by DH Smith
‘But he wasn’t there this morning, was he?’
‘No,’ said Vicky. ‘I assumed he’d gone to the school.’
‘Even with a massive hangover?’ queried DI Jones.
‘Especially with a massive hangover,’ she said. ‘Ashamed of himself. He’d rather suffer alone in his office. Pretend to us he’s working. A game we played. Middle class pride you might say. He could make out he hadn’t got drunk, and I’d not mention it. I was going to call him at lunchtime, see if he wanted any food… Not very likely, but part of the game.’
‘So he got drunk quite often, Mrs DeNeuve.’
‘Too often.’
‘Why?’
‘Stress,’ she said with a sigh. ‘The school has financial problems but we are sorting them out. A new school year is about to begin. And habit. His drug of choice.’ She wiped her eyes. ‘This is so distressing. I am overwhelmed. A perfectly normal day and then…’ She stopped herself, enough of that. ‘We’ve had our problems, Inspector. Don’t all couples? But we’ve always sorted them out… How could it have happened?’ She appealed directly. ‘You are the expert in such matters, Inspector. What’s your opinion on his death?’
A question that went to the heart of the matter. She wanted to know where the Inspector was. Was she already thinking accidental death?
‘It’s too early for opinions, Mrs DeNeuve.’
‘But you must have your ideas, Inspector.’
‘No more than you have. What do you think happened?’
‘I assume that while very drunk, Graham stumbled down to the lake and somehow fell in. Isn’t that the most likely explanation?’
‘It is certainly one explanation, Mrs DeNeuve. But there are others. The autopsy will ascertain the exact cause of death. And then I can begin to have opinions. In the meantime, I simply have a body in a lake.’
‘A body that has consumed a lot of alcohol,’ said Vicky. ‘Which must lead one to think…’ She flapped a hand weakly. ‘I am very sorry, Inspector, I simply know my husband better than you do. One of us should have kept an eye on him last night. And then this would not have happened. One simply assumes a particular drunken episode will have the same outcome as all the others.’ She dabbed her eyes. ‘Please excuse me, Inspector. This is so public. The sins of the family exposed to the world. Our secrets on display. Oh dear. Your investigation is necessary, I am sure. You don’t know the family, Inspector, never having met Graham. But there’s no doubt in my mind about the cause of my husband’s death, but I must allow you to catch up.’
‘Thank you, Mrs DeNeuve.’ DI Jones had risen. ‘One last point. A little thing, really… Do you have a wheelbarrow?’
‘No, I don’t,’ she said in surprise. ‘Is it important?’
DI Jones smiled. ‘You never know what’s important, madam. Or what will lead you up a gum tree. Thank you for your co-operation.’ She closed her notebook and put her pen in her inside pocket. ‘An area of the lake has been taped off. Scene of crime officers are currently going over it looking for evidence that might assist. The body will be taken away for an autopsy shortly. Then with the pathologist’s report on the post mortem, we’ll know with some certainty the cause of your husband’s death. And then, hopefully, work out how it happened. Time consuming, but necessary, Mrs DeNeuve.’
‘You have your job to do, Inspector.’
‘I’d be obliged if you stayed away from the taped area. I or one of my officers will keep you informed of any developments. In the meantime, thank you for your help at this distressing time.’
DI Jones left her. Vicky lay back exhausted. She had performed well. The woman was competent, too competent. And that question about the wheelbarrow, that was a shock. With all those officers scouring the lakeside. How thorough had the girls been last night? Everything rested on it. She was unable to move from her armchair. To an outsider, it would appear as if she were immobilised by grief.
Chapter 31
Cathy and Ellie sat on the cane furniture on the patio while their mother was in the house being interviewed. The lawn was very green where Vicky had watered it last night. It was short and neat. She had dead-headed the flowers in the herbaceous border along one side of the lawn. The dahlias were brilliant, the reds, yellows, and oranges flashy and bright. They were Vicky’s pride. Every autumn she took the tubers in, wrapped in copies of The Times, and put them in the cupboard under the stairs. Then planted them out the following May. Along the other side of the lawn was her rose bed, the pinks, whites, yellows and blood reds in resplendent petal. She was thorough with her feeding and quick with insecticide at any sign of distress.
At the rear of the lawn was the gazebo, made from woven willow, partly obscuring the vegetable garden, where Cathy or Ellie might have seen, if they were looking, a stand of corn, bean poles, and soft fruit.
But they weren’t looking at fruit and vegetables.
‘This is awful,’ said Ellie. ‘The game we have to play.’
‘Play it well.’
‘How cut up we all are.’ She waved a hand like a flapper girl, mimicking. ‘Oh, oh, how dreadful it is for the family, I’ll never get over it, I want to jump into his grave…’ She stopped, performance over. ‘While the reality is, we filled Daddy up with alcohol through a tube, just in case he wasn’t drunk enough, and then carted him down to the lake on a little family trip – where he was dumped like a load of rotten vegetables…’ She stared across at her sister. ‘He was our father, Cathy.’
Cathy blew a raspberry. ‘He was a drunk. Bad enough. How many students that lost us – who can say? He pretended to work, he was a useless headmaster. Bramley was running downhill so fast that the crash was imminent… Two hundred years the school has been in our family. That’s the sin that puts him beyond the pale.’ She shook a fist. ‘We were about to lose it, Ellie.’ Her eyes glowed, her hands flashed. ‘Alive, he would’ve bankrupted us with his incompetence.’
‘I know, I know,’ said Ellie wearily.
Cathy leaned forward and gripped Ellie’s arm. ‘Don’t be the weak one, Ellie. We are all in this together, me, you and Mummy. Daddy is dead. Drunk and drowned. Keep your nerve. The police won’t stay long.’
Ellie withdrew her arm from her sister’s grip.
‘What about George and Jenny Grove?’
‘All George has to say to the police is that he saw nothing.’
‘He’s been here seventeen years, Cathy. He knows all sorts of things about all of us. And what was that with the computers he was shifting this morning? You were in the car park when he was bringing them in.’
‘He stole them all!’ exclaimed Cathy. ‘Complete lack of loyalty. I was watching him take our computers out of his car. I couldn’t believe it. The barefaced cheek of the man. He didn’t give a damn that I was watching.’
‘He does have something bigger on us,’ said Ellie.
‘He had them in the boathouse all the time…’
‘I know.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because I looked. I was thinking of taking a boat out,’ she said awkwardly.
‘With your builder?’
‘Mind your own business.’
‘It might be a good idea to leave off slumming for the time being.’
‘When I want your advice on my love life,’ snapped Ellie, ‘I’ll ask for it. Thank you very much.’
They were silent and seething. Too much history, rows, fights, rages. They couldn’t disengage. It was the way they were.
‘You were telling me about the caretaker and the computers,’ said Ellie, ‘before you went off‑piste.’
Cathy shrugged. ‘He’d put them in the boathouse for the time being, before he could get them away, sell them, I don’t know the exact ins and outs, and he was afraid the cops would find them when the body was reported. And so he’s put them in the school cellar.’
‘Let’s hope they don’t look there.’
‘Why should they?’ said Cathy. ‘It’s death by misadventure. An ac
cident. Why should they be suspicious?’
‘Should they find them,’ said Ellie determinedly, ‘and get George for them, he may well not hold back on what he knows about our little affair. After all, he’ll get jailed, get evicted – how could we not evict him for nicking our computers? And then he’ll squeal like a stuck pig.’
‘He can’t move them now,’ said Cathy. ‘Not with all the cops crawling around. They are where they’re staying.’
‘What a parade of toy soldiers!’
‘Oh shut up!’
‘We haven’t even preserved Bramley unless this can be sorted out in time… Before the creditors home in. We might have done him in for nothing.’
‘Sometimes I hate you, Ellie.’
‘Only sometimes, Cathy. That’s an improvement.’
The two sisters did not speak a while. Each aware that their fears only led them to attacking each other. Their default for any strong emotion. Bees were buzzing in the dahlias, drinking in the sunlight. A red admiral was hovering above the bean poles.
‘Is Mummy still talking to that Detective Inspector?’ said Ellie wearily.
Cathy looked in through the French windows.
‘No, she’s gone.’
‘I thought she was going to interview us straight after,’ Ellie said. She threw up her hands. ‘We can’t go anywhere. Stuck like kids in a school detention, until they dismiss us.’
‘I’m going in to see Mummy,’ said Cathy. ‘Find out how she fared.’
‘I’m so dog tired, I might have a sleep on the lawn,’ said Ellie.
Chapter 32
On the drive to his mother’s in Plaistow, Jack and Mia hardly spoke. He tried bringing up the topic of the dead body in the lake, but she was unresponsive, giving him yes and no answers. He thought with Alison in hospital this wasn’t the best time for her to find a corpse. Not that there was an ideal time, just some times were easier than others. He wished he knew what was going on with Alison, then at least he could discuss it with Mia, but knowing so little there was not much he could say except admit his ignorance.
And then there was the embarrassment with Ellie. He liked Ellie a lot, and she was up for it. Well, both adults, and the stock cupboard was handy. A bit of fun out of the humdrum, lovemaking mid morning. That didn’t come every day. Except it needed to be secret, his and hers. You don’t do such things in a school. Above all, you should not be observed by a sharp eyed eleven year old.
And when she’d put him on the spot, he’d told a crass lie.
Traffic was flowing quite quickly on the A12. They went smoothly through Brentwood, all the way to Romford where there was a bit of a hold up, and then picking up again through Chadwell Heath, on the Eastern Avenue. This was one of those journeys that could be 35 minutes or an hour and a half. Depending on traffic. So far so good.
His neck prickled when he thought of the lie he’d grasped from the sky. Why would you go into a stock room, holding hands for heaven’s sake, to look at a boy’s pictures of horses?
Galloping stallions perhaps.
If there were any pictures, they’d be stacked with other papers on a shelf. You would bring them out into the light anyway.
Lies, illness, death and sex left them with nothing to say. She was looking out the window. Not the most fascinating of roads, a town throughway. How do you get talking again? Find new things to say. He’d have to do something with her. Go out with the telescope, go to the pictures, to the seaside. At least now he was taking her away from the scene.
Normally they got on so well. He’d buggered that par excellence.
From Wanstead, he turned south. Through Forest Gate where he lived, less than two miles from his mother. And two years. Down Upton Lane, and past West Ham Park. Not talking was a strain.
His mother lived on the third floor of a council block near Plaistow station. They took the lift. It smelt faintly of piss. Last time he’d used it the walls had been covered in racist graffiti. At least that had gone. He always worried that the lift would get stuck with him in it. Then they’d have something to talk about.
A total distraction.
She was waiting at the door. It immediately hit him how she had aged. She’d put on weight, her face more lined, the thick purple veins up on the back of her hands. The ginger in her frizzy hair had almost disappeared in grey. Her teeth though had improved, perhaps false. He wondered how she saw him. Would she still be resentful?
‘Oh, how you’ve grown, Mia!’
She ushered them into the flat.
Chapter 33
Susan was nervous as she made the tea, leaving the two of them in the sitting room. She must be on best behaviour. Two years since he was last here. She mustn’t mention the money. It didn’t matter. It did matter. Such a shameful thing, stealing, she couldn’t tell anyone, except Joe. And he’d shrugged it off, but then why should he care? He had already been carrying on with that woman. Not caring was his way of having a go.
In the end, she’d gone to the vicar. And he’d been very good. It was only money, he’d said, and in the scheme of things not a lot of money. Alcohol was the devil incarnate. It took over a soul, made it lie, cheat and steal. We must pray to make his good self stronger. And they had prayed together.
The vicar talked of the prodigal son. The son that had run off and spent everything. Everything but his parents’ love. And so when he’d returned they killed the fatted calf for him.
Today, a cream and walnut cake would have to do.
She wanted to rage at her son. For his drunken behaviour, for stealing her money, for two years without contact, for denying her the company of her granddaughter. But she mustn’t. He might go away again. But forgiveness was easy to talk about in a Sunday sermon. She wasn’t Jesus. She had a sharp tongue, Joe had told her of that. But how could she not be sharp to Joe?
Except it didn’t work. Her husband had gone. But then, what good would forgiveness have done? It wasn’t the way she was. She couldn’t exactly have that woman over for Christmas dinner.
She wouldn’t be walked over.
Susan poured the tea into the pot, took a fizzy drink out of the fridge, opened it and put in two coloured straws. She put the teapot and the pop on a tray with a jug of milk. The cake was already on the table. Oh dear, she thought, love was so difficult. She simply wasn’t good at it. Her husband ran off, her son too.
Did she expect too much of people?
But you had to have standards, or the world would fall apart. Except she wasn’t sure what the standards were. We are all sinners, the vicar said almost every Sunday. And how much can a sinner judge another’s sin?
But she did judge. Couldn’t help herself. Would die judging.
She took the tray into the sitting room. Jack and Mia were sitting side by side at the table. She’d put on a bright yellow and white table cloth. They were looking at a photo album. One she’d nearly thrown out when Joe left. Mia was laughing at her seven year old dad with a big gap in his front teeth.
‘Pop for you,’ she said to Mia. ‘I didn’t think you’d want tea.’
‘Thanks, Nan.’
That word almost brought a tear to her eye. It reminded her she was part of a family. Sort of. Fences needed to be repaired. She must try. It would require more than tea and cake.
‘How’s Alison?’ she said as she poured out the tea, and remembered before she’d finished speaking that Jack said they were divorced. Too late.
‘She’s in hospital,’ said Jack.
‘Breast cancer,’ said Mia.
‘It might be,’ said Jack more cautiously. ‘We’re not sure if it’s an investigation or more serious…’
‘Let’s cross our fingers,’ she said giving Jack his tea. She took her own. She smiled at her granddaughter sipping through the two straws.
‘I saw a body today,’ said Mia.
She saw Jack stiffen and thought, play it down. She didn’t want a scene.
‘Did you, dear?’
‘A dead body in the la
ke,’ went on Mia, making it absolutely clear to her Nan what and where.
‘She did,’ said Jack. ‘Where I work. This school. It has a lake.’
‘I was bored in the library,’ said Mia, ‘so I went outside to have a look round. And went down to the lake. And there was this body, floating face down. The headmaster. Wasn’t it, Dad?’
Jack nodded. ‘It was.’
‘And where were you, Jack?’
‘I was in the school working…’ he began.
‘Shouldn’t you have been keeping an eye on her?’
‘It’s a school,’ he said vehemently. ‘A safe place. You don’t expect there to be bodies lying about.’
‘It wasn’t Dad’s fault,’ said Mia. ‘I was just looking around. He was busy. No one would expect a dead body.’
‘Of course not,’ she said, retreating. Though she did think he should have been keeping an eye on her. There were always stories about schools in the news, about wicked teachers and caretakers. You don’t let an eleven year old wander about on her own in a strange place. Not these days.
‘Dad turned him over,’ Mia said. ‘His face was all white and crinkly, with a snail stuck on the cheek.’
‘The police are there now,’ said Jack.
‘Do you think it was murder, Dad?’
‘Probably not. He was very drunk yesterday. I think he probably stumbled in the lake and collapsed. And drowned.’
Susan didn’t comment. Drunkenness was a touchy topic. A local drunk had got run over only a week ago. A tenant of her aunt had burnt the house down when drunk and smoking in bed. But it was difficult to know what to talk about with so many touchy subjects.
‘Mia is living in Brighton now,’ said Jack.
She was relieved at a safe area of conversation. Though she’d gone there with Joe on her last visit to the south coast town, but never mind that.
‘Do you like it there, dear?’
And Mia talked about Brighton. About the stony beach, their flat, her school, her friends. And she half listened, watching Jack who was watching her. She cut the cake and gave them both big portions.