A Narrow Margin of Error

by Faith Martin

  Hillary sighed. ‘OK. Well, thanks for the time.’

  ‘Hey, Hill, I don’t mind, I’m just sorry I can’t toss you any crumbs. But if you do stumble across any drugs link in the case, be sure to punt it my way. I could do with a good collar or two. My guv’nor is beginning to look at me a bit sideways, know what I mean?’

  Hillary laughed, acknowledged that she did, and hung up. Her boss too was beginning to look at her sideways, but almost certainly not for the same reason as her friend’s was. At least, she hoped not. Her pal’s guv’nor was built like a brick outhouse and he had a personality to match.

  She glanced at her watch, saw it was barely three, and decided it was too early to just do fill-in work until clocking-off time. She was restless to get back out and about and if it meant wandering into unpaid overtime, too bad.

  She grabbed her coat and stuck her head into the small communal office just across the way. Her eyes fell on Sam Pickles, who must have finished his afternoon classes at uni early.

  ‘Sam. I’m just going to question one of the original flatmates in the Thompson case. Feel up for it?’

  Sam grinned, his freckles standing out against the flush of pleasure that crossed his face. ‘Yes, guv.’

  ‘We’ll take your car,’ she said, pretending not to notice the flash of relief that crept into his expression. ‘Get Hargreaves’s particulars, and meet me in the car park.’

  Hillary knew Swindon only in the vaguest of terms, but they had little difficulty in finding Barry Hargreaves’s home address. They were trying his place of residence first, since Vivienne’s research had shown that Hargreaves had just very recently been made redundant from his position in a large accountancy firm, and thus was more likely to be at home.

  His house turned out to be a fairly new build, in the mock-Tudor style in a cul-de-sac of six similar builds, in a leafy and pleasant suburb of the town. It wasn’t her cup of tea, but she could well see why a construction worker of humble origins would have seen it as a definite step up from a council house on an estate.

  ‘Leaving building work to take an Oxford degree certainly paid off for him, didn’t it?’ Hillary mused, as Sam parked up his precious Mini outside a set of wide wooden gates. A short gravel drive, and the requisite rose garden in front of the big main windows, fronted the house.

  ‘Nice, guv,’ Sam agreed.

  A tall, thin woman, with greying fair hair swept back in a ponytail answered the door. She was wearing navy-blue slacks and a white-and-blue striped jumper. She had large, rather boiled-gooseberry pale-grey eyes, and was make-up free.

  ‘Yes?’ she asked, a shade peremptorily.

  Hillary and Sam showed their IDs, which made the eyes pop just that bit more. ‘We’re hoping to have a word with Mr Barry Hargreaves. Is he in?’

  ‘Barry? You want to talk to my Barry? Why, what’s up? There’s nothing funny been going on at the firm, has there?’ she asked nervously.

  Hillary wondered why Barry Hargreaves’s wife should instantly jump to that conclusion. Were there rumours going around about embezzlement? Had her husband left under a cloud? Hillary had assumed that Barry Hargreaves’s redundancy had been as a result of the mournful state of the economy and the seemingly never-ending recession, but perhaps there was more to it than that.

  ‘Nothing of that kind, Mrs Hargreaves,’ she reassured her quietly. ‘Is your husband at home?’ she pressed.

  ‘Oh. Oh, yes, you’d better come in, then. Through to the study – first door on the left. Barry’s working on his CV again.’

  Hillary nodded and followed the woman into a hall rather similar to Darla Pitt’s, in that it seemed largely lacking in character and carefully colour-coordinated in neutral shades.

  The older woman knocked on a door and looked in nervously. ‘Barry, there’s some police people here to see you,’ she hissed.

  Hillary hid a grimace. Although she was slowly getting used to not being a DI anymore, she didn’t particularly relish being called ‘police people’.

  ‘What? Are you sure?’ a baritone voice rumbled back. In answer, his wife simply stepped back and looked at Hillary and Sam.

  Hillary went in first.

  ‘Would you like some tea or coffee?’ the tall woman asked tentatively.

  Hillary smiled and shook her head. ‘No, thank you, Mrs Hargreaves, we’re fine.’

  From behind a small desk with a laptop lying open on top of it, a burly man got to his feet. His hair – what was left of it – was that grizzled steel-grey kind that looked a bit like a scouring pad. His face was round and red, no doubt as a result of years of outdoor work. He was barrel-chested, and had a beer belly, but his eyes were the sort that most people would describe as ‘twinkling’ and of a startling blue in colour.

  ‘Hello. Police?’ he asked, his voice sounding more curious than worried.

  Hillary held out her ID, and explained who they were and what they did.

  ‘Cold cases? This’ll be about Rowan, then?’ Hargreaves said with a nod. ‘Just a minute – let me shut this down.’ He fiddled with the laptop, saying over his shoulder, ‘Please, take a seat and get comfortable. I won’t be a mo.’

  The study had obviously been a second reception room, and housed two comfortable-looking armchairs, a window seat and a fireplace that had probably never been meant to work.

  Hillary chose a chair, whilst Sam went to the window seat and opened his notebook.

  ‘OK, all done,’ Barry Hargreaves said, closing the lid of the laptop and moving to the chair opposite Hillary. He cast a quick look at Sam, noting that his words were being taken down, but again, didn’t look particularly alarmed about it.

  Hillary decided to do some gentle probing first.

  ‘Your wife seemed to think we were here about embezzlement at your former place of work, sir,’ she said softly.

  Barry looked at her, one of his caterpillar-like, bushy grey eyebrows going up, before he laughed – a deep, rumbling belly-laugh.

  ‘Oh that’s just Mary. Don’t pay no notice. If worrying or pessimism was an Olympic sport she’d have gold medals lining the walls. When I was laid off, she was convinced there was something sinister behind it. There wasn’t, of course – just that I was last in so I was first out when the work started drying up. And, of course, now she’s convinced we’ll have to sell the house and move back to her mother’s or some such. I keep telling her, with my qualifications I’ll be employed again by the end of next month, but she won’t have it. She’s always been the same. I find it best not to argue with her and just let her get on with it. She’ll be happy enough and settle down once I’ve got another job.’

  He spoke with a kind of loving exasperation that bespoke many years of patient marriage.

  Hillary decided to leave it for now. But she made a mental note to herself to get Vivienne to contact Hargreaves’s employers and just make sure that everything was as he’d have them believe.

  ‘So Rowan, huh?’ Hargreaves said, leaning forward a little in the chair and letting his big beefy hands fall lankly between his slightly spread knees. ‘Been a while since I thought about him, to be honest.’

  Hillary looked at the big man thoughtfully. With the other housemates she’d taken a more softly-softly approach. Perhaps now was the time to change tactics a bit.

  ‘You are aware, I’m sure, that the original investigator, Inspector Gorman, regarded you as his chief suspect, Mr Hargreaves?’ she said, careful to keep her voice flat and just a touch hard.

  ‘Because of that rumour about the twins, you mean?’ Hargreaves surprised her somewhat by immediately taking the bull by the horns. At least there was going to be no beating around the bush here, with coy denials and waffle.

  Of all the people living in that house, only Darla – as the injured and put-upon girlfriend – and this man had anything approaching a significant motive. That had been obvious from just a casual reading of Gorman’s notes.

  ‘Natasha and Romola, yes,’ Hillary agreed. ‘They were bo
th fifteen at the time of Rowan’s death, I believe?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And they used to come and see you regularly whilst you were at Oxford.’

  ‘Yeah. Well, it’s not as if Swindon’s at the other end of the world, is it? Not even an hour away by train, and they liked to get away from the eagle eye of their mum and whoop it up around town on their own. Like I said, Mary’s a bit of a worrier, and she tended to keep them on a short leash. Coming to see me gave them a much-needed bit of freedom, didn’t it?’ he pointed out.

  Hillary shifted a little on her seat. It all sounded so very reasonable and laid-back. But surely it couldn’t be that simple.

  ‘But Inspector Gorman found out that both of the girls had been intimate with the victim,’ she pointed out. ‘That must have made you angry, Mr Hargreaves. Apart from anything else, that made it statutory rape. Why did you never press charges?’

  Barry Hargreaves shook his head. ‘No, no, you don’t get it. It never happened. Rowan had this reputation, see, as a bit of a … well … what should we say to be polite, like?’

  Hillary barely smiled. ‘Yes, we’ve been learning a lot about the victim’s personality, sir. I think we can take it for granted that he was something of a sexual athlete and predator.’

  ‘Exactly. I know for a fact he had women of all sorts going in and out of that room of his. And men too, it wouldn’t surprise me. Trannies, you name it.’

  ‘So the thought of a man like that taking advantage of your twin girls must have made you see red,’ she insisted.

  But again Barry Hargreaves shook his head. ‘Like I told that Gorman at the time – it didn’t happen. I always kept a careful eye on the girls when they came to see me, just because I knew what Rowan was like. Don’t get me wrong – he was a nice lad in some ways. Had a good enough sort of heart really, but he was a typical lad. Thinking with his cock – sorry, excuse the language. So I never trusted him as far as I could throw him, see? I made sure he never got his hands on Nat or Rommy, don’t you worry. No matter what anybody else thought.’

  Hillary looked at Barry Hargreaves thoughtfully. He certainly seemed to believe what he was saying, but Hillary had read the files. Gorman had interviewed several witnesses and friends of Rowan, who had sworn that the murdered man had told them that he’d had both of the Hargreaves twins in a twosome on several occasions.

  ‘That’s not the information Inspector Gorman had, sir,’ Hillary pointed out, as diplomatically as possible.

  Barry smiled. ‘No, I don’t suppose it was. But people like to talk, don’t they? I suppose it made a better story to say that Rowan had seduced the girls, rather than the more boring truth – that he’d lucked out. Who knows, maybe he boasted that he’d bedded them. Or maybe some busybodies saw them out and about and put two and two together and came up with five. Who can say? But I know there was nothing in it. I tried to tell Inspector Gorman that, but he didn’t seem to hear me.’

  Hillary ruminated on that for a bit. Was Hargreaves just blowing so much smoke? Did he, in fact, know that Rowan, that avaricious Romeo, had had his girls, and even now just couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge the fact?

  Or did he actually believe what he was saying?

  Or was he, in fact, right? She couldn’t see someone like Rowan admitting defeat. Maybe it had been just idle bragging on his part.

  Then again, Barry Hargreaves was nobody’s mug. Admitting to knowing that his fifteen-year-old girls had been corrupted by Thompson put him well and truly in the frame when it came to looking for the young man’s killer. Given the fact that he lived in the same house, had access to the murder weapon and, like the rest of the house’s occupants, didn’t really have an alibi put him right up there on the suspect list.

  It might make even an innocent man gulp and start stretching the truth a bit when put under questioning.

  ‘Besides, I asked the girls, afterwards, right out, if they’d slept with him. Both denied it. And Romola especially wouldn’t lie to her old dad.’ Barry grinned. ‘Nattie, now she could be a bit tricky, sometimes, I admit. But I know both my girls, and I know when they’re telling the truth.’

  Hillary barely gave that much of a thought. Since when did teenage girls ever tell their daddies the truth about their sexual shenanigans? She knew she bloody well never had.

  ‘I see. Tell me about the morning Rowan died,’ she asked, changing tack slightly.

  ‘Well, like I said at the time. I left about twenty past eight or so. I saw the two girls in the hall – Darla and Marcie. I said a quick hello and we had a brief chat about what we had planned for Christmas – you know, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Right.’ Mrs Landau had said she’d heard both female and male voices in the hall that morning, so that fitted.

  ‘I had stuff to do – I needed a quick chat with my tutor so I went to college, then I picked up an artificial Christmas tree to take back to Swindon with me. When I got back to the flat the cops were already there, and Ma Landau was in a bit of a state. That’s about it.’ He shrugged his powerful shoulders helplessly.

  He certainly had the build to overpower a smaller lad like Rowan, Hillary thought. But then, with a sharpened pair of scissors, was that really significant? According to the ME, anyone would have been able to land the killing blow – especially if Rowan had been taken by surprise, as seemed to be the case, given the lack of any defence wounds on the body.

  ‘Did you see anyone hanging around outside when you left?’ She went through the by-now familiar list of questions without much expectation of anything useful. Which was just as well.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did Rowan ever confide to you that someone was making threats against him? Did he seem scared of anybody or anything in particular?’

  ‘Rowan? Good grief, no.’

  ‘Do you have any idea who might have killed him?’

  And with this question, finally, she felt something of a nibble. For a brief moment, Barry’s easy manner seemed to stiffen just slightly. The blue eyes didn’t quite meet hers so openly. He went, just for a fraction of second, rather still. Then he shook his head. ‘Sorry, no.’

  Hillary knew it would be pointless pressing him now. Once a witness had committed him or herself, they very rarely went back on their story right away. But she’d be back. Barry Hargreaves, of all the housemates so far, interested her the most. But maybe not for the same reasons as he had attracted the attention of the rather two-dimensional-thinking Inspector Gorman.

  ‘Well, if you think of anything else, sir, please call me,’ she said, handing him her business card with her name, and the CRT’s telephone numbers and email address.

  With the fretful Mary hovering nervously in the background, Barry Hargreaves showed them out.

  Back in the car, Hillary sat staring thoughtfully ahead as Sam did up his seatbelt.

  ‘When we get back, I’d like you or Vivienne to check into Barry Hargreaves’s work history after he left Oxford.’

  ‘Yes, guv.’

  ‘And find me the addresses of his daughters – both of them. I want to have a word with them.’

  ‘Yes, guv.’

  ‘And did you have time yet to do a background check on the landlady, Wanda Landau?’

  ‘It’s a bit sad, really. They only had the one child – a girl. I can’t remember her name right off, but I’ve got it all down in a report ready for the murder book. She got involved in drugs at a young age. Her boyfriend was a bad sort, and died of an overdose before their baby was born. Mrs Landau tried everything to help her – paid for rehab any number of times, but it was no good.’

  Hillary nodded glumly. ‘Let me guess. Prostitution?’

  ‘Yes, guv. She did time for shoplifting and theft as well. Mugged an old lady and broke her leg when she wouldn’t let go of her handbag, and she was pulled over onto a pavement. Social services took the kid off her, and Mrs Landau petitioned the courts to take her grandson on and raise him herself. Won, too. Not easy that,
considering her age at the time.’

  ‘Good for her,’ Hillary said, and meant it. ‘And the daughter?’

  ‘Don’t know. Went off the radar when she was released from gaol.’

  ‘Which means she’s probably dead somewhere. Lying unidentified on a slab, or buried in an anonymous grave, courtesy of whichever borough council she ended up in.’

  Sam sighed. ‘She might have got off the gear inside and gone straight, guv,’ he said.

  Hillary said nothing about his naïveté but it touched her, none the less, making her smile sadly. ‘Yes, maybe. OK. So, what do you make of Mr Hargreaves, Sam?’ she asked briskly.

  ‘He seems straight enough.’

  ‘Yes, he does, doesn’t he?’ she mused.

  But she was sure that Hargreaves, if not actively lying to them, was definitely not telling them all that he knew.

  As Sam turned the key in the ignition and started the drive back to Oxford, battling against rush hour all the way, she wondered what it was that Hargreaves knew or suspected.

  And who it was he was protecting.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The next morning, at just before 8.30, Tom Warrington leaned forward in his car and checked the scene through the viewfinder of his favourite camera. He had a lot of camera equipment, including a large lens for distance work, but for unobtrusive outings like this one he preferred the little common-or-garden Canon. It was small enough to fit into his jacket pocket if someone spotted him, and yet it had a zoom facility and being digital, recorded good, clear shots.

  He was parked in Hillary’s preferred area of the car park at Thames Valley HQ, and had an open folder splayed out against the steering wheel. To a casual observer, he looked like someone catching up quickly on some paperwork before venturing inside. It also allowed him to keep the camera out of sight between his knees in the steering well when not in use.

  Just before a quarter to nine he saw her car pull up and park a few spaces down. He frowned, as right behind her, a familiar saloon car also hove into view.