‘Don’t argue with her,’ Elaine pleaded hysterically. ‘You don’t know what she’s like.’
What she is, is average height and pissed, Phileda thought. I could handle her with one arm tied behind my back.
‘This is your last chance,’ Maggie growled.
All it would take would be a good hard push – one hand on each shoulder – Phileda decided.
That would probably be enough to make Maggie fall over, and even if it wasn’t, it would make it obvious to the other woman that she was well out of her league.
She put her plan into action – both arms up, one on each shoulder, push.
Maggie didn’t move for at least five seconds, and when she did, she was stepping back, rather than being pushed back. And then she was advancing again, regaining all the territory she had lost and more.
She didn’t raise her arm until she was within striking distance, but when she did, it was so fast that it was almost a blur. Then her fist connected with the underside of Phileda’s chin, and the bigger woman seemed – for an instant – to be lifted off the ground.
Phileda rocked from one side to the other, in an effort to maintain her balance. She might have made it if Maggie hadn’t kicked her on the kneecap, but once that had happened – and God! it hurt when it did – she was down on the ground, wondering which of her injuries she should try to soothe first.
Maggie stepped back, examined her writhing victim carefully, then kicked her in the chest. She was just about to aim another blow when the bouncer – a gay body-builder from Clayton-le-Woods – wrapped both his massive arms around her, and pulled her clear.
‘These two girls get free drinks all night,’ he shouted to the barmaid, as he dragged the struggling Maggie towards the exit.
Once they were outside, he flung the woman so hard against the dustbins that it dented one of them.
Maggie lay there groaning, and making no attempt to get up.
‘I warned you the last time I wasn’t having no more of that kind of behaviour,’ the bouncer said. ‘Well, this time, you’re barred for good.’ He walked back to the club door. ‘You want to be careful, Maggie, you really do, because if you carry on like this, you’re going to end up killing somebody.’
SEVEN
Friday, 7th October 1977
The bruise on Gretchen Müller’s jaw looked – from its colouring – to be at least a day or two old. Meadows hadn’t noticed it during the interview she’d conducted with the German girl the previous morning, but then what she had noticed during that interview was that Gretchen had been wearing heavy make-up.
Meadows reached out and switched on the tape recorder.
‘Interview with Miss Gretchen Müller, commencing at one-thirty a.m. on the seventh of October,’ she said. ‘Present in the room are Detective Sergeant Kate Meadows and Detective Constable Crane. It is my duty to inform you, Miss Müller, that you are entitled to have a solicitor present during this interview. If you do not have a solicitor of your own, one will be appointed for you. Is it your wish that a solicitor be summoned?’
Gretchen shook her head.
‘You must say yes or no in answer,’ Meadows told her. ‘We need to have it on tape.’
‘I do not need a solicitor,’ Gretchen said. ‘Why would I? I have done nothing wrong.’
‘All right,’ Meadows said. ‘What were you doing in Mr Danbury’s suite at the Royal Victoria Hotel tonight, Gretchen? Was there something wrong with your own room, in the same hotel?’
‘No, there was nothing wrong with it.’
‘So, I repeat, why did we find you in Mr Danbury’s suite?’
‘Mr William told me that he wanted me to be near the children, in case I was needed.’
‘But didn’t you say yesterday that you were no good at handling children? Didn’t you say that was why Mrs Danbury had decided to give you other duties and take care of them herself?’
‘Mrs Danbury is dead, and so someone had to look after the boys,’ Gretchen said.
‘Couldn’t Mr Danbury have looked after them?’
‘He is a man,’ Gretchen said, as if that was all the explanation that was necessary.
‘So he is,’ Meadows agreed. ‘I really should have thought of that myself, shouldn’t I?’
‘I do not understand. Is that a joke?’
‘I once went out with a man who worked as a magician,’ Meadows said, ignoring the question, ‘and he told me that the real trick to doing magic is to make sure that your audience is always watching the wrong thing. You’d make a rather good magician yourself, wouldn’t you?’
Gretchen frowned. ‘Is that another joke?’
‘Do you remember the last time I interviewed you, Gretchen?’
‘Of course.’
‘And do you also remember the detective inspector who was conducting the interview with me?’
‘Yes.’
Meadows grinned. ‘You told him that you considered any man over the age of twenty-nine to be too old for you. And wasn’t the look on his face when you said those words a real picture?’
Gretchen laughed. ‘He … what is the phrase?… he fancied his chances with me, didn’t he?’
‘He certainly did, and he was crushed when you said you could never be attracted to what you thought of as an old man. That’s what I mean when I said you were a bit of a magician.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘You said you’d been planning to go to the Rising Sun to pick up a boy for sex. Isn’t that right?’
‘No, not exactly.’
‘Then what did you say?’
‘I said that if I found a really nice boy there, I would probably have sex with him.’
‘And you said that you’d done the same thing several times before. Is that right?’
‘I do not remember saying those words.’
‘OK, you gave us the impression that you had. Is that fair?’
Gretchen Müller hesitated. ‘I am not sure.’
‘I’m not a gambler by nature, Gretchen, but I’m prepared to bet a year’s salary that when we show your picture to the landlords of all the most notorious pick-up pubs in Whitebridge – and we will show them your picture, you can bank on that – not one of them will recognise you.’
‘The pubs that I go to are always crowded. It is possible that those serving behind the bar might not have noticed me.’
‘They might not have noticed you? But you’re a very good-looking girl, Gretchen. And you’re a natural blonde. How could they have missed you?’
‘It is possible.’
‘Did you love your father?’
‘My father is dead.’
‘That’s not what I asked.’
‘Yes, I loved him.’
‘And how old were you when he died?’
‘I was seven.’
‘And how old was he?’
‘I cannot say, not without thinking about it.’
‘Then, by all means, think about it. We’ve got plenty of time.’
Gretchen made a pretence of calculating, though it was obvious to Meadows that she had no need to.
‘He was thirty-seven,’ she said finally.
‘That’s very young to die.’
‘Yes.’
‘And wouldn’t it be nice if you could have him back – or perhaps find someone who was rather like him?’
‘I don’t understand what you’re saying,’ Gretchen said.
But she clearly did.
She’d just about got the measure of Gretchen now, Meadows decided. A good liar would always pitch her lies as close to the truth as possible, but Gretchen was a bad liar who only thought she was good. The best way to deal with someone like her was to give her free range to say whatever she wished at first, and then, by chipping away at lies and pointing out the inconsistencies, to narrow her options until she discovered for herself that she had no room to manoeuvre, and might as well admit the truth.
‘You didn’t go to Dundee the day before yesterday, did you?�
�� Meadows asked. ‘You went to Newcastle upon Tyne.’
‘No.’
‘Your bike was spotted. It was parked outside the Ambassador Hotel in the centre of Newcastle.’
‘It was not my machine. It must have been another BMW which belonged to someone else.’
‘There can’t be many R 75/6s in England, because they are so expensive. Speaking of which, you suggested that a boy bought it for you. Did you really mean that a man bought it – a man who might be roughly the same age as your father was when he died?’
‘I bought it myself.’
‘That’s not what you said yesterday.’
‘It’s what I’m saying now.’
‘Where did you get the money from?’
‘I saved it up.’
‘Very enterprising of you – especially on an au pair’s wages,’ Meadows said. ‘Now where was I? Oh yes! By tomorrow afternoon, we’ll have accounted for the whereabouts of every other R 75/6 in Britain, and I can pretty much guarantee that not one of them will have been anywhere near the centre of Newcastle on Wednesday afternoon.’
‘I have just remembered something. I did stop in one of the towns that I was driving past.’
‘Why?’
‘I wanted a coffee. And that town, you see, might have been Newcastle.’
‘You wanted a coffee, and you went right into the centre of Newcastle – in rush hour traffic – to get it.’
‘I must have done.’
‘And could the place where you stopped for coffee have been the Ambassador Hotel?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘We have statements, taken from several staff in that hotel, in which they say that they saw you with Mr Danbury,’ Meadows lied.
‘That is impossible,’ Gretchen said firmly. ‘I …’
‘You what?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You were never seen in public together, because when you arrived, you went straight up to his room, where he was waiting for you? Is that what you were going to say, Gretchen?’
‘No.’
‘I’ve been wondering why, given what you were planning to do later, you went up to Newcastle at all,’ Meadows said, ‘and now I think I’ve got the answer. You had to have sex in order to remind yourselves of just how badly you needed and wanted each other – because that was the only way you could bring yourselves to kill Jane Danbury.’
‘I did not kill Mrs Jane.’
‘Of course you didn’t. Her husband did. But you were part of it. Did you do it voluntarily, or did he force you – because if he forced you, you’ve a good chance of walking away from this mess as a free woman.’
‘I did not kill Mrs Jane.’
Meadows stood up, walked around the table and came to a halt next to Gretchen.
‘What are you doing?’ the au pair asked nervously.
‘I’m just looking at you,’ Meadows told her. ‘There are a lot of things I’m not allowed to do to a suspect, but there’s absolutely nothing against doing that.’
The sergeant returned to her seat.
‘When I interviewed you yesterday, you were very heavily made up, so I didn’t see that bruise on your jaw,’ she said. ‘But tonight, you weren’t expecting to be brought in for questioning, so you didn’t have time to mask it. It is a rather nasty bruise, isn’t it?’
‘It is nothing.’
‘How did you get it?’
‘I walked into a door.’
Meadows nodded. ‘That’s how it starts, you know,’ she said. ‘The first time he hits you, he’s full of remorse, and he promises he’ll never do it again. And it’s some time before he does hit you again, but this time, when he apologises, it’s perhaps not quite as sincere as it was the time before. And so the pattern develops – the beatings become more regular, the apologies weaker, until it gets to a point where he never seems to stop hitting you, and he’s not sorry at all any more.’
Tears had started to appear in the corners of Gretchen’s eyes.
‘Billy is not like that,’ she said.
‘So it’s Billy now, is it? You think that if he can just get away with murdering his wife, you’ll have a wonderful life together. But you won’t. Living with him will be like living in the middle of a never-ending nightmare, until finally, perhaps, he kills you, too.’
‘It’s not true,’ Gretchen sobbed. ‘He’s not like that at all.’
‘If he’s not like that, then why did he hit you?’ Meadows demanded.
‘It was my fault. I made a mistake.’
‘What kind of mistake?’
Gretchen took a deep breath. ‘I want a lawyer,’ she said.
Ethel Danbury lay in bed next to her snoring husband. She was not asleep herself. Instead, she was thinking about the events of the previous evening.
Archie had been unusually quiet for about an hour after that policeman had left, but then he began muttering to himself, which – she knew from experience – signalled trouble.
He would hit her that night – she knew he would – and, in a way, she would welcome the blows, because that would at least mean that the waiting – which was often the worst part – would be over.
She’d been in the kitchen when he finally called her.
‘Come in here, Mother.’
She’d dropped what she was doing immediately – Archie didn’t like to be kept waiting – and walked meekly into the living room.
‘What did you tell that bobby, Mother?’ Danbury had demanded.
She’d looked down at the floor.
‘I didn’t tell him anything.’
‘So if I say you did, that makes me a liar, does it?’
‘No, but …’
‘I told the bobby that Jane hadn’t been a very sociable sort. And what did you say?’
‘I said … I said that she’d invited us over to her house a few times.’
Danbury had stood up, so that he was towering over her.
‘Exactly. I said she wasn’t sociable, and you said she’d invited us round. You made me look a fool.’
Sometimes he would just slap her about a little, but at other times he would use his fists. It would be the fists that night, she’d thought, and maybe, once she was down on the floor, he’d kick her, as well.
‘So what have you got to say for yourself?’ Danbury had demanded.
She could have said that she’d done no more than speak the truth. Jane had kept inviting them round, until it had become plain to even her that Archie would never accept.
She could have said that, but she didn’t, because it was not what Archie wanted to hear, and if Archie didn’t hear what he wanted to hear, the beating would be even worse.
So all she said was, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Look at me!’ he’d said. ‘Look at me!’
She’d raised her head slowly, her eyes first taking in the clenched fist at his side, and then the face that was filled with rage. It was going to be a bad one, she’d thought.
And then a miracle had occurred. The fist had stayed where it was – which seemed to surprise Archie almost as much as it surprised her. For a moment or two he’d gazed down at the fist with an expression of hurt and betrayal on his face. Then he’d barged past her and out into the hall.
‘I’m going to the pub,’ he’d called over his shoulder.
It was only a postponement of the beating, she’d thought.
But it hadn’t been. When he’d returned from the boozer, he had barely looked at her, and had gone straight to bed.
So why had she been spared the beating? It could only be because of Inspector Beresford!
Though banished to the kitchen, she had heard him talking to Archie through the door.
Don’t take your frustration with me out on your missus, because I’ll be coming back to talk to her tomorrow, and if there’s a mark on her, there’ll be consequences.
What, you’ll have me arrested?
No, I’ll beat the shit out of you.
So what had she learned from
that?
She had learned there was at least one person in the huge, hostile world which surrounded her who was prepared to make at least a token gesture in her defence.
But more importantly, she had learned that Archie could be frightened – that the angry god, who had ruled her life for so long, had feet of clay.
It wouldn’t last.
Archie would go for her again.
He simply couldn’t help himself.
But the big difference was that next time, she wouldn’t just lie back and take it.
George Fullbright, William Danbury’s solicitor, did not look happy, Paniatowski thought. Perhaps that was the result of having to leave his snug bed and put in an appearance at police headquarters in the middle of the night, but it seemed more likely that it was his instructions which were bothering him.
‘My client would like to be questioned by another officer,’ he said.
‘Another officer?’ Paniatowski repeated.
‘A male officer,’ Fullbright elaborated.
‘Request denied,’ Paniatowski said firmly.
‘He … er … has made it clear to me that he is much more likely to cooperate with a man,’ Fullbright pressed on.
‘You don’t get to make the rules, Mr Danbury – that’s my job,’ Paniatowski said.
‘If you know what’s good for you,’ Danbury said, speaking directly to Beresford, ‘you’ll make this so-called boss of yours see sense.’
‘Did you kill your wife, Mr Danbury?’ Paniatowski asked.
For a moment, it looked as if Danbury would not answer, then he seemed to decide that to keep silent would be almost like admitting his guilt.
‘No, I did not kill my wife,’ he said.
‘Did you kidnap your daughter?’
Danbury sneered. ‘Since she is my daughter, how is it legally possible for me to have kidnapped her?’
‘Did you remove her from your home on Wednesday night?’
‘No.’
‘Have you, Mr Danbury, been conducting an affair with your au pair girl, Gretchen Müller?’
‘No.’
‘You were in Newcastle upon Tyne on Wednesday, and so was she.’
‘So were a lot of other people.’
‘But not a lot of people who ride a motorbike like hers.’
‘If you say so. I wouldn’t know.’
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