by M. J. Trow
‘Her mother?’ Hall asked. This conversation could go on like this for hours if he didn’t get it back on track.
‘Yes. Her mother, lovely woman, was very ill. She had cancer and she had ignored it. By the time she went to the doctor there was hardly an organ in her body which was not affected. It was in her bones as well; she was in terrible pain.’
‘That must have been distressing to watch.’
‘Yes. Sarah and her mother were very close. One night, when Sarah was at her mother’s house – she stayed sometimes, overnight, so that her mother could have a few days of privacy without a nurse there – her mother asked her if she would help her to die.’
For several heartbeats, there was a thick silence. Henry Hall knew what it was like to see someone you love in pain. He had often wondered what he would do if his mother asked him just that favour, but she had died naturally in the end, of a heart attack, quick and clean but devastating for those left behind. He swallowed and said, ‘And what did she do?’
‘She lifted a pillow from the bed and held it in her hands for a moment, praying. She was a devout and loving daughter, Mr Hall. And so in the end, she put the pillow down and made her mother as comfortable as she could.’
Hall waited for the rest of the story.
‘In the morning, her mother was dead. She had been saving up her sleeping pills and had taken them all. Sarah always blamed herself for driving her mother to do it. She had wanted to die by a loving hand, and Sarah had failed her. Or at least, that’s how she felt. She felt like a murderer.’
‘As she would have been, had she used the pillow.’
Giles Mattley smiled ruefully and nodded his head. ‘Exactly, Mr Hall. I said they were demons.’
Jacquie was waiting back at the foot of the stairs when Henry Hall had shown the vicar out.
‘Ready?’ she asked, motioning towards Interview Room 3, where the noise had started up again. This time it was a rhythmic thump as Jeff O’Malley pounded on the table. ‘Did the husband have anything useful to add?’
‘No. Not useful. Just that Sarah Gregson didn’t gamble.’
Jacquie was confused. ‘But …’
Henry Hall heaved a sigh. ‘Yes, I know. But. I don’t think it is important, but still, it makes it less clear than it was. It doesn’t have any bearing on this, though. Come on. We can’t put this off any longer. Did you get through to Max? All well?’
‘Yes. The cat had knocked the phone off the hook.’
‘That’s OK, then. As long as there was no problem. With the Golds, I mean.’
‘No. Everything is fine. Hector hadn’t spoken to him when I rang. I’m sure once everyone calmed down, and by “everyone” I mean Camille, it would all be fine.’ But she didn’t believe it as she said it, any more than Henry Hall believed it when he heard it. This was a very damaged family and it would take handling with kid gloves. He pushed open the door of the interview room and they walked into a wall of sound.
Jeff O’Malley was sitting at the table in the middle of the room and it was obvious that had it not been made of metal and bolted down it would have been in pieces by now. He leapt up as they came in and at once the two constables standing against the back wall moved forward.
‘So you got here finally,’ he spat at Hall. ‘Where you been? Giving little Mrs Goody-Two-Shoes here a good time? Husband old as hers, only to be expected.’ He looked Jacquie up and down with a leer.
Hall sat down opposite the man and gestured for him to take a seat. Jacquie sat next to Hall and pressed a button on the recorder on the table and leant in slightly to the microphone. ‘This is Detective Inspector Carpenter Maxwell and also present is Detective Chief Inspector Henry Hall, Police Constable Andrew Davis and Police Constable Neil Moran. The interviewee is Mr Jeff O’Malley, a United States citizen, in Britain on a one-year visa, which has eleven months and two days to run. The interview is timed at twenty-one forty hours and is being videotaped for the record.’
O’Malley looked contemptuous. ‘Tapes can be fixed,’ he said. ‘Don’t think I don’t know that.’
‘We don’t fix tapes, Mr O’Malley,’ Hall said, ‘and you are not arrested, as I am sure someone will have explained to you. You will have been read the customary caution as you are being questioned in relation to a crime. We have not accused you of anything at the moment, and what happens next will be dependent on your answers to our questions. Now, firstly, for the record. What is your full name?’
‘Jeffery Patton O’Malley.’
That figures, thought Jacquie. Just wait till Max hears that.
‘And your date of birth, please.’
‘May ten, nineteen forty-six.’
‘Thank you. And your current address.’
‘Hell, you know that. You came hammering at my door to drag me here.’
‘For the record.’ Hall was persistent.
‘Hell, I don’t know. I don’t write to myself. Some pansy name to the house and some drive or another. I don’t know. She knows.’ He pointed at Jacquie. ‘She knows the folks who live there.’
Jacquie nodded at Hall and wrote the address down on the form in front of her as he continued with the questions.
‘A local woman, Sarah Gregson, was found dead in the town centre this morning.’ Hall and Jacquie watched carefully for signs of surprise on O’Malley’s face and saw none. ‘She had fallen from the top of a multi-storey car park and had died instantly. We have reason to believe you knew her. Did you?’
‘I’ve only lived here five minutes,’ O’Malley sneered. ‘Why would I know her?’
‘Are you saying you don’t know her?’ Jacquie asked.
O’Malley looked at her as if the chair had spoken and addressed his answer to Hall. ‘I know someone called Sarah, yeah. Don’t know if her surname was … what did you say it was?’
‘Gregson.’
O’Malley screwed up his face in ostentatious thought. ‘No help. Sorry. Got a picture? I’d prefer before rather than after, but I can handle after. I’ve seen hundreds of jumpers.’
Hall had always privately considered that the jumpers were not a problem. It was the landers that weren’t so pretty. He turned to Jacquie, who held out a picture, clearly cropped from a wedding photo. He held it up to O’Malley, who leant forward to focus on it.
‘Yeah. Sarah. I know her. Don’t know why she jumped, though. She scooped the pool last night. Two thousand pounds she won from us.’ He made a clicking noise with his teeth. ‘Damn shame. I was looking forward to winning that back.’
His answers had rather knocked Hall from his planned route. He had been expecting at least a little prevarication, but the man seemed to have nothing to hide. ‘We have reason to believe also that you were extremely angry last night, when you lost.’
‘Five hundred, I lost. Could you lose that much and not get mad?’
‘It’s not something I have ever had to consider,’ Hall said. ‘I suppose if I couldn’t afford it, I might be angry, yes. But I suppose no one should gamble if they can’t afford it.’
‘Ooh, wise words,’ O’Malley mocked. ‘What are you, some goddamn Bible-puncher? If you can afford it, where’s the buzz? But, as it happens, I could afford it. Not so sure about the other three, though, and I know damn well Sarah couldn’t afford it.’
‘How could you possibly know that?’ Hall was repelled and intrigued by the man.
‘Just the look in her eye. You get to know the signs.’
Hall decided to ignore that. ‘But you could afford it?’
‘Yeah. I’ve been on a bit of a winning streak, y’know. And I don’t have many expenses. Old Hec, he picks up the bills and Camille, her business is doing fine back home, so she has plenty. I’ve got my … pension, so we do OK.’
Hall flicked a glance at Jacquie to see if she had noticed the tiny pause in front of the word ‘pension’ and from her notes he could see she had. ‘And the others. You say you don’t think they could afford it, either. Why did they play, then, for su
ch high stakes?’
O’Malley leant forward and rubbed his thumbs and forefingers together. ‘The buzz.’
Hall looked back at him, face blank. He waited for a half-minute, leaving O’Malley to lean back and stop the gesture, looking awkward to be left with no response.
Like many people when faced with a silence, he felt compelled to fill it. ‘So, if you’re looking for somebody to pin this on, it sure ain’t me. One of those others. I reckon the woman. What’s her name? Sandra? Yeah, Sandra. Probably her.’
‘We have spoken to Detective Constable Bolton, thank you, Mr O’Malley. But we will note your comments, of course. Do you have any views on the others?’
‘Policewoman, huh? I never had her pegged for that. Well, it could still be her. Wouldn’t be the first time, won’t be the last. How about the guys, then? That Tim, built like a shithouse. He could toss her over a little low parapet like that, no problem.’
‘You are familiar with the top of the municipal car park, Mr O’Malley?’ Jacquie asked him.
He decided it was time to bring the little lady into the conversation, seeing as how they would be discussing girly matters. ‘I drove Camille in to town the other day. She needed her nails done and she didn’t want to drive in all the snow. We don’t get this weather at home; she’s no experience. I parked at the top. That people thing that the Mosses drive, it’s a bit big to park in those itty-bitty spaces further down.’
Hall was surprised. It wasn’t what he would have expected from Jeff O’Malley, to admit that he couldn’t park a car.
‘I mean to say, call that a car park? You could only park those silly little town cars in there. My SUV wouldn’t fit in two of them spaces. And as for the Winnebago, don’t go there.’
‘You have a Winnebago?’ Hall asked. ‘My word, Mr O’Malley, American police pensions are more generous than here. I’m in the wrong country.’
O’Malley shrugged. ‘We do OK,’ he said.
Jacquie made a note and underlined it with several heavy lines. O’Malley craned over to see, but she turned the paper over, with a smile.
‘You were talking about the other people at the card game,’ Hall reminded him.
‘Yeah. Tim. Don’t know his other name. Real big guy. Works somewhere, some gym or other? I don’t know. He seemed to know Sandra anyways. I gave him a lift home one time. He’d walked in, jogged maybe? It came on to snow, so I dropped him home. He only lives down the road from where we’re staying. Same kinda house; ticky-tacky. He didn’t seem to worry too much the first few games, then he got … don’t know what you’d call it … edgy. Come to the end of his savings, I guess. Wife leaning on him probably. If she knew. Most don’t.’
‘Does yours?’ Jacquie asked him.
His eyebrows shot up towards the remains of his sandy hair. ‘Alana?’ He snorted. ‘You’ve both met Alana. She doesn’t know where she is or when, let alone how much I win or lose. It’s no business of hers, neither. She has all she needs. Vodka’s dearer here than at home, but still she’s cheap to keep.’
Hall decided to keep the momentum going. ‘And the last member of your card school. Who is he?’
‘I know a bit more about him, seeing as he’s single, so he has more time after the game. We’ve had a few drinks together. Mark – don’t know his other name, though. He’s something to do with the police, well, not the police as such. Security. Something like that. He lives in town, in an apartment over a shop. No. That’s wrong. An apartment over a taxi firm, something like that. I went there, must have been after the second game, and I could hear the radio, you know, that “over and out” thing you get. With cells nowadays I don’t know why they do it, but I guess they’re all geared up and don’t see the need for change.’
‘Cells?’ Hall was confused.
‘Cells. Phones. Oh, Jeez, I forgot. Mobiles.’
‘Ah. So, you don’t know Mark’s surname, but you know where he lives.’
‘Hell, no. I just went there. I don’t know where it is. I couldn’t find the house where I’m living unless someone takes me there. This town is not built right. The roads are all over the place. Where’s the grid? The common sense? Take where you live, now,’ he threw out a hand in Jacquie’s direction. ‘What the hell is going on there? It’s a new estate, right? So why aren’t the roads in straight lines? I can see why roads are all over in somewhere old like Stratford,’ he pronounced it with the emphasis on the second syllable, ‘but why here? We’ve got older places at home, and it’s not often a Californian gets to say that.’ He slammed his hand down on the table and roared with laughter. Jeff O’Malley had decided they could all be cops together.
Henry Hall had not decided that and made a few cryptic notes on his piece of paper before looking up at O’Malley. ‘Well, Mr O’Malley,’ he said at length. ‘You have been very frank and I thank you very much for that. But until we speak to the remaining members of the group from last night, I’m afraid we’ll have to ask you to wait here. I’ll arrange some coffee and sandwiches if you like. I seem to remember we interrupted your supper when we called on you at home.’
O’Malley’s brow darkened and he rose to his feet, like a mountain out of the sea. ‘I don’t have to take this—’ he began.
‘Yes,’ Hall said, calmly but with a snap to the word. ‘I rather think you do. Constable Davis here will get you anything you want. Good evening.’ And he gathered up his papers and left the room.
Jacquie closed the meeting on the recording and followed her boss out into the hall.
‘Damn,’ he said. ‘I was sure it was him.’
‘Isn’t it?’ Jacquie said, but hope had died for her about halfway through the interview.
‘Jacquie, you know it isn’t him. He’s just not right for it. He’d have got the money off her, for starters. He didn’t know she’d handed her winnings back, except what she got from him. He would have thought there would be two and a half thousand pounds in her bag. His greed would have got the better of him. No,’ he sighed as he turned for the stairs. ‘Back to the drawing board. But not tonight. I’ll see you in the morning.’
‘What about …?’ Jacquie gestured towards O’Malley’s interview room.
‘We’ve got another … twenty-one hours to go,’ Hall said. ‘Let’s not waste them. I’m sure the sandwiches will be delicious and we can see him again tomorrow. Now go home!’
‘You too, guv,’ Jacquie said. ‘Perhaps Margaret has saved you some cauliflower surprise.’
Hall gave her an old-fashioned look and went up the stairs, feeling suddenly old and tired. This case had a taste to it which he was not liking so far; he would even go so far as to say it was worse than cauliflower surprise.
Chapter Twelve
Peter Maxwell was used to odd hours. He was married to a detective inspector, for a start, which meant that odd hours were not odd at all to them, but more the norm. And before he had started sharing his home with someone of the police persuasion, he had had no one to please but himself, so if he wanted to stay up all night, painting and gluing, reading or sleuthing, or even – heaven forfend – marking, then he could. He was therefore wide awake and as chipper as could be when the doorbell rang at nearly midnight. Jacquie was out for the count beside him, having got back home exhausted and monosyllabic not many minutes before. He knew better than to probe when she was like this. He knew that Jeff O’Malley was not the guy, as Monk would have it, and that was it. It could wait.
He wriggled into his dressing gown and padded downstairs, feeling every tread in advance for lurking felines or – worse – the little gifts of mice and similar that the feline may have deposited there. The snow had curbed Metternich a bit, but Maxwell was afraid that, like Francis Bacon, he had discovered the secret of freezing food for later using snow. He and Jacquie were expecting a vole glut around St Valentine’s Day.
Maxwell’s front door had a peephole in it but he had never used it until today. The thought that Jeff O’Malley may be rampaging through Leighford was a
lmost too much to bear, but the thought of him rampaging through his house was much, much worse. So he checked and found that his gut reaction had been partially right. The distorted face on the other side of his door lens belonged to Hector Gold and the semi-conscious shape he was supporting just had to be Alana O’Malley.
He opened the door and prepared to catch the woman as she fell forward. ‘Hector,’ he said. ‘You’re very welcome, of course, dear boy, but what the hell are you doing on my doorstep at midnight? Some quaint Minnesotan custom?’
‘I’m sorry, Max,’ the historian said, hefting Alana into a more comfortable carrying position before attempting the stairs. ‘You’ll have heard about what happened, I suppose?’
‘Some,’ Maxwell told him, guardedly.
‘Well, after Jacquie and Mr Hall took Jeff away, Camille went into meltdown and Alana just passed out. By the time I had Camille on a bit more of an even keel, I went to check on Alana and she was still out for the count. So I took her to the hospital, and they took a look at her. There wasn’t any immediate danger, well no more than she has always been in; liver’s like a piece of shoe leather, has been for years. They did a blood alcohol level and they nearly passed out. But I showed them her usual level and they said in fact she wasn’t quite so bad as usual. It’s just she’s not eating and her liver really is on the fritz, and the stress and everything … well, I couldn’t take her back to Paul’s house. If Jeff is out …’ There was a question in the sentence.
‘He’s not,’ Maxwell reassured him.
‘Well, if Jeff isn’t out, Camille is going to be going nuts. She has decided that her father’s behaviour is all her mother’s fault. That if she was more of a woman – and can’t you just hear the quotes and where it comes from – if she was more of a woman, Jeff wouldn’t stray and all the rest. So I was stuck. I can’t afford a hotel, the money just goes nowhere over here, and so …’ They had reached the top of the first flight and he stopped for breath. He straightened up and looked Maxwell in the eye. ‘I’m sorry, Max,’ he said. ‘This is a mistake. You’ve got Nolan and all. You don’t need this.’