by John Eider
The Inspector passed through the doors to where the man was talking with the Desk Sergeant in reception, his frame imposing the room. Grey never had a worry of losing initiative in situations, of allowing others to dominate or gain any upper hand. Naturally taciturn when tense, and quite happy to let another talk till they were dry, he knew – simply knew, there was no psychological training behind it – that his personality was strong enough to bear any influence and still be as diamond-tough the moment he had chance to speak himself. And so he had no concern that it was the man who introduced himself, who put his hand out to shake, though on the Inspector’s patch.
‘Patrick Mars.’
‘Inspector Rase. Mr Mars, you have our deepest sympathy.’
‘So you know, I’m the son of Stella Mars.’
‘Dunbar,’ corrected Grey as neutrally as possible.
‘That was her maiden name.’
‘She divorced your father, I believe.’
‘He divorced her.’
‘Why don’t we move this to one of the interview rooms.’
‘Oh, I’m not here to be interviewed.’
‘I only mean as a witness to your mother’s life. Unless an appointment later is more convenient?’
He threw open his hands in a gesture of unavoidable contrition, ‘I knew you’d want to talk to me. That’s why I came.’
‘Sergeant, could you show Mr Mars to the most comfortable room and fetch him a drink. There are procedures to follow, I’ll be with you in just a few minutes.’
As the Desk Sergeant led Patrick Mars off and away through the security doors and into the inner sanctum of the police station, from the now vacated reception, Grey checked himself and his reactions: quickened breathing, clattering heart-rate, clammy hands, his shirt damp with fresh perspiration beneath his suit jacket. He found his phone and pressed the buttons to get it calling.
‘East Anglia?’ the Sergeant was asking Tim Hart in the library.
‘Sorry?’
‘The University of East Anglia, you said. You’re a long way from home.’
‘Well, so was Charles Quale, the founder of the first telegraph office in Norwich, when he arrived there after leaving these parts.’
‘So that’s who you’re looking up?’
But any hope at further conversation was interrupted by her phone’s urgent ringing. Without a librarian nearby, she risked answering it there and then, though speaking extra-quietly,
‘Sir?’
‘Cori? You still at the library?’
‘Yes, looking up Council records.’
‘Forget it, get here in five minutes.’
‘Right oh.’
Tim Hart saw her new expression,
‘Bad news?’
‘No, but I do have to leave this, just as I was getting started.’
He considered, then offered, ‘Look, I’m pretty much done here for today. Give me your names and dates and I’ll drop something in for you later.’
Pausing only to scribble the names and thank him, Cori left to meet the Inspector at the station.
“The most comfortable room” found for Patrick Mars by the Desk Sergeant was in fact the interview room with the mirrored one-way glass wall, which by the time the Inspector had freshened up and arrived at the viewing area the other side of that wall, found its occupants already comprised the Superintendent as well as what must have been most of the staff not at that moment unavoidably employed around the station.
Sergeant Smith appeared right behind him,
‘Sir?’
He led her back to the corridor and to the window inset within the door to the interview room proper,
‘Patrick Mars, Stella’s son.’
‘Why’s he come?’
‘Lord knows. Sarah already had his name, we were seconds from calling him.’
Inspector Glass, the head of Southney station’s uniformed division, was also there, whispering in his counterpart’s ear,
‘Is that Patrick Mars?’
‘Yes, you know him?’
‘In a sense – he runs a private security firm we’ve run up against from time to time.’
‘I knew I’d heard the name.’
‘Mars Protection; basically a lot of ex-police and soldiers hired by anyone who wants no niceties involved in removing unwanted persons from their property.’
‘Ex-soldiers… So has he served himself?’
‘No idea, but if you’re asking if he’s violent, then, to mangle the Good Book, through a man’s business practices shall we know he.’
Grey was quite impressed with this. The Superintendent came out of the secret room to stand beside them,
‘You good for this, Grey?’
‘If I’m not then it’s a bit late to find out.’
‘What’s your angle going to be?’
‘A friendly chat, thank him for coming. After all, what more does he think we know yet?’
Not wanting to make the man suspicious, the officers took no longer over preparations than necessary before casually bursting into the interview room the moment after drinks had been delivered. For similar reasons no extra officers were posted in the room, or in the corridor within view from the window in the door. As they entered Grey and Cori each took in the man sat before them: Grey noting his bulk and looking for evil in his eyes; Cori that his dirty nails were incongruous with his general appearance. A devil to get out, she remembered, he had evidently been in the garden before smartening the rest of himself up to come here.
Grey began,
‘Mr Mars, this is Sergeant Smith. Thank you for waiting. I see they’ve got you a drink. We’ll be recording our talk for the file, it’s standard procedure.’
‘I hope this won’t take any longer than necessary? I am a very busy man.’
‘Indeed. You run a security company, I believe?’
The man again seemed mildly surprised at what they already knew about him, Grey not wanting to let on just how they were winging this,
‘Rest assured that we’ll try and get through this as quickly as possible, brevity being the soul of wit and all that. So, perhaps you could begin by giving your reasons for coming to see us today.’
‘Thank you. Yes, well how simply can I put it for you? I saw the news announced of the murder of my mother in this morning’s paper.’
‘It must have been a terrible shock for you,’ asked Cori.
‘Is that a statement or a question? Of course it was a shock, a terrible shock.’
‘When had you last been in touch?’
‘When she left my father.’
‘Which was?’
‘When I was seven years old.’
‘Tell us about that,’ charged Grey.
‘Well, what’s there to tell? My parents split up and I lived with my father.’
‘You didn’t see her at all though?’
‘She chose to have nothing more to do with us. I was bought up by a father that loved me, rather than two parents who argued terribly toward the end.’
‘You didn’t miss a mother’s love?’
‘I was bought up by a better parent than any child has any right to expect.’
‘Is your father still alive?’
‘No, he died when I was seventeen.’
‘Do you have any brothers or sisters?’
‘No, an only child.’
‘We’re you alone at home after he died?’
‘No, I’d joined the Navy Cadets by that time.’
‘Did you later serve?’
‘Nine years, Logistics Branch.’
‘At sea?’
‘Mostly, yes.’
‘So, coming back to the present day, did you know that your mother lived in town?’
‘No, not before this morning.’
‘And how did you feel on finding out?’
‘It was almost as much of a shock as learning that she had died.’
‘You really had no idea she was here?’
‘No.’
‘So, back
at the time of the divorce it was clearly known to you that she had moved away?’
‘Yes, she wasn’t in town then, she never visited. As I say, she wanted no more to do with us.’
‘How did you get on with your mother when you were younger?’
‘You’ll appreciate I have very few memories of her, and those I do have are hazy.’
‘Pleasant memories?’ asked Grey, for he thought he had just detected the slightest smile at the corners of the man’s mouth; but this impression was short-lived,
‘Even those memories that were pleasant are rendered at best bitter-sweet by what happened next.’
‘Which was?’
‘Well, her abandonment! How many times, Inspector..?’
‘I’m sorry, but I need to know the details of the divorce: what happened and to whom.’
‘It is all contained in the papers, which I have seen.’
‘You looked them up?’
‘My father kept his own copies, and showed them to me when I was old enough to understand them.’
‘And how old was that?’
‘Fifteen, sixteen – quite old enough to need to know what had happened.’
‘Even so, a document like that’s a lot for even a teenager to take in, with a lot of long-winded legal language and terminology.’
‘I only had to understand one part of it, Inspector, the part where it gave the reasons for the action.’
‘Which were?’
‘Abandonment: abandonment of my father by my mother; and by extension, abandonment of me.’
‘Mr Mars, I appreciate how difficult this must be for you to have to answer our questions. It is only the importance of the matter than compels us to continue asking them.’
The Inspector leant back slowly in his chair, the Sergeant taking over. She looked to the printout that Sarah had passed her as they went in, of what she had that minute been able to find out from the DVLA,
‘You live in town, Mr Mars?’
‘Yes.’
‘Mansard Lane, it says here. Just off the Stafford Road, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Not half an hour’s walk from your mother’s last home,’ remarked Cori.
He looked dumbfounded, ‘I honestly didn’t know that. She must have moved back there only a few years ago, I’m guessing.’
‘She’d been at the Cedars twenty-four years.’
‘Well then, I’ll be damned.’
Grey leaned back in over the table, ‘There are some final and not very nice questions we do need to ask.’
‘Go on.’
‘If you could confirm where you were late Monday evening/early Tuesday morning, and again in the early hours of this morning.’
‘Very easily: I was at home both evenings, asleep by that time probably.’
‘Can anyone confirm this,’ asked Cori, ‘just for the record?’
‘My wife, Lidia. Though she’s in London for the day – she’ll be back this evening.’
‘Oh, and how long have you been married?’
‘Coming up to four years.’
‘And do you have any children?’
‘Lidia and I have no children.’
‘And she’s back this evening, you say?’
‘Yes.’
Cori took a punt, ‘And you didn’t fancy joining her?’
‘Sorry?’
‘It’s a nice day out, in London: parks, sightseeing, shopping.’
‘Alas, work keeps me here. I’ve a pile of contracts to go through this afternoon.’
‘Well, if you could leave your address and both of your contact details at the desk as you leave, and we’ll be in touch with her.’
‘One last question, if I may be permitted,’ requested Grey. ‘What was the very last time you saw your mother?’
‘One evening at home, she’d put me to bed and they were downstairs arguing – I can hear her voice now: so angry, so shrill.’
‘What were they arguing about?’
‘If I knew the words then I don’t remember them now.’
‘Sorry, go on.’
‘The next morning she wasn’t there to walk to school with me – she worked next door, you see – so I went alone. That evening she wasn’t there to pick me up.’
‘Did you cry, at the gates that afternoon?’
‘Yes. How did you..?’
‘Just a guess.’ Grey didn’t let on that it had been Campbell Leigh who told of rumours of tears at the school gates. ‘Well, thank you for coming in, we do appreciate it. There may be other questions we need to ask you, so please stay by the phone.’
‘Thank you, Inspector, Sergeant.’
‘Oh, and sorry Mr Mars,’ remembered Grey as all rose. ‘Just one final, final question: as a child did you ever know a Council colleague of your mother’s called Charlie Prove?’
Chapter 13 – Policy Making