By a Narrow Majority (8 page)

‘Came too late for Wordsworth, didn’t it?’ he said
belligerently
.

Hillary supposed that it did.

‘This is when I started to watch him,’ Matthews said, suddenly turning the page. On the next one was a badly taken photograph of their victim, Malcolm Dale. He was astride a large black horse, but was not in hunting regalia. ‘He keeps the beast stabled in Steeple Aston,’ Matthews said with a sniff. ‘Here’s his shop.’ Matthews pointed out another picture of the façade of what was probably Sporting Chance, Dale’s shop in Banbury. ‘Here’s a list of his regular movements, see,’ Matthew said, turning yet another page, and allowing a thin, ruled notebook to drop out of the middle of the book. He opened it, revealing meticulous lists of times and dates. ‘Course, his routine’s changed some, since he began his campaign to get elected as Tory MP,’ Matthews snorted. ‘As if I’d ever allow that! He made our lives a misery when he killed our Wordsworth, and I vowed then and there that I’d
make his life a misery too. And so I have. He’ll get elected over my dead body. I’ve already sent out letters to everybody who’s anybody, telling them all about Malcolm bloody Dale.’

Janine, who was gaping slack-jawed at this cheerfully offered evidence of stalking, shot her boss a quick, worried look. Was this a first-grade nutter or what?

Hillary was more interested in seeing the rest of the
scrapbook
than in speculating. ‘What else have you got there, Mr Matthews?’ she asked gently. ‘That looks like an article on car maintenance to me,’ she added softly.

She pointed out an article which Percy peered at
shortsightedly
. He snorted with impatience, and reached into the top pocket of his shirt for his spectacles. After putting them on, he tapped the page in fond remembrance. ‘Arr, yes. That! That’s when I thought I might get him by sabotaging his car. Thing was,’ he added sadly, ‘I’m not really mechanically minded. Never drove a car, see, always took the bus to work. And Rita can’t drive either, so I’ve never had much to do with cars. Had to give up that idea,’ Percy said regretfully, shaking his head.

‘Get him?’ Hillary repeated softly. ‘What exactly do you mean by that, Mr Matthews.’

Percy Matthews craned his head around the better to look at her. His eyes, she noticed, were a sort of caramel-coloured butterscotch. ‘Kill him, of course. What else?’ he said, sounding surprised.

On his other side, she heard Janine draw in a sharp breath. Hillary noticed that her sergeant had gone rather pale and tensed, as if ready to spring. Hillary could hardly blame her. She’d just heard what had amounted to a confession to commit murder. Hillary, however, being much more
experienced
than Janine, wasn’t quite so excited. ‘And what else did you think of, Mr Matthews?’ she asked quietly, glancing quickly towards the window and Rita Matthews, to see how the wife was taking it.

Rita Matthews, however, was still staring outside at the
uninspiring view of a plain, green field. She showed no signs of surprise, or indeed, even of interest in what her husband was saying.

So, it was like that, was it? Hillary mused grimly. Wonderful.

‘Well, see, I thought of poisonous mushrooms next,’ Percy said eagerly, turning a little in the middle of the sofa, the better to see Hillary. ‘I read this novel where a man was killed by his wife picking poisonous mushrooms and giving them to him in an omelette.’ Percy Matthews quickly trawled through the book, stopping at a page in triumph. ‘See, got this article out of a magazine.’ And there, indeed, was an illustrated guide to common, edible mushrooms, culled no doubt from one of his wife’s magazines, and giving a clear warning at which ones were to be avoided. ‘Thing was, I couldn’t find any of the really deadly ones,’ Percy said, sounding as
petulant
as a little boy who’d been denied a slice of cake. ‘All that autumn – and a nice warm and wet one it was too, just right for mushrooms – I tramped about in the water meadows and the spinney, even on the side of the roads, and couldn’t find a single damned poisonous mushroom. I blame the farmers – spraying this, spraying that.’

Hillary rubbed a hand across her eyebrow, feeling the beginnings of a headache. The police, of course, had a whole range of mental-health experts that she could call on for help, but once you went down that route things could get messy and – potentially – expensive. Mel, for one, wouldn’t want his budget being cut into by having to pay for an independent assessment of a suspect’s mental state.

‘And did you think of anything else you could do to him?’ she asked quietly. Over by the window, Rita Matthews finally made a noise, but it was more like a snort of quickly suppressed amusement rather than evidence of distress.

‘Oh, now, let’s see,’ Percy Matthews said, lowering the book in his lap to stare into the fire thoughtfully. ‘I thought of shooting him with a gun, but we don’t own one, and even
to get an air pistol or a shotgun nowadays you have to apply for licences and such. So that was out.’

‘Boss,’ Janine said impatiently, wondering what Hillary was waiting for. She had handcuffs looped to her belt, ready and waiting. Hillary held a hand out to silence her.

‘Mr Matthews, you’re telling me that you’ve been plotting to murder Mr Dale for some time now?’ Hillary asked calmly.

‘Arr. But it’s not easy, see, not as easy as some people think,’ Percy sighed. ‘Thing is, you read all these whodunits that they have in the library van, or watch them on telly –
Inspector Morse
and whatnot – and you get the idea that it’s easy to kill somebody. I know I did. But really, when it comes right down to it, it ain’t,’ Percy explained in deadly earnest. ‘You have to do no end of research, and planning, and more often than not, just when you get a really good plan up and working, something scuppers it.’

Hillary nodded, but her eyes were on Rita Matthews once more. Slowly, as if aware of her gaze, the old woman turned around, then moved across to the armchair and sank down. ‘Don’t listen to him, love,’ she said tiredly. ‘He’s just a daft old fool. All talk and no trousers, that’s him. Surely you can see that?’

Beside her, Percy stiffened in outrage, then scrambled to his feet, his face flushed. ‘What do you know about it, eh? I’ll get him yet, you just wait and see.’

‘Mr Matthews, Malcolm Dale was murdered last night,’ Hillary said quietly, and watched as all the colour drained from the old man’s face.

‘What? What?’ he said. Then scowled ferociously. ‘You mean someone else got to him first?’ Again his voice rose to a squeak. ‘That’s not fair!’ And he all but stamped his foot in frustration.

Janine, who’d leapt from the sofa at the same time as Percy had, now walked slowly towards him, keeping her eyes fixed on him all the time. Hillary simply sighed.

This was bad. Really bad. The trouble with mental cases
like Percy Matthews was, there was no way a cop could win. In her own mind, she was almost sure that Percy was the kind who endlessly planned and talked and did nothing. But if she didn’t take him in, and it later turned out that he really had killed Dale, then everyone from the media to the chief constable, from Mel down to her own mother, would ask her how the hell she could have been so stupid and not arrested him on the spot. On the other hand, if she
did
take him in, only for the police shrink to write him off as a fantasist, the press could get hold of it and ask how the unfeeling brutes at Thames Valley could victimize such an obviously confused and addled old boy.

So here it was – good old Catch 22. And here she was, right in the bloody middle, as always.

‘Mr Matthews, where were you last night?’ she asked abruptly, surprising the old man in mid-flow. He stopped his swearing, complaining monologue on how the world was against him, and stared at her. He blinked. ‘Last night? Well, I was here, wasn’t I? All night, with the wife, watching telly.’

Janine didn’t even bother to write that down, and when Hillary glanced at Rita Matthews, she just caught the tail end of the surprised look she gave him.

Now what?

The thing was, she really had no choice other than to take him in, at least for questioning. Once at HQ they could take his prints, and if they matched the as-yet-anonymous set taken from the Dales’ kitchen, then at least they’d have good enough grounds to hold him. Nevertheless, she’d have bet her next month’s salary that this man had never so much as set foot in the Dale house.

‘Mr Matthews, I’m going to ask you to come with me to Kidlington. It’s nothing to worry about,’ she added firmly, as Rita Matthews suddenly sprang to her feet, for the first time a look of real alarm leaping to her face. ‘I just need to take a formal statement from you both, and then take Mr Matthews’ fingerprints, strictly for elimination purposes.’

She quickly shook her head at Janine, who was reaching behind her for the cuffs. ‘Do you have someone you’d like to call?’ she asked Rita, who looked back at her blankly. ‘One of your children, perhaps?’

‘No,’ she said shortly.

Hillary nodded. ‘Right, then, let’s go.’

Back at headquarters, she split them up. Outside the interview rooms, she nodded to Janine. ‘You take Mr Matthews to room two. I’ll take Mrs Matthews in here.’ She wanted, if she could, to track down the source of that surprised look she’d given her husband when he’d claimed they’d been together all last night. ‘Get Mr Matthews fingerprinted,’ she added, ‘and ask Mr Stevens to sit in with you.’ Roger Stevens was a psychologist who consulted for them.

Janine grimaced but nodded and reached for her mobile to bring him in.

Hillary stepped into the interview room where Mrs Matthews was waiting and glanced at her watch. It was already nearly two. They’d have to feed them both. ‘Please, have a seat Mrs Matthews, I won’t be a moment,’ Hillary said. She left the old woman, still dressed in her pinafore, with a friendly-faced WPC to keep an eye on her, then nipped upstairs to find Mel.

Her old friend and immediate superior listened grave-faced as she outlined the latest developments. He didn’t need the pitfalls outlining to him either, and when she’d finished, sighed heavily. ‘Don’t arrest him until you get Stevens’
assessment
of the old man’s mental state, and the results of the fingerprints through,’ he ordered curtly.

Hillary nodded, and was about to go when Mel called her back. ‘What’s your gut feeling about him?’

Hillary grimaced. ‘I just don’t see it, Mel. He’s hoarded up his hatred like a miser hoards his gold, but I think he gets too much pleasure plotting and planning and gloating over the idea of killing Dale to ever actually go ahead and do it. And
I’m not happy about the state of his hands.’ Briefly she told him about what she suspected about his arthritis, and Mel agreed with her that they should get a medical opinion concerning the strength and flexibility of his hands as quickly as possible.

‘He got any form?’ Mel asked hopefully.

‘Not a whisper.’

Mel grunted, and Hillary left.

‘So, you’re sticking to it that you and your husband were together all last night?’ Hillary repeated, half an hour later, as Rita Matthews drained the last sip of tea from her mug and reached for the plastic triangle of sandwiches Hillary had ordered for her from the canteen.

‘Like I said, we had our tea – it was Welsh rarebit and tinned peaches, then watched that
Weakest Link
thing that Percy’s so damned fond of. Then I did some knitting, while he watched the gogglebox. Some sort of soap, don’t ask me, I don’t watch ’em. I made some cocoa about nine, and we were in bed by ten, our usual time.’

She spoke with a doggedness that alone made Hillary
suspicious
. She wondered how much of this would match with what Janine was being told next door by Percy Matthews. Depressingly, she thought that probably a lot of it would. The Welsh rarebit, for instance. The cocoa. That all sounded genuine enough. But the bit in between?

The trouble was, the Matthews had one of those sorts of alibis that meant nothing, but, on the other hand, sounded so reasonable when outlined in a court of law. It was particularly frustrating because Hillary was sure that Rita Matthews was lying about something.

Of course, it might not even relate to her murder case. Hillary knew that people lied to the police all the time – it didn’t make them killers. Rita was probably used to protecting her daffy husband from the consequences of his own actions. Perhaps she was worried that the social workers
might put him in a home if it came to light how mentally ill he was. In which case, Rita’s reticence might indicate nothing more than general caution on her part. Which, whilst
understandable
, was not something that a copper investigating a murder needed!

They were forced to call a halt at three. Roger Stevens, having sat in on the Percy Matthews interview, was not at all happy about his continued questioning, and asked to speak to Hillary.

‘The thing is, Inspector Greene,’ Stevens told her outside in the corridor, ‘I suspect Mrs Matthews has probably been her husband’s keeper for some time. He’s not senile, exactly, but he’s not far off either. I’d be inclined to take any confession he might make with a large grain of salt. Not that he’s confessed to anything yet, but I can see he might well be working his way up to it.’

It was all very much as Hillary had feared.

‘I need to have a quick word with Mrs Matthews, just to see how long her husband’s been going downhill,’ the psychologist added, ‘and get some sort of idea about the dynamics of their relationship. I should be able to give you a better idea of what’s what after that.’

The moment the psychologist went in to see Rita Matthews, and had shut the door firmly behind him, Janine went on the attack.

‘Come on, boss, the man’s as nutty as a fruitcake. By his own admission, he’s been stalking Dale for years. He has motive, and no way you’re going to tell me the wife isn’t covering up for him. If he was in all night watching telly, then I’m a Dutchman’s uncle.’

Hillary sighed heavily. ‘Do his fingerprints match the ones we found in Dale’s kitchen?’