Chill Factor
Page 6
“It’s a bit austere,” Dave remarked, turning round in a circle. He paused, then said: “The wife wanted me to put one of them up.”
“One of what?”
He pointed. “A dildo rail.”
I said: “It’s called a dado rail,” not sure if I’d fallen into a trap.
“Is it? I’m sure she said dildo.”
“Maybe you misunderstood.”
“Sounds like it.”
“C’mon,” I told him. “Let’s go upstairs. That’s where the story of Tony and Margaret begins and ends.”
The path we’d pioneered the night before was designated with blue tape so we stayed with it, although it wasn’t necessary. In the bedroom little adhesive squares with green arrows on them indicated items of interest that were invisible to my eyes. They were scattered randomly over the carpet near the bed, and concentrated around the disturbed surface of the duvet. Dave bent down and examined the area.
“Doesn’t look like blood,” he announced, straightening up.
“Other bodily fluids,” I suggested. The SOCO had probably found spots and splashes by using an ultra violet lamp or Luminol spray.
Next door was the woman’s room, all done in pink and lace, with a dressing table crowded with the things some ladies need to apply before they can face the world. She wore Obsession perfume and Janet Reger undies. A wedding photograph, similar in style to the one in Latham’s room, stood on the dressing table but pushed to the back, behind all the jars and bottles and aerosols. It was lightly covered with powder either from her compact or left by the fingerprint experts. In it, Silkstone was wearing a morning suit and his wife a traditional white dress. They were a handsome couple and it was impossible to date this one, unlike Mr and Mrs Latham’s.
The husband had his own room. It was furnished in a mock tartan material that looked pretty good and the bookcase was filled with coffee-table manuals about cars. We had classic cars, the world’s fastest cars, the most expensive cars, Ferraris, Porsches, and so on. There were yearbooks about the Grands Prix going back about ten years and a collection of Pirelli and Michelin calendars for a similar period. They were all big glossy books, heavy on pictures, light on words.
I found his reading books on the bottom shelf. They were by people like Dale Carnegie and Mark McCormack, and had titles such as How To Sell Crap To People Who Didn’t Know They Needed It; and What To Do With That Second Million. When this is over, I thought, I could do worse than read one or two of these. Or perhaps even write one.
There was a framed photograph of Silkstone on the wall behind the bed, and another of Nigel Mansell, autographed, on the facing wall. Silkstone was posing beside a Mark II Jaguar and looked about twenty. It was a snapshot, blown up to poster size, and was badly focused, but the numberplate was legible. He had a faint blond fuzz on his head, like a peach, which for a young bloke was seriously bald. Dave joined me as I was staring at it.
“Not as nice as your Jag,” he said.
“It’s not, is it.”
“Ever regret selling it?”
“Mmm, now and again.” I turned to face the other picture. “What do you reckon to that one?” I asked.
“It’s great. Our Daniel would love it.” Daniel was his son, a couple of years younger than daughter Sophie.
“Why Mansell? He’s not a gay icon, is he?”
“No, of course not. He’s a happily married man.”
“He has the moustache.”
“So has Saddam Hussein.”
“He is gay.”
“Yeah, as gay as a tree full of parrots. Listen,” Dave said. “Mansell was the greatest driver of his day, and lots of other days, because he was such a fierce competitor. He liked to win. At everything. That’s why people like Silkstone look up to him. He’s a winners’ icon, not a gay one.”
“Mmm, makes sense,” I agreed.
Dave looked at his watch, saying: “It’s time we were off.”
The friendly neighbourhood spy had informed his contact at the Gazette that I was on the scene, and a reporter was waiting for us as we emerged from The Garth. She had spiky red hair, a ring through her nose and a bullish manner.
“Are you the investigating officer?” she demanded.
“Yes,” I told her, resigning myself to making some sort of statement. “And just who are you?”
She rattled off one of those names that rhymes with itself, like Fay Day or Carrol Barrel, as if it were self-evident who she was and only a parochial fool like myself wouldn’t know. This woman was ambitious, going places, and a small-town murder meant nothing more to her than a by-line. Next week she’d either be applying for Kate Adie’s job or back on hospital radio. “And is the raid on this house related to the murder last evening at West Woods?” she asked.
News travels fast, I thought. I drew a big breath and launched myself into it: “We are investigating a suspicious death at a residence in the West Woods estate,” I told her, “and have arrested a person. Our enquiries have brought us here, where we have found the body of a woman. At this point in the investigation we are not looking for anybody else. Our press office will release further information as and when it becomes available.” I can reel out the cop-speak with the best of them, when I don’t want to say what I’m thinking.
She couldn’t believe her luck. “You mean there’s still a body in there?” she demanded, her eyes gleaming.
“No,” I said. “It was removed earlier this morning, for post-mortem examination. Now if you’ll excuse me.”
She produced a mobile phone – it was hanging on a thong around her neck – and called for a photographer, House of Death headlines buzzing through her head.
The PC on duty asked if I wanted the integrity of the scene maintaining and I said I did. We had a quick word with the house-to-house people, but they had no great revelations for us, and drove back to the nick.
On the way Dave said: “You’re not happy with this, are you?”
“Just playing safe, Dave,” I replied.
“What’s the problem?”
“No problem. According to Silkstone, Latham killed his wife so he killed Latham. Motive – revenge. Taking into consideration the balance of his mind, and all that, he’d be done for manslaughter and could be free in a year.”
“That’s true,” Dave said. “And if he was on remand for a year he could be released straight after the trial.”
“But what if,” I continued, “they were both in on it? What if they were both there when Mrs Silkstone died? That could mean a life sentence. This way, he’s put all the blame on Latham, who is in no position to defend himself.”
Dave thought about it, before saying: “You mean, they were having some sort of three-in-a-bed sex romp, and it all went wrong?”
I glanced sideways at him. “Do people do such things in Heckley?” I asked.
“Not to my knowledge,” he replied.
“Maybe they were over enthusiastic,” I suggested, “and she died. They invented some sort of story but Silkstone thought of a better one. He killed Latham and came to us.”
“It’s a possibility,” Dave agreed.
“Alternatively,” I began, exploring the possibilities, “perhaps Silkstone did them both, all alone and by himself. It’d be cheaper than a divorce.”
“And tidier,” Dave added.
“And possibly even profitable,” I suggested. “That’s something to look at.”
“We’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Dave cautioned. “Let’s wait for the DNA results.” He was silent for the rest of the way. As we turned into the carpark he said: “The bloke’s lost his wife, Charlie. Don’t forget that.”
“I know,” I replied, adding: “I think I’ll ask the professor to look at the crime scene, see what he thinks.” The professor is the pathologist at Heckley General Hospital, and at that very moment he was turning his blade towards the fair skin of Mrs Margaret Silkstone, subject of our debate. I locked the car doors and we headed for the entrance.
There was a message from Annette waiting for me at the front desk. A neighbour had positively identified Peter Latham, who had died from a single knife wound to the heart. Time of death between three and six o’clock, Wednesday afternoon. I passed it to Dave and asked if Prendergast had arrived yet. He was locked in the cell with his client, I learned, discussing strategies, defences and tactics. The truth was outside his remit.
“’Ello, Mr Priest,” a squeaky voice said, behind me. I spun round and faced two traffic cops straight in the eye. They were wearing standard-issue Velcro moustaches and don’t-do-that expressions, but neither had a ventriloquist’s dummy sitting on his arm. I tilted my gaze downwards forty-five degrees and met that of a grubby angel standing between them.
“Jamie!” I exclaimed, treading an uneasy path between disapproval and surprise. “What are you doing here?”
“Bin invited in to ’elp you wiv enquiries, ’aven’t I?” he replied.
“And can you ’elp – help – us?”
“Nah. Don’t know nowt about it, do I?”
“Well do your best.” I turned back to the desk, but he said: “’Ere, Mr Priest. Is it right you used to ’ave a knee-type Jag?”
“That’s right,” I told him. “A red one.”
“Cor!” he replied. “Best car on t’road.”
They took him away to feed him on bacon sandwiches while he fed them a pack of lies, and we arranged to interview Silkstone in ten minutes. I went to the bog and washed my face. There was a mounting pile of reports on my desk, but they’d have to wait. I always read them all, but on every murder enquiry we have a dedicated report reader who siphons off the important stuff. I like to read all the irrelevant details, too: the minutiae of the lives of the people who pass through our hands. Sometimes, they tell me things. As Confucius say, wisdom comes through knowledge.
Prendergast was wearing a blue suit and maroon tie, and could have been about to deliver a budget speech. He didn’t. He launched straight into the attack by complaining about our treatment of his client, who was, he reminded us, traumatised by the sudden and violent death of the woman he loved.
I apologised if we had appeared insensitive, but reminded them that Mr Silkstone had, by his own admission, killed a man and we were conducting a murder enquiry. We’d collect some of his own clothes for him, I promised, as soon as the crime scene was released, and I told him that his wife’s body had been taken to the mortuary. We needed Silkstone to formally identify the body later, and he agreed.
“Will he be taken there in handcuffs, Inspector?” Prendergast asked.
“As Mr Silkstone surrendered himself voluntarily I don’t think that will be necessary,” I conceded. I must be getting soft.
The preliminary fencing over, we started asking questions. Silkstone stuck to his story, saying that he’d come home to see Latham leaving his house. Inside, he’d found Margaret lying on the bed with a ligature around her neck. He’d attempted to remove it, but quickly realised that she was dead. The rest was a bit vague, he claimed. It always is. He agreed that he must have followed Latham home and gone in the house after him. He suddenly found himself standing in the kitchen, with Latham’s body lying on the floor, between his feet. There was a knife sticking out of Latham’s chest, and on the worktop there was one of those wooden blocks with several other knives lodged in it. He did not dispute that he stabbed Latham, but claimed to have no memory of the actual deed.
When he realised the enormity of what he’d done he sat in the front room for a while – about ten minutes, he thought – then dialled 999. Prendergast made sympathetic noises about the state of his client’s mind and suggested that Unlawful Killing might be an appropriate charge.
“Do you think there was any sort of relationship between your wife and Latham?” I asked, and Silkstone’s shrug suggested that it was a possibility. The tape doesn’t pick up shrugs, but I let it go. “Could you explain, please,” I asked.
He stubbed his cigarette in the tin ashtray and left the butt there with the other three he’d had. Only prisoners are allowed to smoke in the nick. “I wondered if they were having an affair,” he said. He thought about his words for a while, then added: “Or perhaps Peter – Latham – wanted to start one, and Margaret didn’t. Last week, last Wednesday, I went home early and he was there, talking to her. He said he’d just called in for a coffee, and she said the same. But there was a strained air, if you follow me. They seemed embarrassed that I caught them together. Maybe, you know, he was trying it on.”
“How well did Margaret know him?” I asked, adding: “Officially, so to speak.”
“Quite well,” he replied. “We – that’s Peter and I – married two sisters, back in 1975, and he came to work for me. Neither marriage lasted long, but we stayed friends.”
“What line of work are you in?”
“I’m Northern Manager of Trans Global Finance, and Peter is – was – one of my sales executives.”
“Wasn’t he working yesterday?”
“No. He often sees clients at weekends, when it’s convenient for them, and takes a day off through the week.”
“Is it usually Wednesday?”
“Yes, it is.”
“And Margaret? Did she work?”
“For me. TGF is heavily into e-commerce, and Margaret acted as my secretary, working from home.”
“E-commerce?” I queried, vaguely knowing what he meant.
“Electronic commerce.”
“In other words, your company doesn’t have a huge office block somewhere.”
“That’s right, Inspector. We have very small premises, just an office and a typist, in Halifax and various other towns. Our HQ is in Docklands, but that’s quite modest. Our parent company resides in Geneva.”
I exhaled, puffing my cheeks out, and tapped the desk with my pencil. Dave took it as his cue and came in with: “Mr Silkstone, you said that Latham was at your house the previous Wednesday, when you arrived home early.”
“Yes.” He reached into his pocket and removed a Benson and Hedges packet.
“What time was that?” Dave asked.
“About four o’clock. Perhaps a few minutes earlier.”
“Was it unusual for you to come home at that time?”
“Yes. Very unusual.”
“So Latham could have been there the week before, and the week before that, and you wouldn’t have known.”
He lit a cigarette with a gold lighter borrowed from his brief and took a deep draw on it. “Yes,” he mumbled, exhaling down his nose. There were four of us in the tiny interview room and three of us were passively smoking the equivalent of twenty a day, thanks to Silkstone. The atmosphere in there would have given a Greenpeace activist apoplexy. Carcinogenic condensates were coagulating on the walls, evil little particulates furring-up the light fittings. What they were doing to our tubes I preferred not to imagine but I vowed to sue him if I contracted anything.
“But yesterday you came home early again,” Dave stated.
Good on yer, mate, I thought, as our prisoner sucked his cheeks in and felt round the inside of his mouth with his tongue.
“That’s true,” Silkstone admitted.
“Twice in eight days. Very unusual, wouldn’t you say?”
“Gentlemen,” Prendergast interrupted. “My client is senior management with an international company. His hours are flexible, not governed by the necessity to watch a clock. He works a sixty-hour week and takes time off when he can. I’m sure you can imagine the routine.”
“But still unusual,” Dave insisted.
“He’s right,” Silkstone agreed, talking to his lawyer. Turning to Dave he added: “Last week I wasn’t feeling very well, so I skipped my last appointment and came home early. It wasn’t business, just calling on one of my staff for a pep talk. Yesterday –” he shrugged his shoulders. “I finished early and went home. That’s all.”
Dave stroked his chin for a few seconds before asking: “Are you sure that’s all?”
Silkstone moved as if to stub the cigarette out, realised it was only half smoked and took another drag on it. “I don’t know,” he replied, ignoring his brief ’s protestations. “I’ve been wondering that myself. Did I expect to find them together again? Is that why I left the afternoon free? You know, subconsciously. I don’t think I did. I loved my wife, trusted her, and she loved me. If I’d really expected to catch them together I’d have returned home even earlier, wouldn’t I?” He took another long draw on the cigarette while we pondered on his question. “Truth is,” he continued, “I’ve been worrying about the old ticker a bit, lately. Decided to cut my workload. That’s why I came home early.”
Which, I thought, was a good point. I quizzed him about how he’d felt as he drove to Latham’s house; how he gained entry; about the knife and any conversation he had with Latham. It was a waste of time. Everything was obscured by the thick red mist of convenient memory loss. There’s a lot more of it about than you’d ever believe, especially among murder suspects. “Interview terminated,” I said, looking up at the clock and reading off the time. Dave reached out and stopped the tape.
“Your case papers will be sent to the crown prosecutors,” I told Silkstone, “who will determine the level of charge against you. Assuming the results of the forensic tests validate what you say they may decide to go for a charge of manslaughter. If not, I shall be pressing for a murder charge. You will be committed for trial at crown court and we shall be applying for you to be remanded in custody until then. Is there anything you wish to ask me?”
Silkstone shook his head. Prendergast said: “I have explained the procedure to my client, Inspector. We will be making our own clinical and psychiatric reports and demand full access to any forensic procedures that are being undertaken. It goes without saying that we will be applying for bail.”