Under a Silent Moon: A Novel (26 page)

“Dad would know, though. Wouldn’t he? If—if he was? Surely Polly’s mum would have told him?”

“Oh, I don’t know, darling. She could be funny, Cass. One minute she was your best friend and then she’d take off and you’d not hear from her for months. I never knew what she was up to. And she loved having secrets.”

Flora took a deep breath, laid her hand over Felicity’s and gave it a squeeze. “Mum, I’m sure you’re imagining it. Dad would never be able to keep something like that private. Have you asked him?”

“Of course not, don’t be so utterly ridiculous! How do you recommend I bring that topic up? ‘By the way, darling, is there a chance that the corpse in the cottage might be your love child?’ But if it’s not that, then what is it?” Felicity wailed plaintively.

“What is what? What do you mean?”

“If it’s not something to do with Polly, then why is he acting so strangely?” Felicity looked at her daughter and stuck out her chin, demanding some sort of answer.

For a moment Flora was lost in thought, pondering why it was that, at so many points in her life, her mother would come up with a passing comment which devastated her so utterly—whether it was a mere mention of her school grades, or how she was expected to remain at the farm and work instead of wasting time on art, or how one or other of her cronies had remarked that Flora would never get on in life if she insisted on dressing like a hobo and never combing her hair.

Flora shrugged. “Maybe he’s just worried about the business, or worried that the police will ask him too many questions about Polly’s death.”

Felicity’s gaze became suddenly more penetrating. “Suspect him of the killing, you mean?”

“Maybe. You know how much the police love Dad.”

Felicity shook her head impatiently. “Why haven’t they been round to interview him, then? He’s just as likely to be guilty as any of the rest of us. I mean, he had plenty of opportunity.”

“I thought he went out. Somewhere in town with his friends?”

Felicity shook her head. “But that was earlier. He came home about eight, had told me not to make dinner, and then got all cross because it wasn’t waiting for him. Told me I’d got the dates wrong. We had a bit of a row about it, even though I’d written it on the calendar. Seems silly now.”

She looked at the table, running her thumbnail along a groove in the grain of the oak surface. “I
know
it was that day. I’d given Polly a telling-off about the shopping she’d promised to do for me in Briarstone. I told Daddy he should go and have a talk with her, and he did. He went down to the cottage. It was raining by then and he was gone for about an hour. I was about to go down and find out where the hell he was when he came back. Said Polly had made him cheese on toast.”

She gave a small sound, half a laugh, half a sob.

Flora’s heart had started beating faster. Something wasn’t adding up. Why had he told her he was out? And he’d not mentioned going to the cottage. He’d not said he had been with Polly that night. Why would he lie, unless he was hiding something?

Flora put her hand over her mother’s. “Mum, I’ve really got to go out now. Can we talk about this another time?”

“Hmm? Oh, of course darling. Sorry to hold you up. I just needed—someone to talk to, I guess. Thank you for being so understanding.”

“That’s all right, Mum.” Flora got the waxed jacket for Felicity, then steered her gently toward the staircase.

“Flora dear, will you come over tonight and have dinner? Come and see if you think Daddy’s any different. Will you?”

“I’ll do my best,” Flora said.

At the front door, Flora said goodbye quickly, shutting the door almost in her mother’s face, not wishing to risk a meeting with Andy Hamilton, just in case he was still inside the flat downstairs.

11:12

It was nearing lunchtime by the time Lou made it to the hospital. She wasn’t supposed to be interviewing people, but everyone else was out, and besides, she fancied having a look at Brian herself.

While she’d been parking the car a text message had come through on her job phone from Jason.

It felt as if there was a coded message in there somewhere. She thought about texting back straightaway, but there were more pressing things to attend to.

The hospital was busy with visitors—the WRVS shop buzzing with people buying bottles of Lucozade, newspapers, and magazines. The paracetamol she’d taken had finally started to kick in, although somewhere at the back of her head the headache lurked like a malevolent creature, waiting for an excuse to take over once again.

PC Yvonne Sanders, casually dressed in jeans and a fleece, was waiting for her near the reception desk. “Ma’am,” she said. “I’m sorry to be dressed like this, I was on a plainclothes job today.”

“Don’t worry,” Lou said. “I’m just glad I got hold of you. You got your PNB handy?”

Yvonne patted her bag. Her pocket notebook, or PNB, was what Lou needed more than anything else. If she was going to be talking to Brian, she wanted a careful note of everything he said.

“You were there when he had the heart attack, weren’t you?” Lou asked, as they eased their way through the throng and headed up the corridor toward Stuart Ward.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You did CPR on him?”

“Yes—well, we both did. Ian did a lot of it.”

“Good job,” Lou said. Short on officers, Lou had gone back through the case files to find someone who had a vague bearing on the case and who might actually be on duty—and had found Yvonne Sanders. Lou hoped she was a fast writer.

“Er—anything you want me to do, apart from writing up?”

“I know it’s a bit irregular, interviewing with a DCI,” Lou said. “I’d rather just get on and do it, though, while the ward’s quiet. So I’ll do the talking, you take notes, and type up a statement for me back at the nick, okay?”

“Of course.”

So much for preparing the evidence for the coroner. At this rate she would still be working until midnight to get things ready. Under her breath she muttered a fervent prayer to whatever god was listening for this trip not to be a waste of time.

Eventually they found Brian Fletcher-Norman in the dayroom, sitting up in an armchair, watching television. He was sporting a smart-looking pair of burgundy pajamas, covered with a dark green terry cloth bathrobe and some matching slippers. On the dayroom door a sign had been taped:
PRIVATE MEETING IN PROGRESS.

“
Hello. Brian, isn’t it?” Lou asked, offering him her hand.

“Yes.”

“I’m DCI Louisa Smith. You’ve got me today, I’m afraid.”

“A pleasure.”

“You might remember my colleague, PC Yvonne Sanders?”

Brian shook Yvonne’s hand but didn’t make the connection.

“PC Sanders was there when you were taken ill. I believe she saved your life, Brian.”

“Ah,” he said. “Thank you, my dear.”

Lou decided she could see the appeal. He might have been far too old for her, but he had a deep, resonant voice and a presence about him, even wearing pajamas and a bathrobe. Dark eyes in a tanned, surprisingly unlined face, and a good head of silver hair. He looked every inch the business executive.

She sat on a lower chair and pulled a low coffee table closer, treating him to a close-up view of the swell of her breasts under her black cashmere sweater. “You don’t mind if Yvonne takes notes, do you, Brian? We can ask you to check through them when we’re finished, and we can get a statement typed up for you. All right?”

“I’m sure it’s fine, my dear. I don’t need my solicitor or anything, do I?”

Lou pulled a face. “Lord, no. Not unless you’re planning to confess to something.” She gave him a smile and a wink, and watched him start to relax.

He used the remote control to turn off the television.

Lou glanced across at PC Sanders to make sure she was ready with her notebook and pen. Yvonne smiled back at her, keen.

“Now, when we spoke on the phone this morning you mentioned that you’d had some further recollections regarding the evening of your wife’s death. Would you mind going over exactly what it is you recall?”

Brian paused for a moment. “Where shall I start?”

Lou gave him an encouraging smile. “Start from when you got home from work. Was Barbara there?”

Brian nodded. “Yes, she was upstairs. I didn’t realize she was there at first. I assumed she must have been watching television because she didn’t answer when I called.”

“What time did you get home?”

He looked away before answering vaguely. “Eightish, maybe nine. I left town at gone seven, anyway.”

He looked as if he was concentrating hard, trying to bring the memory back. He’s a sly old goat, Lou thought. She was quite aware that he’d remembered all along. Was it because they’d had contact with Lorna Newman that he’d changed his story? Had she been in contact with Brian at the hospital?

“I poured myself a drink and sat down to read the paper. Barbara came downstairs much later. It must have been about eleven, twelve, and we had an argument.”

“What was the argument about?”

Brian sighed deeply. “Much the same as usual. I was late home from work, and so she accused me of having an affair. She said I smelled of women’s perfume; I said she smelled of gin. It got quite heated. She stormed off back upstairs; I heard her talking to somebody on the telephone, I don’t know who.”

“And why were you late home?”

Brian looked a little cross at this interruption. “Can’t remember,” he said vaguely. “It was work, nothing unusual.”

“I understood you were semiretired—is there still a call for you to be working late? That seems a little unfair.”

Brian shrugged. “Unfair or not, the work’s there. And, to be honest, Barbara wasn’t always that much fun to come home to. Miserable, most of the time.”

Lou thought of Barbara’s depression and recent attempt at suicide and suddenly felt rather sorry for her. “Sorry, I interrupted. Barbara was upstairs.”

“Yes. I finished my drink and went into the kitchen to wash up the glass. I checked on the gin—we keep the bottles in a cupboard in the kitchen—and found it was nearly finished. That was a pretty bad sign.”

“Did she drink every day?”

He shook his head. “Sometimes she’d go for several weeks without a drink. Those times were quite pleasant, really. I think they coincided with the times she was less depressed, less—low, I suppose you’d say. Also, I think she was aware that people thought she might be an alcoholic, and she was always trying to present everyone with evidence that she could manage without a drink, that she wasn’t a slave to it.” Brian looked Lou in the eye. “Her mother was an alcoholic, you know. Died of liver failure. And her father died of a heart attack at fifty, and he was also a man who liked a drink. So she was very aware of it.”

“So, lately, had she been particularly depressed?”

Brian nodded again. “We’ve been having rows fairly often. Usually we only ever argued when Barbara had had a drink or two—she’s too easygoing otherwise.”

“Was there any particular reason for it, that you were aware of?”

Brian looked wary for a moment, then shrugged. “I can’t think of anything in particular. In fact, I thought she’d been doing rather well. She’d been getting out more, playing golf with her friends. She’d started playing bridge again. Having tennis lessons three times a week at the country club—cost me an arm and a leg, that one, but she said she was determined to be fit by the summer.”

Lou thought it unlikely that Brian was unaware of Barbara’s infatuation with the tennis coach, but chose to let that one go. It could have been something as simple as it being a huge attack on his ego to admit that Barbara had chosen to go elsewhere. Doing it himself was no doubt just a bit of fun—for his wife to indulge was a different matter entirely.

She gave him an encouraging smile. “So, Barbara was upstairs and you were in the kitchen. Can you remember what happened next?”

“I went and had a bath. Fell asleep in the tub. I often do that if I’m late. Anyway, I’ve no idea what time it was when I got out again, but the water wasn’t cold, so it can’t have been hours. Barbara wasn’t downstairs, so I assumed she’d gone to bed. The bedroom door was shut.”

Lou watched him, eager for him to get on with the story, but waiting while he had a sip of water. Yvonne Sanders flexed her wrist.

“I went back downstairs to turn all the lights off and lock up. Then all of a sudden, Barbara came barreling into the hallway from the kitchen. I couldn’t work out where she’d been, but I suppose she must have come in through the back door. She was hysterical, shouting and yelling about something. I told her to calm down and tell me what was wrong. She pushed me back and I fell back onto the stairs. She kept saying, ‘It’s done now, I’ve done it now, it’s too late.’ Something like that. Over and over.”

“‘It’s done now, I’ve done it now, it’s too late’?” Lou repeated.

“Yes.”

Yvonne was scribbling fast. Lou hoped she was getting every single word of this. He’d already changed his story once, they needed to make sure he could be pinned down somehow.

“What do you think she meant by that?”

Brian shrugged. “At the time, I hadn’t a clue. She was pretty drunk, almost incoherent. Thinking about it now, of course, I’m wondering whether she’d been over the road to see Polly.”

“Do you have any idea what time this was?”

He shook his head. “Well, after twelve, I think.”

“Okay. So then what happened?”

“After she pushed me, I got up and went to bed. I told you, I don’t put up with that sort of behavior. Everyone has a breaking point, and that’s mine. I heard the door bang, but I thought that was her locking it—sometimes the front door doesn’t lock properly until you’ve given it a good bang.”

Something was being left out, Lou was sure of it. There was a tension in the air that hadn’t been there just five minutes ago.

“Did you not notice any blood on her hands, her clothes?” she asked.

“No. It was dark in the hallway because I’d already turned the lights off.”

“Before locking the front door?”