Kill My Darling

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘So it wasn’t the case that Melanie was the one thing standing between you and your new life down in Bournemouth, making lots of lovely money in a hot housing market?’ Slider said.

  Hibbert looked stunned. He licked his lips. ‘I know you think I killed her. I’ve seen it in the papers, and on telly. You think I did it. Well, maybe I did. She was a cracking girl, Melanie, but she was too good for me. All her friends thought so. She was smart and clever and educated and everything, and all I had was – well, I don’t know what she saw in me. I’m good at what I do, that’s all. I’d got this plan to turn the flats in the house where we live into two maisonettes. Would have made a lot of money. But I don’t think she liked it, because it meant getting that old fool Ronnie out of the basement, and he didn’t want to go. She liked him, God knows why. I think,’ he said, with a hint of anger, ‘she liked him more than me, sometimes. It was always waifs and strays with her. Anyone with a hard luck story. She didn’t appreciate someone who got on and got ahead through their own efforts. She just didn’t appreciate money, thought it didn’t matter, though she didn’t mind spending mine. It was a good job I made good bread because she never had a cent. Dunno what she spent it on. But I still think she’d have loved me more if I was an ex-con like Ronnie or a waster like her father.’

  ‘It’s hard not to be appreciated,’ Slider said.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Hibbert. He flicked a look at the impassive Norma, then returned his congested eyes to Slider. ‘Maybe that’s why she had to go, so I could start a new life with Val. She appreciates me. She knows she’s lucky to get me. I’m good-looking, I’m young, I’ve got a nice car, I’ve got what it takes to make money. What more does a women want? She made me mad sometimes, Mel, the way she was always so much better than me. I couldn’t drop my socks on the floor, had to put them in the laundry basket. It’s my bloody floor, just as much as hers! Bloody laundry basket – who has one of those? And the way I held my fork – that didn’t please her. And she was always correcting my grammar. How d’you think that makes me feel? She didn’t like my ties. She didn’t like my signet ring – her father never wore jewellery, she said. And everything in the house had to be done the way she liked it. I brought her home this ornament once – kind of like a fairy, with wings and everything, holding some flowers – china you know. Well, Val’s got one, and she likes it, and I saw one like it in a shop, so I brought it home, a present for Mel, and you should have heard her! Well, she didn’t actually say anything, I mean she said thanks and everything, but you could see she didn’t like it. Practically put gloves on to touch it. And you know, that fairy never made it to the mantelpiece. I never saw it again. I reckon she must have put it in the bin when I was out of the way.’

  ‘She didn’t like your friends, either, did she?’ Slider suggested.

  He glared at Swilley, who seemed to be becoming a substitute for the absent. ‘No, she bloody didn’t. She thought she was too good for them. She said they were boring. That’s why the wedding was such a good excuse, because I knew she’d never want to come.’

  ‘So it served her right, really, that it was just an excuse.’

  ‘Yeah!’ Hibbert cried. ‘Stuck up, snotty cow! Served her right! You’re all the same, you bitches, think you’re better than us!’ And he flung himself across the table at Norma, trying to grab her by the throat.

  Norma moved like lightning, catching his wrists and slamming them down on to the table with a strength hard-won in endless arm-wrestling bouts since she first joined the Job. Slider and Gostyn were round the table and got a grip on his elbows, but in truth Swilley could have held him on her own. Motherhood had taken none of her edge, Slider thought with satisfaction.

  But Hibbert didn’t struggle. He’d cried out in pain when his wrists hit the table, and yielded as soon as Slider and Gostyn grabbed him. When they let him go, he collapsed slowly forwards on to the desk, cushioning his head in his arms, and sobbing brokenly. ‘I killed her,’ he wept. ‘I really, really loved her. I don’t care if Dave said she was a snotty cow. I loved her, and I killed her, and now I’ve got nothing. I wish I was dead!’ He finished on a howl, and said nothing more coherent.

  Slider watched him dispassionately, knowing there would have to be another visit by the doctor to make sure he was not hurt – his cry of pain was on the tape, and the sounds of scuffle – and that if another tranquillizer was administered they wouldn’t get to interview him again for hours, by which time the impetus would be gone.

  FOURTEEN

  Virgin Athletic

  When Connolly finally tracked down Stephanie Bentham, she was with a bunch of other youngsters in typical Saturday afternoon mode. There was a patch of green with a bench and a bus stop beside it, and they were hanging about there, some sitting on the bench, some standing, one sitting, arms crossed, on his bicycle, pushing himself an inch forward and backward monotonously with his foot. They were chatting, laughing, texting, two of the girls were smoking with faint defiance, and the atmosphere was so heavy with teenage hormones it could have triggered a Control Order under the Clean Air Act.

  Stephanie was a little apart, sitting on the rail surrounding the green. Connolly thought she had never seen anyone look so unhappy. She was hunched, her hands between her knees, and when Connolly stood before her she raised wide desperate eyes like a cornered hind staring at the hunter.

  ‘Are you Stephanie?’ Connolly asked, showing her brief, but discreetly, shielded by her body from view of the others.

  Stephanie nodded.

  ‘I need to talk to you. D’you want to walk along with me? No need for them to know your business, is there?’

  She seemed beyond being grateful for that, but she hitched herself off the rail and fell in beside Connolly, walking away from the group, some of whom, Connolly noted from her eye corners, looked their way, but not with great interest, God love ’em. Ah, the self-absorption of youth!

  ‘I’ve me car round the corner,’ she said to Stephanie when they were clear. ‘We can sit in that for a chat if you like.’

  Stephanie looked a moment of alarm. ‘No. Not in the car,’ she said quickly; then seemed to collect herself and said: ‘Can’t we just walk? There’s the park down there.’

  The car, Connolly surmised, was playing some leading part in the feature movie going on in the girl’s head; or maybe she was afraid of being abducted.

  ‘Walking’s fine with me,’ Connolly said cheerily. ‘Sure I don’t get out in the fresh air enough.’

  She thought she would wait until they were in the park to begin, to build up some trust between them, or at least let her get used to her, but before they reached the gates Stephanie made the first move. ‘It is right?’ she asked, without looking at Connolly. ‘Did – Mr Wiseman – did he really kill his stepdaughter, like they’re saying?’

  ‘Who’s saying that?’ Connolly asked.

  ‘The others.’ She gestured backwards. ‘Everyone at school. They say that’s why he’s not been in. They say the head’s sacked him, and now you’ve arrested him.’ Now she looked at Connolly, appalled. ‘If he’s a murderer . . .’

  ‘We arrest a lot of people,’ Connolly said for the second time that day. ‘It’s what we have to do sometimes to question people – it’s a technical thing. I won’t bother you with it, but it doesn’t mean they’ve done anything, necessarily.’ Stephanie was staring at the ground again, trudging miserably. ‘You care about him, don’t you?’ Connolly said gently. A startled look. ‘Ah, g’wan, I know all about it. You can tell me.’

  The head went even further down. Her next words were so tiny they were almost indecipherable. ‘Will my mum and dad have to know about it?’

  ‘It may not come to that,’ Connolly said. ‘You’re seventeen, right?’

  ‘Last December,’ she confirmed.

  ‘I can talk to you without your parents, so. Look, pet, if I can keep it quiet I will, but it’s not entirely in my hands. But you’ve got to do the right thing. You know that, don’t yo
u?’

  Nod.

  ‘Did you know Melanie Hunter?’

  Shake. ‘Only what’s in the paper. My mum reads every word, she’s obsessed with it. Knowing that – Mr Wiseman’s one of our teachers makes her more interested. If she knew – you know – she’d go mad. My dad’d kill me. And the others – they wouldn’t understand. They think he’s just a boring grown-up, a teacher. They don’t know . . .’

  ‘The other side of him,’ Connolly suggested. Pass the sick bag, Nora.

  Stephanie looked up, eager and hopeful of understanding. ‘He’s not like he seems in school. He’s different. More – gentle, and – he talks to me, like a real person. Not like Mum and Dad. They just, like, issue orders, and when they ask you questions they don’t listen to the answers. But Ian – Mr Wiseman—’

  ‘You can call him Ian to me,’ Connolly said.

  Stephanie looked doubtful.

  ‘You’re quite close to him, aren’t you?’ Connolly went on. Anyone who could think Ian Wiseman was a fluffy bunny-rabbit must be pure dotey on him. It’d sicken you, she thought, but she kept her face kindly and interested. Plenty of time to throw up later. ‘You’re fond of him?’

  ‘I love him!’ Stephanie burst out. Evidently the pressure to tell had overcome the dam of fearful restraint. ‘And he loves me! I know he’s married, but he doesn’t love his wife. How could he? She’s old and fat and dull and – and she doesn’t understand him! She’s not interested in anything he does, just sits at home watching TV all the time. He’s a wonderful person, and she just doesn’t get it, how lucky she is. And now he’s in trouble, and he needs me, and I can’t see him! She won’t be any use to him. He’s all alone, and I can’t help him!’ Huge tears formed in the doe eyes.

  Connolly hastily thrust a tissue at her. Love a’ God, she’d want to listen to herself! ‘Come on, Stephanie. Cool the head, now. Sure, nothing’s happened to him. He’s just answering some questions for us. And you can help him.’ A blurry look of hope. ‘Stop the crying, now, blow your nose, and talk to me like a sensible woman.’

  They had come to a bench, fortuitously empty, and Connolly thought it better to sit down while Stephanie got herself together. She provided a couple more tissues, and mopping up was soon achieved. Stephanie stopped crying as easily as she had started, but she still looked miserable – and why not? Connolly thought.

  ‘So tell me about Ian,’ she said. ‘He’s coaching you, is he? What is it, tennis?’

  ‘No,’ Stephanie said. ‘That’s just the excuse. Someone saw us together and one of the other teachers asked him, so he said he was coaching me. It kind of spread, a bit, and a few people at school think I’m getting coaching, which is a laugh really, because I’m no good at sports. If it got to my mum and dad they’d go mad, because they’d know it wasn’t coaching, cos they’d have to pay for it, and they’re not, so you won’t tell, will you?’

  ‘So what do you do together?’ Connolly asked, leaving that one.

  ‘Go out in his car, mostly. Go for drives. We stop somewhere and sit and talk, and—’ Suddenly she blushed, richly, and Connolly felt a quickening of pulse. ‘We go to the pictures sometimes,’ Stephanie went on quickly, as if to avoid the subject. ‘And for meals, or we get a takeaway and eat it in the car. When the weather was nicer we sat outside, like on Horsenden Hill or somewhere like that.’

  ‘It’s been going on for a while, so?’

  ‘Since September. When we came back to school. I bumped into him the first day back and dropped my books and he helped me pick them up and kind of touched my hand accidentally and we sort of smiled at each other. And then he said, “Glad to be back?” and I said, “Yes,” and he said, “Me too,” but I knew he meant something different by it, from the way he was looking at me. And I started hanging about after school to see if I could catch him coming out, but he’s got games a lot after school. So I started staying to watch and he saw me and one day after a match when he came out from the changing rooms he saw me and said I must be frozen and would I like a cup of tea.’ Her eyes were misty with rapture. ‘So we went to this café out Uxbridge way, where nobody’d know us, and we talked and talked. And that was the start of it.’

  ‘So you’ve been meeting regularly since then?’

  ‘Whenever he can. It was awful over Christmas because there was no school and he was with his family and I was with mine and all I could think of was that we ought to be together. I couldn’t wait to get back to school. And the minute I saw him—’

  ‘Great,’ Connolly said, to forestall any more syrup. Gak! That muscle-bound, narky little eejit? The girl was a looper. ‘Did you have a regular day you met?’

  ‘No, it was any time we could manage, but it was often a Friday evening because there are no games after school on a Friday. Weekends were harder, because of our families.’

  ‘What about Friday week past? Did you see him then?’ Connolly asked, as casual as open-toed sandals.

  Stephanie sighed like a high-speed train going into a tunnel. ‘That was the last time I saw him.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  She seemed only too glad to – a chance to discuss her beloved? Bring it on! ‘We met straight after school. I walk up to the main road and there’s a place where I wait for him, where there’s never anyone around, and he comes along in the car and picks me up.’

  ‘And what did you do then?’

  ‘We went to the pictures,’ she said.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The Royale Leisure park. You know, on the A40, by Park Royal station. It’s big enough so no one’d see us. We went to the four fifteen show, then when we came out we got something to eat.’

  ‘In a restaurant? Or a pub?’

  ‘He doesn’t go into pubs. He doesn’t drink. He says it rots your brain and ruins your body. We went to cafés sometimes, but more often it was takeaways.’

  ‘And that Friday?’

  ‘He took me to Starvin’ Marvin’s – you know, that American diner, sort of opposite the Hoover building?’

  ‘I know it,’ Connolly said. Your man’s a prince, she thought. It sat beside the A40 trunk road, a silver Airstream caravan-type construction, decorated inside with chrome and neon and boasting of real American diner food of the nachos, wings, ribs and burgers type. Reviews Connolly had heard of it were mixed, though the malted milkshakes were supposed to be good. McLaren had been an occasional customer before his recent epiphany, but as McLaren would famously eat a dead pony between two baps that didn’t necessarily count as an endorsement. But romantic candlelit tryst it was not.

  ‘Let me see,’ she said. ‘You went to the four fifteen show, so you’d be out o’ there, what, half six?’

  ‘Quarter to seven,’ Stephanie said.

  ‘And you’d be in Marvin’s an hour, maybe?’

  ‘I don’t know. I wasn’t watching the clock. About that, I s’pose.’

  ‘So call it eight-ish. What did you do then?’

  ‘Went for a drive. It was a lovely night – cold, but kind of icy-clear, you know? Ian said we should go somewhere out in the country where we could see the stars. You can’t see them where there are street lights. So we did.’

  ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘I don’t know. We drove for a while. Where we ended up, it was kind of hilly, and there were a lot of trees, and not many houses about. Something Woods, I think he said. Ash Woods, was it? I dunno. But we ended up in this car park on top of a hill, with, like, all trees round it, and in front it kind of dropped away down the hill. And you could see millions of stars up above. It was beautiful.’

  ‘And you did what there?’

  ‘Talked,’ she said. She blushed again.

  ‘And? Did he kiss you?’

  She looked mortified.

  ‘More than that?’

  Hurt and angry eyes in the blazing face met Connolly’s. ‘We were lovers! He was my first ever. We’d been lovers all along, nearly since the first time! You think I’m just some stupid kid wi
th a crush on my teacher, but you don’t know! We loved each other! We were going to get married!’

  ‘Did he tell you that?’

  Amazingly, the blush intensified. She was so red you could have stuck her on a mast to keep aircraft away. ‘We talked about it that night. He said how unhappy he was with his wife. He said he was going to leave her as soon as he could find the right time to tell her. Then we’d be together. We’d get married. He said he’d probably have to leave his job, but he’d soon get another one. And we’d have to move away somewhere people didn’t know us. And he said he’d have to find a way to tell his daughter, because she wasn’t that much younger than me and she’d find it hard to accept. But he said all problems were there to be solved, and we’d solve them.’

  Connolly didn’t know what to make of this. Was he flying a kite, or shooting a line? Did he really want to cut loose with a wee teeny-bopper, or was he just saying it to keep her sweet? Or – the idea came to her with a sudden rush of blood to the head – was he planning his post-murder escape, and thinking he might as well have some company along for the ride? The bit about having to leave his job . . . moving away . . . Another thought occurred to her, unwelcome and shocking, but it would explain some things, notably Stephanie’s deep unhappiness.

  ‘You’re not pregnant, are you?’

  She couldn’t get any redder, but her eyes filled with tears. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Course not. We do all about that at school. But I wish I was! Then I’d have something of his. I don’t care what you say, I don’t believe he’s a murderer. You don’t know him like I do. He could never do that. He’d never lift a finger to a soul.’