Married Lies (Reissue)

by Chris Collett

  ‘Tell us about Claudette Vernon,’ Mariner said.

  ‘Ah.’ Bonnington looked directly into Mariner’s eyes. ‘You obviously know all about her. That’s the other reason I’m here, is it? That I happened to be a little over-zealous in my advances towards Claudette, let me see, three years ago? Hm, I can see how that might make me an automatic suspect for harassing a married neighbour whom I hardly know and murdering a middle-aged woman I’ve never even heard of.’

  Mariner ignored the sarcasm. ‘Were you harassing Ms Vernon? Is that how you’d describe it?’

  ‘That was your word,’ Bonnington corrected him. ‘You told me yesterday that Lucy Jarrett was being harassed.’

  ‘So why don’t you tell us about your relationship with Claudette Vernon?’

  ‘You really do have an unusual preoccupation with my sex life, Inspector, which I probably could understand if it was a particularly salacious one, but I think we all know that you’re in for a disappointment.’

  ‘Just get on with it, Mr Bonnington,’ Mariner quashed his rising exasperation.

  ‘All right,’ Bonnington shrugged. ‘I met Claudette through an internet dating site. She turned out to be a very attractive woman, and quite amazingly, she seemed to feel the same way about me, at least to begin with. No signals misread there, I can assure you.’ He looked from Mariner to Millie. ‘We went out for two or three months, usually to a film or to the theatre, or for dinner. After the first couple of dates we started fucking, and I think we fucked on most occasions subsequent to that.’ The word sounded lewd, spoken in such a polite conversational tone and Mariner felt sure that Bonnington’s intention was to shock them. He’d have to try a lot harder than that.

  ‘And how was the fucking?’ asked Mariner.

  ‘Not up to much to begin with, if I’m brutally honest, but Claudette was prepared to give it a chance, and it got better, for both of us.’

  Mariner had to admire his candour. ‘You must have missed it then, when she ended your relationship.’

  ‘I did. And not just the sex, but the conversation, the evenings out. She’s a lovely woman. I think I’d fallen for her.’

  Mariner searched Bonnington’s face for signs of irony, but for once they were absent.

  ‘So you stalked her.’

  ‘I wasn’t stalking her,’ Bonnington said, impatiently. ‘I admit that I found it difficult to accept that the relationship was over. I couldn’t understand how her feelings could be so intense one day, and non-existent just a few days later. I had to be sure that she really thought it was finished, and that there was nothing I could do to rekindle her interest. I can see now that at the time my behaviour must have seemed odd, and that I might have frightened her.’

  ‘Did it give you a buzz, frightening her?’ Mariner asked. ‘Is that what you get off on?’

  ‘No.’ Bonnington seemed offended by the question.

  ‘Did you find it difficult when Lucy Jarrett ended it too?’

  ‘Ended what? I’ve already told you; with Lucy there wasn’t anything to end.’

  ‘Must have been tough though; two women dumping you within such a short space of time,’ Mariner said. ‘And both because of your inadequacies in bed. That’s pretty humiliating, isn’t it? Did you wonder what they might be saying to their new partners: poor old Martin, nice guy but can’t really cut it? Did you think Lucy and Will were laughing about you behind your back?’

  ‘The thought never crossed my mind.’

  ‘See, that’s what I can’t understand — if that’s not the reason then why have you been sending her hundreds of emails, and ordering dozens of products on her behalf?’ Mariner put the data sheet down on the table in front of him.

  Bonnington took his time, studying the list for a couple of minutes, before looking up again, directly into Mariner’s eyes. ‘I didn’t make those requests,’ he said.

  ‘Can you explain then, how we’ve traced them back to your home computer?’ asked Mariner.

  ‘No, I really can’t, because I didn’t send them.’ He appeared completely sincere.

  ‘That’s not good enough, Martin,’ Mariner told him. ‘We have the technological proof that they were sent from your computer, and what’s more we can tell exactly when you sent them.’ Mariner cast his eye down the list. ‘For example, what were you doing on March 9 at 11:15 p.m., when the appointment was made with this nursery design company?’

  ‘I would have been at home I expect, and I might even have been working on my computer, but I didn’t do it.’

  ‘For the record: you live alone, Mr Bonnington?’

  ‘You know I do.’

  ‘And no one else has access to your computer.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So you must see how logically, if this request was made on your computer at that time, it must have been made by you,’ Mariner said, patiently.

  ‘I can see that, but it wasn’t me,’ Bonnington reiterated. ‘I’ve never even heard of this company.’

  ‘So how else can you explain what we’ve found?’

  ‘Maybe I’ve got a hacker,’ said Bonnington.

  ‘Our technician has told us that your machine is one of the most secure he’s ever come across,’ Mariner replied. ‘You’re an IT consultant. You trying to tell us you’d be that careless?’ He glanced down at the list again. ‘A lot of these have been sent on a Wednesday evening. What’s so special about Wednesdays, Martin?’

  ‘My house is clean,’ Bonnington offered, helpfully.

  ‘What were you doing last Tuesday evening at 9:20 p.m.?’ Mariner asked.

  ‘I was at home.’

  ‘More specifically, you were on the phone to our CAD room.’ Mariner took another sheet of paper from the folder in front of him. ‘I saw him attack her,’ he read. ‘She fell on the floor, and now he’s gone out and she’s not answering her phone.’

  ‘I’ve already admitted to making that call.’ Bonnington said, the first signs of frustration beginning to show. ‘I was looking through my telescope at the Milky Way. I saw my neighbours having an argument, which looked violent, so I phoned the police. I was genuinely concerned for Lucy Jarrett’s safety. I was being a good citizen.’

  ‘Hm, your telescope,’ Mariner said. ‘Do you use that to spy on other neighbours, or is it solely for Lucy Jarrett?’

  ‘I’ve told you I have an interest in astronomy.’

  ‘But you just happened to have it directed at the Jarretts’ house that evening,’ Mariner said. ‘Is that how you can be sure when Lucy’s husband is out? So that you can make your other phone calls?’

  ‘What other calls?’ Bonnington frowned.

  ‘The silent calls made to Lucy Jarrett when her husband is out. The ones in which you don’t speak — oh, except the first time. You bitch, I’m going to make you suffer. Wasn’t that how it went? What have you done with the phone?’

  ‘What phone?’

  ‘The mobile that you made those calls from.’

  Bonnington glanced across at Millie. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Did you go to Lucy Jarrett’s wedding?’ Mariner asked, changing tack.

  ‘I wasn’t invited,’ Bonnington stated baldly.

  ‘Were you disappointed about that?’

  ‘I didn’t expect to be invited. I hardly know them, I just happen to live nearby.’

  ‘But you’ve seen the wedding photos?’

  ‘I’ve looked at them online, yes.’ Bonnington blushed. At last, something. Mariner almost sighed with relief, and he and Millie exchanged a brief look. Bonnington saw it. ‘I don’t see what the problem is with that. I gave the happy couple a gift, and when Lucy thanked me she told me about the web link. I assumed her intention was for me to be able to look at the photos. They were very good. Very professional. Lucy looked very pretty.’

  ‘How did they make you feel?’ Mariner asked.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Did they make you feel angry that it wasn’t y
ou in those photos; that Will Jarrett was standing where you should have been?’

  ‘No,’ Bonnington protested. ‘I thought they were nice photos.’

  ‘Nice enough to print them off?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How do you explain this then?’ Mariner put down the doctored photograph. ‘We can prove that it was printed on your printer at 10:25 p.m. on 20 March. Remember what you were doing then?’

  ‘No, but I was probably at home,’ an edge had crept into his voice. Mariner was beginning to needle him.

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘Yes. All right, all right!’

  ‘All right what?’ Mariner asked, with a surge of relief.

  ‘I printed it off. I don’t remember when, but I printed off a picture.’

  At last! Mariner wanted to crow. Instead he asked: ‘What for?’

  ‘Nothing, I just did!’

  Finally they were getting to him.

  ‘What did you do with it Martin, when you’d printed it off?’

  ‘Nothing! I—It . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It turned me on.’ Bonnington had blushed crimson. ‘It reminded me of that evening and it was a turn on. I printed it off and I masturbated.’

  ‘That’s it?’ said Mariner.

  ‘That’s it,’ said Bonnington.

  ‘Jesus,’ Mariner sighed with disappointment. ‘Did you talk about anything else when Lucy came to thank you?’

  ‘I can’t remember. I probably asked her something banal, like whether she was enjoying married life, and she probably said yes. I think I must have asked her when we could expect the patter of tiny feet.’

  ‘And what did she say?’

  ‘I can’t really remember. That she and Will weren’t planning a family, I think.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘How the hell would I know? A few weeks ago. It was just a neighbourly conversation, that’s all. I wasn’t threatening towards her in any way.’

  ‘But you knew that they weren’t having children.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘So is that why you started sending Lucy items through the post?’

  ‘What kind of items?’

  Mariner threw a selection down on the table.

  ‘I didn’t send those. I don’t even know what that is.’ Bonnington picked up the Clear Blue test and examined it closely.

  ‘I think you know exactly what that is. Having found out that Will Jarrett doesn’t want children, you arranged for these things to be sent so that it would cause tension between him and his wife.’

  ‘I really don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.’ Bonnington fixed Mariner with a steady gaze. ‘I didn’t know that Will didn’t want children; only that they weren’t planning to have any.’

  ‘We have more than enough here to charge you with harassing Lucy Jarrett, you know. It really would help your case if you started to come clean about it.’

  ‘I haven’t been harassing her!’ By now Bonnington was looking increasingly desperate, flicking his gaze between Mariner and Millie.

  ‘What’s the anniversary?’ Mariner asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘April 5. Is that when you first met Lucy, when you first started going out, or when you first saw her and lusted after her?’

  ‘That date means absolutely nothing to me.’

  Mariner picked up the box of dead flowers in its new polythene wrapper and threw it onto the table. ‘I suppose you’re going to say that you don’t know anything about these either.’

  ‘Yes, because it’s the truth!’

  ‘And this?’ Mariner put down the fake florist’s label.

  Bonnington peered at the message. ‘That’s not very nice,’ he said.

  ‘So why was it on your computer?’ Mariner asked.

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Your mysterious hacker again?’ Mariner queried.

  But Bonnington only shrugged. They were hitting a brick wall again. Feeling drained, Mariner suspended the interview and he and Millie got up and walked out. They needed to regroup. Up in CID Tony Knox and Charlie Glover waited expectantly.

  ‘He’s good,’ Millie told them. ‘He’s just playing the wronged innocent and denying everything.’

  ‘Though he can’t offer much in the way of explanation either,’ said Mariner. ‘Are we any further forward with Nina Silvero?’

  ‘Nothing so far,’ Knox said. ‘We’ve checked with all the family and friends, but no one in the Silvero camp knows Lucy Jarrett, and no one in her camp knows Nina Silvero — except for what they’ve heard or read in the news. And none of them except Lucy, and Will to a lesser degree, knows Martin Bonnington. It just doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘We still haven’t identified the mystery visitor to Nina Silvero’s house that night,’ said Mariner. ‘We need to find something that places Bonnington at Nina Silvero’s house. Let’s get forensics to go over the kitchen again for prints or fibres that we might be able to tie to Bonnington.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  There was another possible association that hadn’t yet been explored. With reluctance Mariner picked up the phone and called Jack Coleman.

  ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘We’ve picked up a Martin Bonnington. There’s some overlap with another case we’re working on and Bonnington’s name has come up for both. But all we’ve got on him for Nina Silvero is a single fingerprint, and that’s not watertight. I just wondered if it was a name you recognised, especially from the time of the Hughes case? Bonnington would have been in his late teens when it happened. A friend of the family perhaps, a mate of George’s?’

  ‘It doesn’t ring any bells,’ Coleman mused. ‘What’s he like?’

  Mariner described Bonnington as best he could, but it still didn’t mean anything to Coleman. ‘He doesn’t sound like one of Georgie’s friends,’ he remarked.

  ‘You didn’t mention that you were there the night Billy Hughes died,’ Mariner said.

  ‘It’s not something I’m proud of,’ Coleman admitted.

  ‘That was why you felt you had to support Nina.’

  ‘I felt guilty.’

  ‘Why?’ Mariner said. ‘You didn’t do anything wrong. You were following instructions from a senior officer.’

  ‘I felt guilty because I thanked God when Ronnie Silvero died. I was relieved that an impossible decision had been taken out of my hands. You don’t have to disclose at an inquest, but if it had gone to trial I would have been called as a witness for the prosecution. I would have had to stand up in court in front of Ronnie and Nina and tell the truth; that mistakes were made that night and it was Ronnie Silvero who made them.’

  ‘I’ve read your report,’ Mariner said.

  ‘We never should have left that boy in the cell handcuffed, and he didn’t deserve the level of restraint that was imposed. Sure, he was a live wire, but he wasn’t violent — not in the way that the other officers tried to say, and not in the way that some of them are.’

  ‘So you think the Hughes family were justified in their complaints?’ said Mariner.

  ‘If I’d been in their position I’d have felt exactly the same way.’

  That was a turn up. Mariner ended the call with a vague promise that he would get out to see Coleman again soon, but he wasn’t sure that he’d be able to keep it.

  * * *

  Mariner was anxious to get back to the interview suite, before Bonnington got too comfortable, but when he looked up Millie was standing in the doorway, Tony Knox at her shoulder. ‘Something you need to hear, boss,’ she said. ‘Line two.’ Stepping forward, she lifted the receiver and pressed a couple of buttons on Mariner’s phone. ‘Dr Chohan?’ she said. ‘Please could you tell Inspector Mariner what you’ve told me?’

  A woman’s voice, precise but heavily accented, came over the speaker phone, introducing its owner as Lucy Jarrett’s GP. ‘Lucy came in to see me earlier in the week,’ Chohan said. ‘She’s been feeling ill for some time
and described a range of symptoms including nausea, occasional vomiting, headaches and tiredness. She told me she had been under some stress and that she’d been getting some nuisance phone calls and that you were involved. She gave me your constable’s name. From her symptoms, I thought we could be looking at anything from stress-related illness to glandular fever so I sent off some blood samples as a precaution. The results have come back and I thought I should get in touch with you. This is going to sound a little far-fetched, but it looks as if she’s being poisoned.’

  Glancing up, Mariner saw the anxiety in Millie’s eyes. ‘Do you have any idea what with?’ he asked.

  ‘The samples are being further analysed,’ said Dr Chohan. ‘And I’ve flagged them up as top priority, so we should know quite soon. Meanwhile I would like to get Lucy into hospital so that we can monitor her food intake and her condition and run some more tests. I’m making an emergency referral to the Queen Elizabeth.’

  ‘Would you like one of my officers to escort her there?’ Mariner offered, holding Millie’s gaze.

  ‘Until we find out what’s going on, I think that would be most helpful.’

  ‘Thank you, Dr Chohan. We’ll keep in touch.’ Mariner ended the call.

  ‘I can’t believe I didn’t see it!’ Millie shook her head in disbelief. ‘She is so obviously ill, she looks terrible.’

  ‘This isn’t your fault.’ Mariner was firm. ‘None of us had any way of knowing.’

  ‘Do you think she’ll be all right?’ Millie asked. ‘Sorry, stupid question.’

  ‘Until we know what we’re dealing with . . .’ Mariner spread his hands. ‘The important thing is that now we know. I want you to pick up Lucy, take her to the QE and stay with her. I’ll speak to DCI Sharp and get the toxicology specialists into Hill Crest and the health centre. Both locations will have to be sealed off until we can identify the source. Rachel Hordern told us that over the last year her mother had been suffering ill health and exactly the same symptoms — nausea, vomiting and tiredness.’