End in Tears (11 page)

“Your ankles are a bit puffy, Sylvia. I expect Mary will have something to say about that. Now I'll fetch the drinks, shall I? I'm sure you've got sparkling water in your fridge.”

Though fairly watchful of her alcohol intake, Sylvia had been looking forward to a large glass of Sauvignon. She turned to Mary. “What does she mean, you'll have something to say?”

A ready laugher, Mary burst into a merry peal. She shook with laughter, her cushiony breasts and plump shoulders wobbling. “I'm a midwife, darling. Get it? The idea of bringing me here is I keep an eye on you.” The rectory was a big house and the kitchen a long way away. Naomi wouldn't be back yet. “Don't you worry. You've got no pre-eclampsia coming.”

“Keep an eye on me?”

“I don't know why, darling, but don't you worry. I won't be always in and out, seeing how you are. Too busy myself, for one thing. But with that Naomi, you got to humor her, get it?” Mary didn't explain how she came to know Naomi. “We'll drink our water—not that I wouldn't rather have something a bit stronger—and then we'll be going,” she said. “See the back of us, darling, and you can put those feet up. Them your boys out there? Lovely boys, I must say.”

True to her word, Mary drank down her water in two gulps, got up with surprising agility for one so large and said her husband would be waiting for his tea. The idea that any female should provide sustenance for any male shocked Naomi as much as it would have appalled Detective Sergeant Goldsmith. She was silenced and by the time she began protesting that they had only just come, Mary was out in the hall. Still, she managed to have the last word.

“Mary lives in Gamekeeper's Cottage, Sylvia. I've written down her phone number for you, but you probably won't need it as Mary has promised me to pop in
very frequently.
” Behind her back, Mary winked. “Of course I'll still often be around myself to give you moral support, but do watch those ankles, won't you?”

To Sylvia, who had a lot of her father in her, this suggested her spreading her legs and feet out in front of her and staring at them for half an hour at a time, as in some yogic or meditative exercise. She had saved her glass of wine until this violet hour and the quiet. The mosquitoes that attacked her mother left her alone. She watched a moth alight on a mossy stone and spread flat its Persian-carpet wings. The wine was reducing her bad temper to a minor irritation. Mary had been so funny that she began to feel she wouldn't have minded all that much if she
had
“popped in very frequently.” How had Naomi come across her? And what on earth did she think Mary could do if Sylvia smoked cannabis, drank brandy, ate soft cheeses, threw away her vitamins or, come to that, had an abortion? Well, no, not this last. It was too late for that.

When she had finished her wine she went upstairs to check on her sleeping sons and then she walked up the lane in the cool, as cool as it would get all night. A little wood separated the rectory from the two cottages, Gamekeeper's Cottage and Shepherd's Cottage, that faced the church. The latter was in darkness but in Gamekeeper's lights were on and a bright television screen could be seen through the front window but neither of the occupants. I don't suppose I'll ever see her again, thought Sylvia as she walked back. Why would she bother with me?

 

Prinsip's home had surprised him. Barry Vine had expected a tip, old clothes stuffing carrier bags, car and bike magazines in stacks, broken furniture that would never be repaired, and plates, cups, and glasses waiting not to be washed but rinsed under a cold tap. The flat over the souvenir shop wasn't like that. Knowing that Prinsip lived on the benefit, DS Vine wondered where all the electronic equipment had come from, a new desktop computer, very state-of-the-art, a CD player with huge speakers and a portable CD player lying alongside it, a DVD player as well as a video under the TV, and a brand-new drum kit that made Barry's soul shrink as he thought of the noise this couple must make.

He hadn't come alone. With him was a drug-dog handler, PC Overton, and the dog himself, last of the drug-dog team, useful in the purge of two years before. All the others had gone back to the forces they came from, but this dog remained, semiretired and now the household pet of the Overton family. His name was Drusus—not because PC Overton was a student of Roman history but on account of its being the only name anyone could think of that began with “dr” for “drugs”—but no one had ever called him by that name. A docile but enthusiastic golden spaniel, he was known to everyone as Buster.

A reluctant and puzzled permission to allow the dog on his premises was extracted from Keith Prinsip. He asked rather pathetically if it would help to find Megan and when told it very likely might, nodded his head. Buster galloped up the stairs to the three rooms at the top that were Prinsip and Megan's home, but his excitement was short-lived. Obviously losing confidence in the revitalizing of his career, he grew more and more despondent as, sniffing expertly in corners, under furniture and inside drawers, he could only draw his nose away unsatisfied.

Prinsip gave him a surreptitious chocolate which Buster was chewing with gusto when PC Overton spotted him. Apparently, no chocolate had ever before passed Buster's lips and an argument broke out between the two men, Overton telling Prinsip roughly that he ought to know better than to give harmful substances to a working animal and Prinsip answering that Overton was a cruel master. The fracas was put an end to by Barry Vine, who declared that his own search was being seriously interrupted by “a lot of nonsense.” It was he who finally found the drug, in the pocket of another pair of Prinsip's ragged jeans. The paper screw of cannabis, maybe ten grams, Prinsip indignantly defended as being for his own use and no longer illegal. Vine said nastily that it was amazing how well informed ignorant illiterates could sometimes be on matters of law when it came to their own interests.

“Who are you calling ignorant?” said Prinsip.

“I was merely making a general observation.”

No longer fighting Buster's corner, Prinsip said he didn't think much of the dog as a sniffer when he couldn't even find a spot of weed.

“He's trained to find only class A substances,” said PC Overton loftily.

CHAPTER 13

I
t was too hot to sleep and when Wexford heard the paper come just after six he got up, went downstairs, and picked up his copy of the
Kingsmarkham Courier
from his doormat. There was Lovelace's story with that old photograph of himself, taken years before, drinking a half of bitter in the Olive and Dove's garden. He made tea, took it up to his wife, and, passing her the paper, said, “It ought to be easier the second time, but it's not.”

“I don't know why it should be.”

“I suppose I thought it wouldn't happen again.”

“Shall I read the story and tell you if it's safe for you to read?”

Her tone had been impatient. “You know me better than that,” he said. “If it's there I have to read it.”

 

Hannah bought her
Courier
from the paper shop in Brimhurst St. John, which opened at eight. The lead story said Wexford was getting nowhere with his investigation of Amber Marshalson's murder and a photograph of him drinking beer carried the caption “DCI Loses the Plot.” She threw it into the back of the car, supposing the guv was impervious to this sort of thing by now. Within five minutes she was in Brimhurst Prideaux, parking the car a few feet from where Mill Lane joined the Myfleet Road. She had twenty minutes before her meeting with John Brooks, and she picked up the paper.

All the faults and intrusions of the media stemmed from male journalists, in Hannah's opinion. Therefore she wasn't much surprised to see Darren Lovelace's byline above this one or to read a series of inaccurate statements and wild exaggerations. The job was getting on top of Wexford and he was aging fast. As could be seen from the picture, he was subject to inexplicable violent rages and paranoia. No progress had been made toward finding Amber Marshalson's killer and now another girl, a friend of hers, was missing. Did anyone “not living in cloud-cuckoo-land” have doubts that she too would be found murdered? The Chief Constable was on the point of taking Wexford off the case and replacing him with someone younger. As for the “loved ones” of the missing girl, left in the hands of such an inept investigator, they had the
Courier
's deepest sympathy.

Much as Hannah liked and admired “the guv” and knew all Lovelace's stuff was ill-informed slander, she had to admit that Wexford was a
man
and she couldn't help feeling that a woman would in the nature of things do the job better. Someone like herself, for instance, in, say, ten years' time…

It was twenty-eight minutes past eight. She got out, locked the car, and walked up to where John Brooks's VW was parked as usual—but not usually at this hour—outside number two Jewel Terrace. She had been looking at his car, for no particular reason except to use up the remaining minute, but when she turned around she saw him in his front garden, standing just inside the gate.

“Well, Mr. Brooks, at last—”

She had hardly got the words out when he said in a low voice, “Can we do this in my car?”

There was no need to ask him why. The front door was ajar, his wife was inside, and she might hear anything that was said. “As you like,” she said.

The sky was overcast this morning, but the heat had already begun. It had scarcely diminished during the night. As John Brooks's car was parked, the passenger window was on the offside. He wound it down about two inches but left his own closed. Hannah glanced at him. Some would have called him good-looking. He had the face of a minor celebrity, a pop singer, or a TV presenter, bland, soft, and mobile, with unremarkable features but for his eyes, which seemed to have more whites around the irises than most have. He was thin and dark, and those eyes were a dark blue-gray.

“What's the problem?” he said in the minor celebrity's voice, which is far from that of the Keith Prinsips of this world but not too “posh” either.

Hannah was going to take a great leap here. It was not what Henry Nash had said, but Brooks could always deny it if it wasn't true. “The problem, Mr. Brooks, is that you're in the habit of going out for drives in the middle of the night and you went out on the night Amber Marshalson was killed.”

“What if I did?” Her calculated guess had paid off. “I wasn't killing her.”

“Did you know her?”

Perhaps he thought the original “problem” wouldn't be pursued, for he looked relieved. “Of course. Everyone knows everyone in a place like this. She was a nice kid. Actually, I helped her find something on her laptop when she was having problems.”

“I thought you were a health and safety officer.”

“Okay, I am, but I know about computers and she knew I did. She came round and asked me for help.” He glanced at his house and the half-open front door. “My wife didn't like it, but there was nothing, less than nothing, between me and Amber. I mean, I thought of her as a child.”

A child who'd had a child, Hannah thought. “What was wrong with her computer?”

“Nothing, really. These kids are usually brilliant at technology, but she wasn't. She couldn't get the hang of it. She wanted me to help her find some website and I did. Easy-peasy, actually.”

“And what website would that be?”

“I mean I showed her how. I don't know what it was.” She could tell he was lying. “Is there anything else? Only I do have to get to work.”

Hannah said smoothly, “Oh, dear, yes, Mr. Brooks. There is quite a lot else. If you have to get to work I can always see you there. Say in half an hour?”

He sighed. “Ask what you have to ask now and get it over.”

“I simply want to know where you go in the nighttime. Easy-peasy, as you say.”

“I can't sleep. I just drive around and sometimes I can get to sleep when I get back.”

“You drive around for
two hours
? Where do you go?”

Brooks was growing angry. His pupils seemed to shrink and the whites around them to grow. “I'm not obliged to tell you that. I've done nothing wrong. I'm an innocent man and I very much resent being interrogated like this.”

“Yes, well, I'm afraid you are obliged to tell me. I don't have to remind you that this is a murder case. Failure to tell me will be obstructing the police in their inquiries.” Hannah had always wanted to say that and up till now had never had the opportunity. “I'll come to see you at work in your lunch hour. When is that? One till two?”

A terrible feeling came over Hannah that he might prefer her to come back this evening and be once more closeted in this car with him. She was dining with Bal at seven-thirty…

Duty came first, of course. “If you'd prefer to see me here again this evening…?”

She was glad she had made the offer. “All right. Come to the works if you must. One-thirty?”

“One-thirty it is, Mr. Brooks.”

 

They had begun searching the towns and the surrounding countryside. Prinsip was asked to furnish them with the names of everyone Megan knew and struggled to do so. In the end, it was Sandra Warner and her daughter Lara who had to do the job for him. The lead the police wanted would come when they found someone known to both Megan and Amber. Ben Miller, Chris Williamson, and James Sothern came into this category, of course, but all of them said they had only once met Megan and that was on the single occasion when Lara brought her sister to Bling-Bling. It was much the same for the girls, Samantha Collins, Charlotte Probyn, and Veryan Colgate. Samantha alone had encountered Megan on more than one occasion and she had disliked Amber, but it took a wilder stretch of the imagination than anyone in Wexford's team possessed to see plump little Samantha in the role of a concrete block dropper and brick-wielding assassin.

Wexford took Sergeant Vine and PC Overton with him to the Marshalsons. George appeared horribly shocked when asked if his daughter could have been involved in drug trafficking. “She has a baby while she's still at school, she stays out half the night at clubs, and now you tell me she carried drugs to Thailand and into Europe. Where did I go wrong? Is all this because her mother died when she was still a child? I did my best. I thought I'd found her another mother…”

“Mr. Marshalson,” Wexford said, “we aren't saying Amber was involved in this trade, only that she could have been. It may be that with your cooperation we can establish that she was not.”

“My cooperation?”

“We would like to search this house with the help of a…a sniffer dog. Would you object?”

George said he didn't like it, but as for objecting, no, he wouldn't do that. It seemed to bring him no pleasure, though it brought a lot to Wexford, to see Brand's delight at the appearance on the scene of Buster. Whether a sniffer dog of Buster's eminence should be permitted, on grounds of noblesse oblige and hygiene, to lick enthusiastically the face of a one-year-old client he hardly knew, but Brand loved it and for the first time Wexford heard the little boy laugh. His peals of laughter echoed through that sad house as he put up his arms to hug the golden spaniel.

But Buster had work to do. He concentrated mainly on Amber's bedroom, covering every inch of floor, the insides of drawers and the inner recesses of cupboards, like the expert he was. His search was in vain and if an animal could look disappointed, Buster did. He had found nothing.

“I suppose the time will come when I'll have to get the child a dog,” said George, his voice empty of all enthusiasm. “I don't suppose you're interested, this is something I have to teach myself to come to terms with, but I can't contemplate the future with this child growing up in my house and Diana and I having to look after him. Get him a dog, like I said, or a cat maybe. Find a school for him. Get him to the doctor for all those injections they have to have. Find friends for him to play with. I can hardly contemplate it. I seem to have made a mess of it last time. Why should I be better now? I've lost my beloved daughter. I'm older and I'm tired and, well, broken-hearted. I'm an old man. Is that how I'm to spend my retirement, bringing up another child?”

Maybe they'll take him away from you, Wexford thought, and someone will adopt him, someone who desperately wants a child. “This missing girl,” he said, “Megan Bartlow. She and Amber went to Frankfurt together. Now, Mr. Marshalson, you know as well as I do that a couple of young British girls don't go to Frankfurt on holiday, any more than a couple of young German girls would come to Birmingham. So why did they go there?”

“You think they were carrying…well, hard drugs?”

“It's a possibility.” Wexford avoided looking at George's stricken face. “Megan Bartlow doesn't appear to have been a close friend. Not before that weekend, at any rate.”

“A lot of girls came here. She may have been one of them. I'd never heard her name till Amber said they were going to Frankfurt together. I answered the phone to her around that time and I must say she hadn't the sort of accent I'd like to think of my daughter's friends having.”

“It wasn't a friendship, was it? It was a business arrangement.”

“What did Amber know about business?”

People pick up that sort of knowledge very fast when there's money to be made, thought Wexford, but he didn't say it aloud.

 

No sooner had Hannah parked her car on an area restricted to “Staff and Bona Fide Visitors” than John Brooks came down a flight of concrete steps from a green-painted door on the end of the block. He came toward her, smiling and holding out his hand, so that she wondered what he had told colleagues as to her identity. Certainly he wouldn't have revealed that she was a police officer. A prospective client perhaps? Some sort of health and safety inspector? He opened the green door and ushered her into a small office full of filing cabinets. John Brooks evidently made his own tea and coffee and now, plugging in the electric kettle, he offered her a choice.

“Nothing, thank you.” She wasn't going to turn this into a social occasion, a cozy chat over the teacups.

“Pity. Are you sure? Well, if you won't you won't.”

“Mr. Brooks, let's get down to why I'm here. I want to know where you go on these night drives of yours. Is that why your wife sleeps in one bedroom and you sleep in the other? It's not really to do with your snoring, is it? You fake the snoring so you've an excuse for sleeping elsewhere, which makes it easier to get out for a drive.”

“I don't know what you want me to tell you.”

“Where you go. Please don't say you just drive around.”

Brooks put a teabag into one of the mugs and poured boiling water onto it. He opened a drawer and took out a packet of chocolate-chip cookies. “Biscuit?”

“No, thank you. Do you visit a woman?”

“If I said yes and told you who, would it go any further?”

“If you mean would we tell your wife, no, I shouldn't think so.” Her contempt had crept into her voice and she saw him shrink. “If this woman confirms that you visit her by night and that you did so on the night of Amber's death, no one else need know. A name and address, please, Mr. Brooks.”

He wrote down a name and an address in Pomfret on a piece of scrap paper. After that, he escorted her down the flight of steps to her car. Anxious to get her off the premises, she thought as she drove away. Once he knew she was out of the way he'd be on the phone to this woman, this Paula Vincent of Foster Way, Pomfret.

Brooks's girlfriend was not at all as she had expected. Someone a few years younger than Gwenda was most likely and a glamorous contrast to her, a sort of bimbo in a miniskirt. The woman who opened the door to her, saying nothing but slightly raising her eyebrows, was forty at least, her short hair lank and dark, her face free of makeup and her figure far from what beauty editors in magazines call “toned.” The only name for her trousers, Hannah thought, was one her own mother used, “slacks.” She had on a dirty whitish sweater and quilted slippers.