by Gwen Moffat
The house was tiny: two up, two down, but the trim was fresh and neat if in an unfortunate shade of green. The door was opened by a massive fellow, too heavy for his age, wearing a black singlet designed to reveal tattoos that covered most of the exposed flesh. Bristles were appearing on his shaved head lending him the look of a clipped hedgehog.
They were taken into the back room and Rosie regarded Isa’s mother with interest. She must have started producing children very young because she wasn’t much more than forty now, the years smoothed out by fat. This family had a recurrent gene or lived on junk food, or both. And, remembering Isa, blue-white on the mortuary slab, Rosie postulated different fathers. The mother had been pretty however, and now looked plumply comfortable and as neat as her painted window frames. In the bleached and back-combed hair, in the green eye-shadow and the whole enamelled appearance, there was a glimpse of the daughter’s ghost.
They jostled to find seats, the gross son evidently sitting in, and Sewell voicing no objection. Rosie shot a glance round the dim room, the window netted against a sunlit yard. The room was dominated by an oversize television set and a three-seater sofa in blue leather. There was no table, no pictures and no books. This space was for watching telly just and if they ate here it was off their laps.
The family name was O’Neill and the fat boy was Brian. No one was told to make tea; that would have happened yesterday when they first learned of the death.
‘So what’s it now?’ Mrs O’Neill asked, taking the initiative. Her lips twitched. ‘Or is it something else?’
‘No,’ Sewell said kindly. ‘It’s your daughter. It wasn’t an accident, Molly.’
There was no overt change in the rounded face but something happened: an incipient tightening of the mouth, a narrowing of the eyes. Brian looked at his mother. He was uneasy.
‘She never killed herself,’ Molly said tightly.
‘No.’ Her eyes flew open. ‘She was’ – in the face of that stare Sewell hesitated for the fraction of a second – ‘murdered.’
In the dead silence that followed, through the closed window a pigeon could be heard crooning: part of the sunlit morning and the urban brick yard.
‘How?’ Molly asked.
‘She was strangled,’ Sewell said, and then, surprisingly, ‘I’ll make us some tea.’
Neither mother nor son reacted. Molly looked at Rosie who was fighting to control her expression. ‘You got her husband.’
Rosie blinked, cursing Sewell. Her ambition was CID but not to be thrown in the deep end like this. Metaphorically she trod water. ‘Why him?’ she countered.
‘Had to be. The bastard.’
‘I’ll kill him,’ Brian said, but that was automatic for the type.
‘It could have been anyone,’ Rosie said, knowing Sewell was hearing every word.
‘You’re saying my girl was promiscuous?’
‘How often did she come here?’ Sewell cut in from the doorway.
‘I told you yesterday! This were her home!’
‘Things have changed. Yesterday we thought it was an accident. She was out most days in her car –’
‘Oh no, she weren’t –’
‘Yesterday you said –’
‘I were confused! You’d just told me my girl had been in a car crash – Where you going?’ This to Brian who had lurched to his feet.
‘I’m going to call our Jimmie.’
‘He’s in Belgium.’
‘He’s got a mobile, hasn’t he?’
Sewell made no move to detain him. ‘She didn’t dare come here,’ he told Molly. ‘She’d be too conspicuous, driving through Carlisle in an open sports car.’
‘She came at night.’ It was quick and as quickly retracted: ‘Once or twice.’
‘And the other times? All the times she told her family she was here?’
‘We’re her family.’ Sewell waited, eyebrows raised. A calculating look crossed Molly’s face. Through the wall came the sound of music from next door. ‘I didn’t ask,’ she said.
‘But you knew who it was.’
Her silence could have been acquiescence, on the other hand it could be a ploy. ‘Don’t you want us to catch him?’ Sewell asked.
‘You said you’d got him.’
‘I said nothing of the sort. Did you?’ To Rosie. She shook her head. ‘Walter’s giving us some information,’ he conceded, adding quietly, ‘He must have known.’
‘They’re the last to know.’ Molly was grim. ‘And when they do find out there’s hell to pay.’
He studied her, then glanced at Rosie who said, wheedling, ‘She told you there was another man, didn’t she?’
Molly stared back and blinked. ‘Not as such. I guessed. One way and another. She were always miserable living right out there: the sticks, she called it. Then she changed. She were excited – not happy but sort of – sly, like she were playing a game with me, like when she were little, you know? I warned her, I said she’d to be careful.’
‘Careful of what?’
‘Losing it all of course! That big house, the new clothes, pay cheque every month: job for life, isn’t it, the Council? Crazy to throw it all away just for a bit on the side.’
‘Who was he, Molly?’
She shook her head, cornered. ‘I don’t know, I tell you. I never asked.’
‘Why not?’
She spread her hands. Her head came up. ‘I didn’t want to know – there! We had words about it. I told her –’
‘Mam!’ Brian was back. ‘Shut up, Mam!’
‘She’s dead, son. What’s it matter now? I never should have –’ Tears traced black trails down the plump cheeks. ‘It were the last thing I said to her and I’d give my life to take it back.’
‘Leave her be.’ Brian was suddenly dangerous: a stupid man, frightened and protective. Sewell stood up and the officers allowed themselves to be crowded into the passage.
‘Randy little bitch,’ Brian wheezed at Rosie who rounded on him in fury. He held up a large hand, palm out. ‘That’s what she called Isa,’ he told her, and nodded unhappily. ‘She were right, you know. All the same, she didn’t deserve to go and get herself strangled.’
‘Well,’ Sewell asked, waxing belligerent as they were halted by roadworks in Botchergate, ‘what did you make of that?’
‘She was the village tart?’
‘There’s not been the slightest hint of it.’
‘Maybe the right questions weren’t asked. And you were concentrating on Walter. Does it make a difference: one man or a number of them? If it was your wife, which would be more likely to make you lose your rag: her having an affair with Joe Bloggs or playing the field?’
Sewell glared at the back of the driver’s head. ‘That’s too personal. It depends on the man.’
‘Actually I was doing my best to be objective – and you did ask.’ She was resentful; he wanted her opinion and objected if he didn’t like it. ‘As a woman, I’d be much more concerned if my fellow was serious with another girl than if he was sleeping around. But I can’t extrapolate to Walter: opposite sex and, I’m sure, a very different temperament to me.’
‘What’s your conclusion?’ He didn’t like that ‘extrapolate’. Rosie had a degree in English.
She shrugged. ‘I reckon Walter would be devastated if she was having it off with one chap.’
‘We’re back to square one: he strangled her because he discovered an affair.’
‘Well,’ she was doubtful, ‘it could have been the other guy for one reason or another. He got tired of her? She wanted to go away with him, he wouldn’t – or wouldn’t leave his wife? Emotional blackmail? You pays your money … It would help if we could find out who he is – was.’
Gemma had approached Elfhow trying to convince herself that this was the logical thing to do: visit the neighbours to find out what was happening, particularly when it concerned your own brother. All the same she was wary of Martin: arrogant and macho, Mountain Rescue and all that – she found him sexy
and dangerous and was working on the delicious feeling that visiting at Elfhow this morning was like walking into a tiger’s cage.
Jean was baking. Bread was proving beside the Aga and she was dribbling molasses into a mixing bowl. Martin would be working upstairs because his van was at the side of the house. Gemma sat at the table, found a stray raisin and ate it absently.
‘If you’re hungry,’ Jean told her, ‘there’s a lardy cake in the pantry.’
‘It’s all right, I had breakfast at Jollybeard. The police took Walter away again.’
‘Oh, Gemma!’ Jean threw a glance at the closed door at the foot of the stairs. She hesitated, lowered her voice: ‘What d’you mean, took him away?’
‘I thought you’d know.’
Jean breathed deeply. ‘They didn’t –’ She stopped.
‘Yes?’ Gemma looked innocent, appealing.
‘They – didn’t tell you about Isa?’
‘I know she’s dead.’ Now she was reproving.
‘Gemma, dear …’ The girl’s eyebrows shot up, this didn’t sound like Jean and the older woman grimaced, embarrassed. ‘Isa was str – killed,’ she blurted. ‘Murdered.’
Gemma stared, frowned, and suddenly appeared strangely adult. Jean muttered something and made a dash for the door.
Gemma’s gaze went to the mixing bowl. She scraped a finger round the side, licked it and moved to the foot of the stairs. She could hear Jean’s raised voice and a murmur, not a soft murmur, more a hard mutter. She couldn’t distinguish any words.
Jean returned after a few minutes. ‘Sorry about that,’ she announced on a high note, staring as if she were lost in fog and about to collapse. ‘Walter’s her husband, which is why they have to question him. They questioned us too.’
‘What did they ask?’
Jean’s mouth opened, and closed with a snap. ‘What time Isa – did we hear her leave on Wednesday? We didn’t.’
‘You’re very close, but she’s downhill from you – was. You wouldn’t hear the MG unless you were listening for it.’
Jean nodded. ‘They’re asking everyone the same question so I promise you: there’s no need to worry about Walter.’
A board creaked. Jean’s eyes flickered but Gemma seemed focused on the police: ‘Are they asking people where they were on Wednesday night?’
‘No, why should they do that?’
‘They’ll get around to it. After they bring Walter back. Because I know where he was every minute of that night.’ She smiled sweetly. ‘So what if it sounds incestuous? They’ll be interested in every male between sixteen and sixty. You know: the usual suspects.’
‘It’s not a joke, Gemma.’
‘Someone did it.’
‘No one we know then.’ Jean was harsh. ‘None of us lives alone.’
‘And all our men have alibis. That sounds like a quotation, doesn’t it? You’re right though, when they find him it’ll be a psychopath, a loner, someone she met when she was out driving.’
When she’d gone Jean worked furiously, rolling out her scones, slapping the dough on the pastry board, gouging with the cutters. There was no sound from Martin’s study but she wouldn’t hear anything with the doors closed. She went out to the vegetable garden and drifted up and down the rows with a hoe chopping the odd weed, coming back to the front of the house to look up at his window, which was wide open. The curtains moved gently but nothing else moved except the swallows swooping into their nests under the eaves.
She was close to the porch when he came down and she followed him to the kitchen having worked herself into a fine state of righteous resentment.
‘I told you’ – he was emphatic – ‘I will not be interrupted when I’m working. It was bad enough to have you come in ranting and raving; to come down and have to deal with two hysterical women –’
‘Marty! She’s a child! She’s alone and terrified and if you can’t spare a moment from your magnum opus –’
‘Don’t be so fucking snide. Why should I be bothered because some dirty little tart gets herself bumped off by her husband? She deserved it. Anyway, Gemma’s not exactly virginal herself – her and Dwayne Paxton.’
‘That’s got nothing to do with it.’
‘Hasn’t it? How do you know? Come to think of it’ – his eyes sharpened – ‘Dwayne would take anything on offer. Remember what I told you?’ He was grimly amused, surprised that he hadn’t thought of this already. ‘D’you know, I reckon she had it off with Dwayne too.’
‘Too?’
He stared at her and licked his lips. ‘I won’t be the only one she tried it on with.’
Jean wouldn’t meet his eyes. She moved to the cooker and opened the oven door – to be greeted by a blast of smoke and heat. She gasped and grabbed the oven gloves. Snatching at the baking sheet she misjudged it and charred lumps were scattered across the flags.
‘Shit, shit, shit!’
She backed to a chair, tore off the gloves and threw them at him. He watched her warily. After a moment he closed the oven door, crunching cinders underfoot.
She lifted her face, dry-eyed but anguished. ‘You slept with her,’ she said dully.
‘I told you –’
‘You told me a little, a tiny fraction. You left out the important part.’
He turned. ‘I’m off.’ He paused and regarded her stonily. ‘You’re fantasizing. I told you the truth and you fabricated a whole drama round it. It’s you should be writing the books: a bodice-ripper, that’s your style. You’re obsessed with sex.’ She stared at him, unable to follow his drift but knowing she’d remember every word. ‘I can see what’s wrong,’ he went on, ‘it’s your time of life.’
‘I’m not forty!’
‘It happens. What you should do is see the doctor, get him to make you an appointment with a psychiatrist. You can do it voluntary and it’s all on the National Health. Now I’m going out; no way can I work here with all these daft interruptions.’
It wasn’t until the van had clattered away down the lane that she remembered she hadn’t told him what Gemma had said about the usual suspects. She thought that was funny: that she’d forgotten to tell him.
Chapter Ten
At Bailrigg workmen drilled out the lock in order to repossess a studio flat and found the decomposing body of a woman with massive head injuries. She was identified as one of the former occupants and a search was started for the husband who hadn’t been seen for weeks, neither by the neighbours nor at his workplace. The police were overstretched but fortunately the Lamberts’ MG had been recovered and its inspection could go ahead because the technicians involved weren’t needed for the Bailrigg murder.
Short-handed then, and with Sewell occupied as he was with questioning Walter, Rosie was sent back to Borascal, in plain clothes and driving her own silver Puma. Her instructions were to find out if Isa had been involved with another man and to try to ascertain Walter’s movements on Wednesday night.
‘Oh my,’ Honeyman breathed as she approached the bar in the Fat Lamb. ‘That’s what I call a sexy car.’
‘Pretty, isn’t it?’ Rosie’s smile accepted the innuendo as a compliment, knowing that in Honeyman’s book sexy cars meant sexy owners. He was leering at her, his eyes like currants in puff pastry.
‘Day off?’ he asked as she ordered a beer.
She nodded. ‘I like this village. I thought I’d rent a cottage later in the year, bring my folks up for a holiday.’ She tasted the beer, raising an eyebrow in appreciation. ‘I’m looking at some empty places this afternoon.’
His mother came in from the back with a tray and a plate of hamburgers oozing fried onions. Honeyman added drinks and napkins and carried it to a family at one of the tables outside. No one was indoors except Rosie.
‘You’ll not find any cottages empty this time of year,’ Dorcas told her.
‘I can walk round and check them from the outside. I have the agents’ particulars.’
‘You’ve done your homework.’ Dorcas was sa
rdonic. ‘You reckon Borascal will suit you?’
Honeyman came back with the tray and eased his bulk behind the bar. He wasn’t leering any longer but he was intent on Rosie’s reply.
‘If I was a journalist I’d say Borascal was unspoiled: pretty, affluent, friendly; that is, everyone’s got good manners.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s a world away from what I’m used to: poverty, drugs … crime.’
The last word hung in the air. The Honeymans seemed to be expecting more. ‘What happened here is in a different league from urban crime,’ she insisted.
‘We’re premier league material.’ Honeyman was trying to make a joke.
She ignored it. ‘I suppose, even in a village, there’s a lot of domestic – er – irregularity? Not real crime though.’
Dorcas uttered an exclamation of either contempt or disgust and went back to the kitchen. He waited until she was out of earshot when he said slyly, ‘You don’t call murder a crime?’
‘Like you said, it’s in a different league. What I’m saying is you can’t compare a deprived urban area with a prosperous village. Although,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘sex crimes would be a common factor. There are prostitutes everywhere.’
‘She weren’t no prostitute!’ His fury was startling. ‘You think I’d have employed an ’ore in this house? My mother would –’
‘What?’ Dorcas was back in a hurry, her eyes snapping. ‘What’s that, son?’
‘She says as how Isa were an ’ore.’
Rosie had both hands up, pressing the air. ‘I never mentioned Isa! What makes you think – You employed her here? I didn’t know that.’
Dorcas asked tightly, ‘What were you saying about her?’
Rosie shook her head helplessly. ‘I wasn’t talking about her. I was talking about crime in inner cities as opposed to Borascal and it occurred to me that –’ She turned innocent eyes on Honeyman. ‘Oh, I see! We got our wires crossed. ‘Here was me thinking the common denominator was sexual – adventures –’
‘Prostitutes! They’re everywhere, was what you said,’ Honeyman blustered.
‘And you saw a connection. Of course she wasn’t a prostitute. Everyone would have known.’
