She said, ‘We are struggling here. Aves has accounted for anything we find on the boat and in his car, unless, as you say, there are some convenient bloodstains belonging to Bell. He hasn’t denied meeting Bell in the pub. He has explained away any contact that weekend with Wood. We can’t tie any of the money to him unless some turns up tomorrow morning-’
‘Which it won’t.’
‘Quite. We need to go back in with Wood, go over it all again and see if there is anything to corroborate what he’s told us. I think he was genuine but proving it’s a different matter. This is not straightforward.’
After a pause, Smith said, ‘No, you’re right. But we’ve focused so far on finding evidence of Bell in our suspects’ lives; maybe we’ll find some of theirs in his life. I don’t know. Something might turn up…’
‘Something might turn up?’
He shrugged and got to his feet.
‘To be honest, Alison,’ – it was late and there was no-one else around – ‘I can’t get too excited about it. I mean, it’s not a proper murder, is it?’
She couldn’t hide her surprise as she said, ‘As opposed to an improper one?’
‘Ah, very good. What I mean is, they didn’t intend to kill him. Somebody wanted James Bell to get a beating. That somebody is neither of the two men who actually did it. One of the two recruited the other one – and it’s pretty clear which is which. They got him drunk but not drunk enough; they didn’t make allowance for the Tyneside alcohol tolerance or for the fact that Bell himself had thrown a few punches in his time. It turned a bit nasty. When you’re re-interviewing Wood tomorrow, get him to describe exactly what happened in the bathroom in more detail. Now he’s made his confession, you might get more out of him after a break – that often happens.’
‘So I’m re-interviewing Wood tomorrow?’
‘Sorry, ma’am.’
‘And what are your plans?’
Smith was putting on his coat, checking that there was still a cigarette packet in one pocket and a lighter in the other – these things had been known to disappear if Charlie Hills had been doing his rounds.
‘First thing, I’m going to ring McFarlane’s PA. I should point out that this puts me at some personal risk. I think she’s a woman who has needs. If he’s not at home, I’m going to see Marion, again placing myself in danger. It’s time I got another bravery gong, if you ask me.’
‘Staffing tomorrow?’
‘Oh, I think that Serena has to come with me. The three of us have already established a meaningful relationship – but I’m not sure what she’s going to think when she sees us standing on her doorstep. My mind can’t take much more boggling. You ought to give Mike Dunn a go with Wood. He’s alright.’
‘High praise. Thanks for sorting all that out, DC.’
Like water off a duck’s back, her father used to say. Smith was heading for the door, doing up the coat buttons. Without turning around he said, ‘No problem. Happy to help. Goodnight.’
It was 11.15pm. The small bowl of cereal would have earned him a scolding from Sheila – she viewed such as the height of laziness, even when Smith read out to her the list of essential vitamins from the back of the packet. The notes had been copied into the Alwych, which, he realised, was almost full. There were several more on the shelf, pristine, individually wrapped in their cellophane covers, but he wondered then whether he would need them. Just a couple of days to go and his knee had not fully recovered from its encounter with Philip Wood’s car door; there was a plan B but he didn’t want to think about it yet. Even so, he ought to check the medicine cupboard in the morning, just to be sure.
Downstairs he had contemplated the unopened bottle of scotch for some twenty seconds. It was still down there and still unopened but now, as his computer clicked and sighed back into life, he could see that he had an email from Jo Evison. It would be odd if she was asking whether her choice had met with his approval; it might be an excuse to go and open it after all.
But no such luck. The email said I’ve booked a long weekend at your caravan, 15th to the 17th of May. Mrs Salmon remembered me, which was nice. If I don’t catch my breakfast on the first morning, I’ll give you a call! J.
“A long weekend” – a leisurely sort of phrase that he liked the sound of, and he thought about the two of them sitting on the harbour wall, eating fish and chips. That too had been leisurely.
He had not had, they had not had, enough long weekends in their lives before one of those lives had come to its end. And you cannot get anything back, that’s the thing… But perhaps you can take out an indemnity against feeling that sense of loss in the future by doing it now, by listening to the heart instead of the head, by feeling instead of thinking. Stop doing and start being?
She had become J now, instead of Jo. When had that happened, and what did it mean? Had he become D? Would he feel more comfortable as S for a while? These were strange thoughts indeed – the result, no doubt, of a very long day.
It was almost midnight before he clicked send, and the message itself seemed pathetically short after such contemplation – Call me anyway, David.
Chapter Twenty Three
There were only five houses on the Oaklands estate in the little village of Weston Lake, but Smith calculated as they pulled into the drive that each one of them was worth twenty times the value of his own house in Milfields. All were built with the same reddish bricks but each was slightly different in terms of its frontage – the window and door arrangements deliberately uneven, architect-designed to give the impression that the houses had grown here organically and over the years rather than as a six-month project managed from a desk in Swindon.
The McFarlane’s property was the last, on the left where Oaklands Drive came to an end. Beyond it and behind the house itself was woodland, mostly birches, the bare trunks showing like bleached bones in the weak sunlight. Smith got out and looked at the windows, wondering whether their approach had been seen or heard. Above, a fast-moving sky with ragged patches of blue – one of those windy days in late March when it is suddenly a little warmer than one expected, and you can almost believe that spring is about to arrive. He looked then into the borders beneath the windows at the front of the house and, sure enough, there were mauve and yellow crocuses ready to flare open as soon as the sunlight reached them. In his own back garden, he would find the same, planted by Sheila’s hands over the years, and he felt a pang of guilt that he had not yet been out to see them.
There was a double garage with both doors closed, and Smith thought that it was fifty fifty whether they would find her at home – she was, after all, a person with many outside interests. They crossed the gravel drive to the front door, which, if he was not mistaken, was made of oak, and he nodded for Serena Butler to push the bell.
She said, ‘Nice house.’
‘Yes. I looked it up, what a company man earns. It’s all on the interweb.’
She opened her mouth to correct him and then caught the gleam of amusement in his eye.
He continued, ‘Eighty to ninety thousand a year, and I reckon he’d need all of that to get a place like this. Weston is one of the most pricey villages around Lake. Big bucks in the oil and gas businesses, and I’m guessing they don’t all go over the table. Hello, I can hear someone. Stand by your beds. Not that I mean – well, anyway, someone’s here.’
‘It could be one of the maids.’
‘Or the au pair.’
But it was Marion McFarlane – he could see that through the narrow stained glass panel as her slender figure moved towards the door, first green, then blue and finally red as she turned the lock and took off the safety chain. He prepared his most cheerful smile.
Her confusion was momentary. She recognized them both immediately, glancing from Smith to Serena and back again in no more than a second or two. Then her eyes went out to the drive behind them, looking at the car, Smith’s own old Peugeot, parked slightly at an angle, one wheel touching the lawn. Finally, she looked down t
he drive at the other houses, long enough for him to half-turn himself to see if anyone was watching – because that was what she was looking for.
He said, ‘Good morning. It is Mrs McFarlane, isn’t it? Mrs Marion McFarlane?’
‘What on earth are you doing here?’
‘Well, I’d like to say that it’s just a social call but unfortunately we are here on business.’
He reached inside his jacket and took out the card, noticing not for the first time that the picture was somewhat out-of-date; he’d wait until after Thursday before ordering a new one, though. Serena Butler was also showing her card.
‘I’m Detective Sergeant Smith and this is Detective Constable Butler – we’re from Kings Lake Central police station. We’d like a quick word. May we come in?’
The hall was high-ceilinged and decorated with exquisite taste. Subtly varied shades of white had been used on different walls and at different heights to give great depth; a single large mirror at the far end magnified the effect, and here and there were items with an eastern flavour – a large reed and paper fan, some small jade carvings grouped in a tiny alcove with their own hidden spotlight, a folding silk and bamboo screen painted with images of Japanese cranes, and even the golden face-mask of a Buddha on the wall behind Marion McFarlane, looking down impassively upon the endless foolishness of man.
‘I can only repeat my question – what on earth are you doing here?’
There is no such thing as a sixth sense. Smith knew perfectly well how it worked – long experience allied to the ability to learn and reflect produce, over time, hidden neural pathways, pathways that operate so quickly and so far below consciousness that the conclusions they reach can seem supernatural, almost magical. Marion McFarlane was shocked, just a little, because these two people had seen her at the Velvet club and because she now knew that they were police officers; she was assuming, as Smith had known that she might, that they were here to question her about immoral behaviour that might in some way be perceived as criminal – and nothing more. There was nothing else on her mind at that moment, no greater guilt than that. Listening to her repeated question, to the tone of it, his instincts told him this, and told him, too, that he had the advantage of her.
Serena Butler had expected more irony, more jokes even, but in that she had misjudged him – Smith seemed to be a number of different people, and she remembered something that John Murray had said to her a few days ago – that she should forget about how she came to be in Kings Lake and start looking forward. That she could learn a lot here. Now Smith was looking hard at Mrs McFarlane, waiting for something to change in her, for her to say something else.
‘For God’s sake will you tell me what you are doing here? It’s a private members club. You cannot come here making judgements-’
‘Mrs McFarlane, it isn’t really about the other evening.’
‘Then what? I ought to ring my husband, I think.’
‘Yes, you could do that. But we’re here to ask you how well you know James Bell.’
The effect was as if she had been struck by a sniper’s bullet. She didn’t fall but she took a half-step backwards, and Smith saw Serena Butler move a little, ready to catch her. Then they turned her around, left the hallway and found themselves in a huge, open-plan lounge. They sat her down in a white leather arm-chair and positioned themselves facing her on a matching four-seater sofa. Serena asked again if she was alright, whether she needed a glass of water, and Smith took out his notebook.
She was not giving herself time to think, he was certain of it. After a couple of minutes, she had recovered enough to ask if they would like tea or coffee, implying that she knew this would take a while now, and Smith thought, I wonder if they have that Kenyan Auction here as well as on the platform – but no, he didn’t want her out of sight yet, sending a text or whispering something into a mobile phone in the kitchen.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I do know James Bell.’
Smith nodded once and said, ‘I’m glad that you’ve come straight out and said that, Mrs McFarlane.’
‘Why, if you don’t mind me asking?’
‘Because we have two records of him calling your mobile phone number – and if we go back further, there are probably more.’
He knew perfectly well how disconcerting this is – to find that the police have been into your life like burglars themselves, rootling through your private drawers and secret spaces – and he knew too that making people aware of it quickly encourages them to think carefully about telling you lies. On this occasion he didn’t want to waste time with any of that nonsense.
She had met James Bell some five or six months previously at the Velvet club. Someone else had given him a guest card, and once he had proved himself popular – Smith did not ask for the details – he was present a number of times, and not just at weekends. She did not know whether he had become a full member but he did not seem to lack money. Smith asked why she had that impression and she said he always had good clothes and he drew attention to his iPhone more than once when she was around. Meanwhile, back in The Towers, thought Smith…
After a pause, and at just the right moment, Serena Butler said, ‘Did you have a personal relationship with James Bell, Mrs McFarlane?’
‘Do you mean, were we ‘intimate’? That’s what the Daily Mail would say, isn’t it?’
Another side to her, he thought; a touch of arrogance, of snobbery, of how dare other people judge me?
Serena said quietly, ‘All the words for it mean the same thing, don’t they?’ and Smith wondered again whether he had done the right thing in bringing this particular DC with him this morning.
‘Yes, we did have a personal relationship.’
Smith said, ‘Did that relationship continue away from the club?’
She hesitated before she said that it did not. Marion McFarlane saw the tightening of his lips, and she coloured a little before she continued.
‘It almost did. He phoned me and said that he was going to be away for another two weeks – did I want to meet up? I said that I might.’
‘When was this?’
‘The weekend before he was going back to the rig.’
‘So that was the call he made to you on the Saturday afternoon? Saturday the 15th of March?’
She nodded.
‘And what arrangements did you make?’
‘I said that I would pick him up from outside a pub near the docks at nine fifteen. A bit later he sent me a text explaining exactly where. I still have it…’
‘The Wherryman?’
Yes. She had got over the surprise that the detective seemed to know things, and that he seemed to be able to make notes as he continued talking. The female detective was watching her closely and saying very little.
‘Where were you planning to go after that? The Club?’
‘No. He said on the phone that his partner was away. He wanted to go somewhere quieter, just the two of us,’ and then for the first time Smith realized that beneath the beautiful exterior, as pale and subtly coloured as those professionally decorated walls, she was in pain at the memory she was recounting. She had been in love with James Bell, or something close to it.
‘But you didn’t meet him, did you? What happened?’
‘My husband had a dinner that evening. He asked me to accompany him.’
‘What sort of dinner?’
‘It was the Rotary Club.’
The faintest hint of a smile appeared around his mouth, and she saw it. An intelligent woman – he wondered whether she would go on the attack then, and waited but she did not do so.
‘Did you let James Bell know that your plans had changed?’
‘Yes. I managed to phone him while I was getting ready to go out.’
‘How did he react?’
She paused there, remembering, and then, ‘He said it was my loss. But he was always joking like that. He didn’t mean it that way. I said I would text him before he came back onshore again.’
Sm
ith said, ‘These formal Rotary Club dinners don’t just crop up on the day, do they? You had arranged to meet James Bell because you thought your evening would be free, that your husband would be out like Mrs Bell. Then your husband asks you to go with him – what, late afternoon, early evening?’
‘Yes.’
Serena said, ‘Why did you opt to go with your husband rather than make an excuse and see Mr Bell?’
‘Because he is my husband…’
‘And James Bell was?’
It was a cold house – Smith had already thought that, the rooms too large ever to be properly heated and comfortably cosy. Now, in the silence that followed Serena Butler’s last question, it seemed to grow even chillier.
Smith said, ‘Can we assume, Mrs McFarlane, that your husband is aware of your other relationships.’
‘We have an open marriage.’
He didn’t think that he had heard that phrase since the 1980s but he left it alone; they were getting closer to the crucial questions.
‘Does your husband know who it is that you see, Mrs McFarlane?’
‘No. We respect each other’s privacy in that way.’
‘So, to be clear – you are telling me that your husband did not know that you were seeing James Bell?’
‘No, he did not.’
‘Has he ever mentioned James Bell to you, in any context? You must have realized that they recently worked on the same platform – did he ever mention that?’
‘No. Why are you asking about Donald?’
Smith decided to let that hang in the air, let her begin to wonder for herself. It was Serena Butler who ended that silence.
‘Marion. We aren’t here to condemn other people’s values or lives. As far as I’m concerned, we all live in glass houses. You know that James Bell has disappeared. We’re speaking to everyone that knew him. But we need to ask you about your relationship with him. You agreed to see him privately, away from the club. Do you do that often with other people that you meet?’
Smith admired the question even before the woman responded; it took off another layer as cleanly as a sharp knife peels a ripe apple. Marion McFarlane swallowed before she answered it.
Luck and Judgement: A DC Smith Investigation Page 29