by Paula Daly
She checked her watch. It would take no more than half an hour to check the area codes of these towns against the Blooms’ phone records. Then she could put aside the niggling ex-boyfriend issue and move on to something else. Really, she ought to have questioned Noel about his wife’s infidelity by now. Did he know about her brief affair with Roger Nicholls? Had she done it before? Had another affair ended particularly badly? Was there a string of disgruntled, vengeful wives waiting in the wings ready to mount an attack on Karen?
She needed answers to these questions, but she had been reluctant to ask Noel in the hours immediately following the discovery of Karen’s body. He might not look as if he was grieving too deeply, but that didn’t mean he was ready to talk about his wife putting it out there all over town.
She would drop by and ask him in a round-about way, see what he knew about Karen’s affair – or affairs.
She finished Bognor and moved on to Worthing. There was bound to be an easier way to do this. A way to feed in the area code and cross-check the phone records automatically. But she couldn’t be bothered to find a tech person to help her, and there was something quite enjoyable in the tedious nature of the task. Joanne liked a bit of tedium now and again. She found it soothing. She could lose herself when peeling and preparing vegetables or polishing her shoes for work. Sometimes she yearned for simpler times and could imagine gaining a heady kind of pleasure from feeding wet sheets into a mangle, watching them air-dry in the wind. Or else spending dismal afternoons darning socks, or rubbing silver, or pickling jars of onions.
Joanne scanned the phone records, checking for Crawley and Eastbourne codes but again found nothing. And she had only half her attention on the task in front of her when something jumped out.
Hastings.
Two calls had been received from Hastings. One had lasted six minutes and forty-three seconds.
She copied down the number and was about to dial it when her mobile began ringing. It was Noel Bloom.
‘Hello, Noel,’ she said.
‘Joanne.’
‘How are things?’ she asked.
‘I was wondering if there had been any developments. If you could tell us anything more? Brontë’s had a tricky afternoon and is finding it a bit hard to take in. She can’t grasp the idea that someone has done this to Karen and not yet been caught – of course, she doesn’t know the details. She doesn’t know how Karen was killed. Anyway, I know it’s probably pointless, but I said I’d give you a call, find out if there was any news.’
‘I’m afraid there isn’t, Noel.’
‘Okay, well, that’s as expected, I suppose. I’ll—’
‘There is one thing, actually.’
‘Oh?’
‘I was going to drop by later today. I could do with chatting to you about something.’
‘Something to do with the case?’ he asked.
And Joanne replied, ‘Yes,’ thinking, What else would it be about?
‘Oh, right,’ said Noel, brightening somewhat. ‘Do you want to come to the house?’ he asked.
‘That was the plan.’
‘It’s just that…I…well, it’s just—’
‘It’s just what, Noel?’
Noel cleared his throat. ‘I don’t suppose you fancy meeting up for a drink, do you? The kids are off to the cinema to cheer Brontë up. I know you probably don’t. I mean, there are probably rules about this sort of thing. But, well, the truth is, I’ve been housebound since Thursday, and I could really do with some adult company. A change of scenery, so to speak. And to be honest, I could do with talking to someone who isn’t actively grieving.’
‘A drink,’ said Joanne, deadpan.
‘That’s what I was thinking.’
‘It’s not really ethical.’
Noel paused. Considered her statement. After a moment he said, ‘Am I a suspect?’
‘At the moment, no.’
‘So…’
‘So, that doesn’t mean you won’t become a suspect.’
And Noel laughed as if she’d said something quite hilarious.
‘I’d say that’s rather unlikely, Joanne…wouldn’t you?’
40
‘YOU’RE DOING WHAT?’ Jackie put down her mug. (Hot water with a slice of lemon in it. She was detoxing after all that meat.) ‘Are you out of your mind?’ she said.
‘It’s just a drink. In a pub,’ Joanne replied.
‘A drink with a murdering husband.’
‘You mean “murderous”. And there’s nothing to say he did it.’
‘I meant “murdering”,’ Jackie said crossly. ‘And it’s always the husband what did it. You should know that. You’re supposed to be a detective. Maybe slitting your throat is next on his list. Maybe seducing you first is part of the plan.’
‘Maybe. And her throat wasn’t slit. She was stabbed…And how do you know about her throat?’
‘Someone at work told me.’
‘Anyway, I thought you liked Dr Bloom,’ Joanne said.
‘I did…but that was before he murdered his wife.’
‘Okay, let’s say he did murder his wife. Why’d he do it?’
‘Oh, the usual, I expect,’ Jackie said. ‘Money…love.’
‘I don’t think he stands to gain financially from Karen’s death.’
‘Love, then.’
‘Who does he love?’ Joanne asked
And Jackie tutted loudly. ‘Well, not her, obviously.’
—
Joanne had her own reasons for accepting the invitation to go out for a drink. First of all, she wanted to know what it was that made Noel Bloom brazen enough to ask her. It wasn’t exactly typical widower behaviour. So if he’d somehow managed to suppress his latent psychopathic traits up until this point, Joanne wanted to pick at him. Pick at him until he dropped his cover.
Joanne had only met what she considered to be one true psychopath in her life so far and Noel was nothing like him.
But Noel was a doctor. So he was far from being an idiot. And from what she understood, psychopaths were often very high-functioning, with the capability of fooling even the most discerning of people. But Noel seemed warm and genuine. Sometimes tender. And he didn’t dye his hair. (Joanne wasn’t sure if colouring one’s hair was on the official list of psychopathic traits, but if it wasn’t, it should be.) It could be argued, though, that Noel was sexually promiscuous. And that definitely was on the list.
Of course, it went without saying that Noel didn’t need to be a psychopath to murder his wife. As Jackie had stated, lots of men murdered their wives and few were deemed to be mentally ill. But to plan a murder such as Karen’s and then to behave as if it hadn’t really happened? That did pique Joanne’s interest.
And so she had to accept Noel’s invitation, because she’d be a fool not to.
‘If it was me, I’d have a Stanley knife in my handbag,’ Jackie said. ‘Just to be sure.’
‘What, so I can stab him before he stabs me?’
‘You’re making light of this, but that’s how people end up dead. By being too complacent.’
‘I’m not making light of it. And anyway, I’m not planning on going anywhere secluded. As I said. This is a drink. In a pub.’
‘What pub?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Why not?’
‘He didn’t tell me. He just said he’d pick me up at eight.’
Jackie gave Joanne a look of vindication as if to say, And that was your first mistake. ‘So ask him, then,’ she said. ‘Tell him your worried aunt likes to keep track of you.’
‘I’m forty years old, Jackie.’
‘So?’
‘So, I’m not telling him that.’
‘Who else knows you’re going?’
‘No one.’
‘Joanne,’ Jackie said wearily, ‘drinking with a suspect is hardly the most sensible thing to do if you’re—’
‘He’s not a suspect.’
‘So, you’ve told your fellow officers all a
bout this drink, then?’
‘No.’
‘And that’s because…?’
‘Because,’ Joanne admitted, ‘the meeting doesn’t exactly follow protocol.’
Jackie sucked in her breath before letting it out as a long, low whistle.
‘Rather you than me,’ she said.
—
Noel drove like a nonagenarian. Slowly and carefully, as if the road might throw up some random obstacle that wasn’t there the day before. There were plenty of ninety-year-old drivers in the South Lakes and, generally, Joanne didn’t have a problem with them. They were, statistically speaking, one of the safest age groups on the road. If Joanne could have her way, she’d make it illegal for all newly qualified seventeen-year-old boys to drive after dark, and she would ban them from carrying adolescent passengers until they’d held their licence for at least two years. That would cut down on the road deaths. And everyone’s insurance premiums. Every year they would lose a few teenagers in either a Renault Clio or a Peugeot 107. Always a young lad driving. Always taking a bend too fast. Joanne took bends too fast. But she was a member of the Institute of Advanced Motorists, so she was allowed to (sort of).
‘Shall we speed up a little?’ she asked Noel.
‘I’d like to get you there safely, if that’s okay.’
‘But you’re doing twenty-two. In a thirty zone. It’s embarrassing.’
‘There are some shades in the glove compartment. Put them on if you want to ride incognito.’
Joanne wondered what she might find inside the glove box. A long-bladed knife perhaps.
She flicked it open. Sunglasses, screen wipes, satnav. No knife.
They were heading towards the ferry. Noel had suggested going across the lake to have a drink and a bite to eat. He didn’t cover Sawrey or Hawkshead in his job, he said, so he was largely unknown in the pubs over there. And not that they were hiding or anything, he added, but it might be nice to talk without prying eyes.
‘What are your kids watching this evening?’ Joanne said.
‘Something from Pixar. They’ve all gone – Ewan, Verity, Brontë and Dale.’
‘And Dale?’
‘He seems to be a permanent fixture since Karen’s death. It’s an odd thing, but I think he’s keeping them all together somehow. Brontë seems to respond particularly well to him. Her hand even seems to improve when he’s around. The cinema was his idea.’
‘How is Brontë in herself?’
‘Bewildered. She’s old enough to understand what death means, and yet I sense she hasn’t fully grasped that Karen isn’t coming home. She was going to go back with Bruce and Mary for a few days but at the last moment decided she wanted to stay put.’
‘What about your parents?’ she asked. ‘Do they live around here?’
‘Dead,’ he said. ‘Yours?’
‘My mum’s in Tenerife.’
‘Nice.’
Not really, thought Joanne. Her mother lived the typical life of an expat in Spain: drinking cheap wine from 3 p.m. onwards to stave off the boredom, rubbing anti-ageing cream into the pterodactyl skin between her breasts, and all the while declaring to anyone who’d listen that she could never go back to England. Not ever.
‘You miss them?’ Joanne asked.
‘Every day. My mum would have been wonderful with the girls. They would have adored her. Verity, in particular, because she missed out altogether on the grandparent thing. Jennifer’s parents, like mine, died young, from ill health. And Bruce and Mary…well, let’s just say it’s not the same as with their own flesh and blood.’
They boarded the ferry. It had been closed for the past two days on account of the high winds but had reopened this morning. There was only a handful of cars. The attendant was in full waterproofs and wore a peaked cap to keep the rain from his face. Noel seemed to know him. And if the guy was surprised to see another woman in the passenger seat while Noel’s wife wasn’t yet in the ground, he didn’t show it.
The ferry shuddered away from the shore and Noel cut the engine and turned off the headlights. The rain pelted the screen. Joanne had not turned out particularly well prepared for the weather. She wore jeans, high-heeled boots and a short, belted, woollen coat that, although warm, smelled like a stray dog when it was wet.
The coat had been an impulse buy after the breast reduction, when, suddenly, short, belted coats (nipped in nicely at the waist) would now fit and she didn’t have to buy something four sizes too big just to get the thing to close. Everyone thought she’d lost weight. ‘You look wonderful. How much weight’ve you lost?’ they’d say, and even though she’d lost a few pounds recently, after the operation itself, she’d actually gained some on account of all the sitting around. She gave up saying ‘none’, though, as it was too confusing for people. Instead she would reply: ‘Almost two stone. Never felt better. I’ve got so much more energy with the weight off.’ Which was true.
Before the surgery, Joanne would only undress for a man in the pitch dark, which Jackie thought was utterly ridiculous. ‘Do you know how much they’d be prepared to pay to bury their faces in those?’ she’d ask, and Joanne said she didn’t want to know. Once, she’d been waiting to cross the road in Windermere when a car passed: windows down, music blaring, and a boy of approximately fifteen had yelled out, ‘Tits!’
Not ‘Big tits.’
Or ‘Nice tits.’
Or even ‘Can I have a feel of your…?’
Just ‘Tits.’
That was the deciding factor for Joanne. That’s when she made the appointment.
Apart from anything else, she was sick of attracting the wrong kind of bloke. She would stand at the bar waiting to be served and, invariably, she’d catch the attention of some pissed-up nuisance who wouldn’t leave her alone for the night. The kind of persistent dickhead that didn’t understand a gentle ‘No’ actually means ‘no’, and she’d have to resort to telling him to fuck off or she’d arrest him.
Joanne wondered idly if Noel was a boob man or a leg man. Or if he had no preference after being exposed to all that naked female flesh over the years. Perhaps naked women didn’t excite him any longer. Perhaps overexposure to the female form had dulled his senses.
Joanne’s senses had certainly become dulled to dead bodies.
She found them neither thrilling nor repulsive. They were just dead. Though she did wonder, if she came across one outside of work, whether she would have the same response.
They pulled into the pub car park. It was not a place Joanne had been to before. It was what her old partner, Ron Quigley, would have called a ‘proper boozer’ – the kind of place that would have once had a snug filled with men smoking pipe tobacco and from which women were banned.
They would not be getting any gastro-pub fare here.
The barmaid was sixty, with dyed magenta hair and white roots that ran like a zip down the middle of her head. She was friendly and totally unwelcoming at the same time, and told them if they wanted food, there was steak-and-onion pie and battered haddock.
They ordered a round of drinks. Joanne asked what the pie came with, and the barmaid frowned before saying, ‘Mash,’ as though Joanne had asked something blindingly obvious.
‘Nice place,’ Joanne said, and they took their seats in the corner, away from the bar.
‘It does have a certain charm,’ Noel replied. ‘I come here to escape the tourists,’ he said. ‘Particularly during half-term.’
October half-term saw an influx of a different type of tourist. Gone were the summer folk who ate cream teas and walked sedately around the chocolate-box villages, looking to spend money on something – anything. October half-term attracted families who did stuff. Joanne would feel sorry for the teenagers trudging around in full waterproofs and walking boots, looking entirely miserable, wishing more than anything else that they could exchange their parents for a less energetic set.
‘There’s always some idiot wanting to tell me how he ran up Helvellyn with his six-year-old son i
n record time,’ Noel said. ‘So I come in here. They never come in here.’
Noel advised going for the pie, saying it was nicer than it sounded, so they ordered two (no mash) and another round of drinks. Joanne had that loose, lazy feeling that came from a second shot of alcohol, and it occurred to her that they could very well end up in bed together that night if she wasn’t careful. Though where, she couldn’t imagine. She couldn’t go back to his, obviously. And the sudden thought of trying to sneak him in past Jackie made her put her drink down.
The hot stirring in her belly dissipated fast. Good. Because, really, what was she thinking?
‘What are you thinking?’ Noel asked.
Joanne muttered something vague to do with station politics, which Noel received with an amused ‘Really?’
‘Yes, really,’ she said.
‘Thought you might be thinking about me.’
‘Well, I wasn’t.’
‘That’s a shame.’
‘If you really want to know, I was thinking about your wife, but it didn’t seem appropriate to bring her up just yet.’
‘You want to ask something. Go ahead,’ and he spread his hands wide as though to suggest he was an open book. ‘Ask away. Anything you like.’
‘Did you know she’d had an affair with Roger Nicholls?’
And Noel laughed. ‘No,’ he said. Then he sat back in his chair, highly amused. Still chuckling, he said, ‘Really? She was sleeping with Roger?’
‘You had no idea?’
‘None.’
Then he looked past Joanne towards the bar. He was smiling openly as, Joanne assumed, he thought about the two of them together. ‘That old goat, Roger.’ Then he said, ‘Good for Karen. Good for her.’
‘You’re not put out about it?’
Noel shook his head. ‘Not at all. I think she thought I was a shitty husband. I’m not sure she felt much for me over the past few years. If she found a bit of pleasure on the side, I’m glad for her.’
‘I only brought it up because it could be relevant.’