by Ford, P. F.
‘Does he have reason to be suspicious?’ asked Norman.
‘No. Woody was passing so he came by to say hello, that’s all. But my husband tends to be a bit suspicious, just like you are.’
Norman wanted to protest his innocence, but his red-faced embarrassment made it obvious he was guilty as charged, so he chose to let it go and pursue a different approach.
‘But the murder was committed at around six,’ he argued.
‘Yes, I know that,’ she said, calmly. ‘But there’s no way Woody could have got from my house and back to Diana’s in time.’
‘And what makes you so sure about that?’ asked Norman.
‘Because I live in Newbury.’ She smiled. ‘It’s the best part of an hour away from here.’
‘Can anyone corroborate this story?’
‘Actually, yes, someone can,’ she said. ‘My next door neighbour was having a cup of tea with me when he arrived. I can give you her address and telephone number if you don’t believe me.’
‘Now do you believe him?’ asked Slater, as they made their way back up the stairs.
‘This alibi’s very convenient, don’t you think?’ asked Norman.
‘What? You think she’s lying?’ Slater shook his head, feeling slightly frustrated.
‘I’m just saying she obviously likes the guy a lot,’ argued Norman. ‘I’m not convinced there’s not something going on there.’
‘Her husband likes the guy a lot. Are you going to suggest there’s something going on there, too? How about you try to consider the fact that he’s actually a nice guy? Wouldn’t that explain why these people like him?’
‘But if he left her house at five-thirty he would have been at the services by six-thirty. Yet he didn’t pay for his meal until seven forty-five. If she’s lying, it’s still possible-’
‘Oh come on, Norm,’ said Slater, wearily. ‘Give it up, mate. We’ve been focused on the wrong man. End of story.’
He pushed his way through the doors, Norman trailing in his wake.
‘You were right,’ said Jolly, as soon as she saw Slater. ‘I checked back through the traffic reports. There was an accident causing big westbound hold-ups on the M4 that afternoon, starting from four o’clock, just in time for the rush hour. At their peak, the delays were getting on for two hours.’
Slater turned to Norman.
‘Did you hear that? It explains why it took him so long to get from Newbury to the services, and he definitely couldn’t have left Tinton at six and got to the services by seven-forty-five in that traffic.’
Norman looked crestfallen for a moment, but then he shrugged and smiled ruefully.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I got it wrong. But you have to admit there was cause to suspect him. And don’t think this gives you two an excuse to keep on telling me how you told me so. Right?’
‘But I did tell you so,’ said Jolly, with a wicked smile. ‘You just wouldn’t listen.’
Norman glared at her and then turned to Slater.
‘So we’re back to square one,’ he said. ‘Do you want to go and tell the Old Man?’
‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ said Slater, grinning. ‘I seem to recall him issuing a very definite instruction that “DS Norman will take the lead on this”. And then there was something along the lines of “at least I know he’ll do his duty,” or some crap like that. Apparently I can’t do as I’m told, so I think it’s only right you should be the one to toddle off to give him the good news, don’t you?’
Norman looked dismayed.
‘Go on,’ said Slater. ‘It doesn’t matter how big you make those brown eyes, you’re still the lead. So, off you go and do your duty.’
‘Yeah, but-’ began Norman.
‘Just go,’ said Slater, his grin threatening to split his face as he pointed to the door. ‘Now.’
‘I always seem to get all the shit jobs,’ mumbled Norman as he pushed his way through the doors.
‘So how was it?’ asked Slater, as Norman slumped back into the room half an hour later.
Norman turned and bent over.
‘Can you see the boot mark on my arse?’ he asked. ‘That’s where he kicked me when I told him the good news.’
‘So he was pleased, then.’
‘He went ballistic. He’s still up in orbit right now,’ said Norman, heading for his desk. ‘Anyone would think we’d let Jack the Ripper slip through our fingers. Apparently we’ve just blown the chance for a quick result, wasted half the annual budget, and proved we’re incompetent all in the space of just two days.’
‘I thought we did that last week,’ said Slater, laughing.
‘No kidding, he went ape,’ said Norman, unable to stop himself from smiling. ‘Thanks for making me go. I’ve never seen him that bad before.’
‘Privilege of leadership, mate. You get the glory, and the shite.’
‘Well, you’ll be pleased to know I’ve been relieved of that particular honour. Apparently now it seems I, too, can’t be trusted to do as I’m told.’
‘So who’s in charge now?’ asked Slater.
‘He didn’t say,’ said Norman. ‘By that stage he had gone purple and couldn’t speak any more. I guess we’ll just do what we usually do and make it up as we go along.’
They enjoyed the shared moment like a pair of Cheshire cats, grinning from ear to ear, until finally they both seemed to acknowledge it was time to get back to the job in hand.
‘I guess we need to go back to the beginning and start again.’ Norman moved across to the whiteboard and wiped it clean. ‘So what do we know?’
‘Diana Woods was killed by a single stab in the back with one of her own kitchen knives,’ said Slater, slowly enough for Norman to keep up as he scribbled away at the board.
‘Whoever stabbed her was either very lucky, or very skilled because the knife passed between her ribs and pierced her heart. There was no sign of forced entry, which suggests she knew her killer. Also, the fact she turned her back on her killer to fill the kettle would seem to suggest she invited the killer into her house and was comfortable enough to trust them. The pathologist feels the wound was inflicted by someone short. We have no fingerprints, and, so far, no forensic evidence, which again could mean someone was very lucky, or they were cool enough to clear up behind them.
‘A small, white van was seen driving along Bishops Common lane around the time of the murder.’
Norman stepped and squinted at the board, before handing the pen to Slater.
‘Your turn,’ he said.
‘So, what do we know about the victim?’ asked Slater, taking Norman’s place at the board.
‘She’s either an angel or a lying cheat, depending on who you listen to. She had sex with someone earlier, maybe lunchtime, on the day she was killed.
‘She was wearing fancy underwear with the labels still attached. This suggests she could have been given the underwear as a gift, probably, but not necessarily, by the same person she had sex with earlier.’
They fussed around for another fifteen minutes adding little bits of information here and there until they were reasonably satisfied they hadn’t missed anything.
‘So what have we got?’ asked Slater, stepping back from the board.
‘Honestly?’ asked Norman. ‘Not much. In fact, now we’ve ruled out Ian Woods we’ve got nothing really. We know what happened but we haven’t got the first idea why.’
‘We need to speak to Ian Woods again,’ said Slater. ‘But this time we need a bit more information about his wife and why they split up. Jim Brennan told me Woody caught Diana in bed with her boss. We need to find out a whole lot more about this guy.’
‘Right.’ Norman looked at his watch. ‘We’re supposed to be talking to Woods in a few minutes anyhow. Let’s hope he’s feeling amenable enough to help us out. It would also help if we could get hold of her mobile phone records.’
‘Jane tells me they’re on the way,’ Slater assured him. ‘Maybe they’ll be here in the morning.’
>
‘Let’s go see what your friend Woody can tell us about Diana. And then I wanna go home. I feel like crap and I need an early night.’
Slater wasn’t surprised Norman felt like crap. He certainly looked like crap. His face was an unpleasant shade of grey, and he had the appearance of a man who hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in weeks. He felt genuinely concerned for his friend, but he knew there was no point in asking if he was okay. Norman would say he was fine, and he’d be pissed off at Slater for asking.
Chapter 8
‘Good evening Ian, Mr Strong,’ began Norman. ‘I’m pleased to say we no longer consider Ian a suspect in the Diana Woods murder inquiry.’
Both Woods and Strong looked surprised at this sudden turn of events.
‘How come?’ asked Woods. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Susie Brennan happened,’ said Norman. ‘She says you were at her house in Newbury until five that afternoon. You couldn’t have got from there to Tinton in time to kill Diana.’
‘My client told you all along he wasn’t involved,’ said Strong. ‘I think perhaps we should consider making an example of you-’
‘Your client could have told us this right from the word go,’ interrupted Slater. ‘As it is, we’ve wasted a lot of time on him when we could have been focusing our attention elsewhere.’
Strong looked suitably chastened and a little guilty.
‘You knew about this didn’t you, Mr Strong?’ asked Slater. ‘Shouldn’t you have advised your client that wasting police time is a criminal offence?’
‘He didn’t want to drag Mrs Brennan into this,’ said Strong. ‘I can only advise a client. I can’t force him to do what I suggest.’
‘Oh great,’ said Norman. ‘So you’re saying you think it was okay to let me think he was the murderer when you knew all along he had a cast iron alibi?’
‘Look. I know how it must look.’
‘You do?’ said Norman, indignantly. ‘Oh, good. In that case you might want to think about how you’re going to apologise. We have a murderer who has now had forty-eight hours start on us, thanks to you.’
‘Look,’ said Woods, looking very uncomfortable. ‘I wasn’t trying to obstruct anyone. I was just trying to protect Susie. I did tell you I wasn’t involved in the murder.’
‘Funny enough,’ snapped Norman, ‘even the guys who are guilty tend to tell us that. If we believed everyone who told us they were innocent we’d never catch anyone.’
Norman was getting distinctly twitchy, so Slater thought it might be a good idea to step in and build some bridges before he really lost it.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘This isn’t going to get us anywhere.’
He looked purposefully at Strong and Woods.
‘I think DS Norman has every right to be pissed off with you two. Like he says, you’ve wasted a lot of our time when you could have sorted the whole thing out right at the start. However, we still need to find Diana’s killer, and, if you’re willing, Woody, I think you could be a big help to our inquiry.’
‘How?’ asked Woods. ‘What can I do?’
‘We’ve heard a lot of stuff about Diana from her friends,’ explained Slater. ‘They seem to see her as some sort of angel who never did a thing wrong in her life. Yet Jim Brennan paints a totally different picture.
‘You’re the guy who was married to her, so we could do with hearing your version of Diana. What was he really like? Why did you leave her? This would help us to build a much better picture of who she was, and that will help us find out who killed her. Surely you’d want her killer caught, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yeah, of course I would,’ said Woods. ‘I’ll tell you whatever you want to know if you think it will help.’
‘Is that okay with you, Mr Strong?’ asked Slater.
‘I don’t think I’m really needed am I? If my client’s no longer a suspect, he doesn’t need to be represented, so I’m going home, if that’s alright with everyone.’
‘It’s okay with me,’ said Woods.
‘It’s certainly alright with me,’ growled Norman.
And so for the next half hour, Ian Woods told them about his life with Diana, who he admitted had been a serial adulterer.
‘She just couldn’t seem to stop herself,’ he said. ‘I pleaded and begged, but she either couldn’t, or wouldn’t, stop.’
‘So you knew all about it?’ asked Slater.
‘Well, not exactly,’ said Woody.
He let out a huge sigh, and went quiet for a minute. Slater was beginning to think he was going to burst into tears, but then he managed to get control again.
‘I loved her, you see. I loved her so much it hurt. When I first found out about her cheating on me I was going to leave her, but she pleaded with me, promised me she would change and that it wouldn’t happen again. She said all the right things, so I forgave her and we agreed we’d try again. And it was alright for two or three years, but then I got the feeling she’d started again, you know? I had no proof, I just recognised the signs.’
‘So what did you do about it?’ asked Slater.
‘Nothing.’
‘But why? Why would you put up with that?’
‘Because I didn’t want to believe it,’ explained Woods. ‘I didn’t want to believe she would want to hurt me like that, all over again. I just wanted us to be a happy loving couple, that’s all. But she seemed to despise me for that. Somehow it wasn’t good enough for her. I think that’s why she did it – to punish me for being what she saw as weak. Is it a sign of weakness to love someone?’
‘No,’ Norman cut in, his voice sad. ‘No, Woody, it’s not a sign of weakness. In fact, I would go as far as to say it’s a sign of great strength to be able to admit you love someone that much.’
Slater looked at Norman in surprise. Just a few hours ago he was ready to condemn Woods, and yet here he was empathising with him.
‘So why do all her friends seem to think she’s such an angel?’ asked Slater.
‘Ah yes,’ said Woods, with a sad little smile. ‘That was her magic trick, you see. She would do anything for anyone, but she never told any of them what she was really like. She’d sit for hours with one of her friends who was ill, for example, and then go and shag their husband on the way out. She must have had most of her friends’ husbands, and just about all of my so-called “mates”. They only got friendly with me so they could get a chance with her. And she was clever about when she did it too. I mean, no one thinks people go off shagging at lunchtime, do they? Diana realised that and took full advantage of it.’
‘She’d had sex earlier on the day she was murdered,’ said Slater.
‘That will have been at lunchtime, then.’
‘The day you caught her it was lunchtime, wasn’t it?’
‘Yeah,’ said Woods, wistfully. ‘I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t happening after that, could I? That was the day I decided enough was enough. I packed my bags and moved out that very same day.’
‘So tell us what happened.’
‘I had a wasted morning over at Jim’s, waiting for this job to come in,’ explained Woods. ‘Then the customer called to say the job wasn’t going to happen. I was well pissed off. Anyway, Jim sent me home to get some lunch. As soon as I got there, I knew something was up. She never comes home at lunchtime, but her car was outside. I thought maybe she had been taken ill, and come home, so I let myself in really quietly so I wouldn’t disturb her.
‘As soon as I was inside I could hear them. They were up in our bedroom, in our bed, grunting away like a pair of prize pigs. So I walked up the stairs, and still they didn’t hear me. The bedroom door was wide open, and all I could see was this huge hairy arse humping away between her legs. So I just walked up behind them and I slapped his arse as hard as I could.’
He was smiling at the memory as he looked up at them.
‘It didn’t half make my bloody hand sting,’ he said, laughing. ‘But I tell you what, it hurt his arse a bloody sight more. He certainly sq
uealed like a pig when I hit him. And he damned near shat himself when he realised her husband had come home and caught him in the act.’
‘What happened then?’ asked Norman.
‘I threw his clothes out of the window. Out onto the drive. I told him I was going to see his wife and tell her to look for a big, hand-shaped bruise on his arse.’
‘And did you?’ asked Slater.
‘Nah,’ said Woods. ‘I really thought about it, but then I thought better of it. Yeah, it would have been good to ruin his life, but somehow it didn’t seem right to spoil her life, even if she is living a lie, you know what I mean?’
‘But what did Diana do?’ asked Norman.
‘Oh, she went spare, of course. Told me it was all my fault. How I was a useless idiot, and how I had no right to tell her who she could shag. That’s how she saw it you see. To her it was “just a shag”. That’s exactly what she told me. “What’s the big deal,” she said. “It’s just a shag.”’
‘Jeez,’ said Norman. ‘And this is the angel we keep hearing about.’
‘Yeah,’ said Woods, sadly. ‘And I had the misfortune to fall in love with her. Maybe she was right about me being a useless idiot. I certainly was where she was concerned.’
‘So what’s this guy’s name?’ asked Slater. ‘I think we need to speak to him.’
‘Bruce. Bruce Rossiter. He was Diana’s boss.’
Chapter 9
The offices of Rochester & Dorset (Marketing) Ltd. were housed in a huge, rambling old house on the outskirts of Tinton. The five-acre grounds included a swimming pool, two tennis courts, and more than an acre of woodland. There was even an old coach house which had been converted into a small gym, complete with changing rooms and showers.
Compared with the sparse facilities at Tinton nick, Slater and Norman agreed this was most definitely how the other half worked. Even their pool car managed to look totally out of place among the shiny, squeaky clean vehicles that filled the enormous car park off to one side.
‘We’re definitely working for the wrong side,’ said Norman, from the passenger seat. ‘This looks more like a luxury hotel than a workplace.’