Simeon's Bride

by Alison G. Taylor

  Chapter 18

  ‘Cui bono.’ Eifion Roberts lounged in McKenna’s office, brilliant morning sunshine behind the Venetian blind casting stripes on walls and floors and furniture.

  ‘What did you say?’ McKenna asked.

  ‘Cui bono. It means—’

  ‘I know what it means!’ McKenna said irritably. ‘Will you stop rocking backwards and forwards on that chair? You’re too fat. What am I to tell HQ if you break the legs?’

  ‘We are in a mood this morning, aren’t we? Got out of bed the wrong side, did you?’

  ‘Mind your own business.’

  Dr Roberts picked up his mug of tea. ‘Woman trouble, McKenna.’

  ‘I bloody know that!’

  ‘What I meant was, you’re not getting any,’ the pathologist tittered. ‘Nothing to get your leg over.’

  ‘Must you be so disgustingly crude?’ McKenna snapped.

  ‘Sex is sex is sex, Michael, whatever fancy language you dress it up with. Anyway,’ Eifion Roberts smirked, ‘it’s a well-known medical fact that excess of unshed seed sends a body barking mad in next to no time. That’s why Onan in the Bible wasn’t as far off the mark as God made him out to be. Better out than in, as they say.’ He selected another biscuit from the plate on McKenna’s desk. ‘There was a case round Llanrwst or Ruthin when Queen Vic ruled our pleasant land. This lad murdered this girl because he was mad with love for her and she was going to marry somebody else. Slashed her throat this way and that ’til her head almost fell off, then trotted off and gave himself up to the local flatfoot.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘So they didn’t hang him, did they?’ Dr Roberts said. ‘All these eminent medicos testified at the trial how he was suffering from what you’re suffering from, and they sent him to Broadmoor.’

  ‘I see.’ McKenna shuffled papers on his desk. ‘And what am I suffering from?’ he asked. ‘What pearls of medical wisdom are about to dribble and plop from your fat little lips? Why don’t you just say? Then you can sod off and leave me in peace to get on with some work.’

  Roberts laughed. ‘You can be so nasty, Michael, it’s almost a pleasure to listen to you! Jest if you will. Mock if you will. But go and get your end away, and see how much better you feel afterwards. That is, of course,’ he looked at McKenna with a sly leer, ‘if you can find anyone willing to accommodate you. How about that buxom little policewoman you transferred from Holyhead? She’s got a nice bum on her. It’d do you the world of good to unlace your moral stays, so to speak. You waft around like a Victorian virgin getting an attack of the vapours if anyone mentions sex.’ He grinned. ‘S-E-X, Michael McKenna. Like all things in moderation, it can be good for you.’ Suddenly serious, he added, ‘Tell me to mind my own business, but is that what’s gone wrong between you and Denise? I can’t help but see you as riddled with the Papist guilt about matters of the flesh.’

  McKenna squirmed. ‘I don’t want to talk about Denise. She’s coming to the house tonight, and I haven’t a clue what to say to her.’

  ‘Let her do the talking, then. Always the best way with women, I’ve found…. You haven’t answered my question.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, Eifion,’ McKenna said, ‘I’m already unchained from that particular lunatic’

  ‘What lunatic?’

  ‘Socrates is supposed to have said the human sexual drive is like being chained to a lunatic’

  ‘Did he?’ Dr Roberts stared at McKenna. ‘He’s got a lot to answer for, hasn’t he? Almost as much as that old fraud of a psychoanalyst from Vienna. Must be where all the holy folk got the idea of using guilt as a cudgel to keep the fornicating hordes and their lunatics in order. And why the likes of little Betty Prout got thrown out of her village because she was expecting, and no ring on her finger…. She threw her baby down a well in the end, to get shut of the guilt and shame, and if that’s the best God can do for people, He should be ashamed of Himself.’

  ‘Not so long ago, you’d’ve been burnt as a heretic.’

  ‘Gone down in history,’ the pathologist agreed. ‘Hung drawn and quartered, like that Catholic priest William Davies. Bet you didn’t learn about him in church, did you? He was only a Welsh martyr. Not quite the same as an English one.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘Offended Her Almighty Majesty Elizabeth the First of England by being RC and proud of it. They strung him up at Beaumaris Castle in 1593, and the locals wouldn’t supply the hangman, or the wood for the scaffold, so they brought them in from Chester. Then they cut the poor bugger down, carved him up into four neat joints, and put quarters on display at Caernarfon, Ludlow, Conwy and Beaumaris. Needless to say,’ he added with a wry grin, ‘William Davies doesn’t have a grave! And talking of folk rotting in full view, what about the corpses hanging at crossroads, and crows flying over your head with somebody’s eyes squashed in their beak … our Romy would’ve felt in good company, wouldn’t she?’ He drank the last of his tea, dabbing his lips with a paper tissue from the box on McKenna’s desk. ‘Actually, it was Romy I came to talk about.’

  ‘What about her?’ McKenna asked. ‘Something about the suit?’

  ‘No, you’ve had your bit of luck with that. Now you’ll have to find somebody with a penchant for nicking other people’s perfume to fit into it,’ the pathologist said. ‘And of course, if you do, you might find the lady’s got fatter or thinner in the past few years…. Bear up, Michael. It’ll all be over one day.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean? I’m to look forward to dying, am I, because there’s damn all else to look forward to?’

  ‘All in the same boat, aren’t we? Waiting to cross the River Styx as soon as Charon gives the nod…. How d’you plan to find out who pushed that boat out for Romy?’

  ‘I’m waiting for Owen Griffiths to decide whether or not we start digging up floors at Gallows Cottage and combing those bloody woods. Jack Tuttle has some hare-brained idea the owner of the suit may be mouldering somewhere like her mate Romy.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because she might have seen whoever topped Romy and therefore had to be done away with herself.’

  ‘Doesn’t fit, somehow, and don’t ask me why, ’cos I don’t know. I think this is women’s work,’ Dr Roberts said. ‘There’s a feeling of women being at the root of it, and men being nowt a pound…. Allsopp’s a fly-by-night, in the sense Romy flew by and left after dropping a bit of shit on his head. Her husband’s killed off in a car smash, and just deserts maybe. Simeon, if you can swallow the rumours, blunders through the centuries like a besotted teenager looking for his missis, who like as not chucked that kiddie of theirs down the stairs. Then there’s those old crones in the village with their tales … men are getting too hard done by to be perpetrating anything.’

  ‘Revenge?’ McKenna suggested.

  ‘What I said before. Cui bono? The oldest motive of all.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ McKenna admitted. ‘Who benefits from Romy’s death….? The solicitor made no mention of a will.’

  ‘Then I daresay it’ll be whoever can get their greedy paws on whatever she had. Pity her solicitor couldn’t tell you where she kept her bank account, isn’t it? Did she pay him in cash, like she did with the rent?’ Dr Roberts stood up. ‘I’d better be going.’ He brushed biscuit crumbs off the lapels of his jacket. ‘Expecting the bishop himself, no less, to tell me what’s to be done with Rebekah.’

  ‘She’s not turned to dust then?’

  ‘No.’ The pathologist grinned. ‘I could quarter her, couldn’t I? Give ’em a piece or two each … they’d still squabble, wouldn’t they? He sighed. ‘Like as not, they’d be rowing over this one ’til Kingdom come.’

  Jack affected disappointment that his suggestion had been dismissed. ‘We’ve got no grounds to think this other woman’s dead, Jack,’ McKenna said. ‘HQ will not sanction the expense and manpower for any more digging or searching unless we can show good reason. And we can’t.’

  ‘It’s the most like
ly explanation.’

  ‘It isn’t really, sir,’ Dewi offered. ‘It’s more than likely this woman bumped off Romy and hid the suit because somebody’d seen her wearing it when she was with Romy, and it’s quite distinctive, because we know Debenhams only had twenty jackets like that for the whole of North Wales from Pwllheli to Chester.’

  ‘Shut UP!’ Jack roared. ‘Just SHUT UP!’

  ‘Dewi could be right, Jack.’

  ‘In a pig’s eye!’ Jack exploded. ‘I don’t know how you put up with him. He gets on my bloody nerves!’

  McKenna drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, waiting for a huge articulated truck to manoeuvre into Glynne Road, and up to Kwik Save supermarket. ‘That much is obvious, but you really needn’t be quite so abrasive with the lad. He has some good ideas.’ He looked at Jack. ‘Change your face, Jack! That expression is enough, as my old gran would say, to turn the milk in the cows’ bellies from here to Donegal.’

  ‘Dewi Prys might be clever, but he’s as mouthy and cocky with it as Jamie Thief. They’re like some kind of bloody twins, one each side of the law … why doesn’t Jamie speak Welsh? He only lives a few doors away from Dewi Prys.’

  McKenna shrugged. ‘Same reason half the Welsh people in North Wales don’t speak Welsh, I suppose. Are you going to start learning?’

  Jack grimaced. ‘Looks like I won’t have much choice if I want to stay around here. We’ve enough to do keeping the locals in order without having to learn Welsh.’

  ‘Policy, Jack,’ McKenna said. ‘The powers that be daren’t upset the Welsh Language Society, and they want everybody in Wales speaking Welsh. And, those who don’t like the idea are welcome to bugger off over the border.’

  ‘It’s all become very hardline political, hasn’t it? Near enough fascist, if you ask me…. I wouldn’t mind if Welsh wasn’t so bloody hard. I don’t know how you get your mouth round some of the words. Owen Griffiths doesn’t speak Welsh, does he? I haven’t heard of anybody trying to make him.’

  ‘Yes, Jack, but he’s a superintendent.’ The road ahead finally cleared, and McKenna accelerated past the swimming baths. ‘Anyway, it’s not as hard as English. Did you know, there are bilingual mongols and subnormals? Makes you think, eh?’

  ‘You’re not supposed to say mongols or subnormals. It’s very politically incorrect.’

  ‘What else are you supposed to call them?’

  ‘I dunno,’ Jack admitted. ‘People with learning difficulties?’ he suggested. ‘Where’re we going?’

  ‘To see Mr Stott.’

  ‘Well, you’ve gone right past the entrance to Turf Square.’

  ‘He’ll be at work, won’t he? Showing visitors the glories of Snidey Castle.’

  The huge bulk of Castle Keep soared into a bright blue sky, grey stone and neo-Norman arcades and mouldings in deep morning shadow. McKenna rested his arms on the car door, sunshine striking gold lights in his hair. ‘This place, Jack, is built on blood. I wouldn’t shed any tears if our terrorist countrymen reduced it to a heap of burnt-out ruins.’

  ‘That’s anarchist talk. What else were the locals supposed to do except work for the lord of the manor? Starve?’

  ‘The Welsh starved anyway. But without any dignity.’

  ‘I don’t think,’ Jack observed, ‘there is ever dignity in poverty and starvation. Do you? Come on. I want to have a shufti at Jamie’s boyfriend.’

  Waiting upon Christopher Stott in a large vaulted room overlooking the back of the castle grounds, where lambs and ewes grazed in meadows undulating towards a distant seascape, Jack stared at dingy oil paintings in tarnished gilded frames hung against bare stone walls, wiped his fingers across the surfaces of heavy oak furniture, timbers dark with age and wax, made scuff marks with his shoes on the golden velvet pile of wall to wall carpeting. ‘How the other half lives, eh?’ he said. ‘Bet this place is colder than Eifion Roberts’ mortuary in the winter.’

  ‘Not so warm now, is it?’ McKenna, gazing from the window, shivered a little. ‘Gorgeous view from here, Jack. You can see the rhododendron woods.’

  A tall thin man with a small beard slithered into the room. ‘You wanted to see me?’ he asked, looking from Jack to McKenna.

  ‘You’re Christopher Stott?’ McKenna asked.

  The man nodded, his body waving from side to side with the motion of his head, like a sapling bending to the wind. He wore an etiolated look, as if kept in a dark cupboard for many years, his body stretching itself: a plant stem searching for a chink of light. The sickly look of one living under constant stresses dulled his eyes and stripped colour from his skin.

  ‘What d’you want?’ he asked. ‘My boss doesn’t like staff having visitors.’ He placed himself carefully on the edge of one of the fat chairs, knees tight together, and his hands balled into fists in his lap. McKenna stared, while Jack spoke of cars and queries, wondering if Jack were not right about Christopher Stott’s being someone’s boyfriend, if not Jamie’s.

  ‘Mr Stott,’ McKenna said, ‘we understand you recently sold your car to a neighbour. We further understand you regularly allowed someone to borrow the car, a practice which appears to have continued to the present.’ McKenna heard himself becoming pedantic. ‘Perhaps you would care to tell us why?’

  ‘Why what?’ Stott looked again from one to the other, a frown cutting into the dry-looking skin of his forehead.

  ‘Why you lent the car to Jamie Thief!’ Jack snapped. ‘What d’you owe him for?’

  ‘Jamie Thief?’ Stott raised his eyebrows. ‘D’you mean Jamie Wright? That’s not a very nice way to talk about him, is it?’

  The man was prissy: McKenna could think of no other word to describe him. ‘Jamie IS a bloody thief!’ Jack shouted. ‘That’s how he got his name.’

  McKenna intervened. ‘Mr Stott, the matter of the car has occurred in the course of another investigation. And we must clear up any queries about this vehicle.’

  ‘Oh.’ Stott took his time to absorb the words. ‘What queries do you have?’

  ‘I’ve just told you, haven’t I?’ Jack sounded exasperated. ‘Why did you lend it to Jamie.’

  ‘Why not? I wasn’t aware it was a crime to lend a car to a friend.’ A smirk settled on Stott’s lips, thin behind the scraggy little beard, as he answered.

  McKenna coughed. ‘What we’d really like to know, Mr Stott, is why Jamie should be a friend of yours.’

  ‘Really!’ The thin mouth made a moue of distaste. ‘What a question! And what, I may add, a waste of expensive police time, not to say mine, to come here asking such a question.’ Christopher Stott bridled with indignation. Watching him, McKenna saw fear beneath the bluster. He sat down, and leaned forwards.

  ‘It rather bothers me, Mr Stott,’ he said, ‘that a person whom we have no reason to believe is other than law-abiding should be on such friendly terms with someone of Jamie’s background and inclinations as to lend them a very expensive car. And,’ he added, watching Stott’s eyes, ‘it bothers me even more when the loan of this vehicle continues even after the car has acquired a new owner.’

  Stott relaxed. ‘If Jamie is still borrowing the car, it’s nothing to do with me. Why don’t you ask the new owner?’

  ‘Oh, we will,’ McKenna said. ‘But right at this moment, we’re asking you.’

  ‘I’ve already said I can’t help you. I merely let the boy borrow the car once or twice, several years ago.’

  ‘How many years ago?’ Jack demanded. ‘And why?’

  ‘Two, three years ago …’ Stott said. ‘I sold it last year, as you no doubt know. And,’ he sighed, ‘if you really must know, Jamie borrowed it because he helped out doing odd jobs round the garden … in lieu of payment.’

  ‘Can’t you do your own gardening?’

  ‘I can. If I choose. And if I’m not too busy.’

  ‘Where did you meet Jamie?’ McKenna asked.

  ‘Where did I meet him? How on earth do you expect me to remember? I’ve known him for years, off and on
.’

  ‘Funny,’ Jack observed. ‘I wouldn’t’ve thought your path would cross with his all that easily.’

  ‘Well, you’re obviously not local, are you? One knows almost everybody by sight, and most people to speak to. It’s a small place…. Or hadn’t you noticed?’ The smirk returned. McKenna, convinced the wrong questions had been asked, had not the most remote idea what might be the right ones. He regarded Stott, wishing he could simply walk from the room, drive from the castle, and expunge all thoughts of Romy Cheney and her past from his mind. Instinct insisted there was treasure here, if he found the right place to strike with his spade.

  ‘When did you get the car?’ he asked.

  ‘I can’t quite remember. Around four years ago. Why?’

  ‘Trade in, was it?’ Jack took the ball into his court.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why d’you sell it?’

  ‘For a number of reasons.’

  ‘Name a few.’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘Because I’m a policeman, and I expect people to answer my questions.’

  ‘You may well be a policeman, but I’m beginning to think you’re a bully as well.’

  Jack grinned wolfishly. ‘You’re too sensitive, Mr Stott. I’m asking you a perfectly reasonable question, and here you are getting all hoity-toity on me.’

  ‘Just tell us,’ McKenna sighed, ‘why you sold the car.’

  ‘It really is none of your business!’ Stott announced. ‘If you must know, it cost too much to run; I didn’t use it very often, and I thought it might end up stolen or vandalized if it was left sitting in the road. Does that satisfy you?’