Maria offers a grateful smile.
‘I’m working with the police, trying to identify who attacked Mr McMaster. Can you help? Did you see anything?’ My contractual obligation to Superintendent Thornton qualifies “working with the police”.
‘No. Mr Mac’s nice man. I think he’s not have enemies.’
He certainly had one. I push harder.
‘No. I see nothing. I’m not looking anywhere. My Giuseppe, he’s die only three weeks ago.’
I look down, say nothing. Sometimes it’s more respectful that way. One often says ‘Sorry’ and then we’re left to wonder whether they’re sorry for the loss or sorry for mentioning a departed loved one. I use the soft, female approach: ‘You were married a long time?’
‘Yes. Fifty-four years. Is long time. And he’s not be sick. I’m knowing nothing wrong with him and he’s just die there on the kitchen floor.’
And then I say it: ‘I’m sorry.’
I throw in my new-found knowledge: ‘Mr Mac is buying your property. Is that right?’
‘Yes. I am going smaller place. Maybe village. Mr Mac’s offer the good price. My boy Angelo, he’s look the figures and say is good.’
‘That must have been a surprise. Had you previously discussed selling to your neighbour?’
‘No, nothing like that. My Giuseppe’s never want to leave. He’s think the family take over and pass to the generations. Mr Mac’s just ask one day if he can buy because he’s help me and wants to make the big farm.’
I feel the conversation circling. ‘So what made you sell?’
‘I’m talk with Angelo, and he’s say is good idea for a fresh start.’
‘Had Mr McMaster ever talked about farming or buying your property before he made the offer?’
‘He’s once ask my Giuseppe and he’s say “No”. Mr Mac’s not talk much to me and Giuseppe, except the Christmas and sometimes hello in the garden. After he’s offer the good price and Giuseppe’s already gone, my Angelo’s help and we decide sell because I’m not being able to manage the farm.’
That seems fair enough, but the haste by which Angelo took on negotiations with McMaster surprises me. From my cynical perspective, I see Angelo as more focused on selling the family property than he is in mourning his father.
I capitalise on the conversation’s good fortune of spotlighting Angelo: ‘So was it Angelo who was instrumental, sorry, who helped you with the sale process?’
‘He’s a good boy, my Angelo. He’s do it nearly all. The papers, the going to solicitors, and he’s see Mr Mac for the final figures. I’m just sign the papers and it’s all done. But later he’s come to me and says he wants to buy the farm. I’m laugh, because he’s know nothing about the farming. He’s not even feed the chickens.’
‘Aah, yes. I met your son when I helped you home that night.’ I remember Angelo standing like a sentry before a fortress. Granted, he didn’t know me, but I see that as a reason to extend, not withhold, just a little cordiality. From my impression of Angelo, I agree that he might show determination to grow crops, but come animals and humans, he is grossly deficient in communication skills. I don’t convey this to his mother. ‘So you decided to sell?’
‘Yes. Half decided. Angelo’s coming later to me. He’s say, “You’re right, mama. You should sell. Clear the slate,” is what he say, but I’m no understand the slate. Then he’s start to cry and say nothing more and goes straight away home.’ Fuelled by sympathy, Maria also cries.
‘Don’t upset yourself. I’ll go now. I’m sure everything will work out.’
‘All right miss. Can you tell the police when I get my things back?’
‘What things?’
‘When the police coming the second time, the take the things. They’re saying we check for any sick and I’m know no one’s been sick here, only die, so I’m not understand why they take the things.’
I almost piss myself – sorry, let go of my bladder. I’m no match for a linguistics graduate, but I easily piece together that “for any sick” translates to “forensic”. ‘What did they take?’
‘I’m not see everything because they tell me sit in other room. But I know they take the rolling pin for the pasta and the wood jar for the spaghetti and the paddle for thrashing the dust from the mats. If there’s more, I’m not missing yet.’
I used to supply an inventory of seized items to the property’s owner or tenant. I can’t see that procedure as having been revoked so I put the omission down to a detective’s oversight, or Maria’s difficulty with English language. ‘I’ll speak to the detective. You should get them back soon.’
My visit has extracted all information. The problem remains: Why would someone try to derail a property purchase? Mrs Caruso’s physical frailty prevents her. She is happy to move. Angelo doesn’t live there, but I can’t discount him because of that. The only other commonality I see is McMaster’s association with Jeff Main.
I hop the fence to visit Gloria McMaster. As I stretch through the parallel wires, a sprinkling of paper fragments, not unlike confetti, attracts my attention. I can’t imagine the McMasters, or the Carusos for that matter, as the class of people to litter their own property. Putting that aside, my craving for nose-poking into other people’s business obligates me to pick up a few pieces. They bear handwriting on one side and black typeface on the other. I don’t need a diploma to discern the shredded matter is a business card. A flashback to my jigsaw solving days compels me to gather the pieces. From the small handful, I assemble the tiny fragments to form what appears to be part of a message: I know bout you… Rememb… operatio… inside for… ng ime.
I can’t make much of the soiled writing other than to realise that it isn’t a birthday party invitation. In context of where I’ve found it and the relationship between the opposing neighbours, I consider it to be something more sinister. When I turn the pieces over to assemble the typeface, the words ‘Jeffrey Main’ and ‘solicitor’ spring from my palm. It follows that the card hasn’t flown out of a rubbish bin. The only time I’ve ripped up business cards has been through frustration, a tantrum, or when I wanted to destroy what was actually on the card. Those scenarios dovetail with my find. I scour the immediate area, collect every visible piece, and drop them into a small Glad Bag.
Nearby, the remnants of a cigarette have been crunched into the ground. Roll your own. Stands out like a cat turd on a snooker table. I detest irresponsible smokers who throw butts from car windows; tread them into footpaths and marble steps of iconic buildings; stomp them into sporting grounds because the ‘caretaker will clean them up later’; leave them scattered in front of shops and offices to flow into drains and rivers with the next downpour; and my worst pet-hate – as if there is worse than the foregoing – the desperados at railway stations who wilfully flick their lit cigarette to the platform as the train rolls in, and once within the carriage, exhale their filthy tobacco breath over every commuter in the vestibule and adjacent seats.
This particular butt – it is more than a butt; nearly a full cigarette – would not have aroused my attention but for the fact it accompanies the confetti-like scraps. I pick it up, using a Glad Bag as a glove like a responsible pet lover collecting her dog’s doings from a local park. I hope it might prove useful.
One disadvantage of self-employment is that I no longer enjoy quality resources once at my disposal within the constabulary. Previously, I would log the card fragments and butt as exhibits in the Property Office, making them available for forensic examination should the need arise. Watts Happening? Investigations practises low-tech evidence handling – and most other things. I store items in my safe, accompanied by a sworn affidavit attesting to the time and date of their finding.
Satisfied with my treasure, I continue towards Ashton Hill.
From the rear, the property looks far more imposing than it does from the front. It rises from the ground li
ke that huge monolith in the Australian outback. It was universally known as Ayers Rock, until the 1985 political correctness bandwagon handed the local indigenous tribes ownership and the right to convey upon it the aboriginal name of Uluru.
Up close, the confrontational mansion’s two wings extend far behind the facade, each comprising, at my best guess, a minimum of six substantial rooms. Again, the thought strikes me: How does a copper afford this? And then I am double-struck. I glare at the huge window occupying the full gable end of the right-hand side wing. I imagine McMaster spying on neighbours, but as I edge closer to the wall, I make out what appears to be an artists’ easel in the centre of the glazing. Never could I see the DI as an artist (although he does splatter good bullshit) so I deduce the apparatus must belong to his wife.
I continue to the front door. Lean on the bell. Jive to a melodic chime. Wait for a maid or butler. Nothing wrong with fantasy; so wild is my imagination of what I might find beyond the huge carved door. I drift into the nineteenth century… Rhett Butler, the staircase…
Whatever is there will complement the enormity and grandiloquence I’d witnessed during my night-time rummage. The door cracks open. A diminutive woman with an anaemic, pasty albino complexion, greets me: ‘Yes?’
Great start. Like anyone attending a domain of the rich, I had expectations. High expectations. Designer dress – hand-stitched by a personal courtier – jewellery hanging off fingers and earlobes, hair piled high into a beehive bouffant, and a voice cultured through regard for personal elocution. I am disappointed.
‘Yes?’ she repeats in an Essex-tainted voice. She is the best representation of office gossip in the flesh I’ve ever seen. Think dowdy. Frumpy.
I introduce myself, slipping in that I am a former police member now charged with identifying Phillip McMaster’s attacker. Poetic licence is a great asset.
‘I don’t share your concern. He hasn’t been my husband for some time. Been carting ’round floozies behind my back. Most of ’em coppers, I’ll bet.’
“Floozies”. I haven’t heard the word since mum labelled a neighbour with it when I was still wearing pinafores and knitted tights. Despite her vague admission, I continue: ‘So you’re Gloria McMaster?’
‘Unfortunately. Don’t I look like a rejected housewife?’
Don’t get me started. She invites the sympathetic, consoling babble she’s probably heard a thousand times from her society set: You can work through it; think of how your life would be without him; you couldn’t go back to a semi-detached in a council estate; and all the other pompous ill-advised encouragement they hand out over cups of tea – pinkies extended as if they’re broken at the knuckle – sweet shortbreads clenched in the other hand, all the while battling to elevate themselves up the ranking ladder of their husband’s personal worth.
Not me. No way. I’d just tell him to fuck off.
The woman has problems. Proverbial chip on the shoulder. Perhaps I shouldn’t blame her if she’s been treated half as bad as some police wives. ‘Did you hear anything on the evening of Monday, April twenty-third?’
She throws her head back like an actress rejected after an audition: ‘Not a sound. Not a murmur. Might have been sozzled. When was the twenty-third?’
Shaping up to be a lost cause. ‘Is there a possibility his attacker could have been a revenge-seeking part-time lover?’
‘I don’t know and I don’t care.’ She becomes even shorter: ‘If there’s nothing else, I’m preparing dinner.’
Play to their strengths when you’re buying time: ‘Detective Interviewing Techniques’, Module Two. ‘Sorry, I don’t mean to impose. I just came from the Caruso’s across your rear yard. That amazing rear window frames your easel like a painting in a gallery. You’re an artist?’
‘Try to be. Nothing else here to keep me occupied.’
‘I wonder if you could cast your mind back to the kerfuffle on the twentieth, when Giuseppe collapsed. I believe Mrs Caruso ran over here to get your husband?’
As she couldn’t remember the twenty-third, I don’t know what makes me think she might recall the twentieth. But she does. Clear as one of her Swarovski vases.
‘Waddled. She didn’t run. Got the gait thing happening. Yes, she got Phil, didn’t run back though – they went in his car. Total misfortune if you ask me. Phil was over there only minutes before Maria came waddling over. I thought he must have forgotten something and she was returning it. Until I heard all the yelling that is.’
‘What? You’re saying that your husband was at the Caruso’s immediately prior to Maria attending here?’
‘That’s exactly what I’m saying. I was sitting right at the window waiting for the sun to cast the right light on the Malvern Hills. Phil wandered down back and had a smoke under the trees. You walked through them on your way here. Goodness knows what he was up to. He climbed through the fence, into the Caruso’s but re-emerged only seconds later. Sprang back to the house happy as Larry. Strange. He had a cricket bat or similar under his arm. No idea why. Who knows what goes on in his head? Next minute, he’s sitting outside with his precious Scotch, if you want the full blow-by-blow description.’
I thank The Lord – if he still looks over me – for bagging the butt from that exact area. ‘So you’re sure it was the fourteenth?’
‘Miss, I have a drink now and then, but sure as I’m standing here, it was the fourteenth. I’ll tell you why. After Phil came back the second time, I asked what the ambulance was for and he said Giuseppe had collapsed. Moments later he was getting ready for work as if nothing had happened. He was on a 6.00 p.m. start. Saturday, my TV night. Just ask Maria and her son, the one with the black car. They’ll confirm everything I’ve told you. Now, if there’s nothing more, I should like to go inside.’
I thank her as she turns and closes the door. I am elated to have converted her from an uptight, deserted housewife, to a semi-communicable citizen – assuming she has told me the truth. If, heaven forbid, it is the truth – and I’m not going to vent this until I am absolutely sure – then DI Phillip McMaster could be in for one hell of a lengthy interrogation.
Gloria’s perception, or belief, of her husband’s pleasure practices, augment my expanding profile of Phillip McMaster, and push him closer to Gillian.
Whilst she is my prime concern, I cannot ignore peripheral matters. I look at it this way: I would rather be an old 32 volume Encyclopaedia Britannica than a toddler’s brand new ABC reader. The more information in my arsenal, the better equipped I am to conquer the crims.
Back to Gillian, I wonder if she had been spurned by McMaster, or worse still, learned that he’d uncovered the true purpose of her friendship. It’s not uncommon for a scorned woman to seek vengeance, and, she was undoubtedly in the right place at the right time when the tree dropped. But she didn’t physically do it. Of that I am sure.
That doesn’t mean she couldn’t have arranged it. The script changed though, after the plan failed. To allay suspicion, she had to attend the hospital, and in pandering to his emotions, offer her one hundred percent devotion.
From what I’d witnessed, her display of affection is much, much, more than an undercover act. So what would be her motive?
Too hard basket. I’ll sit on that one.
XXX
But not for too long.
I head to Angelo Caruso’s home. I have no particular lead other than my screaming intuition: there’s something about him. His father dies and now he’s dealing the farm.
A Harley leans on the front veranda. My raps go unanswered, so I circumnavigate the premises. He could be anywhere; at work, on a run, or strolling to the local shops. I wait.
My patience wanes with the daylight. Two hours’ later, I scribble ‘Contact me please’ on a business card and wedge it into the door jamb. I twist the knob. The door opens. Why the hell didn’t I do that two hours ago?
‘Hello, a
nyone home?’
No reply.
‘Hello. Angelo?’
Again, no reply. I step inside. A pong assails me. Stale tobacco, beer and body odour. Not the best combination to greet a girl. I tip-toe along the hallway, poke my head into a sitting room and then enter a large kitchen. No sign of Angelo or anyone else.
I creep upstairs where a bathroom and bedroom squeeze into the vaulted roof space. At first glance, Angelo appears to be a remarkably neat person (for a male) which seems out of character, and conflicts with his aversion to opening windows. The contrast shakes me when I step into the bedroom. A pair of jeans lies over the bed end, a flannelette cowboy shirt hangs from the back of a chair, and black boots sit beneath. The bed covers are tumbled aside as if Angelo answered a call of diarrhoea. The prophecy gains credibility when I see his underpants on the floor beside the bed. I recognise the habit from a past boyfriend – Angelo is a ‘Commando’ sleeper.
I study the sheets, hoping to locate evidence. He sleeps on his own. The two pillows are different sizes, which isn’t necessarily unusual for an uncoordinated male, but the pillow opposite his side of the double bed has no indentations. Whilst the sheets evidence the hills and valleys of restless sleep, one pillow is as smooth and white as a snow-laid vale.
My first reaction is to pick up his pillow, peek underneath and try to discern his musty, male scent. Alcohol or tobacco residue often provides valuable evidence. My training kicks in and warns me to not touch anything. It’s not as if it is a crime scene, but given the events of the previous few days, it does have the potential to be one.
I lean over the bed (this may repulse some, but I’ve had to do far worse in my career) and draw in the pillow’s scent. Stale male. Unmistakeable. The guy must sleep with the pillow under his armpits.
I poke around the bedroom, but nothing, other than a cluster of aftershave and deodorants sitting symmetrically on the dressing table, convinces me that Angelo is anything but a slovenly, arrogant pig.
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