by Mike Crowson
* * *
Millicent rang the doorbell and waited. Detective Sergeant Lucy Turner stood a pace or so behind. The house was modest for the area, but it was an expensive, luxurious area, not quite Witchmoor, more up towards Cullingwoth. There was quite an extensive garden, at least at the front, and a double garage with the doors open. A small red Fiat was parked inside one bay, but the other was empty.
"Looks like there's someone home," Lucy observed in her slightly Birmingham accent. She had only been with the Division a couple of months and Millicent was sometimes irritated by her weird sense of humour. She was, however, a promising addition to strength of the department, and Millicent could put up with a lot, if it meant another good detective.
Hampshire was about to ring the bell again when the door was opened by a woman in her late thirties. She was tall and slender with short mousy hair which looked expensively styled. Millicent showed her warrant card and introduced herself.
"I thought they told me to wait until Tuesday to see if he turned up," the tall woman said.
"You are Mrs. Hunter," Millicent asked, and the woman nodded.
"Shirley Hunter," she answered.
"We're making enquiries about a fire alongside the canal on Saturday night," Millicent said.
"You're not from Witchmoor Police Station, then?" Mrs. Hunter observed.
"Oh yes," Millicent told her. "We heard from the front desk that you had reported your husband Simon as missing yesterday?"
"I haven't seen him since Saturday," Shirley Hunter said. "I tried to report him missing, but they said wait a couple of days and see whether he turns up."
He probably had, Millicent thought. "I see," she said. "Do you have a photograph of him? May we come in and ask a few questions?"
The woman held the door wide without saying anything and shut it behind them.
"Go through into the lounge," the tall woman said.
"You said you were Shirley Hunter I think?" Millicent said, as they settled themselves in a light and airy but somehow soulless room overlooking a medium sized rear garden, mostly lawn. Lucy took out a notebook and sat ready.
"That's right," the woman agreed. "Shirley Hunter."
"And your husband was Simon Hunter?"
"That's right. There’s a fairly recent photograph there." She pointed to a framed picture on the wall.
Millicent stood up and walked over to get a closer look. There was no doubt at all that it was the same man as the one pulled from the canal.
"I'm afraid," Millicent began, turning back to Mrs. Hunter, "that his body was pulled from the Leeds and Liverpool Canal on Sunday morning."
Shirley Hunter didn't say anything, but Millicent didn't think she looked particularly shocked or upset.
"I shall have to ask you to formally identify the body," Millicent continued, "but there's no doubt in my mind from the photograph that we're talking about the same man. You said you tried to report his disappearance at Witchmoor Police Station. When was this?"
"Latish on Sunday afternoon." Shirley replied, looking silent and subdued, but still not visibly upset. "Simon was violent and bad tempered and after what happened on Saturday I though it might help calm him down if I could say I was looking for him."
Millicent was interested. "And what did happen on Saturday?" she asked.
"Simon decided we were going for a picnic up on the moors," Shirley began. "We left about eleven thirty, drove up there and set out a meal beneath a few trees overlooking the reservoir. Simon got into a rage about a mosquito bite. He was throwing things around in a temper and some of them at me, so I locked myself in the car. When he fetched a lump of wood to break in, I drove the car at him and knocked him down. I got out of the car to see if he was all right and he got up and chased me off. I went back a bit later and he was gone and so was the car. I haven't seen him since."
"How did you get back home?" Lucy asked. "Walk?"
"I didn't go home, at least, not until Sunday. Simon had dropped his mobile phone, so I used it to call a friend from work who picked me up. I went shopping with her, then I stayed the rest of the night with her and her partner."
"You said 'a friend from work'. What do you do for a living?" Hampshire asked.
"I'm a charge nurse at the Bradford Royal Infirmary," Shirley said.
"And your friend's name?"
"Ellen Barnes."
"She’s a nurse too?"
"She's a ward sister."
Millicent considered. "You said you hoped to calm him down," she said. "Was he often violent tempered?"
"Often. He'd fly into a rage at the least little thing. Not just with me, either."
"A mosquito bite wasn't much," Lucy observed.
"It was enough," Shirley answered. "It bit him, but it would have been all the same if I'd bitten him."
"You didn't seem altogether shocked that he was fished from the canal," Millicent said, changing the subject.
"Shocked?" Shirley Hunter seemed to consider this for a few seconds. "When I was much younger," she said, "Just a girl. I had a dog. It was very old at the end, and had heart problems and couldn't see. When he died it was something of a relief and no surprise at all, but it was still a shock. I feel that way about Simon. I can't pretend I'm sorry; I'm not surprised considering the way he went missing, but I'm a bit shocked all the same."
"You were not surprised to hear of his death, then?"
"Not really. He was mean and bad tempered. He exploited people. I think he was having an affair, or had been. He was very grasping in his business. It's no surprise that he pushed somebody too far. I'm a bit surprised at the canal though, because he could swim. Perhaps he’d been drinking."
"Was he often drunk?" Millicent asked.
"Not usually," Mrs. Hunter said. "He sometimes went on a bender and got really drunk, but not often. Oddly enough he was usually less violent when he was really drunk."
"How long have you been married?"
"Four years. Simon was my brother's business partner and seemed charming. I only found out afterwards what he was really like."
Lucy Turner looked from her note taking and asked, "Why didn't you just leave him?"
Mrs. Hunter hesitated again, but Millicent thought she was reflecting rather than inventing.
"I had decided to go into the nurse's hostel temporarily. It was all arranged and if you'd come tomorrow I might not have been here," Shirley Hunter said. "As to why I didn't do it before ... Partly, I suppose because he was my brother's partner and it seemed like letting my brother down. Partly because you just hope things will change. After last Saturday I realised they wouldn't."
Millicent decided against any mention of the morphine at this stage, better Shirley should not be put on her guard if she had any involvement at all. She realised, of course, that an ill treated wife who was a nurse would have both a source of morphine and the knowledge to use it. As to motive, maybe the worm had turned.
"Could you take us to the picnic spot?" Millicent asked.
"I'm not sure about driving straight to it," Shirley replied, "but I could certainly find it again. The place is pretty well etched on my memory."
"Then I think we’ll go there if you can spare the time."
Shirley got up. "Can I get us a cup of tea before we go?" she asked. "I don't know whether you need one, but I certainly do. Whether or not I looked shocked, I am rather."
"Good idea," Millicent conceded. Shirley Hunter had paled a little under her make up and her hands were white and trembling a little, so perhaps it had been a shock, as she said.
Lucy Turner stood up, very short - only just tall enough to qualify for the police - her height emphasised by the tallness of Mrs. Hunter. "I'll go with you, Mrs. Hunter," she offered.
Millicent gazed out of the window at two magpies on the lawn. She remembered the old children's rhyme about magpies that began ‘One for sorrow, two for joy...’ Two for joy. Who was going to be lucky this time?