A Narrow Return

by Faith Martin

  Hillary would have bet her first pay cheque – when she got it – that this woman was going to answer anything and everything put to her as honestly and as simply as she could hope for.

  ‘You used to work at Tesco’s didn’t you? In the town?’

  ‘Oh that was years ago.’

  ‘But you used to serve Anne McRae’s sister often. Her name, though you might not know it, was Debbie?’

  Diane smiled and shrugged her rounded shoulders. ‘I must have served lots of people.’

  ‘But you remembered and recognized your regulars?’ Hillary persevered gently.

  ‘Oh yes. People are usually friendly, aren’t they?’ Diane said simply. And meant it.

  Hillary nodded. Yes, she could imagine that most people were friendly with Diane Burgess. She was that kind of woman. Beside her, she could feel Sam practically beaming. No doubt she reminded him of his good old mum.

  ‘I’m sure they are. And I think this is how you knew Anne McRae’s sister. Maybe not her name, not as a friend, exactly, but as someone you were friendly with, say.’

  ‘Well, perhaps that’s so,’ Diane said, sounding puzzled once more. ‘But….’ she broke off, and looked at Hillary a shade helplessly.

  Hillary smiled. ‘But what am I asking this for twenty years down the line, that’s what you’re wondering, isn’t it?’

  Diane blushed. ‘Oh I wouldn’t like to say that. I’m sure it must be important otherwise you wouldn’t be here.’

  Hillary nodded. ‘Yes. It is rather important, Mrs Burgess, because, you see, Debbie Gregg remembers you. And she remembers one incident very clearly. It was just after her sister’s funeral. She was in Tesco’s, when you approached her to offer your condolences.’

  Any colour left in Diane’s face suddenly fled completely. A look of definite and unmistakable shock passed swiftly across her plump features and left them looking slightly foolish.

  ‘Oh. Yes.’

  ‘You remember the incident now as well?’ Hillary prompted softly.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You felt sorry for her, and not just because of the murder of her sister. Isn’t that so?’

  Diane was once again looking at Hillary like a dog that was expecting an undeserved kicking from its master. Beside her, she could feel Sam shifting uncomfortably. She understood his unease, of course. Questioning hard-headed, cold-hearted villains was one thing. Badgering a nice lady was something else again. But he would soon learn that you couldn’t pick and choose. If he wanted to become a copper, he’d have to.

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ Diane swallowed hard, and in her lap, her hands began to shake. She folded them together, fingers linked, and Hillary watched her knuckles turn white.

  The sense of strain was now palpable.

  ‘You told her that you understood what it felt like to be a wife who had been betrayed by her husband,’ Hillary was careful to keep her voice calm, almost conversational.

  ‘Yes,’ the voice was back to a whisper now.

  ‘You told her that you knew what it was like to have a husband fall under Anne McRae’s spell too.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Her specifically, I mean. Not just any woman willing to cheat with a married man.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That your own husband, Mark, had in fact also had an affair with Anne McRae.’ Hillary carried on, her voice soft and steady.

  Diane continued to stare at her, like a helplessly hypnotized rabbit regarding a stoat. ‘Yes.’

  ‘That must have hurt, Mrs Burgess,’ Hillary pointed out reasonably, her voice sympathetic now, and inviting confidences.

  But all the other woman could manage was her usual, softly spoken, ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did you find out?’ Hillary asked next, knowing that she’d have to get this witness talking. Monosyllabic answers simply weren’t going to cut it.

  ‘Oh, the usual way, I expect,’ Diane tried for a brave smile, but it came off as being distinctly wobbly about the edges. ‘A supposedly well-meaning friend told me, isn’t that how it usually happens? She was a next-door neighbour, who had a cousin who lived in Chesterton, who told her all about how my Mark used to deliver meat to Mrs McRae’s house in person. And took a half an hour to do so. She thought I’d want to know.’

  Hillary nodded. ‘As I said. It must have hurt.’

  ‘It did. At first. But the kids were little, and he swore he wouldn’t do it again.’ She shrugged helplessly. ‘What could I do?’

  Hillary nodded. ‘But you think he did do it again, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘With his other customers, as well as with Anne McRae?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He’s been doing it for years, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And probably still is?’

  Diane Burgess made another attempt at a brave smile. ‘The kids are all grown up and gone now. I keep telling him that the next time I’ll leave him. But I never do.’

  ‘No,’ Hillary agreed flatly. Someone like this wouldn’t. It was just far easier to take the path of least resistance and turn a blind eye. After all, her husband had been a good provider – he’d held a steady job, his wages had bought off the mortgage on the house. The kids had been well fed and clothed, and had probably done as well for themselves as their mother could have hoped for. Besides, women of this generation had been brought up to more or less expect men to wander, and it was up to women to turn the other cheek.

  Hillary didn’t blame her for her attitude and she certainly didn’t judge her. After the farce of her own marriage, she knew she was in no position to cast stones. She’d been on the verge of divorcing her own husband, Ronnie Greene, a notoriously bent police officer, when he’d been killed in an RTA. And Ronnie, like Melvin McRae, had been a serial adulterer.

  And when she’d finally realized the truth, she’d walked out on him faster than you could say that Robert was your mother’s brother.

  But Diane Burgess was not that sort of woman. Which was why Hillary was now reasonably sure that she wasn’t facing Anne McRae’s killer. Diane Burgess simply didn’t have the gumption – or the passion – needed to kill a love rival.

  ‘Did you ever think your husband might have killed Mrs McRae, Diane?’ Hillary asked quietly instead.

  At which the older woman gasped in genuine shock. ‘Oh no. Never. Oh no, Mark isn’t like that at all.’

  Hillary nodded. In that, she rather thought Diane was right. She might not be the sort to take on a fight, but Hillary was willing to believe that, after forty years of marriage, she knew her own husband well enough.

  Once back at HQ, Hillary wrote up her notes and dropped a copy of them into the internal mail to keep Steven Crayle updated, then checked in with Jimmy. She’d already packed Sam off to Wendlebury to see how Vivienne was getting on with trying to trace Mark Burgess’s alibi, but it now seemed to be hardly a top priority.

  ‘Guv, I’ve got a judge in mind for a warrant to compare Burgess’s DNA to the hair found on our vic,’ Sam said, ‘but I’m having trouble running him to ground. He’s always in court, or on the golf course.’

  ‘I’m shocked.’

  Sam grinned. ‘I’ll keep on it.’

  ‘Right. Fancy giving me a lift into Oxford?’

  ‘’Course, Guv. Who we seeing?’

  ‘Jennifer McRae, the victim’s youngest.’

  ‘Right. A bit of a troubled girl by all accounts,’ Jimmy mused, shrugging into his raincoat.

  Hillary nodded. As they trooped back upstairs and got into Jimmy’s car, Hillary contemplated what they knew of Anne McRae’s youngest child for herself.

  Over the years, the file had been kept updated, of course, but it had been Sam and Vivienne who’d done the latest round, and they’d done a pretty thorough job, for novices. Of course, they’d used the computer for most of it, which in this case, had come up trumps, mostly because, of all the McRae offspring, only Jenny had a record sheet.

  Mo
stly petty stuff – it had started off with shoplifting as a teenager. Then it had progressed into one or two soliciting charges when in her early twenties. She’d had two children by two different fathers by then, one of which had beat her regularly, until she’d found the courage to bring a complaint. He was currently serving five to eight at Her Majesty’s pleasure, but was due out soon. Since then she’d been busted twice in possession of class ‘C’ drugs, no time served, and had received a rap across the knuckles for a few other, mostly civil disorders.

  She was currently living in a council flat in Headington, in the nearest thing to a high-rise block of flats that the suburb of Oxford was capable of producing.

  As Jimmy parked up in front of the building, Hillary felt her spirits droop. The building was typical of its kind, in that it had probably been some architect’s dream of a suburban Utopia when it had been built back in the sixties. Then it had been all clean lines and fresh paint, a bold, brave new concept in social housing. Now the paint was peeling, a fair few of the big windows designed to let in all that natural daylight were broken and boarded over, and litter and dogs’ mess stained the concrete pavements and walkways.

  Several large-sounding (and probably illegal) dogs snarled and snuffled under the gap at the bottom of the doors as they walked past, and from more than one flat, came the sound of babies crying. To make it all that more dreary, the day had turned damp and grey and drizzly, and Jimmy winced as they climbed the fourth set of outer steps.

  Seeing her notice, he rubbed one knee. ‘Bloody cold damp weather plays havoc with ’em,’ he admitted with a sheepish grin.

  ‘None of us are getting any younger Jimmy,’ Hillary said, making the old sergeant give her a disbelieving double take. Today, she was dressed in a sage-green skirt and jacket with a lemon-yellow blouse. Her rich auburn hair seemed to be the only spot of fiery life within miles, and Jimmy thought she looked smashing.

  Getting old my arse, Jimmy thought indulgently. No wonder Steven Crayle noticed whenever she was around, he thought, with a sly grin.

  She knocked on Jenny McRae’s door and waited.

  Nothing.

  She knocked again.

  Still nothing. They were about to turn away, when suddenly they heard a door open and close inside, and then the front door reluctantly opened. It was on a chain, and the girl who peered out at them through the gap looked tired and suspicious.

  ‘Yeah?’

  Hillary held out her ID. ‘I’m with the CRT, Ms McRae. We’re looking into your mother’s case?’

  ‘Oh. Right. Dad called. Said you’d probably be dropping by. Hang on a mo’.’

  The door closed then opened again, and Jenny McRae stepped back to let them in. She was stick-thin, and had the pale pasty face of someone who didn’t get out much. Her long hair was lank, and a dirty-blonde in colour. Or maybe it was just dirty, and once washed, would show through in a much brighter shade, like that of her dead mother’s.

  ‘The kids are in school,’ she said defensively, in what, Hillary guessed, was a pure reflex. If she remembered rightly, Jenny had been prosecuted once before for allowing her children to be habitual truants.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure they are,’ she said soothingly.

  The flat was tiny – there were, she suspected, only two bedrooms, meaning the children had to share one between them. The living room had enough room for one sofa and a single armchair. There was no television. A glaring omission, which probably meant that Jenny had sold it at some point in order to get a fix. The whole place smelt of faintly sour milk. The walls were painted an off-white, which had probably come courtesy of whoever had had the flat before her.

  ‘Please, sit down.’

  Jimmy left the cleanest cushion seat on the sofa for Hillary and perched on one arm for himself.

  ‘So, what can I tell you, then? It can’t be much,’ Jenny said, sitting on the edge of the seat of the armchair, her hands twisting and turning in her lap. ‘I was at the swimming pool when it happened. I used to be one of the sporty set, believe it or not, when I was at school.’

  ‘And swimming was your favourite?’ Hillary asked, willing to ease her into it slowly. She knew she had to be careful, she wasn’t expecting the girl’s memory to be the best and this one looked as though she had all the emotional stability of a roller coaster.

  ‘Yeah. That and running fast. You know, sprints and stuff. Not that marathon or longer-distance stuff.’

  ‘And that day, you were at the pool? Was that a school thing or a private arrangement?’ Hillary asked, genuinely curious.

  ‘Oh, private. My best friend was a girl called Maddie Morrison, and her mum was a keen swimmer too. Maddie liked messing around in the water, you know, playing more than exercising, but her mum was teaching me how to time myself doing lengths. I was getting quite fast – the coach at the pool was beginning to notice me and everything. Anyway, she picked us up after school that day, and then took me back home.’

  ‘Your mother knew all about it, right?’

  ‘Oh yeah. Mum and Maddie’s mum were friends. Only that day, when Mrs Morrison took me home there were all these police cars there. And Mum was dead. I remember Lucy and Dad sitting with me in Mrs Morrison’s car. And Dad told me that Mum was dead.’

  Jenny McRae had pale green eyes, and they were staring mostly out of the window. ‘Lucy said it would be all right. But it never was. All right I mean. It never was all right again, somehow.’

  Jimmy Jessop shook his head with the barest movement of his neck, but Hillary saw it, and silently agreed with him. Looking at Jenny McRae, at the wasted life, the wasted body, the awful tiny flat, and the flat despair in her voice, it was enough to make anyone want to throw in the towel.

  ‘We went to a hotel. Peter had a room with Dad, and I had to share with Lucy. I wanted to have the room with Dad, but Peter did. Peter always got the best of everything,’ Jenny said resentfully, as if she was still eleven years old, instead of a woman in her thirties.

  Hillary had to smile. ‘You don’t get on with your brother?’

  ‘Peter’s a piss artist. He always was, he always will be. It’s not fair – he always lands on his feet. Just look at where he is now – living in some swanky place in North Oxford. The best bloody address in town.’ Course, that old fag that he’s living with pays for it all – some sort of snooty academic. It’s typical of Peter to end up as some rich old man’s toy boy. He calls himself a landscape gardener. Hah! That’s a laugh. All he does is plant some roses and bushes for his old man’s cronies, and calls himself self-employed. It’s a joke. He’s just a tart. A male tart, that’s all he is.’

  Hillary let her rant. She’d come across this type of behaviour before – normal as pie one minute, raving the next. She’d calm down and then be off on another tangent soon.

  ‘I’m hoping to speak to Lucy later on,’ she said, hoping to divert her before she got really started.

  ‘Lucy,’ Jenny said flatly, slumping back in the chair. ‘Lucy’s all right, I suppose.’ She didn’t sound particularly sure. She had a sheen of sweat on her face, and her fingers were beginning to walk along the edge of the chair arm. She was getting jittery. Hillary wondered when she’d last had a fix.

  ‘And I’ve already spoken to your father,’ Hillary continued, her expression totally bland. ‘He seems a nice man.’

  For the first time, Jenny smiled. ‘He is.’

  Hillary nodded. Ah, she got it now. Jenny was Daddy’s little girl, and she’d have bet the family jewels – if she had any – that Peter had been Anne’s favourite. It was often that way in families – Dads favouring the girls, and mothers favouring the boys.

  Which left Lucy, the middle child, out in the cold, so to speak. Hillary wondered if she’d felt the draught. When she talked to her later on, she’d have to find out.

  The more she knew about the way the McRae family had functioned, the better. Even though the killer obviously wasn’t part of the immediate circle, they were her best bet at finding
the thread that might lead her to him. Or her.

  ‘He’s concerned about you,’ Hillary went on. ‘When he talked to us, he made it very clear that he didn’t want his children to be upset by all this.’

  Jenny suddenly beamed. ‘That’s Dad all right. He’s always giving the kids pocket money, and if ever something breaks down around here, he comes and fixes it for me.’

  And pays some of the bills too, Hillary would have bet. But wisely, didn’t say.

  ‘Did you know about your Mum and your uncle Shane?’ Hillary asked instead, and as casually as she could.

  ‘No! Bloody hell, no. None of us did,’ Jenny shot forward on her chair again, the agitation back with a vengeance. ‘Of course, I didn’t really understand it at the time. I kept asking why Auntie Debbie didn’t see us anymore.’

  ‘Did you realize that your aunt was a prime suspect for your mother’s death at the time?’

  ‘No. I was too little, I suppose. A lot of stuff was kept from me. But I found out, anyway. From the kids at school – they used to tease me, of course. They read the papers, see, and kept them and showed me the articles. They said that my mother was a tramp – something they’d heard their own parents say, I suppose.’ Jenny gave a sudden high-pitched yelp of laughter that made Jimmy visibly jump. ‘You know, that puzzled me for ages afterwards, because I didn’t know what it meant. I mean, to me, a tramp was an old man who couldn’t find work who tramped about the countryside looking for handouts. And what did that have to do with my mum?’

  Jimmy winced. Kids could be heartless little buggers.

  ‘And thinking back to the days before it happened. Did your mum seem to change in any way?’ Hillary ploughed on doggedly.