by J M Gregson
It was delivered with a strange evenness, almost like a prepared statement, thought Lambert. She seemed curiously detached. But the shock of a sudden and violent death affected people in all sorts of ways. He said quietly, ‘How would you describe the state of your marriage, Mrs Cooper?’
How direct they were! It seemed years since strangers had made anything more than small talk with her and she didn’t feel prepared for this examination. She forced a smile. ‘That’s a brutal question, with Dennis lying dead outside. But I’ll try to be objective. I’d say that our marriage was about average, whatever that means. The first flush of young love was over, as you’d expect. I’m forty-nine and Dennis is – was – fifty-four. We got on well enough. He was very interested in the job here and very dedicated to it.’
‘And you weren’t quite so happy at Westbourne?’
How quick the man was! Her first instinct was to deny it. But it was better to dispense the truth, when it could not harm you. She said, ‘I’m not so dedicated to the country as Dennis was. I recognize that this is one of the great gardens of the nation, as our brochure puts it, but living on the site can be claustrophobic, especially when you’re not employed here. I like to get away sometimes, to see people like Carrie, who works in a completely different environment. But Dennis realized that and understood it. We got on well enough.’
‘I see. Well, I think that’s all for the moment. As I said, we shall probably need to speak to you again in a few days. In the meantime, you will naturally go on thinking about who did this awful thing. If any thoughts on the possible culprit occur to you, please ring this number immediately.’
She stared at the card with the number of Oldford CID section on it for a full minute after they had gone. Then she fumbled in her bag for her mobile phone. ‘Carrie? It’s Alison . . . Yes, they’ve just been here and talked to me . . . No, not as bad as I expected, but they said they’ll need to speak to me again in a day or two . . . Yes, that’s right. Carrie, I’m afraid there’s one more favour I need to ask of you . . .’
NINE
It was early afternoon now. Still only a few hours since the tapes had been thrown round the serious crime scene at Westbourne. But news travels fast across the countryside, and bad news fastest of all.
The announcement of a suspicious death at Westbourne Park had been made on the radio at lunchtime. By the time Julie Hartley arrived at the house of her lover, suspicious death had been swiftly translated to murder. Sarah Goodwin opened her door, took one look at Julie’s animated features, and ushered her hastily within. They kissed, then held each other tightly for a little longer than usual. Eventually, Sarah released herself gently and said, ‘I shall make tea for us. Then you can tell me all about it.’
When she returned with two beakers and a plate of flapjacks, Julie was examining the drawings she had left on the table. Sarah stopped for a moment in the doorway to study her, with her long dark hair touching the edge of the table and her brown eyes studying the drawings intently. It was the stillness, the capacity to become completely absorbed in what interested her, which had first drawn her to this woman, who was in most of her actions so swift and spontaneous.
Now, when she should have been full of her own sensational news, Julie Hartley was suddenly immersed in how her lover had spent her morning. Sarah Goodwin was an internal designer, still making her way in a competitive world, existing by word-of-mouth recommendations rather than any extensive advertising. The décor and furnishings she had been working on all morning were different from anything she had done before and correspondingly more difficult and challenging.
She would have been embarrassed had her sketches received such attention from anyone else, but Julie was different and privileged. Sarah realized with a shock that she was actually pleased to have Julie looking at her draft, when from anyone else it would have been an intrusion. She walked across, put the tray down on the unused leaf of the table, and said defensively, ‘You won’t like that. It’s not your style at all.’
Julie looked up at her. With her back to the light and taken by surprise, she looked more mysterious, more beautiful than ever to Sarah. ‘Who’s it for?’
‘It’s an Asian lady who’s moving into a big house in Edgbaston. She’s very dark, very mysterious, with eyes as big as yours and even darker. And with an English husband who is totally smitten and fortunately very rich.’
‘It looks very ornate.’
‘It is. That’s her taste. But everything balances; the colours are rich, but the curtains complement the wallpaper. The sofas they’ve chosen are very plain, but they’ll sit well on the carpet and let your eyes appreciate the detail of the rest without being too dazzled. That’s the idea, anyway.’ Sarah was always rather diffident, as if she scarcely believed in her own talents; Julie was trying to change that in her. Sarah pulled her friend gently away from the table and sat her down beside her on the rather battered settee. ‘For God’s sake tell me what’s been happening at Westbourne, before I burst with curiosity. Who’s been killed and whodunnit?’
‘The curator’s been killed. The man in charge of the whole schimozzle. And no one knows who did it. The police are swarming round the place, but if they know anything they’re not telling the likes of me.’
‘How thrilling! And poor man, of course! But as I didn’t know him, I can’t really grieve for him. What sort of chap was he?’
‘Dennis Cooper? Jim could tell you more than I can – he worked for him and saw him day to day. He was always polite with me, but rather distant.’ She paused for a moment, wanting to give more to Sarah than she would have done to anyone else, seeking to make even this strange and terrible thing a moment of intimacy for them. ‘He tried to play the gentleman, but for me there was something a bit sinister about him.’
‘How thrilling! And now he’s dead.’
‘And now he’s dead. And I’m a suspect.’
‘You? Surely not. Not if you hardly knew him. You’re winding me up, Julie Hartley!’
Julie grinned. ‘Perhaps I am, a little. But Jim said the police would treat everyone who lives on the site as a suspect, until they know a lot more about this.’
Sarah watched her put her tea down on the small table beside her, then flung her arms extravagantly around the slim, familiar shoulders. ‘And I shall have to protect my precious darling from the nasty policemen and the maniac stalking the gardens of England!’ Her teasing became a caress, and the caress became a kiss which lasted longer than either of them had planned.
Sarah wondered through her excitement whether they were kissing too much, whether they were so taken with the physical pleasure that it was distorting balance and diverting them from serious things. But that was always the way when your meetings were snatched and secretive. She would do something about that, in the months to come. As they eventually drew apart, she said breathlessly, ‘Do they know about us?’
‘Who? The police? They don’t know about anything. They don’t even know I exist, except as a name on a list.’
‘Don’t tell them! It’s not their business. It’s nobody’s business but ours!’
If only that were so, thought Julie. It was all right a single woman like Sarah feeling that, but it wasn’t true. This was Jim’s business, and the boys’ business. She was a married woman with a family and this thing had hit her like a bomb. But she didn’t voice that. She nodded and said firmly, ‘This is nothing to do with the police. I don’t suppose they’d be interested, but I shan’t tell them about us anyway.’
As if to remind Julie of her other life, the French clock which was the most valuable thing in Sarah Goodwin’s house suddenly pinged three o’clock, forcing her to shuffle to her feet. ‘I must go or I’ll be late for the children. I’ll keep you posted!’
And with a final, more hurried kiss she was gone. Sarah watched the red Toyota until it turned the corner and disappeared from view, then went back into the house and her sketches. She was suddenly beset by melancholy. She wondered for the first
time what the long-term future of this affair was, whether she could stand alone and win against the powerful claims of family.
‘I didn’t think you’d come here. I thought you’d want to see me on neutral ground. Don’t you set up what is called a murder room?’ Hugo Wilkinson heard himself sounding defensive, but he’d been caught off guard by the arrival of the two plain-clothes policemen. He glanced surreptitiously around his small, neat sitting room, wondering if there was anything visible which they should not see.
Lambert caught the movement of his head and stored it away for future consideration. ‘You’re very knowledgeable, sir. Do you read crime fiction?’
Hugo did. He had also read enough of real crime to know that this was John Lambert, the man the local and even some of the national press chose to call a ‘super-sleuth’. The man was older than he had expected. His face was lined and his hair, though still plentiful, was laced with grey. The dominant things about him were his grey eyes, which seemed to be seeing and recording more than they should and blinked very rarely in the exchanges which now followed.
The chief superintendent was tall and slim. His legs and arms seemed a little too large for the fireside chair in which Hugo had chosen to place him. The solid figure with the countryman’s weather-beaten complexion whom he introduced as Detective Sergeant Hook seemed a more relaxed and less threatening figure. Hugo decided that he would address most of his answers to Hook, but this soon proved impossible. After a friendly nod when he was introduced, Hook said nothing for ten minutes, being content to record Wilkinson’s replies whilst he studied him without comment. Hugo had been determined to behave with the bluff bonhomie of someone with nothing to hide, but he found the combination of the two men curiously unnerving.
He found himself speaking first, when he had intended to let them make the running whilst he took his time with his answers. ‘I know nothing about this, you know. I’m as shocked as anyone by what’s happened.’
‘But you know something of the victim – probably quite a lot. Whereas at the moment we know almost nothing,’
‘You’ve searched his office.’ It was almost an accusation.
‘Part of the team is searching it at this very moment. It takes a long time to study files in detail.’ This time it was Lambert who made a challenge out of a simple statement. ‘We may use his office as our murder room when we are satisfied that we have exacted all the information from it.’
But in the meantime, they’ve chosen to see me here, thought Hugo. Like most people with things to hide, he saw sinister intent in innocent and pragmatic decisions. He glanced again round his sitting room, which was tidy and anonymous, as he wished it to be. The computer stood like an accusation on the table beneath the window, but they surely couldn’t know anything about that, could they? Almost everyone of his age had some sort of computer now.
Lambert broke into his thoughts by saying, ‘You live on the site. You must have known Dennis Cooper quite well.’
‘Not very well.’ The denial had come automatically and too quickly. He tried to relax and justify what he had said. ‘I scarcely knew him outside work. I haven’t been here that long.’
‘Almost a year. Long enough to get to know Mr Cooper, I should have thought, with both of you living on site.’
‘It’s a strange life, being a chef. You tend to be busy in the evenings, when other people are relaxing. It gives you a different sort of social life.’
‘Yes, I can see that. But isn’t the bulk of your work here done at lunchtimes? That’s when the visitors are using the restaurant, surely?’
‘That’s true enough. But we advertise widely. We’re getting an increasing number of evening bookings which have nothing to do with visits to the gardens.’
‘I see. How did you find Mr Cooper as an employer?’
Hugo wanted to say that his real employer was the National Trust, that Cooper had been his boss, but not the payer of his salary and retainer of his services. He sensed just in time that it would be pedantic and obstructive to take this line. ‘He was fair; I think you’ll find most people will say that. I haven’t had many dealings with him, but from what other people tell me, he’s – he was prepared to listen to whatever you had to say. I’ve known many owners of restaurants who merely issued orders and didn’t want to listen to what you thought about them. It makes life difficult, when you’re on the spot all day and they appear occasionally and only see part of the picture.’
‘Yes. That sort of thing’s not entirely unknown in the police service.’ Lambert allowed himself a small, private smile. ‘What sort of man was Cooper?’
He was leaning forward a little, as if inviting confidences, as if saying that stating the character flaws of your boss would be perfectly natural and expected. Wilkinson said stiffly, ‘He was a rather private man – at least he was as far as I’m concerned. Perhaps I’d have got to know him better if – if this hadn’t happened.’
‘No doubt. But remember that DS Hook and I never met him at all. Anything you can tell us about his relationships with you and other people here would add to our knowledge.’
For the first time, Hugo paused and thought before he replied. They’d already told him that Cooper’s office was being searched; no doubt officers in the team were already talking to Cooper’s PA. These men would know, probably by the end of the day, about the contents of his file. It was better to tell them frankly that he’d been in trouble than to let them find out later and think that he’d tried to conceal it.
He said heavily, ‘I said Cooper was a fair man and I stand by that. Ten days ago, he had occasion to give me an official warning about my conduct. He was perfectly entitled to do that; indeed, he probably thought he had no alternative. For my part, I accepted that I was in the wrong and we parted amicably.’
They were the phrases he’d been planning to deliver ever since the body had been discovered. He hadn’t expected to be doing it quite as early as this. Lambert studied him for a moment without speaking. ‘You’d better tell us what your offence was.’
‘It was the kind of thing which happens often in a kitchen, but I’m not saying that makes it any better. You can’t get away with these things nowadays, especially in a place like this. I used a racialist phrase to one of our employees.’
He hoped for an understanding policeman. Racialism had been common in city police forces once, hadn’t it? Hadn’t there been accusations of ‘institutional racialism’ against the Metropolitan police? But he was disappointed. All Lambert said in a carefully neutral voice was, ‘We’d better have the full details of this, I think.’
‘Well, we were short-staffed in an overheated kitchen and the restaurant was very busy. Everyone was stressed and under extreme pressure. We had a full restaurant with people waiting for their food and a lengthening queue at the doors.’
For the first time, Lambert’s face creased with impatience. ‘That’s the mitigating circumstances plea. Tell us about the crime, please.’
‘I shouted at a willing but very slow Asian boy. I think my exact words were, “For god’s sake move your arse, you fucking coon!” It sounds terrible when I repeat it in cold blood in a place like this. It was over in a flash at the time.’
‘I’m not interested in passing judgement, Mr Wilkinson. My only concern here is your relationship with Mr Cooper and how it was affected by this.’
Hugo felt relieved and more able to defend himself now that this was out in the open. ‘He had complaints from the public and a couple of letters. I admitted immediately I was in the wrong. I’ve told the Asian boy that I shouldn’t have used that phrase; he’s accepted that and continues to work under my direction in the kitchen. Mr Cooper issued an official warning to me and that was the end of the matter.’
‘You’re sure of that? His treatment of this incident wasn’t an enduring source of bitterness between you and Mr Cooper?’
‘No. I freely admitted I was in the wrong and for his part he made it clear that the rules dictated that he
had to issue an official warning. That was the end of the matter as far as both of us were concerned.’
‘I see. In view of the public complaints, the incident must have been a source of considerable embarrassment to the man in charge here. You don’t think there was any continuing resentment on his part because of that?’
Hugo swallowed hard and dug his nails into his palms. ‘No. Dennis Cooper wasn’t that sort of man.’
‘I see. You will appreciate that we are trying hard to build up a picture of exactly the sort of man he was.’
‘He was fair and balanced. He preferred to think about things rather than take action in a hurry. He wouldn’t have survived long in a hectic kitchen.’ Wilkinson gave a sour little grin at that thought. ‘But I’m sure he thought that a measured approach was best for the job he did, and I dare say he was right. As I said a moment ago, I only knew him in a working situation.’
Lambert wondered how far that was true; it seemed to him that residents on a site would inevitably get to know quite a lot about each other outside working hours. He’d know whether he was right about that after he had spoken with others. He glanced at Hook, who said immediately, ‘Where were you last night, Mr Wilkinson?’
‘That’s when he died, isn’t it?’ It’s what an innocent man would ask, he thought. Hugo had determined on the question in the two minutes which was all he had to prepare himself for this meeting.
Hook said only, ‘Very probably. Where were you between six and twelve yesterday evening, Mr Wilkinson?’
‘I was in this flat. Things were pretty hectic in the restaurant at lunchtime, but I managed to get through without disgracing myself.’ He glanced at both of them to see how they would react to his irony, but found them only grave-faced and attentive. ‘It was a busy weekend and I was on my feet for most of it. I was glad of a rest – I think I might even have flaked out on my bed for a while.’ He glanced automatically at the shut door to his bedroom. ‘Perhaps middle age is setting in. I’m fifty-five. It was also raining very hard for a lot of the time – not the sort of weather to encourage a stroll in the grounds.’
