by John Eider
The Sergeant and Inspector sat silently in the car on the Wheelwrights’ driveway. Not the brightest afternoon, Grey looked out at the darkening sky through the windscreen,
‘Another broken family then, another wife leaving her husband.’
‘And neither sounding like they had much choice in the matter.’ Cori paused before firing the ignition, adding, ‘You know, boss, these family histories are beginning to mingle in my mind. I’m having trouble keeping them apart.’
Grey felt it too: like ivy winding ‘round a tree trunk matters Night were becoming indistinguishable from matters Mars,
‘So, which one of us is going to say it first?’
Yet she was as reticent, ‘I fear once said it might he hard to un-say it; and if we’re wrong…’
‘Oh God, let’s just have it out in the open: our problem is that we need a bad man to play Maisie’s husband, and Patrick Mars steps too easily into that void.’
‘Then we can’t allow ourselves to think it, can we, sir.’ She was chastising herself as much as him. ‘We’ve no proof and it’s all too neat.’
‘Neat?’ he shot back in vexation. ‘It’s a tangled mess – even if Mars had a first marriage to Maisie, then where would we start?’
‘Then I suppose,’ she said as soothingly as possible, ‘that we draw a whole new family tree, and we start from scratch.’
He calmed down, ‘Well, at least until we have the name of Esther’s father then all this is supposition; though hopefully that’s what Catherine has just scooted off so quickly to look up for us. Meanwhile, we have the problem of just what Esther saw.’
Though as the pair changed focus, this new question offered no easier answers, Cori surmising,
‘If we believe that Esther really didn’t see the body or anything of the murder, then something else must have spooked her at the Cedars on Monday…’
‘…and enough for her to travel all the way to her mother’s without telling a soul.’
‘The “secret” she mentioned in the text message to her friend Stacie?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Then that’s interesting in itself, don’t you think, sir?’
‘Go on.’
‘Well I remember what I was like at that age. There’s things you tell your best mate that you wouldn’t ever tell your parents; let alone, I’d imagine, a parent you’re in the process of rebuilding your relationship with.’
‘So it’s something only her real mother would know?’
‘Maybe just a family member, as it sounds like Esther doesn’t have any others she could talk to. She had her best friend, her foster family, her social worker all here in town, yet she chose to tell the person she knew who lived furthest away.’
But it was Grey who spoke for both of them when he said,
‘Then it’s a shame we’re not going to find out what her “secret” was until tomorrow at the earliest – that’s if Catherine sees Esther fit for interview.’ And after what that girl had been through, neither of the detectives would have blamed Catherine for thinking not; but Cori couldn’t leave it there, despite her own earlier calls for caution,
‘You know sir, if the families are linked then it’s obvious what her “secret” was…”
Yet Grey merely placed his head back square against the headrest and faced forward, as if restraining himself from answering, as if saying to himself and so to them both that without the proof then this was a road along which he would go no further.
Back at the station things were also moving apace, Sarah greeting them before they were barely through the door:
‘Boss. The Super wants to see us all now you’re back.’
‘Okay, we’ll go up in a minute. What have you got for us?’
‘As you know, the DVLA have all his details,’ she reiterated: ‘Patrick Mars, forty-five, and resident at the address on Mansard Lane since registering with them in the Nineties – he’d gotten his licence in the forces, it looks like. Now, I got back to the teaching union: you remember they weren’t certain that the record of a Stella Mars at the Tudor Oak Independent School was Stella Dunbar under another name? Well, now we know that it is, they looked back further for us and corroborated that before then she did work at the Southney School under that name; as did Samuel Mars. The earliest records are at a different address though, so it looks like the couple moved to Mansard Lane some time in their marriage.’
‘So, Mars is still living at his parents’ house. He must have lived there almost his whole life; apart from the Navy, of course.’
Cori mused, ‘So, Stella could have tracked him down much more easily than he could her.’
‘What year did he register with the DVLA?’ asked Grey of Sarah.
‘Nineteen ninety-three.’
‘And he joined the Navy when he was seventeen, he told us, which would have been…’
‘He was born in Sixty-seven, so… Eighty-four.’
‘So he served for nine years. That’s about a military term, isn’t it? When did Stella inherit that flat?’
Cori went through her notebook, ‘Eighty-eight.’
‘Then how’s this for a hypothesis: Stella inherits her aunt’s flat: cosy, secluded, in the town she still loves and had long-fought for on the Council, which even after her not-very-pleasant sounding marriage breaks down she still can’t bear to go further away than to the outskirts of. Now she’ll have read in the paper years ago, might even have been contacted by the solicitors about, the death of her husband – she knows he’s out of the way. So, she risks a walk past the old house, just to check if anyone connected with her old life and the family Mars’ are there, and finds it shut up, unoccupied…’
‘…or even with another family renting, if he was away so long.’
‘That would have been even more reassuring. So she risks it after fourteen-odd years, moves back to the heart of town, to where she feels she belongs.’
Cori was doubtful, ‘Even after the damage she believed the Hills Estates had done to the place?’
‘Well, the way she’d later help Charlie would suggest she eventually found her way to get over that. Just think of it – if this is how it happened: she settles back into town confident her ghosts are not awaiting her; only for the son she assumed long gone moving back five years later to live mere minutes away, so close but never meeting for, what, nineteen years? Until the day he…’
‘Until the day we think he…’ corrected Cori.
‘Until the day we think he came to kill her.’
‘But boss, is it conceivable that they didn’t know each other were there?’
‘Absolutely. I’ve childhood friends I know still live in the area who I haven’t seen for decades.’
‘But that still doesn’t tell us how he found out, and why this week.’
Yet the question hung unanswered as another came to join them,
‘Grey.’
‘Glass. All well at the Mars house?’
‘My men have buzzed the place twice: quite a nice place, actually; lived in but empty at present.’
‘But keeping our distance?’
‘For now. Anyway, the Super’s called us all up when you arrived.’
The four trooped up the stairs to the office, knocking the closed door.
They found Superintendent Rose with another man sat around his side of the desk, smartly dressed and clearly a career bureaucrat.
‘Good, you’re all here,’ began Rose. ‘Now, this is Robert Grange of the UK Border Agency, Midlands and East Region.’ – Cue handshakes and introductions all ‘round. – ‘Now, before we get on to anything else happening today I need to tell you about what Robert and I have been talking about, as he’s come a way to speak to us today, and he needs to get back for his daughter’s birthday party. So, brevity please.’
Their boss continued, ‘Now, the first search our officers downstairs carried out on Lidia Mars revealed that there was no one of that exact name on the Electoral Register for the address on Mansard Lane that she appare
ntly shares with Patrick Mars, she appearing there instead as Ludmila Mars. So, on a hunch I contacted Immigration, and they were good enough to send Robert here.’
‘Thank you,’ the man took over the monologue. ‘Yes, well thankfully her arrival in the UK was pretty-well all above board, so there’s rather a lot I can tell you. Ludmila Sergeyevna Grechko came into Heathrow from Moscow via a connecting flight from Amsterdam four years ago on a tourist’s visa. Very naughty, especially if she’d already planned to wed here; which given that she and Patrick Mars married at Haringey Registry Office a week later, we suspect she did.’
‘Was this through an agency?’ asked Grey. ‘Russian brides?’
‘Why, do you want their number?’ chuckled Glass; himself married to a woman they saw once a year at the Christmas party, and with whom he had an en ever-increasing and indeterminate number of children. But Glass had misjudged his audience, and so a joke that might have gone down rather better amongst his more familiar milieu of Constables bored in the back of a riot van, here was received with only the most politest of embarrassed smiles from the women and a stern glare from his superior. Robert Grange, perhaps accepting this as common police behaviour, continued unfazed,
‘The suspicion that the match was brokered through a website is noted on the file. This is not illegal if both parties are happy with it; and we have no reason to think that Ludmila wasn’t very glad to get to Britain. It can be risky though for both sides, as you’ve no idea what the other person will really be like. It can also be a great sacrifice for her and very expensive for him. It also opens the man up to fraud, of course – Mars may have had his hands burnt a couple of times already before finding Ludmila through a reliable agency.’
‘Yet you say this one was all above board?’
‘Those engaging in such marriages undergo thorough checks for a number of months afterward, to make sure it is a real marriage and that the couple are living together as husband and wife, not marrying just to earn the recent émigré firstly what’s termed “leave to remain” and, eventually, full British citizenship – In these cases,’ he digressed, ‘then it’s the émigré who pays the existing resident, of course, not the other way around. Then there are also cases where women coming here ostensibly to start a married life disappear as soon as they think they can safely do so after the marriage, thus retaining what they earned of the money the man paid to bring them here, and, so they believe, having the legal right to stay. Though without yet earning “leave to remain” that may not be the case.’
‘But nothing dodgy in this case?’
‘Not at all.’ Grange went through his notes spread out on Rose’s desk beside his leather satchel, ‘Checks were made at Mansard Lane three months after the couple were married; that revealed that Lidia had already adopted an anglicised version of her name, socially if not legally, and seemed a natural in the role of wife and homemaker for Patrick. The fact that they are still together now suggests our agents’ assessment at the time was correct.’
But something in this man’s smooth talking of Ludmila’s new life narked Cori,
‘And Mr Grange, you consider this new life of hers a success, Ludmila leaving behind her family and her home and all she knew to instead assimilate the role of English housewife?’
‘We make no judgement on the choices people make, only that they act within the law.’
‘But such an arrangement militates against feminism.’ Cori shocked herself, not having even thought this way for years.
Robert Grange remained unruffled, ‘Mrs Mars is a free woman who has made choices…’
‘What, you think she has displayed any freedom here? You can say that, you who represent a government with an equal rights agenda?’
‘Watch out, men – Cornelia’s on a charge.’
‘Oh, shut up Glass.’ This was the Superintendent, though Cori might have said it herself a split-second later. Grey simply sat back, not believing what he was hearing, but always loving a veil drawn back on others’ lives.
Rose attempted conciliation, ‘You know how these things work, Cori: the men who find these agencies think British women are too outspoken, too free; while the agencies peddle the myth that these are simple farm girls they’re offering who’d make good traditional wives.
‘Now, maybe I’m not the best one to talk. You may know that Mrs Rose is Spanish, and who after we met in London never made any secret of her desire to stay at home after we married and dedicate herself to the family…’
Glad of the distraction, Grey only wished he hadn’t the case to occupy him and so could get home and get all this down in the diary. The conversation however soon refocused,
‘Anyway, this is precisely the kind of debate I wanted to avoid us getting into. Mr Grange has even more for us; if you’ll be so kind.’
‘Of course. Well, yes, you are lucky that the couple married over three years ago; as this has allowed Lidia… Ludmila the three years as spouse of a British citizen that she needed to apply for naturalisation as a British citizen herself; and hence gain voting rights, and so place herself on the Electoral Register, where you found her real name. However, as the Superintendent hinted, during our discussions we discovered another fact that could be of use to you:
‘The file we have on our system for Ludmila Sergeyevna Grechko links to that of another recent entrant to the country, an Eleonora Aleksandrovna Grechko.’
‘A relative? Sister, mother?’ Grey was having quite enough of family trees by now.
‘Not a sister, as she has a different patronymic: Eleonora’s father was Aleksandr, not Sergey.’
‘So Eleonora is Ludmila’s mother?’
‘More likely. But that’s just it: the case is being dealt with in Whitehall right now, this week in fact.’
‘So that’s where she’s been in London today…’ realised Sarah as she wrote all this down.
‘…while Mars let us form the opinion she was out shopping on Oxford Street,’ concluded Grey with a certain grim admiration.
‘Anyway, Eleonora came to visit the family ten months ago, travelling on a three months tourist visa… After discovering her still here, we’d have offered her invitation to return, which she’s evidently appealing. I expect, when I’ve had a chance to speak to someone at the London office, that it will turn out that the grounds for requesting an extension of leave for Eleonora are compassionate: that she’s missed her beloved daughter these recent years, perhaps that she wants leave to stay permanently.’
‘Will she get it?’
‘I don’t know. Now the case must be a complex one, as it’s been going on since Monday – there was even a note here of it being referred to the Russian Embassy in London.’
‘Which all means?’ asked Grey.
‘Which all means,’ explained Rose, ‘that if Ludmila has been in London attending her mother’s hearings, then there’d be no reason to go there just today.’
‘She’d have been there all week?’
‘And unless Ludmila is commuting to and from London every morning and night…’
‘…then she hasn’t been home to give Mars his alibi these past two nights.’
‘That seems to be the crux of it,’ concluded their visitor. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I do have things to be getting back for.’
‘Of course.’ Rose thanked the man from the ministry. ‘I’ll call for someone to take you back to reception.’
‘It’s all right, I’ll go,’ announced Cori, jumping up to escort him.
‘You didn’t have to show me to the door,’ said Robert Grange in a clever way that left Cori with the firm impression that he was still glad she had done.
‘I wanted to say sorry for how I spoke back there,’ she said once out of others’ earshot. ‘Very unprofessional. I don’t think I’ve spoken that way since university.’
He stopped her by the security doors, ‘If it’s any consolation, I feel just the same. I’m here representing the Agency, I can’t voice my own opinions.’
‘Of course.’
‘For what it’s worth, what your Superintendent said was true about the myth of the Ukrainian peasant farmgirl. Many are from slums and old industrial towns where unemployment is through the roof. If not by this way, then they may only turn to gangsters to help get them out, and then end up smuggled into nightclubs and brothels in Paris or Amsterdam.’
‘Ludmila’s one of the lucky ones then.’
‘Certainly not the worst off. So, what was your degree?’
‘Huh? History and Sociology.’
‘You know, you’d fit right in at our place. Our Policy Unit would have you like a shot.’
Grey waited at the door to Rose’s office as she came back upstairs,
‘All made up?’
‘Better – I think I’ve just been offered a job. Don’t worry,’ she said in response to his look of horror, ‘I’m in no hurry to take it… though it’s always nice to be asked.’
Back in the room there was much brooding, their visitor gone and so the staff now free to show their true feelings. Inspector Glass was already reflecting the discussion through his pragmatic lens,
‘So Patrick Mars has been home alone all week, with time and space to brood, free as a bird to come and go from his house at all hours.’
‘It’s more than that,’ thundered Superintendent Rose, who hated dishonesty above all other things, ‘it means we have a recorded lie of his on tape. What’s more, he obviously intended to get his wife to lie to us too.’
‘But that’s not all bad, sir,’
‘Go on, Grey.’
‘It also means he hoped to get to her before we did.’
‘To feed her his alibi… so she’s not coming back on a late train this evening, and might in fact already be here. Glass, have your men on the street look out for Ludmila Mars returning home and pluck her off the pavement before Mars knows she’s back.’
‘It might be better if we knew how she was arriving, sir; then we could catch her before there’s any risk of him seeing a commotion in his own street.’
‘I’d say our best bet’s the train,’ thought Cori, struggling to remember if anything had been said in the Mars interview.
Rose had the same thought, ‘Check the tape, would you? Does she drive? Sarah, check DVLA now. Where did that photo go?’ Rose looked through the copies of what documents Robert Grange had been able to leave them, searching for the colour reproduction of her photograph held on file.
‘Here it is – now would you look at that – have it blown up and a copy passed to every officer we have out there. Meanwhile, Glass, let’s get a car at each end of Mansard Lane, stopping any young woman until we get them the photo.’
The group dispersed to attend to their allotted tasks, each knowing that at any moment a company owner like Mars could choose to knock off work and be coming home.
The photograph of Ludmila Sergeyevna would have stood out as a magazine cover, let alone a passport photo – pale skin, blonde hair, willowy looks; and at five foot ten (as the file advised them she was) then Grey hoped easily distracting of the attention of the men amongst the officers Glass had positioned in the vicinity of her house. But it was those sent to the town’s train station – and not a moment too soon – who almost managed to miss her. Arriving to cover all exits, two carsful of them spotted her walking from the platform of the just arrived four-fifteen from London, beside her a grateful porter carrying her cases.
‘Lidia Mars?’
‘Yes.’
‘Mrs Mars, I’m Inspector Rase of Southney Police.’
‘I am a citizen here. I have papers…’ She displayed the sudden panic of one used to more robust state apparatus. Grey stopped her as she went for her ‘papers’ evidently held at all times in her leather shoulderbag,
‘You’re in no trouble yourself, please be assured of that; but if you could spare a few minutes to talk to us… I can see you’re desperate to get home.’
‘Is this another immigration raid, like you carried out on my mother?’
‘We’re not immigration, we’re the police.’
And then something in her clicked, ‘It’s Patrick, isn’t it. What’s he done?’ she asked with barely an accent. ‘He’s finally done something, hasn’t he?’
‘It would be better if we spoke in private.’
‘It’s that company of his. They’ve finally killed someone.’
‘If you’ll come this way.’
No sooner were they back in Cori’s car, Glass in front, Grey in the back beside their passenger, than she was talking again,
‘I am a good wife, an honest wife. All is above board with us.’
‘There is no doubt of that, no doubt at all.’
‘I obey the law in England, so none of this is to do with me. It’s Patrick, isn’t it?’ she asked again, Grey seeing no use in denying it.
‘Has he done something very bad?’
Again, little point in answering.
But she was canny, ‘There wouldn’t be all of you policemen if it wasn’t something bad.’ She could see the squad car, full of what uniformed officers had been available, behind them. ‘I have the right to stay in this country.’
‘That isn’t in our power to take from you. We’re police officers,’ again Grey attempted to reassure her.
‘Then I want protection from him, so he can never get to me; then I’ll tell you everything you want to know. I can tell you what he’s like, what he talks about, how he treats me like you wouldn’t believe any Englishman would treat his wife…’
‘Mrs Mars, we can’t talk here, we need you on tape.’ Grey tried hopelessly to stem the flow.
‘He wouldn’t even let me have my mother stay – he called the immigration people, I know it. It was him who told them her visa had expired…’
Thankfully the journey between stations was a short one, the need for cars little more than necessary affectation, and they were soon disgorged, the lady being processed in reception before being taken to the interview room.
‘A beautiful woman,’ remarked Inspector Glass while waiting in the corridor.
‘Well she would be, would she,’ observed Cori without emotion. ‘Mars wouldn’t have paid all that money to fetch her into Britain if she weren’t.’
They didn’t yet know how much he had paid to ‘fetch her over’, but the point still held for Glass, who said,
‘No need to be jealous though, Sergeant. I’m sure he’d have paid just as much to bring you over, had you come from the same village in the Urals.’
‘That’s very reassuring, thank you,’ she answered so blankly that he didn’t even get the sarcasm.
‘Enough banter, what’s happening?’ The Superintendent had had calls to make and was eager for news.
Glass was still buzzing from his operation’s success,
‘Sir, she’s about ready to finger him for the murder of Sir Thomas More, the sinking of the Lusitania and the St Valentine’s Day Massacre.’
Rose turned to the Sergeant for more sense,
‘She says she’ll tell us “everything you want to know” in return for us keeping her away from him.’
‘And what’s that then?’
‘Not sure yet, though we will do in half an hour.’
‘Right then, Glass, get out to your men in the field. We need to stay close to this fellow – we don’t know what he’ll do when he realises his wife isn’t coming back this afternoon…’
‘If he sees us he’ll be onto us in a flash,’ he said, leaving.
‘We’ll have to tell Mars she’s here sooner or later,’ reminded Cori, ‘if only as he’s expecting us to call her to confirm his alibi.’
‘How are we going to play this?’ the Super asked rhetorically as he headed to the viewing room. ‘We have an hour or two yet,’ he answered himself. ‘Let’s hear what the lady says.’
Chapter 17 – Ludmila Mars