The House of Women (14 page)

She dragged her hands through the sumptuous hair.
‘I can’t explain!’ She was close to tears. ‘He was cold with me, but he was sweet with Annie. He talked to her, and took her for walks, and he did the same with Phoebe, right from when she was born, but he just ignored me, and I don’t know why.’

*

Edith had no answer to the puzzle when McKenna again questioned her. ‘Some people simply don’t like each other. You can’t do anything about it. Anyway, Mina made her own friends. She’s always had lots of friends.’

‘
But she must have resented the situation.’

‘
I suppose so.’

‘
And perhaps you resented Ned’s attitude, on her behalf? That would be only natural.’

‘
You know I didn’t get on with him very well. We had nothing in common, and even though he came because I had needs, I was useful to him and his needs, as well.’ Reserves of strength well in hand, she added: ‘You can’t make it into something it isn’t. Families always have their little feuds.’ She frowned. ‘And I don’t like you digging up these things. They might be trivial to you, but they’re private to me, and you haven’t got the right to pry like this.’

‘
We’ll go on digging until we unearth the motive for his death.’

‘
Well, you won’t find it in this house!’

‘
So would you know where else I can look?’

‘
Of course not!’ For a moment, she looked like Phoebe. ‘Why should I?’

Lighting another cigarette, McKenna said:
‘You probably knew him better than anyone.’

‘
Why? Because we were of an age? That means nothing. Phoebe was closest to him, then Annie, I suppose, and that George. He wasn’t easy to know, and he didn’t like revealing himself. I expect he’d had too many psychiatrists poking and prying over the years.’

‘
Forgive my asking, but have you ever had psychiatric treatment?’

‘
When Mina was a baby, I started having upsets, so my doctor put me on tranquillizers. He didn’t warn me about the addiction.’ She paused, toying with a half-consumed cup of coffee. ‘Perhaps he didn’t know. I didn’t, until I tried to stop taking them. Sometimes, I hate the way they make me feel, then I’m terrified of how I might feel without them. In the end, you don’t know who you are any longer.’

‘
And has Mina ever had psychiatric treatment?’

‘
No.’ Edith’s voice was sharp, defensive. ‘And I don’t want to talk about her like this. I know Phoebe’s been gossiping, and I expect Annie’s had her say. There’s little or no privacy between them.’ She fell silent, then added: ‘Maybe Mina stopped talking to me because she’s just trying to keep some of her life to herself.’

‘
Phoebe told me about the incident with the lavatory seat, and the way Mina reacted,’ McKenna commented. ‘Are you afraid of her?’

‘
I was afraid
for
her. Afraid she’d get like Ned, or even worse, like me, so I took her to the doctor. He tried her with this new anti-depressant, but she said it made her feel “out of herself” and very strange, so she stopped taking it.’ She paused again, tapping her fingernails on the table top. ‘But of course, Phoebe’s never let her forget it. She’s very judgemental at the best of times, and quite cruel towards Mina, and this wretched curiosity of hers gets the better of any consideration for other people’s feelings. Ned could be just the same.’

‘
I see.’ McKenna too fell silent, watching her, irritated by her involuntary restlessness, the twitching fingers and eyelids. Now and then, she smoothed her dress over her belly, as if to remind herself of the place from which the girls of whom they spoke had struggled head first into life.

‘
I’ve always felt I have to protect Mina,’ Edith went on. ‘Be there for her more. The other two had Ned, but she had no-one.’ She clasped her hands tightly together, and shivered. ‘I know what you’re thinking. You’re making up a picture of her not being quite right in the head, and so jealous of Phoebe and Annie that she killed Ned out of spite.’

‘
And don’t you fear the same?’

‘
I did!’ She shuddered so violently the table rocked. ‘On Friday, I did. But then you said he would’ve died as soon as he took the drugs, so I knew it couldn’t be her.’

‘
We still don’t know how they were ingested. Can you remember anything else about that day? Something Ned might’ve done out of the ordinary, or different from his usual routines?’

‘
I’ve told you!’ she insisted, near exasperation. ‘I made sandwiches for lunch from the remains of Thursday’s roast, he came down about two, and we ate in the kitchen, then he went back upstairs. And he died.’ Tears glimmered in her eyes. ‘He was all alone when he died.’

‘
Did he ever make his own snacks and drinks in his room?’

‘
Why won’t you listen? He wouldn’t have foodstuffs lying around. I know his room looks a mess, but it’s not dirty. He was very clean, very particular, and he said food encourages insects and mice.’

‘
Did he ever use sugar?’

Edith sighed again.
‘None of us does. You’ve taken what’s left of the packet I bought months ago. Annie used some for cakes, and I’ll rub sugar on roasting lamb if there’s no honey, but I didn’t on Thursday. I used honey, and a touch of rosemary.’

McKenna stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray now overflowing with his own leavings.
‘We’d like you all to give urine samples for testing. The antibiotics must have been in something everyone had.’

‘
Wouldn’t we have noticed?’

‘
Not unless you had Ned’s sensitivity.’

‘
But isn’t it rather late? Any trace would be long gone.’

‘
Not necessarily. I’ll get some sterile containers delivered.’

‘
I’ll tell the girls,’ Edith offered, then glanced at him warily. ‘What will you do with these bits of us you’re taking away? First you took our words and our fingerprints, and now you want stuff from our bodies.’

‘
Unless required for evidence, they’ll be destroyed.’

3

The offices of Merlin Security, where Mina Harris filled the days of her long summer vacation, were housed in a converted chapel at the lower end of Bangor High Street, but the main depot occupied a small unit on the industrial estate, at the bottom of a hill close to the railway line. McKenna parked his car outside the high chain-link fence around the site, and nodded to the three young men, stripped to the waist, who lay on a patch of scrubby grass under a fierce afternoon sun.

‘
I’m looking for Jason Lloyd,’ he said.

‘
Who wants me?’ The youth raised himself on his elbows, chest muscles rippling.

McKenna showed his badge.
‘Police.’

Jason scrambled to his feet, brushing dust and shards of grass from his torso and trousers.
‘What took you so long?’ Grinning at his mates, he strutted into the shed-like building.

Until his eyes adjusted to the sudden gloom, McKenna was almost blind. Following the shadowy figure, he passed white vans with fluorescent stripes and logos, hoisting tackle and racks of tools, skirted puddles of stinking oil on the rough concrete floor, and edged down an alleyway between strong steel
cages bolted to floor and wall, which were stacked higgledy-piggledy with packages and cartons.

Barging into a lighted cubicle at the back of the building, where a fat elderly man sweated his way through the day in a miasma of fumes, Jason said:
‘Out! I gotta talk to the police.’

The man struggled upright, swearing under his breath, shirt button straining over his pink belly, then waddled out, leaving a vapour trail of sour sweat and tobacco. Jason took the newly vacant chair, and pointed McKenna to its rickety twin.
‘I keep telling him about bathrooms being invented,’ he said, waving his hand towards the departed figure, ‘but he takes no notice. He smokes so much he sweats nicotine.’

‘
There are worse things.’

‘
Like what?’ Jason asked, eyes gleaming. ‘Putting a miserable old sod out of his misery?’ As he leaned forward, the overhead light glinted on the tiny silver crosses and studs piercing both his ears. ‘I’ve heard it would’ve been a kindness to put Ned Jones down like a sick old animal, and you can ask Phoebe Harris if you don’t believe me.’ He smirked at McKenna. ‘I suppose you’re here to see what you can pin on me, aren’t you?’

‘
Why should I be?’

‘
Because I’m here, and you lot hate me. Why, I can’t imagine!’

‘
Because you were a pain in the arse from the day you started walking, and it’s only luck you never got caught! We haven’t forgotten your juvenile pranks.’

‘
And that’s all they were,’ Jason countered. ‘A bit of skylarking.’

McKenna looked around the windowless little office.
‘When you’re done with the civil rights bit, perhaps you’d tell me how long you’ve worked here?’

‘
Since I finished the YTS. I got lucky and got a job, so don’t bugger it up by making nasty untruthful insinuations to my boss.’

‘
Does Mina Harris come here at all?’

‘
Only if the boss sends her. She works in the main office.’ He gave McKenna a tight, wolfish smile. ‘She was there all day Friday.’

‘
I know. I’ve already checked. Where were you on Friday?’

Jason tilted the chair, and reached behind him for a wad of worksheets clipped to a board. Thumbing through, he said:
‘I was on a bloody split shift for starters, because we’ve got one off sick and two on holiday. I worked six in the morning ’til two in the afternoon, went home, had a kip, woke up, had tea, and came back on at ten. You can ask my mam.’

‘
What time did you finish?’

‘
Seven o’clock Saturday morning.’

‘
You do mobile patrols, don’t you? Can you give me route details for both the shifts?’

‘
I can, yeah.’ Jason nodded, grinning. ‘But they won’t be much use, because there’s only my word for what I did and where I did it. I often don’t see a soul, except your lot poncing around in their flash cars.’

‘
You must call in every so often?’

‘
Yeah, and I could be calling from the top of Snowdon, and nobody any the wiser.’

‘
When did you last go to the Harris house?’

‘
Yesterday.’

‘
Before then.’

‘
Sunday.’

‘
How often are you there?’

Jason shrugged.
‘Quite a lot. Edith likes me. Dear little Phoebe doesn’t, as she’s no doubt told you.’

‘
And had you ever been in Mr Jones’s room?’

‘
I’ve been everywhere in the house.’ He grinned again. ‘Know what I mean?’

‘
Edith Harris would probably like you a lot less if she knew that,’ McKenna commented.

‘
I shan’t be telling her, and if you do, it’d be from spite.’

‘
Does Phoebe know?’

‘
I expect so.’ Anger glittered in his eyes, and pulled at his mouth. ‘She knows bloody everything else!’

McKenna rose.
‘I’ll want your fingerprints. Did you eat at the house at all between Thursday and now?’

‘
Can’t remember.’

‘
We’re taking urine samples as well as prints, so I think we’ll include you in the sweep.’

‘
Please yourself.’ Jason stood up, casting a distorted shadow across the desk. ‘I’ve nothing to hide.’

4

Diana Bradshaw sat in McKenna’s office, her chair under the open window, smells of paint and white spirit larding the air. ‘Are we wasting our time?’ she asked. ‘Prys is almost invisible behind that mound of paper, Janet’s making another mound from all the statements, and there isn’t a shred of evidence pointing towards either motive or murder.’

‘
How did the professor and his wife conduct themselves with you?’

‘
Very well. I don’t know what the fuss was about.’ She uncrossed her legs and smoothed her skirt. ‘Did you know Solange Williams was quite a famous model before she married? She’s still very chic, isn’t she?’

‘
She’s certainly well-dressed,’ McKenna agreed. ‘She has a nice line in jewellery, too.’

‘
I said she must find life in Bangor very dull after such an exciting career, but she said not. She goes to France quite often, anyway.’

‘
Rowlands commented about their high standard of living. He hadn’t realized professors do so well.’

‘
He’s a writer, too.’

‘
I wouldn’t imagine his books sell more than a few hundred copies.’

‘
Dear me! You men are so competitive, aren’t you?’ She smiled. ‘Ned Jones probably never amounted to anything because he couldn’t face the competition, so he gave up, and retired into ill health.’

‘
Iolo Williams said much the same,’ McKenna said. ‘By the way, did either of them go to the house on Friday?’

‘
They last called on Wednesday afternoon, went away on Thursday night to London, and didn’t return until Saturday. He was at some do arranged by his publisher.’

‘
We’re taking urine samples from everyone who might have eaten or drunk at the house last week.’ McKenna smiled winningly. ‘I’m sure the professor and his wife will take the news better from you.’

*

Dewi swore as McKenna caught the edge of the desk with his hip, knocking one of the piled-up boxes to the floor. Kneeling to retrieve the scattered pieces of paper, McKenna said: ‘Why didn’t you have the sense to fasten them up with rubber bands?’

‘
Because I can’t find any! Because nothing’s where it should be ’cos of the bloody decorators!’

McKenna sat back on his heels, looking through the sheaf of papers.
‘These are all bits and bobs about Iolo Williams, going way back.’ He scanned the pages. ‘Press cuttings, book reviews, details of lectures, copies of the manuscripts he discovered ...’

‘
Every one of those shoe boxes is full of stuff about the professor,’ Dewi said.

‘
So where’s Ned’s Box of Lies?’

Dewi shrugged.
‘Take your pick, unless it was just a joke.’

*

McKenna arranged for the pathology department to deliver sterile containers for the urine samples, and to collect them the following day.

‘
The professor and his wife must’ve taken to Bradshaw,’ Rowlands observed. ‘They agreed immediately.’

‘
I think they’ve found some common ground,’ McKenna said. ‘At least, the ladies have. Ms Bradshaw found Solange very “chic”.’

‘
Did she? I’d be more inclined to call her sluttish, spiteful, rude, and ill-bred, whatever fancy clothes she’s wearing.’

‘
Different races have their own frames of reference,’ McKenna pointed out. ‘French men, for instance, feel almost obliged to have a mistress as well as a wife, and French law accommodates the
crime
passionnel
, which to us is no more defensible than any other unlawful killing.’

‘
Dewi says Jack Tuttle’s having a French girl on an exchange visit.’

‘
He’s having two, one for each of his twin daughters. They went to France last month, so Jack’s taken his wife touring for a couple of weeks before they collect the twins and the exchanges.’

‘
Well, I’ll give him a week at most before he’s desperate to invite Madame Guillotine over to join them.’

‘
D’you speak from experience, or simple francophobia?’ McKenna asked.

‘
My sister did the exchange thing years ago, and we got landed with this absolutely awful girl from somewhere near Montpellier. She was the most spoiled, selfish brat I’ve ever come across, and so sullen and surly and sulky you could’ve throttled her! Solange has got exactly the same attitude, like you’re the dog shit she’s just scented under her nose.’

‘
That diatribe was riddled with alliterative “s” sounds.’

‘
You’ve got a weird thing about words, haven’t you?’

‘
I read a lot. I even used to read the labels on bottles and jars, every word on hoardings in the street, and newspapers and magazines from cover to cover.’

‘
You must be afraid of missing something.’ Rowlands smiled. ‘Maybe you should take over from Dewi.’ He rose and stretched. ‘We could ask George Polgreen if he knows why Ned had five boxes crammed with stuff about Williams. I’m sure he’d say, seeing as the man’s no friend of his.’

‘
D’you think Iolo’s the killer?’

‘
Not really. I know he comes over to us as a nasty, arrogant sod, but we’ve seen his other side in the way he treats Edith. And when do we ever see the best in people? I think he’s just shit-scared. Fear makes people very aggressive.’

‘
Then he must have a lot to fear.’

‘
People caught up in murder investigations get frightened. It’s normal. Anyway, he hasn’t got a discernible motive.’

‘
Nor has anyone else.’

‘
We’ll find out who has, eventually.’ Sitting down again and reaching for a cigarette, Rowlands added: ‘It could even be someone we haven’t come across yet.’

‘
This was a very intimate crime.’

‘
So who’s in the frame? I expect Annie’s got hidden depths, like most people, but I can’t see her harbouring secrets worth killing for. She’s got too much to lose.’ Blowing smoke towards the ceiling, Rowlands talked on. ‘I don’t think the lovely Minerva’s got enough between the ears for this scam, because it was quite a clever crime, and Edith would have been more likely to bash him over the head with a poker in a fit of hysterics.’

‘
So that leaves Solange.’

‘
And Phoebe, and I wondered if her almighty curiosity perhaps got out of hand. As Ned encouraged her to find things out for herself, she might have taken it into her head to feed him the drug as an experiment, to test his allergy.’

‘
You’re describing a psychopath.’

‘
How do we know she isn’t? D’you know, when she’s older, I can see her in a lab grafting monkey heads on to human bodies, or
vice
versa
, to see what happens. And,’ he added, warming to the theme, ‘Dewi said Ned could’ve been trying to write “F—E—R—C—H” on his chest, which is Welsh for “daughter”.’

‘
With the three of them under our noses, that obvious association of ideas is no brilliant piece of deduction,’ McKenna commented. ‘I’d say Phoebe’s conscience controls her curiosity, but as asking questions is as natural to her as breathing, she picks up far more information than she knows, and it worries me that Ned’s killer might realize that.’