by Faith Martin
‘Guv, it’s definitely them,’ were his first words. ‘A Mr and Mrs Clive and Dawn Waring. He owns his own company, selling and setting up garages and conservatories. She sort of “does” friends’ houses. You know, fancy wallpaper, paints mixed to order for a unique colour scheme, that sort of thing. Gets paid for it, but it’s probably more of a hobby than a serious business. House is mortgaged but nearly paid for, the car’s a new Mondeo. Seem to be doing all right. Married for nearly fifteen years, no kids. No previous. They’re both in – I’m sitting outside their place now. You coming over, guv?’
‘Be there in ten minutes, Tommy,’ Hillary said.
*
The house was instantly recognizable from the photograph, the green-painted gingerbread trim being echoed in some of the other houses in the cul-de-sac. Janine watched through the windscreen as Tommy got out of his own car and walked over and slipped into the back seat of theirs.
‘Frank’s still questioning the neighbours, guv,’ Tommy lied. He had in fact, skived off. ‘Do we three all go in, or what guv?’ Tommy asked curiously, leaning forward into the gap between the front two seats. ‘Might seem a bit heavy-handed.’
Hillary thought it over, then smiled. ‘It seems to me that’s just what we need,’ she mused. ‘Shake ’em up a bit. Let’s face it, we’ve got nothing on them. Some innocuous pictures a murdered lad took, could mean anything or nothing. If they instantly start shouting for solicitors it won’t make any difference how many of us are in there. And if they decide to keep quiet, the same applies. But my guess is that Mr and Mrs Waring consider themselves average, law-abiding citizens, and a visit from three police officers, looking and sounding serious, might just be enough to get them talking to us. Unless they don’t know what those pictures are all about and what they mean either. In which case, we’re buggered anyway.’
Janine nodded happily. That’s how she would have played it too. Perhaps she wasn’t losing her touch after all.
‘OK, Tommy, play the big silent menace. Look at everything and say nothing. Janine, likewise, but make a show of taking down every little cough and sneeze in your notebook. I want them to be very much aware that this a formal interview. I’ll do all the talking, unless I indicate otherwise. I want you both to watch their body language and see what you can pick up from their behaviour. We’ll compare notes later. Don’t interrupt me unless you’ve spotted something I’ve missed, or thought of something I haven’t, in which case just lean over and whisper in my ear. Got the picture?’
Janine grinned. She loved this sort of thing. Tommy merely said quietly, ‘Yes guv.’
Hillary nodded and got out of the car.
Yarnton was a village split in half by a busy dual-carriageway, but this side of the road, in a quiet and unassuming cul-de-sac, Saturday afternoon life went on as it did everywhere. Someone, in one of the back gardens, was mowing a lawn. A sprinkler system turned itself on to water a front lawn, startling a blackbird that had been looking for worms. In one garden, a child’s pink bicycle lay abandoned on its side.
She made her way to the door of number five, and pressed the bell. The woman who answered was definitely the woman in the photograph, although she did not have a face that a camera captured with any ease. She looked fatter, more blurred somehow in real life than she did on celluloid.
‘Mrs Waring? I’m Detective Inspector Hillary Greene. This is Sergeant Janine Tyler, and this is Detective Constable Thomas Lynch. May we come in please? We’d like to have a word with you and your husband.’
Dawn Waring went rather pale, which made the blusher stand out on her cheeks, giving her the unfortunate appearance of a clown. Her bright red lipstick didn’t help either. Her hand went up to tuck a brown lock behind her ear in an unconscious gesture of fear, and she smiled too brightly.
‘Oh, yes, of course. My, it sounds very ominous. Clive!’ she raised her voice, but not much. ‘Clive, darling, we have visitors.’ They were now all crowded into a small hall, where a grandfather clock ticked ponderously. ‘Please, come through to the lounge. My husband’s out the back, feeding the fish. He’s nutty about koi. I ask you, the things men like.’ She ushered them through to a room where the three-piece suite was king.
A monstrous black leather sofa and two over-stuffed armchairs dominated a plain, simple, square room, that contained little else but a television and, for some reason, a poster on the wall proclaiming the delights of the Caribbean island of Mustique.
Hillary nodded at Tommy and looked pointedly towards the far wall. Instantly, Tommy went over and leaned against it, folding his arms across his chest. Wearing an inexpensive dark blue suit, he suddenly looked like a bouncer hired to sort out trouble at a notoriously violent nightclub.
Janine, without being asked, took a seat at one end of the sofa. Hillary, also without being asked, took a seat at the other. This left the two chairs free for the Warings.
Clive Waring was as portly as his wife, going bald, and looked startled to see them. His wife, hovering in the open doorway, looked from them, to her husband, then to the poster, then out the window. She was still very pale.
‘Please, won’t you sit down,’ Hillary said, her tone of voice making it an order rather than a pleasantry. She noticed that Clive Waring obeyed immediately, rather like a well-trained dog. Dawn Waring took her own seat rather more slowly and reluctantly, but it was not defiance so much as fear that held her back.
Hillary smiled briefly, opened her briefcase, and took out a set of photographs. She went through them, leaving the picture of the Warings on the top. ‘These photographs have come into our possession,’ she said flatly. ‘Would you please look at them, and tell me what you know?’ She handed them to Clive Waring first.
Puzzled, he took them, and stared down at the top one, his jaw falling open. He had, she noticed, false teeth. ‘But that’s us! Look, Dee.’ He handed it over and his wife reached out and took it; then his gaze fell on to the next photograph in the series, and he paled conspicuously.
Wordlessly, he turned to the next, then the next. When he’d finished, his hand was visibly trembling as he handed them over to his wife.
‘As you can see,’ Hillary continued pleasantly, ‘the photographs are all similar. All are of couples, taken outside private residences. You obviously know them,’ she added flatly, giving him no chance to deny it. ‘Can I have their names and their addresses please?’
Clive Waring, who’d been staring at his wife, cleared his throat. ‘What makes you think we know these people?’ he said to Hillary, his attempt at bluffing them rather ruined by the way his voice wavered alarmingly.
Hillary smiled grimly. ‘Mr Waring, I’m heading up the William Davies murder inquiry. I don’t appreciate being lied to. You can be charged with wasting police time if you refuse to co-operate. Do you understand what I’m telling you?’
‘Murder!’ It was Dawn who spoke. Or rather squeaked. She stared at Hillary, then at her husband, then back to Hillary again. ‘We don’t know anything about a murder. There’s nothing wrong with us!’
The last came out as a wail, but it was a curious sentiment. On first hearing, Hillary thought that she was simply saying that they weren’t murderers. Then she had immediate second thoughts. There’s nothing wrong with us. Just repeating it in her head made Hillary think that the Warings believed that there was indeed something very ‘wrong’ with them.
But what? What were they trying to hide?
‘I never said there was, Mrs Waring,’ Hillary said calmly. ‘But I need to speak to these other people, and I have reason to believe you know who they are. So, their names and addresses please. My sergeant will take down their particulars.’
Janine straightened up and turned smartly to a fresh page of her notebook, and fixed her blue gaze on Clive Waring.
Waring flushed, looked helplessly at his wife, then shrugged. ‘Well, I suppose there’s no harm.’ He held out his hand to his wife, who reluctantly handed back the photographs. Her eyes tried to hold on
to his, but he kept his own gaze firmly averted. ‘This one,’ he held up the first of the photographs, ‘is of Vince and Betty Harris. They live in Tackley. I’m not sure of the number or the road. It’s just off the square though. This one …’
Ten minutes later, and they had the names and approximate addresses of all the couples. When he’d finished, Clive Waring leaned back against the armchair, sweating openly. He looked, also, a little puzzled.
Hillary noticed it and felt a familiar tug at her stomach. She was going to have to explore that, later, when she’d got them talking more freely.
‘Can you think of any reason why anyone would have taken these photographs?’ Hillary asked. ‘I mean, of you people, specifically?’
‘No!’ Dawn Waring almost shouted. At the same time her husband snorted an unconvincing laugh and said emphatically, ‘Of course not!’ Their denials were so fierce and unanimous that it was clear, even to themselves, how ridiculous they sounded. Over by the wall, Tommy sighed heavily, and re-adjusted his weight. When both the Warings looked at him they caught the tail-end of amused disbelief on his features.
‘How do you know all these people?’ Hillary asked flatly.
The Warings exchanged looks. Eventually, Clive said, ‘I’m not sure what you mean.’
Hillary shook her head, exasperated. ‘Mr and Mrs Waring, would you like me to send for a patrol car? Then we can carry on this conversation back at Thames Valley Police Headquarters. Obviously, you’re not taking this interview seriously. Perhaps …’
‘No, don’t do that!’ Dawn said at once, clearly appalled. ‘The neighbours … this is a nice street. Quiet. We’ve never had any trouble here. We like it here. Please, we don’t want to move again.’
Hillary found that very interesting. Not about the neighbours – she’d threatened the Warings with the very visible patrol car precisely because she knew that the last thing either of them would want would be to be seen driving off in the back of a police car.
No, what interested her was that comment about them having to move again. It indicated that the Warings had had to move a lot in the past. Why? Normally, she’d have wondered if one or the other of them had ever been suspected of sexually abusing children. But she’d caught no such whiffs of anything like that in this case.
‘Then I suggest you answer my question,’ Hillary said smoothly, with no trace of her thoughts showing on her face. ‘How come you know these people? It’s a simple enough question.’
‘We all get together sometimes, that’s all,’ Dawn said helplessly, in a small voice. ‘We meet up, once a fortnight or so, in each other’s houses. You know, take it in turns to host a party. Nothing wrong in that is there? We don’t play loud music or take drugs or anything! Not like most parties nowadays. We’re always very discreet. Nobody’s neighbours ever complain.’
Hillary nodded, then caught movement out of the corner of her eye as Janine suddenly jerked in her seat. Suddenly, she began to scribble furiously in her book. Both the Warings had also noticed and were staring at her, fascinated. Hillary decided to let it play out, and said nothing until Janine had finished. Then her sergeant simply handed her the sheet of paper.
Hillary read the following:
GUV – IT’S BLOODY WIFE-SWAPPING, ONLY WITH A TWIST!!!! WHEN I INTERVIEWED JENNY CLEAVER I FELT SOMETHING WAS OFF, BUT I COULDN’T PLACE IT. NOW I KNOW – SHE FANCIED ME! IT WAS THE WAY SHE WATCHED ME CROSS MY LEGS – SHE WAS BLOODY EYEING ME UP. I THINK THESE ARE ALL GAY COUPLES AND GET TOGETHER FOR A BIT OF AN ORGY. I WONDER IF THEY ACTUALLY DO THE CAR KEYS IN A BOWL THING? VERY EIGHTIES IF THEY DO!
Hillary’s lips twitched as she read this last comment and quickly turned it into a grimace. Wordlessly she folded the piece of paper in half, then in quarters, and slipped it into her briefcase. She didn’t so much as glance at Janine, but when she looked up at the Warings, they looked like rabbits that had been caught in car headlights. Both were clearly desperate to know what Janine had written.
Hillary smiled gently. ‘Mr Waring, is there anyone missing from these photographs?’ she asked simply. ‘Anyone who belongs to your … little club … who should be amongst these photographs, but isn’t?’
On her chair, Janine drew in a sharp breath. Of course! If she was right about this, and the Cleavers were members of these gay swingers, then where were their photos? Why hadn’t they found them along with all the others, stashed away in Billy’s hiding place?
Damn, the boss was good. She’d seen at once what that meant. Billy had gone to the shed to meet someone – a blackmail victim, presumably. In his cocky arrogance and youthful stupidity, he’d probably brought the photos with him. Oh, he might have had the sense to keep hard copies stored on Lester’s computer, but he’d have taken his set of printed copies with him to show the ‘customer’. And his killer would have taken them away with him after killing the boy.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Clive Waring said weakly.
Hillary sighed. ‘Mr Waring, please believe me, I have no interest in your sexual proclivities, or those of your wife, or the people you chose to mix with.’ She ignored Dawn Waring’s gasp, and continued to stare levelly at Clive Waring, who was flushing a slow, ugly red. ‘Who’s missing from this set of photographs?’ she snapped sharply. ‘Now stop messing me about, or I will snap on the handcuffs and charge you with obstruction of justice.’
‘Jenny and Darren,’ Dawn Waring blurted out, then burst into tears. ‘Oh, why can’t you people leave us alone?’
‘Homosexuality is no longer a crime, Mrs Waring,’ Hillary said gently, making Tommy, who hadn’t seen Janine’s message, blink in surprise. ‘I doubt that anybody nowadays really cares how you choose to live your lives. Surely, there’s no need to live in such fear?’
‘Huh! Tell that to my brother. Or Clive’s mother. It would kill his mother if she knew, and Donald would … well, he would disown me!’ Dawn Waring said bitterly.
Hillary said nothing. Perhaps she had a point. The Warings were middle-aged and middle-classed, and perhaps they felt that the stigma was still too sharp for either of them to shoulder, even in these so-called enlightened times. Neither Dawn nor Clive were the sort to stick their heads over the parapets and say to the world, ‘We don’t care what you think of us!’
And who was she to blame them?
‘I take it your club consists of married couples?’ she asked, just to get things clear. ‘Gay men and gay women who enter into marriages of convenience to hide or disguise their real natures?’
Clive Waring nodded. He was still flushed a beetroot red, but at least he was managing to hold her gaze. ‘We just meet to socialize. Chat, sometimes. Not everyone, you know, goes off together. Sometimes we pair off. It depends. Mostly, we just like to relax, be ourselves. Cottaging isn’t something that suits everyone is it? And for the women, well, lesbian bars and such aren’t exactly thick on the ground around here. And if you’re in the closet still anyway …’
‘It just started with Frank and Jane and Pete and Gloria at first,’ Dawn Waring explained tearfully. ‘Jane and Gloria met and fell for each other, and realized that they were both married to gay men, and then another gay couple began to drop by for drinks and word got around, very discreetly like,’ she added, ‘and well, we just fell into the habit of holding parties every fortnight or so. On a roster system. You don’t really have to talk to them, do you? You don’t have to upset everyone! Some of these people would be mortified and maybe even suicidal if they thought people would find out about this.’
Hillary shook her head firmly. ‘No,’ she said flatly. ‘We may have to speak to these people, but we’ll be as discreet as possible. Now, can you tell me what you were doing on Tuesday afternoon of this week?’
‘Well, we were both at work,’ Clive said, and proceeded to give their alibis. They appeared to be sound, but she’d get Frank on to checking them out.
‘Thank you, Mr Waring, for your time. Mrs Waring.’ She stood up and very carefully shook hands with b
oth of them. They looked unutterably relieved to see them go. They also looked as if they couldn’t quite believe that they weren’t being arrested.
The moment Clive Waring shut the door behind them, Dawn Waring dived for the telephone.
Outside Janine and Tommy walked to Hillary’s car. ‘I knew I was right!’ Janine hissed triumphantly. ‘As soon as they started talking about a private club, I twigged. I wonder how Billy-boy got on to it?’
Hillary shrugged. ‘Doesn’t matter now.’ She rang the Cleavers’ house, but no one answered. Then she tried the Dairy, and got through to a production manager who confirmed that the manager was in. He offered to put her through to Darren Cleaver’s office, but she told him that that wouldn’t be necessary.
When she hung up, she turned to Tommy. ‘Tommy, go and pick him up. Janine, I want you to go to Jenny Cleaver’s Oxford office and bring her back too. I’ll get Frank to get a warrant for their bank accounts. If their withdrawals match the pattern in Billy’s bank book, we’ll have something concrete to go at them with. I somehow can’t see either of the Cleavers coming clean with a confession. We’ve got plenty of hard slog ahead of us yet. Including breaking down their alibis.’ And all the gay couples would have to be interviewed and their alibis checked. Some of them had to have been approached by Billy as well. Which of them had coughed up?
‘Think the Cleavers did it together, guv?’ Janine asked. ‘You know, a Bonnie-and-Clyde job?’
‘Don’t know,’ Hillary said shortly. And at that point, she didn’t much care.
*
Janine dropped her off at HQ and roared away again. Hillary winced and hoped she didn’t get a speeding ticket. Sometimes, traffic loved to nab their own.
Halfway into the big open-plan office, she detoured to Danvers’s cubicle, hoping he was the sort of boss who liked to go golfing or sailing, or what-the-hell-ever on a weekend, thus leaving the nuts-and-bolts to their second in command; but he was sat at his desk, and looked up as she tapped on the door and walked in. Of course, he was still the new boy, so he probably felt he had to show willing.