by Faith Martin
‘Zoe, you have the latest address for Felix’s girlfriend?’
‘Yes, guv. She’s since married and has a couple of kids, but they’re still living locally. Well, Middleton Cheney.’ She named a large village on the other side of the market town of Banbury, about twenty miles away to the north. ‘Well, fairly locally.’
‘Right. It’s time we got her perspective on things. You can drive.’
‘Guv,’ Zoe said, playfully shooting the finger at Jake Barnes, who watched the two women leave with a thoughtful look on his face.
Was it his imagination or had Hillary Greene got a rather white, spiteful look about her this morning? He glanced across at Jimmy Jessop and was rather disconcerted to find the old man watching him alertly.
‘My advice, son, is don’t ask,’ Jimmy said with a bland smile.
Jake Barnes grinned but made a mental note not to underestimate the old codger again. He obviously didn’t miss a trick either. He wasn’t Hillary’s right-hand man for no reason, and if Jake wanted to slowly take over that role from the old man then he’d better keep his wits about him.
‘Got it, Jimmy,’ he said with a cheerful smile.
Becky Lesley Banks, now Mrs Rebecca Morton, hadn’t changed much from her photographs in the file, Hillary thought a little while later, as the housewife and mother showed them through her attractive and spacious house into the kitchen.
She was a little plumper maybe, and with a few more lines, but she was basically the same vaguely pretty woman, with the same short blonde hairstyle and large blue eyes.
‘Poor Felix,’ she said now, as she poured them out a mug of coffee each in her well-appointed kitchen and pushed towards them a milk bottle and a bowl of sugar.
She was wearing a pair of tailored lilac slacks that did their best to hide the bulge of her stomach, and a silvery-coloured loose-fitting top. A pair of dangling amethyst and silver earrings completed the outfit. Her nails were well manicured, as were the lawns outside in her garden.
She looked calm and at ease but Hillary could sense the tension emanating from her. Her smile, when she indicated a pair of tall stools and invited them to sit, was just a shade too brittle to be genuine.
Hillary was well aware, from what she’d read in DI Varney’s notes, that Rebecca Morton had not always been this calm or collected. Or so sure of herself, and her position in life, as this woman seemed to be. So this was Becky Banks mark two – the Becky that emerged from the ashes after Felix’s death.
Interesting.
Most of Felix’s friends, when questioned by Varney or a member of his team, had intimated that Rebecca, or Becky as she was widely known then, could be a touch manic, possessive or needy, depending on the witness being interviewed.
So apparently marriage to a successful advertising executive had had a calming effect on her.
‘As I explained, we’re taking a new look at his case,’ Hillary began, glancing around the modern kitchen diner in the new-build detached house. There was scant evidence on show of her children, who must presently be at school, and Hillary wondered what the woman found to do with herself all day to pass the time. According to Zoe’s background research, Rebecca Morton didn’t hold down a job of her own.
‘Oh, it was so awful,’ Rebecca said now, sitting on her own high stool and looking across the central marble-topped island around which they all sat. She held her own mug of coffee but was making no effort to drink from it, Hillary noticed. ‘I don’t mind saying, it utterly devastated me. It took me years to get over it. Felix was … well …’ She managed a shrug and a smile that was half shamefaced and half defiant. ‘He was the love of my life. He always will be. Mike is … well, don’t get me wrong, he’s great. The twins adore him.’
But you don’t, Hillary thought silently, and nodded. Yes, below the outwardly calm wife-and-mother exterior, there still lurked something of a drama queen. Which could be played up to.
Hillary smiled with every appearance of sympathy. ‘It must have been made so much worse, to be treated like a prime suspect as you were. I think from the notes it’s very clear that the officer in charge gave you a hard time.’
‘Oh, he did. He was a horrible man. I told him that I loved Felix, and that we were going to be married, but I don’t think he believed me,’ Rebecca said now, her face flushing with remembered resentment. ‘I got the feeling that he thought that Felix wasn’t as much in love as I was, and that I was jealous and possessive.’ She shook her head sadly, her short blonde hair, from which all traces of approaching silver had been carefully dyed, clinging slightly around her chin. She pushed the strands back impatiently. ‘He was a stupid man. I told him, he shouldn’t listen to the others – they were always jealous of Felix and me.’ For a second her eyes flashed with some intense emotion that was too fleeting for Hillary to categorize, before dulling again. ‘I wasn’t surprised when he never found out who killed Felix. He simply didn’t have the brains for it. It makes me angry to think of it. The person who killed my poor Felix should have spent all these years since rotting in jail! It makes my blood boil to think of them just going on, blithely living their life as if nothing had happened.’
‘I’m sure it does,’ Hillary said, believing her. For the woman facing her across the vast expanse of cold black marble was almost radiating the heat of thwarted rage. ‘Tell me about that night. It was a big party, and such a momentous moment in time. You must have been happy to be invited.’
From what she’d read, Becky Banks had been the fifth child of working-class parents, who’d still been living with them in their council estate in a rather run-down area of Cowley.
Zoe, busy scribbling down in her notebook what was being said, looked up at Hillary briefly at this point, and then across at Rebecca Morton. It was clear to her that her boss was taking a very different approach with this witness. And it was so fascinating to listen to her manipulate the other woman that she had to keep reminding herself to make clear notes.
‘Oh, I was. It was a really big flash house. And our hostess was quite something,’ Rebecca said, a large, pleased smile crossing her face. ‘Have you met her?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Oh, well, you’ll see what I mean when you do. She really loved the job Felix made of redecorating the house – well, she would, Felix was marvellous. Greer too, I suppose,’ she added somewhat grudgingly, ‘but it was Felix who made Olligree Interiors the success that it was. That’s why she invited him – Querida Phelps, I mean. Isn’t that a wonderful name? I’d never met anyone like her. She was real class, you know what I mean? It was a really swish do – all those fancy costumes – I went as Marie Antoinette, it was a gorgeous outfit. It cost a bomb to rent it, but I was glad that I did. Everyone complimented me on it. And the food, and the champagne.’ She sighed suddenly, and looked around the large, attractive kitchen, as if surprised to find herself there. In her mind, clearly, she was back once again on that last evening of December 1999.
Hillary wondered how often she found herself living there, instead of the here and now.
‘Of course, since marrying Mike we have champagne from time to time so it’s not quite so special,’ Rebecca sighed. ‘But back then, I was still so young, and it all felt so, well … sophisticated, you know? Like something you see in the films?’
Hillary nodded. ‘But Felix ruined it, I suppose, by getting so drunk?’ She determinedly ruined Rebecca’s pink-tinted view of the night in the hope of jolting something useful out of her.
‘Oh no! And he wasn’t drunk,’ Rebecca said, her face flushing a dull ugly red. ‘Felix hardly ever drank.’
‘But the post mortem showed that he had a high level of alcohol in his bloodstream that night,’ Hillary pointed out gently.
‘I don’t know about that,’ Rebecca Morton said sullenly. ‘I was with him all night, and I never saw him drink much. He started off with orange juice, for pete’s sake! And then when I teased him about it a bit – I mean, it was New Year’s Eve, and the brand new
millennium was only a few hours away, after all, and if you can’t let your hair down then, I told him, when can you? But even then, he only asked for the odd half a pint of cider shandy from the fox serving at the bar. So I don’t know how you can keep on saying he was drunk. And he certainly never made a scene. I didn’t even know he’d gone off to lie down until I suddenly couldn’t find him anymore.’
‘That was just before the countdown, right?’ Hillary put in.
‘Yes.’
‘Did you see him arguing with anyone that night, Rebecca?’
‘Oh, please, call me Becky. And no, of course he didn’t argue with anyone. Felix wasn’t the sort to argue. Besides, who would want to argue with him? Felix was a lovely man. Really lovely.’
Reaching for a roll of kitchen towel, Rebecca tore off a couple of squares and began to sob into them.
Zoe shifted restlessly on her stool. Hillary simply let the witness cry and then, when she’d finished, said softly, ‘He must have been very popular. I mean, from what you say, he must have had many friends.’
‘Oh, he did,’ Rebecca said, a shade challengingly. ‘But he was my boyfriend. We were going to be married. There were no other women, if that’s what you’re getting at.’
‘Of course not,’ Hillary said soothingly. And because she didn’t want her becoming truculent, she decided to steer her back to something less contentious. ‘Tell me about this friend of his who died. I understand that Felix had gone to his funeral, and several people have mentioned it, and how much it upset him.’
‘Oh, that was Harry Fletcher,’ Rebecca said offhandedly. ‘Yes, Felix was a bit quiet and moody for a while after that. But then he was the same age as Felix, so it’s always a bit of a shock when someone you know dies, isn’t it? I mean, you don’t expect it.’
‘Do you know when he died, or how?’
‘Not really. Felix didn’t want to talk about it.’
Zoe’s lips twisted as she rapidly turned a page on her notebook. She’d already long since written off Felix Olliphant’s girlfriend as shallow and clingy. No wonder everyone said that Becky had been far more keen on their relationship than Felix. Personally, Zoe doubted that he’d ever meant to marry the woman. From what she’d heard about their murder victim from other people, he’d been the sort of man who would have wanted someone with a bit more substance to her than this airhead.
Hillary was thinking much the same thing. And wondering. Did Rebecca’s healthy ego prevent her from realizing that Felix was unlikely to take their relationship to the next stage? Or had she guessed how things truly were, and felt outraged enough to do something about it? Had Felix tried to end it, even? People like Becky, in Hillary’s experience, could be very volatile and unpredictable when crossed. She could see her lashing out in a moment of rage and fury. But did that equate with how Felix had been murdered?
Hillary wasn’t sure. It was hard to pin down exactly the modus operandi in Felix’s case. It smacked in some ways of opportunism, and in other ways of very careful planning. And it was the careful planning part that didn’t go with Rebecca’s personality type.
‘Were you aware of any phone calls that Felix was having that were making him anxious, say, or impatient?’ She changed tack again.
‘Oh, Felix was always on the phone,’ Rebecca said dismissively. ‘Talking to clients, mostly, but to friends too. I didn’t really pay much attention when he was talking on the phone.’
No, Hillary thought, you probably wouldn’t. ‘And you never noticed anyone acting in any way strangely that night? Perhaps watching Felix closely, or fiddling with his drinks maybe?’
‘I would have said if I had,’ Rebecca Morton said huffily. ‘Now, if there’s nothing else?’
There was, of course, plenty, but Hillary was in no hurry to push it. She could always return to this witness later. Besides, she knew the petulant type. If she tried to carry on questioning her now, Rebecca Morton would only turn uncooperative and mulish.
‘No, thank you, Mrs Morton, you’ve been very helpful,’ Hillary said, with a bright, bland smile.
Rebecca sniffed slightly and pushed her untouched mug of coffee away. ‘Yes, well, I only hope you catch who did it. You can’t do any worse than that stupid man, Varney.’
And then she reached for more kitchen roll again. ‘Poor Felix!’ she wailed.
Zoe and Hillary silently left her to her sobbing, and showed themselves out.
Once outside, Zoe shook her head. ‘Another bimbo. First the Bobsy twins, now her. It’s getting depressing, guv.’
Hillary grinned. ‘Cheer up. And team up with Jake and find out all you can about this Harry Fletcher.’
‘The dead friend? Why, guv, you don’t think he came back from the grave and killed Felix, do you? It was New Year’s Eve, not Halloween,’ Zoe pointed out cheekily.
‘Because there’s no mention of him in Varney’s files, which means it’s an avenue that he never followed up,’ Hillary said patiently. ‘Granted, it’ll almost certainly lead nowhere,’ she sighed, ‘but when you’ve got a case this cold, you have to pick over every tiny little thread. So find out exactly when he died, and how, and if you can, why it seemed to affect our murder victim so much.’
‘Guv,’ Zoe said.
‘You really get a kick out of saying that, don’t you?’ Hillary mused, a tad sourly.
Zoe grinned widely. ‘Yes, guv.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
When they got back to HQ it was lunchtime, so Hillary, Jimmy and Sam trooped up to the canteen. The Boy Wonder was busy on his computer, as always, and Zoe said she’d bought some sandwiches and would eat them at her desk. She was keen to see what she could dig up on Harry Fletcher, and wanted to impress the boss with her efficiency.
Hillary hoped that such enthusiasm would last for at least a month.
But doubted it.
In the canteen, Sam spotted a friend of his who’d recently joined the traffic division, so took his shepherd’s pie off in his direction, leaving Jimmy and Hillary to snaffle a table near a grimy window and tuck into their own choices of tomato omelette and bangers and mash.
Hillary forked a rather rubbery mouthful of egg and tomato into her mouth and chewed without really tasting it. After years of eating police canteen food, it was a skill she’d acquired and nearly always gratefully appreciated.
‘So how’s things your end?’ she asked.
‘Good, guv. We’re going to get Knocker Clarke this time, I’m sure of it.’
Hillary grinned. ‘Bit of a crusade, is it, Jimmy?’
The old ex-sergeant grinned and speared a sausage. ‘Too bloody right. I never was able to feel his collar when I was in uniform. And you know what they say – better late than never. And if we can link him and his tribe to the latest crimewave, we’ll clear so many cold cases as well, the super’s crime statistics will make even the chief constable smile.’
Hillary, who knew the chief constable slightly, rather doubted it.
‘But he’s still small fry compared to what you’re doing. How’s it going?’ Jimmy asked curiously.
‘You’ve been reading the murder book.’ She stated it as a fact, and Jimmy, busy chewing on his sausage, nodded.
‘Well, then, you know,’ she said flatly.
Jimmy chewed and swallowed. ‘Early days yet, guv. You’ll get there. You always do.’
‘Thanks for the vote of confidence.’
‘How are the two newbies coming on? And have you seen what that girl is wearing?’
Presuming Jimmy was referring to Zoe, who today was wearing a ragged black skirt and top that reminded Hillary of something one of the Addams Family might have worn, smiled. ‘You don’t approve, Jimmy?’
‘She looks like something from a horror movie. One of the walking dead or something. And all that black eye make-up. Ugh!’
‘I rather think that’s the point,’ Hillary said, although she could see the old man’s eyes were twinkling. ‘You like her,’ she accused, and then smiled. ‘So do I
. She’s got a way about her, I grant you. A certain zest for life that’s appealing. But whether or not she’s serious enough to make a go of it in this job …’ She waved an egg-laden fork to encompass the canteen and the coppers all around. ‘I’m not so sure. She’s bright enough, and enthusiastic enough. But does she have the staying power?’ She shrugged. ‘Time will tell.’
‘And the Boy Wonder?’ Jimmy asked. ‘He’s always on that bloody computer of his, but that seems to be the way the job’s going nowadays. And Sam keeps telling me how clever he is.’
‘Oh, he is that,’ Hillary said neutrally. ‘Of that I have no doubt.’
‘Ah,’ Jimmy said, reaching for his mug of tea and washing down his food with a few mouthfuls. ‘You don’t rate him then?’
Hillary frowned over a sodden tomato. ‘It’s not that. I think he’s sharp enough. But what’s he really doing here, Jimmy? That’s what’s bugging me.’
‘According to Sam, he has a social conscience. Whatever the hell that is.’
Hillary grinned. Trust Jimmy to share her cynicism. ‘Exactly. We’re supposed to believe he made his millions early, feels guilty because it was such a fluke, and now wants to contribute something back to society by becoming a policeman. Jimmy, when was the last time you ever knew somebody do something out of the goodness of their heart?’
Jimmy Jessop’s old eyes sparked a bit more. ‘It has been known to happen, guv. Leastwise, so I’ve heard.’
Hillary grinned. ‘Right. I heard the same rumour.’
Jimmy finished his last sausage and put down his fork thoughtfully. ‘Seriously, guv, you think he’s up to something?’
‘Maybe. Or maybe I’m just being paranoid,’ Hillary admitted. ‘Either way, if he is up to something, I’d rather know just what kind of a snake he’s let loose in the grass so that I can stomp on it before it has a chance to rise up and bite me in the arse.’
‘Words of wisdom if ever I heard ’em, guv,’ Jimmy agreed with a grin. ‘You want me to keep an eye on him, I take it?’
