More Than Meets the Eye (25 page)

Hartley had looked up sharply at the use of his forename. He studied Hook for a moment, as if conscious of his presence for the first time. ‘Julie told me she was leaving me. She said she was going to live with that woman.'

‘Sarah Goodwin. You've met her?'

‘I've seen her twice, I think. Three times at most. I know almost nothing about her. I didn't even know she was a bloody dyke!' He released all the fury he could into the harsh consonants of the monosyllable, but it didn't give him much relief. ‘And now she's got her claws into my Julie!' He plunged his face into his hands.

They waited for him to recover some composure. When he finally dropped his hands, his eyes were dry but his face was wracked with pain. Hook spoke as softly as a therapist. ‘How long have you known about this situation?'

‘About a week. Maybe a little longer. Bloody Dennis Cooper knew about it before I did!'

‘Yes. We have the book in which he kept notes on the people here. He does seem to have been aware of the situation for rather longer than a week. But you're saying now that it wasn't you who told him of it.'

‘No. Dennis had been a good friend to me. He'd helped me to make the changes in the gardens I wanted. But he was into everyone's business, I can see that now. He liked to find out things about people – he said it helped him in his job to know people as thoroughly as he could. I accepted that at the time. But now I think he was a nosy old sod who liked to have power over people's lives. Sorry! I suppose I shouldn't be talking like this about a dead man, should I?'

‘Did you kill him, Jim?'

‘No.'

‘Even though he was threatening your job, your position here, perhaps your whole life? Much better to tell us now, if you did.'

‘No. The job means nothing to me, if I'm losing Julie and the boys.'

‘You'd better tell us what happened on Sunday night, hadn't you?'

Hartley nodded, apparently grateful for Hook's understanding. He spoke in a low, swift monotone, anxious to get his version of events over without collapsing under the weight of his emotions. ‘Julie waited until we had the boys in bed. They'd been swimming in the afternoon, before the storm came on, so they were tired and went off to sleep quite quickly. She told me that she was going to leave me, to set up house with Sarah Goodwin, and to take the boys with her. I said I wasn't having that, that I'd fight her for the boys if it came to it. She said the courts always sided with mothers, even – even when it was like this. I tried to show her what we had, what she was going to break up, but she's better than me when it comes to words. She said that love was what she felt for Sarah and that overrode everything else. I've never hit her, but I might have done then. She just didn't want to listen to me. She stormed out of the house without saying where she was going. To bloody Sarah Goodwin's, I suppose, but I didn't know that.'

Hook looked at Lambert to see if he wished to take over the questioning at this crucial point, but received only a slight shake of the head. ‘What time did Julie leave, Jim?'

‘Nine o'clock. Well, just after nine. It was going dark, but that was because the clouds were still heavy and low after the storm.'

‘Did you see whether she went straight off the site?'

Hartley's eyes widened. ‘This is the time when he was killed, isn't it?'

‘Cooper died at around that time, yes. We aren't sure of the exact moment.'

‘And you think it might have been Julie who killed him?'

‘It could easily have been a woman, Jim. No great strength was required.'

‘It wasn't Julie. She wouldn't do anything like that. She would never be capable of murder.'

He had sprung as instinctively to her defence as she had done to his earlier in the day. There was something touching about it, but the experienced CID pair had received such assurances on numerous previous occasions. Many of them had proved unjustified. Hook nodded but did not comment. ‘What time did Julie return?'

‘Twenty minutes after midnight. I saw it on my bedside clock. She thought I was asleep and I pretended I was. I didn't trust myself to ask where she'd been.'

Hook noted the times and looked at his man in silence for a moment. ‘You say that you didn't kill Dennis Cooper. You can't believe it was Julie. So who do you think tightened that ligature around Cooper's neck on Sunday night?'

‘I don't know. I've thought a lot about it, as everyone round here has. I thought it might be one of my apprentice lads, perhaps – they're not above a bit of violence to settle their problems. But then I look around them and I can't see it being any of them. Hugo Wilkinson? He'd had his troubles with Dennis, but would he murder him? Or one of the voluntary workers who come in daily? I don't know much about them.' He shrugged his shoulders hopelessly.

Lambert spoke for the first time in many minutes. ‘Keep your eyes and your ears open, please. You may be the likeliest person on the site to see or hear something significant. And don't leave the area without letting us know your intended address, please.'

Jim Hartley nodded dumbly, recognizing that the last words meant he remained a suspect. He had reached the door when DS Hook's voice said, ‘I hope you can work things out within the family, Jim. Don't resort to violence, however desperate you feel: that invariably makes things worse.'

Bert waited a few minutes after the door had closed to say, ‘I hope that poor sod didn't kill his boss. He's got quite enough trouble to deal with as it is, without a murder charge.'

Lambert smiled grimly. ‘Very unprofessional, DS Hook. You know we can't pick and choose among suspects. For my own part, I hope Julie Hartley didn't do this one. I think that would cause Jim more agony than if he'd done it himself.'

L
orna Green had known that the first talk she gave at Westbourne Park after the death of its curator would be a time of great strain for her.

For one intensely lived section of her life, she had been very close to Dennis Cooper. Even at the time of his death, she had felt her ties were closer than those of anyone, except possibly his wife. And now there were rumours that Alison Cooper was to marry someone else quite soon. Apparently she might have done that even if her husband had still been alive.

Lorna loved Westbourne Park and what it had brought to her life, but work there was certain to put pressure on her. She was surely bound to think of the man who had been in charge here as she spoke about the gardens and their history. After all, she had been suspected of his murder. But she told herself firmly that the police had been satisfied with what she'd told them on Tuesday. She'd seen them going in and out of what she still thought of as Dennis's room, but they hadn't called for her to see them again.

Lorna had been disappointed with her performance when she first began these talks. She had made the mistake of thinking that because you knew a lot about your subject you were bound to be effective, but the muted reactions to her first efforts had told her that she needed to improve. She had worked on her delivery – if you were dull yourself, people assumed your story must also be a dull one. She had learned that she must concentrate on the broad lines of the history of Westbourne and not give too much detail – that was best reserved for answers to questions. Nowadays, she got an increasing number of questions at the conclusions of her talks. That was a sure sign that people were now interested in what she told them.

Lorna found another pleasant thing was happening. As she relaxed and enjoyed her talks more, her audiences also enjoyed them more. Once you could communicate enthusiasm, you were halfway there; she remembered the best of her university tutors saying that to her many years ago.

She had revised her material for today's talk. She was now building her history of the gardens around modern features which visitors might find worth studying after the conclusion of her talk, and was pleased to see people scribbling reminders to themselves on the National Trust leaflets they had acquired as they entered. ‘The gardens are planned as a series of “rooms”, with different themes or different colours evident in each one. They are attractive at any stage of the year, but in early July you might particularly enjoy . . .'

She became conscious of a tall, striking woman with ash-blonde hair who had appeared on the left of her audience halfway through her talk. She seemed interested in what she heard and in the series of eager questions which followed it. She did not speak herself. When Lorna signalled the end of her performance, there was enthusiastic applause. Then the crowd melted away to enjoy the gardens.

The late arrival stayed. When she came closer, Lorna was struck by the brightness of her unusual green eyes. She gave Lorna a perfunctory smile and said, ‘I enjoyed your talk. You obviously know a lot about this place. I'm Detective Sergeant Ruth David. I believe you spoke to Chief Superintendent Lambert earlier in the week. He would like to see you again today.'

Lorna stared dumbly for a moment at the warrant card which was held before her face. She said, ‘I've got two more talks to give, at three o'clock and four o'clock.'

‘That's fine. We're trying to disrupt the routine here as little as possible. The chief super will see you at the end of your working day. Shall we say four thirty?'

It would give her time to prepare, Lorna thought. But prepare for what? This wasn't a talk about Westbourne, where she could determine her own agenda.

Just when you had convinced yourself that things were picking up, life had a habit of hitting you with a sock full of wet sand.

Alex Fraser told himself that he had always known that. You didn't survive for years in a Glasgow council home without learning that disaster usually followed hard upon delight. And this wasn't disaster, he told himself firmly. Provided he kept his mind clear and gave them nothing, he could surely come to no harm. He should be able to do that; hadn't he spent most of his teenage years giving the filth nothing during their frequent questionings?

These reflections were prompted by an instruction to attend the murder room for further questioning at two o'clock. He had read the letter telling him that no further action was planned over the Cheltenham fracas several times during his lunch break. Indeed, he had taken it into the bog and locked the door firmly to ensure that he could spend as long as he wished relishing the formal phrases which had set his heart singing. Now he had better forget his relief and give his mind fully to the matter of Dennis Cooper's death.

Once that was out of the way, he could enjoy his work here and his leisure hours to the full. A telephone message from the secretary of the golf club had informed him at lunchtime that he had been selected to appear in the county second team in ten days' time. He'd work that news in, if he could, to try to impress the CID. Bloody bourgeois! This lot were nothing like the rough-trade coppers who'd been the enemy throughout his Glasgow years. He felt something near to affection for those hard-faced Glaswegians now.

The plain-clothes man who had come to inform him of the renewed CID interest swept his warrant card swiftly across Fraser's vision to establish that he was official police. Alex grabbed his wrist and read the rank, as most people did not. ‘Detective Inspector. Top brass to send after an innocent gardening apprentice.'

Chris Rushton smiled, his gaze flitting from the sharp blue eyes to the extraordinary red hair above them. ‘I saw you passing, lad: you're easily spotted. Thought I'd take the chance to examine the suspect who has the most serious record of violence.'

This pig had a handsome face, Alex conceded to himself sardonically. Dark-haired, keen-eyed, tall. Some English rose would probably find him attractive. Before he could stop himself, Alex said, ‘I've no case to answer for that business in Cheltenham. Even the bloody filth have had to accept that we were set upon. We were the innocent parties.'

‘Really. I'd like to say I was pleased for you, but I'm not a hypocrite. And purely for your information, I was thinking about your record of violence over the years in Glasgow, not the renewal of it in this area.'

Alex was shaken. He hadn't expected this man he'd never seen before to go immediately on to the attack. But then he was a pig, wasn't he? He also seemed to be a distressingly well-informed pig. Alex turned surly. ‘Why do they want to see me? I've told them everything I know about Mr Cooper.'

DI Rushton shook his head happily. ‘Ours not to reason why, Mr Fraser. Two o'clock at the murder room, please.'

Alex didn't like that ‘Mr Fraser'. The filth only got formal when they were planning to charge you with something. He scrubbed every speck of soil from his nails, washed his face carefully, and presented himself at the curator's office two minutes before the appointed hour.

They left him waiting for a while, getting steadily more nervous. At three minutes past two, DS Hook ushered him into the big, stark room and sat him down opposite Lambert, who had the curator's big desk in front of him. Alex felt very exposed. Once, when he'd been in the home, he'd been ‘volunteered' to be the fall guy at a church fete. People – almost all of them belligerent men and youths – had been invited to fling wooden balls at a target, whilst he had sat on a swing over a kiddies' paddling pool. When anyone had hit the bullseye, it had released the catch on his seat and dumped him into two feet of water, to roars of delighted applause. He'd had to grin and bear it; what he hadn't liked was the sign the stallholder had put over his head. Its uneven red capitals had invited the public to ‘DUMP CARROT-TOP INTO THE DRINK'.

He'd almost forgotten about that day, but it came back to him now, as he sat on his chair and felt very exposed in front of a chief superintendent. Lambert looked at him keenly for a moment whilst he waited for Hook to come in from the outer office. Then he said unexpectedly, ‘I hear you've been selected for the county golf team. Congratulations!'