A Narrow Margin of Error (4 page)

‘No, we’ll take mine,’ Hillary said firmly, and led the way to Puff the Tragic Wagon, her ancient Volkswagen Golf.

Sam sighed and quietly joined her, praying the old heap would actually start. Somewhat to his chagrin it did – as good as gold.

Number 8, Kebler Road, was not far from Oxford’s South Park, and was situated in a quiet street, lined with Victorian terraces and lime trees. On a warm spring morning, the traffic was surprisingly light, and Sam, much to his surprise, was able to find off-street parking quite close by. Hillary paused at the pavement to let a stream of bicyclists go by, then trotted across the road and looked up at the house where Rowan Thompson had lived and died.

It was a skinny structure of mixed red and cream brick, with a bay window on the ground floor and what was obviously a converted attic in the eaves. Steps led down to a small basement patio, and up to the main door.

Hillary went down the steps, admiring the black wrought-iron stair rails, and the terracotta tubs full of scarlet geraniums and blue lobelia that lined the flagstone patio floors. The whole area was shaded by a sweet, fresh-smelling lime tree, and in the
summer would be the ideal place to set up a small table and chair with a glass of wine and a good book.

She rang the bell and waited. In her mind, she’d pictured Wanda Landau as the archetypal landlady, rounded, curly-haired and inquisitive. But the woman who answered the door failed to meet the criteria on all three counts. She was easily as tall as Hillary, with an elegantly lean figure encased in a simple
wraparound
navy-blue dress, and her hair was a straight-cut platinum blonde in colour. Her make-up was discreet but flawless and she wore simple but expensive gold jewellery at her ears, throat and on her fingers.

‘Yes?’ she asked coolly, with no visible interest on her
high-cheekboned
, still-beautiful face.

She knew from reading the files that Mrs Landau had been sixty-four at the time of the murder, which meant she must now be well into her seventies. But she looked at least two decades younger, and Hillary wondered what plastic surgeon she went to for help to achieve the miracle.

Who knows, now that she’d passed the big five-oh herself, she might need his name some time soon.

‘Mrs Landau?’ Hillary held out her ID card that identified her, not as a detective inspector any more, but a civilian consultant with the Thames Valley Police. ‘I’m Hillary Greene, this is Mr Sam Pickles. We’re part of team currently taking a fresh look at the murder of Rowan Thompson.’

‘Good grief! Well, in that case, please come in.’ The voice was pure Oxford, that curious mixture of slightly country accent, mixed with upper-class accent, that somehow came out as being totally classless. She moved to one side, smiling at Sam
indulgently
as he carefully sidled past her in the narrow doorway.

‘Go on straight through. I think Ferris is still in the lounge doing his homework – perhaps we’d be better off just there, to the right, in the kitchen? I can make us all some tea.’

Hillary obediently veered to the right and found herself in a small, but well-appointed and cheerful kitchen in shades of
lemon and cream, with mint-green units and marble worktops. The white-tiled floor made the most of the somewhat restricted light in the basement flat, and gave the impression of spacious elegance.

Although Wanda Landau might have been reduced to giving over the bulk of her house to paying guests, she obviously knew how to maintain her standards of living.

‘Darjeeling all right?’ she asked, going to the kettle and filling it from the tap.

‘Fine, thank you. Milk and one sugar for both of us, please,’ Hillary acknowledged, then nodded at Sam to take a seat in the corner. She was pleased to see the lad open his notebook and take out his pen, under the cover of the table. Good, he was learning fast. Witnesses very often clammed up when they realized their words were being noted down by the authorities.

‘Poor Rowan. I’ve never forgotten him, you know,’ Wanda said, crossing over to a tall fridge and removing some skimmed milk. ‘It doesn’t seem like more than ten years ago since it all happened.’

‘No, I’m sure it doesn’t,’ Hillary agreed. ‘Time has a way of getting away from all of us. What can you tell me about him? I know you must have gone all over this before at the time, with Inspector Gorman, but don’t worry about that. Just tell me what immediately comes to mind when you think of him,’ Hillary said, keeping it determinedly vague. If you asked a specific question, you very often got a specific answer, and at the moment she was just fishing, and casting about for anything interesting.

‘Oh, probably his cheeky grin,’ Wanda said, returning to the table with two china cups and saucers. She moved to a cupboard and retrieved a sugar bowl, and two spoons from the drawer underneath. ‘He had a certain kind of charm about him – you probably wouldn’t remember an actor called Tommy Steele but he had that sort of way about him. Little-boy, mischief-maker, but with a heart-of-gold feeling about him.’ Wanda smiled briefly,
and then, hearing the kettle boil, set about pouring boiling water into a teapot. Eventually she brought everything together to the table and all the activity stopped.

As she took her seat with a small sigh, she suddenly looked her age. ‘Mind you, it was probably all only skin deep. A bit of an act, perhaps. He was young, you see, and the young have a way of being ruthless, don’t they? Not that they mean to be, they just only think of themselves.’

‘I understand,’ Hillary said, taking a sip of her tea, and wishing it was full-blooded coffee. ‘He had a girlfriend at the time, but I suppose he led her a right merry dance.’

‘Oh he did, yes. Little Darla – a lovely girl. She was head over heels in love with him, poor thing, but even I could see he had a string of others dancing to his tune. And I was never one to…. Oh, hello. Something the matter?’

She turned as the door to the kitchen opened, and a teenager poked his head in. He could have been any age from a gangly fourteen to as much as eighteen. He had close-cut hair, in the current fashion, and a silver ring through his left eyebrow. He was wearing skinny jeans and a much-washed, fashionably faded black T-shirt.

‘This is Ferris, my grandson,’ Wanda introduced them.

‘I’ve got to get off to school for my mocks,’ the lad said, his eyes running without interest over Sam before coming to rest on Hillary.

‘He’s doing his A-levels this summer, aren’t you, sweetheart?’ Wanda said, with grandmotherly pride. ‘Four of them. He’s already been offered a place at Hertford if his grades are high enough.’

‘Congratulations,’ Hillary said. A place at Hertford College, one of the many that comprised Oxford University, was
something
to be proud of indeed. ‘What do you want to read?’

‘Engineering. Got any crisps, Gran?’

Wanda got up and went to a cupboard, coming back with a large silver-foil packet and an indulgent smile. ‘Don’t eat them all
and ruin your appetite for dinner. I’ve got fresh salmon and I’m making that dill sauce you like.’

‘OK,’ the lad said, and withdrew without another word.

‘Ferris! Manners,’ Wanda called, and they all heard a vaguely mumbled ‘goodbye’ waft back from the depths of the flat.

‘Boys,’ Wanda said, then forced a brief laugh. ‘Not that I can lay the blame for his lack of charm on anybody else. I was the one who raised him, but what can you do? Youngsters nowadays – still, rebellion against the status quo is part of the rite of passage of growing up, isn’t it?’

Hillary nodded, not interested in Ferris, and determined to get things back on track. ‘Yes. You were saying something about Darla and Rowan?’

‘Oh – oh yes. Only, as I was about to say, I don’t really interest myself in the students who live here. I’m not their mother, after all, and what with having had Ferris to look after, I simply don’t have the time to concern myself with their comings and goings. So long as they pay the rent on time, don’t cause any damage, and are reasonably quiet, that’s really all I ask for. I rather think Inspector Gorman was disappointed that I couldn’t give him chapter and verse about the private life of all the students who were here at the time Rowan was… well… I mean, as I said to him, I’m just not the nosy kind.’

Hillary nodded and took another sip of tea. No doubt someone like Wanda would consider it far too grubby and embarrassing to live vicariously through the young people who shared her home.

‘You’re a widow?’ Hillary asked gently.

‘Oh yes – more than thirty years now. Geoffrey worked in insurance. He left me this house, and, rather oddly considering, very little in insurance money.’ Wanda Landau laughed. ‘Daddy always said he was the least reliable stuffed shirt he’d ever met. Daddy was a farmer – we had a few acres out near Witney way.’

Hillary nodded, seeing it all. A well-to-do daughter of minor landed gentry, Wanda had married beneath her, and had been reduced to renting out her nice house in Oxford to students. She
could well understand why she’d have as little to do with the never-ending flow of youngsters as possible. She and they must have virtually nothing in common.

‘But Rowan seemed to have made an impression? You seemed to know him quite well,’ Hillary probed delicately and, to her surprise, the sophisticated elderly lady blushed slightly.

‘Well, yes. I mean the way he died.’ Wanda shrugged her thin shoulders elegantly. ‘It rather sticks with you, doesn’t it, when something so tragic and horrendous happens to one so young?’

‘Yes,’ Hillary agreed quietly.

‘And, like I said, Rowan was the kind of young man who liked to make an impression on others, so he went out of his way to charm me. He was a born entertainer, in many ways. He used to call me Mrs L, and was always over-flirtatious whenever we met. I tried to put a stop to that of course, but he was the sort of boy who needed to be constantly admired and adored. He used to make me laugh, to be honest, he was so transparently needy, whilst at the same time, so full of himself, and full of life. He was obviously going to be a handful for any young woman to take on, and Darla was never the kind of girl who would have a strong enough hand on the reins to keep him in line.’

Hillary nodded. ‘From the notes Inspector Gorman made, I got the impression he was something of a Jack-the-lad.’

Wanda nodded. ‘Yes, he was. But he was never bad, you know. Just thoughtless and somewhat reckless. He wasn’t rotten, like some young people seem to be,’ she added, and a flash of pain and bitterness flitted briefly across her face.

Hillary felt her radar give a definite ping. At some point, some young person had caused this woman an awful lot of pain. Could it have been Rowan Thompson? She made a mental note to ask Sam to get a run-down on Wanda Landau’s personal history as soon as he could.

‘Now, the day he died,’ Hillary changed tack gently, ‘what can you tell me about that day?’

Wanda Landau visibly straightened her shoulders and became
business-like. ‘Well, it was a day just like any other. Except Christmas was nearly upon us, and the young people would be heading off to their family homes soon. I always enjoy the
holidays
between terms when I have the house to myself,’ she admitted, with a wry smile. ‘I woke up at my usual time – about eight. I had breakfast, and tidied up, and was getting ready to do some Christmas shopping.’

Wanda took a sip of her tea, without leaving a trace of her plum-coloured lipstick on the rim of the thin china cup, of course, and frowned thoughtfully. ‘Something made me go upstairs – what was it…? Oh, yes, it had begun to rain and I wanted to make sure the landing window was shut before I went out. One of them up there was a bit of a fresh-air fiend – I rather think it might have been Mr Hargreaves – and living in the city you have to be so careful of burglars. The amount of break-ins—’ Wanda suddenly broke off and flushed guiltily, aware that she might be sounding somewhat critical in front of the police. ‘Not that I’ve ever
experienced
it myself, of course.’

Hillary smiled. ‘It’s all right, I understand. Oxford has its fair share of crime, just like any other big city. And you’re quite right to be careful. I wish more people were.’

‘Yes. Well, I went upstairs to make sure the window was shut – it was, by the way, I remember telling that to Inspector Gorman – when I saw the door to Rowan’s room was standing open. There was nothing really unusual in that, but everything seemed very quiet. Usually, with four students in the house, I was used to hearing noise of some kind, so I called out a general sort of ‘hello’ but no one answered, so I went to shut the door – these old houses tend to be draughty, you know, and in the middle of winter…. Anyway, when I was in the doorway, I sort of looked in and saw him. Well, his legs, mostly. Lying on the floor. I rushed in, I thought he might have fainted – well,’ – again Wanda gave a slight blush – ‘I thought it more likely that he might be passed out drunk, I’m afraid. Not that I had any real reason to think that – some of the young people I’ve had here over the years might have
a problem with binge drinking, isn’t that what they call it? But Rowan, although he might have shown up here a little the worse for wear sometimes, never had to be actually carried in or anything.’

Wanda, after this marathon stint, paused for breath, and smiled weakly. ‘Anyway, I saw him lying there. He was covered in red, all across his middle and it was leaking about him on the floor. For a really odd, strange moment – and I don’t really know why I thought this – I thought someone had sloshed a tin of red paint over him. Then I saw the scissors on the floor beside him. And he looked so pale, so still. So … inanimate. It almost didn’t look like Rowan at all. Except that it was him, of course. So I backed away and called the police.’

‘You didn’t touch him?’ Hillary asked, although she already knew from the reports that there had been no sign of Mrs Landau’s footprints in the blood beside the body.

‘Oh, no.’ Wanda gave a small, graphic shudder. ‘I couldn’t.’

‘And you never heard anyone come to the house that morning?’