Married Lies (Reissue)

by Chris Collett

  ‘Thanks for coming, Inspector,’ said Rachel Hordern, as they approached. ‘I hope you and your sergeant will be able to join us at the reception.’

  ‘Thank you, we’d be pleased to.’ Mariner didn’t like to mention that they had been planning to come along anyway, with or without an invitation.

  Nina Silvero’s wake was held just down the road at the Clarendon Suite and many of the guests were choosing to walk there, Mariner and Knox included. They came up alongside Susan Brady.

  ‘I still can’t believe that all this is for Nina; that she’s gone,’ she said. ‘I keep expecting her to pop up. All other things being equal, I think she’d have rather liked it — the music, the friends. I can’t imagine how we’re going to get on without her.’

  ‘It’s not all bad, though,’ Mariner said. ‘We’ve had a look at her will. In some respects it’s worked out well for you, hasn’t it?’

  Susan’s colour rose. ‘Look, if you think I had anything to do with . . .’

  ‘How well do you know Rachel?’ Mariner asked.

  ‘Before today I hadn’t seen her in ages, but we used to dance together when we were younger. We weren’t close. Rach is a couple of years older than me and moves in rather different circles.’

  ‘Did you notice the woman who left the church half-way through?’ Mariner asked.

  ‘Yes, overwhelmed by it all, I suppose.’

  ‘Did you know her?’

  She shook her head. ‘She might have been a ballet school mum, though I couldn’t be sure. There are so many of them. And there are plenty of people here today that I don’t recognise — or remember.’ They had arrived at their destination and Susan excused herself to find the washrooms.

  * * *

  Mariner and Knox were directed, along with those around them, to a windowless, airless room that looked as if it would be better suited to hosting sales conferences. It couldn’t have been further removed from the ornate majesty of the church, but perhaps that was the intention. Helping themselves to the proffered mineral water, Knox and Mariner hovered on the fringes doing what they did best — watching people. Rachel Hordern was working the room expertly, though she looked drawn and tired. There must have been getting on for a hundred people present, and it was her duty to go through the same routine with them all. Mariner’s eyes roamed constantly, but Jack Coleman definitely hadn’t come here. Assistant Chief Constable Bennett had though, and eventually came up to him and Knox and shook their hands. ‘How’s the enquiry going?’ he asked Mariner.

  ‘There are a few leads emerging, sir,’ Mariner replied. ‘But nothing yet that stands out. We’re still doing the leg work.’

  ‘Well, keep on it,’ said Bennett. ‘This is one we need to crack, as quickly as possible, and without disturbing any unwanted skeletons if at all possible.’ Bennett’s none too subtle way of saying he didn’t want the media spotlight casting its beam once more on Ronnie Silvero’s death.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Towards the end of the afternoon people began to drift away, and Mariner noticed Rachel Hordern for once standing a little apart. Seizing the opportunity, he picked up a glass of sparkling water and swooped in on her. ‘Here.’

  She took it gratefully. ‘Thanks, I’m parched. It’s rather exhausting, all this.’

  ‘As you said, your mother was popular,’ Mariner observed. ‘She had a lot of friends,’

  ‘Even I had no idea how many,’ Rachel agreed. ‘This probably isn’t the time to ask, but is there any news?’

  ‘Nothing concrete,’ Mariner said. ‘But we’re following up on a number of things. Actually there was something I needed to ask you about.’

  ‘Go ahead. It’ll make a change from what I’ve been talking about all day.’

  ‘I understand you and your stepmother had a disagreement a couple of weeks ago.’

  She hadn’t been expecting that. ‘How did you—?’

  ‘One of the neighbours overheard you.’

  ‘Oh, I might have known. Bossy Patterson next door. Just happened to have her glass to the wall, did she?’

  Mariner was taken aback by the acid tone. ‘She was working in her garden,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t sound as if you were being particularly discreet.’

  Rachel sighed. ‘Well, in the end there wasn’t much to be discreet about. Mum turned me down flat. She said that the key to starting any business is to know your limitations, and that if she just handed over the money, we would have an unrealistic idea of what those were. Never mind that actually most of it is my dad’s money.’

  ‘What kind of business were you starting?’ Mariner asked.

  ‘Organic bath products, soap, shampoo, that kind of thing. We were going to market them over the internet, still are as a matter of fact.’

  ‘So you raised the capital elsewhere?’

  ‘Not as much as we’d have liked,’ she said.

  ‘But that hardly matters now, does it?’ Mariner couldn’t resist.

  She gave him a quizzical look.

  ‘We’ve had access to Nina’s will. It’s all part of the investigation.’

  Placing her glass carefully on an adjacent table, Rachel held out her hands towards Mariner, wrists together in preparation for handcuffs. ‘It’s a fair cop,’ she said. ‘You’ve got me bang to rights.’ But despite the levity of the words, her tone was hard. She let her hands drop and for a second Mariner thought she might hit him, but instead her eyes narrowed a little. ‘Today of all days,’ she said, with great self-control. ‘How could you?’ And she turned and walked away. Mariner watched as Adam approached her, offering some comfort, and they both glared accusingly across at Mariner.

  It was time to go. But all the mineral water had caught up with Mariner and he went to find the gents. As he passed back through the room on his way out, afterwards, he couldn’t help noticing that Rachel was no longer standing with her husband. Instead she had moved across the room and was deep in conversation with Susan Brady.

  * * *

  ‘Let’s go to the crematorium,’ Mariner said, as he and Knox retraced their steps to the car.

  ‘She was cremated this morning, boss,’ said Knox, getting into the driver’s seat. ‘There’ll be no one there.’

  ‘I want to look at the flowers,’ said Mariner. ‘It might be interesting to see who’s left them. If our killer sent her some while she was alive, perhaps he’s done the same again now that she’s dead.’

  The floral tributes for Nina Silvero took up the whole of one bay, from modest wreaths to elaborate creations spelling out her name, but Knox and Mariner were the only ones there to see them.

  ‘What a waste,’ said Knox. ‘A couple of days and all this lot will be dead, too.’

  Mariner walked slowly along the line. ‘Look,’ he pointed out the wreath from Jack and Glenys Coleman. ‘The gaffer must have known Ronnie Silvero. That’s why he was in the church.’

  ‘Would he have worked with Silvero?’ Knox wondered, and Mariner realised that probably he would have done. The message on a nearby wreath was simple but unsigned: Cherished, loved and much missed. With a jolt, Mariner recognised the handwriting, but Tony Knox had already moved on, so no need to draw his attention to that one. There were no others that stood out, and certainly at this point no arrangements of dead flowers. Maybe Rachel Hordern was right and the sender had made a mistake with those. It had begun to drizzle again and Mariner caught up with Knox, who was sheltering inside the crematorium entrance where the book of remembrance lay open on this date for previous years. He stopped to scan the pages. ‘There’s a woman here in her twenties,’ he said to Knox, tracing his finger across the protective glass. ‘Makes you think about how little time you’ve got, doesn’t it?’

  ‘In that case, can we stop wastin’ time here freezin’ our arses off, eh?’ his sergeant retorted.

  ‘Yeah, let’s go and find a pub.’

  * * *

  They settled for a swift half at the Bell in Harborne, returning to Granville Lane in
the late afternoon. Mariner almost didn’t go back into the station, but changed his mind at the last minute. Up in his office he put through a call. Jack Coleman picked up on the third ring.

  ‘It’s Tom Mariner.’

  ‘Hello, Tom,’ after all this time Coleman didn’t sound in the least surprised.

  ‘I saw you at the service, didn’t I?’ Mariner said.

  Coleman’s tone was guarded. ‘I used to work with her husband.’

  ‘Can I come and see you?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning, after ten o’clock.’

  * * *

  Mariner drove out to Stourbridge on Saturday morning with mixed feelings. In many ways he still missed the old man. Jack Coleman was the reason he’d joined the police, and had been his boss when he started in CID at Granville Lane as a DC. They’d been through the ranks together, albeit Coleman one level higher, and forged a strong professional relationship. Mariner had always looked up to Coleman, who he considered to be the epitome of a good copper. The older man had also come to be the father figure Mariner had otherwise lacked. But Coleman’s behaviour yesterday had been odd. He must have known that Mariner would be there, so why had he disappeared so swiftly? And then there was the wreath.

  As he pulled into the drive the gaffer came to the door and seeing him close up reinforced Mariner’s fleeting impression from yesterday afternoon; that he looked older. Coleman seemed to have shrunk in the time since he’d retired, and there was a pallid tone to his complexion. In a hot rush of emotion Mariner thought, he’s ill. He’s got something awful and he hasn’t told me. That’s why he couldn’t face me yesterday.

  The thought merely compounded his guilt — he’d promised to keep in touch with Jack Coleman to keep him up to speed with what was going on, but this was the first time — second, if you counted yesterday — he’d seen him during the last year, and this was only because he wanted something from the old man.

  ‘Listen, I’m sorry I haven’t been out sooner,’ Mariner began, awkwardly, from the comfort of an armchair in the large, traditionally furnished lounge. Strange to see Coleman in this environment with all its flounces and frills. Stranger too, to have Jack Coleman making coffee for him, arranging it on the occasional table beside him and fussing over the coaster. His movements were slow and unhurried, giving weight to Mariner’s theory about an illness.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Coleman said, taking the sofa across from him. ‘I know what the job’s like, remember? Socialising isn’t a high priority. Still, you and Anna must come over sometime.’

  ‘Anna and I aren’t together anymore.’ It came out as a distressed cry, Mariner only then realising that Coleman didn’t know.

  ‘Oh?’ Coleman was confused. ‘I hadn’t heard.’

  ‘Why would you? We split just over a year ago,’ Fourteen months two weeks and three days, but who’s counting? ‘Just as we were bringing Goran Zjalic to justice.’

  Coleman shook his head wearily. ‘Oh, Tom, Tom, what did you do?’

  Mariner was affronted. ‘She walked out on me!’ But Coleman knew him too well and simply waited him out. ‘Okay,’ Mariner conceded. ‘I probably messed her about a bit. She wanted to settle down, house in the country, kids and all that.’

  ‘And you couldn’t make up your bloody mind,’ Coleman guessed. It was terrifying how well Coleman knew him. ‘How could you let her go? She’s bright and witty, and so good for you. You were made for each other.’

  ‘You should get yourself a slot on daytime TV,’ Mariner said, sulkily. He could have told Coleman about the miscarriage, but he knew that was only part of the problem.

  ‘I’m only stating what’s obvious,’ Coleman pointed out. ‘Any idiot could see it, apart from you apparently. She’s got someone else?’

  ‘A quack from Wales.’

  ‘Gareth what’s-his-face?’ Mariner had forgot that Coleman had been around when his rival first came on the scene. ‘You should have seen him off.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t,’ said Mariner. ‘So there we are.’

  Coleman gave a wistful sigh. ‘It’s a crying shame. I really liked Anna. And Glenys will be devastated.’

  So that makes two of us. There was a lengthy pause.

  ‘I was surprised to see you yesterday,’ Mariner said, moving the conversation around to where he wanted it.

  Coleman shifted in his seat and stared into his coffee mug. ‘Just paying my respects.’

  ‘You didn’t come to the bash afterwards, though.’

  ‘No.’ Coleman inspected his slippers. ‘I had to get back.’

  ‘I went to the crematorium afterwards,’ Mariner said, carefully. ‘I couldn’t help but notice the wreath.’

  ‘Nina was a friend of ours,’ Coleman said, evenly.

  ‘I mean the other one,’ said Mariner. ‘The one you hadn’t signed. Cherished, loved and much missed? That sounds like more than friendship to me.’

  Coleman gazed out through the windows at the freshly mown lawn. ‘I visited Nina a few times after Ronnie died. She was having a hard time. She’d just lost her husband, yet the press were still saying terrible things about him. She needed taking care of. One thing led to another . . .’ He tailed off and now Mariner understood partly why he looked so unwell.

  ‘Christ. Were you still . . .?’

  Coleman closed his eyes briefly and gave a shake of the head. ‘It didn’t last long, mostly because I still love my wife and Nina had loved her husband. I think it was just a little comfort that got both of us through a tough few months.’ He looked up at Mariner. ‘Glenys doesn’t know,’ he added. The question was in his eyes.

  ‘I’ve no reason to share that information with anyone,’ Mariner said. A thought occurred to him. ‘Do you remember once running into one of Nina’s friends while you were with her?’

  ‘We did have a couple of narrow scrapes, yes,’ Coleman admitted.

  ‘She introduced you as her cousin?’

  ‘I think that was how it went.’ Coleman rubbed a hand over his face. ‘I can’t get over what’s happened to Nina. It’s a terrible thing. Is it true, what was reported in the press, that she was forced to drink sulphuric acid?’

  Mariner nodded grimly. ‘There aren’t any signs of a struggle, so “duped” is looking more probable. Her killer brought along a doctored bottle of Chardonnay.’

  ‘Jesus wept.’ Coleman’s words caught in his throat.

  ‘It was nasty and personal,’ Mariner said. ‘Someone wanted to do Nina Silvero serious damage. Trouble is, no one we’ve spoken to yet has a bad word to say against her, so we’re left wondering who the hell would want to do it. There are people who will benefit financially, but it doesn’t seem to give us the right motive for such cruelty. How well did you know Ronnie Silvero?’ Mariner asked.

  ‘We worked together for a while at Steelhouse Lane — I was a uniformed sergeant when he was in CID.’

  ‘What was he like?’

  ‘Well, if he was still alive I’d have said that Ronnie himself could have been a target for this kind of attack. Nowadays he’d probably be tagged as a bully; sexist, racist and just about everything else-ist. Though of course back then we didn’t have to worry about things like political correctness. He was an old-fashioned copper; some of his methods might occasionally have been questionable, but he got the job done.’

  ‘He did all right too,’ Mariner remarked. ‘Made it to chief inspector.’

  ‘I said he was a bully, not that he was stupid. Ronnie was a shrewd strategist. He knew exactly how to behave in certain situations, and who were the important players,’ Coleman said, wryly. ‘Belonged to the right lodge.’

  ‘He was a Mason?’

  ‘Oh yes, he was thick with them. It all appealed to his sense of self-importance.’

  ‘Did you like him?’ Mariner asked.

  It was a leading question and one Coleman preferred to evade. ‘We worked okay together. I don’t think Nina or the daughter — what’s her name?’

  ‘Rachel.�
�

  ‘Of course, Rachel; that was it. Well, I don’t think they had an easy life.’

  ‘What about the investigation that was going on when Ronnie Silvero died? Do you know anything about that?’ Mariner asked.

  ‘I couldn’t help but know something. Despite what the media think, the death of a prisoner in custody is always regrettable and of course it caused a stir.’

  ‘Justifiably?’

  Coleman suddenly seemed uncomfortable. ‘As far as I understood it, the officers involved were doing their job and made decisions based on what they thought was the correct course of action at the time. You know how it is when something like this happens. Half the time you’re thinking, “There but for the grace . . .” That line between too much force and not enough is paper thin, and you know that as much as I do. Billy Hughes was asthmatic, but no one knew it. If they had, things might have been handled differently — or they might not.’

  ‘You think the CPS would have gone all the way with the prosecution?’

  ‘They had every reason to. Hughes’ family were applying a lot of pressure and had the press behind them, and the Butler report had just come out, criticizing the failure to prosecute in previous instances. This would have been a landmark case to demonstrate that things had changed.’

  ‘And Silvero definitely died of a heart attack?’ Mariner verified.

  ‘As opposed to what?’ As Coleman fixed his gaze on Mariner and the room temperature seemed to drop a couple of degrees.

  Mariner had seen that expression on Coleman’s face before, but rarely directed at him. It told him he was overstepping the mark, but it wasn’t in his nature to back off. ‘He must have been under a lot of pressure,’ he said, meaningfully.

  ‘Ronnie Silvero died of a heart attack,’ Coleman said, coldly. ‘Jesus, Tom. You think he could have staged that?’