Love Story, With Murders (11 page)

That’s hardly a massively positive vote, but it’s good enough.

‘How is it where you are?’ I say. ‘It’s rainy here. Not too cold, though. I don’t like the cold.’

Another pause, probably some
jaw action involved in it, then, ‘Let me know what you get from Mortimer.’

She rings off before I can say goodbye.

I drive slowly to Mortimer’s house. I have the address from the inquest notes. I don’t know if she’s still here. I didn’t call ahead.

The house is at the end of a short cul-de-sac. Pleasant, unremarkable. Patches of lawn in front of every house. A few shrubs. Tidy, clean.
Lights on in the house I’m after.

I get out of the car and ring the doorbell. Nothing. I’m about to ring a second time when the door opens. It’s a woman. Younger than I was expecting. Mid-thirties, which I’d
known from the inquest notes, but somehow hadn’t pictured. Also prettier. Slim, blonde, hair more than shoulder length, a kind of natural sulkiness around her mouth. Skinny jeans, a
floral
print top in dark grey and lilac, black biker jacket.

‘Mrs Mortimer?’ I ask.

‘Not anymore. I don’t use that name anymore. I’m Sophie Hinton now.’

I introduce myself, show my warrant card, ask for twenty minutes of her time. She says she doesn’t have twenty minutes, she’s expecting a friend to drop the kids off any moment now,
then has to go straight out.

I say, ‘Well,
any time you’ve got . . .’

She doesn’t like it much, but she swings the door open, lets me in, and shows me through to the kitchen. The room had its last major refurbishment in the 1980s, it looks like.
Country-style cabinets with limed oak doors and tiled countertops. I can’t put the kitchen together with the woman, then remember I’m in her mother’s house.

I sit down. Hinton doesn’t.
She doesn’t take her jacket off. She puts her phone down on the counter, but in a place where she can still see the screen. Her car key down next to
it.

There’s a vibe in the room which I can’t explain. Obviously there are some classes of people who exhibit an almost automatic them-versus-us hostility to the police, but a nice little
cul-de-sac in Droitwich isn’t somewhere I’d expect to
encounter it.

I introduce myself. Say why I’m here: ‘We’re investigating a couple of serious crimes in Cardiff. One of the victims probably knew your husband. I just want to check if
there’s anything there we need to explore.’

She sits down on a stool at the breakfast bar, but there’s something provisional in the way she sits, one long leg sloping all the way to the floor, as though
to show she could get up and
walk out at a moment’s notice.

‘Have you ever heard of a man named Ali el-Khalifi?’ I ask. ‘He was an engineering lecturer at the university.’

‘Never heard of him.’ Her response is instant but followed by a hesitation. She amends her answer. ‘A Middle Eastern guy?’

Yes, I tell her. North African, in fact, but I don’t think Hinton is after geographical
exactitude.

‘Met him at an office party, maybe. I didn’t talk to him.’

Her leg moves as she says this. Her toes comes in under her centre of gravity, so she’s even closer to standing up than she was before.

‘We found him cut into about fifteen different pieces round Llanishen Reservoir. He used to work with your ex.’

Hinton’s colour rises. She reaches for her phone and fiddles
with it.

‘We found his lung bobbing around in the water.’

Her colour hardens, but something else does too. ‘Look, I don’t know that person. I don’t want to sound insensitive. I’m very sorry and everything, but –’ She
shrugs. ‘What was your question?’

‘Do you know why your husband – your ex-husband – killed himself?’

‘Because he was an idiot.’

‘Did anyone ever threaten you?
You or your children? Did your ex-husband ever receive threats that he told you about?’

The question doesn’t get anything much more than a snort. Half laugh, half dismissal. ‘No,’ she says, standing up. She reaches for her phone and car key. Her colour is still
high, still too bright, but there’s a kind of armouring now which I don’t think I’ll be able to penetrate.

‘Why did you leave
him?’

‘Why did I leave him? He was a drug dealer. He had this Saint Mark thing going. Butter wouldn’t melt, and all that. Then what is he, really? A drug dealer who was busted and sent to
jail. And we had two children together.’

There are tears in her eyes now, but the armour is still present, still shining.

‘Your ex wasn’t a dealer. Not really. He was some sort of middleman who
screwed up. The person who killed Khalifi is the sort of person who would be happy to threaten wives and
children too. We can’t protect you if you don’t tell us stuff. Sophie, have you been threatened? You or the kids? Now or in the past?’

‘No.’ She runs her hand hard through her hair, shaking it out. A kind of anger there. Or defiance. A running away? I can’t tell.

‘Or any recent contacts
which struck you as odd?’

There are other questions I want to ask, but I’ve lost my witness. She’s in some space I don’t understand and can’t reach.

Sophie stands over me, taller and blonder than I’ll ever be, wanting me to leave. I nod, compliant and submissive. I don’t want to prompt a complaint to Watkins.

‘I’m going to leave you my phone number. If you need any kind of help, let
me know. We
can
help, we just need you to ask.’

She nods. I write out my name and number on a sheet in my notebook, tear out the page and push it over the counter to her. As I do that, we hear a car outside, doors slamming, the sound of
children’s voices. Sophie doesn’t take my number. Just leaves it on the counter.

We walk to the front door. The strange atmosphere is still with us,
but I don’t understand it.

Hinton goes out to get her kids. I hang back, because I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Hinton says something about me, because I see her gesture in my direction.

The kids spill out of the car. Theo and Ayla, I know from the inquest notes. Six and five. Ayla’s in some kind of ballet costume and wants to show her mother her pirouette. The friend
drives off
with a wave.

I say, ‘Thank you, Sophie. I’ll get going.’

Hinton gives me a look that says I can’t leave soon enough for her, then, abruptly, as I have my hand on the door of my car, says, ‘Actually, look, I have to go out. It would be
easier if I didn’t have them. Can you look after them for ten minutes? My mum should be back soon.’

I say yes.

‘She should be here any moment.’

I tell her that’s fine.

Hinton looks at me hard. I think she’s trying to imply that she has fiercely high child-care standards and she’s seeking to determine if I meet those tests. I give her my best
child-care face, whatever that is.

‘Okay.’ She nods. Takes me and the kids into the house. Gets orange juice for Theo. Puts the telly on. Says again, ‘It’ll be five minutes, literally.’

I don’t believe her. I think Sophie takes the path of least resistance in most situations. That she does whatever is pleasantest and most convenient and simply rearranges her mental
furniture to make her own behaviour seems acceptable. Perhaps we all do the same thing, if not quite on Hinton’s scale.

I say again that we’ll be fine.

Hinton gives me the hard stare one last time, then
whirls off.

Theo is in front of the TV already, watching an American cartoon. Things being whacked, splatted, and chased.

I say to Ayla, ‘I’m Fiona, a friend of your mam’s. You’re Ayla, aren’t you?’

Ayla nods. Her eyes are wide and serious. ‘Are you a policewoman?’

‘Yes.’

I assume Sophie said as much to her friend when she arrived. Ayla frowns at my answer, but I know why.

‘I’m a detective, so I don’t get to wear a uniform. I used to, though. It was very hot.’

Theo is watching me now, or half-watching me anyway. I’m neck-and-neck with the cartoon.

‘That’s why I don’t have a police car either. Detectives aren’t usually allowed them.’

‘Do you have a gun?’

Theo: the boy’s question.

I say, ‘No, they don’t let us have guns,’ but I show him my warrant
card, and he likes that.

‘My daddy went to prison.’

Theo again.

Ayla’s eyes travel to a photo on the windowsill. Of Mark Mortimer, with his family. I haven’t noticed any other photos of him anywhere.

I mute the TV and, acknowledging Ayla’s look, say, ‘That’s your daddy there, is it? He looks nice.’ I don’t know what to say.

Ayla nods.

I get the photo and sit on the floor
with my back against the sofa. The kids sit either side of me. Ayla quite close, Theo still keeping his distance.

I bet Mark Mortimer doesn’t get much airtime in this house. Not from Sophie Hinton, not from anyone else either.

‘Tell me about your daddy,’ I say. ‘Anything you remember.’

They don’t say much at first, but then Ayla volunteers something – ‘He was really tall’ – and then
Theo does, and then both kids are talking. They’re not
crying exactly, but tears aren’t far away.

I don’t say much. Just let them keep talking. This isn’t me in police mode – the children couldn’t possibly have any useful evidence – but it seems fair to let them
remember their father, in their way, at their pace. Whatever Mortimer did or didn’t do, his children don’t deserve to have him
airbrushed from their lives.

Then Theo says, ‘Why did he go to prison?’

Ayla, who had been saying something, shuts up completely.

‘If you’re in the police,’ adds Theo, pushing.

‘I don’t know,’ I whisper. ‘I know what they say he did, but I don’t really know. The real reason, I mean.’

‘Was it a mistake?’

A very good question, as a matter of fact.
Was
it a mistake? Nothing
about Mortimer shouts drug smuggler – or at least, nothing beyond a steel tube packed full of cocaine.

‘Maybe,’ I tell Theo. ‘I don’t know. We’re trying to find out.’

‘Is that why you’re here?’

‘Sort of. Yes.’

And, unexpectedly, what I say feels like the truth. Two other corpses brought me here, but Mortimer’s corpse matters too. His children do. I can feel their questions plucking
at me.
Demanding something. Theo’s a good interrogator, actually. He’s done what we’re trained to do: extract truths and insights that the subject had no intention of disclosing.

To myself as much as them, I repeat, ‘We’re trying to find out.’

Time goes by.

The kids switch their attention to other things with the alarming ease of the very young. The TV comes back on. Car chases and
shouting.

No sign of Sophie Hinton or of her mum. I don’t care, but I’ve been here twenty minutes, not the promised five.

After more time passes, we hear a car stopping outside: Hinton’s mother. I go to meet her. Explain who I am and offer to see myself out. She doesn’t seem all that amazed to find a
stranger looking after her daughter’s children.

I say, ‘They seem lovely. Must be
so hard for them after losing their father.’

Hinton’s mother, Geraldine, tuts at that. Scowls. Another airbrusher.

I bend down to the kids. ‘I’ll do my best. To find out if it was a mistake.’

Theo nods, as though he’s swearing some sacred oath. Ayla is wearing a little bracelet: seashells on a piece of elastic. She takes it off and holds it out to me. ‘For you.’

I put it on. ‘Thank
you, Ayla. Thank you, sweetheart.’

I leave. Their grandmother shuffles them inside. Geraldine likes me almost as much as her daughter did.

I walk over to my car, but don’t get in right away. I go to the boot and root round in the tyre irons until I find a joint and a lighter. I light up. Smoking outside the prison would have
been against my rules, because it would have been a bad response
to a temporary emergency. This smoke isn’t like that. It’s not breaking my rules.

I’m about halfway done when Sophie Hinton’s red Mini sweeps down the cul-de-sac. Stops. She gets out, with something liquid in her eyes. I wonder if whatever she’s been out
doing involved a glass or two of white wine. I’m guessing yes.

‘You’re still here.’

‘Just leaving. The kids are terrific. Your
mam’s in with them now.’

She nods brusquely.

‘Sophie, that office party where you met Khalifi, who threw it? Mark’s firm? The university? Or what?’

‘I don’t know. Some engineering thing. Circle of Welsh Engineers or something.’

‘Okay. And if you remember anything else, you have my number.’

Hinton nods, heads inside.

I’ve got half my joint left, but don’t want it now. Take
one more puff, then drop the end down a storm drain.

Conflict doesn’t bother me, but what I’ve had from Sophie Hinton wasn’t conflict. Was she pissed off with me because she didn’t want to be reminded of her troublesome
former husband? Pissed off because she
had
been threatened and didn’t want to risk any police involvement? Pissed off because she resented the police for jailing her husband?
Or was
she just a spoiled pretty-girl whose life wasn’t running the way she’d intended and who was perfectly ready to let her bad mood spill out on anyone who got in its way?

Who knows? Not me.

I swing my car door open. Sophie Hinton glowers from the kitchen window. Skinny jeans and a biker jacket. I try to imagine myself in those clothes. Long-haired and petulant. Different look,
different me.

I wave at her, then head for the motorway, head for home. Keep my shell bracelet on all the way. The journey time is eighty-three minutes.

The next few days, I mix it up. Do the work that Watkins and pink-faced Dunwoody want me to do. Do some more interesting things too.

So, I come in on time. Make stupid calls. Write stupid lists. Check bits of paper. Write up notes. Listen to briefings: the Stirfry morning show. For the first time since the start,
Supterintendent.
Kirby misses two briefings in a row. The incident room board listing our people of interest now shows a tally of 221. That’s not a sign of progress, but one of failure.