‘Just a sheepskin jacket here, ma’am, and an old pair of slacks. I guess he took most of his clothes with him.’
‘Same here, Keith. Some jeans, a few socks with holes, a couple of thick winter sweaters.’
DC Green had moved on to the small wall cupboard. ‘Just instant coffee and whitener, a box of tea bags, sugar, a packet of chocolate chip cookies. Oh, and a half-bottle of Scotch down here, mostly gone.’
‘Here’s something.’ From under the sweaters Kate pulled a part-used chequebook. The last cheque had been drawn over a month previously. The fact that Slater hadn’t bothered to take the book with him suggested to Kate that he knew any further cheques he wrote would be refused payment by the bank. The stubs hadn’t all been filled in, but those that had related to cash withdrawals.
‘Slater always seemed to have a full wallet since he came to our area,’ she told the DC. ‘He paid out left, right and centre with wads of banknotes. Was that normal with him?’
‘With Barry?’ He chuckled. ‘Good God, no. Not for more than a few days at a stretch. Like the landlady said, ma’am, he’d be flush every now and then. When he’d had a win on the gee-gees, say, or more likely when he’d pulled off one of his little stunts. A dab hand at anything crooked, was Barry, but he had a cheerful sort of charm about him.’
‘What about blackmail?’ Kate asked.
‘Not that I ever heard of, but Barry wasn’t fussy. I reckon he’d try the squeeze if the chance came his way. He was the type who has no sense of right or wrong. There’s a word for it.’
‘Amoral?’
‘Right. Mind you, ma’am, you couldn’t help liking him as criminals go.’ He laughed. ‘When our first kid was on the way last year and I started moaning about the cost of all the equipment we had to get, Barry waved a fifty quid note under my nose, would you believe?’
‘You didn’t take it, I presume?’
‘Not on your life, ma’am! Green’s my name, but not my nature.’ Which came over to Kate as a well-worn quip.
‘From what you’ve been saying, Barry Slater doesn’t sound the sort to have made enemies among the criminal fraternity. Not enough to make any of them want to put him away.’
‘I wouldn’t have thought so.’
DC Green was crouched down now, peering under the bed.
‘Aha! This looks like something left by one of his lady friends.’ He held up a pink comb between finger and thumb.
‘Bag it, will you, and I’ll take it back with me. You never know what Forensics might come up with. What I really need is some indication of why Slater was staying in the Marlingford area.’
In the space between the TV set and the wall, Kate spotted a torn scrap of newsprint. She bent down and reached for it. On the blank margin was scribbled a series of numbers. To do with Slater’s betting again, Kate thought, then she hesitated. These looked to her more like times on the twenty-four hour system.
1025 1350 1430
1300 1620 1705
Did they represent three sets of departure and arrival times? Or six alternative departure times? By which mode of transport? And from where, to where? Thoughtfully, Kate slipped the fragment of paper into a plastic evidence bag and pushed it into her shoulderbag.
It being a weekday, none of the other tenants appeared to be at home. Kate asked DC Green if he could arrange to have them interviewed on her behalf.
‘And there’s the bank manager, too. Could you get someone to drop round there, please?’ She hesitated, thinking of the still unorganised state of the Incident Room under Don Trotton’s management. ‘If you should happen to get something really interesting to report, perhaps you’d give me a ring rather than just faxing the info. Ask for me personally, or DC Boulter.’
‘Will do, ma’am.’ His long face lengthened. ‘Poor old Barry. Who’d have thought he’d cop it like that?’
DC Green drove her to Paddington, where she caught the next train to Marlingford. Blessedly, it carried a buffet car.
She took a taxi from the station and was back at her desk by early afternoon. The grapevine informed Boulter of her arrival before she got around to summoning him.
Rapidly, she filled the sergeant in with the little she had to report.
‘Anything new at this end, Tim?’
‘The post mortem result’s in, guv. Nothing very helpful though. Doc Meddowes won’t pin himself down to a time of death, but Slater had eaten a meal of fish and chips about two hours beforehand.’
‘Fish and chips? Of all the filthy luck. That’s served throughout the entire evening at virtually every pub and cafe in the district. Not to mention the chip shops.’
‘At least,’ he said gloomily, ‘it eliminates the few places that weren’t serving fish’n’chips on Tuesday.’
Kate stood up. ‘We’ll go and call on the Blackwoods now, Tim, to see what their phone number was doing in Slater’s hotel room. Oh, by the way,’ she went on, fishing in her handbag, ‘I took some Polaroids of Slater’s bedsitter in London. Take a look, then have Don Trotton pin them up on the notice board, will you? Miserable dump, isn’t it?’
As Boulter glanced through the snapshots his sudden change of mood was palpable.
‘What’s wrong?’ Kate asked.
‘This is the sort of place I’ll be ending up in, I daresay.’
Kate frowned. ‘What on earth makes you say that?’
He glared back at her, not answering. The sergeant’s moods had been swinging unpredictably lately, but this time he seemed to be on a real downer.
‘For God’s sake what’s eating you, Tim? Something to do with Julie?’
‘Brilliant bit of deduction,’ he said sarcastically.
‘Have you seen her lately? How is she? And the children? They’re missing you, I expect.’
There was fury in his silence. You just say another word and I’ll tell you to mind your own damned business, Chief Inspector or not! But Boulter couldn’t keep that up; he needed an outlet for his misery.
‘Want to know the latest? Only that she thinks it’s a bit cramped at her sister’s for the three of them, so she wants me to move out of the house so she can move back in. The bloody nerve! From the way she talks, no one would ever think she was the one who walked out. Yet I’m the one who’s got to suffer. She expects me to let her have the house, and still go on paying the mortgage and all other expenses. She seems to reckon that the police dosshouse is good enough for me. Or some grotty bedsitter like this.’
Kate took a moment to consider how to phrase her reply. ‘I expect Julie’s thinking of what’s best for the children, Tim. They have to come first, don’t they . . . with both of you? Have you thought, if you did let Julie have the house, well ... at least she’d be away from the constant influence of her sister, who you’ve always insisted is the one who put her up to this. And you’d be able to drop round whenever you wanted. It might be a good way for you to start getting back together.’
‘Julie doesn’t want us to get back together,’ he snarled. ‘She just wants muggins here to screw up his own life so she can bloody well live in comfort at his expense. And have her boyfriend round whenever she wants.’
‘Boyfriend? I didn’t realise there was anyone else involved.’
Boulter grunted. ‘Well. . . maybe not, as of this moment. But there’d be nothing to stop her, would there?’
Kate sighed. ‘So what are you going to do, Tim?’
‘How the hell am I supposed to know?’ A cry for help it might be, but it was also a warning to switch off the Agony Aunt bit.
* * * *
This time, after turning in at the five-barred gate of the Blackwood stables, Boulter took a left fork off the main driveway and pulled up outside the bungalow. And quite a bungalow it was, with huge picture windows opening on to a leafy garden.
The woman who answered the ring was attractive in an overblown way, and carefully made-up. Despite the cool June weather, she wore a sizzling orange and yellow sundress in an abstract pattern, and a m
ass of tinted blonde hair tumbled sexily around her fleshy shoulders. Dark glasses made it difficult to judge her age with any accuracy, but Kate put her between forty-two and forty-five.
‘Mrs Sylvia Blackwood?’ she enquired.
‘That’s me.’
‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Maddox, and this is Detective Sergeant Boulter. Could we have a word?’
Damn those sunglasses! It was hard to read a face without seeing the eyes. Kate sensed that Sylvia Blackwood had half expected the police to come calling, and was ready to put on a big act.
‘So you’re the boss, and he’s the boy.’ Her gaze seemed to linger on Boulter a moment, as if assessing his potential. Then she came back to Kate with a breathy little chuckle. ‘That must be nice for you. Want to come in?’
They followed her across a woodstrip-floored hall into a large living room that was furnished comfortably, if a bit flamboyantly for Kate’s taste.
‘Is your husband around?’ Kate asked.
‘No, if it’s Fred you want you’re out of luck. He’s taking a horse down to Devon. Won’t be home till past midnight.’
‘Oh, well, never mind. Did he mention that we came to see him the other week?’
‘Not that I remember. What was that about, then?’
‘Something quite different, to do with the stables. This time . . .’ Those bloody sunglasses! ‘I wanted to have a word about Barry Slater!’
‘Barry Slater?’ A definite hesitation, but what did it mean? ‘Here, that’s the name of the guy found murdered the other day, isn’t it?’
‘I think you know very well that it is, Mrs Blackwood. You knew him, didn’t you?’
‘What makes you say that?’ she countered.
‘Don’t lets waste each other’s time, eh? I’ll ask you again. You knew Barry Slater, right?’
‘So what if I did?’
‘Tell me about your ... relationship with him.’
‘Listen, Barry and I... well, we just saw each other a few times altogether. That’s all.’
‘How did you get to know him?’
‘He came to the house one Saturday asking for Jillian Murdoch, and -’
‘Hold on! Jillian Murdoch? Is she a friend of yours?’
‘Not what you’d call a friend, she’s just a kid, but we’ve known her for ages. Her old man and Fred fixed it for her to come and exercise the horses. She’s got a way with horses, has Jilly, and you can trust her with a champion, which you can’t everybody. I suppose she’d mentioned to Barry that she often came here on a Saturday morning.’
‘Did he tell you how it was he knew Jillian?’
‘Not really.’
‘He either did, or he didn’t.’
Sylvia shrugged her shoulders. ‘He met her somewhere - what does it matter? She’s a sly one all right, that Jillian. I mean to say, to look at her you’d think butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.’
‘You still haven’t explained why Barry should have come here to the house looking for Jillian rather than the stables.’
‘Well, he did go there first. But Fred was out, and nobody else knew if Jilly was expected or not, so they sent him over here to ask me. I told him she’d phoned earlier on to say she wouldn’t be coming that morning, and he looked really disappointed. So I asked him in for a drink.’
‘And?’
‘That’s how we got friendly.’
‘Did he explain why it was he wanted to see Jillian?’
‘Not really.’ She caught Kate’s eye and went on hurriedly, ‘Barry and I got talking about other things than her. He was fun.’
‘Did your husband meet him? Then, or later?’
‘Well, yes. They did meet a couple of times.’
‘You knew him better than your husband did, then?’
‘So what if I did?’
‘Let’s not waste time tap-dancing around, Mrs Blackwood. You had an intimate relationship with Slater. Is that correct?’
Sylvia Blackwood was silent, watchful. Kate could guess that she was anxious not to say the wrong thing, but realised it was pointless denying what the police already seemed to know about.
‘Listen, what happened between me and Barry wasn’t anything important,’ she said at last. ‘It certainly wouldn’t bother Fred, if that’s what you’re driving at.’
‘I didn’t suggest that.’
‘You implied it, though, all right. Well, you can forget it. Fred and I . . . we understand each other, see.’
‘But you’re not denying that you and Barry Slater had an affair?’
‘Affair? You could hardly call it that. Three or four times, all told, that’s all.’
‘And your husband knew about this relationship?’
Again she was carefully choosing her words. ‘As a matter of fact he did, and it was me who told him. I told him right from the start. It’s not something Fred’s lost any sleep over, believe you me.’
‘So you won’t object if I question him about it?’
‘I can’t stop you, can I? You do what you like.’
‘Mrs Blackwood, will you give me an account of your movements from Tuesday evening through until Wednesday morning.’
She went pale beneath her make-up. ‘That’s when he was -’
‘The medical evidence tells us that death occurred somewhere between those times.’
A pause for thought; a weighing up of pros and cons; a searching for snags in the story she was going to tell. Unfortunately, therefore, when it came Sylvia didn’t sound very spontaneous.
‘Well, there you are, then! Fred and I were right here all that time. He got in about half-seven, and we had a drink and then supper. Afterwards we watched telly for a bit, then we went to bed. You can ask him.’
‘You were both here indoors all that time?’
‘Yes, I told you.’
‘Doesn’t your husband make a last round of the stables to check the horses are all okay?’
‘Oh, that.’ One of the snags she’d overlooked. ‘Yes, well, he always does that, every night. Round about tennish, usually. It only takes him half an hour, if that.’ She paused, then with obvious inspiration, she added, ‘Matter of fact, I went with him that time. I felt like a breath of fresh air.’
‘Do you often do that?’
‘Well . . . sometimes.’
A likely story.
‘Your husband owns a shotgun, Mrs Blackwood?’
‘Sure he does. He’s licensed and everything.’
‘I know that, I checked before we came. Where does he keep it?’
‘In a cupboard in his office. He only uses it for rabbiting.’
‘Do you have a key?’
‘No, only Fred.’
‘Nobody else? You’re sure?’
‘Positive. It’s on Fred’s keyring, and he always carries that with him.’
Kate rose to her feet. ‘We’ll be back tomorrow to interview your husband, Mrs Blackwood. You can tell him to expect us.’
‘Don’t worry, I will.’
And doubtless she’d make sure that her husband’s story would tally in every detail with hers. But there was nothing Kate could do to prevent that.
Sylvia Blackwood escorted them to the front door. She made a rather pathetic figure now, overweight and under-dressed, all the glamour and sexiness gone.
‘Look . . . you don’t really believe that Fred or I had anything to do with killing Barry, do you? I mean, we never would, either of us, not in a million years. Barry and me . . . I told you, it didn’t amount to anything. Just a bit of fun, you know, and Fred knew all about it like I said. We even had a laugh together, Fred and me, he’ll tell you.’
Driving away, Boulter said, ‘Do you believe her, guv-that about her husband not caring that she was sleeping with Slater?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I do, actually.’
He scratched his ear before changing gear. ‘Weird sort of attitude for a man.’
‘It takes all sorts, Tim. Remember my aunt saying that Sylvia is known
to sleep around? Maybe Fred gets his kicks from having her recount all the spicy details to him afterwards.’
‘You reckon? Honestly?’
‘It happens, Tim. And if that’s the case, it means that we’re left without an obvious motive for either of the Blackwoods topping Slater. If Fred did do it - and I’ll keep an open mind on that - we’ve got to find some reason other than jealousy. We do know, however, that Slater was in the money just recently. So ... did he stumble on something about Black-wood that made him vulnerable to blackmail? It would slot in with what we already suspect about Blackwood’s shady dealings.’
‘Pity we couldn’t get hold of him right away,’ Boulter said.
‘Can’t be helped, Tim. We still might learn a lot from the extent to which he and Sylvia have - or have not - colluded to present us with a united front.’
* * * *
WPC Pippa Hamilton would, in other circumstances, have been feeling very bucked. It seemed that Chief Inspector Maddox had specifically named her for this Action. Sergeant Boulter, when briefing her, had passed on the DCI’s praise about Pippa’s sensitive handling of the two young boys who had found Slater’s body.
As it was, though, Pippa had a worrying problem. She possessed information that Mrs Maddox ought to know about. But it concerned a colleague, and furthermore, it was not in the line of duty that the information had come her way. But was that sufficient excuse for her not to pass it on?
Pippa knew damn well it wasn’t. She knew she’d get no peace of mind until she’d made a decision. And she also knew, though she wasn’t quite facing it yet, what the decision had to be.
For the moment, though, she pushed her anxiety onto a back burner. She had a job to do right now, and she’d give it her best shot.
She was in plain clothes this afternoon, and using one of the cars from the pool at DHQ. Reaching St Agnes-in-the-Wold, she first stopped at the police house where she’d arranged a meeting with the village bobby. PC James Ashford was a grey-haired man near retirement age, slow in his speech but astute in his thinking. He and his wife were enjoying a cup of tea after their lunch, and Mrs Ashford poured a cup for Pippa from the big brown pot.
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