She was glad when they arrived. They were exactly on time, but she had been sitting in a chair watching the front gate for five minutes, getting uncharacteristically nervous. That lumpish Sergeant Hook had a tall man with a stoop behind him as he came up the path. This must be the Superintendent Lambert the paper had made into a local hero when they reported that he had been put on to the Kate Wharton case. ‘Top Cop Brought in to Probe Murder of Local Beauty,’ their headline had said. He didn’t look anything special, to her, but she’d better be on her guard.
Lambert’s eyes were level with hers as she stood on the doorstep above him. They were grey, searching eyes which had no embarrassment in studying her. She took the two CID men into the living room and offered them tea, which they refused. As soon as they were sitting down, the superintendent said, ‘I’m very sorry about Kate, Mrs Wharton.’
She allowed herself a little nod of acknowledgement. ‘Thank you. I understand you discovered the body yourself.’
‘To be strictly accurate, Sergeant Hook found her. But I was with him at the time.’
‘Golf must be a good way for you to wind down. I don’t play myself, but I understand Ross is a very good course.’
He wondered if he should really believe his ears. The bereaved mother, perfectly composed, discussing the way policemen relaxed and the quality of facilities in a game she did not play. It was too polite and artificial for him to believe she was doing anything other than diverting him from more important areas. But what areas? For all her assurance, she scarcely looked like a woman who would wrench a cord hard round the neck of her own daughter until she ceased to breathe. Bert Hook had already suggested one area to be explored, but he didn’t want to start with that. He said, ‘I’m sorry we had to put you through the ordeal of identification.’
‘The law demands it. I was the obvious person, as her father is dead.’
‘Indeed. But it is harrowing, nonetheless. There’s one more formal ordeal for you, I’m afraid. There will be an inquest. You’ll be called to give evidence of identification.’
‘That won’t be a problem.’
‘The coroner will certainly be sympathetic. It’s unlikely that you will be asked any other questions.’
She showed the first expression on that blank, polite face with its frame of neat dark hair: a flicker of irritation. ‘You don’t need to wrap me in cotton wool, Mr Lambert. I won’t collapse in tears.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. Because in that case, you won’t mind helping us now, by answering a few more searching questions about Kate.’
She registered the harder tone in his voice, knew that the real business they had come here to conduct was about to start. ‘Ask away.’
‘What was your relationship with your daughter, Mrs Wharton?’
‘She left home four years ago.’ She watched the impassive Hook recording the fact in his round hand in the notebook he had produced.
Lambert said, with the air of a man whose patience is not inexhaustible, ‘Mrs Wharton, our problem in a murder investigation is that it is the one crime in which we cannot interview the victim. We have to build up a picture, in this case of a dead girl, through the eyes of those who knew her when she was alive. We would expect a mother to be anxious to help us.’
‘I’m answering your questions.’
‘There are some cases where one can make a distinction between answering questions and being co-operative. I’d say that this is one of them, so far.’
She looked at him as if she was wondering whether to take offence. Then she said coolly, ‘We weren’t close, Kate and I. I haven’t seen much of her, since she left home. That was her choice.’
‘The leaving home, or the lack of contact afterwards?’ ‘Both.’
‘You didn’t visit her?’
‘I didn’t even know where she lived, after the first couple of years. She never came back here.’
‘Didn’t you care about that, Mrs Wharton?’
‘I don’t see that it’s any of your business whether I did or not.’
‘I can assure you that it is, now that Kate is a murder victim.’
‘All right. We had a row. She walked out. Neither of us held out the olive branch, so we didn’t meet up or make up. That may be sad, because death is so final, but those are the facts of the case.’
‘Was Kate very close to you, in the years before she left?’
She pursed her lips and sat back a little in her armchair, as if considering the question for the first time. ‘We weren’t as close as many mothers and daughters are. You might have expected us to be, but that was the situation. Kate’s father died eight years ago last week. She was very close to him and she was fourteen when he died. I had most of the troubles of adolescence to tackle on my own. We quarrelled quite a lot and there was no one else to share the load.’
Lambert nodded. He had taken two daughters of his own through adolescence, and he would have got it very wrong without Christine’s help. ‘Serious quarrels? I ask because many people come through such things and find themselves closer than ever. You sound as though that didn’t happen for you.’
She looked into those penetrating grey eyes for a moment before she said, ‘We were never very close, the two of us. I sometimes think I haven’t the capacity for that sort of love.’
It should have sounded infinitely sad. It sounded flat and empty, but hardly regretful. It was issued as a statement of fact, rather than a plea for sympathy. Lambert could already see why Bert Hook had seen this woman as an enigma. He said, ‘So you weren’t close at the time of her death.’
‘We were not even in touch with each other.’
There should have been a human tragedy here. But she presented it again as a bald summary of events, a reason why she could not be connected with this death. Lambert wondered for the first time whether this was indeed a tactic, a distancing of herself from a death victim so as to reduce suspicion. He said quietly, ‘When did you last see Kate alive, Mrs Wharton?’
‘It must have been three months or more before her death. And that was only a chance meeting. I ran into her in Gloucester when I was shopping.’
‘And how did she seem then?’
‘Unexpectedly prosperous. She was well dressed and cheerful. But we only spoke for a few minutes.’
‘I’m afraid I have to tell you that she had been using drugs. She wasn’t an addict, it seems, but she had certainly used drugs in the months before her death. Was there any evidence of this when you met her?’
‘No, she seemed cheerful and optimistic. Would that be something to do with the drugs? I wouldn’t know what the symptoms are.’ She seemed happy to declare that; she did it with a small smile of satisfaction.
‘You didn’t notice any dilation of the eye pupils, any unnatural, febrile excitement?’
‘No, nothing like that. But as I said, we spoke only briefly. Kate suggested we went for a coffee, but I hadn’t the time.’
There should have been an infinite sadness in this last missed opportunity, but again she reported it merely as a piece of information, an explanation why she could offer little of interest about this dead daughter. Lambert said, ‘Had she any enemies that you know of? Think carefully, please.’
‘I don’t need to. The answer’s no. I’ve thought about it, since I heard about her death, of course I have. But I know so little about the way she has lived in these last years that I can’t be of help.’
It was what he had expected, but the manner of its delivery again surprised him: she sounded content rather than regretful that she was unable to help them. ‘Where were you last Sunday, Mrs Wharton?’ he asked abruptly.
‘Here, most of the day. I did some clearing up in the garden, ready for the bedding plants.’
‘Were you alone?’
She considered the matter. He was quite sure that she knew what he was about, that he was asking whether she had a witness to her presence here at the time when her daughter died. ‘The woman next door came in for a coffee
in the morning. I met a friend for Sunday lunch at the Penny Farthing at Lea. I can give you her name.’
‘And in the late afternoon and evening?’
‘I was here. That’s when Kate died, isn’t it?’ She was suddenly much more animated.
‘We think so. Think about this again, please. Can you think of anyone who might have killed your daughter, whether on impulse or as a pre-planned crime?’
‘No. I told you earlier, I was out of touch with Kate and even more out of touch with her circle.’
Again that calm dismissal, as if her only child had been no more than a distant acquaintance. Lambert felt his irritation rising further. ‘How long have you been a widow, Mrs Wharton?’
‘I thought I told you that. Eight years now.’
‘Do you have a close male friend?’
‘I don’t see that that’s any concern of yours.’
‘Normally you’d be correct. But this is a murder inquiry, and we need to explore every avenue. Surely you want us to arrest the person who killed your daughter?’
She shrugged her trim shoulders. ‘No. I know a few men, of course — I work with men in Cheltenham — but I have no close attachment.’
There was a pause. Hook looked up from his notebook and came in as Lambert had known he would. ‘And yet you know some man well enough to do his washing, Mrs Wharton.’
She looked at him furiously — angry with him for his intervention, and with herself for underestimating the man she had thought so wooden. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
Hook said mildly, ‘When I collected you to identify the body of your daughter yesterday morning, there were male clothes on your washing line.’
‘But you didn’t come in.’
‘Are you denying the fact?’
He must have looked down the row of back gardens from the end as he turned into the close. Crafty bugger! He sat there, looking a little overweight, like a bloke who’d eaten too much and was ready to fall asleep. And yet he had picked this up, in those two meetings where she thought she had given him nothing at all. She told herself not to panic, that she had always known it would come out about Roy, that there was really nothing lost here.
Yet she had been exposed in a lie: she was going to have to go back on what she had said. She forced a meaningless smile, said carefully, ‘All right, there is a man. A boyfriend, if you like, though at forty-two I’m too old to deal in such terms. I have a lover, a serious lover.’
Lambert nodded. ‘Whom you tried to conceal from us. Who might have gone unremarked, for a time at least, had it not been for Detective Sergeant Hook’s alertness.’
‘I wanted to keep my man out of this. That’s natural enough, isn’t it?’
‘Perhaps. Unless he had any connection with this death, of course.’
‘I can assure you he didn’t.’
‘Unfortunately we can’t accept that assurance. Especially as you tried to conceal his very existence from us. We’ll have his name, please.’
‘His name is Roy Cook.’
‘Is Mr Cook a married man?’
‘Is that remotely relevant?’
‘It is, yes. It would give you a reason for trying to conceal his identity from us. A reason which would be innocent, in terms of this murder.’
She flushed a little; Bert Hook thought that she looked slightly rattled, for the first time in three meetings. ‘Roy is divorced. He had been separated for several years before that. Now that his divorce is through, we shall be getting married.’
‘How long have you known him?’
She had not expected this detailed questioning — would have resisted answering, indeed, if she had followed her inclination. But she had got off on the wrong foot by denying Roy’s very existence; if she sought to conceal the details of their relationship, they might question other, more hostile, sources. ‘About seven years. We’ve been a couple for the last five.’
‘Does Mr Cook live here?’
She would have liked to say yes, to claim they were married in all but name. But they were certain to question Roy now, and they wouldn’t get that version from him. ‘No. He has a small house of his own, on the other side of Gloucester. But he spends at least as many nights here as there, and does most of his washing here, as Sergeant Hook so observantly noted.’
Bert Hook ignored the acidity in her tone and took down the address. Lambert asked, ‘Did Mr Cook know your daughter?’
She did a swift calculation. Kate, as they had pointed out so helpfully, wasn’t here to give her side of the story, and she could brief Roy before they got to him; she’d be on the phone to him as soon as they left here. But there was a cool efficiency about these two. They weren’t likely simply to accept what she and Roy said: they’d probably send someone in their team to question neighbours and other relatives. She couldn’t afford to be caught out in another clumsy lie. She said, ‘Roy did know Kate, yes, briefly.’
‘How well did he know her?’
She hadn’t been prepared for anything so direct. She thought of saying ‘not in the biblical sense’, but she knew this wasn’t the time for flippancy. She said, ‘Scarcely at all. As far as I remember, Kate walked out a few months after Roy and I had got serious.’
‘And was her departure connected in any way with Mr Cook?’
This was important. She took her time, smiled at them to show how ridiculous the notion was. ‘He didn’t rape her, if that’s what you mean! But Kate was eighteen at the time, and I suppose the arrival of any new man in what had been her father’s bed might have had an effect. I don’t think she liked it, but it wasn’t personal: she hardly knew Roy.’
She was trying to be offhand, but Lambert fancied there was a little more here than she was prepared to concede. He made a mental note to press Cook on this one, in due course, though he was sure this cool woman would have her lover well briefed before they got to him. He stood up. ‘We shall probably need to speak to you again, in due course, Mrs Wharton. In the meantime—’
‘Why is that? I assure you there is nothing more I can tell you.’
‘We shall need to check out certain things about Kate. Certain impressions other people may have formed of her. We may need to discuss with you certain facts of which you are as yet ignorant. You say you know very little about the life your daughter led in the years before her death.’
She wondered how he managed to make those closing sentences sound so ominous. She watched them drive out of the close, then waited another two minutes before she rang Roy.
***
On a golden May evening, Lambert looked out of the window of the murder room in the car park of Ross-on-Wye Golf Club, decided enough was enough, and took Bert Hook out on to the golf course.
‘Golf must be a good way for you to wind down,’ the enigmatic Julie Wharton had said, and who was he to dispute this eminently sensible view from a member of the public they served? Bert Hook would have disputed it: within two holes, he felt he was being wound up rather than wound down.
Bert was quite pleased when his drive went straight down the middle of the first fairway. ‘Try taking the club away more slowly, and make sure you complete your backswing,’ said Lambert from his position at the edge of the tee, where he was assessing Hook carefully with his head slightly on one side. Bert did both — and topped his 6-iron second savagely through the green. Bert wasted a look of molten fury on his chief’s retreating back, as Lambert walked away with his head shaking sadly over this incompetence.
Hook was winning the second hole, where his handicap gave him a shot advantage, from start to finish. He thought he was going to get through an entire hole without advice, but after he had trickled his winning putt into the hole, Lambert said, ‘Your putting style isn’t convincing, you know, but if you’re happy with it, that’s up to you, of course.’
‘I’m happy with it!’ said Bert through clenched teeth.
But he found that when he came to putt on the third hole, he was intensely conscious both of the style
Lambert had thought unconvincing and of his mentor’s intense scrutiny. He found it an immense effort to hit the ball at all. Eventually he sent it right of the hole with a sudden prod. He looked up to find Lambert wincing and looking up at the intense blue sky.
Bert couldn’t go through this performance on every green. ‘All right, John,’ he conceded resignedly, ‘what is it you think I’m getting wrong?’
Lambert leapt forward like a starving lion offered raw meat. He gave Hook what he called ‘the orthodox reverse overlap putting grip’. He steered Bert’s head over the ball and pushed the back of his knees forward with a 5-iron into what he called ‘the orthodox semi-sitting posture’. He told Bert to rock his shoulders back and forth and keep his wrists steady. ‘Now, try it again,’ he said. ‘I’m sure you’ll find that much more comfortable.’
Bert struggled into position. Reminders about each of these instructions accompanied his every modification of a putting style which had seemed to him quite efficient. He kept his head rigid over the ball, not daring to move it, as he said from the corner of his mouth, ‘I feel like an arthritic crab.’
‘You’ll soon find it feels entirely natural,’ Lambert reassured him. ‘There’s no one behind us, so just try a six-foot putt before we move on.’
Bert did. The ball shot past the hole, six inches left of it. ‘You putted that like an arthritic crab!’ said Lambert sadly.
Hook received more instructions on his swing on the fourth and fifth. Perhaps because of his enthusiasm for imparting knowledge, Lambert’s own game was increasingly erratic, a trend which Bert noticed but upon which he refrained from commenting. This saintly forbearance failed to stem the tidal wave of instruction. Bert looked at his watch. Past eight o’clock, and high tide at Bristol. The Severn Bore, that watery phenomenon so amazing to see, so impossible to resist, would be surging up the river ten miles to the east of them. The flow of Lambert’s advice seemed to him like a similar irresistible force of nature.
Death on the Eleventh Hole Page 8