Murder in Hyde Park

by Phillip Strang

  ‘We need to know the reason.’

  ‘Not here, not now. My wife wants to see her daughter, not to indulge in idle speculation.’

  ‘We’ll need to know eventually.’

  ‘That’s as may be. Are you going to sit here wasting our time, or are you going to show us our daughter?’

  ‘Sergeant Gladstone will drive you over,’ Isaac said.

  Chapter 12

  Christine Mason realised that she had made an error of judgement. ‘I knew it was innocent, and that he loved me,’ she said.

  Wendy had decided that she needed to know the truth about the other woman in the taxi, not out of compassion, but to measure her reaction.

  The two women sat in the café at the hotel. ‘Free to us,’ Christine said. ‘Choose what you want.’ Wendy did.

  ‘She was his sister, and now she’s dead.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me that,’ the handkerchief coming out again. ‘How? Why?’

  ‘That’s the question, isn’t it?’ Wendy picked up one of the sandwiches placed in front of her. Momentarily silenced, she looked over at Christine Mason. The woman was dressed conservatively, more so than on their previous meetings. Wendy wondered if it was the influence of Gwen Hislop.

  ‘When you tried to confront him in Hyde Park, was violence on your mind?’ Wendy said.

  ‘I don’t think so. I might have slapped him across the face, but that’s all. I don’t think I could kill anyone. Colin’s sister, are you sure?’

  ‘She committed suicide yesterday.’

  ‘And you think she killed her own brother?’

  ‘We don’t know what to think. Our investigation is continuing, but here’s the conundrum. You saw him with a woman, thought the worst. His sister commits suicide after he is murdered in Hyde Park. And he was using his correct name with his sister, but not with you.’

  ‘Am I still a potential murderer?’ Christine said. She looked up, saw the hotel manager staring at her with steely eyes. ‘It’s my break, and it’s not as if I’m a junior, but he gives me the creeps.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. Undresses me with his eyes, not that he’s got a chance, not him.’

  Wendy stole a glance, could see a man in his forties, well-dressed and very presentable. She liked the look of him, Christine didn’t. Wendy made a mental note to check into the manager’s background.

  ‘If Colin Young felt affection for you, then why the false name? And why this hotel, when his sister had a house not far from here?’

  ‘As long as he cared for me, that’s all that matters. Until you tell me otherwise, I’ll continue to believe that he loved me, and the rest of it is unimportant. Maybe he was something to do with the government?’

  ‘A James Bond, is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘I’m not sure what I’m saying. He was good-looking, and he certainly knew how to seduce women.’

  Wendy saw no point in telling the lovestruck Christine that he had seduced more than one woman, Amelia Bentham being another – better to let the woman have her delusions for the time being.

  ‘Your husband?’

  ‘He’s overseas again. I’m certain that he’s happiest when he’s not with me, not that he’d ever say it.’

  ‘A woman overseas?’

  ‘I don’t know, don’t care. I had Colin, but he’s gone.’

  ‘You intend to find another?’

  ‘None are as attractive as he was.’

  ‘Tell me, Christine, are you levelling with me? If you’re not, it will go against you.’

  ‘I’ve been honest. Why wouldn’t I be?’

  ‘Why, indeed? You’ve been hoodwinking your husband, consistently lying to us as to what you know. I can’t trust you, not totally, and if DCI Cook thinks you’re holding back, he’ll have you charged.’

  ‘Gwen will get me out.’

  ‘What is it with you two?’

  ‘We didn’t communicate for many years, not until she came to the police station the other day.’

  ‘Why? And why were you so sure she would come? You placed a lot of faith in her. Illogical if there was any tension between the two of you,’ Wendy said.

  ‘I walked out of the family home when I was sixteen; she stayed.’

  ‘Walked or kicked out.’

  ‘It was either me going earlier or my father forcing me to do something I didn’t want to.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘I was pregnant, a silly girlish belief that the man cared for me and that it was eternal.’

  ‘The sugar and candy view of the world that your sister mentioned. Life’s not a Barbara Cartland novel, you do know this?’ Wendy said. There was still something about the woman, hidden depths that needed to be plumbed. Christine Mason, enamoured of childish notions of love, was not foolish, and her need to continually look for it indicated psychological issues. The sort of issues that could easily be transposed into extreme violence, the need to lash out, to kill and maim, the need to hit a man over the head and to push him into the cold water of a lake in Hyde Park.

  ‘My life’s been difficult,’ Christine said. Wendy had little sympathy. She had grown up in Yorkshire, the daughter of a farmer who had barely made enough money, a period of promiscuity in her early teens – a few of the local males had learnt of love and sex courtesy of her.

  The records indicated that Gwen’s and Christine’s upbringing had been middle class, the father, an accountant, the mother, a teacher. Bridget had done some checking and had found out the mother was still alive. The father had died on his fifty-ninth birthday, a massive heart attack, the result of stress. Officers at the local police station close to where the mother still lived knew the family well, and could only offer praise for them.

  ‘Life’s what you make of it. The truth, why leave home?’ Wendy said.

  Christine shifted uneasily on her seat, looked up at the ceiling and around the area. ‘It was Gwen’s boyfriend. He was the father.’

  ‘Does Gwen know?’

  ‘She knew later on that I had slept with him, not that there was a bed involved.’

  ‘Then where?’

  ‘It was the three of us one night after the pub. We were all underage, but we could make ourselves look older, and no one asked for proof of age, not where we lived. And besides, the publican didn’t care as long as we paid cash. Gwen was a drinker back then, teetotal now. Her boyfriend, athletic and full of himself, was a prefect at school, played football for the school as well. Anyway, there’s the three of us. We stopped on the way home. Gwen had been drinking beer and vodka, mixing her drinks. She was seriously out of it. I’d kept to the beer.

  ‘Gwen passed out in the local park, and it’s me with her boyfriend. He looks at me, I look at him, and there we are, going hell for leather.’

  ‘Sexual intercourse?’

  ‘Not the word he used, but yes. Four weeks later, I’m convinced something’s amiss. My period’s late and I’ve no one to talk to. I can’t tell Gwen because she’ll start asking questions, and I could never keep a straight face, never could lie. Don’t have me for a poker partner. I’m frantic, don’t know what to do. My parents, Roman Catholic and devout, would have had a fit, and no doubt shuffled me off out of sight.’

  ‘They would have been angry, but they wouldn’t have kicked you out.’

  ‘I know that, but it was my child, no one else’s.’

  ‘They would have arranged an abortion, had the child adopted.’

  ‘I didn’t want either. To me, the child belonged to no one else. No one was going to tell me what to do or how to care for my child. I packed a bag and walked out. I left a note for my sister telling her what I was doing and telling her why. I didn’t say that the child was her boyfriend’s. She married him two years later, not knowing the truth.’

  ‘Did she find out?’

  ‘Three years later, I met her, confessed to her. Even when I was away from home, I used to phone my parents once a week. They were upset at my leavin
g, and they constantly pleaded for me to come home, but I never did. My father started to send me money, not a lot, but enough to rent a room in a shared house.’

  ‘The child?’

  ‘I miscarried at four months. I wanted to go home, but I couldn’t. There would have been lectures, and then I’d be confined to my room, and endless questions. I couldn’t face it.’

  ‘And then after three years, you met your sister?’

  ‘Sort of. I hadn’t moved far away, and there was always the risk of bumping into one or other of my family. I had seen my mother once from a distance. I had wanted to run over to her and to give her a hug, beg her forgiveness.’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’

  ‘I wasn’t dressed properly.’

  Wendy knew what was coming next. She had heard it before: the fallen female, the drugs, the degradation, the disgrace.

  ‘After I lost the baby, I was at a low. I had no support mechanism, and I had bills to pay, the same as everyone else. My father’s money paid for me to subsist. I tried to get a job, but it was only stacking shelves in a supermarket, cleaning offices. I was intelligent, even though I was young and had no qualifications. One of the girls I shared the house with, she had a friend who had a friend who could help me to make some easy money. Naively, I thought it was door-to-door, selling cutlery or some other nonsense. I went to the meeting that had been recommended and found it was for modelling.’

  ‘A euphemism for something else.’

  The hotel manager kept watch on the two women. He approached their table. ‘Has the payroll been dealt with?’ he said to Christine.

  Wendy looked up at the man, not an attractive face she decided on reflection. ‘Mrs Mason is assisting with our enquiries,’ she said, flashing her warrant card.

  ‘I saw…’ Christine hesitated, trying to come up with a convincing story.

  ‘What Mrs Mason is trying to say is that she witnessed a traffic accident two weeks ago. A pedestrian was knocked over and subsequently died. She may be asked to give evidence if the driver is charged with manslaughter. Now your payroll, when’s it required?’

  ‘Not for another day,’ the manager, his nose out of joint, replied.

  ‘Then I suggest that you leave us alone.’

  ‘Christine, when you’re finished, could we meet to discuss outstanding work,’ the man said to Christine, looking past Wendy.

  ‘Any recriminations, any attempt to badger Mrs Mason, and I’ll be back here to discuss that rat dropping under the next table. And while I’m here, the woman sitting near the entrance. Who is she?’

  ‘I’ve never seen her before.’

  ‘But you know what she is. She’s a local whore waiting for one of your guests to take her to his room.’

  ‘That’s not illegal.’

  ‘I would agree, but it will reflect badly on you now that I’ve told you, won’t it?’

  ‘Please take your time,’ the manager said as he walked away.

  ‘There’ll be trouble later on,’ Christine said.

  ‘You need to stand up to bullies. The man’s a bore. Good at his job?’

  ‘Not really. The place has gone down since he took over, and the staff turnover is above the average.’

  ‘Coming back to where we were. The friend of a friend of a friend, prostitution?’

  ‘Standing in various poses, naked or dressed provocatively, yes.’

  ‘Men with cameras; if you go a little further, there’ll be some extra money.’

  ‘I didn’t want to do it. Not that I had any problem with the money, or even selling myself, but some of the men were fat and ugly, one or two even smelt.’

  ‘When you saw your mother?’

  ‘As I said, I looked the other way.’

  ‘Your sister married the man who made you pregnant. Is that correct?’

  ‘That’s what I told you. Why are you repeating what I’ve already said? And I must go. I do have a lot to do, and my husband’s coming back tonight. No idea why I bother. He’s not overseas doing business all the time. The people he deals with play the game by different rules.’

  ‘Bribery, corruption, women laid on to sweeten the deal?’

  ‘You know about this sort of thing?’

  ‘Christine, when you’ve been a police officer as long as I have, you learn a lot. The minor villains arrested for stealing a car, a dodgy respray, the hoodlum mugging someone for a credit card, a handbag, some cash to feed their drug habit, have nothing on the people your husband comes across. He either plays by their rules, or he gets no business. Coming back to your sister’s husband. You’ve become pregnant by him before they were married, and then you lost the child. Does your sister have children?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did her husband know about the unborn baby.’

  ‘Not at the time, but when my sister divorced him, the truth came out. Gwen, before she knew about him and me, had a fertility check, a sperm count for him.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Gwen was fine, but he had a medical condition, low-quality sperm, supposedly. Apparently a genetic or a health problem. I don’t know which, but in his teens, seventeen and at his maximum virility, he had managed the one time to impregnate a woman, and she had miscarried.’

  ‘Where is he now, the seducer of sisters?’

  ‘He’s around. Two more wives, two more failed attempts at fatherhood.’

  ‘He could be bitter towards you. Sees you as the hussy who cheated him out of a son and heir.’

  ‘It was a daughter, I know that.’

  ‘Regardless, the man’s bitter, and over the years it festers in him, eventually bursting out in violence, against you, against anyone that you get close to.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ Christine said. She was looking at the clock, fretting over work not done, a husband flying in. Wendy wrapped up the interview, thanked the woman and left the hotel.

  Chapter 13

  Barry and Matilda Montgomery’s father identified his daughter, declined to do the same for his son. Not that there was much that anyone could do about it, though the mother had wanted to see her son, according to Siobhan O’Riley, the junior pathologist who had shown Wendy and Christine Mason the man’s body before.

  But with DNA and dental records, Barry had been identified conclusively.

  Next day, in the office at Challis Street, the mood was more upbeat, although Wendy, more emotional than the others, was upset by the attitude of parents who should have cared, but didn’t. Amelia Bentham had phoned to let her know that she was with her parents and that she’d stay for a few more days. Christine Mason was busy pandering to her husband, a man she did not love, and the unpleasant manager at the Fitzroy Hotel had not heeded Wendy’s warning, and was becoming a nuisance. Wendy knew she’d have to deal with him in due course.

  ‘Larry, what do you have?’ Isaac asked. He noticed that his detective inspector had smartened himself up and that he was wearing a new suit. He made no comment, although Wendy and Bridget had. The conversation in his office, Isaac knew, had done the trick. He never felt comfortable giving warnings, preferring the conciliatory approach, the word in the ear, the gentle nudge, but with Larry, he had had to get serious.

  ‘Matilda Montgomery, late of 55 Pembridge Mews. I’ve checked her out,’ Larry said. ‘There’s a boyfriend from last year, although he said it wasn’t serious, and that he had liked her, but she was emotionally barren.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Wendy asked.

  ‘You’ve been with her parents. I’d say it had something to do with them.’

  ‘Did he explain it better than that?’ Bridget asked. ‘I’ve done some checking on her parents. The mother says little, the father is a tiresome and argumentative bore, constantly intruding in the local community where they live, complaining about a barking dog, a noisy car. The sort of person that if the local kids kick a ball over the fence, he’ll stick a knife in it before throwing it back.’

  ‘Where did you find that out?’

>   ‘One of the neighbours is a police officer. He told me about it. Said he had complained to Montgomery, a heated exchange according to my contact.’

  ‘What did he do about it?’

  ‘He went and bought his son another ball. Montgomery hadn’t done anything wrong, not legally.’

  ‘Okay, we know the man’s a tyrant, treats his wife abysmally, and he treated his children with the same contempt. Does that explain Matilda committing suicide; her killing her brother?’ Isaac asked.

  The investigation was moving forward, the pieces were coming together, the key players were all in play, and there was a flight to Jamaica still available, the chance to arrive before his parents’ wedding anniversary. It would make a great surprise if he and Jenny could arrive as the cake was being cut.

  ‘It doesn’t,’ Larry said. ‘According to the ex-boyfriend, he had dated Matilda for a couple of months, secretive meetings at an out-of-the-way cinema, a distant pub. He said she could be affectionate but never spoke about her childhood. He was surprised when I told him about her brother.’

  ‘Had he been to her house?’

  ‘Never. She never told him where it was; he’d never bothered to find out. He’d initially accepted her for what she was but in the end he had despaired of her, and he had stopped phoning her; she never rang again. He thought she had found someone else, and he moved on; just too much hard work.’

  ‘He sounds cold,’ Wendy said.

  ‘From his point of view, she was not easy to understand, and there was a barrier that neither he nor anyone else could break through,’ Larry said.

  ‘Amelia Bentham implied the same. It was only with her brother that Matilda was truly happy. The dancing, the singing, the visits to the pub, were always affectations, a façade.’

  ‘Is there any reason to believe that her relationship with her brother was anything more than that of siblings?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘That’s a terrible thought,’ Bridget said. ‘According to Pathology, she hadn’t had sexual intercourse for some time.’

  ‘That’s possible, but they are looking for penetrative intercourse in the last few days. We know the woman had been on her own for six days before committing suicide, and we’re not assuming that she had had sex any time before that. The question remains, did she harbour feelings for her brother that went beyond sibling affection?’