A Fatal Attachment (15 page)

“I'm sure you will,” said Oddie, smiling his goodbyes in the interval of a caught breath and escaping through the door. “Next problem: find a life-boat that wants to be attached to a quivering mass of talkative jelly,” he muttered to Charlie as they marched down the street towards their car.

“Still, there were a couple of things of interest, even in the bits I heard,” Charlie had to concede. “The boys talking about the will at school—”

“Yes, that was interesting. I pressed her after you'd gone, during a brief pause, and it was money from Lydia Perceval that they were boasting about. What was the other thing?”

“The husband having a beard.”

“Oh? Why that?”

“The boy—Jason—was up in the wood just beyond the cottage yesterday evening with his girlfriend. A man with a beard drove his car into the wood and left it in a clearing there—round about quarter, twenty past nine.”

“Ah—did the boy recognise him?”

“No. Only saw him side-face. But the husband only seems to have been around the village once or twice, probably in daytime, so it's quite possible he wouldn't.”

“Interesting. Or possibly the usual red herring one gets in murder cases and all he wanted was a pee.”

“Definitely not that, anyway. The kid says he strode towards the road. Of course he could have been having it off with a married woman in the village here—”

Their hands were on the door-handles of their car when they heard an “I say!” and turned to see an overweight man emerging from a rather shoddy-looking semi-detached on the fringe of the village. He came up to them with an air of bluster and self-importance which was far from ingratiating.

“They tell me you're the policemen on the murder case.”

“That's right,” said Mike, with more geniality than he felt.

“Then you'll want to talk to me and my boys. We must have been among the last to see her.”

“Ah yes. You must be Mr Bellingham.”

“Nick Bellingham.” He held out his hand, which was surprisingly sweaty. “Glad to meet you. My boys were up with her last evening, and she came down with them—to make herself known, so to speak.”

“You hadn't met her?”

“Oh no—last night was the first time.”

“Nor your wife?”

“No, the friendship was with the boys. She'd been champion since their mother's illness was diagnosed. Soon as I heard of the murder I begged the rest of the day off work—I was appalled. Terrible tragedy. Unthinkable. I phoned the headmaster at the boys' school, and he was going to break it to them. I didn't say they should come home specially—was I right?”

“Quite right. We have a great deal of routine stuff to get through. But if we could talk to them this evening?”

“No problem,” said Bellingham, rubbing his hands. “What's the drill? Do I make myself scarce?”

“No, no—not at all. This will just be a routine session, but one of the parents should be present. Till this evening then.”

But as they drove away, Oddie said to Charlie: “If it should turn out that one of the boys, or both of them, are involved, then some other way of questioning them will have to be found.”

“Headmaster or something?”

“Yes, and each boy separately.”

“He was odd, wasn't he?” said Charlie thoughtfully. “Somehow the words and manner didn't go together, and the words of regret were an afterthought. He seemed to be enjoying it.”

“He was. But then people do. People a lot more intelligent than him.”

“Or than he seemed,” amended Charlie. “One of the things you learn growing up in Brixton is to seem to the police to be a lot thicker than you really are.”

“You may be right. Though I sensed a true-blue home-grown thickness in Mr Bellingham. Not that I'm prejudging matters: I've known plenty of stupid murderers—and sometimes they murder for stupid reasons, and sometimes for perfectly good ones like money or sex.”

“Still, there's no reason to suspect Bellingham, is there?”

“None at all, except that he was one of the last to see her alive, and later left his house and was seen in the pub.”

“She was being good to his boys and getting him off the hook of looking after them. You could say he had a sort of anti-motive.”

“You could, if you weren't trying to keep a totally open mind.”

For the rest of the afternoon they were busy with the sort of petty routine that proliferates in a murder case beyond even the day-to-day pettinesses of police routine. Oddie did manage to fax the Anchorage police, hoping to get a message through to Lydia's cousin and heir, and he phoned Lydia's solicitor again and eventually managed to get out of him the sums she had been planning to leave to the two boys. Charlie meanwhile checked up on the work of the uniformed men who had been doing door-to-door enquiries in the village. Little seemed to have emerged beyond the fact that Lydia was not a familiar figure in Bly, though the village people had been mildly proud to have her among them. They had been more interested in the visit of Kelly Marsh from
Waterloo Terrace,
and it was agreed that she and her husband had packed up their car the night before, and had left with their baby son soon after eight that morning.

As they drove back to Bly Mike Oddie said:

“We'll keep the questions mainly to factual, neutral matters. We've got no substantial grounds for suspicion, and we don't want to put them on their guard.”

“No substantial grounds? You mean beyond the codicil?”

“Beyond the codicil,” agreed Mike Oddie. “Which was never signed, but which should have been signed yesterday. That codicil, by the bye, could
give a motive to the father as well as the boys: he may have felt that one way or another he could get his hands on the money, both of them being minors. Even in an age of high inflation ten thousand pounds is not to be sneezed at.”

“I'm not sneezing,” said Charlie. “But did he know about it? Telling your father is not quite the same thing as telling your mates at school.”

“True. Anyway that's one thing I shall have to bring up, without making a big issue out of it.”

Oddie went thoughtful until, minutes later, Charlie pulled up outside the Bellingham home. Their first ring brought Nick to the door, still shining with sweat and exuding bluffness and eagerness to please. He ushered them through the hall and into the living room. Mike Oddie's antennae quivered: he had lived alone for some years after the death of his first wife, and he knew the feel of a room hastily and inexpertly cleaned and tidied in anticipation of a visit. This room had it. But then that was very much to be expected, when the housewife/mother had recently been taken off to hospital.

“Sorry about the mess,” said Nick Bellingham unnecessarily. “I'm thinking of getting that Mrs Kegan in, while the wife's poorly.”

Mike and Charlie were put into a pair of armchairs facing the two boys, seated side by side on a sofa. It was all rather unreal, like a television set for a prestige detective series. The boys' appearance also struck the two detectives as incongruous: what boy these days wears a necktie around the house after school? Ted and Colin wore flannels and white shirts, and like the room had the air of being newly scrubbed and tidied. They also had an air of sadness tinged, Oddie felt—but wouldn't it be the same with any boys?—with excitement.

“Ted,” said Nick Bellingham, gesturing. “And Colin.”

“Hello,” the two boys said.

“Right,” said Oddie, settling down in his chair and putting on his friendliest face. “Could you tell me how long you had known Mrs Perceval?”

“Just a matter of weeks,” said Ted.

“How did you meet her?”

“We didn't exactly meet her. . . . We go up the hill there to practise speed cycling on the open space near the gravel pit. She spoke to us one day, then we stopped to chat to her, then it—well, it went on from there.”

“I see. You seem to have got quite close very quickly. Why do you think that was?”

“We just clicked,” said Colin. “Somehow.”

Mike's antennae quivered again, but what were they reacting to? Perhaps
the tone of the reply: there was a trace of smugness, of the smart-alec, in the voice.

“It was quite natural really,” said Ted. “She didn't have any children, but she'd been very fond of her nephews. They'd grown up, one of them had died—in the Falklands War, actually—”

“Ah.”

“—so she, well, she didn't really have anybody.”

“You were sort of replacements for the nephews?”

“Well, in a way. Though it didn't feel like that.”

“And on your side?”

There was a moment's silence, then Nick Bellingham spoke, from his upright chair at the table.

“It was their mother, you see. She'd been ill for months and we hadn't realized it. I blame myself, I make no bones about that. She'd been sort of fading away, and I just got ratty at her. I'd never even heard of M.E.—I'm no great reader. And of course I'm out at work all day—sometimes half the evening too. . . .”

“You mean the boys had had little home life?” Oddie asked, easily.

“Not to put too fine a point on it, yes,” said Bellingham, with his customary fondness for cliché.

“But we liked her,” said Ted eagerly. “She was really interesting, wasn't she, Colin? She knew such a lot, and it was unusual her being a writer.”

“You felt you learned a lot just being there,” said his brother.

“I'm sure you did,” said Oddie. “And when your mother was taken into hospital she provided a base for you in the evenings?”

“Yes. We got her to the doctor's last week, and he put her in immediately. That's when Mrs Perceval made her offer. We went there after school, and she cooked an evening meal for us.”

“And that's what happened last night?”

“Yes.” A catch came into Ted's voice. “I can't believe that just after we saw her. . . .”

“Let's stick to what happened last night. Did you go up to Hilltop Cottage straight after school?”

“No, we went swimming in the Halifax baths first. We got to the cottage around six, and Lydia—Mrs Perceval—cooked us steak and chips.”

“What did you talk about?”

The boys looked at each other, screwing up their faces.

“I remember we talked about being a vegetarian, and how we didn't like our steak too red and fleshy,” said Ted.

“Was Mrs Perceval a vegetarian?” Charlie asked.

“Oh no. She was a red meat and fur coat sort of person,” said Colin.

“She was a bit old-fashioned in a lot of ways,” said Ted.

“Did you come straight home after the meal?”

“No, we played Monopoly. Then we said we'd be getting back, and Mrs Perceval said she'd come down with us.”

Oddie nodded, and looked serious.

“Now, you were alone in the house, were you?”

“Oh yes.”

“Quite sure?”

“Yes. Well—unless there was some kind of intruder.”

Ted shivered. This was something he had not thought about before, apparently.

“Right. So you left the cottage. Did Mrs Perceval lock up?”

“Yes, she locked up and put the key in her handbag.”

“Did she say why she was going down to the village with you?”

“To meet Dad,” said Ted.

“And to make sure which house we lived in,” added Colin.

“No other reason as well?”

“I don't think so. Not that she said.”

“Did anything happen on your way here?”

“Not really,” said Ted, thinking. “We went past her sister's house, and she commented on her nephew still being here. His car was parked outside.”

“She'd had a row with him over the weekend,” said Colin.

“We don't
know
that,” said Ted, turning on him.

“What makes you think it?” asked Charlie.

“We came in when he was up there,” said Colin, still with that rather-pleased-with-himself tone. “There was a sort of atmosphere. She was sort of—well, like she'd lost her cool.”

“Normally she was a very cool person,” said Ted.

“I think it was what people mean when they say someone is ‘ruffled',” said Colin. “Later on, after he'd gone, she made remarks—sort of snide remarks—about him.”

“For instance?”

“Like that he'd thrown his chances away, and that he'd married the sort
of woman who would drag him down. We thought it was rather exciting that he was in television, and she didn't like that.”

“She'd have liked it even less if she'd seen you trying to catch a glimpse of Sharon from
Waterloo Terrace
from our bedroom window on Saturday morning,” said Ted wickedly.

“Well, it's not often you see telly people in Bly,” Colin pointed out. “And she's really page three!”

“Right,” said Oddie, “so you came along to this house. What happened?”

“She just said hello,” said Nick Bellingham, seeming rather embarrassed. “The house was in a bit of a mess, couldn't really invite her in, but she didn't want that. She just—well, she said hello and went.”

“I think it was just so she knew who Dad was,” said Ted.

“What time was this?”

“Oh—maybe a quarter to ten,” said Ted, after a moment's thought. “We watched the end of
Taggart,
and then it was news time. We don't watch the news if Dad isn't in, so we switched it off and went upstairs to do our homework.”

“You weren't in, then?” Oddie asked Nick.

“I slipped out for a quick pint as soon as the lads were home,” their father said. “I'd been doing the firm's paperwork all evening, and I was parched.”

“But would you agree about times?”

“The boys would be right about that. I'd had my head over account books all evening, so I hadn't seen any television. I'm hazy about time at the best of times.”