‘Even if that were true,’ Slider said, ‘she didn’t look upon you as her father, did she? She resented your marrying her mother, and wouldn’t accept your authority. You had a hard struggle with her from the very beginning.’
‘All I ever tried to do was my best, to bring her up properly,’ Wiseman said, his face tight with emotion. ‘But it seems these days people who try to do the right thing are mocked and abused. There’s no reward or admiration for virtue any more.’
‘Did Melanie mock and abuse you?’
He was about to reply, but caught himself up. ‘I don’t have to answer your questions. I’m not saying anything to you.’
‘I don’t want you asking my client any leading questions,’ said Drobcek.
‘We’re not in court,’ Slider said. ‘I can ask him what I want. You’re right,’ he addressed Wiseman, ‘you don’t have to answer my questions. But you must think of the impression it gives if you won’t. It’s true, isn’t it, that Melanie refused from the beginning to accept your discipline? A young girl, who’d recently lost the father she adored – it wasn’t surprising if you had difficulty in taking his place.’
‘I never tried to take his place,’ Wiseman said, provoked. ‘He was a lazy, shiftless, work-fshy, spendthrift waster and the world was better off without him.’
‘Rachel Hunter in particular was better off without him. You were a much more satisfactory husband – one who knew his duty towards his wife and family.’
Wiseman looked put out, as if he couldn’t be sure praise really was praise and suspected a trap. ‘The facts speak for themselves,’ he said stiffly. ‘I’ve supported my wife and the girls properly through my own efforts right from the beginning.’
‘So it must have been extra frustrating when you found you couldn’t guide Melanie along the right paths for her own good.’
Wiseman glanced uncertainly at Drobcek, who gave a small shrug, indicating that there was nothing wrong with the question. ‘I – did my best,’ was all he said.
‘And when she defied all your attempts to guide her, she got into trouble, and you were the one who had to bail her out of it.’
‘I don’t want to talk about that,’ he said through rigid lips. ‘It’s all in the past.’
‘Unfortunately, all of Melanie’s life is now in the past,’ Slider said, and saw the words give Wiseman a jolt. ‘Isn’t it true that you have something of a hasty temper?’
The fists clenched. ‘I do not—’ he began angrily, and then controlled himself with an effort. ‘I won’t answer any more questions.’
‘And that you have hit both Bethany and Melanie on more than one occasion?’
‘My client is not to be asked to incriminate himself,’ said Drobcek.
Slider ignored him. ‘And that in fact you hit Melanie on the last occasion you saw her before the night of her death? When she came to Sunday lunch a fortnight before, you had a blazing row with her and hit her across the face.’
Wiseman went white. ‘Who told you that?’ he asked furiously; and then: ‘It’s a lie! Who told you such a monstrous lie?’
‘Your house doesn’t have very thick walls. Several other people were in the next room,’ Slider said, and added conversationally: ‘It’s curious how far the sound of a slap travels – I suppose it’s the pitch.’
‘I tell you it’s a lie!’ Wiseman said vehemently. He leaned forward, fists on the table. ‘People are out to blacken me. You tell me who told such a lie about me, and I’ll—’
‘You’ll kill them?’ Slider finished for him unemphatically.
Wiseman blenched and fell back.
‘Lies have been told,’ Slider went on, ‘but not about that. Not about you, but by you.’
‘I think this has gone far enough,’ Drobcek said, and Wiseman threw him a glance of relief. ‘If you have evidence against my client, you had better produce it, and stop all the innuendo.’
‘Very well,’ Slider said. ‘Where were you on Friday night, Mr Wiseman? From the end of the school day until you got home?’
‘I’ve already told you, I was taking soccer practice,’ he said.
‘And there’s the lie,’ Slider said calmly. ‘From your lips, before witnesses and on tape. There was no soccer practice on Friday. There never is soccer or any other game after school on Fridays. The teachers are always in a hurry to get home.’
He blinked. ‘I—’ he began. He looked at Drobcek.
Drobcek shrugged. ‘Better clear it up,’ he said. ‘Otherwise it does look bad.’
‘It wasn’t an official, school practice,’ Wiseman said, thinking hard. ‘It’s a scratch team – local kids – I help out. We meet every Friday after school. Keeps them out of trouble. It’s – a sort of voluntary work I do, to help the community. A thing I do out of the kindness of my heart.’
‘Give me the names of the boys involved.’
‘I . . . I can’t remember.’
‘Give me one name.’
No answer.
‘You can’t remember the name of a single boy? Even though you see them every Friday?’
‘I’m – under a lot of stress at the moment. I can’t think clearly when I’m being attacked like this.’
‘I’m not attacking you. I’m trying to get at the facts. How long did this football practice go on?’ Slider asked.
He must have sensed the trap. ‘I don’t remember. We play until they’ve had enough. It goes on longer than a school practice would.’
‘As much as two hours? Three?’
‘Easily that. They’re very keen.’
‘And where did you go afterwards?’
‘Home, of course.’
‘So you’d have been home by – what – half past seven? At the latest. School comes out at half past three. It would hardly have gone on longer than four hours.’
Wiseman stared, his eyes desperately trying to strip meaning out of Slider’s face.
‘Half past seven? Would you say you got home by then?’
And Wiseman said, in a strangled voice, ‘Yes.’
‘And there’s another lie,’ Slider said. ‘Your wife said you weren’t home until late, until after she went to bed. Something like half past eleven.’
‘She wouldn’t know,’ he cried. ‘She’s confused. She’s thinking of another night. She never knows what day it is anyway. You can’t take her word for it. Woolly-minded. Hopeless. You can’t rely on her for anything.’
‘Then you can’t rely on her to give you an alibi for Friday night, can you?’ Slider said, while Drobcek gave Wiseman an exasperated look, and Wiseman stared from one to the other, his lips moving as if there were words somewhere, but he wasn’t managing to capture them.
Atherton was working his way patiently through Valerie Proctor’s life story towards the part of it that interested him. He could see she was enjoying herself, and little as he wanted to afford her the satisfaction, he knew from the gleam of self-righteousness in her eye that she was the sort of person to whom umbrage was not something you took but something you were born with a right to. In the long run it would be quicker to let her do it her way than put her back up and have to deal with the consequences.
So he went through her childhood (‘I was such a talented child. I could have gone on the stage but Daddy wouldn’t have it. I sing, you know, and play the piano’), and her marriage to Proctor (‘My maiden name, Critchfield, was a much better one – and a proper Dorset name – but Steve insisted I change, and once you have it’s too much hassle to change back’), and the divorce (‘I hope I’m a fair-minded person, but I’m sure I put more into this house than ever he did, so why should he have it, just to make a pigsty out of it, the way he did everything?’).
She told him how she had gone into the estate agency business straight from school. ‘It was always what I wanted to do – well, once I gave up wanting to go on the stage, which was never really a possibility once Daddy put his foot down. I mean, that’s something you have to have support to do.’ She ha
d started as an office junior and worked her way up. ‘I have a qualification, you know – NFPP.’
‘NFPP?’ Atherton enquired, and then wished he hadn’t.
‘The National Federation of Property Professionals,’ she explained. ‘The Technical Award in Residential Letting and Property Management is an important qualification. I mean, it’s equivalent to an A-Level, you know.’
They did a brief résumé (though not brief enough) of her career through various estate agents, finishing with the Hatter and Ruck branch in Poole (‘dealing with all the really expensive properties, five and six million, swimming pools, boat houses, you name it’), marrying and divorcing Steve Proctor on the way, and came at last to meeting Scott Hibbert.
‘It was at an IREA – the International Real Estate Alliance – trade show. The London Property Exhibition at Earl’s Court. Scott was on the Hatter and Ruck headquarters stand. I was divorced by then, of course, and – well, it was attraction at first sight. We had such a lot in common – you know, both being in the business and everything, and both being forceful, go-ahead, ambitious people. But I won’t deny there was a definite animal attraction between us. A sort of mutual magnetism we simply couldn’t resist. It was as if we were meant for each other. Of course,’ she added, with a descent into bathos, ‘I had a hotel room – it was a two-day show – which was a definite advantage.’
‘I can see,’ Atherton said patiently, ‘that it would be.’
THIRTEEN
Discomfort Zone
After a break, requested by Drobcek to consult privately with his client, and the bringing of tea, which Drobcek drank and Wiseman didn’t, Slider, with Mackay as his assistant, went back in and the taping was resumed.
Drobcek opened the batting. ‘My client wishes to say that he was mistaken in his previous statement about taking soccer practice last Friday. His state of emotional turmoil and grief left him confused. I’m sure you will understand that.’
Slider understood, all right. ‘So where were you on Friday evening, Mr Wiseman?’ Drobcek opened his mouth and Slider forestalled him. ‘I would like to hear it from Mr Wiseman himself.’ Legally it was no less valid if Drobcek said it on instruction, but Wiseman was a self-proclaimed virtuous man and a churchgoer, and if another lie was coming Slider knew instinctively it would make a difference to him. He wanted to make him say the words and face the shame.
Wiseman gave him a look that could have charred a-thousand-acre forest, but he seemed to have himself under control. His arms were folded so tightly across his chest it was a wonder he could breathe, and his face was rigid, but he said in a calm voice that sounded almost normal, ‘I was doing individual coaching. I have several young protégés who I see privately for one-on-one coaching.’
‘And which one, or ones, did you see on Friday night? Names and addresses, please.’
‘I am not going to give you any names,’ Wiseman said. ‘It would be quite wrong to expose them to this unpleasantness.’
Ah, that was the way he was going, was it? That accounted for his air of serenity. He thought he’d found a winning formula. A glance at Drobcek showed him worried, but hopeful.
‘I’m afraid I must insist,’ Slider said.
‘And I’m afraid I must refuse,’ Wiseman said with an air of moral superiority that got right up Slider’s nose. ‘I am in loco parentis to these young people, and I could not betray their confidence, or do anything to expose them to unpleasantness. It would be quite wrong of me to sacrifice their privacy simply to convenience myself. I must hold to what I believe is right and face the consequences, even if they are unpleasant to me personally.’
Ooh, don’t you just hate it when that happens? Slider enquired of himself ironically. Wiseman was looking at him now, satisfied he had got the upper hand, and the longing to wipe that smug look off his face was strong.
‘Never mind,’ said Porson. ‘We’ll see. He who last laughs, lasts longest.’ He paused a fraction of a second, as if aware that hadn’t come out right, shrugged, and went on. ‘I’m not bothered about upsetting his sacred bloody young people. Flaming Nora, the stuff they watch on telly and see on the Internet these days, I’m more sensitive than they are! We’ll find out who he coaches, if he does coach anyone. And appeal to their parents to let them come forward. It is a case of murder, after all. No sympathy to be had in that. And in the end, it’s up to Wiseman to prove his alibi.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Slider, comforted but not entirely cheered by Porson’s confidence. ‘But it’s up to us to prove he killed her, even if he hasn’t got an alibi.’
‘Ah well. Can’t make cakes without straw,’ Porson said. ‘We’ll get him, laddie, one way or another.’
‘Did you know he was involved with someone else?’ Atherton asked. As it was turning into a long session, Hewlitt had gone to make tea, and Valerie kept casting nervous glances in that direction – not, Atherton surmised, because she was afraid he would jump her without supervision, but because she was afraid Hewlitt would mess up her kitchen. But the question brought her attention sharply back on him.
‘Of course not. What do you take me for?’
‘Did you ever get invited to his place in London?’
‘No,’ she admitted. ‘But he told me he only had a little bed-sitter. It wasn’t nice like my place. And he said it was a treat for him to get away from London, so we always met down here. If I’d known there was another woman on the scene, I’d have made him sort it out double quick, believe you me. I don’t share. That’s what I told Steve. I said you choose, right now, because I don’t share with anyone. And when he dithered about it, that was that. He was out on his ear.’ She gave him a nod, her lips tight closed, the meat of her face trembling a little with the emphasis.
‘Quite right too,’ Atherton said, still buttering her. ‘So how often did you and Scott meet?’
‘Oh, every couple of weeks, I suppose. We were both busy people, and the time just flies by, doesn’t it?’
‘And this has been going on for . . .?’
‘A year. A bit over a year. The London Property Exhibition was February.’
‘And I read in the transcript of your statement last night that you had a business relationship with Scott, as well as a personal one.’
Surprisingly, she went red, visible even under the several layers of make-up. ‘We did – he did – there was . . .’ She didn’t seem to know how to phrase it. She looked at him appealingly, opening her eyes wide and leaning forward a fraction more. ‘Look, I’m not going to get into trouble, am I?’
‘It depends what you’ve done,’ Atherton said, but with an easy, I’m-relaxed-about-minor-infractions smile.
‘Only,’ she said, ‘I did come forward and turn him in. At considerable inconvenience, not to say danger, to myself, and if there was a bit of – let’s say – irregularity about our business deal, well, no one was hurt by it. It goes on all the time, believe you me, but one’s bosses can be a bit strict about it – well, they’re bound to be, really, I suppose – but if everything was always done strictly by the book—’
‘I’m only interested in the murder,’ Atherton said. ‘Anything else that went on is not my business.’
She looked relieved. ‘So I don’t need to tell you. Only, I wouldn’t have said anything at the station, but I was flustered and it sort of slipped out.’
‘I said it wasn’t my business, but I do need to know the exact nature of your relationship with Scott, so I’m afraid you will have to tell me what you and he were doing. It could have a profound effect on the case.’
She was not fetched by the waffle. ‘Does that mean I’ll have to stand up in court about it?’ she asked sharply.
‘It probably won’t come to that.’
‘Will you give me your word?’
He gave a stern look. ‘I’m afraid I can’t do that. You will have to do your duty, whatever that turns out to be. But I know a woman of your strength of character will meet that challenge head on, with the same courage
you’ve shown in your actions so far.’ She didn’t quite buy it, tilting her head a little to one side and eyeing him speculatively, so he went on in a quiet, firm tone. ‘Tell me what you and Scott were doing – besides your private relationship.’
She made up her mind. ‘Well, it was just a matter of bringing client and vendor together and adjusting the price between them. Which is what we do all the time anyway, estate agents. Only,’ she sighed, ‘when the circumstances were right, Scott would come in and convince the vendor to drop the price, and the purchaser would split the difference with us. It was a win-win situation – nobody was hurt.’
‘Except the vendor,’ Atherton suggested.
‘Well, not really, because we’d do the sale privately so he wouldn’t have to pay the agency its commission.’
‘Ah,’ said Atherton. Yes, he could see it all. The real victim was the agency, but as that was a company and not an individual, people like Valerie and Scott wouldn’t regard harm to it as any harm at all. It came under the heading of making private calls from your company phone, stealing stationery from work or adding a new carpet to the insurance claim – a victimless crime.
‘Anyway,’ she went on, ‘if the vendor looked likely to be difficult, I’d just stop them getting any other offers, so then I could tell them it was because the price was too high, and if they dropped it they’d be able to sell all right. And then, of course, when they dropped the price and the offer came in, I was proved right, so they were happy.’
‘Wouldn’t they wonder why other people’s houses were selling for more?’
She looked dismissive. ‘You can always find something about a house to bring the price down. The punters don’t know any better.’
‘And presumably you’d only be doing it on really top price houses,’ Atherton said. ‘So a small percentage worked out at a nice commission.’
She seemed to take this as a criticism. ‘We didn’t do it very often,’ she protested. ‘It would’ve been too risky to chance anything but the occasional property. And the circumstances had to be right – the purchaser had to be on board. But Poole being what it is . . .’ She shrugged.
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