Married Lies (Reissue)

by Chris Collett

  * * *

  Now Millie was back in the office, struggling to concentrate on what the young and eager IT technician, Max, was telling her about Lucy and Will’s computer. She was distracted too by the array of studs in his ears and the elaborate sculpture of his jet-black hair. It must take him longer to get ready in the morning than it takes me, she was thinking.

  ‘There’s a lot of music on there, which I guess you’d expect,’ Max was saying. ‘The guy’s into some pretty obscure stuff; bands I’ve never come across.’

  ‘He plays in a folk-rock band,’ Millie enlightened him.

  ‘Right,’ Max nodded, understanding. ‘That explains it. And someone’s visited a few porn sites, but nothing hard core and there’s nothing that’s been deliberately downloaded. This is a summary of the other sites that have been visited.’

  As he said, there seemed nothing to arouse suspicion.

  ‘The only other thing is the emails,’ Max was saying.

  ‘Is there a way of working out who sent them?’ Millie asked.

  ‘We can trace them back as far as the IP but—’

  ‘IP?’ Millie queried.

  ‘Internet provider,’ Max helped her out. ‘After that it’s down to them. They have agreed to help, but they’ll have thousands of records to go through, so we’re going to have to be patient. It could take several days. If it’s any help we’ve run an analysis of the dates and times,’ he paused to pass Millie a further sheet of data, ‘and as you can see, most of them have been sent in the late evening, for some reason a lot of them on a Wednesday.’

  Millie was studying the list of sites again. ‘Someone has a big interest in Huntington,’ she said. ‘Isn’t that a place near Cambridge?’

  ‘John Major’s constituency, for what it’s worth,’ Max added. ‘Maybe the band played a gig there or is due to.’ It seemed a reasonable explanation.

  * * *

  Before driving back to Granville Lane, Mariner sat in his car and put through a call to the address in Billy Hughes’ file. Unsurprisingly, Billy Hughes’ parents no longer lived at the house in Rubery, but helpfully the woman who inhabited it now had bought it from them when they moved away from Birmingham to the south coast six years ago.

  ‘The daughter still lives around here,’ she said. ‘We had her address so that we could drop round any post.’

  ‘Do you happen to still have it?’

  It was asking a lot, but she did remember that it was somewhere on Rea River Drive. Mariner phoned Tony Knox. ‘It’s your lucky day,’ he said. ‘You’re going on a little outing. See if you can pinpoint the exact address of a Tracey Hughes, Rea River Drive, and I’ll pick you up in the car park in half an hour.’

  Tracey Hughes located, they were driving away from Granville Lane towards Kingsmead. On the way Mariner filled Knox in with what he’d found out.

  ‘So the gaffer was all set to testify against a CID colleague?’ Knox said, unable to keep the disapproval from his voice.

  ‘What other choice did he have?’ said Mariner. ‘All he was going to do was stand up and tell the truth. And all this time on, it’s still on his conscience. He still partly blames himself for Silvero’s death, I could tell.’

  Tracey Hughes’ house was a typical, boxy eighties detached, so narrow that it really should have been a semi — all Georgian windows and tiny rooms. The front door was uPVC with an extravagant brass knocker. Mariner rang the bell. ‘Tracey Hughes?’ he asked the thirty-something young woman, with spiky blonde hair, who came to the door.

  ‘What do you want?’ she asked in response to Mariner’s warrant card, but the tone was wary rather than hostile.

  ‘Just to ask you a few questions,’ said Mariner.

  ‘Is it about that copper’s wife?’

  So she kept up with the news. ‘Yes, it is. Can we come in?’

  It wasn’t exactly a gracious welcome, but she showed them into a lounge where another young woman was overseeing a gaggle of pre-teen children.

  ‘It’s the police,’ Hughes said. ‘Can you take the kids outside for a bit, Shel?’

  Shel regarded the two men with an added layer of suspicion. ‘Sure. Is everything all right?’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Hughes reassured her. Politeness compelled her to invite them to sit, although Mariner sensed that she would have preferred them not to contaminate the beige leather sofa. ‘You know about Mrs Silvero then?’ Mariner said.

  ‘Couldn’t really miss it, could I?’ she said. ‘The name’s engraved on my brain.’

  ‘How did you feel when you heard?’

  ‘I just thought it’s a shame, like you do when you hear about anything like that.’ Reaching for a pack of cigarettes she lit one, blowing smoke away from the two men and towards the window.

  ‘There wasn’t part of you that thought “I’m glad she’s dead?”’ pressed Mariner.

  She had no difficulty meeting his gaze. ‘No. I might have thought that when her old man died. It was him was responsible for our Billy, and he went before justice could be done, but that wasn’t her fault. None of it was her fault. So I just felt sorry for her. It sounded nasty.’ There was little warmth to her sympathy.

  ‘What about the rest of your family?’ asked Mariner. ‘Have you seen your mum and dad lately?’

  ‘Yesterday afternoon, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘They’re back in Birmingham?’ Mariner was surprised, though of course he should have realised.

  ‘They always come back up here this time of year; they like to go to our Billy’s grave.’

  ‘For the anniversary.’

  ‘There’s no crime in that.’ She reminded him. ‘It’s all they’ve got left.’

  ‘How long are they staying?’ Mariner asked.

  ‘About ten days. They came up a week Saturday, go back the day after tomorrow.’

  ‘Quite a long visit then,’ Mariner noted.

  ‘They’ve got a lot of friends and family up here still,’ replied Hughes.

  ‘And where are they staying?’

  ‘With Auntie June, Mum’s sister. They always stay there.’ She recited the address and Knox wrote it down.

  ‘Have you ever been round to Nina Silvero’s house?’ Mariner asked.

  ‘Till I saw it in the papers I hadn’t got a clue where she lived.’ The response was smooth, as if she’d rehearsed it.

  A small child came running into the room. ‘Mum, Mum, can I have a lolly? Shel said we can have lollies!’

  ‘Are we finished?’ Tracey asked, absently stroking the child’s head.

  Mariner got up to go, and Knox followed suit. ‘Out of interest,’ Mariner added. ‘Where were you last Sunday evening, between seven thirty and midnight?’

  ‘We all went out for dinner; about twenty of us, to the Harvester by Hopwood.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Mariner. ‘We can see ourselves out.’

  * * *

  Back in the car Knox was having doubts. ‘It doesn’t make sense, boss,’ he said. ‘Surely the last person Nina Silvero would let into her house is a member of the Hughes family.’

  ‘Unless they persuaded her that they wanted to bury the hatchet,’ Mariner said. ‘After all, she’d suffered a loss too, and as Tracey said, what her husband might or might not have done wasn’t down to her. A twenty-year anniversary is a significant one. Maybe somehow they persuaded Nina Silvero that they wanted to put it all behind them. Nina might have even seen it as an opportunity to clear her late husband’s name. It might explain why they didn’t get any further than the kitchen, too. She could have been uneasy about the approach but not wanting to be impolite?’

  ‘But why now?’

  ‘Like I said, the anniversary for one thing, and perhaps someone in the family saw the announcement in the paper; Nina Silvero getting her MBE. It probably didn’t seem much like justice to them.’

  ‘Tracey Hughes doesn’t seem to bear any grudges,’ Knox pointed out.

  ‘She’d hardly let it show it in front of us,’ Marine
r countered. ‘And she’s not the only member of the family, is she?’

  The address Tracey Hughes had given them was for a house in West Heath, just a mile away, but when Mariner and Knox arrived there was no one there.

  ‘We’ll come back later,’ Mariner said. ‘We’ve got a couple of days.’

  * * *

  After Max had gone Millie sat quietly, glad of a few minutes to rest her aching eyes, when her phone rang.

  It was a woman’s voice. ‘Hello, I don’t know if you’ll remember, but you came to talk to me the other day. I do some cleaning on the Manor Farm estate.’

  The silver Honda driver. ‘Yes, of course,’ Millie said. ‘You’ve got a vacancy?’

  The woman laughed. ‘No, sorry, love. It’s not that. It’s probably nothing at all but, the person at number nineteen getting these calls; her name wouldn’t be Lucy, would it?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’ Millie sat straighter in her chair.

  ‘When I parked my car as usual this morning at the top of Hill Crest I had one of those déjà-vu moments that you get and remembered a man who came up to me when I was there a couple of weeks ago. He wanted to know where Lucy somebody lived. He seemed put out that I couldn’t tell him. It may be nothing of course, and I’m sorry I didn’t think of it before, but I thought I ought to let you know.’

  Millie fought to suppress her excitement. ‘You’ve done the right thing . . .’

  ‘Pam.’

  ‘Pam. Thanks. Do you remember what this man looked like?’

  ‘Well, that’s the thing,’ Pam said. ‘It’s why I should have thought of him before. He wasn’t at all the sort of man you would generally see around here.’

  ‘In what way?’ Millie asked.

  ‘Well, he was a big man — tall, I mean — not fat, and he was unshaven and quite scruffily dressed, one of those shirts without a collar. And his jacket, it was like a suit jacket, but a bit threadbare and not too clean. My first thought was that he was . . .’

  ‘What?’ Millie prompted gently.

  ‘Well, I was going to say “gypsy” but that’s not PC is it? What’s the word we’re supposed to use now?’

  ‘A traveller?’ Millie offered. Or perhaps a man who travels a lot?

  ‘That’s right, a traveller. And he had some kind of brogue — Irish, I think.’

  Millie’s heart did a somersault. Most of the Leigh Hawkins Band were Irish, including, presumably their roadies. She cast her mind back trying to remember anyone who might fit that description. There had been a couple of men tinkering about on stage before the show started, but neither had struck her as being particularly tall. ‘How sure can you be about that?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, I’m not very good at accents,’ Pam admitted. ‘But he sounded like my cousin, Martha’s husband, Bill.’

  ‘Did you feel threatened by him?’

  ‘Oh no, he was perfectly polite, although I suppose I did feel slightly intimidated, mostly because of his size, and because he looked a bit, you know, rough around the edges.’

  ‘And how long ago was this?’ Millie asked.

  Pam thought for a moment. ‘A couple of weeks, maybe three.’

  ‘Can you remember the exact day or the time?’

  She paused, considering further. ‘It must have been a Thursday morning because I was just about to go into Mr Carver’s house, and it would have been at about nine thirty.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Millie. ‘That’s been really helpful.’

  So was someone doing Will’s dirty work for him?

  * * *

  Lucy Jarrett would be at work. Millie tried phoning but the line was permanently engaged, so she drove straight back to the health centre. This couldn’t wait.

  Lucy and Paula were both in the office. Nodding a greeting to Paula, Millie went over to Lucy’s desk. She looked terrible, pale with dark circles under her eyes.

  ‘Hi,’ said Millie. ‘Good night last night.’

  Lucy gave a wan smile. ‘It was, but I’m paying the price today.’

  ‘Bad head?’ Millie queried.

  ‘Not just that,’ Lucy lowered her voice so that Paula wouldn’t hear. ‘I haven’t stopped throwing up all morning.’

  ‘Maybe you should have stayed at home,’ Millie said, sympathetically.

  ‘For a hangover? I couldn’t do that. I’ll be okay. What are you doing here?’

  ‘The other day, when I was leaving your house, I bumped into the woman who cleans for some of your neighbours,’ Millie told her.

  ‘A cleaner? Really?’ Lucy brightened. ‘That sounds like a great idea, I wonder if she’d do our house too?’

  Millie shook her head. ‘Don’t get your hopes up. She told me she’s full.’

  ‘Shame. That’s the other drawback to having such a ridiculously big house. Sorry, you were saying?’

  ‘This woman called me back this morning because two or three weeks ago, she was approached by a tall, scruffy Irishman, who was asking where you live. Have you any idea who he might be?’

  Lucy wrinkled her nose. ‘The only Irish people I know are Leigh and the guys in the band. Could it have been one of them?’

  ‘The description doesn’t fit Leigh,’ said Millie. ‘This guy was big with short, dark hair. Is there anyone who fits that description; one of the roadies perhaps?’

  Lucy shook her head slowly. ‘Of course they come and go, so I might not necessarily know, but the only ones I know are Dec and Rod and neither of them has short dark hair. They’re both pretty average height, too.’

  ‘This man looked scruffy too, like a traveller. There’s no one else you can think of like that?’

  They were speaking at normal conversational volume now and Paula Kirkwood must have heard from across the office. ‘What about Michael Kerrigan?’ she said to Lucy. ‘Didn’t you say he gave you a hard time about the social worker?’

  ‘Oh God, Kerrigan, yes, of course!’ Lucy seized on the idea enthusiastically. So much easier to contemplate than that her husband or one of his friends might be behind all this.

  ‘Tell me about him,’ said Millie.

  ‘He was waiting for me in the car park one evening a couple of weeks ago. He started yelling at me, shouting abuse, but that was all.’ After her initial fervour, doubts were creeping in. ‘But he’s all bluster, and he’d been drinking. I’m sure he wouldn’t . . .’

  ‘If he was waiting for you in the car park he could have watched you get into your car. He could also have followed you, at least as far as the estate. Why was he waiting for you?’

  ‘To give me a piece of his mind, mostly,’ Lucy said. ‘Part of my job is to go into homes where there’s a newborn, to make sure that the baby is being cared for and to see if any further support is needed. The Kerrigan family are settled travellers; they’re on my caseload.’

  ‘What was Mr Kerrigan so unhappy about?’ asked Millie.

  ‘When I did the home visit, I had concerns about his wife,’ said Lucy. ‘She was very low; I thought she might have postnatal depression. I got the impression that money is a bit tight and there are some issues with the older children attending school, so all in all it seemed a good idea to make a referral to social services. It didn’t go down very well with Michael.’

  ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘I suppose I did the home visit about a month ago and would have made the referral straight after that.’

  ‘So it would be around the same time as the phone calls started?’ Millie said, piecing it together.

  ‘I couldn’t be sure, but yes, I suppose it was about then.’ Lucy was warming to the idea again.

  ‘How would Kerrigan have got your personal phone number?’ Millie wondered. ‘You’re not listed in the phone book.’

  Lucy flushed. ‘I gave it to his wife,’ she confessed.

  Paula couldn’t restrain herself. ‘Lucy!’

  ‘Isn’t that against your professional code or something?’ Millie hazarded.

  ‘It was stupid, I know, bu
t I was worried about Mrs Kerrigan. I wanted to give her every opportunity to contact someone if she needed to. I thought it was possible that the relationship might be abusive. Michael came in while we were talking and she seemed afraid of him.’

  ‘Where do they live?’ Millie asked. ‘I need to go and talk to Mr Kerrigan.’

  Lucy gave her the address. ‘Ought I to come with you?’

  ‘No, that’s fine,’ Millie was resolute. ‘You can leave this one to me.’

  * * *

  But once out in her car again, Millie was torn by indecision. What she wanted more than anything was to solve this case herself and be able to deliver a result to DI Mariner that she’d achieved all on her own. But she was also a realist. If Kerrigan was a traveller, albeit a settled one, then chances were he’d be more forthcoming speaking to a man. And if Lucy suspected him of being abusive towards his wife, then there was a chance he could become aggressive towards Millie, too. Recalling Mariner’s advice, she recognised this as one of those occasions when she might potentially be getting out of her depth. First though, she drove back to Granville Lane to find out whether Michael Kerrigan had a history. He did. The convictions were mainly for petty theft and burglary, but he had also got himself into some scraps — a couple of assaults that were basically drunken brawls outside various local hostelries. But no arrests for some years.

  Mariner himself was out with Tony Knox but luckily Charlie Glover was available, and what’s more he already knew the Kerrigan family, so would be able to smooth the way. And as far as Glover could remember there had never been any complaints of violence against the long-suffering Mrs Kerrigan.

  ‘Mick’s a loveable rogue,’ Charlie said as they drove off the station concourse.

  Millie liked Charlie Glover. A quiet and unassuming family man, she’d always thought he looked more like an accountant or a civil servant than a police officer. Solidly built, with thinning fair hair, he was also reliable in a scrape and she was confident that, just like the other members of the team, he wasn’t the sort to try and steal her glory.

  ‘Do you think he’d be up to stalking?’ Millie speculated aloud.

  ‘It might depend on how much he thinks he’s been wronged,’ Glover said. ‘And how much drink he’s got inside him.’