Through a Narrow Door

by Faith Martin

  She tossed it to Janine who scanned it, whistled, then passed it to Tommy, who had it snatched out of his hand by Frank.

  Frank snorted. ‘Nice work if you can get it.’

  ‘It’s got to be blackmail,’ Hillary said flatly. Porno by itself wouldn’t pay so regularly. ‘Janine, I want you to bring in Marty Warrender. We’ll start with him, really sweat him, then go on to the rest of the neighbours. If one of them doesn’t know something about this, then I’m Peter Pan.’

  chapter eleven

  Marty Warrender looked around the interview room nervously. His gaze skidded off the uniformed PC stood at the door and dropped back down to his cup of tea. He’d never been in a police station before, and he wasn’t quite sure how he was supposed to behave.

  Even when the shop he’d been working in a few years ago had been broken into, it had been the then manager, Clifford Waythorpe, who’d had to deal with it all.

  It was so quiet he had to fight the urge to cough, just to hear a reassuring human sound. He began to feel just a little bit sick, and pushed the cup of tea away from him, across the scarred and somewhat battered table.

  When the pretty blonde sergeant had called into the dry cleaners to ask him if he could come down to the police station in Kidlington to answer a few questions, he’d thought at first that she was joking, but it had taken only a few moments to realize that she wasn’t. He’d had to ask Sylvia Dodd, the woman who worked with him, to take over for an hour or so, very much aware that she’d been watching the whole procedure with her mouth hanging open, and barely able to contain her excitement.

  Sylvia had worked at the dry cleaner’s since the year dot, and although hard working and very knowledgeable about what shifted gravy from linen, she was an inveterate gossip. He cringed, wondering what she was telling the customers, even now. Unless, of course, she was on the phone chatting to her endless list of equally gossiping friends. It would probably be all around Banbury by now that he’d been asked to ‘help the police with their inquiries’.

  Thinking of what that ominous phrase usually meant – at least to most people’s minds – Marty felt the nausea roll around in his stomach and hoped he wasn’t going to make a spectacle of himself. He took a deep breath and tried to calm down, but he could feel his hands shaking, and slipped them out of sight on to his lap and underneath the table.

  Surely they weren’t going to actually arrest him? He’d done nothing wrong! And they hadn’t read him his rights or anything. Perhaps he should just get up and go? If he had more gumption, he’d do just that, he thought miserably. How long had he been in here, anyway? He checked his watch, and saw that it was nearly half-past twelve. The drive from Banbury had taken over half an hour and it would be the same back, no doubt. And it wasn’t as if he didn’t have work to do.

  ‘All right, let’s get on with it,’ Hillary Greene said at last. She was standing in the observation room, and, from the suspect’s body language, she gauged that he was wound up good and tight. Beside her, Janine nodded.

  Marty looked up, almost in relief, when two women finally walked in through the door. The blonde he recognized at once, and the older, attractive brunette with the curvy figure he instinctively pegged as someone with clout. He found himself straightening up in the chair.

  ‘Mr Warrender? I’m Detective Inspector Hillary Greene. I’m the senior investigating officer on the William Davies inquiry. Thank you for taking the time to come in and see us. Something has come up, and we need your help. It shouldn’t take long.’

  Marty Warrender let out a long, tense breath. He saw the older woman notice, and shrugged sheepishly. ‘I was thinking it was something serious. You know, getting a bit worked up.’

  Hillary smiled briefly and nodded. ‘Well, it is serious, Mr Warrender. The murder of a fifteen-year-old boy is bound to be. And I’m sure you’ll help us in any way you can.’

  ‘Oh, of course,’ Marty said, reaching for his cup again, but merely fiddled with it, turning it around and around on the saucer. Funny, he’d expected them to give him a mug, not a cup and saucer.

  ‘We’ve been building up a picture of young Billy during the last few days,’ Hillary began, opening the folder she’d brought in with her and turning a page or two as she spoke. ‘And the picture that’s coming through isn’t altogether a kind one. Billy seems to have been a bit of a lad. Oh, not outright criminal. That is, nothing that we’ve been able to pinpoint yet.’ She suddenly looked up and caught him nodding. ‘None of this surprises you, I can see, Mr Warrender.’

  ‘No. Well, not really. I mean, we all knew Billy was a bit of a handful. But George and Marilyn are so nice, and young Celia’s a poppet. You don’t, you know, like to say anything unkind, for the family’s sake, do you?’

  Hillary nodded understandingly. ‘I suppose not. But when it comes down to it, the police have the responsibility of solving Billy’s murder. And we can’t always afford to speak well of the dead, especially if we have reason to believe that flaws in the victim’s character are what led to the fatality in the first place. You see what I’m getting at?’

  Marty Warrender felt his stomach roll again, and swallowed hard. He could feel bile biting at the back of his throat, and forced himself to take a sip of the tea. The attractive brunette was harder, and sharper, than he’d first thought. He’d allowed her soothing voice and reasonable manner to fool him.

  ‘Yes,’ Hillary carried on, giving him the uncanny feeling that she’d just read his mind. ‘Now, in Billy’s case, we know he was up to no good, but there’s nothing obvious to help us. For instance, he wasn’t dealing drugs, or stealing, or even, as far as we can tell, hanging about with a bad crowd.’

  She cocked an eye at him, and again Marty Warrender nodded. ‘But, you see—’ Hillary pulled out a piece of paper and turned it around on the table to face Marty Warrender. ‘Here’s our problem.’ She tapped one finger on the photocopied sheet of paper, which showed Billy Davies’s bank balance. ‘Somebody was paying Billy regular and quite sizeable sums of money.’

  Marty didn’t want to look down, but felt himself compelled to. The amount of savings indicated wasn’t huge by today’s standards, but when he realized that it belonged to a fifteen-year-old boy – moreover, one from a working-class family that was struggling to make ends meet – then it became shocking.

  ‘And Billy Davies had no paying job that we’ve been able to discover,’ Hillary carried on smoothly. ‘So we have to wonder where it all came from. Don’t we?’

  He knew he must have gone pale, and took another long, shuddering breath. When he looked up both women were staring at him and he felt his stomach heave. Again he hastily swallowed. ‘Don’t look at me,’ he said at once. ‘It’s nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Of course, to us, this bank account screams blackmail,’ Hillary said, almost conversationally, and turned the sheet of paper back towards her. ‘Now, Billy didn’t have much of a social life,’ Hillary smiled. ‘He spent the vast majority of his time either at school, at a friend’s place or at home in Aston Lea. And since I can’t see that schoolchildren could come up with such sums of money, the only place William Davies could have got his hooks into someone was in Aston Lea. You follow our logic?’

  Marty Warrender slowly leaned back in his chair and frowned. Janine wondered where he’d suddenly got his spine from, and frowned herself when he began to shake his head from side to side. ‘Not me,’ he said flatly, a look of triumph flashing across his face. ‘I refused to pay the little bugger so much as a penny.’ Now that it was all out in the open he felt, oddly enough, far happier and much more able to cope.

  Hillary, who’d met this phenomenon before, merely nodded. ‘So he did try to blackmail you,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘Over what exactly?’

  ‘None of your business,’ Marty Warrender snapped right back. ‘And I didn’t kill him, so that’s that. I’m not saying anything more. I want a solicitor.’

  Hillary smiled gently. ‘You’re not under arrest, Mr
Warrender,’ she pointed out gently. ‘But you do realize, I hope, that we can get a court order to check your bank records. And if you have any withdrawals which match the deposits in this book,’ she tapped again the photocopy with her finger, ‘then that situation may well change.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ Marty Warrender said, again with that surprising flash of triumph. ‘You won’t find any payments that match. Me and June work hard, what with our full-time jobs and the property developing we do. We plan to retire when we’re both fifty-five, and find a place by the sea. Enjoy ourselves while we’re still young. And I wouldn’t let that sly little hooligan get his hands on a penny. Lazy little bugger, let him work for it, the same as the rest of us have to. That’s what I told him.’

  Hillary nodded and closed the folder with a snap. Then she stood up and smiled. ‘Janine, would you like to run Mr Warrender back to his place of business?’ She glanced at Janine, indicating she wanted a quick word. ‘Mr Warrender, if you’d like to wait outside a moment?’

  Marty Warrender got quickly to his feet. His knees felt distinctly weak, but he moved quickly across the floor and out the door that the uniformed policeman held open for him. He looked both vastly relieved and pleased with himself.

  ‘Take him back to Banbury, then have a word with his staff,’ Hillary instructed quietly. ‘Billy had something on him all right, and I’m betting he had some sort of photographic evidence to back it up. Him and that camera of his seemed to be joined at the hip, and I can’t see a wannabe paparazzi not making the most of photographs to put the bite on someone. I want to know what it was he had on Warrender. Then get that court order for his bank records. I don’t think he actually did pay out any money: he seemed too pleased with himself about that not to have been telling the truth. But we need to check anyway. Besides, the fact that we can tell everyone that we’ve been able to gain access to his accounts might help loosen a few stiff upper-lips when it comes time to talk to the other neighbours.’

  Janine nodded, scribbling furiously in her notebook. ‘Right, boss.’

  Hillary more or less followed behind Janine’s car for ten miles or so back towards Banbury, but then veered off at the Adderbury traffic lights, to head towards the Davenridge Dairy. Situated on a small, rural industrial park not far from the village of Aynho, it was a large square building with fake-orange brickwork and a lot of smoky glass. Beyond it, lay huge storage facilities, and rows of white milk tankers.

  Darren Cleaver looked surprised to see the police again, especially at his place of work. His secretary though, a smart, tiny woman, showed her efficiently into his office and came back almost at once with a pot of excellent coffee and some shortbread biscuits.

  ‘Please, sit down, er, Inspector.’ Darren Cleaver pointed to the comfortable, ergonomically designed swivel leather chair that was situated in front of his desk. His office was large and airy and – almost inevitably – was painted pristine white. Large, smoke-glassed windows gave a darkened view out on to the surrounding countryside. ‘I believe I saw a colleague of yours a few nights ago? A blonde woman?’

  ‘DS Tyler, yes sir,’ Hillary said. ‘I’m the officer in charge of the investigation, however, and some new details have come to light. So I’m doing follow-up interviews on all of Billy’s neighbours.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ he said, and sat down. He was wearing a navy blue suit and white shirt with a mother-of-pearl coloured silk tie. Hillary could understand why Janine had called him a prime hunk; although men who were prettier than herself had never appealed to her. Into her mind flashed the somewhat battered face of Mike Regis, with his cat-green eyes and attractive crow’s feet. Instantly, she shook the image away.

  ‘It seems Billy may have been something of an amateur blackmailer, Mr Cleaver. We’ve reason to suspect that he had approached at least one of his neighbours in Aston Lea and attempted to extort money. I was wondering if he had approached you?’

  ‘Good grief, no!’

  ‘Or your wife?’

  ‘I hardly think so,’ Darren Cleaver blinked hard and fast. ‘Are you sure? Poor George and Marilyn! Mind you that probably explains …’ He broke off abruptly, and reached for the coffee pot. ‘Biscuit, Inspector?’

  ‘Explains what, Mr Cleaver?’ Hillary pressed, accepting both a cup of coffee and a finger of shortbread.

  ‘Hmmm? Oh, nothing. Just thinking aloud.’

  ‘Mr Cleaver, I don’t have to remind you that this is a murder inquiry, do I?’ Hillary asked, still using her flat, calm voice, but this time injecting just a hint of steel into it. Darren Cleaver heard it, glanced at her uncertainly, then looked down at the coffee cup in his hand.

  Eventually he sighed. ‘I suppose not. It’s just that, well, I don’t want to get the poor man into any trouble. Not after all that’s happened, he doesn’t need any more hassle. And with the new laws they have nowadays and everything I suppose it was, strictly speaking, illegal. But really, after what you’ve told me, I can understand why he did it.’

  Hillary smiled patiently. ‘Do you think you could make yourself just a little bit clearer, sir? And start at the beginning?’

  Darren Cleaver sighed. ‘It was earlier this year. Sometime in March, I think. I was driving past the Davies’s place. The council had the road up just outside, and I was having to be careful getting around the bollards, otherwise I don’t suppose I would have seen. I’d just bought this new Saab, you see, and I was a bit paranoid about scratching it. Anyway, I had to glance across towards the Davies bungalow, to see how close my paintwork was to the hedge on that side, and I just happened to see into the window. It would be the … kitchen, I think. Or maybe their lounge. I’m not sure.’

  Hillary nodded. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Look, like I said, it’s going to sound worse than it actually was. Only I saw George giving his boy a bit of a walloping. Oh, not with his fists or anything!’ Darren Cleaver added hastily. ‘I’m not talking about child abuse. I would have reported that right away. No, I mean a good old-fashioned bum-smacking. Had the lad over his knee and was paddling his arse. I thought at the time, he should be careful about that. I mean, Billy could have sued him or something, and he was just the type to … well, never mind. As I said, I just saw it in passing, and only the once. Next day I saw Billy and he was right as rain and cocky as ever so I know his dad didn’t really hurt him. Not bruise him or anything, you know? And now, after what you told me he’d been up to … well, you can’t really blame George can you? Trying to knock some sense into the lad. I mean, I know it’s the law and all that, but I have to say I think it’s gone too far when a father can’t discipline his kids without being scared of being jailed for violating their human rights or what have you.’

  Darren scowled and poured some more cream into his coffee cup. Hillary wondered, briefly, if it was cream from the dairy, or if his secretary brought it cheap from Asda.

  ‘I see,’ Hillary said at last. There was nothing to be gained by pointing out to him that he should have reported what he’d seen to social services. ‘Well, I think that’s all for now, sir,’ she said, getting up and letting him walk her to the door.

  Once outside, she walked slowly back to her car, deep in thought. It hadn’t gone unnoticed that, as soon as she’d started to mention blackmail, Mr Darren Cleaver had been very quick to change the subject and give her another bone to chew over. On the other hand, his story had that unmistakable tang of truthfulness.

  She sighed and slipped behind the wheel of her car. Another trip to the Davies bungalow seemed to be in order. But first, she reached for her phone.

  Jenny Cleaver was, for once, in her Oxford office and her PA put her straight through to her private line. She sounded a little wary to be hearing from the police again, but agreed to see somebody later that day. Once she’d hung up, Hillary phoned HQ and asked Tommy to pay her a visit. She wanted someone to be face-to-face with her when questioned about the possibility of being approached by Billy with blackmail in mind. That done, she turned the key in
the ignition, and headed back south.

  It was little Celia who answered the door to her knocking, twenty minutes later. ‘Oh hello. You’re the big police lady.’

  Hillary smiled, hoping the child meant that she was ‘big’ as in the ‘big chief’, as opposed to being just ‘fat’.

  But she wasn’t sure.

  ‘Hello, Celia. Is your mummy or daddy in?’

  ‘They both are. It’s lunchtime.’

  Hillary glanced at her watch, surprised to see that it was only ten minutes to two. ‘Mummy and Daddy come home from the garage for lunch, do they?’ she asked, as the little girl opened the door wider for her.

  ‘Course,’ she snorted, as if Hillary was being particularly dense, then nearly made her jump out of her skin by suddenly yelling, at a pitch and volume that would have made a jet engine envious, ‘Mum! Daddeeeee! The big police lady’s here again.’

  Hillary glanced up as the door to the kitchen opened and Marilyn Davies looked out at her dully. ‘Come on in, the kettle’s on. Want a slice of Madeira? Millie Verne baked it and brought it over yesterday, so it’s still fresh. Everyone’s being so kind.’

  Hillary accepted the invitation to come into the kitchen, but turned down the cake. Instead, she tried to convince herself that a pot of low-fat yoghurt and an apple, waiting for her back at her desk at HQ, was what she really wanted.

  George Davies was at the sink washing out his mug, and he turned to look at her as she pulled out a chair. ‘Found who did it yet?’ he asked flatly, and just a shade belligerently. Hillary recognized the tone immediately. It had been four days now, and the worst of the shock was wearing off. Disbelief was being replaced by anger, and the police were the obvious targets for that anger. She didn’t take it personally.