A Timely Death

by Janet Neel

  ‘He was interested in … he liked … to do things which meant he could not properly breathe.’

  ‘Did he do any of them with you? Or ask you to help?’

  ‘When we were first married, then yes. Sometimes. But I did not like it. I was frightened by it, so I say no. But never like that, never hanging himself in that way – in the way you say he died. Or now I think perhaps he may have done when I was not there, but I never knew.’ She was weeping, dabbing at her eyes, and the four men in the room gazed at the table, waiting for her to recover herself.

  ‘You had a full sexual relationship with him still, is that what you are saying?’ McLeish asked, gently.

  ‘We did the things ordinary people do, yes. He … he seemed to like them too. As well, I mean as … as the other things.’ She stared miserably at the crowded table top and blew her nose again. ‘I did not know,’ she said, sniffing inelegantly. ‘I did not know.’

  It was, of course, a key point, but he did not think he would get any further with it at this interview.

  ‘So you got on with your husband reasonably well?’

  ‘Oh yes. We have had our difficulties. Mr Graebner says I need not speak of them but I wish to. I came to him six months ago because Bill had sometimes hit me when … when he was drunk. And one night he hit me very much. I was most frightened, so I went to Mr Graebner who tells me I could bring action against him. But it was not necessary. Once I knew that, you understand, I said to Bill that if ever he would do such a thing again I would take the action, and he was very, very sad and he promised never to do such a thing again.’

  McLeish looked enquiringly at Peter Graebner, who confirmed without any emphasis at all that he had indeed advised Mrs Price that action lay against her husband under the Domestic Violence Act, quite apart from the general law, and that she could seek an injunction banning him from the matrimonial home.

  ‘So you see,’ Sylvia Price said, ‘I tell Bill this and he apologise very much and buy me some ear-rings. And it never happen again. You may be thinking that I have a reason to kill Bill. But he never did again.’

  Now I wonder, McLeish thought, I wonder if I believe that. She owned the house from which the business operated and her husband could not afford to lose her, but he was in the habit of hitting her – on her own admission. He looked over at Graebner who confirmed, in the same emotionless way, that Mrs Price had not consulted him again from that day until yesterday when she had sought guidance and advice in her current situation. And that spoke for her too; there were plenty of lawyers in London and she need not have gone back to the one who knew that her husband had in the past given her cause to wish him dead.

  ‘Thank you for telling us all this,’ McLeish said, deploying one of the generally useful soothing statements he had learned as a young detective. ‘Now can you tell us anything about your husband’s relationship with his sons?’

  ‘You should ask them.’

  ‘That will be done of course, but I am interested in your view.’

  ‘You think one of them could have … could have caused this thing?’

  ‘At this stage, Mrs Price, we don’t have any firm views. We are just covering the ground.’ He waited, but she was not embarrassed or uneasy, just considering her answer.

  ‘He have very little of a relationship with Francis. I told you, he is a hopeless person. He also stole money from his father – from us, from the business. But Bill did not persecute.’

  ‘Prosecute.’

  ‘So. Yes. He decide just to change the number of the safe and not to let Francis come to the house. Antony is closer – he is a doctor, you know, and beginning now to be well known. I believe there were difficulties when they were young boys and the mother was ill. You should ask Antony, it was he who tell me. He came with me to see Mr Graebner and he said then that Bill had been hitting Francis and him when they were children.’

  ‘Did Antony come to the house often?’

  ‘Not very. He come, I know, the week before last to talk with Bill, but I was out. I hear it was that he has quarrelled with his girlfriend Annabelle. But you must ask Antony. I am talking only of things heard.’

  ‘Hearsay,’ McLeish said, irresistibly, and apologised, noting that Matthew Sutherland was evidently trying a new position to get comfortable.

  ‘Just one more set of questions if I may. You are a director of Price Fleming as was your husband. Is that right?’

  ‘This is correct but I am director because there is some of my money in it and I have a salary and it is easier for tax. Bill’s partner Luke Fleming, who is usually abroad finding and making new the properties for the business, is also a director. But I am William’s executor, with Luke Fleming.’

  ‘So you would have known the combination of the safe?’ McLeish asked blandly.

  ‘Yes, because my jewellery was kept in there. There is a list with the insurance company.’

  ‘Who else did, do you know?’

  ‘Margaret Howard, Luke, Bill.’

  ‘You know that the safe was found open?’

  ‘I hear. Bill perhaps had not yet closed it, when … when …’ She reached for the handkerchief.

  ‘Indeed,’ McLeish agreed hastily.

  ‘Or perhaps the breakers in knew how to open?’

  ‘That too is not impossible. You’ve been very patient, Mrs Price, and we will now get a statement typed for you to sign. When you have consulted Mr Graebner of course. And I am sure we will need to talk to you again at a later stage, when we have more idea of what may have happened.’

  They said their farewells, and McLeish and Davidson left, followed down the stairs on to the steps by Matthew Sutherland.

  ‘Got to get to West London Magistrates,’ he said, to their enquiring look. ‘Peter will tidy up.’

  ‘I hope so indeed,’ McLeish said, amused. ‘I see you had trouble with the legs as well.’

  ‘Couldn’t have borne another five minutes. And you’ve got a couple of inches on me, it must have been worse for you.’

  I have perhaps been a senior policeman too long, McLeish thought, finding himself just slightly affronted by being addressed as an equal by this lad.

  ‘Give Francesca my regards, will you? It’s good to have her mum back, but she wasn’t a bad substitute.’

  ‘I’m sure she’ll be glad to hear that.’ McLeish decided he was being stuffy. ‘And thank you for helping to reassure her about German measles.’

  ‘Pleasure,’ Matthew said, grinning, the personality springing to life. ‘Here, taxi!’ He was gone, in a clatter, down the stone steps, long coat flying, briefcase clasped under one arm, and was in the back of the taxi issuing instructions before they could say goodbye.

  7

  Wednesday, 13 April

  Francesca, picking at a slice of toast, butter and jam, shifted her chair irritably away from the high-chair containing her son. He was waving a strip of toast, getting some of it into his mouth, but a good deal more down his front and on the floor. He was having a nice day and it would be even better if he could escape from his chair. He beamed as he saw a way out and stretched out his arms in greeting to his father who was edging cautiously round the kitchen door.

  ‘Do I unharness him?’

  ‘Please. See if he’ll go away and play.’

  Her son gave her a look of sheer amazement and plastered himself to his father’s chest, distributing toast crumbs and butter down his towelling dressing-gown.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ McLeish said over his head. ‘Has he been up long?’

  ‘Since five o’clock. I’ve had four lots of breakfast just to keep going. Tomorrow it’s your turn.’

  ‘You should have woken me today. I never heard a thing. I got in just after you’d gone to sleep. I’m sorry, I just needed to pull the bits together on this Price case. You lose things otherwise.’

  His wife looked at him dully, and he sighed.

  ‘You don’t look very good.’

  ‘I’m not. I’m operating at craw
ling pace and eating everything I can see just to keep going. How are we going to manage with you working this hard?’

  ‘Perhaps William will get better at staying in bed in the mornings.’

  They looked unhopefully at their son who beamed back at them and made a grab for his father’s tea.

  ‘In about half an hour,’ Francesca said, bitterly, ‘just when Susannah gets here, he will decide a bit of a sleep would be nice and will go out like a light having been entertained and fed for the last three hours. I feel like a sleep too, but what’s left of me has to totter out to Gladstone to tell the auditors which way up to hold the accounts.’

  McLeish reached to hold her hand and she moved her chair towards him so that she could rest her head on his shoulder and get a buttery kiss from William, who then decided to go and unpack the saucepan cupboard.

  ‘How is the Price case? I ask only because I hope it will be over soon and you can get back for supper.’

  ‘Coming on. I met your Matthew Sutherland yesterday. His firm acts for Mrs Price. Cheeky bugger.’

  ‘Matthew? Well, I told you. He’s just the same with everyone, absolutely direct, no use for conventional manners. All crusaders are like that.’

  ‘Is that what he is? A crusader?’

  ‘Oh yes, bless him. Prop and mainstay of the Refuge for all he’s so young. Never loses a case. I imagine you have to keep him away from all employees of Social Services, or anybody who might give money to the Refuge.’

  ‘Does he find that taking the blokes to court – or threatening it – does any good? Are there some cases where the bloke stops beating the wife or girlfriend after he’s been taken to court, and they settle down together like ordinary people?’

  ‘You mean, does law change behaviour?’ She poured him tea, reflecting on her lunch with Matt.

  ‘Yes, I suppose I do.’

  ‘Well, as Matt says, it’s very useful to change that behaviour. And if you do change behaviour, in the end, you change hearts and minds. He says. What an odd conversation to be having with a policeman.’

  He cuddled her to him and their son looked up from his task of extracting the last saucepan from the recesses of the cupboard and decided to join in, so McLeish hauled him on to his knee and redistributed his forces. ‘I should have put the question direct,’ he said, meekly. ‘If someone told you that their man had beaten them but on being threatened with court action had desisted and had never done it again, would you believe them?’

  ‘Yes. Particularly if it was the first time he’d really hurt her. Bit like potty-training – speaking of which, William, come along darling, think how pleased Susannah will be. Then we can get dressed.’

  McLeish, left in the kitchen, guiltily reached for the paper and his cup of tea and sat, savouring the warmth of the spring sun and the domesticity surrounding him. He decided there could be no point in replacing the pans and lids that littered the kitchen floor since William would get them out again immediately, so he read the sports pages to the accompaniment of his wife’s congratulatory cries from the hall cloakroom. He looked up to applaud as she came back, carrying William, but she was looking worried.

  ‘Not all right?’

  ‘Oh that yes, what a clever boy. Such a help.’ She considered the littered floor, replaced William in the middle of it and handed him a bowl full of dried beans and a spoon so that he could distribute them between containers. ‘What I need to tell you is that there is an Awkward Connection. You remember I told you about Annabelle, the young doctor who was so good about the measles. Her doctor boyfriend, the one who was bearing her up, is called Antony. Blow me, when I read the Mail this morning – in a blessed pause, you understand, while Will watched Breakfast News – I see a picture of Annabelle holding the hand of someone called Antony Price, said to be the son of your murdered William Price.’

  ‘Have you seen her except at the Refuge?’

  ‘No, but Matthew Sutherland has, because he told me that she wouldn’t press charges against this Antony. Matt isn’t acting for her – I mean, it isn’t too awful, is it?’

  ‘No,’ he said slowly, thinking it through. ‘So the son beats his women as well.’

  ‘Ah.’ She was on to the point with very creditable speed, given how early her day had started. ‘So your Mr Price – the deceased – was a wife-beater?’

  ‘Yes, but only once seriously, apparently. Then she went to a lawyer. Now, Fran, this is absolutely confidential.’

  ‘You need not remind me.’ Nor he need, he thought gratefully; there was a lot to be said for a wife who had always had her own professional confidences to guard. ‘The only other thing we know about domestic violence is that men mostly learn how to do it from their fathers,’ she said, carefully.

  ‘The wife in question is a second wife.’

  ‘He maybe beat the first wife badly and gave it a go with the second one, who wouldn’t have it. So in order to get his kicks he took to hanging himself from the ceiling.’

  ‘And someone kicked the table from under him, or that’s how it looks.’

  ‘Mm.’ A particularly loud crash drew their attention to their infant son and they looked at each other guiltily.

  ‘He can’t possibly understand,’ McLeish objected.

  ‘I suppose not. So this Antony is the son of the first wife. Whom presumably Mr Price deceased did beat seriously. Where is she?’

  ‘In a graveyard in Ross-on-Wye, these fifteen years past. Died of cancer.’

  ‘Not a credible suspect then. But this Antony might have waited until he grew to man’s estate to avenge her.’

  ‘Indeed. As might his brother Francis.’

  ‘Oh dear. That silly Annabelle must have gone back to the son just like Matthew thought she had, and now she’ll have difficulty in walking out again if he’s a suspect. Is that the time? If I do not get out of here, the A-level rejects who constitute the junior staff of our auditors will start without me. And we’ll never find anything again. There’s Susannah, look, Will.’

  ‘Dr Brewster.’

  Annabelle looked doubtfully at the man who approached her, smiling. His hair was as dark as Antony’s but curly, and he was comfortably built, bursting out of a light grey suit, tie flapping as he came towards her.

  ‘Detective Inspector Davidson.’ He beamed at her, confident of his welcome, and she found herself relaxing just a little under the pressure of his interest. ‘You’re young to be a doctor.’

  A Scot, probably Glasgow, she thought, feeling an access of confidence. ‘I’m not that young. You wanted to see me.’

  ‘I did. We did, and it’s very good of you to come up here to the station, it saves us time and means we can be private. Now, this young man here is Detective Constable Richey.’

  The young man appeared to be about seventeen, and Annabelle nodded to him kindly. They were assembled by the staff sergeant’s desk at Notting Dale police station, and at Davidson’s nod the man swung open a section of the counter to let them through, without diverting his attention from the two sullen, black adolescents facing him.

  ‘See about some coffee, would you, Richey?’ Davidson said, comfortably, settling her in a chair on one side of the plain table in the small room. ‘Now, what we do here is we record all interviews, so if there’s any disagreement at all about what was said, there’s a tape.’ He smiled at her kindly, the tape recorder held in his square hands, and she nodded. ‘The lad’ll take a wee note as well, to keep him in practice. Ah, thank you, Richey.’

  Davidson helped her to sugar, chatting gently, appearing not to notice that she was too tense to answer.

  ‘So then, Dr Brewster.’ He went through the formalities, noting her full name and address. ‘You’ll know that Dr William Price died probably sometime between Friday evening and the Saturday forenoon. We are asking everyone close to the deceased, either family or in his business, where they were at that time. And Mr Antony Price told us that he was with you, from about seven thirty in the evening. Can you confirm that, p
lease?’

  ‘Yes indeed. He collected me to go out to dinner at just after seven thirty.’

  ‘You’d mebbe looked at your watch?’

  ‘Yes. I’d got out of evening surgery at six forty-five and I’d had to hurry.’

  ‘Fair enough. And you were at dinner at the Crabtree Restaurant?’

  ‘That’s right. Then we went for a little walk and he dropped me back at my flat at ten thirty.’

  ‘He didn’t come up for coffee?’

  Her heart thumped. ‘No.’

  ‘And you’re sure about ten thirty?’

  ‘Yes. I was very tired and needed an early night, so I’m sure that was the time.’

  ‘That’s very helpful, thank you.’ His expression of bright interest had not varied at all, and she did not seem to be able to say anything or ask if he had all he wanted.

  ‘Dr Brewster, how long have you known Dr Antony Price?’

  ‘Oh. Five years. About.’

  ‘And ye knew his father?’

  ‘Not well at all. They didn’t see very much of each other.’ She looked into the bright brown eyes. ‘Antony must have told you all this.’

  ‘Have you lived long at your present address?’

  ‘Uh … oh, not long at all. I am getting a proper flat … this is just temporary.’

  ‘And you were living where before?’

  She hesitated, hopelessly, and looked away but he waited so that finally she had to speak. ‘I was living for some of the time in Antony’s flat. But we’d always envisaged … I always meant … to get my own place.’

  The dark peaked eyebrows went up. ‘Did you have an argument?’

  ‘I don’t see that it’s any of your business. He was with me, at the times I said, last Friday.’

  ‘But not later than ten thirty.’

  ‘No, I’m sure,’ she said, defiantly, on safe ground at last.

  ‘Mr Price told us it was a little later than that.’ She looked at him, horrified, opened her mouth to suggest that it might have been and closed it again as the exact nature of the pit dug for her became clear. ‘And did you see him on the Saturday?’ Davidson had waited courteously.