‘Tim?’ she said again, dully. ‘I thought that you were going to be late tonight?’
‘I was – I am,’ said Tim awkwardly. ‘I’ve come home sooner than I intended, but I’m going to have to go out again. I’m really sorry. I wanted to spend the evening with you.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said listlessly. ‘At least I won’t have to cook now. I was just wondering how to summon up the energy.’
‘I’d gladly have taken you out somewhere,’ said Tim. ‘We’ll do it tomorrow, instead. But you will eat something, won’t you?’
She sighed. ‘I suppose so. I can always knock up a sandwich for myself.’
‘I’ll make you a sandwich, if you like.’
‘Don’t worry, I can do it myself. If you’ve got to go out again, you might as well go straight away. You’ll be back quicker. But it was nice of you to offer,’ she added. She gave a half-smile. Tim took her hand.
‘I’m so worried about you,’ he said. ‘You don’t seem to be happy any more and I don’t know what to do about it.’
He hadn’t meant to blurt out his concern quite like this, and he realised immediately that it had been a mistake. Initially, his words seemed to bring her close to tears, but, worse still from his point of view, her face quickly recomposed itself and adopted the shuttered look that had become only too familiar to him in recent weeks.
‘Don’t worry about me,’ she said. There was asperity in her tone now. ‘I’ll be all right. I may be in bed when you get back: I think that I’m in need of an early night.’
She drew away her hand. Tim opened his mouth to answer her, trying to think of something reassuring and loving to say, but no words came. He met the blankness of her gaze, and tried not to flinch.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘I won’t disturb you if you’re asleep.’ She nodded.
As he climbed back into his car, he wondered what, exactly, she had meant by her last comment, and, indeed, what he had intended to convey with his reply. He always tried not to wake her when he came in late and as far as he knew he usually succeeded. She had never mentioned being disturbed before. Had she intended to mean that he should sleep in the spare room? Had he tacitly agreed to such an arrangement? Had her final nod been one of complicity?
Chapter Thirty-Six
He arrived at the Tarrants’ flat at the same time as Tom Tarrant. Tom, a slightly overweight, balding man, had come hurrying along Chapel Lane as Tim reached the yard gate. He held out his hand. ‘Detective Inspector Yates, thank you for coming.’
Tim was puzzled for a moment, though the other man’s face did seem vaguely familiar.
‘I’m Tom Tarrant,’ he explained. ‘I’ve seen you on television, talking about Claudia McRae.’
Tim grasped the proffered hand. It turned out to be limp and sweaty.
‘Are you just coming home now? You haven’t seen your wife since the break-in?’
‘No. I’ve been working in Sleaford today. I came as soon as she called me. It was my idea for her to get in touch with you.’
‘I see,’ said Tim. He followed Tom Tarrant up the steps to the door of the maisonette. Tom opened the door and looked behind it immediately.
‘My God!’ he exclaimed. ‘Who would want to do that?’ Tim felt a little irritated by the theatricality of the words until he was himself facing the cause of Tom’s outrage. The blood smear was thicker and deeper than the gory daub at Claudia McRae’s cottage. It seemed almost to have been gouged into the plaster.
‘You haven’t seen that before, sir, I take it?’
‘Of course not!’ said Tom. ‘Do you think that if I had I would have gone out as if nothing had happened?’
Juliet Armstrong appeared in the kitchen doorway.
‘Good evening, sir,’ she said. ‘Mrs Tarrant is in the sitting-room.’ She turned her head towards the wall. ‘Ugly, isn’t it? Someone must be pretty sick.’
Tim followed her down the short, dark corridor. Tom Tarrant was close behind. Juliet paused when she reached the sitting-room door.
‘Would you like to go first, sir?’ she said to Tom. He nodded, and squeezed past them both. Tim knew that Juliet had been right to extend this courtesy, but, as it made it impossible for him to witness the first moments of Tom’s reunion with Alex, from his point of view it was to be regretted. By the time that he had rounded the door, Alex was already embracing Tom, her face hidden against his shoulder. Tom caught Tim’s eye and gently released her.
“Alex, Detective Chief Inspector Yates is here.” She turned to face Tim immediately, holding out her hand, which was cooler and much slimmer than her husband’s. Her face was pale and she was clearly very upset.
“Please, sit down,” she said. “I do hope that you won’t think that this is a fuss about nothing.”
“On the contrary, Mrs Tarrant, I think that we should take this intrusion very seriously. For your own safety, you should probably have called us before you decided to search the flat. Your kitchen will have to be cordoned off as a crime scene, but no doubt you were expecting that. Aside from the mark on the wall, are there any other signs of intrusion? For example, do you think that drawers or cupboards have been searched, or that any items have been removed?”
Alex shook her head.
“There’s nothing else, as far as I can tell. Tom might like to check as well, but I can’t see that anything has been disturbed. What is that on the kitchen wall, Inspector? Is it really blood, or does it just look like blood? Surely it can’t be someone’s idea of a joke?”
“I’m afraid that I can’t answer your questions now. We try not to speculate about motive, because it can mislead us and waste time. However, I think that I can say that I’m convinced that we’re dealing with something more serious than a joke in poor taste.”
“Do you think that someone was actually hurt here?” asked Tom Tarrant.
“I think it unlikely that anyone was hurt here. There is no blood on the floor and if someone had been wounded at that height of the wall they would have had to have been standing on something several feet off the ground. I’m not a forensic expert – we’ll find out what they think – but I’d say that the smear of blood is too thick to have spurted from an injury. Sorry,” he added, as Alex Tarrant shuddered. “I think that it has been daubed on the wall by someone trying to convey a grotesque message and that its profusion is part of the message. Whoever did it is trying to frighten you.”
“Well, they’ve succeeded,” said Alex.
Tom Tarrant looked annoyed.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re talking in riddles as far as I’m concerned. If you’re right, what can the message be about, for God’s sake? And why not just tell us whatever it is, instead of operating in this bizarre way?”
“I may not be right,” said Tim, “and I’ve probably said too much already, given that I told you that I wouldn’t speculate. But I’ll just add that being able to create fear gives the perpetrator a great deal of power; most people are more afraid of what they don’t know, or don’t understand.”
“I suppose you’re right,” said Alex. “What do we do now?”
“I’d like you each to talk us through your last entry into the flat in detail, starting with you, please, Mr Tarrant. I mean when you called in earlier, of course, not when you came in with me just now. Do you mind if we record what you say? We’ll take notes as well.”
“No, that’s fine,” said Tom. “I don’t have much to tell you, really. I’m a social worker, based in Spalding, but I travel around this area quite a bit, because I specialise in caring for disturbed children. There’s a particular case that I’m working on at the moment – by chance, it also involves the police – and late this afternoon I realised that I would have to travel to the children’s home in Sleaford where one of my clients is being held under curfew.”
“I thought I’d seen you before!” said Tim
. “You were at the police station a few days ago, with Andy Carstairs, weren’t you? Helping him to interrogate the child in the drugs investigation?”
“That’s right: Thobias Padgett is the boy’s name. His elder brother, LeRoy, is also involved. I’d prefer not to use the word ‘interrogate’, by the way, especially in a case which involves children. Ours isn’t a police state, as far as I’m aware.”
“Just a figure of speech,” said Tim quickly. “DC Carstairs has told me a bit about the case. I think he’s familiar with the Padgett family.”
“They’re well known both to the police and to social services, though the children aren’t neglected. The mother, Marlene Padgett, is doing a good job at bringing them up, according to her own standards, anyway. It’s a large family and as the boys get older they run rings round her.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” said Tim. “To get back to where we left off: you realised that you would have to travel to Sleaford and stay there until when?”
“I thought that I’d probably get back here at about 9 p.m. So I called in to tell Alex that I’d be late.”
“Why didn’t you just phone her?”
Tom shrugged. “It was almost five-thirty and I thought that she’d probably be at home already. I did try calling her mobile, but I got the engaged tone and decided not to leave voicemail. Alex is very bad at picking it up, for one thing. I’d managed to park my car just round the corner, so it was almost as easy to come home to see if she was here and, if not, to leave a written message.”
Tim nodded.
“Where exactly was your car parked?”
“At the end of Chapel Lane, just on the corner. You’re allowed to park there for thirty minutes.”
“So you locked your car and walked down Chapel Lane,” said Tim. “Were you carrying anything?”
“No. I had some case notes with me – the ones I have here, now – but I left them in the car.”
“Did you see anyone? Bump into anyone you know, or notice anyone following you?”
“I certainly didn’t see anyone I knew and I didn’t look behind me to see if I was being followed. It wouldn’t have occurred to me. There were people about – mostly walking across from the Bus Station to the Pied Calf – but none of them seemed to be taking any interest in me; nor I in them, for that matter.”
“So you couldn’t describe any of them clearly?”
“I . . . No. I was in a hurry and not really paying attention.”
“When you reached your flat, what did you do?”
“First of all, I took out the key to the yard gate. It’s always kept locked.”
“Who has keys to it?”
“Alex and me, of course; and the people who work in the building society.”
“Do they have a key each?”
“No, I don’t think so. The manager has a key, but the other staff mainly use the front entrance to come and go. They just need to use the yard gate when it’s time to take the dustbins out to Chapel Lane for collection; oh, and one of them sometimes comes on a bike and uses the key to get into the yard, to leave the bike there. And the landlord has one, of course.”
“Who is the landlord?”
“The building society itself administers the property for the actual landlord. We don’t know the identity of the owner.”
“I take it that neither of you has lost a set of keys lately?”
“No,” said Tom. “We have only one set each.”
“OK,” said Tim. “So you let yourself into the yard. Was there anyone there?”
“No, of course not. If there had been, it would have been unusual and I’d have mentioned it already.”
“So no-one was there from the building society? Was its door closed?”
“Yes, I’m sure that it was; it almost always is. And I didn’t see any of the staff. It was just after 5.30 by that time; they would probably all have gone home by then.”
“How do you know what time it was?”
“I looked at my watch when I parked the car. If Alex had been here, I thought I might have stopped to have a cup of tea with her and I didn’t want to get a parking ticket.”
“So you saw nothing at all unusual and walked up the steps to the flat. Did you lock the yard door behind you?”“I . . . No. No, I don’t think I did. I can’t be sure, but I don’t always when I’m popping in quickly.”
“Someone could have followed you in, then?”
“I suppose so, but I didn’t see anyone when I was on my way out again.”
“All right. So you opened your kitchen door – presumably this has a different key?”
“Yes, a Yale, with a deadlock. And yes, I unlocked the door, went into the kitchen and called Alex.”
“She didn’t reply?”
“No. You know she didn’t.”
“What did you do then? Did you go looking for her?”
“No. I knew that if she’d been there, she would have heard me. I had no reason to stay, therefore.”
“You said you would have liked a cup of tea. Did you make one?”
“No, I wasn’t desperate. I’d have had one with Alex, but just to be companionable before I went out again.”
“So you left her a note. Did you have to go in search of something to write it with?”
“No, I took a piece of discarded paper – an old envelope – from the wastepaper bank and wrote on it with one of the pencils in the tub beside the telephone.”
“You were facing the far wall? The one opposite the window?”
“Yes.”
“Did you look at the wall opposite – the one with the window?”
“I suppose that I must have.”
“But do you remember looking at it specifically?”
“No. But I’m sure that that mark couldn’t have been there then.”
“What makes you so certain?”
Tom Tarrant shrugged. “I don’t know – a kind of sixth sense, I guess. I’m sure that something would have drawn me to it if it had been there. I get a feeling when things aren’t quite right – I’m not making myself out to be anything special. A lot of people do.”
Tim didn’t disagree. He knew that what Tom had offered was not a rational explanation, but he also knew that what he had said was often true. People did get a feeling if something was not quite right with familiar surroundings.
“So you left the note, walked out of the kitchen, locked the door, went back down the stairs, seeing no-one in the yard, and out into Chapel Lane and locked the yard gate behind you?”
“Yes, precisely that.”
“You’re quite sure that you locked both the door and the gate?”
“As sure as I can be. I wasn’t particularly preoccupied, nor even in a great hurry, and I’ve never left either of them unlocked before. Besides, the Yale lock fastens to of its own accord – it’s only the deadlock that requires you to turn the key. Even if I’d forgotten to lock it, I’d hardly have left it standing wide open.”
Tim nodded.
“And then you walked back down the passage to your car, again unaware whether you were being followed or not? And you just started up the car and drove off to Sleaford, believing everything at home to be normal.”
“Yes.”
“Thank you.”
Tim turned to Alex.
“Mrs Tarrant, could you describe your day?”
“What, all of it? You mean from this morning onwards?”
“If you don’t mind,” said Tim.
“I got up after Tom – he had to leave early – but I was still at work early myself. I was letting myself in to the Archaeological Society when I met Edmund Baker on the steps. He’d come to ask me for access to some papers that he wanted to research. I opened the door and took him into my office with me. I offered him tea, but he said that he was in
a hurry, so I gave him the key to the archive and he left.”
“The archive is in the same building? The one in which you work?”
“No, it’s in Broad Street. There’s an old chapel there that is used as a kind of overflow store for the Society’s possessions – papers, mainly. It’s been in use since the 1950s. Strictly speaking . . .” Alex hesitated.
“Go on, Mrs Tarrant. Strictly speaking, what?”
“Strictly speaking, I shouldn’t have let Edmund have the key, because he hadn’t signed the indemnity papers. But he’s closely involved with the Society, and a member of the Heritage Council, so I overlooked it.”
“Why wouldn’t he sign the indemnity form?”
“Oh, there was nothing sinister about it. It was simply that I couldn’t find the forms. They’re printed, you see – we don’t have an online version. It’s antediluvian, I know, but the Society doesn’t claim to be at the forefront, technologically speaking. It’s ironical, I suppose, considering that some of the most forward-thinking scientists and artists of the past were members.”
“Couldn’t he wait for you to find the form? Or come back another time?”
“He said that the work was urgent and he’d already driven over from Holbeach. And I knew that he had personal reasons for needing to get away by lunchtime.”
“What sort of personal reasons?”
“They’re – confidential,” said Alex. She glanced at Tom, who was regarding her quizzically. “I don’t mean confidential as far as I’m concerned,” she added. “Edmund confided a personal problem to me that he needed to sort out this afternoon and I feel that I should respect his confidence.”
Almost Love Page 27