Narrow is the Way

by Faith Martin

  Graham Vaughan could simply have told them they’d be wasting their time trying intimidation or cajoling tactics on Hillary Greene. But it was much more fun this way.

  ‘Your husband was a crook, DI Greene,’ Tom Palmer said flatly, and both Graham and Hillary noticed that this time Mike Pearce did nothing to rein his client in. In fact, both solicitors were now watching their client with all the avid attention of tennis aficionados with tickets to the centre court at Wimbledon.

  ‘So he was,’ Hillary said simply. ‘But I’m not.’

  Tom Palmer smiled. ‘But that’s not what we’re here to determine, is it?’

  ‘Then why bring it up?’ Hillary asked reasonably. She looked relaxed in her chair, and took another sip of tea. It was really good stuff.

  Mike Pearce, sensing his client was losing the round, coughed discreetly. ‘Perhaps we should get down to details. I think we can all agree that Mr Ronnie Greene amassed a fortune via the exploitation and suffering of animals. And I think nobody disputes the fact that the only real asset to be uncovered belonging to Mr Greene, namely the house at 24 Wittington Road, Kidlington, Oxfordshire, was paid for from the illicit earnings—’

  ‘Indeed, we do dispute it,’ Graham put in, before the other could finish. ‘My client had a joint mortgage arrangement with her husband, and paid for half of it from her legitimate earnings as a well-respected and still-serving police officer of Thames Valley Constabulary. As all the paperwork will show.’

  And so it went on.

  Hillary smiled slightly at Tom Palmer over the top of her tea cup and turned her mind back to more important things. How was Janine doing with Leo ‘The Man’ Mann? It would be nice to think when she got back to HQ there’d be a confession, all neatly typed up and signed, waiting for her. But she had grave doubts.

  And just what was the story with Jerome Raleigh? By now, the whole station should know everything there was to know about the man, from why he’d moved from the Met, why he hadn’t married, was he gay, who did he have the gen on, why there’d been a delay in his transfer, and what kind of music he preferred, right down to the name of his pet budgie.

  But nobody seemed to know dick.

  And that, in itself, was enough to scare the living daylights out of Hillary. In the office, as on the street, she liked to know who she was dealing with. She liked to keep up with the current state of office politics too, just so that she could keep well out of the way of it and avoid taking any knives to the back. Having an enigma for a boss wasn’t a state of affairs inclined to promote a dreamless and restful slumber at night.

  ‘I’m sorry you feel that way,’ she heard Graham make winding down noises, and put down her empty cup on the table. She saw Tom Palmer look at her curiously, and realized the other man must have guessed that she’d zoned out. Good. That would tell him just how ineffective his war of attrition on her nerves had been.

  ‘So, we’ll see you in court, Mr Palmer?’ Hillary said, rising, and holding out her hand. Only when it had been taken and rather bemusedly shaken, did she add, ‘and please, give my love to ESAA. The last time I had any dealing with animal rights fanatics was when I helped Sergeant Sam Waterstone send one of them down for the murder of a security guard at an animal lab.’

  Graham Vaughan coughed into his hand like a startled turkey. It was his way, Hillary knew, of disguising his rather high-pitched giggle.

  ‘So, how did it go with ‘The Man’?’ she asked, as soon as she’d returned to the office and spotted Janine hunched dejectedly over her computer terminal. ‘Has he got much to say for himself?’ She sat down at her own desk and checked her watch, feeling guilty at the hour and a half she’d just taken off work.

  ‘Not yet, boss,’ Janine said grimly. ‘Trouble is, I’ve got no real ammo to lob at him. None of his priors are for violence against women. And he sticks to it that he didn’t care that Julia was sleeping with Roger Greenwood.’

  ‘He give an alibi for the time she was murdered?’

  ‘No,’ Janine said, her eyes resuming some of their old fire. ‘He says it’s none of our business.’

  ‘Ah. A comedian,’ Hillary muttered. ‘How long’s he been cooling his heels?’

  ‘About an hour. I took an early lunch.’

  ‘Where’s Tommy?’

  ‘At the lab. Oh, the results came back on Roger Greenwood’s clothing. Nothing conclusive. There were microscopic traces of cowshit on his shoes, but then there would have been on anyone’s walking up the road to the farmhouse. There were fibres of Julia Reynold’s white wedding dress on his clothes, but then there would have been. They’d been dancing together and what not.’

  Hillary sighed. Great. ‘So we can’t rule him in, can’t rule him out,’ she grumbled.

  Janine shrugged helplessly. Sometimes them was the breaks. With the advent of clever forensic science docu-crime dramas on the television, the general public had been fooled into thinking that science, DNA, and clever gizmos and gadgets could just hand you the identity of a killer, more or less on a plate. Cops and scientists knew better. As did barristers. And defence barristers knew it better than any one else.

  ‘OK. Let’s have another go at Mr Mann,’ Hillary said wearily. ‘Then you and Tommy had better get off to Nuneaton.’ Although the way the day was going, she didn’t expect miracles from their purple Mini lady either.

  Leo Mann grinned as they came in. ‘Two lovelies for the price of one. Must be my lucky day.’

  Hillary grinned at him openly. ‘Ah, a ladies’ man. I do like that. You’d be surprised how many ingrates and Neanderthals we have to deal with in here every day. Right, Sergeant?’

  Janine grunted and Leo Mann grinned, showing slightly yellow teeth. ‘Don Juan, at your service.’ He half-bowed over the table.

  Janine rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, please!’

  ‘So, tell me about Julia,’ Hillary said simply.

  ‘Ah, too good for the likes of me,’ Leo said, totally ignoring Janine now, who was left feeling abruptly lost. It was as if her DI and the scumbag she’d been interviewing all morning had taken one look at each other and found they were both Masons, or something. Where the hell did this instant rapport come from?

  ‘I knew she was only stringing me along for the sake of variety,’ Leo said now, with a winsome grin. ‘But, what the hell? It meant I could walk into the local boozer with a stunner like Julia on my arm, and all my mates would be treating me like the next best thing since sliced bread for months to come – trying to get me to give them the secret of pulling a stunner. Get me?’

  Hillary did. ‘She was worth the hassle. Yeah, I get it. The fancy term for it is quid pro quo. So you knew all along she had a fiancé? And really didn’t care?’

  Leo shrugged. ‘Good luck to her, I say. The boy was loaded. You could see why she was anxious to get him down the aisle. And why not? Julia was like one of them birds from that telly series, you know, about them chicks married to footballers. She deserved the good life.’

  ‘Even so. It had to have been a bit damaging to the old ego?’

  ‘Nah, not really. I gave her what fancy-boy couldn’t. She liked me.’ Something wistful, a touch of pain perhaps, fleetingly touched Leo Mann’s multi-pierced face, and Hillary sighed.

  ‘Men often kill the women they love, Leo,’ she pointed out softly.

  ‘Yeah. But I didn’t kill Julia.’

  ‘So why don’t you tell us where you were the night she was killed?’

  ‘Don’t have to, darling,’ Leo said, waving a playful finger in front of her face. He was rather enjoying this interview. The older bird was something to look at in a way. Reminded him of those actresses in the old black-and-white movies his mother used to love watching. All curves and class.

  ‘Let me guess. Out ram-raiding were you? Breaking into some warehouse? Lifting videos?’

  Leo grinned. ‘I do like a woman who understands me.’ He laughed modestly, and Hillary couldn’t help but grin back. Sometimes villains brought out the softer sid
e of her nature. Not often, but sometimes.

  ‘I try my best to understand all my customers, Mr Mann,’ she said, then let her face fall. ‘The thing is, Leo, I have to do my best by Julia, too. She’s the one who’s dead. And someone killed her. Don’t you want to help me out?’

  Leo frowned, leaned forward, then fiddled with one of the silver rings looped through his eyebrow. ‘I hear where you’re coming from, but I ain’t a nark.’

  ‘No. But you were Julia’s lover. She was your bird, and someone strangled her to death. Surely she deserves some loyalty from you?’

  Janine felt her jaw drop open. She couldn’t believe this. Hillary Greene was playing the poor sap like Vanessa Mae played the violin. She’d have him blubbering into his tea next.

  ‘I don’t know who killed her,’ Leo Mann said at last, his voice suspiciously thick with repressed emotion. ‘But if I was you, I’d look at the men she was shagging.’

  ‘We have been,’ Hillary said crisply. She didn’t want him blubbing either. ‘But although there had been many men in her past, there was only you and Roger Greenwood in her present.’

  ‘It’s not Roger Greenwood I was thinking of so much,’ Leo said reluctantly. ‘Talk to his old man.’

  ‘We already know Theo Greenwood didn’t want her for a daughter-in-law,’ Janine put in, but Hillary held up her hand. For a second, she simply stared at Leo Mann, and then slowly shook her head in disgust. ‘I missed it,’ she said sadly. Damn, she must be getting old.

  Leo Mann grinned, then shrugged. ‘They kept it very quiet,’ he said consolingly. ‘I often wondered if Theo Greenwood didn’t bung her some of the old readies, now and then, just to help her keep her mouth shut.’

  Janine’s eyes rounded as she finally caught on. Julia Reynolds had been doing the double – boffing the old man and the son. The father must have been both green with jealousy and rage, and sick with fear and spite. Hell! No wonder Theo Greenwood didn’t want to see their vic walk up the aisle with his precious son!

  ‘This is probably going to be a waste of time,’ Janine grumbled, as they pulled up outside a neat house in one of Nuneaton’s better ’burbs. ‘Let’s just hope she’s in,’ she muttered, ringing the doorbell and glancing around. A nice garden, but looking a bit neglected perhaps? She was almost quivering with impatience. Hell, they should be back at base, grilling Greenwood senior, not out here, questioning housewives. But what Hillary wanted, Hillary got.

  The door opened, and a tall, gaunt-featured brunette stared back at them. ‘Yes?’ she said blankly. Her gaze, Janine noticed, was fixed at some point over her left shoulder.

  ‘Mrs Vivian Orne?’ Janine held up her ID, as did Tommy. ‘Thames Valley Police, Mrs Orne. Nothing to worry about, we just need to ask you a few questions.’

  ‘You’d better come in then,’ Vivian Orne said dully. As she stood back to let them pass, Janine shot Tommy a quick, frowning look. It wasn’t very often they were received with such a lack of emotion, and for a wild moment she wondered if they might be on to something here after all. ‘Just through there,’ Vivian Orne waved vaguely to an open doorway. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘No, thanks,’ Tommy said immediately. There was something about the way she’d asked the question that made him wonder whether she even knew where the kitchen was, let alone what a kettle was for. He looked again at Janine, the question in his eyes. Was she on something? Ludes, maybe?

  Janine gave a quick shrug back and went into the living-room. It was pleasant enough but needed dusting. On a mantelpiece was a picture of a young boy of maybe eight or so. In front of it a candle burned.

  ‘Please, sit down.’ Vivian Orne indicated the sofa, then moved to one of the big armchairs grouped around a mock fireplace.

  Janine brought out her notebook. ‘It’s about what you did three nights ago, Mrs Orne. The middle of the week. Your car was photographed in a small village called Kirtlington. We need to know what you were doing there.’

  Vivian Orne blinked. ‘Was I speeding? Sorry.’ She stared at the carpet for a moment that then stretched itself into half a minute. Still she said nothing. Janine coughed. ‘Kirtlington, Mrs Orne. What were you doing there?’ she prompted.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ Vivian Orne said, surprisingly. ‘I mean, I didn’t intend to go there. I was driving back from visiting my mother you see, and there was an accident on the motorway, according to the radio, so I got off and tried to make it through on the country roads. But I think I got a little lost. I remember pulling off to the side of the road at one point to check the map, but I’m pretty hopeless at that sort of thing. Sorry,’ she said again.

  Tommy was staring at the lit candle in front of the picture of the boy. He was thinking of a woman on tranquillizers. He was thinking about the lack of emotion. The undusted living-room. He tried desperately to catch Janine’s eye.

  But Janine wasn’t looking at him. ‘Does the name Julia Reynolds mean anything to you, Mrs Orne?’ she asked crisply.

  Vivian Orne was staring at the carpet again. Slowly she looked up. ‘What? No. Sorry.’ She shook her head.

  Tommy coughed loudly, waited until Janine glanced at him curiously, then deliberately turned his gaze back to the candle. Janine followed the direction of his look and frowned, not getting it.

  Tommy sighed. ‘I think that’s all we need for now, Mrs Orne,’ he said gently, risking Janine’s ire. She did, in fact, shoot him a furious glance but rose reluctantly to her feet as Tommy did the same. She knew better than to argue in front of a witness. But what was the silly sod playing at?

  Vivian Orne showed them out listlessly, not even bothering to ask what it was all about. And Janine didn’t like that. Why no curiosity? It wasn’t natural. She waited until they’d walked back to the car before rounding on Tommy.

  ‘What the bloody hell’s got into you? Couldn’t you tell something was a bit off in there?’

  ‘Yeah, I could,’ Tommy said flatly. ‘Their kid’s just died.’

  Janine, her mouth already open to let rip, found the words drying up on her tongue. Suddenly, she understood the picture, the candle. The shrine. ‘Oh shit,’ she said. That would explain the lethargy and the lack of interest all right. What did it matter if the cops came calling when your kid was dead?

  Janine shook her head wordlessly, slipped behind the wheel, and made a brief call back to headquarters. She told Hillary that the purple Mini situation was a non-starter, and that they were headed back to base.

  Beside her, Tommy said nothing.

  chapter eight

  Carole Morton pushed open her front door, bent to pick up the mail and a copy of the local paper, and headed for the kitchen. She switched on the kettle, fed her cat, and began rifling through the envelopes, finding nothing but the usual bills and advertisements. At least there were none of those demanding forms from the Inland Revenue; not that her little bit of alimony, coupled with her part-time job as a receptionist at the local health centre ever paid her enough to land her in hot water with Her Majesty’s Inspector of Taxes.

  She made her tea, went through to the small, warm living room, and settled down with the paper. Muffet, her beautiful white and ginger spayed feline, jumped onto her lap with a chirruping sound of contentment, turned in a neat circle and settled down.

  Carole took a sip from the mug and idly turned to page two to run her eyes down the letters column, and abruptly found herself looking at one of those police artist’s drawings you sometimes saw in the paper. She wondered idly what he’d done. Rapist perhaps? She stared anew at the picture, and then had one of those earth-moving-beneath-your-feet moments that put your heart in your mouth and punched a sick fist into your stomach.

  She knew him.

  Slowly, with a slightly shaking hand, she put her mug down on the coffee table and began to stroke Muffet’s silky fur in a subconscious desire for comfort. The cat began to purr in appreciation, although her mistress hardly noticed. With a dry mouth, Carole quickly read the article, but it
told her less than nothing. The police at Thames Valley Headquarters in Kidlington would like to hear from any member of the public who knew this man. He was said to be between twenty-five and forty, which fited, but the description of the clothes he was last seen wearing meant nothing to her.

  Carole slowly reached for her tea again and began to drink, her hand shaking. She was beginning to lose that momentary feeling of having stepped into the Twilight Zone, but whilst the sharpness of shock was beginning to fade, it was leaving behind it a very real aftertaste of apprehension.

  Should she telephone the police? That was the logical thing, the right thing to do, and there was a local number to contact. But what if she was wrong? Or simply mistaken? After all, she’d only seen the man once, and that had been, what, a month ago? Maybe not quite that. Yes, she could definitely be wrong about it. But the more she gazed at the sketch, the more sure she was that she wasn’t wrong.

  If only she knew what he’d done!

  Carole watched more than her fair share of television of a night, and knew all about those films where innocent members of the public ‘helped police with their inquiries’ and became prime suspects themselves, or were framed, or got chased by maniacs. Of course, that was just the television. She knew that. Even so, reprisals by gangs and such like, really did happen in real life. She knew that, too. People being too afraid to talk in case their houses got burnt down, or their pets got killed. She began to stroke Muffet just a little more quickly. The cat stretched and clawed, and purred louder.

  But that was usually about teenagers, hooligans, drug dealers, all that sort of thing. This man, well, he looked so normal. And when she’d seen him at the health centre, he hadn’t seemed in any way dangerous. But then again, you never knew did you? Perhaps the police only wanted to talk to him as a witness or something. The article didn’t actually say he was a wanted man, exactly. Just that the police needed to talk to him.