‘Terry?’ Isaac reminded her why he was in the house.
‘He starts going on about the past, and how I had cheated him out of a child, conveniently forgetting that he had been checked out and found to be the fault.’
‘Not something a virile man would want to accept. He wouldn’t have been down the pub of a Saturday night bragging to his friends about it.’
‘Easier to blame me. He’s here and he’s fluctuating between anger and amorous advances. The first is getting my back up, the second is about to get him a rolling pin to the head.’
‘Rolling pin?’
‘You know what I mean. Anyway, he’s going on about Christine and me, slandering her, maligning me.’
‘Is that it?’
‘He’s got verbal diarrhoea by now, and he starts talking nonsense. I can’t remember him being keen on children anyway. He wasn’t the paternal type, not that I ever saw.’
‘An affront to his manhood, not having children.’
‘Peer pressure from his friends whose partners were pushing them out at a rapid rate. And there I am, barren, the Virgin Queen.’
‘Why the Virgin Queen?’
‘It was his friends, their women, they all thought I was looking down on them, ramming my education down their throats. Terry was a common man. He had left school with a couple of O Levels and an ambition to drive fast cars and to fix them up. He’s good at one, not the other.’
‘Lousy driver?’
‘No coordination. He could never manage to heel-and-toe; you know where you combine braking and changing down a gear, matching the engine’s revolutions. He always thought it was the car, and if he had something better, then he’d be able to do it.’
‘But he couldn’t, not in the better car?’
‘Terry? We had a ten-year-old Ford, a bomb it was. The one time I tried heel-and-toe, I aced it after the second attempt. He drank more than he should that night, said that I was lucky, and that tomorrow he’d show me how it was done, how a professional racing driver would have achieved the feat, not a woman with the luck of the Irish.’
‘You’re not Irish?’
‘And he wasn’t sober either. The next day, he’s out with his friends, and he’s there hurtling around the country lanes not far from where we lived. He ended up heel-and-toeing the three of them into the hospital after he blipped the throttle when he should have been braking. Ended up in a field, the car rolling twice. Terry got out of it with a broken arm, two broken ribs, and a bruised ego.’
‘What about the other two?’
‘One was unharmed, a few bruises, that’s all. The other man, an uncouth individual who peppered every three words with an expletive, is still in a wheelchair. So much for Terry’s attempt at winning the Formula One World Championship.’
‘So Terry’s here in the house with you; he’s angry or fancying his chances,’ Isaac said.
‘He starts to blame me for his life, and “that bitch Christine”, his words, not mine, for denying him fatherhood. As I said, I believe it was not that important all those years ago, and I doubt if it is now. But that’s Terry, a mouth that works overtime. He starts making statements, such as how he had sorted out Christine’s fancy man, how he was going to have his revenge, how he knew about her and what she had got up to over the years. He even found a couple of men that I had supposedly had affairs with, even the individual in the wheelchair. As I said, he’s talking nonsense, and he’s irritating me.’
‘How long did he stay in the house?’
‘Twenty-eight minutes. A lawyer’s attention to detail and I documented all that happened and what he said. At the time, I thought nothing to it. I was used to him, and I’ve met more than my fair share of deluded fools, drunks, and ne’er-do-wells, the same as you have.’
‘Yet you called me,’ Isaac said.
‘He said that he had been in London and he had seen the dead man jogging alongside the Serpentine, and that…’
‘Is that it?’
‘He clammed up, said no more. After that, he got up from the chair and walked out of the house. He never said goodbye. He closed the front door gently, not banging it as he was apt to do after we had had an argument.’
‘Are you suggesting that he could have killed Colin Young?’
‘I’m not suggesting anything. It was him probably sounding off, a touch of bravado, an attempt to frighten me, to get his revenge.’
‘If he killed the man, then he could come for you and Christine,’ Isaac said.
‘I can’t see it, but it’s a possibility, especially if he’s had a few drinks. I’m not certain if he’s mentally stable, either. According to you and your team, his business is shaky, the woman he’s with is on the rough side. Embittered men commit terrible crimes.’
‘Have you told your sister what you’ve just told me?’
‘Not yet.’
‘We’ll get the police up in Liverpool to check on his movements, and it may be a good idea if you move out of your house. For a few days, that is.’
‘I have enough money. I’ll pay for twenty-four-hour security for the house and for me. It’s not the first time that I’ve been threatened, occupational hazard if you’ve been a prosecuting lawyer.’
‘Or a police officer,’ Isaac said. ‘Your sister?’
‘She can come and stay here if she wants.’
‘If she doesn’t?’
‘I’ll ensure that her house is watched. She’s my sister, and she drives me crazy, but blood is thicker than water.’
Isaac hoped that the reference to blood was metaphorical and that Homicide would not see any more in the current murder enquiry.
***
The consensus in Homicide was that the special clients of Colin Young/Barry Montgomery were not going to be found easily. The first location where the dead man had met with one of the ‘specials’, a cottage in the countryside, picturesque and available through Airbnb, had had a succession of different people occupying it, mostly couples looking for a romantic weekend, a wedding night, or just a break from the hustle and bustle of the city.
Bridget had found the owners, a professional couple who lived in Brighton, a city about seventy miles south of London. A favourite holiday destination on the coast in the past, but now, with discount airlines and trips to Europe and further afield affordable and in the reach of most people, some of its lustre had been lost. The Prince Regent built the Royal Pavilion there in the late eighteenth century, finally completing it in 1823. The prince, later to become George IV, maintained the building, designed in the Indo-Saracenic style, as a discreet location for his liaisons with his long-time companion, Maria Fitzherbert, later marrying her in secret.
Wendy and Larry drove past it to their meeting with the Goldworths, the owners of the thatched cottage, a building whose style had appealed to Wendy: homely, inviting, loved.
‘We can’t help you,’ Brent Goldworth said. He and his wife were sitting in the alcove of the bay window in their third-floor flat on Brighton’s promenade, overlooking the sea.
‘My husband’s correct. We go up there every couple of weeks to check everything’s in order, though we don’t clean the place. We pay an agency to do that and to ensure it’s ready for whoever’s coming. If it’s newly-weds, we ensure that there’s a bottle of champagne in the fridge, flower petals on the bed, but that’s all. Credit card payment or PayPal, and there’s a key around the back, hidden, a password to open where it is.’
‘The agency?’
‘A couple in the area. They’ve made a good business looking after rentals for absent landlords. Not that we’re really absent, but we prefer to keep hands-off. If we’re up there, Brent’s fussing over what needs to be fixed up, a scratch on the wall, the television’s getting old. As for me, I’m checking under the bed, in the cupboards, worrying as to who’s been there, what they’ve been up to. We lived in it for a long time, until Brent was transferred down here, a company promotion. We should have sold the cottage, but it holds fond memori
es, and we’d prefer to leave it shut up, but that serves no purpose. Life’s expensive enough as it is, and every little helps.’
Larry assumed that the Goldworths did not bother to tell Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs about their additional income. The short-term letting of property had become a lucrative black-market activity, and cities across the world were trying to crack down, ostensibly to maintain standards, although he knew, as did everyone else, that it was all to do with money. The hotels couldn’t compete, their occupancy rates were down, and they weren’t paying as much in taxes as they had before.
‘We gave Bridget Halloran all that she requested,’ Brent Goldworth said.
‘Unfortunately, it didn’t help. As you said, a credit card.’
‘A name on it?’
‘The murdered man had paid for it; no doubt whoever he met paid him back.’
‘It’s disturbing to think that someone who died had been in our cottage,’ Emilia Goldworth said.
‘And for the purposes of prostitution,’ Wendy added.
‘That’s worse. We’ve considered selling the cottage after what has happened. Do you have any problem with that?’
‘That’s up to you. It’s some time since the man was there with his lover. The crime scene investigators won’t find anything, and we’ve not asked them to look. Besides, we’re not sure what we’re looking for. The place will be full of fingerprints, needle in a haystack to find Colin Young’s, let alone who he was with.’
‘You could try the agency we use.’
Larry and Wendy visited the agency on the way back to London.
‘We don’t make a habit of welcoming the visitors. Sometimes we’ll go around if there’s a problem, but that’s rare, and we can’t recollect a couple of men there. Are you sure about them? The Goldworths are a bit sensitive about that sort of thing,’ a friendly red-faced man said. For someone who made a living looking after other peoples’ properties, he didn’t look particularly fit.
‘Two men, that’s it,’ Wendy said.
‘We can’t help you, sorry.’
There was no need to visit the hotel in Windsor again. Mrs Winterly had provided the information that Colin Young had been there for her, and the date when he had been in the hotel with the ‘special’ coincided with a week when she had gone to see a friend in Cornwall.
Chapter 28
It was Larry who found Terry Hislop at a pub in Paddington. It wasn’t one of the trendy pubs that serve gourmet food, boutique beer, or even a cup of coffee. It was a serious drinking man’s pub, the place that the affluent kept well clear of.
‘Made a fool of yourself,’ Larry said as he sidled up alongside the man sitting on a bar stool, leaning on the bar, steadying himself to focus.
Hislop looked Larry’s way, unable to make the connection.
‘Inspector Larry Hill, Homicide.’
‘I’ve killed no one,’ Hislop said, still struggling to focus. It was as Gwen Hislop had told Isaac: Terry Hislop wasn’t a drinker, even if he wanted to be.
‘We met in Liverpool. I came up with Sergeant Wendy Gladstone.’
‘I remember her well enough. She came to my office.’
‘That’s it. You were polite then, and then the two of us met you in the local police station. Coming back to you now?’
‘Gwen threw me out of her house.’
‘Why not? You’ve been divorced from her for a long time.’
‘Maybe, maybe not.’
Larry looked over at the barman. ‘No more drinks for him,’ pointing at Hislop.
‘Who are you to tell me who to serve or not? His money’s as good as anyone else, and he’s not drunk.’
Larry withdrew his warrant card from his inside jacket pocket and flashed it in the direction of the barman. ‘As I said, no more drinks.’
‘It’s hard enough to make a living without you telling me what to do.’
‘Don’t give me any more of your lip. Once I’ve finished having a chat with this man, then he’s yours to fleece.’
‘As you say.’
Larry ignored the barman, not even asking if he was the licensee of the pub, although he probably was. It was an unattractive building with a dated interior, white tiles halfway up the walls, tiles on the floor as well. The pubs that were doing good business had diversified, gone upmarket.
‘Now here’s the deal, Hislop,’ Larry said. ‘We can have a nice little chat here, or you can be hauled down to Challis Street Police Station. What’s it to be?’
‘Can’t a man have a quiet drink?’
‘Not if they go around to their ex-wife’s house and threaten her and her sister.’
‘I didn’t threaten. Maybe I had had a few drinks and said a few words I shouldn’t have, but that’s all. Gwen and me, we go back a long way. She was keen on me in the early days. She’s still keen, I could tell.’
‘Do you seriously believe that, or is it the beer talking?’
‘I know my women.’
‘Gwen Hislop is an educated woman, so is her sister. When you were all younger, and you carried less weight, then they may have seen something in you, but now? I don’t think so. I’m told you’re going around with a slapper up in Liverpool.’
‘How dare you talk about Cynthia like that. I’ll grant you that she doesn’t look the best, but she doesn’t complain about my drinking, and she doesn’t accuse me of murder.’
Larry knew that character assassination and belittling the man’s current girlfriend were wrong, but he needed a reaction, and once Hislop was sober, he would start to think before he spoke.
None of the Homicide team believed that he was the murderer, but he had made statements that indicated that he knew the story. Even that wasn’t conclusive, as anyone with access to the internet, or a newspaper, could have learnt as much as he had; but most people nowadays neither had the time nor the interest to follow what was an increasingly stale crime.
‘We’ve not accused you of murder, yet. Either you tell me why you were at Gwen’s and why you cast certain aspersions, or I’ll haul you in. Now, what’s it to be?’
Larry looked over at the barman. ‘Two pints of your best.’
‘About time too. We’re not a social club.’
Larry couldn’t blame the man for his attitude. He would be barely covering costs, and possibly even making a loss each week; once, the pub’s licence would have been worth a lot of money, now it was probably worth a lot less than when the man had paid for it. He was cursed financially whatever decisions he made.
Hislop downed half the contents of his glass before Larry had had a chance to take his first sip. If this is the pub’s best, Larry thought, then he was glad he hadn’t ordered the worst.
‘You visited Gwen on two occasions.’
‘Twice, that’s it. She was really friendly the first time,’ Hislop replied.
‘Don’t give me any nonsense about how your boyish charm won her over, and that she was yours. Hislop, you’re a pathetic man who keeps getting himself into trouble. How about this business of yours? Strictly legal, no dodgy resprays, filing off the engine numbers?’
‘What are you talking about? You know that doesn’t happen anymore, too many rules and regulations. Nowadays, I change body parts, that’s all. I was a craftsman when I first started out, made a good living. Gwen knows that.’
‘And Cynthia?’
‘My business, as with my women, has gone downhill. Gwen and her sister are classy women, and once both of them were putty in my hands. Christine’s putting it about from what I’ve heard, and maybe I should give her a call, no harm in that.’
‘If you don’t want to spend a night in the cells, then I suggest you keep well clear.’
‘A threat?’
‘A fact. You visited Gwen the first time, nothing happened. I’ll accept that.’
‘Nothing happened the second time, either. If Gwen’s told you differently, then she’s lying.’
‘I’m not saying she has. What’s your story?’
Hislop had an issue with alcohol, a love-hate relationship, as did Larry. And Hislop had intellectual limitations. It was not as though the man was stupid, the same as for Larry: an inspector who wanted to be more, but he had come to realise that even if he devoted the time necessary, he just couldn’t summon the intellectual stamina required to push his career on.
‘Okay, I went around to her house. I wasn’t planning to, but I’d had a few, and you know how it is?’
‘Not really, but carry on. Why are you in London? A special trip to meet up with the sisters?’
‘I’ll admit to that. With you and your sergeant reopening old wounds, asking questions, it got me to thinking. Gwen’s still on her own, and I am, more or less.’
‘Cynthia?’
‘It’s casual. No doubt she’d like to take it to the next level, move in with me, but she won’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Where do you think I live?’
‘Over the business.’
‘It’s not a home, is it? I had a place, but I couldn’t keep up the payments. It wasn’t much better, but at least it had a bathroom. All I’ve got now is a hose downstairs and a toilet in the back of the workshop. Hardly the sort of place for two people.’
‘Would she mind?’
‘Probably not. She’s got a place, a one-bedroom flat courtesy of the council, but they’d get funny if I moved in there.’
‘Would they find out?’
‘Who knows? There are always nosey neighbours.’
‘And you keep using it as an excuse.’
‘I’ve still got some money, and I thought Gwen might have been responsive. After all, we did have something, and we’re both getting on a bit. If she had had me back, then I would have played it fair and square.’
‘You’d have still been after Christine.’
‘Not this time.’
‘I can’t believe you. That’s not the point, though, is it? You’re with Gwen in her house; she’s not enamoured of your drunken attempts at seduction. She’s telling you to leave, you’re getting angry.’
‘She’s an educated woman, spends too much time defending someone or other. I’m trying to reason with her, but she’s not biting. She starts using words I can barely understand, making out that I’m stupid.’
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