by Celina Grace
“Look, stop flailing around for motives,” Olbeck said in exasperation. “Motives are the least of our worries. We haven’t even interviewed her yet.”
“How did she sound on the phone?”
“Worried.”
“Hmm.”
“She also mentioned that her husband would be out. That might be of some importance.”
“I’ll say.” Kate’s phone chimed with an incoming text message. She read it, holding it up to the windscreen so she wouldn’t have to look down. “That was from Chloe – forensic reports are in, apparently. She and Rav are going to make a start on them.”
“Good,” Olbeck said absently, occupied with following the sat nav’s instructions. The suburb of Charlock was affluent and desirable, but the streets were lined on either side with cars, reducing the road to a single lane. Meeting a car coming the other way meant a game of ‘who’ll let who through first’. Olbeck cursed as the car facing them decided not to bother waiting and barged on through. “God, I hate it when people don’t thank you for letting them go first.”
“Go and arrest him,” said Kate, grinning. “Give him a fright.”
“I would, if I had the time,” Olbeck said with emphasis. “Okay, here’s number twenty-seven. I’ll have to park further up.”
After inching their way into a parking spot precisely three inches longer than Olbeck’s car at either end, Kate and her colleague got out and prepared themselves for the knock at the door. It was always a moment of uncertainty. Were they coming face to face with a murderer? Or would they have to put an understandably terrified and embarrassed woman at her ease?
“Ready?” Olbeck straightened the cuffs of his suit. For a moment, Kate was swept with a pang of nostalgia for the time when he’d worn scruffy jeans and a fleece hoody, back when she’d first met him. “What’s up?”
“Nothing. It just made me realise how smart you’ve got lately.”
Olbeck grinned. “Well, I’ve got to look respectable now, haven’t I?”
“Come on, Beau Brummel.” Kate propelled him discreetly towards the black-painted door of twenty-seven Marlborough Avenue. Her flippant comment disguised a gradually growing sense of tension at the interview coming up.
The house was a terrace but one a long way removed from the terrace where Kate had grown up. This one was Edwardian, with a large bay window on the ground floor, potted bay trees to either side of the front door, a front garden modelled on a formal rose garden in miniature. Kate sized up the outside of the property. Terrace or no terrace, these babies were probably going for not much less than half a million pounds. What did Melanie Houghton do? If she was at home during the day, did that mean she didn’t work outside of the home?
The front door was answered promptly, so quickly after Olbeck’s knock of the shiny brass doorknocker, in fact, that Kate wondered whether Melanie Houghton had been waiting in the hallway, hovering, ready to pounce. She opened the door and immediately gave an embarrassed laugh.
“Oh! I thought you’d be in uniform, for some reason.”
She was a woman who was probably in her late forties but could have passed for someone several years younger. Her hair was dark red and plentiful, arranged around her face in a flattering and expensively cut style. She wore discreet diamond studs in her ears and was dressed in well-cut black trousers and a grey cashmere top, cashmere so finely woven that Kate could only guess at what it had cost.
“Please, do come in.” Melanie Houghton ushered them nervously through to a large, nicely furnished sitting room at the front of the house. She twitched the curtains so they were slightly more closed before seating herself on the edge of the grey velvet sofa. “Could I get you some tea? Coffee?”
Both Kate and Olbeck declined. “We’re here because we’re investigating the death of Simon Farraday, Mrs Houghton. I explained that on the phone?”
Melanie Houghton smiled nervously but blankly. “Yes?”
“I understand he was a friend of yours?”
Melanie’s eyelids, discreetly made up in shades of oyster and soot, blinked rapidly. “A friend? Of mine? No, no. No, I’m sorry, you’re mistaken about that.”
If they had been sitting opposite the woman in an interview room, Kate would have pressed her foot against Olbeck’s in response to this remark. In full view of their suspect, she could do no such thing here but she could almost telepathically sense his thoughts. So you say...
“But you know who we’re referring to?” Olbeck pressed on.
Melanie Houghton smiled again, rather dismissively. “Oh yes. Well, it’s been in all the papers, hasn’t it? Horrible thing. But I’m sorry, I don’t see what it’s got to do with me.”
Olbeck cleared his throat. “You weren’t friends with Mr Farraday? Or should I say, you weren’t his lover?”
Melanie Houghton reared her head back as if Olbeck had spat in her face. “Me? Are you joking? You must be mad—”
Kate sighed and interrupted her. She could tell already that Melanie Houghton was a man’s woman, which meant that Kate would take on the less sympathetic role, leaving Olbeck to be the good cop. “Your credit card has been linked to a profile on an adult dating site, Mrs Houghton. The email address used in that profile corresponds to the internet server that powers the web access of this house.” Melanie Houghton mouthed like a fish, and Kate felt a stab of pity for her, pity that was quickly dispersed by the woman’s next remark.
“That must be a mistake,” Melanie said in a hostile voice. “Someone must have hacked into my email address and...and set up that profile. It wasn’t me.”
Kate sighed audibly. This wasn’t going to go well. Melanie Houghton obviously belonged to that large group of people who genuinely believed the police were stupid. It was almost insulting. “So no doubt somebody stole your credit card as well, Mrs Houghton?”
“That’s right,” Melanie said stubbornly. Her gaze dropped to her lap, where her well-manicured hands were shaking.
Kate looked across at Olbeck. He dropped her the ghost of a wink and turned back to the other woman. “Well, here’s the thing, Mrs Houghton. We can either ask you some questions here, in the privacy of your own home, or we can arrest you and you’ll have to accompany us down to the police station, where we can interview there. What’s it to be?”
Melanie Houghton almost gagged. White-faced, she gasped “You – you can’t – you can’t do that—”
“I’m afraid we can, Mrs Houghton.” Olbeck’s tone grew steely. “This is a murder enquiry.”
“Oh god. Oh my god.” Melanie Houghton’s composure had utterly vanished. She dropped her head into her hands and burst into tears. “Please – please don’t—”
“Will you talk to us here?”
“Yes – yes, my god—“ She appeared to make a mammoth effort to control herself. “I’m sorry if I – I didn’t mean—”
Kate couldn’t bear any more. “Let’s get on with it, Mrs Houghton, shall we?” She glanced across at Olbeck, for his permission to continue, and then leant forward a little, beginning her questions.
Melanie Houghton had one of those complexions which crying really didn’t suit. After twenty minutes of halting confession, embarrassed recollection and hesitation, Mrs Houghton’s eyelids matched the red of her hair and her nose was running so much that she held a tissue under it almost permanently.
“I’m not expecting you to understand,” she said eventually, her voice thick with tears. “I’m not trying to excuse myself. Well, perhaps I am.” She raised her head for a moment and fixed them both with a glare. “We’ve been married for over twenty-five years. Do you know what that’s like? The tedium, the boredom. Constantly knowing what the other’s going to say? Sitting across from one another in restaurants, listening to one another chew. And as for sex—” She broke off, crumpling the sodden tissue in one hand. “Well, suffice to say that that falls by the wayside, a lot sooner than you might think.”
From her earlier reticence, Melanie Houghton was a changed wo
man. Kate had seen this happen before in interviews – the mood changed to something almost approaching a therapy session, at least on behalf of the suspect. Looking at Melanie, she could imagine the woman had had her fair share of psychoanalysis. There was something tightly wound about her, something that the expensive clothing, the diamond earrings, the musky perfume couldn’t quite hide. Kate continued to listen to her talk, blurt, even, with a twinge of unease.
Eventually Melanie fell silent, her chest rising in an occasional hitching breath as she recovered herself from her crying fit. Olbeck cleared his throat. “Mrs Houghton, you say that you’ve been meeting Simon Farraday for some months, since November last year, both here at your house and at Mr Farraday’s townhouse. Is that correct?” Melanie nodded, her eyes downcast. “So can you confirm the last time you saw Mr Farraday?”
Melanie kept her eyes down low. “I don’t remember exactly. It was about two weeks ago.”
Kate stiffened. She heard Olbeck ask in a steady tone “About two weeks ago? You didn’t meet up with him on the night of the ninth of April?”
Olbeck’s tone was entirely neutral – he was too experienced an interviewer to betray any emotion at a startling piece of news – but something intangible must have alerted Melanie Houghton who sat up, compulsively crushing the tissue in her hand. “What do you mean? The night of the ninth of April?”
“Yes. Didn’t you meet him at the Farradays’ townhouse that night?”
Melanie was staring. “No. No, I didn’t.” The date that Olbeck had mentioned must have struck a chord because she blanched and said “Wasn’t that – was that the night—”
“He was killed? Yes,” Olbeck said, looking at her steadily.
“He – that – no, no, I didn’t, I didn’t.” Kate held herself more tensely. Melanie Houghton’s tone held a note of increasing hysteria. “I didn’t!”
“Okay, okay, it’s all right, Mrs Houghton.” Olbeck broke eye contact and looked down. The tension in the room lessened very slightly. “Where were you on the night of the ninth of April, between the hours of ten pm and midnight?”
“I – I—” Melanie Houghton must have realised by that point that she was a suspect. Her tone began to climb ever higher. “I – I don’t – I don’t—”
Kate was on the edge of her seat now. She’d seen that stance before, the coiled spring intensity of a person close to the edge. She could feel Olbeck tense beside her.
As if a balloon had suddenly popped inside her, Melanie Houghton sagged back against the back of the velvet sofa. A look of intense relief came into her face. “I was here,” she murmured. “I was here with my husband. We were watching television – it was the last episode of The Mother Trap – I remember now. We were here, I was here. Oh—” She covered her face with her hands, crying again.
Kate and Olbeck exchanged a glance. Olbeck cleared his throat. “We will have to interview your husband, Mrs Houghton. He will have to confirm what you’ve just told us.”
Melanie’s hands dropped away from her face. The look of relief was gone and the whiteness of her skin shone out in pallid contrast to her glorious hair. “Oh,” was all she said, feebly.
“We’ll call back this evening, Mrs Houghton.” Olbeck shifted himself forward on the sofa, preparatory to getting up. “I presume your husband will be home later?” Melanie nodded, as if all the strength had gone out of her muscles. “Well, that should give you a chance to talk to him before we get here. Shall we say about seven o’clock?” Another feeble nod from the mistress of the house. “Very well. We’ll talk again then. We’ll see ourselves out.”
They were in the car before either Kate or Olbeck said anything. Then Kate blew out her cheeks and rolled her eyes.
“I know,” said Olbeck. He frowned for a moment and then reached for his phone. Kate heard him dialling and then speaking to someone who sounded like Rav.
“Going to put a watch on her?” Kate asked, having listened to Olbeck’s half of the conversation.
“Yes. I don’t know, it might be a bit over cautious but...” He didn’t elaborate but his words fell away in a sigh. “Well, I don’t know about you, but there’s something about that woman that makes me uneasy.”
“I know what you mean,” Kate said with feeling. “You don’t think she’s going to cut and run, do you?”
Olbeck shrugged. “No. No, it’s not that. It’s just something – did she strike you as – not quite right?” He turned on the ignition and began the slow, painful process of edging out of the parking space. “Without exactly being able to say what was wrong with her?”
Kate rubbed her chin. “You know who she reminded me of?”
“Who?”
“Elodie Duncan’s mother. What was her name? Genevieve Duncan.”
“Mm. Maybe you’re right. So do you think she was lying about meeting him on the night of the murder?”
It was Kate’s turn to shrug. “Not sure. That’s something we’ll have to look into. Let’s see what the husband says later.”
“Right.” Olbeck had manoeuvred out onto the road by this point. “Lord, I don’t envy her that conversation later.”
Kate said nothing but made a heartfelt noise in agreement.
Chapter Twelve
“So,” Anderton said the next morning, pacing backward and forwards across the office floor. “Where are we so far?”
Kate leant back and swung her legs, wondering whether she was going to be the first person to speak. As it was, Theo beat her to it.
“I’ve been looking at the CCTV footage from the scene, both of the front door of the townhouse and the back lane that runs behind it.” Anderton nodded encouragingly. “Well, we’ve ascertained that Simon Farraday was the first person to enter the house, on the night of the ninth of April, at about seven thirty. Then there’s absolutely nothing until the woman, who we haven’t been able to identify, enters the front door at nine fifty-three pm.”
Theo paused. Anderton raised his eyebrows expectantly. “And?”
Theo looked a little awkward. “Well, the problem is that she doesn’t come out.”
“Come again?” Anderton said, pausing in his journey back and forth across the carpet.
“She doesn’t come out. Either through the back door or through the front door.”
Anderton gave Theo an expressive look. “What? So where does she go?”
Theo looked even more awkward. “Well, that’s just it. There’s no footage of her leaving, not that night or the next morning.”
Kate cleared her throat. “Theo, the blank spot – remember?”
“I was just about to get to that.” Theo gave her an annoyed look. “There’s an interval of about fifteen minutes at about two am in the morning when the tape goes on the fritz. It’s possible that she may have left then.”
Anderton threw his hands in the air. “Possible? Of course it’s bloody possible! What’s the alternative? That she teleported out of there? Walked through a bloody wall?” Kate suppressed a giggle just as Anderton came to a sudden halt, staring ahead of him.
There was a tense silence while the team waited for him to speak again. Then he came back to life and pointed at Theo. “Get onto the Land Registry. You need to get hold of the floor plan for the Farradays’ townhouse.”
“What—“ Theo began but Kate had already grasped the implications.
“He’s saying – sorry, sir, you’re saying – that there might be another way out of the house? Something we aren’t yet aware of?”
“A secret tunnel?” Chloe asked in a cynical voice.
Anderton smiled, unoffended. “Something like that. That house is old. I’m thinking priest hole, walled up cellar, something like that. Someone will need to go and interview Mia Farraday again, see if she can shed any light on the matter.”
“I’ll do the Land Registry,” said Theo.
“I’m happy to talk to Mia Farraday,” said Kate.
“Good.” Anderton clapped his hands together in satisfaction. “Disappe
aring women, I don’t know. You lot are supposed to be professionals.” The team exchanged guilty smiles. “Now, what else? Chloe, Rav, anything from forensics?”
Chloe grabbed for a pile of cardboard folders. “Yes, we started going through them yesterday. As luck would have it, the townhouse was cleaned just before the day of the murder so there were only a few fingerprints found. Prints from Mia and Simon Farraday, as you’d expect, the cleaning ladies and—” She paused for dramatic effect. “The fingerprints of an unknown woman were found in the bedroom of the house.”
By now Olbeck had joined the conference. “We’ve asked Melanie Houghton, Simon Farraday’s lover, to come to the station today to be fingerprinted. It wouldn’t surprise me to find that she’s the unknown woman.”
“Good,” said Anderton.
“Actually, I wouldn’t mind five minutes after this for a quick chat,” said Olbeck. He looked across at Kate and mouthed ‘you too’. She raised her eyebrows but nodded.
“Sure, sure.” Anderton rubbed his jaw, staring at the whiteboards on the far wall, which were covered in black marker scribbles, arrows, photographs and notes. “I’ve got half an hour before I have to nip out to a meeting, so come down to my office.” He swept the room with his gaze. “Anybody else have anything?”
“I’m going to check with IT whether they’ve managed to track down all the other online contacts Simon Farraday was in correspondence with,” said Kate. “They’ll all need to be interviewed as well.”
“Good. Keep me posted. Anyone else?” There was a short silence and a general shaking of heads and muttering of ‘no, nothing’. “Good. Keep up the good work and we’ll reconvene later.”
The team dispersed, and Olbeck walked over to where Kate was sitting.