by David Menon
It wasn’t easy trying to find his way through the tight space in competition with uniformed officers plus the forensics team. He looked down the shop. This would be the view that the victim would’ve had and she wouldn’t have been able to see much through the front window because of the rack of packed high shelves going down the middle. But even so, would she have noticed someone perhaps waiting suspiciously outside? Or did the murderer stride purposefully into the shop and do the deed before walking out again with equal confidence? It was a bright afternoon. There wasn’t much in the way of cloud formations in the sky but it was now starting to get dusk and the houses round and about were beginning to cast their imposing shadows. Why here? Why this particular woman?
Barton thought that the killer must’ve had some help. It could’ve been a car with a driver at the end of the road, ready to whisk the killer away. But someone had given them assistance otherwise how could someone have walked into an innocuous local shop and killed the owner in cold blood in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon in April for God’s sake? Then Barton turned as a familiar voice cut through his thoughts. The bright and open face of his old friend the pathologist Dr. June Hawkins was looking up at him.
‘Hello, handsome’ June greeted and then lifted her cheek for him to kiss it. ‘How are you?’
‘Plodding on’ Barton replied. ‘You know how it is’.
‘Yes, but I wish I didn’t’ June groaned. Her married lover hadn’t been able to get round to see her for a while and it was pissing her off. Not only because she actually liked him but he was also a bloody good fuck and she missed it. Her living room couch had never known such a prolonged period of inaction, let alone her bed. ‘Have you heard from Collette?’
‘Not since she went back to Australia’ Barton replied, although he really didn’t want to get into conversation about Collette Ryan of the Victoria police who’d been assigned to Barton’s team temporarily whilst they worked on a case that involved both countries. They’d quickly fallen into one of those flings based on instant attraction and which don’t come along often in life but when she had to go back to Melbourne they’d decided not to have any further contact. Once the case had been completed they’d had a great couple of weeks going here, there, and everywhere. But when push came to shove neither of them had been prepared to move to the other side of the world and neither could they handle a long-distance relationship which would’ve meant effectively living their own lives and only coming together when they could get time off and spending all their spare cash on air tickets. That wouldn’t have been a normal relationship as far as either of them were concerned. What happened between them had happened at the right time for them both and it had helped both of them to get through. It was a happy memory that they would keep forever but that’s as far as it could go. It had been classic when he’d dropped her off at Manchester airport to get her flight home. There’d been brave smiles, stifled tears, hugs that lasted just long enough not to turn into full embraces. Then after he’d driven off he’d parked his car a couple of miles down the road and watched her plane take off, climb into the sky and disappear into the high clouds. Twenty-odd hours later she’d texted him to say she’d arrived home safely. ‘We decided not to have any further contact. It’s best that way for all sorts of reasons’.
‘Shame’ said June. ‘She was a smashing girl’.
‘Yes she was and still is’ said Barton who then quickly moved things on. ‘So what have we got here, June?’
‘Well the first shot to her head would’ve killed her instantly making the second one to her chest an unnecessary finishing job. They wanted to make sure or make a point of some kind? Who knows but I’ll leave that to you professionals’.
‘Single gun, single type of bullet, single gunman?’
‘I would say so at this stage, yes’ said June. ‘But I’ll know more when I get her back to my lair’.
‘If only you knew how sinister that sounds’ said Jeff, smiling. ‘And how thoroughly menacing’.
‘Well I do it on purpose to send a shiver down your spine’ said June. ‘It’s the only chance I get to do that’.
‘Yeah, yeah but flattery I’m afraid will only get you a cup of pricey coffee and only if I’ve got my loyalty card with me so I pick up the points’.
‘Oh well, some girls have all the luck. I’m just not one of them. Anyway, here’s your DI to talk you through the rest of what’s known for now’.
DI Ollie Wright came into the shop and, as usual, he’d been Barton’s forward runner in getting to the crime scene. They’d worked together for some time now and it was a happy partnership both professionally and personally. They got on well and were gaining a reputation on the Greater Manchester force as an exemplary team.
‘Our victim is Maria Taylor, sir’ Wright announced. ‘Sixty-two years old. She lived here in the flat above with her partner Sylvia Clarke about whom there’s no sign at the moment but I’ve flagged up her car registration number on the system along with her bank and credit cards’.
‘Good work’ said Barton. ‘Any money taken?’
‘It doesn’t look like it, sir. The till is pretty full so I think we can rule out robbery as a motive even though it’s just off the main road making it easy for gangs to get from other parts of the city’.
‘There are no gangs of robbers in Didsbury then, Ollie?’
‘I didn’t mean that, sir’.
‘I know what you meant, Ollie’ said Barton who then smiled to get across that he had only been teasing. That was the only trouble with Wright. He could sometimes get a little bit uptight and not see the funny side of anything, however lame the joke was. He should’ve learned by now that he didn’t have to prove anything as far as Barton was concerned. He regarded Wright as one of the best officers he’d worked with. Okay, so he was a black police officer and a black gay one at that. So what? Barton was certainly no racist or homophobe. ‘Did both of the women drive cars?’
‘Yes, sir’ said Wright. ‘Maria Taylor’s Lexus 4x4 is parked outside. Sylvia Clarke drove a VW Golf which, like herself, isn’t here’.
‘So who called this in?’
‘A Mr. James Matthews who lives at number 4 which is the second of the detached properties on the cul-de-sac of Pennington Way just up the hill, sir’ said Wright. ‘He’s at home now and I’ve asked him to wait there for us. He’s pretty shocked though as you can imagine and it seems he’s close friends with Miss Taylor. Mr. Matthews wasn’t the first one to find her though. That was a Mrs. Loretta Greenfield who lives at number eight’.
‘Then we’ll need to speak to both of them’ said Barton. ‘Now did anybody see anyone suspicious hanging about?’
‘Nothing has been told to us yet, sir’ said Wright but it is very early days.
‘It was also the middle of the afternoon in a reasonably built up suburban area’.
‘Well we’ve started the house to house, sir, so let’s hope’ said Wright. ‘But there is one more interesting thing so far, sir. The wires leading to the two CCTV cameras, one outside the front door and the other just above our heads here and facing the counter, had both been cut. Somebody knew what they were doing, sir and didn’t want us to get a pretty picture of their face’.
‘Which means that our murderer was probably someone known to Miss Taylor?’ Barton mused. ‘Or it was some kind of professional job’.
‘But why would one woman in one suburban shop like this make such a lethal enemy?’
‘I don’t know’ said Barton looking round. ‘And what do you reckon to Sylvia Clarke’s absence?’
‘I think it’s too early to tell, sir. She may have just gone out for the day and doesn’t know that this is what she’s coming back to’.
‘She’s going to get quite a shock then’ said June Hawkins.
‘Well yes if she has nothing to do with what’s happened’ said Barton. ‘But would she return to the scene of the crime so soon if it was her? I doubt it’.
‘She might think it�
��s a good way of covering herself?’ June suggested.
‘Yeah, maybe. Ollie, at what time did Mr. Matthews call this in?’
DI Wright consulted his notes and then said ‘At 3.51, sir’.
‘And what time do you approximate for the time of death, June?’
June looked at her watch. ‘I’d say very shortly before 3.51’ said June. ‘It’s now a quarter to five. I’d say she’s been dead an hour, an hour and a quarter maximum’.
‘There’s no sign of a quick getaway either down here or in the flat upstairs, sir’ said Wright. ‘The wardrobes are full and to be honest the place looks absolutely pristine. It’s like it was all waiting for them to go back to once the day was over and they’d shut up shop’.
‘So did they work together in the shop?’
‘They apparently did, sir, yes’ Wright confirmed.
‘So why isn’t Sylvia Clarke here?’ Barton wondered. ‘Has she been gone all day?’
‘Nobody in the neighbourhood remembers seeing her at all today, sir, but they all confirm that the two women worked side by side in the shop and that it was unusual for one of them to be absent for a whole day’.
‘So why wasn’t she there today?’
‘Unless they were having problems, sir?’
‘Problems that lead to having half your partner’s head blown off?
‘I agree it sounds pretty out there, sir, but we’ve dealt with the results of bitter marital disputes before and we know the ending isn’t always pretty’.
‘Ollie, we need to look deep into the lives of these women and then deeper. We need to check everything out about them and not take anything for granted’.
‘Sir’ Wright acknowledged.
‘And I want Sylvia Clarke brought in for questioning. Put out an alert to that effect’.
‘She could be a victim too, Jeff’ June pointed out. ‘We just don’t know it yet’.
‘She could’ Barton agreed. ‘But Maria Taylor wasn’t murdered until late this afternoon and according to initial enquiries Sylvia Clarke hasn’t been seen all day which is regarded as unusual. So what’s the story? Where has she been and who has she been with? In the meantime, Ollie, I think we’d better go and speak to this James Matthews. Lead the way’.
‘How long have you known Maria Taylor, Mr. Matthews?’ asked Barton. He was looking at James Matthews who was sitting opposite him in the lounge of the Matthews’ home. His wife Diana was sitting in the armchair next to him but despite their close physical proximity they weren’t holding hands. What was all that about? Couples in this kind of situation usually showed some kind of comfort towards each other. Then there was the fact that James Matthews looked genuinely upset. It was written all over his face. Whereas his wife Diana just looked cross. She looked angry like she was annoyed at Maria Taylor for going and getting herself murdered. Was it an inconvenient time for Mrs. Matthews or something? Did she have other things that she should be getting on with?
‘We’ve known Maria and Sylvia since we moved here nearly ten years ago’ said James who still felt shaken up over what he’d seen in the shop. Not that his wife Diana was overflowing with care and sympathy. She was dealing with things in her usually cold, detached way. God, she could be such an only child at times. Unless something directly affected her she found it hard because she didn’t do empathy especially with the potential these particular circumstances carried for James and his wife. ‘We bought the house before I retired and spent all the time we could here until I did retire and then we moved back here permanently’.
‘And where was your last posting?’ asked Barton.
‘It was Moscow. I was there for ten years’.
‘That must’ve been interesting?’
‘Oh it was, very, but look, you’re not here to talk about my diplomatic career’.
‘So were you close to Maria Taylor?’
‘Yes, we were, we were very close’ James confirmed, almost tearfully. ‘They were coming over here tomorrow night for dinner’.
‘That would be Maria and her partner Sylvia?’
‘Well of course. Who else did you think I was talking about?’
‘And did that happen often?’
‘We cooked dinner for each other at least once a week’ said Diana Matthews, with a nod to her husband. ‘As my husband said we were close friends with Maria and Sylvia’.
‘So you would know if their relationship was having any problems of any kind?’
‘We would’ said James. ‘But they seemed perfectly alright’.
‘They were arguing a lot though lately, James’ said Diana, shaking her head and looking frustrated. James had always had a soft spot where Maria was concerned but it was too late for all that now. The cat could soon be out of the bag and if that did happen they’d have to keep their heads down low.
‘What do you mean by that?’ asked James.
‘Mr. and Mrs. Matthews, this is getting us nowhere’ said Barton who was growing steadily more annoyed by these two jokers. ‘Could you stop bickering at each other for just a moment and focus on the truth? So let me ask again, what was the state of the relationship, as far as you knew, between Maria and Sylvia in recent times?’
‘Well of course even when you know people well you never really know what goes on behind closed doors’ said James. ‘I wouldn’t want to cast aspersions but yes, they were going through some problems at the moment but I stick by what I said before about them being happy overall. I mean for God’s sake, what are you trying to make out of this?’
‘We don’t make anything out of what we’re told, Mr. Matthews’ said Barton. ‘We deal in facts and I’d have thought that someone with a professional background such as yours would’ve understood that’.
‘You don’t think that Sylvia had anything to do with this?’
‘We’re keeping an open mind until we know more’.
Diana rocked back and forth before blurting out. ‘Maria was a victim of domestic violence. Sylvia was hitting her’.
James swung round on his wife ‘Diana!’
‘It had to be said, James’ said Diana firmly and with that look in her eyes again that came from decades ago. It scared James. ‘We both knew it was happening’.
‘How long had it been going on?’ Barton questioned. He felt pleased that they were getting somewhere but the question remained as to why domestic abuse would turn to murder. He wasn’t convinced but it was all he had to go on for now.
‘A year, maybe two’ said James, wearily. ‘It wasn’t a regular occurrence. Sometimes they’d go for months without their rows turning violent. But I’ve no idea why it got that way’.
‘So it wasn’t like that when you first got to know them?’
‘No’ said James. ‘It wasn’t’.
‘And were they seeing anyone about their problems? Like a counselor for instance?’
‘Not to my knowledge, no’ said Diana.
‘And where has Sylvia Clarke been today, Mrs. Matthews?’ asked DI Ollie Wright.
‘How should I know?’ said Diana. Her mood was turning defensive. In Barton’s experience that meant she had more to say but didn’t want to say it. He’d already worked that out though from her earlier bursts of attitude. ‘I’m not her keeper’.
‘But you do admit to being close friends’ said Barton. ‘So did she mention to you where she was going today?’
‘I’ve already told you, no’ said Diana, firmly.
‘Mr. Matthews?’
James shook his head. ‘No, I’m afraid I don’t know’.
Barton was beginning to wonder if there were two agendas going on here and what exactly they were. Matthews and his wife didn’t seem to be speaking in unison and he made a mental note to seek out an opportunity to speak to Diana Matthews alone.
‘You’ve got to appreciate, detective, that the shop was an integral part of this local community’ said James Matthews. ‘Everybody is shocked to the core by what’s happened. Everybody liked Maria and had nothing agains
t her and Sylvia but if you believe that Sylvia had anything to do with this horrible act then either you’re better at your job than you give yourself credit for or I’m a very bad judge of character. And given the career I’ve had I don’t think either of those perspectives is correct’.
Barton didn’t know what to make of James and Diana Matthews. James Matthews had worked in a profession that had served his country but that didn’t mean to say that whatever he said was right or even trustworthy. Diplomats were known for their shadow boxing because it went with their profession but that didn’t explain why his wife Diana was clearly at odds with her husband on the current state of the relationship between Maria Taylor and Sylvia Clarke. Why was that? What had split the perspective between man and wife on this issue?
