More Than Meets the Eye

by J M Gregson

‘No.’ She roused herself for a show of aggression. ‘Why on earth would I do that?’

  ‘Because he knew all about your feelings for Sarah Goodwin. Because he was putting pressure on you to abandon the affair.’

  It was the word Jim had used, the word which had set them yelling at each other more fiercely than they had ever done before. She hadn’t taken it from Jim, and she wasn’t going to take it from this cold-eyed dissector of human passions. ‘It isn’t an affair! It’s much more serious and permanent than an affair!’

  ‘All right. So when it was threatened by Cooper, you were even more inflamed than you are now.’

  She didn’t know how they had discovered that Cooper knew about her and Sarah, but she was past rational, analytical thought, past deciding on what she could and could not conceal from these men who seemed to know so much about her. What she had thought of as her secrets were now on the table. ‘Dennis said my “association” with Sarah wasn’t on, that he wouldn’t stand by and see Jim made a laughing stock. When I said it wasn’t his business, he said that he’d make it so. He said the Trust wouldn’t continue to employ Jim as its head gardener here if I left him and set up house with Sarah.’

  ‘Could he have arranged that? Would he have even tried, if you had called his bluff??’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps you’re right and I should have defied him. But he said it would destroy not only Jim’s life but the boys’ lives as well if I continued with what he called my “madcap enterprise”. I certainly believed him at the time.’ She looked round the quiet, low-ceilinged, cottage room. ‘I came here and sobbed my heart out after I’d spoken to him. I felt quite desperate.’

  ‘Desperate enough to kill Cooper, when the opportunity presented itself on Sunday night.’

  Lambert made it sound more like a statement rather than a question. Julie’s senses raced as she sought a way out. ‘No. I went to Sarah’s house on Sunday night. She’ll confirm that for you.’

  ‘I expect she will. Perhaps she will also confirm that you arrived in a very excited state, having dispatched the man who was threatening you.’

  Julie wondered what exactly Sarah would tell them. She could picture her distress, see the too-revealing blue eyes opening wide beneath the short fair hair. Sarah wouldn’t want to let her down, but there was no knowing what she might say under this sort of examination. Julie said slowly, carefully, as if trying to convince herself, ‘I didn’t even see Dennis Cooper on Sunday night. I ran to the garage area and got out my car. I did arrive at Sarah’s in an agitated state, but that was because I’d told Jim I was leaving him, not because I’d killed Dennis Cooper.’

  Lambert looked at her intently for a moment, as if waiting for her to add to this. When she said nothing, he glanced for a moment at Hook, who was recording her words, then said, ‘You have now radically changed both what you said about your family relationships and about your dealings with Dennis Cooper. You have also revised your account of your movements on Sunday night. Is there anything further you wish to add to your new version of things?’

  She ignored the contempt which edged his words. In a low voice she said, ‘No. I didn’t kill Cooper and I don’t know who did.’

  The sun was climbing and even the few patches of high white cloud seemed concerned to get out of its way. The temperature crept steadily upwards: twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight. It would be thirty during the afternoon; eighty-six, in Fahrenheit – most of the visitors to Westbourne Park still preferred their temperatures in what they called ‘old money’.

  Alex Fraser wore only underpants, shorts, socks and his digging boots. The sweat glistened on his back as he worked steadily and methodically. He was forking over a bed they had cleared for replanting. It was good to have nothing in his way; working around established plants was often necessary, but it complicated things, destroyed the healthy rhythm he liked best of all.

  He completed forking the long, narrow bed surprisingly quickly. Forking an established patch was much easier than double digging a new one. He should be glad of that, in heat like this. But Alex didn’t think like that. Instead, he exulted in the steady patterns of hard physical work. The outlet of regular, almost mindless labour was especially welcome after the trials he had put himself through in the last week. It seemed a long time now since he had ridden the sturdy little Honda through the night to Glasgow and back again, though it was only thirty-two hours since his return. He made that calculation wonderingly, as he paused for a moment to look down at the bed he had worked.

  Then he wheeled four wheelbarrows of well-rotted horse shit and dumped them on his plot – he was feeling proprietorial about it by now. You had to remember to call it manure for the visitors, but the lads pretended to think you were gay if you called it anything but shit. He worked it swiftly into the top surface of the bed. They were planting peonies here, which would be undisturbed for years; they had spectacular flowers, but they didn’t like to have their roots buggered about. You set things up right, gave them a rich foundation to get them going, and then left them to it.

  He went and told Jim Hartley that the bed was ready for planting and was quietly pleased when the head gardener was surprised at the swift progress he had made. Hartley didn’t question the thoroughness of his work. He knew from experience that Alex was a young man who didn’t skimp things. He glanced approvingly over the turned soil, then said, ‘You can collect the peonies and plant them up after your break. Keep as much soil on the rootballs as you can.’ He knew that Fraser would take that as a kind of reward. Planting things in the ground you had prepared for them always gave you satisfaction. Jim wondered why things in his working life should be so much easier to arrange than those in his private life.

  Alex Fraser took his mug of tea into the deepest shade he could find. He turned the foolscap envelope which had just been handed to him over and over between his fingers. He didn’t get much post, but he didn’t want to open this. The official address on the rear of the envelope told him whence it had come and made him abruptly afraid, as if it was a letter bomb which might go off in his hands.

  It was nothing of the sort, of course. When his trembling fingers eventually extracted the smooth manila of the single sheet, it told him in officially measured terms that no further action would be taken on this occasion in relation to the incident which had occurred in Cheltenham on the night of June 24th.

  Alex read it several times, fearful that there might be some sub-clause which reversed the decision and punctured his relief. This was wonderful, he told himself repeatedly. There was every chance now that the episode would be forgotten and he would be taken on permanently here. It made the whole sorry nightmare of the last week irrelevant. He must ring Ken Jackson tonight and tell him the news.

  He tried but failed to wipe the smile from his face as he collected the peonies and lifted them carefully into his wheelbarrow.

  Jim Hartley sat carefully on the edge of the chair allotted to him in the murder room. Unlike his wife, he had chosen to come here rather than confront the CID in his own home. He didn’t want to meet anyone there at the moment. In his emotional chaos, he felt as if his own pain and shame might seep out of the furnishings and compromise him if he was interviewed in his own living room.

  Lambert had no wish to put him at his ease. People who were nervous invariably revealed more of themselves and of others than people who were calm. Nevertheless, he chose to make Hartley aware of the present situation; he didn’t want the preliminary session of evasions and half-truths they had endured from Julie Hartley. ‘Your wife has told us what really happened in your house on Sunday night, Mr Hartley. We should now like to have your version and your comments.’

  Just when as a loving couple they should have been in close touch, conferring about what they were saying to these people, they weren’t speaking. Jim wondered just what Julie had said to them, whether she would have tried to harm him. Surely not? But she had been so bitter, so unlike the Julie he had known for years, that he had n
o confidence left. Would it be like this for the rest of his life? Would he be sure of nothing, as he felt now? His voice was barely audible as he said, ‘It will be as Julie said. I can’t add anything to it.’

  Lambert felt very sorry for him. He was either a better actor than a head gardener should be or he was genuinely broken by the state of his marriage. But he might be the man who had killed Dennis Cooper. Lambert reminded himself as he had reminded other people that this was the single issue which concerned him and his murder team. He nodded at Hook, who said quietly, ‘We need your version, Jim. Sometimes people see the same events quite differently. Sometimes they remember different details.’

  Hartley had looked up sharply at the use of his forename. He studied Hook for a moment, as if conscious of his presence for the first time. ‘Julie told me she was leaving me. She said she was going to live with that woman.’

  ‘Sarah Goodwin. You’ve met her?’

  ‘I’ve seen her twice, I think. Three times at most. I know almost nothing about her. I didn’t even know she was a bloody dyke!’ He released all the fury he could into the harsh consonants of the monosyllable, but it didn’t give him much relief. ‘And now she’s got her claws into my Julie!’ He plunged his face into his hands.

  They waited for him to recover some composure. When he finally dropped his hands, his eyes were dry but his face was wracked with pain. Hook spoke as softly as a therapist. ‘How long have you known about this situation?’

  ‘About a week. Maybe a little longer. Bloody Dennis Cooper knew about it before I did!’

  ‘Yes. We have the book in which he kept notes on the people here. He does seem to have been aware of the situation for rather longer than a week. But you’re saying now that it wasn’t you who told him of it.’

  ‘No. Dennis had been a good friend to me. He’d helped me to make the changes in the gardens I wanted. But he was into everyone’s business, I can see that now. He liked to find out things about people – he said it helped him in his job to know people as thoroughly as he could. I accepted that at the time. But now I think he was a nosy old sod who liked to have power over people’s lives. Sorry! I suppose I shouldn’t be talking like this about a dead man, should I?’

  ‘Did you kill him, Jim?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Even though he was threatening your job, your position here, perhaps your whole life? Much better to tell us now, if you did.’

  ‘No. The job means nothing to me, if I’m losing Julie and the boys.’

  ‘You’d better tell us what happened on Sunday night, hadn’t you?’

  Hartley nodded, apparently grateful for Hook’s understanding. He spoke in a low, swift monotone, anxious to get his version of events over without collapsing under the weight of his emotions. ‘Julie waited until we had the boys in bed. They’d been swimming in the afternoon, before the storm came on, so they were tired and went off to sleep quite quickly. She told me that she was going to leave me, to set up house with Sarah Goodwin, and to take the boys with her. I said I wasn’t having that, that I’d fight her for the boys if it came to it. She said the courts always sided with mothers, even – even when it was like this. I tried to show her what we had, what she was going to break up, but she’s better than me when it comes to words. She said that love was what she felt for Sarah and that overrode everything else. I’ve never hit her, but I might have done then. She just didn’t want to listen to me. She stormed out of the house without saying where she was going. To bloody Sarah Goodwin’s, I suppose, but I didn’t know that.’

  Hook looked at Lambert to see if he wished to take over the questioning at this crucial point, but received only a slight shake of the head. ‘What time did Julie leave, Jim?’

  ‘Nine o’clock. Well, just after nine. It was going dark, but that was because the clouds were still heavy and low after the storm.’

  ‘Did you see whether she went straight off the site?’

  Hartley’s eyes widened. ‘This is the time when he was killed, isn’t it?’

  ‘Cooper died at around that time, yes. We aren’t sure of the exact moment.’

  ‘And you think it might have been Julie who killed him?’

  ‘It could easily have been a woman, Jim. No great strength was required.’

  ‘It wasn’t Julie. She wouldn’t do anything like that. She would never be capable of murder.’

  He had sprung as instinctively to her defence as she had done to his earlier in the day. There was something touching about it, but the experienced CID pair had received such assurances on numerous previous occasions. Many of them had proved unjustified. Hook nodded but did not comment. ‘What time did Julie return?’

  ‘Twenty minutes after midnight. I saw it on my bedside clock. She thought I was asleep and I pretended I was. I didn’t trust myself to ask where she’d been.’

  Hook noted the times and looked at his man in silence for a moment. ‘You say that you didn’t kill Dennis Cooper. You can’t believe it was Julie. So who do you think tightened that ligature around Cooper’s neck on Sunday night?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve thought a lot about it, as everyone round here has. I thought it might be one of my apprentice lads, perhaps – they’re not above a bit of violence to settle their problems. But then I look around them and I can’t see it being any of them. Hugo Wilkinson? He’d had his troubles with Dennis, but would he murder him? Or one of the voluntary workers who come in daily? I don’t know much about them.’ He shrugged his shoulders hopelessly.

  Lambert spoke for the first time in many minutes. ‘Keep your eyes and your ears open, please. You may be the likeliest person on the site to see or hear something significant. And don’t leave the area without letting us know your intended address, please.’

  Jim Hartley nodded dumbly, recognizing that the last words meant he remained a suspect. He had reached the door when DS Hook’s voice said, ‘I hope you can work things out within the family, Jim. Don’t resort to violence, however desperate you feel: that invariably makes things worse.’

  Bert waited a few minutes after the door had closed to say, ‘I hope that poor sod didn’t kill his boss. He’s got quite enough trouble to deal with as it is, without a murder charge.’

  Lambert smiled grimly. ‘Very unprofessional, DS Hook. You know we can’t pick and choose among suspects. For my own part, I hope Julie Hartley didn’t do this one. I think that would cause Jim more agony than if he’d done it himself.’

  SEVENTEEN

  Lorna Green had known that the first talk she gave at Westbourne Park after the death of its curator would be a time of great strain for her.

  For one intensely lived section of her life, she had been very close to Dennis Cooper. Even at the time of his death, she had felt her ties were closer than those of anyone, except possibly his wife. And now there were rumours that Alison Cooper was to marry someone else quite soon. Apparently she might have done that even if her husband had still been alive.

  Lorna loved Westbourne Park and what it had brought to her life, but work there was certain to put pressure on her. She was surely bound to think of the man who had been in charge here as she spoke about the gardens and their history. After all, she had been suspected of his murder. But she told herself firmly that the police had been satisfied with what she’d told them on Tuesday. She’d seen them going in and out of what she still thought of as Dennis’s room, but they hadn’t called for her to see them again.

  Lorna had been disappointed with her performance when she first began these talks. She had made the mistake of thinking that because you knew a lot about your subject you were bound to be effective, but the muted reactions to her first efforts had told her that she needed to improve. She had worked on her delivery – if you were dull yourself, people assumed your story must also be a dull one. She had learned that she must concentrate on the broad lines of the history of Westbourne and not give too much detail – that was best reserved for answers to questions. Nowadays, she got an increasing numb
er of questions at the conclusions of her talks. That was a sure sign that people were now interested in what she told them.

  Lorna found another pleasant thing was happening. As she relaxed and enjoyed her talks more, her audiences also enjoyed them more. Once you could communicate enthusiasm, you were halfway there; she remembered the best of her university tutors saying that to her many years ago.

  She had revised her material for today’s talk. She was now building her history of the gardens around modern features which visitors might find worth studying after the conclusion of her talk, and was pleased to see people scribbling reminders to themselves on the National Trust leaflets they had acquired as they entered. ‘The gardens are planned as a series of “rooms”, with different themes or different colours evident in each one. They are attractive at any stage of the year, but in early July you might particularly enjoy . . .’

  She became conscious of a tall, striking woman with ash-blonde hair who had appeared on the left of her audience halfway through her talk. She seemed interested in what she heard and in the series of eager questions which followed it. She did not speak herself. When Lorna signalled the end of her performance, there was enthusiastic applause. Then the crowd melted away to enjoy the gardens.

  The late arrival stayed. When she came closer, Lorna was struck by the brightness of her unusual green eyes. She gave Lorna a perfunctory smile and said, ‘I enjoyed your talk. You obviously know a lot about this place. I’m Detective Sergeant Ruth David. I believe you spoke to Chief Superintendent Lambert earlier in the week. He would like to see you again today.’

  Lorna stared dumbly for a moment at the warrant card which was held before her face. She said, ‘I’ve got two more talks to give, at three o’clock and four o’clock.’

  ‘That’s fine. We’re trying to disrupt the routine here as little as possible. The chief super will see you at the end of your working day. Shall we say four thirty?’

  It would give her time to prepare, Lorna thought. But prepare for what? This wasn’t a talk about Westbourne, where she could determine her own agenda.