of interrogation might be a short cut to extracting a confession, but it wasn’t the correct way to go about things. The woman should have her solicitor present, for one thing.
She shot him a glance and was startled to see he was watching her reaction. His own face was impassive. What the hell was he doing? Was he testing her out; pushing his authority to the ultimate just to see how she responded?
Her mouth tightened. Two could play at that game, and she had no intention of letting him use Marilyn Moorhouse as some sort of test case in order to see how she would react to his techniques.
Apart from the ethics involved, Marilyn Moorhouse had gone through quite enough. Finding her husband dead, and in that state, was a sufficiently harrowing experience without being subjected to a third degree.
The arrival of Jim and Peggy Greenside came at a propitious moment. Peggy, a matronly woman in her late forties, explained that she was the dead man’s sister, and immediately tried to take charge.
‘You can’t stay here, Marilyn,’ she declared emphatically. ‘You and the boys must come back to our place for the night.’
Marilyn shook her head. ‘No, Peggy, I can’t do that. I don’t want to wake the boys . . . I wouldn’t know what to tell them,’ she protested, her lower lip trembling.
‘You can’t stay here,’ her sister-in-law argued. ‘Supposing the murderer came back again!’
Marilyn’s blue eyes widened in fear.
‘We can leave a uniformed officer on duty,’ Ruth told her, ‘but I do think it would be better if you did as Mrs Greenside suggests, and went and stayed with her.’
Marilyn Moorhouse’s shoulders sagged. She looked as limp as a rag doll inside her bulky white sweatshirt. ‘I suppose you’re right.’
‘Just one point, Mrs Moorhouse . . .’ Paddy’s voice was diffident. ‘Was your husband expecting a visitor this evening?’
‘I have no idea. Not as far as I know!’
‘I ask because there is no sign of forced entry.’
She looked puzzled. ‘Then John must have let him in, I suppose.’
‘Him?’
She stared blankly, the colour draining from her face.
‘I think perhaps you should collect whatever things you are going to need overnight, Mrs Moorhouse,’ Ruth cut in sharply. ‘We can discuss this further tomorrow . . . after you’ve spoken to your solicitor,’ she added pointedly.
SEVEN
The atmosphere in the car was as chill as the inside of a fridge as DI Morgan and DS Hardcastle drove back to the station. Ruth suspected that Paddy was annoyed because she had forestalled him asking Mrs Moorhouse any further questions.
Browbeating the witness was not a technique she intended to employ in her enquiries, so she certainly wasn’t going to stand quietly by and let him do it, she thought stubbornly.
She shot a sideways glance at him. His large hands were grasping the wheel in an assured, competent way, and he appeared to be concentrating on the traffic ahead, but it was obvious from the set of his broad shoulders, and the tilt of his head, that he was waiting for her to say something.
It needed careful handling. They would be working together for quite some time, and she didn’t want to antagonize him. She was well aware that he had probably forgotten more about police procedure than she had learned so far. Even so, she wanted to do things her way. And that didn’t include bullying witnesses.
Keeping her voice neutral she remarked, ‘Did you think Mrs Moorhouse might have murdered her husband?’
He remained silent long enough to make her feel uncomfortable.
‘I always assume everyone is a suspect until proved otherwise,’ he commented in an equally impartial tone.
‘It could hardly have been her though, could it? There wasn’t a spot of blood on her clothes . . .’
‘But there was a knife missing from the rack on the kitchen shelf over the right-hand worktop.’
Ruth drew in a quick breath. She should have noticed that, but she hadn’t. She didn’t intend admitting that to Paddy, though.
‘The murder weapon hasn’t been found,’ she reminded him. ‘And until it is, and the forensic tests have been completed, there is no proof that it was the same knife.’
He shrugged but made no comment.
‘She didn’t look like a woman who had just stabbed her husband half a dozen times in a state of frenzy,’ Ruth persisted. ‘She was obviously upset but not deranged.’
His mouth twitched, almost as if he was stifling a smile.
Despite herself, Ruth bristled. ‘And there was no blood on her clothes,’ she repeated almost defiantly when he maintained a solid silence.
‘After she’d stabbed him, she could have taken a shower and changed her clothing, before ringing for the police,’ he commented in a deceptively soft voice.
‘With two small boys upstairs? Don’t you think they would have heard the upheaval and come running down to see what was happening?’
‘Not if they fell asleep the minute their heads touched the pillow. They’d had a strenuous evening at Cubs, remember.’
‘I think if you check out the time of her telephone call, and the time they arrived home, you’ll find there wasn’t sufficient time for her to do all that.’
‘Perhaps she didn’t spend the entire evening at Cubs. Supposing after she dropped the boys off, she returned home, murdered her husband, cleaned herself up, and was back in time to collect the two boys, and bring them home as usual.’
‘That’s a horrific scenario!’
‘It could be the reason why she insisted that the boys mustn’t go into the sitting room. She knew what was in there.’
‘You’re making Marilyn Moorhouse out to be not just a murderer, but heartless and cold-blooded into the bargain.’
‘If there was another woman involved then she could well have been both those things,’ he commented wryly. ‘And it accounts for the fact that there was no forced entry.’
‘Your theory doesn’t hold water, Sergeant Hardcastle.’
‘Oh, no? Supposing she suspected that her husband was having an affair, that he was inviting some woman to their home on Thursday nights knowing she was busy with the two boys at Cubs. It would play on her mind. She’d have to find out for herself. So what better way of doing it than sneaking back home again when he thought she was otherwise occupied.’
Ruth shook her head.
‘She lets herself in,’ Paddy went on, ‘she finds her husband with some other woman, and is so incensed that she grabs a knife out of the rack in the kitchen, and stabs him . . .’
‘And what does the other woman do! Stand and watch?’
Paddy ignored the interruption. ‘. . . and stabs him over and over again until her fury is spent. She looks down and sees him lying at her feet in a pool of his own blood. She can’t believe what has happened. The other woman has grabbed her clothes and vanished. Marilyn Moorhouse doesn’t even remember what she looked like; she certainly doesn’t know her. She stands there clutching the knife, blood on her hands, and on her clothes. She strips off, takes a shower, bundles up the clothes, takes a last look at her husband’s body, and is too shocked, or too squeamish, to even make sure he looks decent.’
‘So she turns out the lights and leaves him lying there while she goes to collect the boys from Cubs?’
Paddy turned and grinned. ‘One of us has been reading too many detective stories,’ he admonished. ‘In real life nothing is as simple as that.’
Ruth felt her colour rising. So he had b
een winding her up. And what was worse, she had fallen for it. She felt both angry and humiliated. It wasn’t a very auspicious start for their partnership, she thought furiously.
‘Sorry, ma’am! That was out of order.’
Beneath the seemingly contrite apology, Ruth sensed a tinge of constrained laughter.
‘It certainly was, Sergeant,’ she agreed stiffly.
Paddy didn’t answer. Instead, he slowed down and pulled off the road on to a gravel forecourt. Ruth frowned as she saw the illuminated sign, and realized that they’d pulled into a pub car park.
‘Can I buy you a drink, ma’am . . . by way of apology?’
‘Well . . .’ She was about to refuse, but a sixth sense told her that if she did there would be no possibility of establishing a feeling of comradeship between them.
‘We’re not in uniform, and technically we’ve been off-duty ever since you informed the SOCO that we were leaving Twenty-Seven Fieldway,’ he pointed out.
She bit her lip. It was late. They’d both had a tough evening, and he was right, they were not wearing uniform, so why shouldn’t she accept his offer, and go for a drink? Perhaps if she found out what made Sergeant Paddy Hardcastle tick she would understand him better, and they’d make a better team.
‘OK! We’ll have a drink . . . only, I’ll pay.’
The firmness of her tone surprised her. She shot a quick sideways glance to gauge his reaction, but the set look on his square-jawed face gave no inkling of what he was thinking.
A barrage of bright lights and deafening noise met them as they pushed open the door to the Lounge Bar. It was so packed that Ruth stepped back. ‘Shall we leave it?’ she suggested.
‘No!’ He took her arm, firmly guiding her a few yards along the building to another door marked Public Bar. Inside it was quiet and almost empty. A few middle-aged working men were propping up the bar, a couple of older men ensconced in armchairs drawn up at a table to one side of the open fire.
‘Why don’t you find a seat while I get them in,’ Paddy suggested. ‘What’s your drink, by the way? Lager . . . cider . . . or a G & T?’
