Keep Your Friends Close

by Paula Daly

  ‘Would I like what?’

  ‘Snails,’ she says. ‘The beef bourguignon comes with a serving of escargots on the side.’

  Ron stares at her, baffled, shakes his head as if she’s asked would he like a side order of rats. ‘Why would I want snails?’ he says. ‘Second thoughts, don’t answer that. What beers have you got?’

  Joanne grabs a copy of that day’s Gazette from the next table and flicks through the headlines. Very little happens around here. This week’s stories are low-key – ‘Motorcyclist injured on wet road’; ‘Man exposes himself in Kendal’; ‘Farming union angry after Chinese lantern decision’. This arson and murder case will be big news in next week’s paper.

  ‘So, that was a bit of a spectacle,’ Ron says.

  Joanne closes the paper, folds it in half and passes it to an elderly woman nursing a pot of tea to her left. ‘Mrs Wainwright can get quite animated,’ she says, ‘but we just revealed her dad was probably murdered, Ron. She’s not going to take it on the chin, is she?’

  ‘Suppose not,’ he concedes. ‘Do you think she did it?’

  ‘Unlikely.’

  ‘So why didn’t she come clean about where she was beforehand?’

  ‘Sounds as if she was up to something. But like she said, what’s the motive? I can’t see one. Problem is, because of her previous run-ins, she’ll need to be formally questioned. She won’t see it that way though . . . as far as she’s concerned, she’s innocent of all charges.’

  ‘Mrs Wainwright didn’t ask the one obvious question.’

  ‘What?’ asks Joanne. ‘You mean, if she didn’t murder him, then who did?’

  ‘I was thinking more along the lines of why would anyone want to murder Ken Odell at all?’

  ‘You think it hasn’t yet occurred to her that the fire could’ve been meant for her?’

  Ron nods grimly. ‘I wouldn’t want to be in the same room as her when she figures that one out.’

  The waitress brings their drinks. Joanne’s having water and Ron’s ordered a bottle of beer – something dark and velvety with a silly-sounding name. What is it with breweries today? When did dark ale, pale ale, Yorkshire bitter, suddenly require ridiculous titles?

  Ron pours out the liquid carefully, savouring it, and then takes three huge swallows, downing half the pint in one go.

  ‘Looks strong,’ Joanne comments.

  ‘This?’ he says innocently. ‘Nah, it’s driving bitter this, Joanne. Only four per cent.’ The creamy head covers Ron’s moustache. ‘You could drink this all night and you’d be clear as a bell the following morning. It’s the additives that give you the headache.’

  ‘Is that right?’ Joanne says, smiling, shaking her head.

  Ron downs the rest of his beer and sighs contentedly. ‘What’s your best guess, then?’ he asks after a moment.

  ‘You mean about the fire?’ she says, and Ron nods. ‘I think we ought to start with house-to-house, see who’s seen what. It can’t have been straightforward to gain access, get a fire going with Ken Odell sitting there in the chair and get out again unseen.’

  ‘Not straightforward,’ says Ron, ‘but he was drunk, so not totally impossible either.’

  Joanne agrees. ‘The real question is who’d want to kill him? And if not him, who’d want to kill her?’

  35

  JOANNE FORCES DOWN a slice of apple and almond cake, and Ron just about manages another pint before they finish up and set out to begin their enquiries. Usually, they’d get the uniforms to cover the house-to-house, but after a quick call to DI McAleese, it’s decided that since it’s quiet at the station and they’re already in the area they may as well make a start.

  The afternoon is brightening up nicely as they make their way back to the car, and Ron asks Joanne to hold his jacket while he rolls up his sleeves, neatly and evenly. Odd that he’s so meticulous about this, thinks Joanne, when he’s oblivious to the red-wine sauce splashed down his tie. They climb inside the Mondeo and Joanne hands him a tissue to clean himself off.

  ‘So then, where d’you want to go first?’ Ron asks. ‘Queens Drive? Or have you got someone specific in mind for questioning?’

  ‘Queens Drive. Let’s start with the neighbours,’ she says. ‘I need to do a bit of research before I act on this thing that’s gnawing at me. I want to be better prepared. I’ll get on to it when we go back to Kendal, after we’ve finished up here.’

  Ron puts on his seatbelt and squints into the sun before dropping down his visor. ‘You’re the boss,’ he says, and Joanne smiles. Ron is senior to Joanne not only in rank but in his wealth of experience; he’s been a detective for getting on close to thirty years. ‘You planning on sharing this gut feeling, or am I supposed to guess?’

  ‘Guess away,’ Joanne says, and slips the car into gear, pulling out into the slow line of traffic heading to Bowness. The closer they get to summer, the busier this stretch of road becomes with people making their way towards the lake.

  There’s a short blast of wind and the cherry blossoms quiver. In the space of a second Joanne’s windscreen is awash with baby-pink petals, their edges tinged brown, and she uses her wipers to clear them away. Her mind is cast back to childhood, when she would walk along here, gathering flowers in the upturned fold of her T-shirt, ready to make perfume when she got home. Her mother would discover the long-forgotten fetid mess a few weeks later, on a shelf in Joanne’s wardrobe, and reprimand her daughter for giving her extra work to do – on top of everything else.

  They don’t have far to go to reach Queens Drive, but the traffic is stop–start, stop–start. There’s a driver in front who is reluctant to overtake the run of stationary cars parked on the left, so they find themselves waiting for him to drum up the courage to pull out.

  Ron tuts impatiently. He turns to Joanne, rolling his eyes, and Joanne can smell the sweet, yeasty odour of his breath. ‘Why don’t you take a left down Brook Road,’ he says, ‘and go the long way? We’ll be here all day if we’ve got to wait for this joker,’ and he leans across and presses hard on the horn, sounding it for a full three seconds.

  The driver in front is startled and stares at Joanne in his rearview mirror as if he’s about to cry.

  ‘Jesus, Ron,’ she says. ‘I hate it when you do that. Look at the poor guy, he’s nearly eighty. And now he thinks it’s me who’s beeping at him.’

  Ron shrugs. ‘Shouldn’t be on the road.’

  ‘You’ll be like that one day,’ Joanne mutters, and Ron reaches across again, about to give the horn another blast, when she slaps his hand. ‘Stop it, Ron, or I’ll make you walk.’

  There’s a period of quiet, which Ron punctuates with impatient sighs, and Joanne switches off, letting her thoughts drift to Eve Dalladay. Could it be possible that she is the one who started the fire? Joanne has found some of Natty Wainwright’s behaviour rather extreme, but for the first time she wonders just what the woman has been up against.

  If Joanne weren’t dealing with the aftermath of the fire, she’d be following up on the possibly self-inflicted injuries of Mrs Dalladay. Perhaps that was the place to start. Perhaps she needed to—

  ‘What you going to do about the DI then?’ Ron asks out of nowhere. His voice has a sing-song quality to it, and Joanne is immediately suspicious.

  ‘McAleese?’ she replies. ‘What do you mean? What am I going to do about what?’

  She turns to Ron, but he’s not looking at her. He has his eyes fixed forwards, but he’s grinning broadly.

  ‘Ron?’

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ he says innocently.

  ‘Has something been said?’

  ‘I must have got it wrong.’

  ‘Got what wrong? Have I missed something?’ Joanne’s a bit rattled. She feels quite hot. Reaching forward, she turns on the air con. ‘McAleese has been offhand with me for weeks,’ she says. ‘Are you privy to something I’m not?’

  ‘He’s getting divorced, you know.’

  ‘’Course I know. I’ve not been livi
ng under a rock. Is he dissatisfied with my work?’

  Ron snorts. Turning to her, he says, ‘Is that what you think?’

  ‘No, that’s not what I think, I haven’t done any unsatisfactory work . . . but I don’t know why else he should have a problem with me. Other than, you know, messing him about taking some time off for the operation that never was. But it’s not as if I could do a lot about it.’

  ‘Joanne,’ Ron says, his tone serious now, ‘it’s not that.’

  ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Oh, okay. Good,’ and she pulls a left into Queens Drive. She finds a spot around thirty yards along on the left.

  Ron is shaking his head, mumbling, ‘Call yourself a detective,’ and Joanne shoots him an angry stare because, if he knows something, she’d rather he just came right out and said it.

  They walk down the street, first stopping to survey the fire damage to the house directly opposite.

  ‘What a mess,’ comments Ron, and Joanne murmurs in agreement. ‘Don’t suppose there’s much point dusting for prints.’

  What was once a pleasant Lakeland stone semi-detached is now a gutted black shell. The slate roof is gone, and there are only two or three remaining rafters, the rest having been completely destroyed in the fire. The house next door has not come off too badly – part of the roof is damaged and the top windows will need replacing. Other than that, it’s mostly cosmetic, thinks Joanne, the whole thing being covered in thick black soot – though she has heard that water damage can be a real headache to fix.

  Joanne and Ron watch as a team of men go about erecting a scaffold against the gable end, ready for the repairs. And they’re about to cross the street when a voice from behind makes them stop. ‘That’s what you get if you go mixing cigarettes and alcohol,’ the voice says.

  Joanne is in the process of taking out her notepad. She turns and nods hello to the woman on the other side of the wall. ‘It was a dropped cigarette that caused all that damage, you know,’ the woman says, her tone snippy and critical.

  ‘So we’ve heard,’ replies Joanne. ‘Did you know Mr Odell?’

  The woman winces, retracts her chin, before reaching to pick up a set of hedge shears. ‘Only in passing,’ she says, but Ron senses there’s a history there, as he raises his eyebrows at Joanne.

  The woman is early seventies, heavy in the rump, with thick ankles – the type of ankles that come about from water retention. Joanne imagines poking her index finger in, watching as the doughy flesh envelops it right up to the knuckle. The woman takes a few steps and leans in. ‘Who are you, then?’ she asks. ‘Are you from the insurance?’

  ‘We’re police officers,’ answers Ron.

  The woman views them sceptically. ‘You don’t look like police.’

  ‘That’s because we’re undercover,’ he says, and Joanne gives his foot a nudge with the toe of her shoe. ‘Behave,’ she mouths silently.

  The woman starts clipping her box hedge, frowning each time the blades make contact. ‘Rain’s on its way,’ she tells them. ‘I need to get this done.’

  ‘Are you okay to answer a few of our questions?’ Joanne asks, and the woman pauses.

  ‘If you show me your badges. For all I know, you could be reporters, and I don’t want to be quoted saying something I’ve not.’

  Ron and Joanne present their warrant badges, and it’s obvious, to Joanne at least, that this woman cannot see anything without her reading glasses.

  ‘Seem to be in order,’ she says officiously. ‘What would you like to know?’

  Ron glances at Ken Odell’s burnt-out house, and back to the woman. He does this twice. ‘It’s not possible for you to see the road from your front window, is it?’ he says. ‘This hedge must block your view.’

  ‘No,’ she says, and Joanne’s already mentally moving on to the next house, ‘but I can from up there,’ and she motions to the window directly above the door. ‘That’s my sewing room. I sit in there most evenings, the light’s better. And my husband likes to have the TV loud, which has been bothering me of late.’

  ‘Were you at home the night of the fire?’ Joanne asks.

  ‘I was.’

  ‘And can you remember anything in particular, anything out of the ordinary, happening that night?’

  ‘Always a lot of comings and goings over there,’ she says, in a way to suggest she doesn’t approve. ‘A lot of women, at all times of the night.’

  Joanne clears her throat. ‘I do believe that Mr Odell had surgery. I’m told those women were there to help care for him, to help him dress and undress. Is that what you’re referring to?’

  ‘Hmm,’ she says, and puts her shears down by her feet. ‘If you say so. But they’re a real bunch of undesirables, that’s for certain. One in particular is always here, and she’s such an overbearing woman, such a loud-mouthed, uncouth—’

  ‘Did you see anyone other than the carers?’ Ron jumps in quickly, sparing Joanne from what are clearly denigrating remarks about her Aunt Jackie.

  ‘I saw his daughter,’ she says. ‘She was here.’

  ‘Mrs Wainwright?’

  ‘Yes. She never lets on to me,’ the woman says. ‘She can be terribly rude. I don’t know why, I’ve known her since she was so high,’ and she holds out her hand to her side, palm down. ‘I think it’s on account of losing her mother at an impressionable age. Kenneth Odell’s never seen fit to teach the girl proper manners.’

  Ron shifts his weight from one foot to the other, which Joanne reads as: let’s tie this one up fast as we can, and then the woman says, ‘Of course, you do know he’s a drug addict?’

  Ron coughs. ‘Who is?’ he asks, smirking. ‘Ken Odell?’

  The woman crosses her arms and nods repeatedly.

  Just then, the front door opens behind her. Out comes an old guy in a shirt and tie, blue blazer, pressed trousers and polished shoes. On his head he wears a white summer fedora with a small feather. He makes his way along the short path, unsteadily, and Joanne and Ron smile in his direction by way of a greeting. Joanne’s expecting him to stop, speak to his wife – perhaps she’ll fill him in on why they’re here. Perhaps he’ll want to offer his own information, as people often do. But he doesn’t. He tips his hat their way, scowls meanly at his wife and continues on, doing a right out of the driveway, making for the main road.

  Ron turns to Joanne and winks.

  ‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ says the woman, watching him go. ‘I won’t miss Kenneth Odell’s cat using this garden as its toilet . . . No,’ she says, with a firm shake of her head, ‘I won’t miss that at all.’

  A short while later, and Joanne and Ron have moved out of earshot, stopping outside the house next door but one. Ron dabs the beads of sweat from his forehead. ‘So,’ he says, eyes glinting, full of mischief, ‘Ken Odell’s a drug addict then?’

  ‘He smoked a bit of weed now and then,’ she explains mildly. ‘Jackie told me about it because she was worried he was breaking the law. She reckoned she’d given him an ultimatum.’

  ‘What?’ says Ron. ‘As in, “It’s me or the drugs”?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  They decide to work separately, Joanne taking the even-numbered houses, Ron the odd, and have just parted company when Joanne spots the elderly guy in the fedora heading back her way. He’s carrying a small white paper bag in his left hand and stops momentarily to catch his breath, holding on to a lamp post with his right. Joanne seizes her chance to talk to him and walks over quickly.

  ‘Been for your prescriptions?’ she asks him pleasantly, and his hand moves instinctively to his chest. ‘Angina,’ he answers.

  ‘I’m DC Aspinall,’ she begins, about to explain what she’s doing here, when he cuts her off.

  ‘I know who you are, dear. You won’t remember, but I was once secretary of the Neighbourhood Watch. We spoke a couple of times back in the day when you were a young WPC.’

  ‘I do remember,’ smiles Joanne. ‘Mr . . . Mr . . .’ and she searches for his name.


  ‘Jerry Gasnier.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Didn’t recognize you in the hat.’

  ‘I also used to do a spot of cricket umpiring,’ he explains. ‘Anyway, what can I do for you, my dear? Is this about the fire? I see you’ve spoken to Marion.’

  ‘We’re just having an informal chat really, with all the neighbours, wondering if anyone saw anything untoward. If someone was seen hanging around the property that wouldn’t ordinarily be there?’

  He lifts his eyes skyward as he tries to retrieve the memory.

  ‘It had been raining earlier that evening, if that helps remind you,’ Joanne says.

  He glances to see if she’s serious, and when he realizes she’s not, gives her a playful pat on the arm. ‘Ah, well that does narrow it down for me, thank you.’

  ‘Your wife mentioned there have been a lot of people in and out of the house of late, and it was difficult for her to recall anyone in particular that might have—’

  ‘Marion used to get very upset when Ken Odell parked his Transit in her line of sight,’ he says. ‘They had numerous bust-ups over the years and, as I think you probably worked out for yourself, there’s very little love lost between them. Don’t let her cloud your judgement of the man . . . if that’s what’s going on here. You are investigating his death as suspicious, are you not?’

  ‘We are,’ confirms Joanne softly.

  ‘Well then, he was a wonderful man and an excellent neighbour. Marion’s not aware of this, but he got our boiler going again more than once . . . she wouldn’t have him in the house, so I had to smuggle him in via the utility, when she was locked away upstairs. He is greatly missed by all but Marion, I can tell you.’

  Joanne waits as Jerry Gasnier takes a moment of reflection.

  ‘There was one thing,’ he adds. ‘A person who did seem a little out of place. I can’t remember if it was the night of the fire or earlier, so this might be leading you up completely the wrong path, as it were.’

  ‘That’s okay. Anything you can remember is useful.’

  ‘A rather attractive leggy blonde.’