The Beales, she told Slider when she reported back, were a charming couple, but cold and ruthless.
‘A sort of Steve and Eydie Amin?’ Slider offered.
‘But it does at least tighten up Scott Hibbert’s alibi, boss,’ Swilley said, not knowing who Steve and Eydie were. ‘If he was actually doing an entertainment at the stag night on Friday, there was no way he wouldn’t be missed. And though he might have a motive for getting rid of Ronnie Fitton and the Boltons, he had none for getting rid of Melanie.’
‘Except,’ Slider said, ‘if he had any reason to expect to inherit the flat on her death, so he could double its value and keep all the profit himself. But that’s a meagre sort of motive, and not one I’d like to have to convince a jury of.’
‘He couldn’t double its value without getting Fitton to sell,’ said Swilley. ‘But if Fitton went down for the murder, that would get him out of the way.’ She was joking, he could see, but there was some serious thought behind it.
‘Go on,’ he invited.
She smiled. ‘And then the other people leave because they don’t want to live in a murder house, the price falls because of the notoriety, he snaps up the other flats cheap, and then he redevelops the whole house and makes a killing. Pardon the pun.’
‘Ingenious,’ Slider said.
‘Yeah,’ said Swilley apologetically. ‘It’d make a good movie. And nobody likes estate agents. But anyway, he loved her – everyone says so.’
‘All the same, we need to check up on his movements. Since we don’t know exactly what time Melanie was killed, there’s still the possibility that he drove home from Salisbury during the night and went back afterwards. And –’ he forestalled her objection – ‘we can work on the motive afterwards, if necessary.’
Connolly was glad to see the dog perk up as she pulled up in front of the house. There were neighbours and pressmen gathered along the pavement, keeping a respectful but agog distance from the front door where a uniform – Dave Bright – was keeping guard. He came down to the car as she stopped, but recognized Slider and nodded. He was an old-fashioned copper, large, authoritative and serene, and such was his presence that no one moved when he opened the car door for her. When she encouraged the dog out after her, there was a murmur among the neighbours and a stirring, like a wheat field in a summer breeze, among the pressmen, but Bright looked left and right and raised a massive hand, and everyone came to rest again, though there was a frenzied zip-zip of photo-shutters, like a caucus of cicadas. Slider’s exit was met with a barrage of questions from the fourth estate, cancelling each other out since he could not hear them over each other – though they seemed to be mostly about Ronnie Fitton. He ignored them sturdily, following Bright, Connolly and the dog up the path, past the family car, to the front door.
In the house of mourning, tea was brewing, as it always was, and a large, spongey woman was ministering to Mrs Wiseman in the sitting room, and was introduced as ‘my friend’ by Mrs Wiseman and ‘Margie Sutton from number forty-eight’ by herself. Bethany was in the kitchen with a school friend – ‘we couldn’t make her go in today, not with all this going on, and reporters everywhere’ – and Mr Wiseman was also home, hovering angrily between sitting room and kitchen, his clenched fists shoved into his pockets and his face twitching with tension. He seemed irritated not only by the crowds outside but by the presence of ‘Margie’ inside.
‘My wife felt she needed support,’ was all he said, but it was the way he said it.
Slider could see that Margie might come across as irritating, obviously relishing the tragedy and the opportunities it opened up for being sentimental and gushingly supportive.
‘Ooh, I know,’ she crooned to anything Mrs Wiseman said, while urging her to ‘put her feet up’, ‘be kind to herself’, and not ‘hold it back’. She had soft, moist eyes like over-boiled gooseberries, and such a cascade of chins her fat white face looked like a cat on a pile of cushions.
But there was no doubt Marty the dog was pleased to see them. He strained forward on the leash, wagging his entire back end with gladness, and when Connolly released him, shoved his nose into the crutch of each person in turn, swinging his body round for patting, and panting with happiness. Mrs Wiseman seemed distracted and inclined to weep at him, but Mr Wiseman was hugely glad of the distraction and petted the dog extensively, saying, ‘Good old boy. Good old dog,’ over and over. Bethany and her friend came to the door to see what was happening, and were easily persuaded to take Marty out into the garden and play with him; which, when a little semaphore between Slider and Connolly had taken place, left the kitchen free for Slider to interview Mr Wiseman, while Connolly worked her magic on the distaff side in the sitting room.
Wiseman seemed relieved to be in the presence of just another man, and his tension seemed to drop back a notch – though he was still wound so tight it didn’t make him the king of cool by several nuclear reactors’ worth. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ he offered, with a slight awkwardness that suggested he thought this was a woman’s opening, and that he only felt constrained to make it because of the unusual circumstances. Slider calculated that Wiseman would not sit down so was better off with something to do, and accepted. It got his fists out of his pockets, at any rate – Slider was worried for his stitching.
He studied the man as he moved about the kitchen, making a fresh pot. Ian Wiseman was not exceptionally tall – about five ten, Slider thought – but there was no doubt he was in shape. His face was lean and tanned, his hair thick and curly and with very little grey in the brown, his shoulders and arms powerful, his body neat and his legs muscled. He was wearing cord trousers and a V-necked sweater over a check shirt, open at the neck – just the clothes Slider would have expected of a teacher off duty. His hands shook slightly as he made the tea, the tendons stood out in his neck and his expression was grim with, Slider presumed, maintaining control in such difficult circumstances. Otherwise, he thought, he would have been quite good-looking, in a dark-haired, blue-feyed, Irish sort of way.
‘This must be difficult for you,’ Slider said in sympathetic tones, by way of opening the conversation.
‘It certainly is,’ he snapped back immediately. ‘Crowds out there so we can’t get out of our own front door. Our life not our own. We’ve had to unplug the phone. I had to keep Bethany home from school, and God knows she can’t afford to lose any more days. She’s already had time off this term with a cold, and with her grades she needs to keep her nose to the grindstone. And then to cap it all my head sent a message to tell me not to come in this week!’ He crashed the lid on to the teapot with a kind of suppressed fury. ‘Not that I would have been able to go today, the way things are, but to have him write me off, and for the whole week! I’ve got a hockey team to coach for the play-offs, I’ve got soccer teams, I’ve got basketball inter-schools coming up, I’ve got kids lined up for private coaching – and I’m stuck indoors here. I can’t afford to take a week off.’
Interesting approach to bereavement, Slider thought, not without pity. It took different people different ways, and he could see that, for an active man, being cooped up with two dripping females and nothing to do would be trying. Still it was not his job to sympathize.
‘And you must be upset about Melanie,’ he said.
Wiseman’s back was to him, pouring the tea. He seemed to pause for a beat, and then said, rather stiffly, ‘Of course I’m upset.’ He finished pouring and brought Slider’s cup and saucer to the table. ‘Do you take sugar?’
‘No, thanks,’ said Slider. ‘Are you not having one?’
‘I’m up to here with tea,’ Wiseman said savagely, and then went and stood by the window with his fists in his pockets again. He seemed to have been working on control, because he said in a quiet tone, ‘Look, she wasn’t my own child – you know that?’
‘Yes,’ said Slider. He wished the man would turn round. He liked faces to his words.
‘But I did my best by her. Rachel was widowed – you know
about that?’
‘Yes, her husband died in the Greenford rail crash.’
‘That’s right. And my wife died suddenly, leaving me with Bethany, who was only eighteen months old. So we were both – we needed each other. I don’t say there wasn’t a bit of – well, I suppose you don’t call it rebound when it’s a case of bereavement, but it was something like that. We married very quickly. Graham – Rachel’s husband – had only been dead just over a year, my wife a bit less than that. Some people were shocked we married so soon. Well, it was none of their business,’ he added in a sort of growl.
‘No one else can know what you were feeling,’ Slider said, as if agreeing.
Wiseman turned and stared at him intently, perhaps judging his sincerity. Apparently he passed muster. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I got sick to death of being judged. We dropped all our old friends – friends, they called themselves. There was Rachel with a teenager at the worst possible age for a thing like that, trying to manage all on her own, and I’ve got a baby, going on a toddler, and trying to hold down a very demanding job. You may think it’s a cushy number being a PE teacher, but I can tell you it’s not.’
‘I’m sure it’s not,’ Slider said sincerely. ‘It must take a great deal out of you.’
He seemed mollified. ‘Well, it’s not nine to five,’ he said forcefully. ‘There’s all the out-of-hours coaching, and travelling with teams to competitions, and these days there’s all the paperwork that goes with it, too. And one has to keep oneself fit, and that takes time. It was impossible to give Bethany any kind of decent home life. So Rachel and I joined forces, and—’ He didn’t quite shrug, but Slider got the impression that if he wasn’t such a gentleman he would have hinted that the bargain hadn’t been evenly balanced. ‘I always tried to do the right thing by Melanie. I did my best.’
‘Did you and she not get along?’ Slider asked neutrally.
Wiseman gave an exasperated sort of sigh. ‘Oh, it wasn’t that. Not the way you mean. But she was sixteen, her father was dead – and she and him were always close. She was bound to be upset and mixed up and so on. She had all the usual teenage problems, only more so – and I wasn’t the answer to them, as far as she was concerned. All I could do was give her a stable home and the right influence. I dare say she’d have liked me better if I’d been permissive and let her do whatever the hell she wanted, but that’s not how you bring up children. I wouldn’t have been doing my duty by her if I hadn’t come down hard on certain things. And she thanked me for it in the long run. I mean, she knew I was right, once she got herself sorted out. But for a couple of years it was hard going. And Rachel was no help. Well, she was devastated by Graham’s death. I didn’t realize until later how much it affected her.’ His face darkened, and Slider read between the lines that he wouldn’t have married her if he had. ‘She would never take any kind of line with Melanie, it was always left up to me. And she wasn’t even my child.’
‘I can see how difficult it must have been. But your relationship did get better in the end?’
‘Oh, we were all right with each other. The last few years – once she’d got herself sorted out. She pulled herself together – got a degree, worked hard and got a good job – and that made all the difference. Once she’d got some self-respect, she knew I’d been right to take a tough line with her. I wouldn’t say we were ever really close, not warm, but we respected each other, and that was enough.’
‘Did you see much of her?’
‘Not really. She had her own life, you know what kids are. She rang her mother often, and she came over for Sunday lunch once in a while. You wouldn’t expect more at her time of life.’
‘When did you last see her?’
‘About a fortnight ago, it was; she and Scott came over for Sunday lunch. That would be the last time I spoke to her. Though she rang her mother, I think, on the Friday – on the day.’ He stopped abruptly, his face dark, his eyebrows pulled together like storm clouds.
‘What did you think of Scott?’ Slider said.
‘He’s all right,’ Wiseman said, and Slider thought the emphasis revealing. ‘Steady lad, good job, nice manners. He wanted to marry her, you know,’ he burst out as though it was impossible to bear, ‘but she was the one holding back. I didn’t approve of them living together like that. It’s not respectable. But Scott was working on her, bringing her round. He had the right ideas. It was—’ He stopped again, brooding. ‘If she’d married, this would never have happened. If she’d listened to me . . .’
‘Do you know if Melanie was worried about anything, the last few weeks?’ Slider tried. ‘Was there anything you and her mother were concerned about?’
‘Apart from her not marrying Scott? No, not that I know of.’
‘She wasn’t in money trouble?’
‘She never said she was. And Scott earned plenty.’
‘Or mixing with any unsavoury types?’
‘Scott would never have allowed that. No, she was all right, as far as I knew.’
Slider drank off his tea. ‘Well, thank you, Mr Wiseman. You’ve been very helpful. Just one last thing – were you at home on Friday evening?’
Something happened. Slider had been going to ask about phone calls during the evening, but Wiseman stiffened like a fox smelling the hounds. ‘What d’you want to know that for?’ he asked, suppressed anger all present and correct again.
‘Purely routine,’ Slider said soothingly. ‘We like to know where everyone was at the time.’
‘If you’re thinking I had anything to do with Melanie’s death, just because I’m her stepfather—’
‘Not at all. It’s just a routine question, nothing to worry about. Where were you, in fact?’
Wiseman scowled horribly. ‘I was coaching a school soccer team in the early part of the evening, if you must know, and after I got home I watched television with my wife until bedtime. As she’ll tell you, if you can’t take my word for it.’
Slider made a placating movement with his hands. ‘There’s no need for that. I assure you, the question was not meant disrespectfully. We ask everyone, just to clear the field.’
Wiseman evidently liked the word ‘disrespectfully’ and his hackles slowly went down. Through the kitchen window Slider could see the school friend playing with the dog, but Bethany was nowhere to be seen. He wondered what Wiseman would think of her absenting herself without permission – but there had not seemed anything particularly cowed about Bethany in the brief time he had observed her. More pertinently, he wondered how Connolly had got on; and that, at least, he could do something about.
SIX
Thirst Among Equals
Margie was hanging around in the hall as he passed through.
‘Rachel’s gone upstairs to have a lay down. I think that little talk with your lady upset her. I left them to it – private, you know – but I think I’d better stay on a bit in case I’m wanted,’ she concluded wistfully.
‘Has my colleague left?’
‘Oh yes, a few minutes ago. Was – is Ian OK? Such a lovely man. P’raps I’d better go and make him a cup of tea? It can’t be easy talking about something like this.’
There isn’t something like this, Slider thought. But some malicious sprite prompted him to say, ‘Good idea. I expect he needs a cup.’ She scuttled off with a new mission in life and Slider escaped through the front door. The first thing he saw was Connolly, down the side of the house, deep in conversation with Bethany, so he turned his back on them and talked to Dave Bright for a bit, to give her space. He’d have gone and sat in the car, but that would have left him vulnerable to the crowd.
Connolly had been surprised when Mrs Sutton had offered to leave her alone with Mrs Wiseman, levered herself up on tiptoe and crept out: an elephant of tact. She had thought missing the interview would be the last thing Mrs Sutton would want to do, and gave her points for having more depths than was at first apparent.
Mrs Wiseman had been only too eager to talk. Grief had made he
r loquacious, though rambling. She kept weeping, like a slow bleed, but it did not interfere with her speech.
‘I knew, when that other police-lady came, I knew she was gone. I had this premonition, somehow, that she was dead. My Melanie. I can’t seem to make it real in my head, d’you know what I mean? I keep thinking she’ll ring me any minute. And yet I just knew the moment she said she was missing that she wasn’t coming back.’
She wiped at her nose hopelessly with a soggy tissue that was in danger of disintegrating. Connolly passed her another and murmured something about a ‘mother’s instinct’. Mrs Wiseman jumped on that eagerly.
‘That’s what it was! That’s what it must have been. A mother’s instinct. Because Ian’s been saying he always knew it would end up like this, but that’s not right. It’s not right to say something like that, just because she had that bit of trouble. That was years ago, and she’s turned her life right round since then. It’s not right to keep harping on about it. She was just a girl, and her dad had been killed, and it’s no wonder she went off the rails a bit. I said at the time he ought to be more sympathetic, but he’s so hard, Ian, he never makes allowances. He thinks everybody ought to be as together as he is. Oh, I know he thought he was doing right by her, being strict and everything, and I expect it did help her, in the long run, but to be saying a thing like that now, all these years later, when she’s such a lovely girl, and she’s really made something of herself. She’s got a lovely job and a lovely boyfriend and there’s no reason at all to say “I told you so” about something like this. I mean, nobody deserves to have that happen to them, and she was a good girl, a really good girl.’
‘What was the bit of trouble she got in?’ Connolly asked. ‘When her Dad died?’
‘Well, it wasn’t right away, that’s the funny thing. She was wonderful at first, a tower of strength to me – because I just went to pieces, I can tell you. It was the most terrible, terrible time; but Melanie was so wonderful, and she really adored her dad, you know, they were so close, but she supported me and did all the things that needed doing, and she was so calm and everything. I suppose in the end it was bound to come out, like a sort of – of . . .’
Kill My Darling Page 9