‘Better get on, Mike.’
They trudged the last few yards up to the front door but there was no reply to their knock.
‘They can’t be out,’ said Lineham. The windows were all open and there were three cars in the drive, a BMW, a Golf and an ancient Ford Escort.
‘Probably in the garden on a day like this.’
They walked around to the back of the house. Thanet was right. It was an idyllic summer Sunday afternoon scene: comfortable wicker chairs and table in the shade of an old apple tree, jug of lemonade and tall glasses. Squires and a woman, presumably the elusive Marilyn, were reading the Sunday papers and a teenage girl in a bikini was sunbathing on a rug spread out on the grass nearby.
‘Sorry to disturb you,’ said Thanet. ‘We knocked, but there was no reply.’
Squires, who was wearing crumpled khaki shorts, polo shirt and espadrilles, jumped up with the ease and elasticity of a man who took the trouble to keep himself fit. He was in his forties, with thick brown hair which flopped over his forehead in a boyish manner. ‘Ah, Inspector . . . ? I’m sorry, I can’t remember your name.’ He held out his hand, somehow managing to exude warmth and sincerity and at the same time maintain a gravity appropriate to the occasion.
Thanet shook it. ‘Thanet. And this is Sergeant Lineham.’
‘I don’t believe you’ve met my wife. She had to go home last night, she wasn’t feeling well.’
Mrs Squires smiled. ‘I invariably get a headache if I go swimming after a meal. I should have known better and not given in to temptation.’
Or perhaps she hadn’t wanted to leave her husband free to cavort in the pool with the delectable Virginia in a bathing suit, thought Thanet. Marilyn Squires was several years younger than her husband, he guessed, and tiny, with sharp, pointed chin, cropped black hair and a flat-chested, almost adolescent figure. She was wearing lime green shorts and halter top and huge sunglasses with tortoiseshell frames.
‘And this is Sarah,’ said Squires, indicating the girl, who had sat up.
She was around fifteen and looked more like her father than her mother. ‘Hi,’ she said.
‘You’d better scoot,’ Squires said to her. ‘I’m sure the Inspector wants to talk business.’
She scowled. ‘Must I?’
‘Actually,’ said Thanet, ‘I’d prefer to go inside, if you don’t mind. It would be cooler.’ Also less informal. And he wanted to get rid of those sunglasses. He liked to see the eyes of witnesses when he was interviewing them.
‘By all means.’
‘A fascinating house you live in,’ he said as Sarah lay down again and the rest of them trooped across the lawn and around to the front door. There appeared to be no other means of egress from the house into the garden and Thanet wondered what would happen in the event of a fire.
It was as if he had pressed a button.
‘It’s a Smock Mill,’ said Squires enthusiastically, ‘built in 1820. It was a working mill right up until just after the end of the First World War. Then it became virtually derelict until the early sixties, when it was sold and converted into a house. We bought it a couple of years ago.’
‘I imagine there must be problems, converting a building like this.’
‘Obviously.’
They had reached the front door and now stepped into a pleasantly cool dining hall with ancient oak refectory table and ladder-backed rush-seated chairs. The octagonal space was bisected by a partition wall with two doors in it. Kitchen and cloakroom perhaps? There was a distant but distracting beat of pop music. Thanet was pleased to see that the sudden transition from bright sunshine to the interior of the house had made Mrs Squires remove her sunglasses. Without them she looked considerably older.
Squires went straight to the foot of an open-tread staircase against the left-hand wall. ‘Edward?’ he shouted. ‘Turn it down a bit, will you?’
There was no response and with an apologetic grimace he ran halfway up the stairs and called again. This time the music faded.
‘Sorry,’ he said as he returned. ‘Where were we? Ah, yes, you were asking about the problems of converting a windmill. The trickiest, of course, is how to get from one floor to the next in a building this shape.’ He gestured at the staircase and Thanet could see what he meant: there was an awkwardly shaped gap between it and the wall. ‘That’s the obvious way of course and it does look more authentic, but as you can see it wastes a lot of space and means that on each floor the size of the living accommodation is restricted by the amount of room needed for the flight of stairs. The best solution would be to have custom-made staircases built in against the walls but that’s a very expensive option and so far we’ve held off from launching into it – it would also involve putting in new partition walls on each floor, to enlarge the rooms, otherwise there’d be no point.’
‘How many floors are there?’ said Lineham.
‘Two in the base – this one and the sitting room above – and three in the windmill proper. That’s the section above the staging. I’ll show you, if you like.’
It was clear from Lineham’s face that he was longing to accept the offer, and Thanet too was sorely tempted, but that was not the reason why they were here. Squires would obviously prefer to postpone the interview as long as possible and was prepared to go on discussing windmill conversions indefinitely. ‘Thank you, sir, but I think we’d better get on. Shall we conduct the interview here?’
‘Oh. Yes, of course. Or we could go up to my study?’
Where you would no doubt seat yourself authoritatively behind your desk, thought Thanet. ‘No, this will do very well. Shall we sit down?’
‘This is a dreadful business,’ said Squires, when they were all settled around the dining table.
‘We still can’t believe it,’ said his wife. She put her hand on his lap. ‘Can we, Howard?’
Had Thanet imagined the beginnings of an instinctive flinch away from her?
‘No,’ said Squires. ‘We can’t take it in.’
‘And to think that Sarah was here alone last night!’ she went on. ‘It doesn’t bear thinking about . . . You never imagine this sort of thing can happen to anyone you know, do you? It doesn’t seem real, somehow.’ Her eyes were beautiful, very dark, almost black, and she opened them wide as she stared at Thanet, as if begging him to tell her that actually it had all been a mistake and Virginia was alive and well.
She appeared calm but Thanet was close enough to see that the pulse in her temple was beating rapidly – too rapidly, surely. ‘All too real, I’m afraid,’ said Thanet. ‘Which is why we must ask you some questions about last night.’
They both nodded and looked cooperative.
‘Anything we can do to help,’ said Squires.
As arranged, Lineham took them quickly through their movements the previous day until they reached the point at which they returned to the Mintars’ house in the evening. Then he glanced at Thanet and they continued the questioning in tandem.
‘You walked, I presume, being so close,’ said Thanet. ‘Which way did you go?’
‘There’s a gate in the fence which divides the two gardens,’ said Squires. ‘We had it put in for ease of access. Ralph is very generous and lets us use the tennis court whenever we want to, if it’s free.’
‘So you walked through this gate and along past the front of the Mintars’ house . . .’
‘And around the side into the courtyard. Yes.’
‘Why didn’t you knock on the front door?’
‘Because Ginny had said, “Supper at about a quarter to eight and drinks on the terrace before”, so we went straight around to the back of the house. It was a very informal occasion, we didn’t have to announce ourselves, it wouldn’t have mattered if Ralph and Ginny weren’t there. We knew they’d join us when they were ready.’
‘And were they? There?’
‘She was doing the watering in the courtyard.’
‘Where was she drawing the water from?’ said Lineham. ‘The tap or
the well?’
They looked at each other.
‘Did you notice?’ Squires asked his wife.
She shook her head. ‘No. I was too busy thinking she obviously hadn’t expected us to be quite so early and wishing we’d delayed for ten minutes.’
‘Try to think,’ said Lineham. ‘Where, exactly, was she when you first saw her, as you came into the courtyard?’
‘Watering one of the tubs by the annexe door,’ said Marilyn Squires.
So as they suspected, she had been interrupted while watering the camellias, thought Thanet. In which case the well cover would almost certainly have been off.
‘That’s right,’ said her husband.
‘So what did she do?’
‘Looked up, said, “Hullo”, and walked across to meet us.’
‘What did she do with the watering can?’
They stared at him, trying to recall.
‘I remember,’ said Marilyn. ‘She put it down next to the well wall, when she was halfway across.’
‘And then?’
Marilyn shrugged. ‘She continued on her way. She just sort of dipped to one side to put it down then went on walking.’
‘So can you remember now whether the well cover was on or off?’
‘I really couldn’t say,’ said Squires, but his wife screwed up her eyes, then closed them to concentrate.
They all waited.
‘I’m trying to visualise it,’ she murmured.
A further silence.
Then, ‘Got it!’ she said, and her eyes flew open. ‘It was off!’ she said triumphantly.
‘You’re sure?’ said Thanet.
‘Certain.’
Thanet saw no reason to doubt her. ‘Thank you, that’s a great help. Now, please consider very carefully. Assuming you’re right, Mrs Squires, and the cover was off at that point, could you tell me if she replaced it while you were in the courtyard?’
They both shook their heads.
‘Definitely not,’ she said.
‘She walked straight around to the terrace with us,’ said her husband.
‘What about later? Both of you must have walked through the courtyard at least – what, three times? Once on your way back here to change for the swim, once on your return to the pool, and once to come home again later on. And you, Mr Squires, must have gone to and fro yet again, to put some clothes on before helping to look for Mrs Mintar. Now, on any of those occasions did you notice whether the well cover was off or on?’
‘Oh, my goodness,’ said Marilyn Squires, pulling a face. ‘We’ll have to think.’
Silence. They were both frowning, trying to remember.
Once again she closed her eyes and Thanet watched her hopefully. Eventually she shook her head. ‘It’s no good. I’m sorry, I just didn’t notice.’
‘Nor did I,’ said Squires. ‘We’re so used to seeing that well we never notice it any more, it’s practically become invisible.’
‘Please, do give this some more thought,’ said Thanet. ‘It really could be important. Cast your minds back.’
A further silence. More head shakes. Then, ‘Hang on,’ said Howard suddenly.
‘What?’ said Thanet and Lineham simultaneously.
‘Later on. I remember now. When we were looking for her. There was a stone in my shoe so I had to stop to remove it. I was crossing the courtyard at the time and I put my foot up on that low wall around the well to tie the lace. And I’m sure the cover was on, or I’d have noticed the black hole in front of me, because it would have been different from normal. Yes. Now I think about it, I’m sure that’s right.’
‘And what time was this, sir?’ said Thanet.
A shrug. ‘I’m not sure. It was soon after we started looking, so just after eleven, I should say.’
‘You simply assumed Mrs Mintar had put the cover back on?’
‘I didn’t assume anything, because I hadn’t noticed, earlier, that it was off! If, indeed, it was.’
Squires was becoming exasperated and it was obvious that nothing was to be gained by pursuing the matter so on Thanet’s nod Lineham took them back to the beginning of the evening. With wide-eyed innocence they assured him that it had been the most congenial of occasions, that nothing untoward had happened, that all had been harmony and conviviality. But Thanet, watching closely, observed the signs: from time to time Marilyn would moisten her lips with the tip of her tongue and her husband would rub his nose or tug at his ear, all good indications that they were either lying or trying to conceal something. If Howard had indeed been involved with Virginia no doubt they were desperate to keep it quiet. As Thanet had said to Lineham, the consequences could be disastrous for Howard’s career as a GP.
‘Right,’ Lineham was saying. ‘Could we now move on a little. We understand that you did not return to the pool together. Is that right?’
Thanet groaned inwardly. Oh, Mike. Too soon, too sudden. The sergeant should have continued patiently moving on through the evening step by step. Then, possibly, they might have made a mistake, thought it was safe to say they had returned to the pool together. And then there would have been something to pick them up on, rattle them. Thanet was becoming more and more convinced that beneath her apparent calm Marilyn Squires was very much afraid. But of what, precisely? he wondered.
But it was too late now. The question had been asked and they were both looking disconcerted. Perhaps they had been intending to lie about it, or perhaps it was simply that they were put out to discover that Thanet and Lineham had already been checking up on their movements.
Squires was the first to recover. ‘That’s right,’ he said, smooth as silk. ‘Not that I can see it has any relevance whatsoever.’
Lineham, quite rightly, ignored the implicit request for an explanation. ‘Why was that, sir?’ he said, politely.
Marilyn Squires lifted thin shoulders. ‘There’s no mystery about it. I had a phone call. You can check, I’ll give you the number, if you like.’
‘Thank you. Yes, we would.’
She looked taken aback. She obviously hadn’t expected him to take her up on the offer. She glanced nervously at her husband before reeling it off. ‘Sturrenden 842963. It’s a Mrs Bettina Leyton, a friend of mine.’
Lineham wrote it down. ‘Thank you.’
‘Might as well get that cleared out of the way,’ said Thanet. ‘Is Mrs Leyton likely to be at home now, do you think? Good. Then may we use your phone?’ He nodded at the telephone on the desk.
They did not miss the implications of his request: he wasn’t going to give them a chance to get in first and prime Mrs Leyton to give the right answers.
But the information had been genuine, he discovered. Just unfortunate timing for them. As it was, Howard confirmed what Rachel had told them: he got back to the pool between 10 and 10.15 and was the first to arrive after Matt and Rachel. Marilyn arrived shortly afterwards, followed by Arnold Prime and Jane.
‘They arrived back together?’
‘I didn’t notice,’ said Squires.
‘Separately,’ said his wife. ‘Arnold first, then Jane, a few minutes later.’
‘A few?’
‘Sorry, I can’t be more precise.’
‘Did you happen to notice which door they came through?’ said Thanet, mentally crossing his fingers. Mrs Squires was obviously much more observant than her husband.
‘Arnold came through the drawing-room door and Jane through the door to the corridor leading to the kitchen.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘I was sitting on the edge of the pool facing the house at the time,’ she said. ‘I was still dithering about going in. As I said, I often get a headache if I swim after a meal – which is, in fact, what happened. I really should have known better.’
‘Thank you,’ said Thanet, rising. ‘You’ve been most helpful.’
‘All right, all right, don’t say it!’ said Lineham, the second they were out of earshot, holding up a hand like a traffic policeman. ‘I jumped t
he gun there, didn’t I?’
‘In the event, I don’t think it mattered too much,’ said Thanet. ‘Come on, we’ll go back through the gate in the fence.’
But Lineham was annoyed with himself and kept muttering about it.
‘Mike!’ said Thanet sharply. ‘I said, forget it. It really didn’t matter. The main thing is that you realised what you’d done. Apart from which we gleaned some very useful information – about the well cover and the fact that Jane Simons returned to the pool via the kitchen, for example.’
‘But—’
‘I said, that’s enough. If you could just try to focus on the job in hand, and tell me what you thought of those two . . .’
‘Shifty!’ said Lineham promptly. ‘And very, very nervous. I wonder why.’
‘I agree. And yet, I don’t know what you thought, but I didn’t think they were actually lying about anything you asked them.’
‘Which means, of course,’ said Lineham gloomily, ‘that I couldn’t have asked them the right questions, could I?’
‘You asked them everything I would have asked at the moment. I suppose the answer is we just haven’t found out enough, yet, to know what those right questions are. I certainly don’t feel that it would have been advisable at this point to come straight out and ask him if he was having an affair with Virginia Mintar.’
‘No. Perhaps that was what they were afraid of, though.’
‘Or perhaps not. At this stage we’ve got to keep an open mind.’
‘Anyway, they’re hiding something, that’s for sure.’
‘Yes. But leaving aside the possibility of his involvement with Virginia, the point is that we have no idea whether that something is relevant to our inquiries or not. You know what people are like. They’re always giving the wrong impression by trying to cover up things in which we wouldn’t be even remotely interested. No doubt all will be revealed, in time.’
Dead and Gone Page 8
