Still holding the letter, she toyed with the idea of keeping it from him. Her husband’s head was gargantuan enough without his mother’s glowing, albeit posthumous, character reference. Tapping the paper against her lips, she strolled to the dressing table, where she had a nose at the fancy face creams and pricey perfumes. She sprayed a little Chanel behind her ears, then another spritz into the air to counter the gin fumes.
The cosmetics didn’t really interest her, or the jewellery. Well, only a strand of pearls and a ruby ring she’d had her eye on for ages. She reached for the pearls and held them against her neck, posing à la Audrey Hepburn in the looking-glass. Harriet was more buxom blonde than elfin brunette, but same diff. After a surreptitious glance round she slipped the pearls into her jeans pocket and headed towards the door. It wasn’t as if Margot would miss them – and who else would the old dear leave them to?
As for mama’s missive, Harriet was still undecided. Resisting a long-held urge to slide down the Gone With The Wind banister, she pondered whether to bin the damn thing. Best not. Andrew would be distraught enough anyway when she broke the news. Knowing how much he’d meant to Margot might lessen the pain. More important still, the letter wasn’t just a final farewell to a son – it was a suicide note. Whether she’d found one would be one of the first things Andrew would ask her, and she didn’t think it would be too long before the police posed similar questions.
3
PC Denny Page shifted his bum slightly on a highly polished bentwood chair in the sort of kitchen he’d only previously seen in glossy magazines. The rest of the six-bedroom Georgian pile wasn’t exactly a hovel, either. Solihull was definitely more Harrods than Homebase. As attending officers, he and PC Stacey Hardy had already taken a good look around, viewed the body, asked the obvious, and had a word with the GP who’d signed the death certificate. Finishing off a cuppa before pulling out, Denny was currently struggling to maintain eye contact with the dead woman’s daughter-in-law. The challenge wouldn’t be anywhere near as difficult if the yummy mummy sitting opposite didn’t have a baby attached to her right nipple. The occasional flash of blue-veined boob had affected more than the young officer’s eye-line. Hopefully no one else had clocked the impact it was having on his manhood. He cut a covert glance at Stacey whose current smile put him in mind of the Mona Lisa.
‘Any reason why you moved the note, Mrs Langley?’ Stacey slipped her phone into a breast pocket. Denny swallowed hard. Just where was a guy to look? Nowhere seemed safe these days.
‘I’m sorry, officer. I wasn’t thinking properly.’ Harriet chewed her bottom lip, not that it did much to stop the trembling. ‘Finding her … like that gave me such a … shock.’
‘Must’ve been hard for you.’ Denny empathized. Though he could generally cope with corpses, an unwitting stiffy in the face of a stranger’s naked boob was proving more difficult to handle.
‘Very hard.’ Stacey, all innocence, eyed Denny. ‘Seeing her that way.’
Barely able to keep his bum still, the young cop had no control at all over the blush rising to his cheeks. Mouth tight, he settled for darting Stacey a killer look. She was ten years older, four inches taller and carried a lot more weight than Denny. Three stone, if he had to take a guess. She was a big girl and then some. Not that he’d tell her that to her face. Stacey Hardy’s bite was often on a par with her bark.
‘Does moving the letter make things difficult?’ Harriet cooed down at the baby as she swapped nipples. ‘I really wish I’d left it where it was, now.’
Denny gulped, knew the feeling again.
‘I can’t see it’ll make a difference,’ Stacey said. ‘What do you reckon, Den?’
‘Doubt it.’ He turned his mouth down. The old dear’s death seemed straightforward enough. It was sudden but hardly unexplained. The note now lying next to his helmet on the table made that pretty plain: without her husband, she’d pretty much given up. Horse’s-mouth job, wasn’t it? Albeit from the knacker’s yard. Two sources had corroborated the letter’s contents: Harriet had talked them through the car crash that had killed David Langley; the doc confirmed the widow had taken his death badly. The post mortem and tox tests should rubber-stamp alcohol poisoning as cause of death. They’d take the note and gin bottle away as a precaution.
He watched his colleague drop four sugar lumps into a mug, then stir; verbally too, with the next question. ‘And you say you had no idea she was suicidal?’
‘As I said,’ Harriet lifted her head, held Stacey’s gaze. ‘She missed David dreadfully. They’d been married for well over forty years.’
‘That’s not quite what I asked.’ Stacey’s smile didn’t look particularly cordial.
‘Look, all I know is she took it very badly. As to what was going on in her head, Andrew’s the best person to ask. He’s an only child – they’re very close.’ She looked down again. ‘Were very close.’
‘And you?’ Stacey sipped the tea.
‘Sorry?’
‘Were you close to her?’
‘God, yes.’ Her hand looked none too steady as she swept the fringe away from her eyes. ‘She was like a mother to me.’
Stacey turned her mouth down. ‘Yet you didn’t pick up on her state of mind?’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, patently not. ‘Are you accusing me of –?’
Stacey raised a palm. ‘I’m not accusing you of anything, Mrs Langley. When did you say your husband will be back?’
‘I’m expecting him any –’
Three heads turned in sync at the sound of a key in the door followed by a man’s voice.
‘Harriet. Where are you, darling?’
Talk of the devil.
Bloated bodies, broken bones, blood and brain matter – they went with the territory, and Stacey Hardy had worked a fair few gut-churning crime scenes and fatal incidents where she’d encountered the grief-stricken: parents of murdered children; teenagers whose parents’ bodies lay splattered across the M6; a mother whose only daughter had slashed her wrists in her bedroom after sustained trolling by cyber-bullies. Stacey had been there, done that, had to buy a bigger T-shirt, yet in all her years on the job she couldn’t recall seeing an adult male as distraught as Andrew Langley. Frankly, she’d found the hysterics embarrassing and had breathed a sigh of relief when they left the house.
‘Stone me, Denny,’ she said straining to get the seat belt across her chest. ‘Is he a mummy’s boy or is he a mummy’s boy?’
‘Was. Past tense. Bloody hell, Stacey, his old dear’s not been dead five minutes. And the poor bloke’s only just lost his dad. No wonder he’s struggling.’ Not unlike Stacey still trying to anchor the seat-belt clip in its moorings. He cut her a glance as he flicked the ignition. ‘I think you’re being well harsh.’
Her arched unplucked eyebrow said it all, but she couldn’t resist adding, ‘As opposed to hard?’
‘Give it a break, eh?’ Denny muttered. Mouth tight, he checked the mirror, waited for a Range Rover to pass before pulling away from the kerb.
‘Loosen up. Shit happens. He was wallowing in it.’ She cringed. Yeah, okay, she could’ve put it better. Whatever. Langley had been way over the top. Strange, though, he’d seemed calm enough while the four of them chatted downstairs, but once he clapped eyes on his mother’s body he lost it – hyperventilating, trembling; sweating like a menopausal pig in a heat wave.
‘So what you saying, Stacey? He’s not allowed to show his emotions?’ Denny asked.
‘Get real. He’s forty-years-old, for Chrissakes. Runs his own business. Got a wife and kid. He should grow up. And wash that bird shit off the screen.’
Sighing, Denny flicked on the wipers. ‘Are you taking classes, then?’
‘Classes?’
‘At the Bev Morriss School of Bleeding Hearts?’ Bleeding hearts? Stacey saw it more a case of telling it like it is and hold the pussy-footing. She only wished she was in the same league as Bev. Christ, she’d even settle for being on the same pitch but the DS
was no team player. Shame, ’cause Stacey really fancied a place on the squad. Murder squad.
‘Bev’s School of Bleeding Hearts. It’s good that.’ She gave his arm a playful punch but the lupine grin had bite. ‘Who’s a clever boy, Stanley? I didn’t know you had it in you.’
‘Had what?’
‘Irony. Wit. Sarcasm. Brain cells. Where shall I stop?’
His sigh was louder this time. ‘You can start by not calling me Stanley.’
‘Take a chill pill, PC Page.’ Smiling, she turned her head to gaze through the window. Bless. Denny was so wet behind the ears he’d drown if he didn’t watch it. Until she’d explained, he hadn’t had a clue what the Stanley tag was all about. The station’s wags had assigned it soon as he teamed up with her. Poor boy had never heard of Laurel and Hardy.
Short of a chill pill, Stacey wouldn’t say no to a cooling sea breeze. She was no big fan of summer in the city, or the suburbs. A glance at the dash showed: 10.32 and 20 degrees. No wonder she was melting.
‘I like it round here,’ Denny said. ‘Nice, innit?’
She rolled her eyes. He sounded like a kid on a day out. He was bang on the money about Streetsbrook Road, though. It was all palatial pads in extensive grounds dotted with shiny SUVs and swimming pools. The place screamed class, cash and kudos. Not so much green belt as gold, though given the sweeping lawns and tree-lined roads it bragged more than its fair share of verdancy too.
‘I’m sure it’ll all help cushion the blow for little orphan Andy.’ Stacey drawled, ferreting in the glove compartment. ‘It’s not like he’s gonna starve without mummy and daddy looking after him. Bingo.’ Eyes lit up, she wielded her winnings: a Mars bar.
‘Not jell are we, Stacey?’
‘Yeah, right.’ Snide sod. Her sniff told him he couldn’t be more off beam. Unless? Tearing the wrapper with her small white teeth, she cast him a glance. Along with the mischievous grin and pimples, maybe he had a point. If she was being honest, both Langleys had lodged in her nasal passages. Envy? Inverted snobbery? The emotional diarrhoea? Hard to tell. Still, what did it matter? Cops didn’t have to cosy up to everyone they came across.
She bit off a sizeable chunk of the Mars bar, but even without the full mouth was content to let the silence ride. Unlike Denny.
‘I got the impression you didn’t like his missus much either.’
‘So? It’s not compulsory.’ Sensing his gaze on her, she stared ahead, licking chocolate from her lips. It was melting on her fingers, too.
‘Alienates people, though, dunnit? Rubbing them up the wrong way.’
She shrugged. About to take another bite, instead she jabbed the Mars bar at the windscreen. ‘Look out!’ He’d jumped a red light. Shit a brick. They’d come within a gnat’s nose hair of hitting a black cab. The driver still hadn’t let up on the horn and her placatory smile through the back window was met with a raised fist and a mouthed ‘Fucking idiot’.
Red-faced, she turned to confront Denny. ‘What the hell was that in aid of?’ Any idiot would have jammed the anchors on, not put his foot down – especially since they’d just heard how David Langley met his end. Dead of night, pissing down; a motor speeding through lights had ploughed into the side of his soft-top. The impact flipped the car, broke both his legs, eight ribs and shattered his skull.
‘Bad move. Sorry.’ Denny tried a smile but dropped it when he clocked her expression.
‘Too frigging right. You could’ve killed us.’
‘I didn’t. Keep your hair on, will you? You sound like my granny.’
‘Granny?’ She cut him a killer glance. ‘If I were you, I’d zip it, sunshine.’ Christ. It looked as if Margot Langley wasn’t the only one round here who’d lost the will to live.
4
Midday. Sun doing a Ginger Baker drum solo, and an armed nutter with a weird take on child care was holding a fair number of the West Midlands finest at bay. Bev Morriss, who’d not long arrived at the Small Heath location, had binoculars trained on a dingy-looking maisonette over a row of scuzzy shops on Trafalgar Road. Her partner was around somewhere, probably sussing out the chippie below. Mac Tyler’s belly had been rumbling even before Uniform’s request for back-up came in. He’d been about to hit the canteen to grab a bite. Hard Cheshire. Bev very much doubted the Cod Mother would be frying any time soon and, as for Tyler, he could live off his fat for a fortnight.
‘How long have they been holed up now, sir?’ she asked, keeping the grimy window in her sights.
‘Getting on for three hours.’
‘Right.’ Apart from a Britain First sticker on the window there wasn’t much to see. She lowered the glasses to take a butcher’s at the guy in charge. Inspector Jimmy Patel’s white shirt stuck to his olive skin; above his lips a line of sweat glistened like a silver pencil moustache. Bev and Patel had taken up squatting rights on the pavement opposite the action and were using police vehicles as cover. Low-profile cops were staking out the property front and back and a trained negotiator was on the way.
‘Initially we reckoned routine domestic.’ Patel swept muscled forearm across furrowed brow before bringing her up to full speed. A neighbour had called triple-nine after hearing all hell let loose: banging, crashing, breaking glass, man shouting, woman screaming, kids crying. By the time the attending officers arrived, the man of the house had barricaded the door and threatened to torch the place if the ‘effin’ pigs’ didn’t back off pronto. Since then, there’d been the odd guest appearance on the balcony where the star turn mouthed off and lobbed missiles: chair legs, pots and pans, tacky ornaments.
And then it all went up a gear.
Last time the guy showed, he’d brought an extra – a screaming toddler who he dangled by the ankle over the metal railings. Patel did that wiping thing with his arm again. ‘I kid you not, Bev. It was the longest two minutes of my life.’
Especially as Birmingham’s answer to Whacko Jacko had a bloody machete in his other hand and was waving it round like there was no tomorrow. ‘Literally bloody,’ Patel added. Though God knew how it got there. The nutter had eventually hauled the kid back over the railings, issued a few more threats, then buggered off inside.
‘And there’s not been a peep since?’ she asked.
‘Not a dicky.’
‘I heard there’s been trouble here before?’ Bev raised the glasses for another gander at number ten.
They were forever being called to sort out domestics, Patel told her. ‘In the immortal words of Tom Jones, It’s not unusual.’ Not glib. She heard a resigned sadness in the inspector’s voice. The Pitts – Ray and Sandra – weren’t just known to the police, Patel said, they were on intimate terms with most of the authorities: social workers, probation officers, bailiffs, school attendance bods, you name it. Sandra looked on shoplifting as a career choice. Her old man was a pisshead and when he’d been on the pop, fists flew faster than a satanic bat on speed. His missus was in and out of A&E like a cuckoo doing the Hokey Cokey.
‘Why do women stay with men like that, Bev?’
She turned her mouth down. ‘How many kids they got?’
‘Three and a half at the last count.’
‘There’s your answer, then.’ She shrugged. Besides, where else was Sandra Pitt supposed to take her brood? Spaces in the city’s women’s shelters were rarer than hens’ gold fillings. Bev had interviewed loads of women who’d had no option but to put up with violence and psychological abuse, sometimes for years. A few were as terrified of leaving what passed for home sweet home as they were of staying with an abusive partner.
‘Believe you me, Bev, if the pair of them settled for just being dysfunctional, they’d find life a lot easier.’
Rather than their current shitty existence scraping by on benefits, food banks, and flogging nicked goods under the table to drinking buddies down the pub. Bev reckoned too many people in too many places hovered on or near the breadline. Did they bring it on themselves? Or had they been dealt crap hands? Futile speculation
. She knew life was never that black and white. The grey areas in between comprised a shed-load more than fifty shades. As a cop, her jury was out on the Pitts and their ilk. It was up to the courts to pass judgement. She changed her tune pretty rapido when Pitt launched another missile attack.
‘You fucking arsehole git!’ she shrieked. ‘That sodding hit me. Come down here and I’ll have you for that, you bloody wankpot.’
‘Keep your ugly big head down then, yer nosy bint.’
Wincing, she rubbed her temple and clocked Ray Pitt pissing himself laughing on the balcony. What the hell had he launched this time? Patel’s pinched expression suggested he didn’t appreciate a potty mouth.
‘Sorry, sir.’
‘I’ve heard worse,’ he said, adding, almost sotto voce, ‘just about.’
Grimacing, she looked down at her fingers. Whatever had hit her had drawn blood: the tips looked as if they’d been dipped in red Dulux. Patel pulled a virginal white hankie from his breast pocket, passed it over.
‘Get it checked, if I were you, Bev. Might need a stitch or two.’
‘Flesh wound is all. No worries.’ The dented Morriss pride stung more. Talk about sitting duck. Well, okay, squatting dick, and as for ‘nosy bint’? She sniffed. Wait till she got her bloody hands on the guy. Actually, her vigorous mopping had cleaned off the blood now. ‘Ta, sir.’ She offered the hankie back, caught the look on his face and quickly changed her mind. Point taken. She gave him a weak smile instead while stowing the offending article in her bag.
‘Oh, joy,’ Patel murmured, nodding to the right. ‘That’s all we need.’
She followed his gaze to where the thin blue police cordon exhibited signs of pressure. The resident gang of jostling gawpers had been swollen by an influx of journos and snappers. A guy in a loud checked shirt with a TV camera perched on his shoulder and a paunch the size of Perth led the pack by a nose. Not that Bev could see much of his face – at least half of it was hidden by the lens.
Death Wish Page 2