A Reason to Kill (12 page)

Karen sighed and got up to take the tray before the rattle of mugs turned into a crash of breaking china.

‘I don't know if you have sugar,' Mrs Parker twittered anxiously. ‘I didn't know if you might take milk, but I thought almost everyone takes milk so I put it in. I hope I did right?'

‘It's fine, Mrs Parker. Thank you,' Mac said. He sneaked a sideways glance at Karen but she was busying herself with the tea. As she handed him a mug he noticed that her lips were pressed tight as though she willed herself not to speak. She shook her head, a tiny movement, and Mac nodded an equally slight response.
Not in front of our mother
, Karen was telling him and a minute or so later George took advantage of the maternal fussing to slip out of the room.

Mac wanted to call him back. Wanted to threaten to take him to the police station, question him formally, but his instincts told him that Karen would be doing a better job later on and that just now George was far more frightened of someone else than he was of Mac.

Mac had stayed at the Parkers long enough to drink his tea and to reinforce the impression of Karen's defensiveness of her family.

No one was in next door and no one was admitting to being in the house after that so the next stop was the house Mac had seen the two boys enter the day before.

Mac had already checked his list of names. ‘Mrs Robinson?' he asked when someone answered the door.

‘Yes.' The woman sounded cautious, a little anxious. Mac guessed she had already seen them in the street and must have realized who he was.

He introduced himself anyway.

‘Well, I don't think we can tell you anything,' she said. ‘It came as a right shock, I can tell you.'

Mac glimpsed the dark-haired boy hovering in the background. His face still showed the vicious bruising Mac had noted, but the blackest of the marks was fading now, dissolving to a bilious green. He looked over the mother's shoulder and smiled at the boy, aware once again that his smile lacked both conviction and adequacy. He must practise more.

‘Hello,' Mac said. ‘I've just been chatting to your friend George.'

The boy flinched and the face flushed red beneath the bruises.

Mrs Robertson turned to look at her son. ‘He got himself into some stupid fight,' she said. ‘I've talked to the school but of course they know nothing about it. Clam up, they do, if anyone should dare to mention the “B” word.'

‘The “b” word?'

‘Bullying, of course.' She glared hard at Mac. ‘You don't think my boy is in the habit of getting into fights, do you?'

‘I don't know your boy,' Mac pointed out.

‘No, well he's not, and neither is young George. He's seen enough violence, that boy. He's the last person to want to get involved in more.'

‘Oh?' Mac tried to look friendly, inviting of confidences. From the look on Nora Robinson's face it wasn't working.

‘The father,' she said impatiently. ‘Put them through hell, and if it hadn't been for young Karen, the mother would probably be dead and gone by now.'

‘Really? And what did Karen do?'

She shook her head impatiently. ‘You didn't knock on the door for a gossip,' she said. ‘What can I help you with? I've already spoken to two of your lot, you know.'

‘I know,' Mac said placatingly, ‘but we often find that a follow-up call helps, you know. People remember the little things that shock often blots out.'

She sighed. ‘Well, I'm sorry, but we've got nothing to tell. We didn't hear anything that night and we didn't see anything either.'

‘And the night before Mrs Freer was killed?'

She looked puzzled. ‘What about the night before?'

The boy had retreated to the stairs, sitting a few steps up from the bottom and making a great show of not looking at either his mother or Mac.

‘The night before, that would have been late on the Wednesday, two boys broke into Mrs Freer's house. Teenagers, about the same age as your son and George Parker.'

She drew a deep, shocked breath and then released it in a rush of anger. ‘Same age as Paul, as George? Mister, do you know how many kids that age there are round here? Do you know how many little toe rags there are? Get yourself along to the Jubilee if you want to catch the little buggers that broke in – and the bastard that killed her. Look over there before you come round here accusing
my
son.'

‘I'm not accusing anyone,' Mac said mildly, ‘and I can assure you, Mrs Robertson, that we will be looking everywhere.' He paused, looked directly at the boy on the stairs. ‘Everywhere,' he repeated, then stepped swiftly back as she shut the door in his face.

‘Anything?' It was half an hour later and his little group stood huddled in the lee of the nursing home wall, beneath the sign that declared this land the property of the Alderman Calvin Trust and threatened to clamp intruders.

It was even colder now and the wind whipped a new batch of freezing rain into greater frenzy.

‘Usual mix of abuse and lousy tea.'

‘Neighbours still heard nothing. Still say they were watching an action film and had the sound up high.'

‘Alderman Calvin House doesn't have windows facing on to the street so how do we expect them to have noticed anything. Oh and they still want to know what we're doing about the kids on bikes over by the sheds.'

Mac sighed and thanked his helpers. ‘Best get off,' he said. ‘You all OK for lifts back?'

Apparently they were. Mac watched as the three of them escaped with an almost indecent degree of haste and then he too turned for home. He was halfway up Newell Street when a friendly voice shouted his name. Mac turned. Half hidden behind a massive golf umbrella and wearing a raincoat that Columbo would have been proud to claim stood Tim, aka Marvello, alias The Great Stupendo.

Mac crossed the street.

‘Rina sent me to fetch you. She figured you might like some lunch.'

Mac laughed, taken aback. ‘How did she know I was here?'

‘Ah well, Rina knows these things. So, what about it then? Food's good, company is … interesting and I've a feeling the ex-Lydia Marchant wants to tell you about her investigations.'

‘Investigations?'

Tim shook his head. ‘Let her tell you. So, are we getting out of this god-awful weather then? Come under the umbrella, there's plenty of room.'

Life was taking on that slightly surreal quality it always did when Rina Martin was involved, Mac thought. He nodded and stepped beneath the shelter of the umbrella Tim had hoisted. ‘Thanks,' he said. ‘Lunch would be very welcome.'

B
y one o'clock Mac was installed at Rina's table, sandwiched once again between the Peters sisters, although he still wasn't sure which one was which. The Montmorency twins – much easier to identify – sat opposite with Tim between them, a tall, skinny, austere figure between two flamboyant ones. Rina took her place at the head of the table and handed plates and dishes piled high with vegetables and roast potatoes and rich gravy that Mac could tell just from the scent had never seen even a suggestion of stock cubes or gravy browning. Two kinds of roast meat weighed down large platters set atop warming trays that ran down the centre line of the well laid table. There was enough, Mac thought, to feed an army and, with a sudden flash of insight, wondered how many people like Mrs Freer would benefit this afternoon.

Mac realized that he was famished and was overwhelmingly relieved that conversation was obviously not initially required at Rina's table, just willingly delivered expressions of deep content.

Dessert loosened tongues and, as Rina served apple pie, conversation began in a leisurely kind of way. Stephen Montmorency enquired as to the state of the investigation but did not pursue the matter and Mac got the impression that the Rina Martin household had been given instructions not to bother the copper with questions.

‘Custard or cream?' Rina asked.

‘Oh, custard please. It looks very good.'

‘Stephen is an excellent pastry cook,' Rina said.

‘I trained,' Matthew said, tossing back the mane of silver hair. ‘Did the whole catering college thing. Our mother felt we should always have a fall back position. Isn't that right, Stephen?'

His brother nodded. ‘A very wise woman, our ma,' he said. ‘“Stephen,” she would say, “you should always have a fall back position. You never, ever know what's around the corner.”'

Mac nodded sagely. He was dying to ask about the so-called twins. Did they really think they were related, or was this an extension of some obscure stage act? He opened his mouth to speak, then caught Rina's eye and closed it again.

‘It's always best to be prepared,' Tim agreed. ‘The problem is the only fall back I've got is dressing up in a bloody clown suit.'

‘Language, Timothy,' Stephen said sententiously. ‘Ladies present, you know.

‘Sorry, ladies,' Tim apologized, inclining his head in the direction of Matthew Montmorency rather than the Peters sisters. ‘Seriously though, Stephen, I make a god-awful clown. I've really got to give it up.'

‘It's honest work,' Stephen reminded him. ‘You should never demean honest work.'

Mac tried to visualize Tim in a clown costume and failed miserably.

‘How did … you all meet?' Mac asked. He'd almost directed the question at the Montmorencys.

‘Oh dear.' One of the Peters sisters clapped her hands, delighted. ‘Oh dear, it was years ago, wasn't it, Rina?'

‘Years indeed. I believe I met the two of you in Southampton. Sixty-two or -three, it would have been. You were still with that Bennet fellow.'

‘Clive Bennet.' Eliza Peters sounded dreamy. ‘Oh, he was a sweetie. No talent, of course, but a real sweetie.'

‘He might not have had the talent,' her sister agreed, ‘but he was all heart. All heart. Gave us both a break when we needed it, didn't he?'

‘Oh yes.' Her sister clasped her hands together. ‘The closing song that season, “All our Yesterdays”
.
It still makes me cry when I sing it. We'd have the audience eating out of our hands, you know, dear. Not a dry eye in the house.'

‘“All our
Tomorrows
”,' her sister corrected her. ‘Eliza dear, you always did get it wrong.'

‘Oh, are you sure? No, no, I'm certain …' She brightened suddenly. ‘We have pictures and recordings if you'd like to see them?'

‘Um …' Mac began

‘I don't think the Inspector has the time just yet,' Rina said, giving gentle emphasis to his title.'

‘Oh, but of course not.' Eliza was immediately contrite. ‘I'm sure you have so much to do?'

Mac was aware that she'd let the question hang, that she and everyone around the table, with the possible exception of Tim, was desperate to ask him everything, anything about the case. He managed an awkward smile. ‘We do have a number of leads,' he said, remembering that he had said something very similar to Karen Parker a short time before and that she had laughed.

Eliza didn't laugh. She nodded approvingly and looked intently into Mac's face. ‘Well that's good, isn't it? That you have leads?' She looked around the table, inviting confirmation. ‘Well it is, isn't it?'

‘I'm sure it is,' Rina soothed. ‘Right, shall we all have coffee?'

Mac found himself involved in what seemed to be an established household ritual – the removal of plates and crockery and making of coffee, carrying the fresh pots back into the dining room. He wondered who got the job of washing-up.

Rina handed him a cup and held the door open. ‘Shall we adjourn?' she asked. ‘Tim, you'd better come along too.'

Obediently they followed her. Mac, glancing back at the others, noted the curious, almost hungry looks cast in their direction as they left: those deprived of secret things.

Rina flopped down into one of the easy chairs and pointed Mac at the other. Tim deposited his cup on the table and fetched a fireside chair from the bay window. Mac sipped his coffee, wondering what was coming next.

‘So,' Rina asked when Tim had settled. ‘How is it going?'

Mac smiled. ‘You know I can't tell you,' he said. ‘I have some thoughts; I have some small leads, but nothing I can talk about. Sorry.'

Rina nodded. ‘Have the neighbours been helpful?' she asked innocently.

Mac found himself laughing this time. The sound shocked him. ‘Rina, you never give up, do you?'

She shrugged. ‘I don't see the point of giving up,' she said. ‘You won't have got anything from the next-door neighbours. They wouldn't give anyone the time of day, never mind commit to giving actual information, and the people on the other side, those not actually attached to poor Mrs Freer's house, they work all hours God sends. I believe they want to emigrate to New Zealand or some such. I suppose they're saving.'

She drank her coffee and set the cup down gently on the table. Mac exchanged a glance with Tim and noted the hint of a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. He waited for the next instalment in Rina's neighbourhood history.

‘Then there's the Bennets. The only view they have of the outside world is what they see on the television. They even have their shopping delivered. The single mother next to them, well, she's so wrapped up in herself she notices nothing of the world around her. Jumps out of her skin if you so much as say good morning. The boy, on the other hand … Eyes everywhere. You gain the impression that he sees everything and worries about all of it.'

‘That would be George Parker,' Mac said.

‘I believe that's his name, yes. He has a sister, cast in the same mould. She has an intelligent look to her.'

Mac realized this was a query directed at him. He nodded thoughtfully. ‘I spoke to her,' he confirmed. ‘She strikes me as intelligent, yes.'