Jason’s car was still in our garage at Halifax, emblazoned with stickers saying that it was evidence and not to be touched. Fingerprints had found the last three digits of the number on the windscreen when they gave it a good going-over, hoping to find evidence that Marie-Claire had been in there. The numbers were meaningless, so no action was taken on them. “It’s a phone number for someone who lives in the Sylvan Fields,” I told Les Isles, over a coffee in his office.
“So it probably starts with eight-three, followed by an unknown number,” he stated.
“Which narrows it down to ten possibilities.”
An hour later BT had furnished me with five names and addresses, and after fifteen minutes with the electoral roll I found myself drawing a big circle around 53, Bunyan Avenue; home of Edward and Vera Jackson, and their daughter Dionne.
I rang the number, but it was engaged. Les had left me to have a meeting with somebody, so I wrote him a note and headed for the exit. They have a visitors’ signing in and out book at HQ and a young man in a Gore-Tex waterproof was bent over it. He looked at his watch and entered his leaving time in the appropriate column.
“Could Mr Isles help you, Mr Hollingbrook?” the desk sergeant asked him.
“Not really,” he replied. “he was very kind, as always, but said that all he could do was have a word with the coroner. He has to make the decision.”
He slid the book towards me and I put ditto marks under the time he’d written.
“I’m afraid that’s always the case,” the desk sergeant stated. “But the coroner’s a reasonable man, and I’m sure he’ll do what he can. I’d have liked to organise a lift back for you, but everybody’s out at the moment.”
The visitor was Marie-Claire’s husband, I gathered, come in to ask about the release of his young wife’s body for burial. He only looked about twenty. I caught the sergeant’s eye and said: “I’ll give Mr Hollingbrook a lift, Arthur. No problem.”
“There you are, then,” he said, and introduced me to the visitor. We shook hands without smiling and I opened the door for him.
His first name was Angus. He was twenty-four years old and a student of civil engineering at Huddersfield University, sponsored by one of the large groups that specialise in motorways and bridges. Marie-Claire had died on the Saturday or Sunday of the holiday weekend, while he was seconded to Sunderland to help in the replacement of an old stone bridge over a railway line by a modern pre-stressed concrete structure. He’d come home on Wednesday and found her body. I told him that I wasn’t on the case, but I was interested because the assault was similar to the one on Margaret Silkstone at Heckley, back in June. I explained that we had somebody else for that murder, but there was a possibility that Marie-Claire’s was a copycat killing. That was the official line, so I stayed with it. No point in stirring up the gravel with my own private paddle just yet. There’d be plenty of time for that: there’s no statute of limitations on murder.
“Lousy weather,” I said as the windscreen wipers slapped from side to side.
“Mmm,” he replied, not caring about it, his thoughts with the beautiful girl he’d loved, wondering if he’d ever forget her or find her like again.
“It’s next left, please,” he said.
I slowed for the turn, then stopped to allow a bus out. It said Heckley on its destination board. The driver waved his thanks to me and when he was out of the way I turned into Angus’s street.
“It’s the last house on the left,” he told me.
They were Victorian monoliths in freshly sand-blasted Yorkshire stone, with bay windows and stained-glass doors, built for the middle-management of the day but now converted into flats or lived-in by extended families. The street was lined both sides with parked cars, because, like the pocket calculator, nobody predicted the advent of the automobile.
“This is rather grand,” I said, parking in the middle of the road.
“It is, isn’t it. We just have the top floor. Marie loved it. Great big rooms and high ceilings. Lots of room for her hangings — she was in textile design — but a devil to heat. We…” He let it hang there, realising that there was no we anymore.
“Will you stay?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No, no way. Our lease runs out at Christmas but I don’t think I could stay that long. We’d wondered about buying it, but it didn’t come off. Fortunately, now, I suppose.”
A car tried to turn into the street, but couldn’t because I had it blocked. Angus opened the door and thanked me for the lift. “No problem,” I replied, and drove round the corner, out of everybody’s way.
John Bunyan would have loved the avenue they named after him on the Sylvan Fields estate, although the satellite dishes would have had him guessing. He’d have called it the Valley of Despondency, or some such, and had Giant Despair knocking seven bells out of Christian and Hope all along the length of it. I trickled along in second gear, weaving between the broken bricks, sleeping dogs and abandoned babybuggies until I found number 53. At least the rain had stopped.
The front garden looked as if it had hosted a ploughing match lately, but the car that evidently parked there was not to be seen. I took the path to the side door and knocked. The woman who answered it almost instantly had an expectant look on her face and a Kookai carrier bag in her hand. She wore a tight leather jacket with leggings, and her halo of hair faded from platinum blonde through radioactive red to dish-water grey.
“Mrs Jackson?” I asked, holding my ID at arms length, more for the benefit of the neighbours and my reputation than the woman in front of me. I had a strong suspicion that male visitors were quite common at this house.
“Er, yes,” she replied, adding, as she recovered from her initial disappointment: “’Ave you come about the fine?”
“No,” I replied, “I haven’t come about a fine. I believe you have a daughter called Dionne.”
“Yes,” she said. “What’s she done?”
“Nothing,” I told her, “but we believe she may have recently witnessed something that will help us with certain enquiries. When will it be possible for me to speak to her?”
“You say she ’asn’t done nowt? She’s just a witness?”
“That’s right. She may be able to clear something up for us. When will she be in?”
Mrs Jackson turned, shouting: “Dionne! Somebody to see you,” into the gloom of the house, and stepped out on to the path. “She’ll be up in a minute,” she told me. “I ’ave to go to work.”
“Well,” I began, “I would like to talk to your daughter on her own, but because of her age she is entitled to have a parent with her.”
“But I don’t ’ave to be, do I?”
“No, not really.”
“Right, I’ll leave you to it, then. Bye.” She staggered off down the path, her litter-spike heels clicking and scraping on the concrete.
When daughter Dionne appeared she was wearing a tank top whose shoulder straps didn’t quite line up with those of her bra and the ubiquitous black leggings. She was whey-faced, her hair hastily pulled together and held by a rubber band so it sprouted from the side of her head like a bunch of carrot tops. Hardly the sex bomb I’d expected. Her expression changed from expectancy to nervousness as I introduced myself.
“May I come in?” I asked, and she moved aside to let me through. I took a gulp of the chip-fat laden atmosphere and explained that she was entitled to have a parent present but as my questions were of a personal nature she might prefer to be alone. The carpet clung to my feet as I walked into the front room and looked for a safe place to sit. The gas fire was churning out more heat than an F14 Tomcat on afterburner and in the corner a grizzly bear was laying about a moose with a chainsaw, courtesy of the 24-hour cartoon channel. Dionne curled up on the settee as I gritted my teeth and settled for an easy chair. There was a plate on the table, with a kipper bone and skin laid across it.
“Kipper for breakfast,” I said, brightly. “Smells good.”
“No,” she replied, her attention half on me, half on the moose who was now minus his antlers, “that was me mam’s tea, last night.”
I decided to axe the preliminaries. “Right. Your mother said she was off to work. Where’s that?” I asked.
“Friday she cleans for someone,” Dionne replied. The moose was fighting back, holding his severed antlers in his front feet.
“What else does she do?”
Dionne wrenched her attention from the screen and faced me. “I don’t know what they get up to, do I?” she protested.
“I meant on other days,” I explained. “Does she have a job for the rest of the week?”
“Yeah, ’course she ’as. She cleans for a few people. Well, that’s what she calls it. Posh people. A doctor an’ a s’licitor, an’ some others.”
I looked around the room, taking in the beer rings on every horizontal surface and the window that barely transmitted light, and tried to recall the proverb about the cobbler’s children being the worst-shod in the village. “And what about your dad, Dionne?” I asked. “Where’s he?”
“’E left us, ’bout two weeks ago.”
“Oh, I am sorry.”
“Don’t be. ’E’ll be back, soon as ’is new woman finds out what ’e’s like.” The moose had gained the initiative and the bear was in full flight.
“Can we have the telly off, please,” I said, and she found the remote control somewhere in the sticky recesses of the settee and killed the picture.
“Thank you. Four weeks ago,” I said, “On the Friday night of the holiday weekend, you were out with a boy. He says you can give him an alibi for that night. Can you?”
“Dunno,” she replied. “What was ’e called?”
“I was hoping you would tell me. You met him at the Aspidistra Lounge, and he brought you home.” She looked vacant, so I added: “You called at the brickyard on the way,” not sure if that would narrow the field.
“Friday? Of the ’oliday weekend?”
“That’s right.”
“Does ’e look a bit like Ronan in Boyzone?” she asked. “Y’know, dead dishy?”
“He’s a good looking lad,” I admitted.
“Yeah, I remember ’im. ’E’s called Jason. I can give ’im a nalibi for Friday night, if that’s what you mean.”
“Good, thank you. Did you arrange to see him again?”
“Yeah, but ’e ’asn’t rung me.”
“You gave him your phone number?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you write it down for him?”
“No, well, yeah. We didn’t ’ave a pen, so I writ it on the front window of ’is car, in the steam. Mebbe it got rubbed off.”
“Perhaps it did. When you were talking to Jason did you mention your father at all?”
“No,” she replied. “Why should I?”
“I thought you might have mentioned, for some reason, that your father was a policeman. Did you?”
Her podgy face turned the colour of my white socks after I washed them with my goalie sweater, and one hand went to her mouth to have its nails nibbled.
“It’s not a crime, Dionne,” I assured her. “You’re not in trouble for it, but I’d like to know what you told him.”
“’E’s a bit dense, isn’t ’e,” she stated. “Jason? Yes,” I agreed, “he does have a few problems in the brain department, like not being able to find one. Go on, please.”
“Well, it were like this. We were just passing ’Eckley nick — the cop station — an I said: ‘Me dad’s in there.’ Someone, a cop, ’ad rung me mam, earlier that night to say that ’e’d been done again for drunk and disorderly an’ they were keeping ’im in t’cells until ’e sobered up. ’E was jumping up an’ down in t’fountain, or summat, but I didn’t tell ’im that.”
“And what did Jason have to say?”
“’E got right excited, daft sod. ‘What, your dad’s a cop?’ ’e said. ‘Yeah,’ I told ’im. ‘’E’s a detective.’ ‘Blimey!’ ’e said. That’s all. I think it…you know.”
“Know what?”
“Nowt.”
She clammed up, and I knew she’d reached some indeterminate limit that I wouldn’t push her past no matter how hard I tried. Everybody has one. I could only guess what she’d been about to say. That Jason became excited at the thought of shagging a detective’s daughter? Probably.
“That’s very useful, Dionne,” I told her. “And then you went to the brickyard, I believe.”
“Yeah.”
“Right. Now this is where it gets a bit personal, I’m afraid. Not to put too fine a point on it, Dionne, and not wanting to pry into your private life, I have to ask you this: did the two of you make love that night, at the brickyard?”
“Yeah,” she replied, as readily as she might admit to sneaking an extra chocolate biscuit. “We did it in the front of ’is car.”
“Right,” I said, nodding my approval at her answer, if not her morals. “Good. And can I ask you if he wore a condom?”
“Yeah, I made sure of that.”
“Good. I don’t suppose you remember if you did it more than once, do you?”
“Yeah, we did it twice. ’E was dead eager.” I swear she blushed again at the memory, or maybe the gas fire was reaching her.
“And he had two condoms with him, had he?”
“No just one, but I ’ad one. We used mine the second time.”
“Very wise of you to carry one,” I told her. “You can’t be too careful, these days.”
“You’re telling me,” she said, swinging her legs off the settee and facing me. “You won’t catch me risking it. Did you know,” she asked, “that when you ’ave sex with someone it’s like ’aving contact with everyone that they’d ever ’ad sex with? Miss Coward told us that in social health education. Put the wind up me, it did. So if you ’ave sex with, say, ten people, its like you’ve really ’ad it with a ’undred.”
“Gosh!” I exclaimed.
“An worse than that, if you did it with twenty, that’s like doing it with four ’undred. Four ’undred! In one go! Can you believe that?”
“No,” I admitted. “It’s frightening. But I’ll say this, Dionne: you’re good at maths.”
“Yeah, ’S’my best subject. Nobody cheats me.”
“Good for you. So, when you’d finished, you know, doing it, what did Jason do with the condoms?”
“What did ’e do with them?”
“Mmm.”
“Well, what d’you think?”
“You tell me.”
“’E just dropped ’em out of the window, that’s all.”
And when you’d gone, I thought, somebody waiting in the shadows picked them off the dew-laden grass, and the following day he smeared their contents on the rapidly cooling thighs of Marie-Claire Hollingbrook.
“Thanks, Dionne,” I said, rising to leave. “You’ve been a big help.” I couldn’t dislike her, or feel anything bad about her. Just sorrow for the world she’d grown up in. At the door I said: “These condoms you carry. Are you embarrassed when you buy them, like I am?”
“No,” she replied. “I pinch them out of me mam’s ’ and-bag.”
I smiled and flapped a wave at her, and walked back to the car, wondering how on earth I could have confused her with Sophie, my beloved Sophie. Cursing myself, hating myself, ashamed of myself. Les Isles wasn’t surprised when I phoned him to say that he probably had the wrong man. He’d wondered about something like this, but Jason was still number one in the frame. “Let’s just say that our enquiries are continuing,” he admitted.
I could help you there, I thought, but I held my tongue. Instead, I drove all the way back to Halifax, to the street where Angus Hollingbrook expected to live happily- ever-after in a dream home, until his wife was murdered. He’d removed their name from the little space at the side of the bell, but there were only two of them and I assumed that the top one was for the upstairs flat. Sometimes you have to make these judgements.
I pressed the button several times, retreating to the gate after each burst and looking up at the windows. Eventually I saw a face and he gave me a wave of recognition. “Sorry to trouble you, Angus,” I told him when he opened the door, “but a thought occurred to me. Can we have a word?” His eyes were rimmed with red and he was wearing a dressing gown over a T-shirt and jeans.
“I was having a snooze,” he said. “Come in.” Halfway up the stairs he turned to say: “It’s a bit of a mess. They allowed me back in a week last Monday, but I haven’t done anything. I’m still finding grey powder all over the place.”
He opened a door and we moved into a big white-walled room that could have been the annex to a gallery. Half of the wall opposite the window was covered with a hanging that had me spellbound. It was a kaleidoscope of textures in all the colours of the moors, changing and drifting as cloud shadows passed over the earth’s surface and the wind stirred the heather. “That’s gorgeous,” I whispered as I stood before it, smelling the wet peat, hearing the call of a curlew.
“That’s all I have of her now,” he said. “That and some photographs.”
“Your wife was a very talented lady,” I told him, relieved that we’d brought her into the conversation but hating myself for it.
“Would you like a coffee, Inspector?” he asked.
“No thanks, Angus. I’ll just ask you a couple of questions, then get out of your way.” He gestured for me to sit down and I sank into a chromium and leather chair that was surprisingly comfortable. How it would feel after an hour was another matter, because there was nowhere to hook your leg, loll your head or balance a glass. The room didn’t have enough stuff in it to look untidy. Everything was cleancut almost to the point of being clinical, but they’d started from scratch and stayed with a style. Only the wall hanging brought a touch of softness to the room, and I suspected the contrast was deliberate, to increase its impact.
“The grey stuff you keep finding is aluminium powder,” I explained, glad to be on familiar territory. “The fingerprint people use it. The particles are flat, like tiny platelets, so they don’t distort when it’s lifted with sticky tape.”
“I thought it must be theirs,” he said, lowering himself onto a matching chair. “So, er, what is it you wanted to ask me?”
“When we were sitting in the car,” I began, “you said that you and Marie were considering buying this place. I’d like to know how far you went along that route.”
He looked puzzled, shrugged his shoulders, opened his mouth to speak and closed it again. He was upset because another cop was bandying his wife’s name — his dead wife’s name — as if he’d known her for years. I’m afraid there’s no way around that one. “It was Marie’s idea,” he said. “I wasn’t keen because I’m not earning much, just expenses, and Marie’s earnings were erratic, so we weren’t a good risk for a mortgage.”
“So who did you approach?” I asked.
“Well, we, er, tried all the building societies,” he told me, “but they didn’t want to know.”
“Here in Halifax?” I asked. Home of the daddy of them all. Once they were a mutual society, existing for the benefit of members, whether they be investors or borrowers. Now they are part of the big conspiracy, doing it for shareholders and the Great God Profit.
“Yeah.” He gave a little smile at the memory. “You know how it is,” he went on, “these days they’ll give you a loan to have the cat neutered, as long as they’re sure they’ll get their money back, or that you don’t really need it. Everybody was very polite, but they were all sniggering behind their hands. We wanted a repayment mortgage, because of all the trouble we’d read about with endowment policies, but nobody would give us one. ‘Open an account and come back in two years’ was the best offer we had.”
“So what did you do?”
“Nothing. Marie cut some adverts out of the papers and sent away for an application form, but when I explained to her that a secured loan meant that it was them that were secure, not us, she lost interest.”
“Who was that with?”
“No idea. Some company I’d never heard of.”
“Which papers do you take?”
“The Telegraph, usually, but I switch around a bit. Oh, and the Gazette.”
“The Halifax edition of the Gazette, I presume.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“No tabloids?” I asked.
“No, not usually.”
“And did she receive the application form?”
“Yes. I didn’t want to send it back, but Marie said it couldn’t hurt to find out what they offered.”
“And would they give you a mortgage?”
He shook his head. “We didn’t hear back from them, and then…”
And then all this happened. “Do you still have any covering letter that came with the application form, or the advert from the paper?” I asked.
“I imagine so.”
“I’d be grateful if you could find them for me.”
“Why, Inspector? What’s it all about. You’ve caught the…the person who killed my wife, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” I replied. “A young man has been charged, as you know. Let’s just say that I’m following a certain line of enquiry. These days it’s not enough to prove who did the deed, we have to show that nobody else could have done it. We have to pre-empt any suggestions by the defence that another party, a mysterious unknown party, could be involved. You’d never believe the stories they’ll concoct to sow a few seeds of doubt in the jurors’ minds.” And I’m not bad at concocting a few of my own, I thought.
He believed me and went to find the documents. I wondered if there was a room next door where they kept everything: piled up to the picture rail with cardboard boxes, over-flowing bin liners and bulging suitcases, but he was back in thirty seconds, carrying a thin file. “They should be in here,” he said, pulling a sheaf of papers from it.
They weren’t. I recognised a couple of bank books, an insurance policy and what looked like their tenancy agreement, but there was nothing relating to a mortgage application. “Sorry,” he said. “Marie must have thrown it away. Like I said, I tried to discourage her.”
As I walked back to the car I saw another Heckley bus leaving the kerbside, the front of it swinging out only inches from the car parked adjacent to the stop. I caught up with it on the climb out of town, and tucked in behind.
It did the grand tour, leaving the main road to call at every village, dropping off pensioners who’d strayed past the cheap fare deadline, picking up schoolchildren who had stayed behind and office workers carrying briefcases and shopping. When the bus stopped, I stopped. When it crawled up hills, I dropped into first gear and followed it. When it swooped down into the valley, swaying wildly and leaving a cloud of dust and gutter debris billowing in its wake, I hung back, waiting for the disaster that never came.
It took nearly an hour to reach the outskirts of Heckley, where I abandoned the chase, turning off the ring road near a fast bend where a tattered bunch of plastic flowers and a teddy bear marked the spot where young Jamie What’s- his-name died, three months ago. Why would anyone want to commemorate such a place? It’s one of those little mysteries that haunt my sleepless nights, like why do Volvo cars have their lights on during daylight hours, but Volvo lorries don’t? I parked in a lay-by, near a fingerpost that said: Footpath to Five Rise Locks. It was twenty-five minutes past five, but good ol’ Dave Sparkington was still at his desk when I rang him. A little bit of me was wishing that Annette would answer the phone, but it was Dave I needed right then.
“It’s past your home time, Sunshine,” I said. “What are you up to?”
“I’m doing police work. What are you up to is more like it.”
“You’d never believe me. Listen, I’m at Five Rise Locks and could be in that pub called the Anglers in five minutes. It’s two for the price of one before six. Did I hear you say that Shirley had gone to her mother’s today?”
“I’ll be about half an hour. See you there.”
Evidently she had. “What about the kids?” I asked.
“Never mind them, I’m on my way.”
“OK, but don’t be late, I’m famished.”
“I’m coming.”
I strode up the hill to the canal side, where five locks in rapid succession lift the waterway a hundred feet, and crossed over by the footbridge. A narrow-boat was waiting for a companion, before moving up to the next level and sending ten million gallons of water in the opposite direction. The people on the boat wished me a good afternoon and the smell of their cooking made me feel even hungrier. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Turn left to the Anglers, a hundred yards away, right towards Mountain Meadows, home of Tony Silkstone, less than half a mile up the towpath. I looked at my watch and headed right.
There were two pot-bellied ponies in the paddock between his house and the canal, and one of his neighbours was using a strimmer or a chainsaw, or some other implement with an engine that made more noise than horsepower. Further along, four cormorants were perched in a dead tree, one of them spreading his wings to catch a brief burst of afternoon sun, the others hunched like judges. The fishermen are always writing to the Gazette to complain about the cormorants eating all the fish. The birds have been driven inland because there is nothing left for them in the coastal waters, their natural habitat, and the anglers are too dumb to realise that if there were no fish in the canal the cormorants would leave. The birds are just better at catching them than they are. I think they’re cormorants, but they might be shags. I checked the time again and started back towards the pub. Halfway there I saw Silkstone’s car coming up the lane at the other side of the field. Maybe he’d join us, I thought.
Dave pulled into the car-park at the same time as I arrived, and uncurled his bulky frame from the car. “What’s the difference between a cormorant and a shag?” I asked him as we walked in together.
“A cormorant and a shag?”
“Yep.”
“Um, is it that you don’t feel like a cigarette after a cormorant?” It was gloomy inside, but warm and friendly, even though it was a large place, recently given a makeover, and we were the only customers. A young woman in uniform blouse and skirt greeted us as if we were an endangered species and asked what we’d like. Here to serve you said the badge on her blouse and a blackboard behind the bar told us that the guest beer was Sam Smith’s.
“Pint of Sam’s?” I suggested, and Dave nodded his agreement. “Make that two, please,” I said, and she started pulling the pints, lifting them on to the bar after a few moments while the froth subsided.
“Will there be anything else, sir?” she asked.
I studied the chalked-up menu. “Yes, please. We’d like to order some food. Is it still two for one?”
The young woman looked at the clock. “Yes sir. Which table are you at?”
As we’d just walked in and were standing at the bar, I wasn’t sure of the answer to that one. Dave came to the rescue. “Over by the window,” he said, pointing, and the girl said it was table number twelve.
“Twelve,” I repeated. “Remember that, Dave. Number twelve.”
“Twelve,” he said. “Right. Twelve.” “What would you like, Sir,” she asked, still smiling.
“Er, I think the gammon and pineapple,” I said, “with a jacket potato, and, um, the half a chicken, again with a jacket potato.”
She tapped the order into the till. They don’t have numbers on the keys, these days. Instead it says: chicken and chips, egg and chips, ham and chips, ham eggs and chips, and so on.
“Is that everything?” she asked, her finger poised over the give them the bill key.
“No,” Sparky interjected. “I’d like some food, too. I’ll have the steak and kidney pie and…oh, half a chicken, both with chips.”
It’s hungry work, being a cop, and we’re growing lads.
Saturday morning we told Silkstone that we’d be interviewing him again on Monday, so come prepared. I had long conversations with Mr Wood and Les Isles and they both agreed with what I was doing. Les wanted to be present, but we haven’t worked together since we were constables and I gave it the thumbs down. Besides, I wanted Dave with me. Dave and I go together like rhubarb crumble and custard, or mince pies and Wensleydale cheese. Mmm! There’s none of this nice and nasty routine with us; we’re both our normal, charming selves, most of the time. In the file I found an advert for Silkstone’s company, Trans Global Finance, clipped from the Gazette. It said: Can’t get a mortgage? Low earnings? County court judgements? No problem! Secured loans available on all types of property. Send for an application form. Now! More or less what I’d expected.
Sunday I went through it all, over and over again. Sometimes in my mind, sometimes scrawling on an A4 pad. I don’t have hunches; I don’t follow lines of enquiry. Not to start with. I gather information, everything I can, without judgement, as if I were picking up the shattered pieces of an ancient amphora, scattered on the floor of a tomb. Some bits might link together, others might be from a completely different puzzle. When I’ve gathered them all in I join up the obvious ones, like the rim and the handles, and then try to fill in the gaps until I have something that might hold water. Ideally, when I have a possible scenario in mind, it would be possible to put it to the test, devise an experiment, like a scientist would. But liars and murderers are not as constant as the laws of physics, and it’s not always possible. Instead, we turn up the heat and hope that something cracks.
“Did you know, Mr Silkstone,” I said as Dave and I breezed into interview room number one, ten o’clock Monday morning, “that you have very good water pressure at Mountain Meadows?”
Prendergast looked up from the pad where he was adding to his already copious notes, shook his head and continued writing. Silkstone, sitting next to him, looked bewildered and reached for his cigarettes.
Dave removed the cellophane from two cassettes and placed them in the machine, watching them until the leader tape had passed through and nodding to me to say we were in business. I sat diagonally across from Silkstone and did the introductions, reminding him of his rights and informing him that he was still under caution. When prompted, Prendergast said that they understood.
“Let’s talk about Margaret, your late wife,” I began. “Word has it that you quarrelled a lot. Is that so?”
Silkstone drew on his cigarette and sent a cloud of smoke curling across the table. “No,” he replied. “We had an occasional argument — what married couple doesn’t? — but that was all.”
“What, no vicious slanging matches? No slinging your clothes out of the bedroom window?”
“Inspector,” Prendergast interrupted. “This sounds like hearsay to me.”
“Of course it’s hearsay,” I agreed. “We talked to the neighbours: they heard it and they said it. It’s a simple enough question, let Mr Silkstone answer.”
Silkstone sucked his cheeks in and licked his lips. “That was nearly two years ago,” he replied. “It only happened once, like that.”
“What was it about?”
“Money.”
“You were having problems?”
“No, not really. We just had to be a bit more careful than Margaret was used to.”
“But it’s true to say that you stand to prosper by Margaret’s death, is it not?”
Prendergast shook his head vigorously and banged his hands on the table. “That’s a preposterous thing to say, Inspector,” he exclaimed. “My client did not profit in any way from his wife’s untimely death.”
Addressing Silkstone, I said: “But your mortgage will be paid off to the tune of a hundred and fifty thousand pounds, won’t it?”
“Yes,” he hissed, “but that’s perfectly normal practice.”
“Indeed it is,” his solicitor affirmed. “My own mortgage is covered by a joint life, first death policy, as is anyone else’s if they have any sense. You can’t call that evidence.”
“No,” I agreed, “but we can call it motive.”
“In that case, we all have motives to murder our spouses, and they us.” He sat back in triumph.
“Would you say, Mr Silkstone,” I asked, “that you and Margaret had a normal sexual relationship?”
He looked straight at me, then said: “I don’t know, Inspector. How would you define a normal sexual relationship?”
“OK, let me put it another way. Were you and Peter Latham having joint sessions with your wife, three in a bed, that sort of stuff?”
“No.”
“You married sisters, didn’t you? And you shared girlfriends, in the past. Latham had known your wife as long as you had. Was he the one who used to pull the birds, and you always ended up with the friend? Were you sharing her — Margaret — with him?”
“No,” he said, and crushed his cigarette stub into the ashtray.
Prendergast leaned forward, saying: “This sounds like pure conjecture on your part, Inspector. Have you any evidence to corroborate these suggestions?”
“Evidence?” I replied, shaking my head. “No. Not a shred.” I pulled the report that the lab scientist had done for me from its envelope, pretended to read the introduction, then pushed it back inside.
“No,” I repeated. “We don’t think you were having a three-in-a-bed sex romp that went wrong. It was a theory, but we have no evidence to support it.” I glanced sideways at the big NEAL recorder on the wall, seeing the tapes inside relentlessly revolving, making a copy of the words that passed between us. I’m a student of human behaviour, body language. When people lie they resort to using certain gestures: hands fidget and often cover the face; legs are restless; brief expressions are quickly suppressed. But Silkstone was chain smoking, and that has a language all of its own, disguising his real expressions. I was relying on the tape to unmask him.
“We have another theory now,” I began. “And this time we do have some evidence. This one says that Peter Latham wasn’t present when Margaret died. He’d left, shortly before. This one says that you, Anthony Silkstone, killed her all by yourself.” They were both silent, stunned by the new accusation, wondering what the evidence could be. Sadly, it wasn’t much. Prendergast shifted in his chair, about to come out with some double-speak, but I beat him to it. “Let’s go back a week,” I continued, “To when you came home and found Latham and Margaret together. You are on record as saying that you went straight upstairs to the bathroom. Is that correct?”
“That’s what I told you,” he replied.
“The family bathroom?”
“Yes.”
“And what did you do there?”
“I had a piss, washed my hands and went back downstairs.”
“Really? Are you sure you didn’t see something floating in the water in the toilet, Mr Silkstone?”
He reached for his cigarettes and made a performance of lighting one. It wasn’t a smooth performance, because the flame from his lighter was flickering about, magnifying the shaking of his hand. My hand would shake if I were being grilled for a murder. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replied.
“Are you sure you didn’t see a used condom in there, Mr Silkstone? The one that Peter Latham had discarded and tried to flush away after having sex with your wife, earlier that afternoon?”
“Inspector,” his brief said, interrupting. “You mentioned evidence. Will you be offering any, or is this another fanciful tale without any substance?”
I pulled the report from its envelope again. “I talked to someone,” I said. “A life-long philanderer, and he told me that when you deposit a French letter down the bog you have to be very careful to ensure that it goes right round the bend. He went into great detail on how to do it.” I smiled and said: “We meet some terrible people in this job.” I didn’t mention that I was talking about a fellow DI. “So,” I continued, “we did some tests. Last Thursday, while you were here, we dropped a condom down the toilet in your upstairs family bathroom and flushed it. Then we repeated the experiment a hundred times. To simulate used condoms we squirted a couple of shots of liquid soap into each one.” I slid the report across the desk. “That’s your copy. As you will see, it takes one minute and forty-three seconds for the cistern to fill again. That’s very good. Each of the condoms went out of site, round the bend, but then, lo and behold, a few seconds later thirteen of them popped back into view. Just like the one that Latham had used did.”
Prendergast looked across the table as if he’d just witnessed me kick an old lady. A very old lady. “Is this what you call evidence?” he asked, waving the report. “This!”
“It’ll do for the time being,” I replied.
“May we go now?” He rose to his feet. “Or have you some other fairytale to amuse us with?”
Silkstone blew another cloud of smoke across the table. I held his gaze and refused to blink, although my eyes were watering. “Sit down,” I said. “I haven’t finished.” Prendergast scraped his chair on the floor and sat down again.
“What did you do with it?” I asked Silkstone.
“Do…with…what…Inspector?” he asked, enunciating the words, chewing on them and enjoying the taste. He was growing cocky.
“The condom.”
“There was no condom.”
“I think you took it downstairs. After drying it off, of course. You wrapped it up in, say, cooking foil, and placed it in the fridge. At the back, behind the half-eaten jar of pesto and the black olives.” There was a flicker of recognition across his face as I recited the contents. I do my research. “At that stage all it meant to you was proof of your wife’s unfaithfulness. Maybe you were pleased to have the evidence or maybe you were devastated by it. Which was it? Pleased or devastated?”
“It didn’t happen.”
“But as the days passed,” I continued, “you thought of a better way to use it, didn’t you? And a week later, after Latham had gone home, you murdered your wife, did things to her that she wouldn’t let you do when she was alive — maybe you couldn’t do them while she was alive — and then went round and stabbed Latham to death. After, of course, leaving the contents of the condom on Margaret’s body. That’s what happened, isn’t it?”
Now he looked nervous, scared, drawing on the cigarette before deciding it was too short and fumbling in the ashtray with it. Prendergast said: “Your theories become more fanciful by the minute, Inspector. Now, if you have nothing to offer that bears the imprimatur of the truth, I suggest we bring this farce to an end.”
I gave Dave the slightest of nods and he leaned forward, elbows on the table, thrusting his face towards Silkstone. “Tell us about Marie-Claire Hollingbrook,” he said.
“Never heard of her,” Silkstone replied, switching his attention to his new adversary.
“She was murdered in circumstances remarkably similar to Margaret’s death. A month ago, on the Saturday before you did your sales conference.”
“I’ve read about it, that’s all.”
“Bit of a coincidence, though, don’t you think. Latham couldn’t have done this one; he was dead.”
“Sergeant,” Prendergast interjected. “The modus operandi of Mrs Latham’s murderer was in all the newspapers. As you know, certain sick individuals often emulate murders they have read about.”
“It’s constable,” Dave said.
“I’m sorry. Constable.”
“That’s all right. And as you know, Mr Prenderville, sex offenders rarely stop after the first time. They get a taste for it, go on and on until they are caught.” He turned towards Silkstone. “Is that what you did? Get a taste for it? It was good was it, that way? You strangle them, I’m told, until they lose consciousness, then let them revive and do it all over again. And again and again. Is that what you did to Margaret, and then to Marie-Claire Hollingbrook?”
Silkstone looked at his brief, saying: “Do we have to listen to this?”
Prendergast said: “Let them get it off their chests. It’s all they can look forward to.” He wanted to know how much, or little, we knew. And maybe, just maybe, he had a wife and daughters of his own, and was beginning to wonder a little about his client. Not that it would interfere with the way he handled the case. No chance.
“You’d done the perfect murder,” Dave told Silkstone. “Got clean away with it. OK, you might have to do a year in the slammer for killing Latham, but the nation’s sympathy was with you and it was a small price to pay for having all your problems solved.” He paused to let the situation gel in their minds, then continued: “But the urge wouldn’t go away, would, it? And when the application form from Marie — Claire plopped on your desk, it became too much to bear. What did it say? Name of applicant: Marie-Claire Hollingbrook. A lovely name, don’t you think. Makes you wonder if she’s as attractive as it sounds. Age: twenty-one; occupation: self-employed textile designer. Young and clever. It’s more fun humiliating the clever ones, isn’t it? Daytime telephone number and evening telephone number identical, so she must work from home. And then the same questions about her partner. Age: twenty-four; a student; and, would you believe it, not available during the day. You’d committed the perfect crime once, what was to stop you doing it again? Did you ring her at first, to see when her husband would be there? Or, hopefully, not there?”
“BT are checking all the phone calls,” I interjected.
“Or did you just visit her on spec? Which was it?”
“You’re mad,” Silkstone replied.
“She invited you in and you asked to see the letter you’d sent her, and the advert from the Gazette. You carefully folded them, placed them in your pocket, and then the fun started. Except it wasn’t much fun for that girl, because you were better at it by then, weren’t you? And when you’d finished, you left your trademark: the semen you’d collected the night before, from the brickyard.” Dave sat back and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
I said: “On the day of the murder none of your neighbours saw you leave home in the car, but you were seen out walking. There’s a bus route from the other side of the canal to near where Marie lived. We’re tracing everybody who used the route that day. Also, we’ve appealed for anyone who was at the locks to come forward. Prints of your tyres have been taken and will be compared with those we found at the brickyard. If you’ve ever visited there you’d be wise to admit it, now.”
They sat there in silence, Silkstone with one arm extended, his fingers on the table; Prendergast upright, hands in his lap, waiting. The smoke from his client’s cigarettes was layering against the ceiling, drawn there by the feeble extractor fan, and shafts of light from the little armoured glass window shone through it like searchlight beams.
“Is there anything you wish to say?” I asked him.
“Yes, you’re a fucking lunatic,” he snapped.
“Inspector,” Prendergast began, placing a hand on his clients arm to silence him. “These are very serious allegations you are making. My client admitted killing Mr Latham, as we all know, but now he is being accused of these other crimes. First of all the death of his wife, the woman he loved, and now a completely unrelated murder. Either you must arrest my client and substantiate the charges against him, or we are leaving.”
“No,” I said wearily. “We won’t be arresting him.” I turned to the man in question. “Do you remember Vince Halliwell?” I asked.
“Who?” he replied.
“Vince Halliwell. He was in Bentley Prison same time as you, doing ten years for armed robbery. Says you had a chat on a couple of occasions.”
“I never heard of him.”
“What about Paul Mann?”
“Never heard of him, either.”
“He’s what we call a nutter. Poured paraffin over his girlfriend and hurled their baby out of a seventh story window. Said it was an accident and is appealing against sentence. He got a double life, with twenty- and thirty-year tariffs. Claims he dropped the baby, but unfortunately for him her body was found forty feet from the foot of the building. Kevin Chilcott, known as the Chiller, you ever hear of him?”
“No.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
“That’s strange. Someone paid him fifty thousand pounds to kill me, and we thought it was you. Paul Mann arranged it, or is supposed to have done. Nasty people in prison. Wouldn’t think twice about cheating a fellow inmate, especially one who thought he was a bit cleverer than them. Still, if it wasn’t you there’s nothing lost, is there? Fifty grand! Phew! I thought I was worth more than that.”
That’s the bit we should have had on video. Silkstone’s eyes narrowed and his face paled as all the blood drained from it. He crushed the empty cigarette packet in his hand and for a second I thought he was going to come over the table at me. Accuse him of rape, murder, buggery and he can handle it. Suggest that a bunch of no-hopers have cheated him out of his nest-egg and you really hit a nerve.
“Interview terminated at…eleven-oh-two,” I said, and pushed my chair back.
Dave and I trudged up the stairs in silence. He went to fill the kettle and I sat at my desk. There was a note saying that the SOCOs had failed to find anything useful at either of the houses. I closed my eyes and leaned back, massaging my neck to ease the tension in it. The door opened and I thought it was Dave, but it was Annette’s voice that said: “Shall I do that for you?”
I grinned at her. “I’d love you to, but it might look bad. People would get the wrong idea.”
“That’s their problem.”
I shook my head. “No, it’s my problem. You leave this?”
“Yes. Came through ten minutes ago. Sorry.”
“Damn.”
“What did Silkstone have to say?”
“Nothing. We told him everything we knew, he told us nowt.”
“Everything?”
“Nearly everything. We didn’t mention Caroline Poole.” I pointed at her note, saying: “I was hoping this might give us some ammunition.”
Dave came in with two coffees and placed one in front of me. “’Spect you’ve been drinking all morning,” he told Annette, by way of apologising for not making her one.
“Most of it,” she agreed.
“So what do you think?” I asked him.
“About Silkstone?”
“No! About Annette drinking coffee all morning.”
He had a long sip, then said: “He did it all, as sure as shit smells. There’s no loose ends, no coincidences, no far-fetched theories. It all ties in, perfectly. You might not convince a jury, Chas, or even Annette and she hangs on your every word, but you’ve convinced me.”
Annette’s cheeks turned the colour of a Montana sunset. I said: “Well, that’s a start. It gives us something to build on.” I felt like the Leader of the Opposition, after being wiped-out by a landslide.
They fought back and they fought dirty. We had the tape transcribed and sent a copy to Superintendent Isles. As I left the office that evening I was confronted on the steps by a reporter and a photographer. I referred them to our press office and fled. Tuesday, Dave and I had a meeting with Les Isles and Nigel at their place, and they made sympathetic noises but agreed that we weren’t any further forward. Les’s big problem was what to do with Jason Lee Gelder. He eventually decided to keep him inside for the time being, which I interpreted as a vote of no confidence. The HQ team was reconvened, however, and diverted to investigations that might place Silkstone near the lock or on a bus, that Saturday afternoon. As long as someone was in jail, the press would keep off our backs. That was the theory. As theories go it ranked alongside the one about the world being carried on the back of a giant tortoise.
Wednesday I decided to go in early and start the day with breakfast in the canteen. I wasn’t sleeping well, too much on my mind, and it’s a good atmosphere in there, early in the morning. The place is warm and steamy, loud with banter and fragrant with the smells of crispy bacon, sausages and toast. It’s a good way of meeting the troops — the PCs who do all the real policing — and I always leave with high blood-sugar levels and a smile on my face, armed with a couple of new jokes to tell the boys. Except it didn’t work out that way.
I was still at home, having a mug of tea and listening to Classic FM when the phone rang. It was Sparky. Sparky ringing me at six thirty means only one thing: he can’t sleep, either. “Tell me all about it,” I sighed.
“You seen TV AM this morning, Charlie?” he asked.
“No.” Sad though my life was, I still had a bit left before I was that low.
“Just before the news headlines they do a round-up of all the papers,” he explained. “I usually watch it, just to catch up.”
“And…” I prompted.
“Well, this morning, you’re all over the front page of the UK News.”
“Eh? Me? Why, what does it say?”
“I’ll see you in the office, and bring one in with me.”
“I could collect one at…”
“No,” he interrupted. “You’d better go straight in. Believe me, it’s not nice.”