Blood Sinister (15 page)

‘WDC Swilley. Yes, but there’ve been further developments, and I’m afraid I really do need to ask you some more questions. May I come in?’

She stared at him for a long moment, and then sighed and stepped back. ‘All right. Do you mind if we talk in the dining-room? I’m not too good at stairs yet. That’s why I was so long answering the door.’

She walked ahead of him with the stiff and too-upright gait of the back sufferer.

‘Oh, yes, you hurt your back, didn’t you?’ Atherton said. ‘My colleague told me.’

‘It’s an old trouble that comes and goes,’ she said. ‘I hurt it in a fall years ago.’

‘Horse-riding? Skiing?’ Atherton asked conversationally.

‘Ballet. I used to be a dancer.’ In the dining-room – green silk Regency-stripe wallpaper, dark Edwardian furniture, and a lot of heavy silver that needed cleaning – she pulled out a chair and sat carefully, letting her trousered knees relax outwards in the approved Alexander method.

Atherton sat catty-corner to her and laid his large, smooth
hands on the table, and she looked at them in the way that people in a railway carriage will automatically look at a dog or a child: a way not to meet strangers’ eyes. In the dark room, the sidelong light from the window pooled in the patina of the old mahogany, showing up an even film of dust, like pollen on the surface of a pond. There was a faint fragrance of past pot-pourri and dusty carpet, underlined with damp and a hint of candlewax. A bit like a church, Atherton thought: hassocks, cassocks, incense and rot.

Mrs Prentiss looked haggard. Swilley had said she appeared younger than her age, but the shadowed eyes and drawn face before Atherton now had all their years on show. She was suffering; and she was apprehensive. The liar flees when no man pursueth. But even apart from that, if your husband has murdered your best friend, you are entitled to look a bit on the seedy side – particularly when he hasn’t been locked up yet.

‘I suppose you know what I want to talk to you about?’ he invited gently.

‘The murder, obviously. I don’t know what more I can say to help you.’

‘Well, you see, we’ve got to get one or two things sorted out, haven’t we? Because you told us that your husband was at home on Thursday evening, and that wasn’t true, was it?’

‘Wasn’t it?’

Atherton smiled. ‘Come on, Mrs Prentiss, you and your husband must have talked about this since we first interviewed you. You must know his story and yours didn’t tally. He doesn’t even pretend he was here all evening. Why did you say he was?’

She put her hands to her face as though her cheeks were hot. ‘Oh, I don’t know! I was confused. Upset. A detective came to my door completely out of the blue and told me my best friend had been murdered. Was I supposed to be calm and collected?’

‘But you said that your husband had already told you that Miss Agnew was dead.’

‘Did I? Well, that doesn’t stop it being a shock. And I’m not accustomed to dealing with the police. It frightened me to have that woman suddenly appear on my doorstep.’

‘Hmm,’ said Atherton, with a kindly, trying-to-understand tilt of his head. ‘So because you were startled and upset by the news,
you immediately jumped to the conclusion that your husband was the murderer and needed an alibi?’

‘No, of course not! It wasn’t like that,’ she cried indignantly.

‘Well, what was it like, then?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. I wasn’t really thinking clearly. I was confused.’

‘I don’t think you were confused. I think you were defending him. It’s a natural instinct in a wife, isn’t it?’ She didn’t answer. ‘But what were you defending him against, if you didn’t think he did it?’

‘Getting mixed up in it, I suppose,’ she said, as if goaded into answering the unanswerable. ‘I wanted to protect him from trouble – scandal – the newspapers. Anything like that could damage his career. I just wanted your colleague to know that Josh couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with it. I wanted her to go away and leave us alone.’

‘Yes, well, telling lies isn’t the best way to stop us coming back, is it?’

She met his eyes at last, and hers were anxious, guarded. ‘I suppose not. But as I said, I wasn’t thinking clearly.’

He tried a shift of direction. ‘Did you know your husband had gone to see Phoebe Agnew on Thursday?’

She hesitated, and there was something there in the dark depths, he thought, something cautious. It was the look a suspect gave you when they didn’t know what it was safe to say, how much you knew. His heart lifted, as it always did at the scent of guilt.

‘No,’ she said after a substantial think. ‘But why shouldn’t he? They were good friends. All three of us were good friends.’

‘Did he often visit her without you?’

‘I don’t know how often he visited her, but there was no reason he shouldn’t, or that he should tell me when he did. There was nothing going on between them, if that’s what you’re suggesting. Of course, that’s bound to be the conclusion everyone will leap to, that they were having an affair behind my back, especially given the way she was found. But that’s precisely the reason I wanted to protect him. Once the press gets hold of it, they’ll turn a decent friendship into something sordid and underhand.’ Her voice rose a little in agitation. ‘Something commonplace and disgusting and deceitful!’

‘I’m afraid we can’t be responsible for what the newspapers print,’ Atherton said soothingly. ‘I wish we could. Do you know where your husband went afterwards – when he left her flat?’

‘To see Giles Freeman, on Government business,’ she said promptly.

‘He told you that, did he?’

‘Yes.’

‘I wonder, then, why you didn’t tell us?’

She looked away nervously. ‘I didn’t know at the time that that’s where he’d gone. He told me on Friday night, after he’d spoken to you.’

‘So what you’re saying is that he went out on Thursday evening without giving you any indication of where he was going? Was that usual?’

‘I’m not his gaoler,’ she snapped.

‘Quite so. But married couples usually say, “I’m off to such and such a place, darling” when they get up and leave, don’t they?’

‘I don’t know what other married couples do,’ she said stubbornly.

‘But weren’t you a bit curious? Husband gets up and leaves the house without a word? And when you hear later that your best friend has been murdered you assume that’s where he went and tell a lie to protect him?’ She didn’t answer. ‘Mrs Prentiss, I have to press you on this point. Can’t you see how odd your behaviour looks? I must know the truth. Did your husband say on Thursday night where he was going?’

She put her hands between her knees and squeezed them, hunching her shoulders. She looked like a cold bird on a winter branch, thin and vulnerable. ‘I don’t remember. It’s all so confused. I was so upset about Phoebe it’s driven everything out of my head. I expect he did say. He probably said he was going out on business, or going to a meeting. In fact, yes, I’m sure that’s what he did say. He said he was going to a meeting at the Ministry, and that he might call in on Phoebe on the way. Yes, and I remember now, he said had I any message for her, and I said just give her my love.’

All this was less than convincing, Atherton thought; and why was she so nervous? Had Prentiss threatened her? Well, perhaps he wouldn’t need to. Just being married to a man who
had murdered your best friend must make you eager to please him. ‘And what time did he go out?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know. About half past seven, a quarter to eight maybe. I didn’t notice particularly.’

‘He was with you all morning and afternoon, was he? Did he go out anywhere else before that?’

‘No, he was here.’

‘What did he do all day?’

‘He read some papers, did some writing. We had a late lunch. I don’t remember in detail.’

‘Where did he do those things? Was he in the same room as you all the time?’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘If he wasn’t actually in the same room as you all the time, he might have left the house without your knowing.’

‘Of course he didn’t leave the house,’ she said robustly. ‘I’d have known. Anyway, he didn’t leave the room for long enough to go anywhere.’

‘And what time did he come home on Thursday night?’

‘I don’t know exactly. It was very late, after I’d gone to bed. After midnight – nearer one o’clock I think. But that was usual, when he was on Government business. They often have late meetings when the House is sitting.’

‘Did he ring you at all that evening?’

‘No.’

‘You were in all evening?’

She looked startled. ‘Of course I was. What do you mean?’

‘I mean, were you in all evening? Did you go out? If you were out, you wouldn’t know if he’d phoned.’

‘We have an answering machine. But I was in all evening. And he didn’t phone. Why should he?’

Atherton was silent, letting her stew, letting her relax. Then he said, ‘A little while ago, when you were talking about the trouble the newspapers would make for your husband over his relationship with Phoebe Agnew, you said, “Especially given the way she was found”. What did you mean by that?’

A stillness came over her. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Well, how
was
she found? What aspect of the way she was found made you think it would cause trouble for your husband?’

‘I don’t know what you mean. I don’t remember what I said. But it’s obvious the papers will make trouble for him when they know he visited her that night, won’t they? Everyone always assumes the worst.’

Joanna phoned. ‘About that lunch—’

‘Oh, Lord, I’d forgotten. I think it’s going to be out of the question,’ Slider began.

‘It certainly is. I’m cancelling,’ said Joanna. ‘Some work’s come in. The Grossman Ensemble. A concert in Woburn. Rehearsal three-thirty to five-thirty, so I’d have to leave around one at the latest.’

‘Leave earlier and don’t rush,’ Slider advised.

‘I did think of it,’ she admitted. ‘Some of the others are meeting at the Sow and Pigs for lunch on the way.’ This was a pub at Toddington, just off the M1, handy for musicians on their way to dates in the north. Slider had learned that there were ‘musicians’ pubs’ which everyone in the business knew and frequented – places with good food, real ale and an accommodating landlord.

‘Have lunch with my blessing,’ he said. ‘Just promise to think of me when you’re enjoying yourself.’

‘Well, I think I should stop off,’ she said, ‘because the guy who gave me the date, Gerhard Wolf, will be there, and I’d like to buy him a pint to thank him.’

‘Do I know him?’ Slider asked. She had pronounced the surname the German way, but wolf was as wolf did in any language.

‘I don’t think you’ve met him. Tall, skinny guy, foxy eyes, long blond hair and an earring?’

‘I know so many who fit that description,’ Slider said. Fox and wolf? This was getting worse. He forced himself to be noble. ‘If you chum up to him, maybe he’ll get you some more work.’

‘Oddly enough,’ she said, ‘that had occurred to me. How’s the case going?’

‘With the speed of evolution.’

‘So fast?’

‘That’s how long it takes to get a DNA report back.’

‘You know what DNA stands for, don’t you?’ Joanna said.

‘Eh?’

‘The National Dyslexics’ Association.’

‘Go away, Marshall. Go and play some music or something.’ As he put the phone down, Atherton came in, rubbing his hands. ‘You look pleased. How did it go?’

‘Loyal little wifie is dropping him in it as fast as she tries to bail him out.’ He recounted his interview with Mrs Prentiss. ‘First she says one thing then another. She didn’t know where he went and then she did. Obviously he’s come home after talking to us and given her a rocket for giving him the wrong alibi. Now she’s so confused she can’t remember what story they’re going with.’

‘We don’t know that,’ said Slider.

‘Oh, Mr Caution! All right, but she has been lying, and she was obviously trying to protect him, and what would she need to do that for if he wasn’t guilty?’

‘Did she admit she was trying to protect him?’

‘Yes, she did, as it happens. And here’s something odd,’ Atherton added. ‘She said she wanted to protect him from getting involved because the media would assume he and Agnew had been having an affair—’

‘Makes sense.’

‘Yes, but listen, then she added, “especially given the way she was found” – the way Agnew was found.’

‘Oh?’ said Slider.

‘Later on I asked her what she meant by that, and she waffled and said she didn’t remember saying it; but it must surely have been a reference to the fact that Agnew was found half naked and tied to the bedstead,
à la
sexual games. And that’s a detail that hasn’t appeared in the newspapers yet. So how did she know, unless Prentiss told her?’

Slider made an expressive face. ‘You think he boasted to her about the way he did the murder? The two women were friends, remember.’

‘Would you put it past him?’

‘She might not have meant anything in particular by it,’ Slider demurred. ‘It’s amazing how little people manage to mean by anything for ninety per cent of their lives. Still, it does look like another piece of evidence against Prentiss.’