by M. B. Shaw
Evidently Graham must have painted a more tactful, positive picture to Ariadne for her to be able to ‘exhale’ about Billy.
‘I think having the funeral over and done with has helped as well,’ Ariadne went on. ‘It does offer some sort of closure.’
‘Yes,’ said Iris. ‘Although I imagine it must be hard to move on with the murder still unsolved…’
Ariadne stopped folding for a moment – just a beat – then resumed her work in silence, without looking up.
‘It was lovely to see so many people at the service,’ said Iris, changing tack in response to the unspoken but distinct shift in mood.
‘It was,’ Ariadne agreed. ‘Dom was very much loved.’
‘Graham said there were lots of old Oxford friends there.’
‘Yes.’ Ariadne kept folding.
‘And your father made it, which must have been nice for you. It can’t be easy travelling long distances at his age.’
At last Ariadne looked up. ‘Do you know my father?’
It was almost an accusation. Having hit a nerve, Iris tried to make light of it, while at the same time hoping to trigger some sort of revelation from Ariadne, some chink in the armour or crack in the façade.
‘Oh no, not really,’ she said. ‘We said hello, that’s all. Your friend Harry Masters pointed him out to me.’
‘I see.’
Ariadne turned back to the clothes pile. If she felt any emotion at all, she took pains not to show it. After another awkward silence, she suddenly turned to Iris and asked casually, ‘How long do you think you’ll want to stay on at the cottage?’
The question was a surprise. Ariadne’s voice was its usual soft, gentle, sing-song self, yet Iris couldn’t help but detect a veiled threat in her inquiry, a menacing edge that hadn’t been there before.
‘I hadn’t really thought about it,’ she replied. ‘Did you want the cottage back?’
Ariadne shrugged. ‘At some point, I suppose. It’s more that now that the portrait’s finished, I imagine you’ll want to return to your own life.’
And stop asking awkward questions, thought Iris.
‘Actually, I’m perfectly happy here for the time being. I’m still painting. I’ve just done a sketch for Harry Masters, as it happens, in return for some piano lessons.’
‘Yes. He mentioned it,’ said Ariadne casually.
‘Perhaps I could paint you one day, Ariadne?’ said Iris.
‘Me?’ Her eyes widened. ‘Oh, I don’t think so. You did a wonderful job with Dom’s portrait, but that was for a reason. Dom was a well-known writer. Why would anyone want to do a portrait of me?’
‘Well, it’s like you said,’ said Iris. ‘A good portrait should capture someone’s essence. How did you put it? “Pin them down.” It’s about finding a truth and recording it. Preserving it. From my perspective, you’re every bit as fascinating as Dom was.’
Ariadne smiled stiffly. ‘You’re very kind, Iris. But I wouldn’t want to be painted. Dom was always the extrovert, happy to be on show. I’m not like that. Not at all.’
Ain’t that the truth, thought Iris.
‘Thank you for bringing the painting.’
It was a dismissal. Not rude, but equally not open to interpretation.
‘Of course. I’ll let you get on.’
Iris smiled and walked towards the door.
Ariadne called after her, ‘And I’ll let you know on the cottage. Once I decide what I want to do with it, going forward.’
So it wasn’t an empty threat, thought Iris. Ariadne Wetherby genuinely wanted her out.
She must be closer to the truth than she’d realised.
* * *
‘Are you writing this down, young man? ’Cause if you ain’t writing it down, I’d like to speak to whoever’s in charge. This is evidence, this is. It might be important.’
The rude, overweight woman leaned forwards across DI Cant’s desk, her pasty arms quivering grotesquely like the thick, fatty layers on a pork chop. Her whole face seemed to wobble when she spoke, as if made of some ghastly, partially set milk jelly. As if, warmed only slightly, she might melt into a rotten, sickly puddle of self-righteousness, right there on Cant’s office floor. Beside her sat a silent stick-insect husband, whose facial expression seemed to have been permanently set to defeat. Poor bastard, thought Cant. Imagine being married to that blob.
‘I’m in charge of the investigation into Mr Wetherby’s murder, Mrs Jones,’ Cant responded curtly. ‘I’m not taking notes because in a moment I’m going to ask my sergeant to take down a full statement from you and your husband.’
The woman harrumphed in a vaguely mollified manner.
‘In the meantime I want to make sure I’ve understood you correctly,’ said Cant. ‘Are you certain that the car you saw belonged to the man you saw arguing with Dominic Wetherby?’
‘That’s what I said, isn’t it?’
‘You actually saw the man driving?’
‘Not driving. He was parked up on the lane, but we saw him get out, didn’t we, Bob?’
The stick insect nodded obediently.
‘He hops over the gate and sets out across the field. Marches right up to Mr Wetherby and starts having a go at him.’
‘Verbally?’ Cant raised an eyebrow. ‘Or physically?’
‘You what?’ Mrs Jones looked confused.
‘Was the man shouting at Mr Wetherby or hitting him?’ Cant asked patiently.
‘He was pushing him. Waving ’is arms about. I daresay he was shouting, but we couldn’t hear much, could we, Bob, on account of the wind?’
‘And you’ve described the man as tall and thin, wearing a black Barbour jacket and boots?’
‘And a hat. One of them trendy woolly hats without a bobble.’
‘A beanie?’
Mrs Jones shrugged, an unspoken ‘If you say so.’
‘He was having a go at Wetherby, and Wetherby was having a go back, and they sort of scuffled a bit, and then Wetherby walked away.’
‘So this man let him go?’
She nodded. ‘He was shaking his fists and that. He wasn’t happy. But yeah.’
‘And there’s nothing else you remember about him?’ asked Cant. ‘Nothing you can tell us about his face, his age?’
‘Don’t you think I’d have told you if there was?’ Mrs Jones said rudely. ‘What I’m telling you is, this bloke looked like he wanted to kill Dom Wetherby. Isn’t that enough?’
Cant sighed. ‘Unfortunately, there are a lot of tall men wandering around Hampshire wearing jackets and hats.’
‘I remember the car,’ the downtrodden Bob piped up for the first time, earning himself an astonished look from his wife. ‘It was a Volvo XC90.’
Cant visibly brightened. That, at least, was information they could use.
‘Are you sure, sir?’
The little man nodded. ‘Silver. L-reg.’
‘Thank you, Mr Jones. That’s very helpful.’ Cant smiled. ‘I’ll have my sergeant look into it.’
‘Is that it?’ The gelatinous Mrs Jones sounded as if she’d been cheated. ‘You’ll “look into it”?’
‘Yes.’ Cant stood up, signalling the interview was over. ‘The more detail you can give to my sergeant in your statements, the higher our chances of finding this man. If only to rule him out of our inquiries.’
‘Rule him out?’ Mrs Jones looked as if she might be about to explode. ‘Why would you want to rule him out? We reckon he did it, don’t we, Bob?’
Cant opened his office door and forcibly ushered her through. ‘Thank you again for coming in. Goodbye, now.’
After the Joneses had gone, Cant sat back down at his desk. It was a lead. A genuine lead, and a new one. He’d have been happier if it had pointed directly to Billy Wetherby, whom he still felt was their most likely suspect. But beggars couldn’t be choosers, and at this point in the investigation, DI Cant needed all the help he could get. There was, after all, a theoretical chance that someone other than Billy W
etherby had killed Dom. But with no arrests, no charges brought and no physical evidence to go on other than the chloroform in the body itself, the case was growing colder by the hour. And Roger Cant’s career was cooling with it.
Meanwhile he still had the media second-guessing him at every turn, not to mention the meddlesome Iris Grey, who only yesterday had called his office to complain that she thought she was being followed and that she was afraid her mysterious ‘stalker’ might be connected in some way to Dom’s murder.
‘Perhaps it’s a ghost, Ms Grey,’ Cant had replied scathingly. ‘The same one that Lorcan Wetherby’s been telling us about, the white ghost of Mill House.’
‘I’m serious, Detective Inspector,’ said Iris.
‘So am I,’ said Cant. ‘I don’t suppose it’s occurred to you that if you’d mind your own business and go back to painting or whatever it is you do, no one would have any reason to follow you?’
‘So you’re not going to do anything?’
‘About what, Ms Grey? You haven’t given me any evidence of any crime having been committed. I can’t send my men down to police your woman’s intuition.’
Cant knew that making an enemy of Iris yesterday probably hadn’t been smart. She and that slick lawyer friend of hers, Graham Feeney, were just the type of posh know-it-alls who would like nothing more than to make him look foolish and incompetent.
He needed a break.
Could the dreadful Mrs Jones’s mysterious man-in-the-field be it?
* * *
Iris stepped out of the shower and dried herself off. Fastening the towel turban-style over her newly washed hair, she rubbed moisturiser all over her body before stopping to take a critical look in the mirror.
She’d never loved her body. It was too boyish, too straight up and down to be considered beautiful, at least in Iris’s opinion. On the other hand, having never had children, she still had the smooth, flat stomach of a woman in her twenties, and her boobs, by virtue of their smallness, were still round and relatively sag-free. Could be worse, she thought. Like the rest of my life.
Everything was pluses and minuses. No baby: minus. Blossoming career: plus. Collapsed marriage: minus. Meeting Graham: plus. Moving to Mill Cottage: that was a tough one. Lots of things about Hazelford and getting to know the Wetherbys had been a plus, and yet clearly Dom’s murder was a terrible thing, a destabilising thing. In an awful, ironic way, though, Dom’s death had helped to bring Iris back to life. It had awakened something in her – a curiosity, an intelligence, a courage – that had been asleep for so long, she’d forgotten she ever had it.
Brushing her teeth, her thoughts returned again to her encounter with Ariadne this morning. When was Iris going to give up the cottage? When was Iris going to go away, to move on? To ‘mind her own business’, as DI Cant had so crassly put it when Iris made the mistake of ringing him yesterday. Why on earth she’d imagined for a second that Cant would help her, or take her seriously about being followed and spied on, she couldn’t imagine now. The man was a sexist idiot, with all the imaginative breadth of an amoeba. But the truth was, Iris was frightened. Living here alone, in this isolated spot, far from help should she need it and with, one had to assume, Dom’s killer still out there somewhere on the loose.
Unwrapping her hair, she ran a comb through it, then padded naked into her bedroom to grab the nightdress she’d laid out earlier on her bed. Slipping it over her head, she suddenly froze.
A noise, coming from behind her. A low, keening moan.
Very quiet. Very quick.
Very human.
Oh my God. Someone’s in here!
Iris spun round. She felt her stomach liquefy with fear and adrenaline course through her veins so powerfully she could almost hear it, a great rushing river of panic, of fight or flight. Where could she run? If she made a dash for the bedroom door, whoever was in the closet could jump out and grab her. Strangle her. Rape her. Drown her. Whatever they’d come here to do.
The moan came again, louder this time, and before Iris had a chance to do anything, the wardrobe door swung slowly open. Inside, curled up at the bottom in the foetal position and rocking gently to and fro, was Billy. As soon as Iris saw him, the dynamic changed and her fear turned to pity. In dirty clothes and with his dark curls heavily matted, he looked as if he’d spent the last several days at least on the streets. His grimy face was streaked with tears, and when he turned to look at Iris, there was such utter desperation and desolation in his eyes that she couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.
‘Billy. What are you doing in there?’ She approached him slowly, extending a hand, as one might move towards an injured animal that needed help but that still might bite you.
‘I wanted to see you,’ Billy whimpered. ‘I didn’t know where else to go. But I thought you might … you might…’ He started moaning and rocking again, screwing up his eyes tight and shaking his head, as if willing the tears away.
‘It’s OK,’ said Iris, crouching down and patting his head gently as one would a frightened dog. ‘It’s fine for you to be here. Come on out. Let’s get you cleaned up.’
Clearly he needed psychiatric help. But in the first instance he needed reassurance, a hot shower and something to eat. Iris helped him into the bathroom, handed him a clean towel and some soap, and went down to the kitchen, still shaken, to warm up some soup. Ten minutes later Billy shuffled downstairs, back in his dirty clothes but looking cleaner and calmer and marginally less deranged.
‘Thank you.’
‘Of course,’ said Iris.
She put a bowl of Heinz tomato soup and two thick slices of toast in front of him, and watched in silence while he ate. It felt so strange to see him reduced to this weak, helpless creature. Ever since her first encounter with Billy, Iris had felt there was something dangerous about him, something predatory. The same thing, presumably, that made the police so convinced he must have had a hand in Dom’s death. But looking at him now, she saw a different Billy. Tonight he was not predator but prey. Hunted. Haunted. Afraid.
When he started to talk, the words came out in snatches, a disjointed torrent of emotion. ‘I needed to see you,’ he blurted, in between slurps of soup. ‘No one believes me. No one’s ever believed me. But you. You see things. You notice things.’
‘What does no one believe, Billy?’ Iris asked.
‘That she hurt me. Bullied me. Told me I was weak, I was stupid, I would never be anything, not like Marcus. I suppose she was right about that.’ He laughed, then grimaced, pushing away his empty plate. ‘She used to hit me when she got angry.’
‘Ariadne hit you?’ said Iris.
‘And worse. Look at this.’
Rolling up his sleeves and twisting his left arm, he showed Iris what looked like a row of cigarette-burn scars between his armpit and elbow.
‘I was nine. I made a sculpture of a horse for Dad and she hated it. Hated me. She said no one would believe me. She was right about that too.’ He rolled his sleeve back down, calmer now. Perhaps it was a relief to talk.
Iris winced. Because she could see it, absolutely. She could see Ariadne doing it, lashing out in a fit of jealousy.
‘Did you tell your father?’ Iris asked gently.
Billy shook his head. ‘No point. You couldn’t get a cigarette paper between my parents. Ever. Dad was unfaithful; he needed the ego massage. But he loved her. He’d never have believed me.’
‘So who…?’
‘I told the teacher at school. Miss Kenny. She said I was attention-seeking. That was my first psych referral.’ A small, ironic smile passed his lips, then died, withered into bitterness. ‘And I told my brother.’
Iris took this in. ‘You told Marcus that Ariadne abused you. And he didn’t believe you?’
‘He still doesn’t.’ Billy started shaking. ‘That’s why he got the will changed. He wants to make it my fault, to “prove” I’m crazy all over again. Because what’s the alternative? Admit Mum’s a monster? He’ll never do it, Iris.
And why should he? She was always the perfect mother to him. She loved Marcus, just as much as she hated me.’
Iris sat back, thinking. There was no proof of any of this, no evidence even. And Billy did have a history of mental illness. He could be making the whole thing up. And yet, in her bones, Iris knew he wasn’t. She just knew it.
‘Why do you think she hated you?’
Billy shrugged. ‘Because I wasn’t Marcus, I suppose.’
Iris frowned. Not much of a reason. But then abuse often stemmed from irrational emotions. Particularly if the abuser had themselves been a victim. Harry Masters’ heavy hints about Ariadne’s father, Clive, came rushing back to her.
‘Do you think your father ever suspected?’ she asked Billy. ‘You never said anything, but did he never see any of this behaviour?’
‘Never,’ Billy said bitterly. ‘My mother may be a witch, but she’s not stupid. She was always patient with Dad. The loving, forgiving wife.’ After a pause he added, ‘When Dad was alive, I was convinced he had no idea of the truth. But after he died, I started to wonder. I mean, he included me in the will. He didn’t have to do that, right?’
‘No,’ Iris agreed. ‘He didn’t.’
‘And not just included me. He put me above her. She got the house, but he left me and Marcus the Grimshaw rights, equally. That’s a hell of a lot of money.’ Billy was becoming agitated again now, Iris noticed, pulling at the threads on his cuff in a distinctly manic manner. Looking up at Iris, he blurted, ‘So maybe he did know? Maybe the will was his way of saying sorry? Of making things right?’
It was a question. He was willing Iris to confirm this, begging her to offer him that small comfort at least. That Dom knew. That Dom had believed him. That Dom was sorry. But Iris couldn’t do that. The truth was, she had no idea what had been in Dom Wetherby’s mind when he made his will. The last thing Billy needed now was for someone else to lie to him, so she said nothing.