‘But the motive doesn’t transfer,’ Millie said. ‘What possible reason could either Rachel or Susan have for terrorizing Lucy Jarrett? There’s no indication that they’re even casually acquainted.’
‘Do we know that for sure?’ Mariner’s question was met with silence. ‘They’re all around the same age,’ he went on. ‘We need to check that out. Aside from them, the strongest lead we’ve got for Nina Silvero is Billy Hughes’ family.’ He described what he’d learned about the past case to Millie and Glover.
‘They certainly have reason to hold a grudge against Nina Silvero, but again it doesn’t tell us where Lucy fits in.’ Glover said.
Mariner rubbed a hand over his face. ‘Maybe we’re looking for a connection that doesn’t exist.’
‘But these exist all right, boss,’ Knox picked up the flowers. ‘Same MO; could be a coincidence. But same wording on the notes? It has to be more than that.’
‘Ronnie Silvero was a Mason,’ Mariner said. ‘But we probably shouldn’t hold that against him.’
‘Paul Copeland was a Mason too,’ said Millie.
‘Paul Copeland?’
‘Lucy’s father.’
Mariner scrabbled around his desk until he found his notes from the Billy Hughes file, and flicked through until he found the right page. ‘Gotcha,’ he said. ‘I knew I recognised the name. Paul Copeland was a lawyer on the public enquiry into Billy Hughes’ death. Which brings us back again to the Hughes family. I think we need to pay them another visit. Meanwhile, keep plugging away on the leads we’ve already got and we’ll convene again later today.’
* * *
On the way out to West Heath, Mariner slammed on his brakes as a car shot out in front of him at a mini roundabout, allowing access from yet another brand-new housing estate. He only just missed the offending vehicle and blared his horn and gesticulated.
‘You’re meant to give way to traffic from the right, moron!’ he yelled.
‘Don’t think he heard you, boss,’ said Knox drily.
The development was not dissimilar to Lucy Jarrett’s estate; a mixture of detached executive properties, three-storey town houses and flats, with wrought iron balconies.
‘Where do all the people come from to live in these places?’ Mariner said. ‘They’re springing up everywhere. What used to be there?’
‘Some factory, wasn’t it?’ Knox said.
‘That’s right. What was it?’ No doubt yet another product that Birmingham could no longer boast. ‘They must have knocked these up pretty smartish. It only closed a couple of years ago.’
When they got to the address Tracey Hughes had given them they found a semi-detached, a generation or two older than Tracey’s own. As Mariner parked up along the street, a car pulled onto the drive. The Hughes family were just returning from a shopping trip; two couples in late middle-age and another younger man, late forties or fifty. While three of the older Hugheses clambered out of the vehicle, laden with numerous high street store carrier bags, the younger man went round to the remaining passenger door where he helped out the fourth passenger, passing to him the two walking sticks necessary for mobility. Mariner and Knox watched and waited until everyone was in the house, allowed five minutes for good measure, then went and rang the bell. The younger man answered it, and this time when Mariner produced his warrant card, only his speedy reflexes prevented the door from being slammed in his face.
‘I understand Mr and Mrs Hughes are staying here,’ Mariner said, keeping his foot firmly in place.
‘What do you want with them?’ The man was short and stocky with big shoulders and a thick neck, his eyes close together in a podgy face.
‘And you are?’ Mariner asked.
‘Their son.’
‘Ah, Billy’s brother, George, I presume. I need to talk to your parents about the death of Nina Silvero.’
‘This week of all weeks? You know what you can do.’ Hughes pushed against the door but Mariner held firm.
‘I understand that this is a difficult time, Mr Hughes,’ Mariner said, calmly. ‘But if we don’t do it now we’ll have to come back. All we need to do is eliminate them from our enquiries. Then we can leave you in peace.’
An older man appeared, white haired and in checked shirt and cardigan. ‘What is it, Georgie?’
‘They’re coppers. Want to talk to Mum and Dad.’
The man was resigned. ‘Let them in, son. Let’s get this over and done with.’
He stepped aside, but George Hughes made sure his presence was felt while Mariner and Knox talked to his parents. Refusing to sit, he stood glowering in the corner of the room across from where the two policemen sat on the sofa. Neither Eric Hughes, who appeared to be in the early stages of Parkinson’s disease, nor Eva, a mild woman, small and quietly spoken, appeared to object to the visit.
‘I felt sorry for her,’ Eva said, of Nina Silvero. ‘She’d lost her husband, hadn’t she?’
‘Sorry for her?’ interjected Hughes junior. ‘Fuck it, Mum. After what he did? And she stood by him, denying that he’d done anything wrong, while my little brother lay dead in the morgue. I’m glad she’s dead, and I hope she suffered in the way that our Billy did.’
‘Don’t talk to your mother like that,’ barked Eric Hughes, his speech slightly slurred.
‘Did you go to Nina Silvero’s house after your brother died?’ Mariner asked George.
‘I think you know the answer to that one,’ Hughes spat.
‘So it was you who put a brick though her window?’
‘We weren’t going to get any comeback any other way, were we? You lot, you all close ranks and cover one another’s arses. It was a whitewash. Our Billy was dead and nobody gave a toss. Is that what you’re here for, to charge me with criminal damage twenty years too late? You lot must be desperate for something to do.’
‘Is that the last time you went there?’ asked Mariner.
‘What are you getting at?’ Hughes’ eyes narrowed.
‘I’m asking if you have approached Mrs Silvero more recently, insinuated your way into her house and ensured that she suffered the same agonising death that Billy did.’
‘I haven’t been near the place in twenty years.’ Hughes was defiant. ‘I’d hardly thought about her until now.’
Mariner noticed the folded newspaper on the coffee table. ‘You get the Mail regularly do you?’
‘June and John get it,’ said Eva. ‘They send it on if there’s anything interesting.’
Mariner fixed his gaze on George. ‘Like Nina Silvero’s MBE announcement? That must have hurt.’
‘It made me sick,’ said George, with disgust. ‘Fucking MBE. What’s she done to deserve that?’
Mariner nodded slowly, understanding. ‘So much anger and resentment,’ he said. ‘It’s been festering away all this time, hasn’t it? And the twenty-year anniversary of your brother’s death might be just the right time to get justice, as you see it, once and for all.’
‘Georgie?’ Eva Hughes cast a doubtful look at her son.
‘Where do you live, Mr Hughes?’ Mariner asked.
‘Down south with Mum and Dad. I got made redundant.’
‘Where from?’
‘The Rover.’
‘And what did you do there?’ Mariner persisted.
‘I was in the paint shop.’
Mariner turned to exchange a brief glance with Tony Knox. ‘What were you doing last Sunday evening between seven thirty and midnight?’ he asked Hughes.
Hughes laughed and shook his head in disbelief. ‘You’re so way off beam, it’s a joke. You haven’t got a clue.’
And Hughes, it transpired had a pretty good alibi. His parents confirmed that the family had all gone for a meal with other relatives, including his sister Tracey, at a local restaurant. ‘About twenty other people and all the staff in the restaurant can confirm it,’ Hughes finished, smugly.
‘Although there was nothing stopping him from slipping out for half an hour,’ Mariner said to Kn
ox, as they were walking back to their car.
Chapter Fifteen
Mariner was home a little late that evening, and as he pulled into the service road leading up to his house, he came to a halt behind an Audi TT bearing personalized plates. As he walked into the lounge, Giles jumped to his feet immediately. In the light Mariner had a better opportunity to study him, and gallingly he was even better looking than Mariner remembered. He matched Mariner for height and was lean and athletic looking, from what Mariner could tell through the well-cut jeans and pink candy-stripe shirt. They both remained standing, two stags weighing each other up, but despite what had happened at their previous meeting, it was Giles who ended the stand-off. He had manners. ‘Hello again, sir.’ The confidence and enunciation screamed of a public school education. The ‘sir’ underlined both the breeding and Mariner’s age.
Mariner took a few seconds to arrange the bullet between his teeth, then he clamped down hard on it. ‘Look, I’m sorry about Saturday night,’ he said. ‘I jumped to some conclusions—’
‘Apology accepted,’ Giles cut him short. ‘I admit that I was pretty hacked off at the time, but I know what kind of life Kat had before she came to stay with you, and I understand that you were only looking out for her.’
‘Still, I made some assumptions about you that I shouldn’t have,’ Mariner said.
‘Occupational hazard, I suppose,’ Giles smiled. ‘Really, it’s fine. Forget it.’
‘Thank you,’ Mariner said, awkwardly. He took the small evidence bag from his pocket. ‘And you can have this back. I didn’t get around to having it tested.’
‘Cheers.’ Giles took it from him and pocketed it.
Mariner gestured for Giles to sit, and they took up places opposite each other. ‘I’m not sure that Kat will be so quick to forgive,’ he said. ‘She wants to move out.’
‘I think she’s wanted to for a while,’ said Giles. ‘She just didn’t know how to tell you.’
‘Well, I’ve certainly given her the opportunity now. She’s moving in with you?’
‘No.’ Giles seemed surprised. ‘It’s not like that. I think she wants her own place, close to one of her friends at the centre.’
‘Oh.’
‘She’ll get over this, sir,’ Giles reassured him. ‘She worships the ground you walk on, talked about you non-stop when we first met. It’s her opinion that you quite literally saved her life.’
Mariner nodded. Gratifying though it was, he wasn’t sure of what to say to that.
Once again Giles rescued him. ‘We’re going out for dinner. If that’s okay.’
‘Of course.’ Mariner nodded. For an awful moment he thought Giles was going to invite him along, but thankfully he didn’t. That would have made for an uncomfortable evening. ‘So what is it that you do for a living, Giles?’ he asked.
Giles visibly relaxed, on safer ground. ‘I’m in merchant banking, for my sins. It’s something of a family tradition.’
That and polo at the weekends, Mariner guessed. At least it went some way towards explaining the affluence.
Kat rescued them from further awkward small talk, appearing at the top of the stairs. She looked frail yet stunning, dressing again to show off her best features, and Mariner wanted to rush over and cover her up. Instead he just said, ‘Have a good time,’ as he got up and saw them out, hoping that his smile didn’t look too forced. On her way past Mariner Kat leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. Giles was right (again). They’d get over it.
On his own again, Mariner felt restless. He phoned Tony Knox, with a view to a possible early evening drink, but caught his sergeant on his way out to the pictures with Jean. ‘Want to come, boss?’ Knox offered, but Mariner had no intention of playing gooseberry with Knox and his date either.
Instead he got a sheet of paper and divided it into two columns, Nina Silvero heading up one, Lucy Jarrett the other. Then he listed everything he knew about the two women, highlighting any possible connections between them. By midnight the paper was a mess of scribblings and arrows, but aside from a few question marks, he’d found nothing to connect the two.
* * *
On Wednesday morning Mariner drove in early and caught up with Tony Knox in the car park. ‘Good film?’ he asked.
‘It was okay,’ Knox conceded. ‘Jean liked it. I spent most of it racking my brains to work out what Nina Silvero and Lucy Jarrett have in common.’
‘You and me both,’ said Mariner. They climbed the stairs to find Millie already in CID along with Rick Fraser from forensics, who was outside Mariner’s office, hopping from foot to foot like an errant schoolboy waiting to see the head teacher. It was a comical sight given that Fraser was a bear of a man, red faced with explosions of wiry ginger hair above each ear and fringing a completely bald dome of a skull.
‘Sack cloth and ashes, Mr Mariner,’ he said, sheepishly passing Mariner a manila folder. ‘You should have had this a couple of days ago, but I wanted to tie up the loose ends before I gave it to you.’
‘This is the crime scene report?’ Thanking him, Mariner took the folder. ‘Can you stick around in case we’ve got any questions?’
‘Of course.’ Fraser followed Mariner and Knox into Mariner’s office, where Millie joined them too.
Sitting behind his desk, Mariner opened the report and scanned it quickly. ‘It’s as we thought,’ he said eventually, glancing up at the three on the other side of his desk. ‘The wine bottle had been rinsed, leaving no traces of white wine, or paint stripper. Two wine glasses had also been recently used and rinsed. Looks as if it played out just as we surmised.’
Knox nodded, thoughtfully. ‘So the killer comes to the door with a celebratory bottle of wine, they go into the kitchen, two glasses poured.’ He mimed the pouring of the wine. ‘They toast the MBE.’ He raised his imaginary glass . . .
‘And the killer hesitates, allowing Nina Silvero to drink the fatal mouthfuls, while he watches,’ Mariner added.
‘Then he tips the rest of the paint stripper down the sink, rinses the bottle and his own glass, puts that glass away again and takes out the plastic drain fluid bottle containing the residue of the paint stripper, and leaves that on the table.’
‘There’s nothing else?’ Mariner was disappointed. These results only confirmed what they’d already worked out.
‘In case you’re interested,’ Fraser added, helpfully, ‘the wine was part of a batch sold at Sainsbury’s in Selly Oak between December last year and February this year. And there is one more thing,’ he said, tantalisingly. ‘We’ve got a latent lifted from the base of the bottle.’
‘There’s a fingerprint?’ Mariner remained cautious. ‘I thought the bottle had been wiped clean.’
‘So did we,’ Fraser grinned. ‘The killer must have overlooked it. In all the areas where you’d usually hold the bottle — the neck and body — it’s been wiped, but the killer slipped up. There’s a single print on the base of the bottle that’s been missed. It probably got there when the bottle was first picked up in the supermarket to examine the label. Do you mind?’ Millie was clutching a bottle of water. With her consent, Fraser took it from her, placing it on Mariner’s desk. He then picked up the bottle, grasping it around the neck with his right hand, and resting the base on the fingertips of his left hand to demonstrate. Satisfied that they’d all seen, he held up the index finger on which the bottle had been resting. ‘And that’s the print that was overlooked.’
‘It’s not Nina Silvero’s?’ Mariner allowed himself a glimmer of hope.
‘Definitely not,’ said Fraser, with an emphatic shake of the head.
Mariner hardly dared ask. ‘Is it one we’ve got on record?’ The print was useless if it wasn’t already on file.
Three pairs of eyes fixed on Fraser. His face broke into its crooked grin. ‘Indeed it is. Of course it may not mean anything,’ he cautioned. ‘If that’s the explanation for how it got there, anyone could have picked up the bottle from the supermarket shelf prior to the killer, t
hen changed their mind and put it back again, but—’ he broke off and shrugged.
‘Come on then,’ Knox’s impatience was beginning to show. ‘Give us the worst.’
‘The print belongs to a Martin Bonnington — of number sixteen, Hill Crest.’
‘Jesus,’ Mariner said.
‘You know him?’ Knox wrinkled his nose, the information meaningless to him.
‘Hill Crest is where Lucy Jarrett lives,’ Millie put in. ‘Number sixteen is just across the road from her house. I rang the bell there when she had a parcel delivered, but there was no one home.’
‘So we’ve got ourselves another coincidence,’ said Knox.
‘And I’d say a possible suspect,’ Mariner added. ‘Do you know what Bonnington’s on our books for?’ he asked Fraser.
‘About three years ago, he had an injunction out against him, to stop him harassing a female work colleague,’ Fraser told them.
‘Which makes him well worth a look for Lucy Jarrett,’ Mariner said. ‘But where does Nina Silvero come in?’
When Fraser had departed with promises of a pint next time they were in the pub, Mariner brought up Bonnington’s record on his PC, Millie and Knox standing at each shoulder. ‘Do you recognise him?’ he asked Millie, as Bonnington’s mugshot appeared.
She shook her head. ‘I haven’t seen him around there. When I rang the bell at his house there was no vehicle in the drive, though I did get the feeling that there could have been someone in the house. Also, I think Lucy must know him too, at least just to say hello to. I’m sure that at the time she said, “That’s Martin’s house.”’
The file didn’t tell them much else, only that just under three years previously Bonnington had been accused of harassing a woman called Claudette Vernon, who had subsequently made a complaint to the police. Officers had gone to see him, at a different address from his current one, and presented him with the injunction. Bonnington, it appeared had initially protested his innocence, and then been penitent and had accepted the court order. Brian Mann had been one of the officers involved and Mariner made a note to go and talk to him about it. He printed off copies of Bonnington’s photograph, hoping that it was still a good likeness.
Married Lies (Reissue) Page 20
