“You’re not making things any better, Constable.”
“We weren’t just thinking of . . . that kind of relationship,” said Mike Oddie, stepping in quickly. “Eastern Europe is a pretty murky area at the moment. Take Russia, for example: gangsterism is rife there—big-scale, highly organised gangsterism. There are some seriously rich people, and most of them didn’t get that way by straightforward capitalist enterprise.”
Mrs Mills shrugged.
“That’s the sort of thing I’ve just read about in newspapers. I’m quite sure Stephen would never get involved in it.”
“The big men there need contacts in the West.”
“They’d find they couldn’t use Stephen—if they ever tried.”
“Your husband may have found that, with his job, he couldn’t keep out of involvement.”
“You can always keep out of crime if you’re firm about it. I think you’re straying into fantasy, Superintendent.”
“I’m just trying over possibilities in my mind, Mrs Mills.”
“Talk it over with Brian. Look at the firm’s records. I know you’ll find everything was above board because that’s the sort of man Stephen was. He was sharp, competitive and totally honest.”
“I’ve heard mention of the Rotarians,” said Charlie.
She turned to him, this time more openly hostile.
“Good heavens—are they considered suspicious now? Britain’s Cosa Nostra?” She thought. “Stephen had been a member of the local branch for about seven years. A week or two ago he took over as treasurer from the Reverend Sheffield. That does not suggest that anyone in the Rotarians thought he was a dodgy character. But of course if you regard the whole organisation as suspect that won’t cut any ice with you, will it?”
“I’m sorry. I seem to have the knack of offending you,” said Charlie, with no obvious contrition.
“I’m sure you know your job,” said Dorothy Mills. “But you don’t know my husband.”
“No, we don’t know your husband yet,” said Charlie quietly. He laid no particular emphasis on the last word, and she gave no sign of having registered it, but her next words seemed to be a response.
“He’s hardly cold, and you seem to be scrabbling around trying to find out dirty secrets about him.”
“It’s what happens in a murder enquiry, I’m afraid,” said Oddie.
“Haven’t you thought that this may be casual, unmotivated violence?”
“That doesn’t usually happen to healthy white males,” said Oddie. “It happens to women, and the springboard, one way or another, is usually sexual. But of course we’ll keep all possibilities in mind.”
She swallowed.
“I suppose you want . . . Do you want me to . . . ?”
“Identify the body. Yes, I’m afraid we will want that, when you feel up to it.”
“One gets such a knowledge of things, doesn’t one, from the television and books, but you never think it’s going to happen to you . . . .” She paused, then made a decision. “I would like to do it now, if that’s convenient . . . get it over with, start again, or try to think about starting again . . . .”
“Yes, of course,” said Oddie. “Could I just ring and find out if . . . everything is in order?”
“The telephone’s over there.” She gestured to a corner of the sitting room where it sat on a small table. As Oddie was dialling the number the door to the hall opened and an old man came in. He had been tall, commanding, but his big, lean frame was now bent. His face was Scandinavian—big-boned, with sunken cheeks; but the chin was still firm and determined, like the last stones of a once-proud house.
“What’s happening, Dot?” he said, looking from Charlie to Oddie, then back at his daughter. “Why are these men here?”
She got up quickly and went over to him.
“Sit down, Dad. We’ve had some bad news. Would you like your cup of tea?”
“I’ve had my cup of tea. You know I can make my own tea, Dot.” He sat down, under a sort of protest, but almost sighing with relief. “What do you mean, bad news?”
She knelt in front of him.
“It’s dreadful news, Dad. Stephen had an accident coming home from the party last night. I’m afraid he’s dead.”
His mouth dropped open.
“Dead? Stephen dead? Dottie, he can’t be.”
“I’m afraid he is, Dad.” She took his hand in hers and stroked it. “We’ve all got to be very brave. I’ve got to go and identify the body now.”
“Oh Dot, how terrible for you. I can’t believe it, though. Stephen dead. Dottie, tell me it isn’t true.”
He looked at her, bewilderedly, and seemed to see in her face that it was true. First one tear, then another, started coursing down his cavernous cheeks, and he began fumbling in his trouser pocket for a handkerchief.
“Poor Stephen. How can Stephen be dead? He was like a son to me. The only son I had. The best son I could have had.”
It was, Charlie thought, the most grief he had yet seen displayed for Stephen Mills. Because he was not entirely convinced that what Dorothy Mills felt was grief.
Mike Oddie gestured to WPC Morrison to stay with the old man, and together they led Mrs Mills out to the car. Twice on the journey into Leeds she made as if to ask something, then stopped herself. It was as they were drawing up at the West Yorkshire Police Headquarters that she said, “Is he going to look very dreadful?”
“They’ll have cleaned him up as far as they can,” said Oddie. He adopted a businesslike tone because experience told him that was best. He led the way briskly inside. As they passed the desk the duty sergeant hailed him.
“Call for you, Mike.”
“Take it, Charlie, will you?” Oddie said, and went on at the same fast pace towards the police mortuary. Charlie picked up the phone.
“DC Peace speaking.”
“That’s a constable, isn’t it? I want to speak to the man in charge.”
“Superintendent Oddie is in the mortuary with a witness who is identifying the body.”
“Oh, that’ll be Dorothy Mills, like as not, I suppose. How is she taking it? Well, I suppose you won’t be able to say much, especially being junior, and I’ll be brief with you, because I’ve got a Sunday dinner to cook . . . .”
Lancashire, thought Charlie, whose ear had refined itself in his three years in the North. And he very much doubted whether this lady was going to be brief.
“Now, of course the whole parish is devastated by the news, particularly as he was among us last night, and when you’ve been speaking to a man—not that I said more than ‘hello’—you can’t believe, can you, that—?”
“Excuse me, but we are very busy here. Could you get to the point?”
“That, young man, is precisely what I am getting to. My time is valuable if yours isn’t. The point is the incident that happened at the party last night, when the food arrived. I thought you might not have heard about that.”
“No, as a matter of fact we haven’t, Mrs—?”
“Harridance. Florrie Harridance.”
“And address?”
“It’s in the book. There’s only one Harridance. Don’t interrupt me, young man. Now, it was pizzas last night, and I can’t think why, because it’s never been pizzas before, and you can make what you like of that, because the person who brought them was this young man from Pizza Pronto that there’s been all this talk about. Not that I give the talk any credence, because I know Rosemary Sheffield, and I know she never would, not with someone so young. Though people say it’s her time of life, and we all know people do funny things—”
“Did the incident involve Mrs Sheffield?”
“It did not. Or not directly. Don’t be foolish, young man. It involved Stephen Mills, or why would I be ringing you? The boy came in with cartons of that foreign rubbish piled high in his arms, and he dumped them on the table, and it was then that it happened.”
“What happened?”
“He saw Stephen Mills, and
Stephen Mills saw him.”
“And?”
“They were doomfounded. Well, the boy was doomfounded. Stephen Mills was very cool—he was always very cool, was Stephen—what you’d call a cool customer. Any road, all he said was ‘Hello, Stinker,’ or that’s what it sounded like, and the boy, this Silvio, he just stammered something and turned and ran out.”
“I see. Is that all?”
“Well, by all accounts the expression on that young man’s face was murderous.”
“You say ‘by all accounts.’ Didn’t you see it yourself?”
“No, I didn’t. I wasn’t close enough to see.”
“And yet you were close enough to hear?”
“No, I was not, young man. What I’ve been telling you is what I’ve been told by those who were, and I’ve told you because it’s not everyone who’s public-spirited enough to come forward and volunteer information. If you want to talk to someone who was close by and who could both see and hear, you should go not to Mrs Sheffield, who may have her own reasons for not telling the whole story, but to Mrs Gumbold, that’s Violet Gumbold, in Severn Road, and no I don’t know the number but it’s in the book and it’s an unusual name like Harridance, so use your initiative. And now, young man, if you’ve nothing more to ask me of any consequence, I’m going to go and turn the potatoes over—”
“Feel free,” said Charlie, and put the phone down quickly.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Liars
When Oddie came back from the mortuary he ushered Mrs Mills out to the waiting car, driven by a comfortable-looking sergeant, then came back into the headquarters’ outer office.
“How did she take it?” Charlie asked.
“Very well. They’d done a good job on him. She just nodded. She’s got herself well under control.”
“Yes . . . . That phone call—”
“Oh yes. Anything interesting?”
“It was a woman who claimed there was some kind of incident while the food was being served at the party last night. Some kind of encounter between Stephen Mills and the young man who brought the food.”
“Anything in it?”
Charlie frowned in puzzlement.
“I don’t know. If I’d just heard the story in isolation I’d have said she was making something out of nothing very much. But it’s interesting that Mrs Sheffield didn’t mention it.”
“If it was nothing, why should she?”
“You’re being literal-minded, Mike. There was some kind of a situation, an eyeball-to-eyeball thing. The boy was, according to this woman, disconcerted, and fled like a rabbit. Apparently there’s been talk in the parish about him and Mrs Sheffield. What were you planning to do next?”
“Go to the offices of European Opportunities Ltd. I’ve got the address and Brian Ferrett’s home phone number. I think I’ll just commandeer all the papers I can lay my hands on, then bring Ferrett in here and see what I can get out of him. If I take a uniformed man with me I can give you a couple of hours, if you want to follow up this encounter.”
“Done!” said Charlie happily. He turned to the nearest woman with a computer. “There’s a Mrs Gumbold in Severn Road. Could you get me her number?”
When Charlie arrived at the Gumbolds’ he found both of them at home. Sunday was one day, Mr Gumbold explained, when he could usually get back from his job as a rep for a paper firm. He was overweight, probably from too much driving and sitting. The pair had heard about the murder on the parish bush telegraph, and Mr Gumbold left Charlie with his wife, saying he’d only got back at midnight and wouldn’t be of any use.
Violet Gumbold was fadedly pretty, honest if Charlie was any judge, but not too bright and probably easily led. When asked to say exactly what happened at the party when the pizzas arrived, she became hesitant.
“Of course I’ve talked it over with people, told my husband, but it’s so difficult to remember exactly what I saw, putting aside what people have said . . . . The young man came in, with a great pile of cartons, brought them over to the table where we were . . . . I’m trying to see . . . .”
“That’s good. Picture it all. Where was Stephen Mills?”
There was a pause. She really was trying.
“With two or three other men, to the young man’s left . . . . The Reverend Sheffield was coming forward, I think intending to be friendly to the young man . . . . Then Rosemary—that’s Mrs Sheffield—asked the young man if he would help cut up and serve the pizzas.”
“Did he say yes?”
“I can’t remember him saying anything, but he started forward, and then . . . then he saw Mr Mills, and he was—well—thunderstruck, I’d say. As if . . . well, as if he was the last person on earth he would have wanted to see.”
“Did he look guilty?”
“That must have been it, mustn’t it? Someone from his past whom he’d cheated or done down.”
She seemed to have seized on that explanation. Charlie said, very gently, “You don’t sound entirely convinced. Has someone suggested that to you? Wasn’t that how it looked?”
She frowned.
“Well, somehow it wasn’t. I can’t really say that the boy looked guilty.”
“Try to see it again. Try hard. How was it he looked?”
After a pause she said, “More outraged. Angry. And yet confused at the same time.”
“Thank you. That’s very helpful. So what happened next?”
“Mr Mills said ‘Hello—’ and then what I think was his name. It wasn’t ‘Stinker,’ like people are saying, but something like that. Though people have been saying his name is Silvio. Anyway, the boy stammered something about them being busy back at the pizza place, and he turned and fled, though I’m sure he’d been intending to come and help us.”
Charlie thought, fixing the picture in his mind.
“What was the expression on the boy’s face as he left?”
“I couldn’t see that. He turned and went away from us.”
Charlie was inclined to put the murderous expression down to the embroidery endemic in parish gossip.
“You said the Reverend Sheffield was coming over intending to be friendly. Why should he take pains to be friendly with the deliveryman?”
Violet Gumbold looked confused.
“Well, of course he’s naturally a nice person, and courteous . . .” Charlie fixed her with an unrelenting stare. “And you see there was all this silly talk . . . .”
“Tell me more.”
She swallowed and went red.
“Well, actually it was about poor Rosemary and this young man from Pizza Pronto.”
“The vicar’s wife and the fast-food cook. It sounds like a dirty story. I presume it was a dirty story.”
“Well, yes. People were saying—”
“I can guess what people were saying. Who was spreading the story?”
“Oh, I don’t know about spreading—”
“Let’s not quibble. Where did the story start?”
“I wouldn’t want to accuse anyone. I’d much rather not say.”
Charlie sighed.
“Mrs Gumbold, if this story was going round the parish I can find a hundred people who will have heard it, of whom I guarantee ninety will be willing to tell me who was spreading it. It’s all one to me if you want the reputation of obstructing the police rather than helping them.”
There was a long silence. Mrs Gumbold was a naturally law-abiding person. Finally she swallowed.
“Mrs Meadowes. It must have started with Selena Meadowes. I’m sure she meant no harm, but she’d been to Scarborough, you see, at the same guesthouse where Mrs Sheffield had gone when she lost . . . when she lost her faith, and this young man was a waiter there, and she heard talk about . . . about his having been seen coming from her room. That’s what everyone was saying. And then he turned up here and Mrs Sheffield found him a job . . . .”
“So this Mrs Meadowes put two and two together and broadcast the result. Sounds like a really nice little congregat
ion at St Saviour’s.”
“Oh, you mustn’t think too badly of us. And I never heard it from her. She probably mentioned it to someone and it just . . . got around. And when she found out she was mistaken she went round to everyone to take the story back and say she’d wronged Rosemary.”
Ho, thought Charlie. And there again hum.
“And what was behind all this mudslinging?”
“Behind it?”
“Why were they so keen to do the dirty on Mrs Sheffield? She seems a very nice lady.”
“I wish you wouldn’t use . . . I couldn’t say . . . It’s not for me . . .” Fixed by Charlie’s stare again, she hurried on: “Well, there are people who say they wanted her out of her parish positions so they could take over themselves.”
“They?”
“Well, Mrs Harridance, Selena, and one or two others.”
When he left Mrs Gumbold’s Charlie felt very much more wised up on parish matters than when he had gone there. A seething mass of ambition, dirty tricks, slander and innuendo, or so it seemed. This didn’t surprise him. It would not have been very different in the predominantly black parish in his native Brixton with which he was well acquainted. His mother had fulfilled the double purpose of both spreading and providing the subject matter for a great deal of the gossip.
Charlie parked his car in a cul-de-sac off the Ilkley Road and walked along to Pizza Pronto. It was a takeaway he and his girlfriend had used in their time, though it was not the best in the area. He found it overflowing with waiting customers: word had obviously got around that there was a connection between it and the murder which was occupying everyone’s attention that spring Sunday morning. There was a rather dim girl at the cash desk, and two men were working flat out around the ovens. He took out his ID and flashed it in the direction of the proprietor, a slim, worried-looking man in his fifties. He came over, visibly reluctant.
“We’re very busy.”
“I can see that. Is that Silvio?”
He nodded in the direction of the small, frantically busy young man who was constructing pizzas as if he was aiming at the Book of Records.
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