Simeon's Bride

by Alison G. Taylor

  ‘Not particularly. Why?’

  Emma pulled off the pink rubber gloves she had just donned. ‘Let’s leave the dishes to soak for a while, then.’

  Waiting for the kettle to boil for morning coffee, Dewi absently read the dog-eared fax paper, more interested in the possible reason for Jack’s rare unpunctuality than the contents of the message. Scanning the sheet from halfway down the page, as was his custom, he failed to understand its significance until, he told Jack, he looked at the heading.

  ‘Where the hell has it been?’ Jack demanded. ‘It’s dated over a week ago.’

  ‘Dunno, sir. I expect we’ll find out eventually. Somebody’ll be for the high jump, won’t they? What are we going to do about it?’

  ‘I’m going to see the superintendent.’

  Dewi dialled McKenna’s number. ‘Are you coming back to work today, sir?’

  ‘Would it be worth my while, Dewi? Or might I be better occupied doing the garden?’

  ‘Well, sir, you’ll likely turn over a lot more worms here.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘You could say we’ve had a bit of a break. And it’s not the sort of break one particular person will be able to mend without God’s help.’

  * * *

  Not only against outsiders did the police close ranks, Owen Griffiths reflected, for senior officers fared ill when it was their task to apportion blame and discipline. None of his colleagues at any rank, either uniform or plainclothes, would admit even to seeing the fax from DVLA. He returned to his office, knowing further harangue to be futile, only likely to accrue resentments ready to boomerang when he had least defence. His damage limitation exercise would stand or fail on McKenna’s reaction, the measure of his righteousness. Owen Griffiths prayed for clemency from McKenna, for an acknowledgement that human error need not cause collapse of the edifice of law and order, and appreciated, perhaps for the first time, how a conscience on the loose, as McKenna’s frequently was permitted to be, caused trouble to rival outright corruption.

  Slumped at the bar of the Douglas Arms in Bethesda, Wil Jones nursed guilty feelings about his absence from work, along with a large measure of whisky and craven fear. Yesterday brought, with its respite from the vicious Arctic storms so usual in the spring, a different coldness, enough to repel any peace or rest he might seek, enough to force him sweating and shivering from the sleep of exhaustion which eventually overtook him in the dead hours of morning.

  The man waited in the cottage, behind a door which Wil unlocked, and did not disappear, did not evaporate, but leaned against the kitchen wall simply watching. Not exactly leaned against the wall, Wil decided, whisky running warm in his belly, but sort of leaned. And only that, he thought, for he saw the scabby plaster of the unpainted wall through the figure of the man, and it was that which sent him stumbling from kitchen and cottage, in fear for his mortal soul. Not stopping to lock the cottage door, he fell into his van and careered up the track at top speed, axles grinding and slipping over stones and tussocks of rank grass.

  He wanted to speak his terror, but feared being called a fool and worse. He drank more whisky, and slumped further against the bar, and at closing time, was laid out by the landlord on a bench in the snug to snore away his drunkenness.

  Mary Ann relished her power, as if those upon whom it was exerted were marionettes, to be kept in the wings of her little theatre until she wished to jerk a string or two, wanted to watch the figures clacking and jumping to her tune. Michael McKenna had danced down the path to frighten the puppet Beti Gloff could not work for herself, for Beti Gloff could only hop this way or that on her lame bandy legs, too disarrayed to conduct, too much in awe of Mary Ann to choreograph her own affairs.

  For John Jones, Mary Ann was not a puppet-mistress, but high priestess of the great coven of womanhood, to which the woman in the woods and the other both had title, and for all his scorn and loathing, his fear triumphed. Blame Mary Ann he might for the terms under which Beti returned to him, terms hammered out, he was sure, by Mary Ann and her coven over pots of tea and sticky fattening cakes in the fuggy parlour of her cottage. But the hex upon him was the work of another, who had every step he took, even down the overgrown garden path to the privy, dogged by the gipsy with staring eyes and ashen face, a face luminous even on the darkest night when God locked moon below horizon, too mean even to light the stars. And that other one might, if John Jones let slip his guard for the tiniest fraction of time, make him reap what he had tried to sow.

  ‘What’s she doing here?’ Jack asked, returning to the CID office. Nell glared at him from dark piggy eyes punched like holes in the curdles of flesh slopped around the bones of her skull.

  ‘She’s been arrested, sir,’ Dewi said quietly.

  ‘What for? Shoplifting again?’

  ‘Er–no. Soliciting.’

  ‘Soliciting? You’ve got to be joking!’

  ‘In the Quarrymens Rest. The landlord got fed up and called us. We’re waiting for a WPC to sit with her.’

  Jack stared blatantly at the blowsy, frowsty old woman, her clothes taut around belly and thighs, exposing flabbed knees and varicosed legs. She had the thick ugly feet of a streetwalker, and he wondered if she was born that way, her fate predestined by the configurations of body. ‘Christ Almighty! How could anyone go with her?’

  Dewi shrugged. ‘They do say dirty water puts out fire just as well. What did the superintendent say about the car?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘The car, sir.’

  ‘Oh, yes. The car. We’re to follow it up. I thought I’d ring the chief inspector before we do anything.’

  ‘He’s coming in.’

  ‘Is he? How d’you know that, Prys?’

  ‘He was on the telephone, sir. And he says Mr Prosser’s come round, so somebody’ll have to see him.’

  The psychiatrist frowned and leaned back in his chair, bringing gentle squeaks and sighs from its upholstery. ‘You cannot talk to my patient today, Inspector.’

  ‘Why not, Dr Rankilor?’

  Dr Rankilor tapped his fingers quietly on the edge of the desk. ‘Mr Prosser,’ he intoned, ‘is not a well man. In fact, he is a very unwell man.’

  ‘I thought the head injury was healing.’

  ‘The physical injury, perhaps. My interest, however, is with the injuries of the ego, of the conscious mind and its subconscious, not with those of the mere flesh.’

  ‘In my experience, injuries of the mere flesh are far more likely to prove fatal than the other kind.’

  ‘You are a layman. You do not understand how a serious injury to the mind can cause a person to inflict mortal injury on the flesh.’

  ‘You think Trefor Prosser is suicidal?’

  ‘Why do you need to ask? He deliberately drove his car into a wall.’

  ‘He drove into a wall to avoid crashing into a bus.’

  ‘It is the implications of his action with which I must concern myself.’

  ‘What’s he said to you?’

  ‘Very little. He wishes neither to communicate nor think. But his psychic distress flaunts itself from every fibre of his being.’

  ‘Don’t you think you’re exaggerating this out of all proportion?’ Jack said irritably. ‘I want to ask him one thing.’

  ‘And maybe that one thing will lead to another and another, and then to a homicidal act against his own person, for that is the nature of suicide, after all.’

  ‘Trefor Prosser is a key witness in a murder investigation. I insist on speaking to him.’

  ‘In that case, we must consider an application to the courts for the protection of my patient. Mr Prosser does not wish to see you, and has nothing to say to you.’

  Rage blossomed in Jack’s cheeks. ‘I’ll bet he doesn’t want to see me! Did he tell you he only crashed his bloody car because he was running away from us?’ He looked with disgust at the psychiatrist. ‘You’re letting him hide behind your white coat and your blasted Freudian fairy-tales!’

&n
bsp; ‘If you approached him with the same attitude you are demonstrating to me, I am not surprised he fled from you, Inspector. You British have a little adage, do you not, about having the grace to see yourselves as others see you? You should consider that whilst you are fulminating against my opposition.’

  The house in Turf Square lay empty, silent and dingy in late morning sunshine. Pushing through a narrow wooden gate which reeked of creosote, and down the little alleyway between this house and the one next door, Dewi stood on tiptoe to peer into the room at the rear of the house. Curtains obscured his view, grey-tinged nets looped into swags at the centre and edged with frills, like, he thought, a tart lifting up her skirts to show her tatty undergarments.

  ‘There’s nobody home, sir,’ he told McKenna, slipping back into the car. ‘What shall we do now? Go to the castle and wave that fax under Stott’s nose?’

  ‘Dunno, Dewi. It’s not quite as straightforward as it seems.’ McKenna lit a cigarette. ‘We know the Scorpio belonged to Romy Cheney, or Margaret Bailey as she’s named here, but there’s not a mention of Stott. The next listed owner is our smelly friend down the road.’ He turned to look for the sleek grey vehicle, and found its parking space occupied only by a ginger cat crouched upon its haunches.

  ‘But Stott admitted selling him the car,’ Dewi pointed out. ‘How’s he going to worm his way out of that?’ He fidgeted with the door handle. ‘We won’t know unless we ask him, will we, sir?’

  Christopher Stott leaned against the wall of the labyrinthine corridor of Snidey Castle, his wilting form wraith-like in the half-darkness. ‘Haven’t you caused enough trouble?’ he asked McKenna. ‘Trefor Prosser’s in hospital because of you.’

  ‘He’s in hospital because he went racketing round in his car doped up to the eyeballs!’ Dewi snapped.

  McKenna intervened. ‘Mr Stott, we have reason to believe you deliberately withheld information central to a murder investigation. We want to talk to you.’

  ‘You are talking to me. You’ve talked to me before. You’re interfering with my work, and my boss wants to know why the police are after me.’

  ‘In that case, it would be better if you don’t make a fuss about coming to the police station, then no one need be any the wiser.’

  ‘And what if I don’t want to?’ Stott jerked his head, as if the muscles in neck and throat were taut and knotted.

  ‘Then I shall arrest you, Mr Stott.’

  Red light pulsing, the tape recorder in the interview room emitted a high-pitched whine. Screwed up plastic film from the tape cases crackled and unfurled in a grey metal waste bin. Stott’s laboured breathing overwhelmed the soft instrusive noise of machinery. ‘What do you want to know?’ he asked McKenna, eyes frantic, like those of a cornered animal. Sweat beaded his pasty face, trickled in front of his ears.

  ‘You are not obliged to say anything, Mr Stott,’ the solicitor advised.

  ‘It would be better if he did,’ McKenna said. ‘Until recently, Mr Stott was in possession of a car which belonged to Margaret Bailey, the woman found dead some weeks ago on Snidey Castle Estate. Mr Stott sold the car to a neighbour.’ He handed the fax to the solicitor.

  ‘I don’t see my client’s name here.’

  ‘Mr Stott has already confirmed selling that particular car, and we have a full statement from the buyer.’

  The solicitor turned to Stott. ‘As I said, you don’t have to say anything.’

  ‘What will happen if I don’t?’

  ‘Well,’ the solicitor said, covering a yawn, ‘I’d say the police have enough to detain you whether you talk or not.’

  Jack paced back and forth in McKenna’s office. ‘I’m not surprised the government stopped the bloody Irish having the right to silence!’

  ‘Mr McKenna’s Irish really, sir, so you shouldn’t be so rude,’ Dewi said.

  ‘Shut up!’ Jack turned to McKenna. ‘Can’t you find something for him to do?’

  ‘Can’t you two act like adults?’ McKenna snapped. ‘Why don’t you exercise your minds instead of your mouths? Then you can tell me what we do next. We can’t talk to Prosser because that bloody psychiatrist won’t let us, and we can’t talk to Stott because he’s hiding behind the kind provisions of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act.’ He lit a cigarette. ‘Not forgetting Jamie, of course, who seems to have done a bunk. Any word round town about where he might be, Dewi?’

  ‘No, sir. Nobody’s talking.’

  Jack said sulkily, ‘Maybe Stott’ll change his mind.’

  ‘Fat chance!’ Dewi said.

  ‘You got any better ideas, Prys?’

  ‘I might have, but I wouldn’t be telling you if I did!’

  McKenna jumped up, his chair crashing against the wall. ‘Be quiet! I will not tolerate such behaviour!’

  Jack looked from McKenna to Dewi and walked out of the room, slamming the door so hard he rattled the walls.

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ Dewi offered. ‘Mr Tuttle gets my back up at times.’ He sat quietly, legs crossed, hands folded in his lap, waiting for the storm to pass. ‘Somebody ought to tell Mrs Stott about her husband,’ he said into the lengthening silence. ‘Did Mr Tuttle tell you we saw her yesterday? Watching the gipsy wedding along with everybody else, she was. I told Mr Tuttle that suit Wil Jones found would fit her like a glove.’

  Chapter 27

  Gwendolen Stott stared without expression at McKenna and the uniformed policewoman sitting on a fat sofa, the twin of her own seat, furniture crowding this too narrow, too low room. Her feet, clad in scuffed black court shoes with turned up toes, barely touched the carpet. Beside her lounged a girl in her early teens, dressed in a lilac and pink shell suit, shod in expensive white baseball boots. She drew her feet underneath her body, drawing a frown from her mother. ‘Take your feet off the furniture, Jennifer.’ The girl scowled, tossed her head, whipping the pony-tail of blonded hair across her face. She shifted into obedience, and ground the toes of her boots into the carpet.

  Plain white walls, an ugly shabby carpet garish with whorls and swirls of orange and red and dirty brown, embraced rich furniture dressed in William Morris linens, windows of mean proportions dressed with matching curtains which hung too long. McKenna noticed a rickety shelf unit stacked with antique figures, elegant slipware jugs, leather-bound books tumbled amid the paperbacks and telephone directories and mail-order catalogues. Above an electric fire in a fake hearth, a small mirror reflected the top of Gwen Stott’s head, a foreshortened view of her shoulders, the empty vase on the window sill behind her. The room wore an air of fustiness, shut off from fresh sea breezes and spring sunshine.

  The woman wore a similar air, untouched by the warmth of any passion, unstirred by any living wind in the dark abyss of her soul. McKenna wondered what nourishment the girl’s burgeoning womanhood might scavenge from the barren landscape of her mother’s house. Neither mother nor daughter offered the smallest smile to their visitors: he had seen the mother frown and the daughter scowl, and thought that would mark the limit of their offerings.

  ‘I have to tell you, Mrs Stott, that your husband has been arrested, and is being kept in custody,’ McKenna said.

  The girl stared at her feet, still trying to scrub holes in the ugly carpet. The woman made no response.

  ‘Would you like to know why?’ McKenna asked.

  ‘I suppose you’ll tell me anyway.’ Ungraciousness honed to such fitnesse provoked McKenna.

  ‘Most women would be only too anxious to know.’

  ‘Most women,’ she snarled, ‘don’t have the likes of him for a husband!’

  The girl raised her head. ‘You’re always saying nasty things about Daddy,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why and he doesn’t either.’

  ‘Doesn’t he?’ Gwen Stott demanded.

  Speculating on the nature of those sins of which Stott had caused her to suffer the consequences, McKenna said, ‘Mr Stott has been arrested over the sale of the car.’

  ‘Is that all? Be more to the point if
you arrested him over Trefor Prosser, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Would it?’ McKenna asked. ‘We are not aware that Mr Prosser and your husband are involved in anything illegal.’

  ‘More’s the pity, isn’t it? More’s the pity it isn’t illegal.’

  ‘I can’t comment upon that.’ McKenna stood up, the policewoman following suit. ‘Your husband will come before the magistrates in a few days. Whether or not we will oppose bail, I am unable to say. That depends on what information arises.’

  The girl stared at her mother, tears glistening in her eyes. ‘Mummy!’ She clutched her mother’s sleeve, and the woman jerked away. ‘Mummy! Daddy’s in prison! What are we going to do?’

  ‘Nothing!’ The word bit the air, eating up the soft sounds from the girl’s throat. The woman stood against the light, a short and heavy shape casting a pall of shadow. McKenna tried to imagine her dressed in the pretty suit exhumed from Gallows Cottage and, unlike Dewi, failed.

  ‘If you need support or assistance,’ he said, ‘we can contact the Social Services Department. Or anyone else you care to suggest.’

  ‘I can manage perfectly well.’

  ‘Your daughter?’ McKenna asked, looking at the child whose face was ugly and old with misery.

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘She’s rather distressed.’

  ‘She’ll get over it, won’t she? She’s her father’s daughter, after all.’

  ‘What’s he done?’ the girl wailed. ‘Why won’t anybody tell me?’

  ‘I knew that damned car would cause trouble. I’ve said so often enough, but nobody listens to me, do they?’

  ‘How did you know it would cause trouble?’

  ‘Ask him.’ She walked to the door and pulled it open. ‘I’d like you to leave.’

  ‘Mr Stott will be at the police station until he goes to court,’ McKenna said. ‘You may visit him if you wish. And your daughter, too, of course. If you need financial help, you must contact the DSS.’