He saw her off, with the grateful dog on a lead, and then went in to Mrs Wiseman.
She was staring at nothing, her hands folded in her lap, still as death. He drew up a leather pouffe and sat so he would be as near as possible to her face-level, and said, ‘Mrs Wiseman, it’s Bill Slider from Shepherd’s Bush police. You remember me. I came once before. I want to talk to you about your husband.’
‘Ian’s out, at the football,’ she said automatically in a toneless voice.
‘No, not about Ian. About your first husband. About Graham Hunter.’
Now her eyes came round to him, examined his face for a long time. He looked back steadily, and saw a trembling begin in the rigid facade. ‘He’s dead,’ she said at last, faintly.
‘Is he?’ he asked with the same steady look, though his heart was thumping with the urgency of the moment. If she didn’t tell him, he had nothing.
And slowly her eyes widened and her mouth crumpled. ‘You know,’ she said. He saw how afraid she was.
He nodded, trying to project sympathy. ‘Tell me about it. The train crash. That day, when you had to go to the morgue – no one should have to go through that, identifying a body. That was a terrible thing you had to do.’
She nodded, her eyes held by his as though fascinated. ‘But there were lots of us, all together. That helped a bit. We sort of hung on to each other. Some of them were crying, but I couldn’t.’
‘Shock takes people different ways,’ he said.
She nodded. ‘Those of us who weren’t crying sort of helped the ones who were. And they called us in, one by one, to look at the bodies.’
‘They told you they had found your husband’s wallet in the inside pocket, and other things with his name on – a letter, some bills?’
Her mouth turned down at the mention of the bills. ‘It was always bills. Gas, electricity, telephone. Everything. He’d open them and take them away without showing me. I’ll pay them, he’d say. You don’t have to worry about things like that. But the first thing I’d know, a man would come to cut us off. It was humiliating. And right there in the morgue they showed me bills with Final Demand on them in red. And betting slips – must have been a dozen. Right in front of all those people, doctors and policemen and such. I was so ashamed.’
‘But they were his things all right,’ he said. ‘His wallet – credit cards and so on.’
‘Oh yes. Everything he had in his pockets – even his hanky. I ironed them often enough, I knew all his hankies.’
‘But,’ Slider said, inwardly holding his breath, ‘it wasn’t him.’
She looked away into history. ‘They’d covered his head with this green cloth thing, like in an operating theatre, so only his body was showing,’ she said tonelessly. ‘They said his head was too crushed to recognize, but I’d have known him by something – his hair, his ears, something. I loved that man for a long time, more than I can tell you. The real reason they covered him up was because they thought I wouldn’t be able to stand it. And they were sure who he was anyway, because of the things in his pocket. It was just a formality. But I knew right away it wasn’t him. They weren’t his clothes, to start with.’
‘A person can change their clothes.’
‘Yes, but why would he? And he’d never have worn horrible cheap things like that. He had fancy tastes. Pity he never had the money to go with them. Besides, I could just see it wasn’t him. This man’s body was a different shape, he was older. It wasn’t Graham’s hands. I’d know his hands anywhere.’ She shivered.
‘But you told them that it was him anyway.’
Her eyes returned to him, to the present. ‘It came to me, all of a sudden, what had happened. He’d been there, he’d seen this poor man, whoever he was, swapped the contents of his pockets with him, and walked away. He’d walked out on me. I’d been afraid all along he’d do that one day – he wasn’t the sort of man to stay put for ever. But doing it this way, it was obvious he wanted to get away completely, not just from me but from everything. Start a new life with a new identity. And my first thought was, what an idiot! He must know I’d know it wasn’t him. So I thought I’d denounce him, tell them what he’d done, have him hunted down and punished for – whatever crime it is to do that. Interfering with a body, or something. It must be a crime, mustn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said Slider. ‘What changed your mind?’
‘It all happened in a second, you understand,’ she said, looking at him anxiously. He saw that it was a relief to her to tell someone after all these years, but she wanted to be forgiven, too. ‘As soon as I realized what he’d done, and I saw how stupid it was, how it couldn’t work, I saw how, if it was a way for him to leave me, it was a way for me to be rid of him, too.’
‘And you wanted to be rid of him?’
‘Oh!’ An indescribable sound of pain and longing. ‘I loved him, I always loved him, but he was impossible to live with. You don’t know what it was like. The lies, the bills, the stupid big ideas that were going to make him a millionaire, the let-downs. I’d save and save and scrape a little bit of money so Melanie could have something she needed, or a little treat, or a birthday present, and then he’d find the money and blow it on some stupid “investment”.’ She said the word as though it were a sleazy night with two prostitutes and some furry handcuffs. ‘The drinking – he wasn’t a violent drunk, but he was a silly drunk. Oh, he made Melanie laugh with his clowning, but I hated the smell on him, and it made me mad that he was throwing away our money on drink when there was so much we needed. He humiliated us, week after week, time after time. I couldn’t hold my head up around the neighbours. And Melanie was like an orphanage kid next to those rich girls at school. I half wish she’d never won the scholarship, then she could have gone to an ordinary school and not stuck out so much. But she was always bright – and Graham was so proud of her.’ A bitter look came over her face. ‘That was the thing, you see. She loved him. They loved each other. No matter what he did – and I tried to keep the worst of it from her – she adored him, much more than she ever did me. I was just the one who worked and slaved to keep food on our plates and clothes on our backs. He was the fun one. He was magic. She never saw what a lousy husband and dad he really was.’
Slider nodded sympathetically. ‘So it’s no wonder, when you saw a chance to be rid of him . . .’
‘I thought, if he wants to go, why stop him?’ she said bitterly. ‘So I said it was my husband. I said I knew his wrist watch and his ring – though Graham would never have worn a ring. He hated jewellery on men.’
It was what Slider had picked up on in the records office. ‘And they were satisfied with your identification.’
‘Along with everything else – why not? And once I’d said it, I couldn’t go back on it.’
‘Did you want to?’
‘Often and often. I still loved him. And whatever you think, when you’re married, about being rid of him, it’s different when you’re all alone and you’ve got to face up to looking after yourself and your child with no help. But you see –’ she met his eyes now with misery and a plea for forgiveness – ‘there was a life insurance, and for a miracle he’d kept up the payments. It wasn’t much but we desperately needed it, Melanie and me. And once I’d taken the insurance money, I could never tell. And so I never did.’
‘You never told Melanie?’
Shake of head.
‘Do you think she guessed?’
Another definite shake. ‘Not then. She believed her daddy was dead. I can’t tell you what that was like. I told myself she was better off without him, but to hear her crying, night after night . . .’
‘And then you got married again.’
‘Don’t look at me like that!’ she cried, though Slider was sure his expression hadn’t changed. The blame was in her own mind. ‘I was desperate by then. I couldn’t cope on my own, and Melanie was having to do too much, and the insurance money was all gone and I didn’t know which way to turn. Ian was my only chance. And I
sort of convinced myself that Graham really was dead, that I’d been mistaken at the morgue that day. After all, I’d been upset. I was on tranquillizers for ages afterwards. So obviously I must have imagined the whole thing. That’s how I fixed it in my mind. All his things were in the pockets, so it must have been him and he really was dead. So I married Ian and – that was that.’
‘Except,’ Slider said, and now he really was punting, ‘Graham didn’t stay dead, did he?’
She looked wary. ‘Why d’you say that?’
‘Oh, come on, you’ve told me the worst, no point in holding back now. Did he contact you?’
‘No,’ she said definitely. ‘Never. I was always scared he would, but I suppose he had as much to lose as me. He’d have gone to jail. No, he never contacted me.’
‘Melanie, then? He contacted Melanie.’ She didn’t want to answer, and he added, ‘About two years ago.’
She shuddered and looked down. ‘I don’t know. She never said anything to me, but I guessed something was up. It was just after she and Scott got together. I was so glad she’d got a nice boy at last, one who wanted to marry her and everything. And she was so happy at first. Then they moved into that flat together, and soon afterwards she started acting strangely. She wasn’t happy any more – not the way she used to be. I think she tried to tell me a couple of times, but she never managed it. Then one day, when we were washing up after Sunday lunch, she asked me about her dad dying, asked me about identifying him at the morgue, and I just knew she knew. And how could she, unless she’d seen him, unless he’d told her?’
‘What did you say to her when she asked that?’
‘I just told the lie again. What could I say? I couldn’t tell her he’d been alive all that time and I’d let her grieve for him for nothing, could I? That I’d committed bigamy? Not to say insurance fraud. She’d have hated me. So I let her think I didn’t know, that I really thought he was dead, and after that she got sort of – strained with me. I suppose it was always on her mind, wanting to tell me but not daring to.’
‘For all the same reasons.’
‘Yes.’ She brooded a moment. ‘He should never have done it. But he loved her so much, I suppose he couldn’t keep away. Me he could leave and never see again, but his little Mel . . . And he was always a selfish man. He wouldn’t leave her alone for her own good. It would be his wants he’d be thinking about.’
‘But you never actually knew anything about his whereabouts? Or that he had definitely contacted Melanie? It was just surmise on your part.’
‘I didn’t know anything. But I knew, if you understand me.’ She looked up at him sharply. ‘How did you know?’
‘I guessed. A couple of things. The ring, for instance. And the fact that she bought a takeaway meal for someone that night – it had to be someone close to her.’
She was struck by that. ‘God, was he making her buy him food? I suppose he was broke again. What was it, Chinese? He loved Chinese. I can’t stand the stuff.’
‘And then there was the fact that Melanie had a call from someone that evening, someone she called “Dad”. But you’d said she never called Ian “Dad”.’
‘No. She never did. Not once that I remember, ever.’
They had come to the place of dread.
‘And then you said to my colleague, “A father wouldn’t hurt his own daughter, would he?” She thought you meant Ian, but when I read it in her report, I wondered.’
‘You don’t think,’ she began, and it was a plea rather than a question, ‘that he had anything to do with it, do you?’
‘I don’t know. I have to find out. But to find out, I had to know the whole story.’
‘But why would you even think – I mean, apart from Melanie, nobody knows where he is, even what name he’s living by.’
‘I think I do,’ Slider said. ‘I think he’s the man who found her body.’
All the implications seemed to fall on her at once like a rock slide. She gave a terrible cry – not loud, but agonizing – the like of which Slider would be glad never to hear again.
‘Did you ever hear her mention a man called William McGuire?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Never. Is that him?’
‘I don’t know. It’s possible.’
She twisted her hands together and rocked in her agony. ‘If he killed her, it’s my fault, for not telling her, for lying to her all these years. If she could have told me he’d contacted her, I could have protected her.’
‘I don’t know—’ Slider began, but she was beyond reaching.
‘I’ve killed my own daughter,’ she said. And she rocked, silent and dry-eyed, in a place of unimaginable nightmare.
It took some nifty telephoning and hard talking back at the office to get in touch with the head of the Parks Department, who was extremely miffed about having to go in on a Sunday to access the employment records of one of his very minor minions. Slider was preparing to go and meet the man himself, there being no one in the Sunday-slim department to send, when Atherton walked in.
‘Why aren’t you at home?’ Slider asked him.
‘Why aren’t you?’ he countered.
‘I’ve been following up something that occurred to me—’
‘In the stilly watches of the night,’ Atherton finished for him. ‘Whereas I have been reclining on the sofa all morning with two cats sitting on me, watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang until I’m ready to kill myself.’
‘Why watch it, then?’
‘I wasn’t watching it – I said the cats were. It’s one of their favourite films. Vash’s got a thing for James Robertson Justice. Emily’s not back until Tuesday and my mind is racketing itself to pieces, so I thought I’d come in. And here you are. What’s the panic?’
‘I’ll tell you in the car,’ Slider said. ‘You can come with me. I’ll need you there for the last bit, anyway.’
‘So,’ said Atherton, some time later, as they trundled towards Uxbridge, ‘you were going entirely on her calling someone “Dad” over the phone? You didn’t think it could have been a misspeak?’
‘Anything could be anything. But remember, less than a week before, he had slapped her face. I don’t think the word “Dad” would have leapt to her lips for Ian Wiseman at that point. But there was also the takeaway. Who do you buy food for? It’s either charity, or love. No one’s come forward to say she brought them a lifeline of Chinese food that evening. I’d have bet on Hibbert—’
‘But he’s out of it.’
‘So who else did she love? And there was another problem. If she bought Chinese for someone, and then got into their car and drove off with them, there must have been a reason. It wasn’t exactly closing time, but—’
Atherton got it. ‘He was drunk? Turned up drunk in his car to collect the grub, and she thought, oh bugger, I’ll have to drive him home?’
‘He was a drinker in his previous incarnation. And there was the matter of her savings going missing over the past two years, and the two hundred on the Friday. Who was she giving that to?’
Atherton thought he’d spotted a flaw. ‘If she drove him home, how was she going to get home herself?’
‘My guess is that she’d drive herself home in his car, and then either he’d come and collect it the next day, or she’d take it back to him and come home by bus or taxi. It would be a Saturday, remember, so no work. And Hibbert was away, so there’d be no complications from that direction. And if she was worried about Fitton seeing her drive in in a strange car, she could have always parked it round the corner. But as it happened, the need didn’t arise.’
A silence fell between them on that thought, which lasted all the way to the council offices, where a very annoyed Trevor Parrott was waiting to give them his full and generous co-operation on this matter of importance.
‘I can’t see why it couldn’t have waited until tomorrow,’ he grumbled. ‘Then you needn’t have bothered me. One of the girls could have given you the information you wanted.’
‘Operational reasons, I’m afraid,’ Slider said smoothly. ‘I can’t tell you more.’
‘Well, if this man is a dangerous criminal, you ought to arrest him, not leave him running around loose to endanger other people. And you should have warned us about him so we could dismiss him. What did he do, anyway?’
‘He’s a gardener, I believe,’ Slider said.
Parrot mottled. ‘You deliberately misunderstood me. I meant what crime has he committed, of course.’
‘I don’t know yet that he has done anything.’
‘Then why on earth did you have to drag me out on a Sunday?’ Parrot cried in frustration, back at the front of the loop.
‘We won’t keep you long,’ Atherton said soothingly, seeing that all the soothe seemed to have leaked out of his boss for the moment. ‘It’s good of you to help us out. We wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.’
It didn’t take long. William McGuire had joined the department two years ago as an under-gardener, after a short spell on benefits. Before that he had been self-employed, a minicab driver, for eight years, first for Remo’s Taxis, Fulham, then Magic Cabs of Shepherd’s Bush. Previous address in Fulham. And there was a note that, in view of the location of his work for the council, he had been offered a council-owned one-bedroom maisonette in Lakeside Close. No black marks against him since he took up employment. His wage, Slider observed, was minuscule, which accounted, he supposed, for his being taken on with no previous parks and gardens experience. Probably no one else had wanted the job. It was hardly worth coming off benefits for. And he had been absent from work for the past week without notice.
‘So that closes the last gap,’ Slider said as they walked back to the car. ‘The less fussy minicab firms – and I know Magic Cabs – will take on anyone with a clean driving licence, no questions asked. And a short spell on benefits gave him an insurance number to take to an actual employer. All we don’t know is why he changed from being a driver to being a gardener.’
‘If you think that’s all we don’t know, you must be on something,’ Atherton observed. ‘Whether he came back into Melanie’s life; why he did; whether he killed her, if he did; why he “found” the body – not to mention that we don’t actually know he’s Graham Hunter at all. That’s just a guess on your part. You’ll look a right wally when it turns out he isn’t.’
Kill My Darling Page 26