At this point in the narrative, Joanna said, ‘What a sweetheart. Do you think there’s any truth in any of it?’
‘Maybe,’ Atherton said thoughtfully. ‘Jack Potter was very nervous and very evasive when I spoke to him, and his story sounded like a load of Tottenham. He said Jennifer went off somewhere, which fits what Folger says Andrews told him, but he didn’t seem to have a convincing reason for covering for her.’
‘That’d stand a follow-up,’ Slider said.
Atherton nodded, and went on, ‘Andrews was also in the First And Last during the evening – after his first visit to the Goat, to go by the timings – and he was there again at around eleven, trying to get a drink, being refused, and telling the barman his wife was cheating on him and if he found her he’d kill her.’
‘People say that sort of thing all the time,’ Joanna said. ‘Doesn’t mean they’d really do it.’
‘But in this case,’ Slider said, ‘the person he said it about is dead. I’m sorry, because I didn’t want to think Andrews was guilty of murder – and such a cowardly murder, if Freddie’s right – but it’s certainly looking bad for him.’
Atherton lowered his pint to half mast with some satisfaction. ‘I think I’d better have another little parlare with the guv’nor of the Goat, see if I can’t make him come clean about the real nature of his relationship with Jennifer A.’
‘All right, and when you’ve done that, I’ll interview Andrews again. Now we can table his movements up till eleven o’clock, it may be enough to make him tell us the rest.’
‘Especially when you apply the delicate sympathy over how badly you think he was provoked,’ Atherton said.
‘That’s not cricket,’ Joanna said sternly.
‘I wonder where she did go, though,’ Slider mused. ‘And was it innocent or guilty?’
‘If she was guilty with Jack, she was probably guilty elsewhere,’ Atherton said. ‘One thing, though – we now know she drove away from the Goat, so that means either she or the murderer brought the car back later in the evening or night. If anyone saw it arrive back, we might have something.’
‘Talking of having something, are we going to nosh?’ Joanna said. ‘I’m starving.’
‘I’ll go,’ Atherton said. ‘What does anybody want?’
While he was up at the counter ordering their food, Joanna asked Slider, ‘Were there any other messages for me?’
‘A couple about work. I haven’t cleared them off the tape.’ He hesitated. ‘I’ve had some news, though.’
‘Oh?’
‘Irene’s moved back into the house.’
She stared, reading his face. ‘With the children? Has she split with what’s-his-name, then?’
‘It’s hard to tell. She was very evasive about it – all she’d say was that they’ve decided not to live together for the time being.’
‘Oh, Bill, what now? It’s not going to be more trouble for us, is it?’
‘It needn’t be for you.’
‘If it is for you, then it is for me. What’s going on? Is she trying to get you to go back to her?’
‘I don’t think so. It sounds,’ he said slowly, ‘as if her friend Marilyn has told her that if she moves back into the marital home she’ll get a better settlement in the divorce.’
Joanna thought about that for a moment, sipping her pint. Slider watched her, knowing that she was choosing her words – perhaps her thoughts, too – carefully. She didn’t want to say unkind or disparaging things about Irene, to seem petty, spiteful, grasping or demanding, to belittle anyone’s pain or inflate her own. She wanted to come out of it all with her character intact – not to make herself look good, he knew, but because her own self-esteem rested on it. ‘And will she?’ was what she eventually said.
‘Yes and no.’
She grinned at him. ‘I used to be indecisive, but now I’m not so sure.’
‘What I mean is that the courts decide these things on relative need. They don’t take fault into account any more, which is what I can’t get her to understand. Okay, while she was living with Ernie, her needs would have been assumed to be taken care of, though not the children’s.’
‘You mean you wouldn’t have had to pay maintenance for her, only for them?’
‘Right. But even without Ernie, the courts will expect her to get herself a job. They won’t expect me to keep her for ever.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Nor does she. The good old days of skinning the erring husband down to his socks are over – though it’s all going to change again, apparently, when the new legislation goes through in 1999.’
‘And what about the house?’
Atherton came back. ‘Grub’s on its way. What house?’
‘Mine,’ Slider said.
‘Oh, sorry, private conversation?’
‘I don’t know what there is about my life that you don’t already know.’ Slider shrugged.
‘Oddly enough, neither do I,’ Atherton said. ‘Shall I go away again, or hum loudly?’
‘Don’t be silly.’ He turned to Joanna again. ‘The house is pretty academic, really. It’s not in negative equity, thank God, but what’s left after the mortgage won’t be enough to buy a greenhouse. But if she goes to court they could order it sold so that the proceeds can be split. And then where would she be?’
Joanna looked grave. ‘Homeless?’
Slider rubbed his hair up the wrong way in anxiety. ‘I can’t let that happen.’
‘Wouldn’t she go back to Ernie?’
‘But if she didn’t? Or couldn’t? I’ve told her if we agree to a settlement between us, the courts will uphold it. But with Marilyn needling her, she doesn’t trust me.’
Joanna laid a hand briefly on his. ‘She must be mad.’ Atherton looked at her and away again. He didn’t think she’d grasped the implications yet. Then she asked, ‘What sort of settlement?’
‘I couldn’t let them be homeless,’ Slider said again.
Now she saw. She removed her hand and put it back round her pint. ‘You’d go on paying the mortgage.’
‘Until the children leave school,’ he said.
‘Or university, or home, whichever is the latest,’ she qualified. Her voice was as neutral as Bird’s Instant Custard. ‘You’d go on paying the mortgage, and the house insurance.’ He nodded minimally. ‘And the bills – gas and electricity and so on.’
‘Yes.’
‘And maintenance for the children, of course. And for Irene?’
He looked at her helplessly. ‘She’s never been out to work since we were married. She couldn’t get a job now. What could she do?’
‘Bill, that’s your whole income accounted for. What are you supposed to live on? Something has to give.’ She knew what. Living with her he didn’t have rent to pay, but he had been contributing to household expenses. That’s where the only slack was. Joanna would have to keep him, effectively, so that he could keep his family. She tried not to let her mouth harden, but she could never hide from him. ‘Let her go to court,’ she said at last.
‘They’re my responsibility,’ he said.
She looked at him with enormous sadness. ‘And I’m not.’ It wasn’t a question. They were back to where they had begun: Irene and the children were real life to him, and she was fun and magic and fantasy, but essentially separate, independent, outside him, the thing that, however little he would ever want to, he could jettison, because she could manage without him. He could put down his pleasures, but not his burdens.
Atherton felt the pain of both of them acutely, and wished to be anywhere but here. Any moment now she would nobly offer to leave him, and Bill would accept sadly and go back to prison with Irene because it made financial sense. Atherton didn’t want to be here to witness it. He had been against Joanna and Bill getting together in the beginning, but he knew now it was the best thing for Bill, and it was too late by an extremely long chalk for him to go back. Atherton didn’t want to see the t
wo people he was fondest of in the world commit suicide.
Fortunately, at that poised moment, a figure loomed up to the table and said, ‘One sausage, egg and chips and one chilliburger and chips, was it?’ They all looked up, and after a blank instant Joanna said, ‘That’s right.’
The woman smiled and set the plates down. ‘And there’s a lasagne to come, and I’ll bring your knives and forks. Any sauces, atawl? Salt and pepper? Vinegar for your chips?’
When the interruptions were over and they were alone again with their food, Joanna said, ‘Isn’t it strange how of all the spices in the world, the only one that’s routinely offered is pepper? A weird sort of hangover from the Middle Ages.’
‘There’s spices in my chilli,’ Slider said, with an effort.
‘In it, not offered separately. Imagine her asking, “Salt and cinnamon?” or “Mace and nutmeg?”’
‘But they’re sweet spices.’
‘All spices are sweet. Pepper’s sweet.’
Atherton joined in helpfully, ‘Have you tried black pepper on strawberries?’
They talked about anything but the cloud that hung over them. Atherton could see how a man more stupid, more selfish, more violent in his passions than Bill – like Eddie Andrews, perhaps – might end up murdering the cloud because he could neither face up to it nor see any way out from under it. But facing up to things was Bill’s forte, poor devil, and Joanna was not enough of a selfish bitch to force the issue. Too good for her own good, really.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Publican’s Tail
Slider got back to the factory with a headache. He tried to sneak it up to his room to seduce it with aspirin, but as he tiptoed past the door to the shop, Paxman, who was duty sergeant, spotted him and called after him. ‘Sir! Bill!’
Slider turned back resignedly. ‘Thanks for the knighthood.’
‘Eh?’ Paxman’s stationary eyes were troubled. He was a big man, solid as a bull, and he had never quite got to grips with Slider’s humour.
Slider waived the flags. ‘Did you want something?’
‘There’s someone waiting to see you.’
‘I was born with someone waiting to see me,’ Slider said sadly.
‘Name of Potter. Mean anything? Looks like a cat on hot bricks. I put him in interview room two, but I can get rid of him for you if he’s trouble.’
‘No, I’ll see him. Thanks.’ Atherton had just gone off to the Goat to re-interview him. Slider rubbed his forehead. ‘You haven’t got any aspirin, have you, Ted?’ he asked. Paxman had. Slider washed them down with a gulp from the water-cooler in the charge room. They lay sulkily on top of his chilliburger and chips, with which they were obviously not going to play nicely.
Jack Potter was pacing about the interview room, looking worse than Slider felt. He turned eagerly as Slider came in. ‘I was just thinking of leaving,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry, I’ve only just got in,’ Slider said. ‘Have you been waiting long?’
He gave a short laugh. ‘Cold feet,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to say what I’ve come to say, but it’s on my conscience. And if I don’t and you find out anyway, it’ll look worse than it is. Besides, I don’t want anyone coming round the Goat asking questions in front of the wife.’ There was a question mark at the end of the last sentence, and a fawn in the eyes.
‘If it’s about you and Jennifer Andrews—’ Slider began.
Potter’s scalp shifted visibly backwards as his eyes widened. ‘How the hell did you know?’
‘Detective Sergeant Atherton’s on his way round to interview you at this very minute,’ Slider said.
‘Oh, blimey! He won’t go and—? I mean, Linda’s there, my wife, that’s why I came here. If Lin finds out she’ll skin me alive. Your bloke won’t blurt it out?’
‘I’m sure he’ll be discreet,’ Slider said. ‘He’s a man of the world. Why don’t you sit down and tell me about it?’
Potter sat automatically, his eyes flat with apprehension. ‘I wanted to tell you when you came round that first time, but with Lin in the house – suppose she’d walked in and heard? You do see? I did feel bad, with Jen – with Jen—’ His eyes filled abruptly with tears. ‘I can’t believe she’s – you know. Did he do it? Did he kill her? Eddie?’
Slider avoided the question. ‘Tell me about you and her,’ he said, sitting down opposite him.
Potter took out a handkerchief and blew his nose. ‘I never meant it to happen. I mean, with Jen being Linda’s friend, it was a bit too close to home. You don’t shit on your own doorstep, know what I mean? But she was always around, Jen was – you know,’ he went on pleadingly. Nothing propinks like propinquity, Slider thought. ‘I mean, she was a bit of all right. You never met her, but she was a real smasher. And when she started coming on to me – well—’
‘What man could resist?’ Slider said.
Potter looked relieved at his understanding. ‘It’s not that I was looking for it. I’m not the running-around sort. Oh, I’ve had my moments,’ he added modestly. ‘I mean, before I married Lin I was in the merchant. Well, it goes with the job, know what I mean? I’ve had women all over the world. Some of them eastern tarts, you wouldn’t believe the things they can do! Oh, don’t get me wrong, I love my wife. All right, since I been married there’s been one or two occasions, but all very discreet. But, well, when it comes down to it, a man’s a man, if you get my drift, and when it’s offered him on a plate—’
‘Jennifer Andrews offered herself on a plate?’
He shrugged. ‘Let’s face it, Jen was a sparky girl. I wasn’t the first and I won’t be the last.’ He didn’t seem to see the incongruity of those words. ‘But Linda thought Jen was a snow-white lamb and Eddie was the coal-black villain, and no shades in between, get me? Though if you ask me that man had the patience of a Jonah, with what she put him through.’
‘He knew about her – infidelities?’
‘Yes and no.’ Potter frowned a little. ‘Funny thing, that. I mean he was jealous, and I don’t say he didn’t have cause, but I don’t think he knew anything definitely. That was the ironic bit, really,’ he said, with a mirthless laugh. ‘I don’t think he believed half of what he said he thought she’d got up to. I reckon he probably thought a lot of the time that he was probably being jealous about nothing, when all the time he was probably right.’
Slider felt disinclined to untangle that sentence. He got the general idea. ‘So let’s get this straight, you and Jennifer Andrews were having an affair? How long had it been going on?’
‘Oh, best part of a year, but it was only occasional. I mean, it was tricky for both of us, both being married. We done it once or twice upstairs at the Goat, when Lin was out, but I didn’t like leaving Karen on her own down the bar, and you never knew if she might come up for some reason. And it’s always hard for the likes of me to get time off. You wouldn’t believe the hours involved in running a pub! But, well, Linda likes to have a day’s shopping up west every now and then, and I cover for her, so in return she sometimes tells me to have a day off. I’m a bit of a motor-racing fan, I like going down Silverstone or Brands Hatch once in a while. At least,’ he dropped a ghostly wink, ‘that’s what I tell the wife.’
‘But instead you met Mrs Andrews – where?’
He grinned. ‘Well, that was the beauty of it, Jen being in the estate-agent business: she’d always have keys to houses they were selling, and we’d use one of them. It was a bit exciting sometimes, wondering if the owners were going to come back early and catch us.’ He caught himself up abruptly, and appealed to Slider, ‘It was just a bit of fun, and no-one ever knew about it, so where was the harm?’
Slider refused the wig and gown. ‘So has this got something to do with Tuesday evening?’ he asked.
‘Well, yes, it has. You see, lately she hasn’t been much interested – Jen. Got other fish to fry. She used to hint stuff, to get me going. She wasn’t a nice person, you know. She was a bit of a prick-teaser, if you want the truth. Sh
e liked to brush past me when Lin was in the room, and say things that meant one thing to me and something else to Linda. For a couple of weeks she’d been winding me up, and then when I tried to do something about it, pushing me away and saying she had someone else and she didn’t need me. Only when I got mad at her she’d threaten to tell Lin.’
‘But two could play at that game, surely?’
He looked uncomfortable. ‘Well, yes, and I said that to her, but she always said I’d never do it, because if I split on her to Eddie, he’d come straight round to me and then Linda would find out, and that would hurt me worse than it hurt her – Jen – because when it came down to it she didn’t care if Eddie did find out, but I did care about Lin. Well, I love my wife, you see.’ He slithered his eyes sidelong. ‘And in any case, the pub’s in her name. I couldn’t get a licence ’cause of a little bit of trouble I had a long time ago. So everything belongs to Lin, officially. If she chucked me out, I’d get nothing. Jennifer knew that, of course. So she used to say to me, “You just be a good boy and do what I say and don’t get any funny ideas. Because I shall be gone soon anyway,” she said.’
‘Gone? Where?’
Shallow Grave (Bill Slider Mystery) Page 11
