Blood of the Innocents (32 page)

Mariner’s silence said it all.

Knox raised an eyebrow. ‘You’ve cheated on the gorgeous Anna? What the hell would you want to do that for? I thought she was hot.’

‘She is, when she’s available.’

‘You knew about Jamie before you started it.’

‘That’s the thing. It’s not Jamie. His respite hours are increasing all the time. And anyway, just because he’s there doesn’t mean I can’t see her. Jamie’s OK with me. He always has been. It’s all the other stuff.’

‘Like?’

‘Well, right now we’re organising a stall for the Bournville Festival.’

‘What’s that when it’s at home?’

‘It’s like a fair: home-grown leeks and maypole dancing.’

‘Nothing wrong with a bit of pole dancing.’

‘
Maypole
dancing; this is sweet little girls in pretty dresses skipping around waving bits of ribbon.’ They both thought about that. Then Mariner said, ‘They probably attract the same kind of spectator, of course.’

‘And this is what you’re jealous of. Sounds to me like you’re getting serious about our Anna.’

‘Not really.’

‘But you don’t like it when she plays hard to get.’

‘I don’t know if she really is. It’s just as if what we’ve got isn’t that important to her. It’s just one small aspect of her life.’

‘Does she know how important it is to you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, have you told her?’

Mariner had to think for a minute. ‘Not in so many words.’

Knox laughed. ‘You really don’t get it, you pathetic loser, do you? I can tell you’ve never read a woman’s magazine.’

‘I haven’t.’

‘Not even in the dentist’s waiting room?’

‘My dentist gets the
Great Outdoors
.’

‘Talk to Anna! Tell her what you’ve told me. How else is she supposed to know that you want more of a commitment? ’

‘I’m not sure that I do.’

‘Oh, you do.’

‘What is this? Your new career as Mary Knox: Agony Aunt?’

‘Oh yeah. I’m a real expert, me. I bet you’ve never told her that you love her, either.’

Mariner couldn’t answer him.

Knox shook his head in disbelief. ‘Christ, what does she see in you?’

‘I’m dynamite between the sheets,’ said Mariner, looking on sheepishly as finally, combined with the whisky, he reduced Knox to uncontrollable mirth.

‘So who is it?’ asked Knox, when he’d wiped his eyes.

‘What does it matter? It was only once. An abberation.’

‘Who?’

‘Millie.’

‘With respect, sir, you’re a fucking moron.’

‘Millie’s a great—’

‘I didn’t mean that.’

‘No.’ Mariner turned his attention back to the monitor. ‘So this is your old school?’

‘For its sins. The entries go back for years. There are people who were at my old school in nineteen forty-three. Can you believe that?’

‘Are you on here?’

‘You have to be joking. I wouldn’t want to own up to my career choice. There’s a few people I recognise though, kids and teachers. Some of the stuff about the teachers gets pretty libellous. You should have a go. Look up your old school.’

‘No thanks.’ Mariner could think of nothing worse. There wasn’t a single person from his time at school that he would have the slightest desire to make contact with again. And he had other, more pressing, things on his mind. When they’d had strong coffee and Knox seemed almost human again, Mariner expounded his theory.

‘It all just keeps coming back to Shaun Pryce,’ he said.

‘I don’t think it was only electrical work that he did. I think he was offering Barbara Goodway another kind of service.’

‘He really fancies himself. I wouldn’t be surprised,’ Knox agreed. ‘He was very keen to tell us about his high sex drive, and from what we see he doesn’t have a steady girlfriend, so how else does he get by?’

‘Do you think Yasmin would have gone for a bloke like Shaun Pryce?’

‘Yasmin?’

‘I was just thinking: Pryce might have been useful to her. If Yasmin was still in love with Lee, Shaun would have come in useful for winding him up. She knew Lee was working at the industrial units and they used to meet on the bridge. Perhaps she arranged to meet Lee to show him what she was getting up to with Shaun. Maybe she wasn’t going on the pill for Lee at all, but for Shaun Pryce.’

‘Except that Lee’s insisting that he didn’t show that afternoon. I don’t really buy that.’

‘OK. Let’s try the pure coincidence theory. Maybe Lee confirmed their date but had decided to stand Yasmin up. He told us he thought she was leading him on. Yasmin turns up at the bridge but no Lee. However, the guy who is there, lurking in the grass, getting his rocks off, is Shaun Pryce. Pryce recognises Yasmin from the school art classes and he’s horny anyway, so he decides to try it on. But Yasmin isn’t interested, so Pryce loses it. The river, or at least the spillway, is in full spate so he dumps her over the edge.’

‘Lucky with the timing.’

‘Pryce could have known about the water release, though. He goes there regularly. He could have easily concealed her in the short term before coming back at the right time to dispose of her properly.’

‘But Pryce wasn’t there that late in the afternoon.’

‘So he says. That day we met him in the clearing, he was saying he went there after work. Then suddenly it’s one o’clock? You saw him at the reservoir. He was loving it. And at that time he must have thought he was safe. Yasmin’s body was well concealed. Barbara Goodway’s had been there for months, and this time there was Lee in the background to deflect our attention too. Yasmin probably told him that she was meant to be meeting Lee.’

‘The PM indicated a degree of premeditation.’

‘Not if he just happened to have a length of wire in his pocket. Whichever way you look at this, Shaun Pryce is in it up to his ears. He’s the one who connects Yasmin to Barbara Goodway and he’s admitted to frequenting the reservoir. I think we should bring him in.’

‘You’ll have to see what Fiske says about that.’

But DCI Fiske had other things to occupy him. In response to the formal complaint from the Skeet family, the Police Complaints Authority team had arrived to begin their investigation and for once, the DCI was happy to let Mariner get on with his job and take the initiative. Thus, when Shaun Pryce arrived at Mrs Paleczcki’s the next morning, he found a two-man welcoming committee waiting for him. Half an hour later, Pryce was installed in an interview room while a search warrant was sought and his flat and car turned upside down. Mariner thought he looked even more jittery than the last time they’d met. His actor’s mask was beginning to slip.

‘I want you to tell me again when, exactly, on Tuesday the third of July you were at the reservoir and exactly what it is you were doing there.’

To settle his nerves, Pryce made a show of a heavy sigh. ‘Aren’t you lot getting bored with this, too? I went there at about one o’clock. I stayed half an hour. I sunbathed, I smoked a bit of weed. What’s the big deal?’

‘And you say you were on your own.’

‘Yes.’ Exasperation was creeping in to his voice.

‘You’re not always alone though, are you?’ Pryce shifted in his chair and for a split second Mariner thought they might have him. ‘When was the last time you had a woman down there?’

‘I’ve told you. Weeks ago. They don’t like the grass.’

‘And who was it, Shaun? Was it Barbara Kincaid?’

‘What?’ They’d got him. He hadn’t seen it coming.

Knox went in for the kill, unleashing the vitriol that should have been directed elsewhere. ‘We know, you see, Shaun,’ he said, leaning towards Pryce. ‘We know that you’re the link. We also know that you’re a randy little bastard who can’t keep his dick in his trousers. You have very eclectic taste, I’ll say that for you. Middle-aged housewives to seventeen-year-old schoolgirls. Very inclusive. Were they both threatening to abandon you? Is that what made you mad? Mad enough to kill them? Or is that just part of the turn on for you?’

Pryce was like a rabbit caught in the headlights. ‘That’s rubbish. I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he insisted, but the outburst had rattled him.

Knox leaned forward threateningly. ‘Are you denying that you knew Barbara Kincaid?’

Pryce hesitated. ‘No,’ he said, petulantly.

‘All right, then. Tell us about her. How did you two meet?’

‘I thought she killed herself,’ Pryce whined.

Mariner shrugged non-committally.

‘So why are you asking these questions?’

‘To find out exactly what happened. Just answer the question.’

‘I used to do this amateur dramatics thing. She played the piano for rehearsals of
West Side Story
. There was a problem with the electrics one night and I fixed it. Afterwards, in the bar, she came up to me and said her house hadn’t ever been rewired and she thought it might be dangerous. She asked me to go and have a look at it. After the run was finished I was resting again so I said I would.’

‘When was this?’

‘About March time, I suppose.’ Around the time that Barbara Kincaid began threatening suicide, thought Mariner.

‘Was that the only reason she asked you to go to her house?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Did she fancy you?’

‘A lot of women do.’

‘That must be such a burden,’ said Knox sarcastically. ‘Was Barbara Kincaid one of them?’

‘So you went to the house,’ said Mariner. ‘Was her husband around?’

‘No. It was in the day. He’s a teacher. He was at work.’

‘That’s handy. So what happened?’

‘I did the rewiring.’

‘That’s all?’

‘If you must know, she nearly fucking killed me. I was up a stepladder connecting up a ceiling rose and she came up behind me, giving me all the usual crap about her old man being useless in bed. Then she—’

‘What?’

‘Touched me up.’

‘Very delicately put.’

‘I nearly fell off the bloody ladder and took the light fitting with me.’

‘But did you respond? Barbara Kincaid was an attractive woman. And we all know about your famous high sex drive.’ Pryce didn’t know what to say. ‘Or was she too old for you?’ said Knox.

‘Luckily for me, her old man turned up.’

‘So you met Brian Goodway, too. Did you tell him you were a model, or had Barbara already done that?’

‘It just came up in conversation, you know.’

‘And whose idea was it that you should go and model at the school?’

‘I can’t remember. His, I think.’

‘I bet you jumped at it. All those young girls.’

‘It was a modelling job. It’s what I do.’

‘Did you get paid for it?’

‘Why else would I have done it?’

‘Mm. Why else would you have chosen to spend your time surrounded by attractive adolescent girls? I can’t think. I heard you got pretty friendly with some of them.’

‘I like kids.’

‘Particularly teenage girls. Was Yasmin Akram one of them?’

‘I don’t remember. There were a lot of them.’

‘You offered to take your clothes off, didn’t you?’

‘It was one of the kids suggested that. “Show us what’s underneath,” she said.’

‘Who said?’

‘Tall, skinny kid. Susan.’ Suzanne.

‘It was just a laugh.’

‘A laugh? These kids were seventeen.’

‘It was a joke.’

 

They took a break. Results from the search of Pryce’s flat sounded promising so far and they were building a good circumstantial case. Not surprisingly, the items included electrical wires of every gauge imaginable. His car had also yielded a grass-speckled blanket and samples from it could be tested with soil and grass from the flattened area at the reservoir. Condoms found were of the same brand as the used ones that had been picked up.

While they were taking a break, Delrose phoned up to say that Mariner had a visitor; a woman. He expected Colleen and dreaded having to face her. Instead, Anna was waiting for him in reception. Lesser of two evils. But only just.

‘Hi,’ she said, cheerfully. ‘I wondered when I’d see you again. You look terrible.’

‘Had a curry that didn’t agree with me.’ It didn’t explain why he couldn’t look her in the eye, but if she noticed she made no comment. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I tried phoning, but you’re a hard man to get hold of. I thought I might stand a better chance of talking to you if I came in person. I’ve missed you.’

‘I’ve been busy.’ Mariner rubbed the back of his neck. ‘We’re in the middle of something—’

‘I know. But I think we need to talk. Can you spare a few minutes?’

‘All right.’

They crossed the road and went into the park opposite, where they began a circuit of the boating pond. A couple of little kids with their grandparents were trying in vain to encourage their toy yachts to sail on the smooth expanse of water. Mariner knew how they felt. For days now it had seemed as if the wind had gone out of the sails of their investigation leaving it stale and stagnant as the water around them. Then, today, the first hint of a breeze. He hardly dared hope.

‘I just wondered what’s going on,’ Anna said. ‘The other evening you wouldn’t stay and now I’m beginning to get the idea that you’re avoiding me.’

‘It’s not that—’ Mariner began, too tired for this now.

She moved towards him and made as if to take his arm, but some reflex made him move away, putting a distance between them. Their eyes met and as they exchanged a look he saw the flash of understanding cross her features.

‘Just so that you know,’ she said, using that phrase of hers that always preceded any straight talking, ‘I’d be really hurt to find out that you’re shagging someone else, too.’

It cut him to the core. ‘I know,’ he said helplessly, staring ahead.