‘I suspect you read too much crime fiction. How well did you know him?’
‘Not very well. He interviewed me for this job about a year ago.’
‘There’s one question I must ask, Miss McArdle. Where were you between eight and eleven yesterday morning?’
‘Right here, Inspector, at my desk.’
‘Can anybody corroborate that?’
‘Oh, about ten people, no problem.’
‘That’s good enough for me. Tell me, just how does one become manager of a shopping mall and conference centre?’
‘I have a degree in business studies and experience as assistant manager at shopping centres in York and Heckley New Mall. I was headhunted when this became available. Is that good enough for you, Inspector?’
She was wearing a skirt and blouse, and curved and bulged in all the right places. Soft and gently rounded, like the ladies on the cover of Weight Watchers magazine. It wasn’t just Miss McArdle’s head that Threadneedle had hunted, that was for sure.
I flapped a hand. ‘I just wondered what the career progression was. You seem awfully young for such a responsible job.’
‘What are you insinuating?’
‘Nothing, nothing at all. What sort of person was Mr Threadneedle?’
‘How would I know?’
‘You worked for him.’
‘No I didn’t. I was recruited by a recruitment agency and I work for the shareholders. Arthur had influence with them, that’s true, but he wasn’t my employer.’
‘Was he your lover?’
Colour spread up from under the collar of her blouse like the sun rising out of Bridlington Bay on a bank holiday morning. ‘No,’ she stated, with just a touch too much defiance.
‘You call him Arthur.’
‘He told me to. We worked together for six months prior to the opening and … he liked to keep things informal.’
‘Last week, after the opening, you took Wednesday and Thursday off. Where did you go?’ That shook her. I’d put her in the second category of unrequited lovers: glad it was all over, relieved to be out of a difficult situation. I was thinking that Threadneedle must have used a pneumatic drill to get to her heart, unless it had been strictly a business arrangement right from the start.
‘I … I don’t know.’
‘Of course you know. Look in your diary.’
‘I didn’t go anywhere. After the previous few hectic days I needed a rest. I stayed at home, read a book. That’s all.’
‘Ah! A crime book, no doubt.’
‘Yes.’
‘So are you denying that you spent part of last week at a posh hotel – the Belfry, was it – with the late Mr Threadneedle?’
This time the colour was sucked from her face and she took on the appearance of someone fleeing from the last days of Pompeii. ‘Who told you that?’ she whispered.
You just did, I thought. ‘I put two and two together; it’s my job.’
‘Does this mean I’m a suspect?’
‘It’s often the lover who did it. Did you shoot Mr Threadneedle in the head yesterday morning?’
‘Of course not.’
‘In that case, you’re not a suspect.’ I leant forward towards her, my arms on her desk, and looked into her face. ‘But I need your help. I’m not here to judge or moralise. I want to find the person who killed the mayor of Heckley and I imagine you’d like to see him brought to justice, too.’ I explained that our conversation was off the record, but if she said, or was about to say, anything incriminating, I’d suspend the interview and advise her about a solicitor. She nodded to say she understood.
‘How long had you been having an affair with Mr Threadneedle?’
‘Nearly two years.’
‘How did you meet him?’
‘I was temping to earn some extra cash while I studied, seven or eight years ago. We met again while I was at York. He was part of a delegation that came on a fact-finding exercise and he recognised me. I asked him to think of me when the positions were being filled and … he did.’
I bet he did, I thought. And no doubt there was a deal of mutual back-scratching in between times. ‘Were you married?’ I asked.
‘Was. My husband left me. He found out … and … we’re divorced now.’
‘So you’re a free agent.’
‘Yes, I suppose I am.’
‘Had Arthur made you any promises?’
‘You mean, did I murder him, or have him murdered, because he let me down? Yes, I thought he was going to leave his wife, but he told me he couldn’t. Not for a while, until his year in office was over. Before that there were other excuses. And no, I didn’t murder him. I simply recognised that I was another silly woman who’d fallen for the wrong man, a married one, and had been used. That’s all. It all came to a head last week, at the Belfry.’
I widened my eyes and said: ‘I hope you didn’t make a scene at the Belfry, Miss McArdle.’
A hint of a smile flickered across her face. ‘A small one, perhaps.’
‘So did you revert to your maiden name after the divorce?’
‘Yes.’
‘What was your married name?’
‘I hoped you wouldn’t ask. It was Sidebottom.’
‘Some would regard that as a fine old Anglo-Saxon name,’ I suggested.
‘Like my husband did. I wanted to change it, but he wouldn’t, so I never used it. I preferred being Carol McArdle.’
‘It’s certainly snappier. Have you any children?’ I knew the answer, but let her tell me.
‘A son. He’s called Oscar, nearly twenty years old, studying electrical engineering. What else do you need to know?’
She needed to talk, so I encouraged her. I was an attentive audience. She’d done well, coming from a lowly background to be manager of a multimillion-pound organisation in the public’s eye, only to be facing embarrassment and disgrace because of her cheating lover. Her cheating lover who was dead and therefore nicely out of it. It was front-page stuff, and she needed it like Threadneedle had needed a hole in the … hmm, I let the thought hang there.
Oscar was the problem. He’d worshipped his motorcycle-riding, football-playing father, and turned against him when he left without so much as a goodbye. Now the reason for that leaving – his mother’s adultery – would be splashed across the tabloids for all to see, and she was fearful that she’d lose her son, too.
Her desk was nearly as untidy as mine. Two huge TFT monitors, wireless keyboard, obligatory photo frame, Pukka Pad and pen, two telephones and piles of correspondence and trade magazines that were poised to slide off the end. Another desk in a corner was equally piled high, awaiting the attention of a secretary who didn’t appear to exist. So much for starting with a clean sheet. She had, I noticed, fallen for the spiel of the executive chair salesman.
‘Where is your husband now?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know. He had links with a friend in Portugal. I suspect he’s working in a bar over there.’
‘What’s his first name?’
‘Barry.’
‘And Oscar has no contact with him?’
‘No.’
‘Can you be sure?’
‘Mmm, I don’t suppose so. If he has, he’s kept it secret from me.’
‘Does Oscar work here at all?’
‘Yes. He spent a lot of time with the electricians. Now he’s in the control room, ironing out the gremlins.’
‘Do you have many?’
‘A fair few.’
‘Tell me about Arthur. Did he ever talk about his enemies?’
‘No, not really.’
‘In other words, he did.’
‘Just, you know, how he’d pulled a fast one on somebody. I never listened. Found it all a bit boring.’
‘Any names come to mind?’
‘No. None.’
‘Did he ever talk about horse racing?’
‘A little. He liked to show off about that. And name-drop.’
‘What names?’
‘Any others?’
‘None that meant anything to me.’
I said: ‘What about pillow talk, Miss McArdle? He must have let slip some indiscretion when you were together in bed. What did he talk about?’
The colour returned to her cheeks. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘He liked to talk about, you know, what we were doing. That’s all.’
Now it was probably my turn to blush. ‘And afterwards?’ I said. It was Clint Eastwood who said that at his age there was a lot of afterwards.
‘He fell asleep.’
I went for a stroll around the mall, checking the positions of the exits and emergency exits. And the price of trainers and hiking gear. And CDs in the HMV shop. Dave and Maggie were in the food court, behind large lattes and doughnuts.
‘Anything from the PM?’ I asked, slipping into the plastic chair alongside Dave. Three girls who looked too young to have left school were manoeuvring three buggies alongside a nearby table. Maggie pulled a chair out of their way and the prettiest girl thanked her. The children all looked well fed and happy, pleased to meet their little friends in what appeared to be a daily ritual.
‘Morning, Chas,’ he said, pushing a plate towards me. ‘I saved you a doughnut,’ but I shook my head to decline it. ‘Right then,’ he went on, ‘the PM. Nothing to add to what we already know, I’m afraid. He was in good shape physically apart from some signs of liver damage. Traumatic gunshot wound … Wait for it …’ He pulled out his notebook and flicked it open. ‘Here we are … traumatic wound to posterior parietal bones in the location of the sagittal suture, if that means anything to you. Otherwise, shot in the back of the head. No other injuries, no exit wound. Partly dressed to go out, no sign of a struggle. Possibly taken by surprise, or restrained at gunpoint, or he knew his assailant. Radio was playing therefore may not have heard his assailant approach.’
‘What station?’
‘Radio Two.’
‘Just checking. Go on.’
‘Only item of interest is the bullet. It’s soft-nosed and therefore too distorted to be much use, but the prof weighed and measured it and reckons it could be a .32 calibre. Not one you come across every day.’
‘Hmm. I believe the target shooters use them. It’s not the chosen weapon of your average Yardie. Anything else?’
‘Nope.’
Maggie said: ‘Are you still going to East Yorkshire or is that line of enquiry abandoned?’
‘I want to pick Curzon’s brains,’ I told her. ‘He was a social contact, probably knows about his business dealings. I might find something out. Otherwise, yes, I think it’s a waste of time. What are you two on with?’
‘We’ve traced the route taken by the graffiti artist,’ Maggie told me. ‘Inside and out. Here, I’ve marked it on one of the store’s you-are-here diagrams.’ She slid it across the table and spun it round. ‘It looks as if he used this fire exit. We were wondering if there was any point in having forensics look at it.’
I was hoping the graffiti incident was dead and buried. Before I could pass judgement we were disturbed by the ‘Ride of the Valkyries’, with three-part harmonies.
Sparky dived into his pocket to pull out his mobile and pulled a face when he didn’t recognise the pathologist’s number. ‘Yes, he’s here with me. I’ll put him on.’ He passed it to me, saying: ‘It’s the professor.’
‘Hello, Professor,’ I said. ‘What can we do for you?’
‘How are you getting on with the hunt for Shergar, Charlie?’
I hesitated for a few seconds, then: ‘Now, who might have mentioned that to you, I wonder?’
‘Ha ha. Don’t be too hard on him, he’s a good lad. But it did set me thinking, so I rang Huntingdon to check with them and I was right. .32 calibre soft-nosed bullets are used in humane killers, as held by slaughtermen, some farmers and people in the horse racing business. Thought you ought to know.’
‘Don’t they use fixed-bolt guns?’ I asked.
‘Apparently not. Fixed bolt are just for stunning, prior to cutting the jugular. For humane killing the gun is modified to fire a single bullet. And as a matter of interest, when used at racecourses the Jockey Club rules require it to be fitted with a silencer. Don’t want the poor spectators upset every time a horse is put down, do we?’
‘No indeed. So our man could have horse racing connections.’
‘It’s a possibility.’
‘Thanks for that, Professor. You’ve just changed the direction of the enquiry.’
Dave and Maggie looked mystified. I handed him his phone and said: ‘As we were. The East Yorkshire mafia is back in the frame.’
Toby answered the door. ‘Charlie!’ she exclaimed and for a few worrying seconds I thought she was about to launch herself into my arms. ‘Daddy said you were coming so I’ve been looking out for you.’ She was wearing cut-down jeans and a T-shirt covered in paint splashes.
‘I drove as fast as I could,’ I said. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m fine. Did you drive here with your blue light flashing?’
‘My car doesn’t have a blue light. You look as if you’ve been painting.’
‘Only wallpaper. Don’t you have one that you can stick on the roof in an emergency, like they do on the television?’
‘No. They have lots of things on the television that we don’t have in real life.’
‘Daddy’s in his workshop. C’mon, I’ll take you.’
She led the way into the gloomy interior and I felt the temperature drop as we left the sunshine behind. No wonder they all died of consumption, I thought, and that made me think about Toby and her illness.
‘Is it true you beat up ten yobs at the hospital?’ she was saying.
‘An exaggeration,’ I replied. ‘There were only six of them.’
‘Cor! I wish I’d seen it.’
Up a servant-sized staircase, down a corridor lacking windows and carpet, through several doors and we were there. ‘Grizzly was impressed,’ Toby said as she turned the knob of the final door and bumped it with her hip. ‘She said there were bodies flying all over the place.’ The door was sticking and I noticed she was breathing heavily from the climb up the stairs, so I reached over her and leant against it until it gave way.
Curzon looked up from what he was doing as if we’d caught him working on some fiendish experiment, but the impression was soon dispelled when I saw the fruits of his labours, lining the walls of his workshop like some exercise in Lilliputian town planning.
‘Like ’em?’ he said, coming round his bench to shake my hand.
I slowly turned, taking them in. He made dolls’ houses. Most were three-storey town houses, Georgian style, with a smattering of country cottages and modern detached dwellings. There was even a corner shop with its fare spilling out onto the pavement, where a delivery boy’s bicycle leant against the kerb.
‘I’m amazed,’ I said. ‘Just amazed. They all look terrific.’ I stooped to look inside one, and saw a scene from an Edwardian childhood, where a comely woman in a white tunic was reading a bedtime story to a little girl while her parents, dressed to the nines, tiptoed furtively out of the front door to their waiting Rolls-Royce. ‘The detail’s incredible.’
‘We buy the figures in,’ Curzon confessed, ‘but we make everything else ourselves. They’re one-twenty-fourth scale.’
‘I do the wallpaper,’ Toby announced.
‘And a lot of the furniture,’ her father added. ‘She makes a mean Welsh dresser, don’t you, Pumpkin?’
It was a big room with a sloping ceiling, smelling of wood and glue and equipped with junior versions of every woodworking tool you could think of: bandsaw; jigsaw; circular saw; mitres and routers; planers and sanders; various jigs and templates; all neatly stored but easily reached. Toby showed me her desk in a corner with a high stool, where she painted sheets of lightweight acid-free paper with suitably reduced wallpaper designs from the period of the house her father was working on. An old-fashi
oned cast iron radiator, like the ones in my infant school, stood next to her workplace, but it obviously wasn’t on. An equally ancient pyrene fire extinguisher hung on the wall above it.
Curzon asked Toby if she’d mind leaving us alone, and as she left she said: ‘Will I see you before you go, Charlie?’
‘Toby, don’t be so impolite,’ Curzon told her.
I turned to him, saying: ‘How about a cuppa in the tea shop when we’ve finished?’ And when he agreed it was a good idea she scampered away.
‘Now, how can I help you, Charlie?’
‘Tell me about the dolls’ houses,’ I said. ‘Presumably you sell them.’
‘Two. I’ve sold two, but the grand opening of Curzon House Dolls’ Houses is in August at the village fete. We hold it on the car park. It all started when Ghislaine was small. We bought her one and when she outgrew it we consigned it to the attic. Toby wasn’t interested; she doesn’t do dolls. Two years ago I advertised it on eBay and the response was unbelievable. I can make them, I thought, and here we are.’
‘What’s that you’re making?’ I asked. ‘It doesn’t look very dollsy-housey.’
‘No, it’s not. It’s a small display unit to hold a collection of egg cups, for the main house. We do them for thimbles, too.’
I looked at him, puzzled, and he said: ‘Don’t ask.’
‘OK, I won’t, but good luck with it. Looks like a winner to me.’
‘They pay me for them, and every little helps. Believe it or not, bespoke egg cup racks are difficult to come by. I do it for Toby. She’s really involved with them. Do you have children, Charlie?’
‘No.’
‘You worry about them. Toby doesn’t enjoy good health, as you’ve probably noticed.’
‘Yes. She soon starts to puff. Is the atmosphere in here good for her?’
‘Not when the saw is in use, but that’s only now and then. If necessary she works in her bedroom. Today I’m assembling, so that’s OK.’
A Very Private Murder Page 10