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Authors: Faith Martin

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BOOK: A Narrow Margin of Error
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She was only in her early thirties now, Hillary thought with amusement tinged with envy. Wait until you’re fifty. Still, Darla did look tired, and there were rings around her eyes. No doubt
motherhood had made her feel far more mature than her actual years would indicate.

‘You got your degree?’ Hillary decided to ease her into the interview gently. ‘English lit, wasn’t it? That’s the same degree I took, but I expect the texts were very different.’

‘Yes. I’m a teacher now. Well, on maternity leave at the moment. I work at the Forsyte Academy. You may know it?’

Hillary did. It was a private school for girls between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. Its sole purpose was to take the brightest and the best and groom them to Oxbridge standard. Or Durham, at a pinch. No doubt the pay was significant, the work hardly arduous, and the kudos of working there would delight the most snobbish of standards.

‘Very nice,’ Hillary said, and meant it. ‘And your husband?’

‘Oh, he works for the
Oxford Times
. A financial correspondent.’

‘Does he know about Rowan?’ Hillary probed carefully.

Darla jerked a little in her seat. ‘No. Well, I mean, not really. He knows I had boyfriends before I met him, of course. Terence is a bit older than me. I met him when his daughter from his first marriage attended the academy. But I never told him about Rowan, I mean, all the trouble…. It just seemed so long ago.’

Hillary nodded. ‘Yes, I understand. He’s maybe a bit
conservative
in his outlook, and you saw no reason to go into details?’ she guessed, careful to keep her voice non-judgemental.

Darla flushed guiltily. ‘Well, there was no reason to. Not really. I mean, we don’t know what really happened to Rowan, do we? I mean, no one was ever caught. And it was really nothing to do with me.’

Hillary’s eyebrow lifted slightly, but she made no comment, and Darla, as if sensing that her last statement might have sounded, at the very least, disingenuous, again shifted
uncomfortably
in her seat.

‘I just mean that I didn’t have anything to do with it, or know what happened, so it was nothing to do with me in that sense,’ she expanded on the theme nervously.

Hillary nodded.

‘Terence doesn’t have to know, does he?’ she went on
breathlessly
. ‘His mother is the daughter of a Tory peer, and, well, she’s a bit of a dragon about some things. She hates scandal, and fuss, and, well, she’s never really liked me. Terence’s first wife was the daughter of her old schoolfriend, and they’re still very close. She never approved of the divorce, and blames me for it, which is silly, because I hadn’t even met him then. She only puts up with me at all because she knows she’d never get to see little Terry if she didn’t, but I know she’d just jump on it, if my name gets dragged into the papers again.’

Hillary nodded with every evidence of sympathy. Of course, the Thompson case would have been widely reported in the local press at the time. Supposedly, her husband either hadn’t been living in the city at the time, or else had a poor memory for names. She wouldn’t be surprised, though, if the mother-in-law from hell hadn’t already had a PI check out her son’s second new trophy wife, and already knew all about it.

‘There’s no reason why we would need to speak to your husband, Mrs Pitt,’ Hillary said, adding craftily, ‘so long as you co-operate fully with us, of course.’

‘Oh, I will. Obviously. I mean, I want whoever killed Rowan to get caught. Of course I do,’ Darla said quickly.

Scribbling down his notes, Jimmy didn’t think that she sounded all that sincere, but then it was understandable. If they solved the case, there’d be a murder trial, and the chances of Darla being able to keep her past a secret from her older, snobby husband would be practically zero.

‘All right, then. So, at the time of the murder you and Rowan were an established couple, yes?’ Hillary began.

‘That’s right. We’d met when we took rooms at Wanda’s, so we’d been together for a couple of months.’

‘Was it serious?’

‘Yes. Well, no. I mean,’ – Darla took a deep breath, making a visible effort not to ramble – ‘I thought at the time it was, but
looking back on it now, I could see that it would never have worked out.’ She smiled a shade grimly. ‘You tend to see things differently at thirty than you did at twenty. More clearly.’

‘Yes. But at the time you were in love with him. Or thought you were?’ Hillary pressed.

‘Yes. But even then, I sort of knew at the back of my mind how he was. Even if I didn’t want to admit it to myself.’

‘And how was he?’ Hillary asked gently.

Darla Pitt looked down at her hands, twisting nervously in her lap, and took another long, slow breath. ‘Rowan was one of those men who could tie you in knots. Sometimes he seemed almost like a boy, and could be cheeky and charming and exasperating, all at the same time. And then it was fun. At other times, he could really sweep you off your feet. I mean, really make you feel special. Like this was it. The kind of way that every woman dreams a man will make her feel.’ She flushed slightly, and glanced quickly at Jimmy and then away again, her voice lowering confidentially. ‘You know – he could be genuinely passionate. Made you feel like you were living in one of the big romances.
Wuthering Heights
, and all that.’

She sighed somewhat wistfully. ‘And that was just magical.’ Her pretty face suddenly fell. ‘And then there were times when he could be like any other man, and be just a little shit,’ she added, with more sadness than bitterness. ‘Just shabby and
ordinary
and disappointing. He’d turn from Heathcliffe to just another bloke who’d climb into anyone’s knickers, given the chance.’

Hillary nodded. A typical young male, still more adolescent than adult, by the sound of it.

‘He hurt you?’ she said softly.

Darla shrugged. ‘Once or twice. And I know what you’re thinking, but I didn’t kill him because of that. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t,’ she stressed tensely, rocking a little back and forth on the chair now.

‘I understand you used his room to make clothes,’ Hillary said,
making no comment on her protestations of innocence, but keeping her voice quiet and level.

Darla slowly subsided back against the chair and nodded dully. ‘Yes – his was the biggest room. We all four of us applied to the house at around the same time, and it was typical of Rowan that he charmed the old lady into letting him have the biggest room.’ She smiled wistfully. ‘I liked making my own stuff – I’d always done so, and sort-of had ambitions to be a fashion designer when I was younger, until common sense took over and told me the chances of success in that cut-throat field were pretty low. Which is why I went to Oxford – to have a second fiddle to my bow. Glad I did, now, I can tell you. But back then, I was still really into it, and it was much cheaper than buying real designer gear. And Rowan didn’t mind my using his room. And again, I know what you’re thinking. The scissors that were used to … to … stab him, were the ones I used to make my outfits, but that didn’t mean it had to be me who killed him, did it? I mean, they would have been just lying around in plain sight for anyone to see. I’d been using them the night before, and I hadn’t packed the stuff away. I told all this to Inspector Gorman at the time.’

She was becoming more agitated as she rambled on, so Hillary said smoothly, ‘Yes, and that’s a point well made. I’m here to take a fresh look at things, Mrs Pitt, not to go over the same ground as DI Gorman. Tell me about what you did that morning.’

Darla ran a somewhat shaky hand through her red curls and sighed. ‘I went out about nine o’clock that morning, I think. I ran into Marcie on the stairs and we went down together. She was due to take the train back to her parents that afternoon, and had some paperwork to drop off with her tutor. We chatted a bit as we went, then parted company outside on the road. I had some
last-minute
gifts to get. It was Christmas. I went to Debenhams and bought some silver ear-rings and some perfume. When I came back, the police were already there. At the house. Wanda had found him.’

Hillary nodded. Gorman had, of course, gone over Darla’s
alibi, such as it was, meticulously, but the results were
inconclusive
. It was Christmas, and Debenhams, not surprisingly, had been busy. Neither of the sales staff at the perfume and jewellery counters remembered her specifically, but there was no reason, in the crush of shoppers, why they should. The store’s CCTV picked her up a couple of times, proving that she did indeed buy the items she claimed to have done, but that in itself meant nothing. The store was only a few minutes’ walk from the house. Darla could have returned to the house unseen and killed Rowan at any time. Or indeed, he might already have been dead when she left.

‘When you left the house that morning, did you notice anyone hanging around?’

‘No.’

‘Was Rowan nervous of anyone? Did he ever say that he was having trouble with one of his women, or the ex-boyfriends of any of the women he’d known?’

Darla smiled grimly. ‘Not to me, but then he wouldn’t, would he? He always denied seeing other women after we got together, even when it was blindingly obvious that he was. He seemed to think that he could just give me one of his cheeky grins and somehow that would make all the hurt go away, or charm me into making it not matter. He could always make me laugh, too, like it was some kind of medicine. But the truth was, he didn’t really care if I liked it or not – me not having exclusive rights to him, I mean. If all else failed, and I called him on it, he’d just shrug.’

She stared down at her hands, and gave a sad, twisted smile. ‘You know, I don’t think he would have cared if all the women he’d cheated had got together and ganged up on him in one big, hissing fury. He’d just have gone on to the next one with a blithe grin. And as for the boyfriends – forget it. He wouldn’t have cared a fig what they thought or felt about it. It was like it was all a big game to him: if they couldn’t hang on to their girlfriends, then that was their look-out, you know? If he saw an opportunity to sneak in and raid the hen-house, it was almost like he saw it as his duty to do so. He loved a challenge; he liked taking risks and
didn’t seem to care a toss if he was hurting someone, or might get hurt himself in the process. But he wasn’t nasty about it.’

Darla shook her head in frustration. ‘It’s no good. I just can’t quite describe what he was like. He lived by a set of rules that was entirely his own. And if you didn’t understand them, or approve of them, or like them, well, that was just tough. But even that isn’t quite right. That makes him sound aggressive or utterly selfish – and I don’t think he was either of those – not really. He liked people to be happy. He was always happy himself. He seemed to see life as one great big adventure and a bit of a lark. Perhaps he would have grown out of it if….’

Suddenly her pretty, freckled face crumpled, and she began to cry.

Jimmy made a gentle tut-tutting sound, and reached into his jacket for a handkerchief.

Darla waved it away, and reached under a small coffee table for a box of tissues. She extracted one and wiped her eyes, staining them black with her running mascara. ‘I’m sorry,’ she sniffed.

‘Take your time. There’s no rush,’ Hillary murmured. ‘I’m sorry if this upsets you. We won’t be much longer.’

‘It’s fine. I’m fine.’ She took a long, wavering breath, and leaned back in the chair again. ‘It’s just that it suddenly hit me: he’d be the same age as me now. Who knows, he might even be married and have kids, too. Instead he’s…. It was all taken away from him, wasn’t it? That’s what suddenly got to me. And he didn’t deserve to have that happen to him – no matter what he might have done.’

‘What did the others at the house think of him?’ Hillary asked curiously, and sensed Darla’s withdrawal immediately.

‘Oh, you know. Marcie never really thought about him one way or the other at all, I’m sure. She didn’t have much interest in any of us, really. And Dwayne used to encourage him, I think. They used to go out drinking together, and have silly bets, so there was no reason for them to fall out. And Barry was such a nice man – I think he found it hard to fit in – being older and all,
and married with a family and working in the building trade and all that. But Rowan never teased him about any of it. Barry was the sort who got on with everyone. I really don’t believe any one of us did it. I know Inspector Gorman was obsessed with thinking that it had to be one of us, but I think it was someone else in Rowan’s life. They just came to the house, Rowan let them in, and they killed him. Wanda, being in the basement, didn’t always know who came and went.’

Darla looked at Hillary with flat, green eyes. ‘None of us killed Rowan, of that I’m sure. That’s why you people – the police, I mean – never solved the case. Inspector Gorman simply wouldn’t look at someone outside of the house. If you want to find out who killed Rowan, that’s where you’re going to have to look.’

Hillary nodded gravely. ‘You might well be right, Mrs Pitt. Thank you for talking to us. We might have to come back at some point with some follow-up questions, but I’ll be sure to call ahead first, and make sure that you’re alone.’

Darla, who’d obviously been about to object, nodded
reluctantly
. ‘That’s fine. I wish you luck, I really do.’

Hillary smiled and rose and followed her outside into the hall.

Back in the car, she sat behind the wheel and looked out thoughtfully at the neat, suburban streets. ‘So, what do you think?’

Jimmy shrugged. ‘She seems genuine enough. But she’s the tense and nervy sort, isn’t she?’

‘Yes.’

‘And if the young lad led her a merry dance, like it seems he did, she might easily have snapped and stabbed him. The emotional types tend to do that.’

‘Yes.’

‘And her alibi’s no good, one way or the other.’

‘No.’

Jimmy grinned. ‘She stays on the list then, guv.’

‘Oh yes, Jimmy. They all stay on the list until we can definitely cross them off it,’ she agreed flatly. 

 

Vivienne was hungry by the time she made it into the canteen, but didn’t care. She’d been listening out for Steven’s door to open and close all that morning. She knew he often went upstairs late – just as he had today. Now, as she pushed through the door, she saw him standing in line at the food bar and quickly fell in behind him.

BOOK: A Narrow Margin of Error
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