Death of a Stranger (19 page)

T
he pathologist's commentary on Simon's injuries made Tim skip lunch, but he forced himself to give Marjorie and Benjamin Charters time to have theirs before sending a car to bring them to the station for interview. WPC Joanne Torode was put in charge of the son while he and Ted were interviewing the mother, and he asked her to talk to the boy on subjects of his choice and be prepared to let him know her reactions to his reactions.

Marjorie Charters was more obviously on her guard than her husband had been, wary and self-protective. She neither added to nor altered anything her husband had told them, but Tim's sixth sense suggested she was afraid of more than she admitted to: a fear of the effect of an interview on her son.

“You'll be sitting beside him, Mrs Charters,'' Ted told her. Even when Tim didn't have to struggle minute by minute to retain his objectivity, he knew Ted's personality was the more reassuring. “And you say he was asleep while the intruder was in the house and didn't wake up until after he had left.''

“That's right!'' Tim was aware of Marjorie Charters'body tensing as she rapped out the words. Although it was a very different style of reaction, he was reminded of the over-elaborate nonchalance with which her husband had referred to the knee-hole desk in his study, and felt another stab of excitement as it reinforced his instinct that the Charter family had something to hide.

The boy was so tense he walked stiff-legged, and WPC Torode had shaken her head at Tim when he went in person to collect him, mute and white-faced, from the room where he and the WPC had been alone together during his mother's interview.

“I don't suppose you can tell me anything about last night that your parents haven't already told me,'' were his first words to the boy when he was sitting rigid beside his mother. Not believing Ted capable of easing up on his invariably portentous opening to a tape, Tim had announced it himself in as light a manner as possible. “Seeing that you slept through the disturbance of the intruder. That's right, isn't it, Benjamin?''

“Yes.''

“The cat ran howling up the stairs, the table in the hall fell over and a vase shattered on the parquet, but none of these things wakened you. So you're a heavy sleeper?''

“He is, Mr Le Page!''

He had known the mother would answer. Most parents did, until invited not to. “If you'll just let Benjamin speak for himself, Mrs Charters,'' he suggested, as gently as he could manage. “It's a requirement of his interview.'' Tim turned back to the boy. “You're a heavy sleeper, then, Benjamin?''

“I think so. But I keep my door closed and go a long way down in the bedclothes.''

“I see. Did you wake up when your father came back upstairs?''

The boy's face shot round to look at his mother, and Tim was aware of a flash of panic. But when she told him to take his time, that the inspector had to ask him that sort of question, he turned back to the policemen and told them calmly and while looking into Tim's eyes that he hadn't wakened up until his mother had come to call him as usual at half past seven.

“Thank you, Benjamin. Did your mother tell you then about what had happened in the night?''

“Sort of.'' This time the boy spoke unprompted, without looking to his mother. “She said … someone had come into the house through the kitchen window but my Dad had heard and frightened him away before he had time to steal anything.''

“I see.'' Tim glanced at Marjorie Charters as the boy stopped speaking, and wondered if he could see relief in her face as well as approval of her son's performance. But he knew from past experience how easy it was to think he saw things he wished to see. “ Thank you, Benjamin. And when did you first learn that the intruder had been killed in the lane?''
The intruder
. His brother. The brother he hadn't known he had until he didn't have him … Savagely Tim pulled himself back to the interview.

“When two policemen came to tell us. They asked if we'd heard anything unusual in the night, and then Dad told them, and about the broken things in the hall.''

“Were you surprised that your Dad hadn't been intending to tell the police about the break-in?'' The boy stared at him in silence, eyes wide in what looked like terror. “Benjamin?''

Tim saw the mother's throat move, but to his grudging admiration she remained silent. After a glance at her, Benjamin turned back to the policemen and whispered, “ No.''

“Why not?'' DS Mahy prompted.

“Because he knew it was the insurance people. They'll stoop to anything to save themselves having to pay out.'' It had to be a quote from his parents. “ So what would have been the point?'' That, too. And maybe because they had asked him to learn certain things by heart. “But when we heard somebody was dead …'' The sound that followed could have been a sob or a hiccup.

“When did you learn that somebody was dead, Benjamin?''

“I've told you. When the police came and told us.''

The boy had answered pat, and if he had answered truthfully there would have been no need for the terror to come back into his eyes before he slid his gaze down to the table top. Tim felt another stab of excitement. “ Yes, of course.'' For the time being he was satisfied. Marjorie Charters drew a shuddering breath as he pronounced that the interview was terminated, and studied his face with surprise and suspicion in her own.

“Don't you or your husband flee the island,'' DS Mahy advised her, “we'll maybe want to talk to you again.'' If Tim had a fault to find with his admirable DS, it was an occasional insensitivity that emerged as a jokiness which had the opposite effect on the interviewee from the one Ted had to be intending. Marjorie Charters bridled as she got to her feet and pulled her son up with her.

“I don't think that's something you need worry about.''

“Of course not,'' Tim said heartily. “My sergeant likes his little joke.'' Ted smiled, unchastened. He would do it again. “ Thank you both for coming in.''

When he got back to his office he rang the hospital and was told that his mother was no longer there: his wife, unable to get hold of him, had left a message to tell him she had taken her home. Looking at his watch he was astonished to see that it was evening, and left immediately for Rouge Rue.

The quiet pastel morning had expanded into a hot summer's day, but his mother looked pale and cold in his north-facing sitting-room, lying on the huge old sofa in a loose-fitting white wrap. Duffy was stretched out on the floor beside her, and Tim saw that he rose slowly and stiffly before coming over to the door to welcome him – his first intimation that his dog was growing old.

And when his mother looked up at him, the intimation sharpened into a bleak awareness of all mortality as he saw how gaunt her face had grown. But each hour since he had last seen her felt like a day and a night, and he could imagine there had been time for his brother's death to take a visible toll.

“Oh, Tim, please don't mind, I couldn't stand another moment in that hospital.'' Her voice had lost its purr. “Anna's in the kitchen making a sandwich. We neither of us wanted anything at lunchtime, here or at the hospital, but she decided it was time we made an effort.''

“I'm very glad to have you home.'' He bent to kiss her cheek, not knowing whether or not he meant it. “ I didn't want anything at lunchtime, either, but I'll make an effort with you. Tell me first, though …'' He pushed his grandmother's beaded stool towards her with his foot, and squatted down on it. “ Did Simon tell you he was going to pay the Golden Rose a second open visit? I'm sorry, Mother, but I'll need to ask—''

“It's all right, Tim. I know you're a policeman and I want you to find out who killed him.'' Her determinedly reassuring smile made him as uneasy as her stony gaze into space before she had been aware of his presence. “Yes, he did. But he didn't tell me what he was going to do last night, although he hinted he might go undercover before he left. How do you know he was at the place during the day?''

“He rang his London insurance contact from there on his mobile. Told him he would go in during the night if he could get in without breaking in. If he didn't tell you he won't have told anyone else. I'd better go and see Anna.''

Anna was the weak point in his new armour, and he went out to the kitchen with a dreadful, unfamiliar sensation of reluctance. She was making sandwiches with cucumber and what looked like corned beef. “Sandwiches are easiest when you're not hungry,'' she said conversationally, glancing up briefly from the work surface. “Are you getting anywhere?''

“Nowhere I can put into words. But my instincts tell me the Charters are hiding something. I felt the boy had been rehearsed, though he didn't appear to have seen or heard anything. And the mother was desperately defensive.''

“What next, then? Have you contacted the insurance company Simon was working for?'' Anna put down the knife as she spoke and turned to put her hands on his shoulders. Warily he put his round her waist.

“Yes. His contact's coming over to see the Chief and me tomorrow. It appears Simon rang him yesterday afternoon from the Golden Rose to tell him he'd decided to go in if he could manage it without breaking anything. He didn't tell even Mother, so perhaps it was a spur of the moment decision.''

“Because something had happened? Oh, darling, I'm sorry, you don't know …''

“No. And I never will.''

Tim couldn't remember the last time he had cried. If crying was the word for the dry rasping sobs that were suddenly shivering through him. But although his wife had been their catalyst, holding her in his arms was helping him through them. It was several moments before they ceased.

“I'm sorry.'' He drew back on a last shuddering breath as Anna tried to keep her relief out of her face. “At least this Mr Taylor may be able to tell us something about Simon's mission and what his thinking on it was.''

“Yes. D'you want a sandwich?''

He wanted to thank her for being so matter-of-fact about his brief unmanning, but that would be to negate her sense of fitness. “I'll try.''

The three of them tried, with lots of coffee, and were still toying when Tim gave a yell and knocked his plate to the floor as he flung his arms ceilingwards. Crusts scattered across the old multi-coloured rug as he dropped to his knees and edged over to the sofa.

“It's all right, it's all right!'' He turned to reassure Anna as well, but too late to save her from another wave of cold that made her physically shudder. “It's just that I suddenly thought …'' He seized his mother's hand. “ I've not been behaving like a policeman
or
a brother. For God's sake, Mother, I don't even know if Simon had a partner. If he was
married
!''

“He
was
married.'' The reminiscent sorrow in her eyes made him look away from her. “ Very early, very briefly, and very misguidedly. No children, and he hasn't seen her for years. Since then there have just been girlfriends, no living in. When I – used to ask him'' – she had pulled his hand against her, and he was aware of a quick succession of short breaths – “ he said he hadn't found anyone who could cope with his lifestyle. So there's no one else to contact, darling. If there had been, I'd have done it, or told Gina to.''

“Of course.'' Tim slowly withdrew his hand and edged back to his chair. “Normally the incident room team collect what autobiographical material they can on a murder victim, but Simon was left to me as a friend of the family. All I had to do was question his mother, but I didn't do it.''

“You've done it just a few hours after the investigation began,'' Anna ventured. She had felt wary in conversation with her husband for a mere matter of hours, but the sensation was already disagreeably familiar. “An incident room team could hardly have been quicker. And you knew Lorna would tell you anything that could be significant.''

“There isn't anything outside his assignment from the insurance company,'' Lorna said, following Tim's impatient nod towards his wife, “ that I know of. Simon didn't confide his every move to Gina or to me, but he was more susceptible than you've ever been, Tim. There always seemed to be girlfriends. But no special one since his divorce. And no other extra-curricular activity known to us that could have had anything to do with – with what's happened. I asked Gina when I spoke to her from the hospital.''

“Of course you did. Thanks, Mother. Now, I'm afraid I'll have to go out again. I'm not sure when I'll be back but it shouldn't be late.'' He pictured himself, before he returned to them, driving to a remote piece of coast and running himself physically exhausted. He would probably do it.

While they were clearing the crumbs Anna told him she needed a few things from the supermarket and Lorna said she'd be fine on her own. When Anna had left Tim remained standing in front of the sofa, shuffling his feet.

“What are you finding difficult to say, darling?''

“That I don't want you to open the door to anyone, unless you can see through the window that it's Clare, say, or Robin, or anyone else you know apart from Constance Lorimer. I can't think she would come after you again, but if she isn't quite sane and finds out you've left the Princess Elizabeth …'' And if he got to her house and she wasn't there … “Anyway, it looks now as if it could have been Simon whoever it was was after outside the Duke.''

“I think it was Constance. After me. I'll go on thinking that, Tim, unless you can prove it wasn't.''

“So the way Simon – was killed … That was a coincidence?''

“It has to be.''

“I'll find out. I will, darling. And meanwhile you promise not to open the door unless you're sure who it is?''