Blood Sinister (9 page)

‘And how did your husband meet her?’ Swilley asked. ‘Through you?’

‘No, not really. Josh was at UCL too, reading architecture,’ she said. ‘We all met through Dramsoc – the Drama Society. I wanted to act – I’d been to stage school – so I joined it straight away, and Phoebe came along just for fun. Josh joined because – well, anyone who was anyone at UCL had to be in Dramsoc.’ She smiled with faint self-mockery. ‘It was a hotbed of preening student
poseurs
, though of course one only realises that with hindsight. But anyway, that’s how we all met. We liked the look of him. He seemed much more sophisticated than the other male students. He had an air about him, of belonging to a larger world. What he saw in us—’ She shrugged. ‘Phoebe was stunning, of course – that gorgeous red hair and those eyes. Intelligent, too – she was a brilliant student. And so witty – that fabulous stream of words! Everyone was in love with her. I don’t know what she saw in me. I was dull and plain beside her.’

If she wanted contradiction, Swilley thought roughly, she’d come to the wrong shop. ‘Who knows what friends see in each other? It just happens, doesn’t it, friendship?’

‘Yes, of course,’ Mrs Prentiss said. ‘It’s a kind of love, and love is unaccountable. At any rate, Phoebe had beauty and brains, though she wasted them, in my opinion. Josh had looks, brains, charisma,
and
a private income – quite the Golden Child. The only talent I ever had was for acting, and even that’s proved
not to be such a huge talent. I don’t suppose you remember me in
Des Res
?’

‘I didn’t watch it. I think I may have seen a bit of one episode, but it’s not really my sort of thing.’

‘It wasn’t anyone’s sort of thing,’ Mrs Prentiss said bitterly. ‘Yet I suppose in a way it was the high point of my career. High point and death knell. Everyone thinks if you get a sitcom you’re made for life, but when it’s a stinker like that …’

Swilley was not interested in a career post-mortem. ‘So at university you went around as a threesome?’ she prompted. ‘Or was it more two and one?’

‘We were a threesome. But when we graduated Phoebe sort of disappeared for a while, and that’s when Josh and I started to get close.’

‘Disappeared?’

‘Oh, I don’t mean mysteriously,’ Mrs Prentiss said. ‘I just mean we lost touch for a while. Three or four years, it must have been. I was in London, trying to get my career moving, and Josh was with a firm of architects, also in London, so we still saw each other. And in the end, of course, it was us who got married. When Phoebe reappeared, we became a threesome again, but with Josh and me the couple within it.’

‘Do you know where she was or what she was doing in that time?’

‘I imagine she was involved in some protest or other – she was always marching and demonstrating. I don’t know where in particular. She didn’t live anywhere permanently at that time. When she came back to London it was just the same, just lodgings, and sleeping on other people’s floors. She was still a student at heart.’

A touch of disapproval? Swilley wondered. The materialist’s contempt for the idealist? ‘You didn’t agree with her ideas?’ she asked.

‘Oh, I don’t want you to think that,’ Mrs Prentiss said hastily. ‘Of course Josh and I are
convinced
socialists, always have been. But Phoebe was always much more radical than either of us. I was always willing to sign petitions and make donations, but I never went in for direct action the way she did. I was more interested in my career. And Josh had doubts about some of her pet causes. She was rather hot-headed, and sometimes
she didn’t examine the issues before jumping in. She was so passionate about things. She and Josh used to fight like cat and dog about some of her ideas – but it never touched their friendship. That goes too deep to be affected by a difference of opinion.’

Swilley nodded encouragingly. ‘It sounds marvellous, a friendship like that. So did you see a lot of each other?’

‘Oh, you know how it is,’ Mrs Prentiss said, looking faintly embarrassed. ‘Marriage, children, careers – there never seems to be enough time for getting together with your old friends, does there?’

Swilley declined to party. ‘How often did you see her?’

‘I suppose – about half a dozen times a year. But we talked on the phone a lot,’ she added hastily, as though her dedication had been questioned. ‘There was never any sense of being apart, however long it was.’

‘When did you last see her, can you remember?’

‘She saw the New Year in with us. We had a little dinner party – just family. Our children both made it home, for a wonder. Josh and me, Toby and Emma, Josh’s brother Piers, and Phoebe.’ She looked at Swilley. ‘We counted her as family. The children used to call her Aunty Phoebe when they were little. Toby’s twenty-two now and Emma’s twenty. They have their own lives, of course, so we don’t see so much of them. He’s a company analyst for an investment firm. Emma works for a magazine group – followed Phoebe into journalism, you see. Phoebe helped her get the job. She always loved my two as if they were her own children.’

Swilley accepted all this patiently, thanking God she was not the sort of woman who had to define her life by her husband and children. ‘At your dinner party, did Phoebe seem in her usual spirits?’ she asked.

Mrs Prentiss frowned in thought. ‘Oh, yes, I think so. I mean, she always had a lot on her mind, but she didn’t talk about anything out of the ordinary. She chatted to the children about their lives, argued with Josh about the Government, had a flaming row with Piers – but that was par for the course.’

‘What was that about?’

‘Oh, goodness, I can’t remember. Something political – the homosexual age of consent, was it? I think it might have been
that. They were always arguing – it didn’t mean anything. I mean, actually, Phoebe argued with everyone.’ She opened her eyes wide. ‘I don’t want you to think there was any malice in it. It was late in the evening and they’d both had a lot to drink so instead of just debating they started shouting at each other. But Josh told them to shut up because it was nearly midnight, and when Big Ben struck everybody kissed everybody else and it was all forgotten.’

‘Did she usually drink a lot?’ Swilley asked.

‘Well, she
was
a journalist,’ Mrs Prentiss said. ‘She always was what I’d call a hard drinker, though I’ve never seen her drunk since our student days. I don’t mean she was an alcoholic.’

‘But?’ Swilley prompted. Mrs Prentiss looked enquiring. ‘You sounded as if you were going to say “but”.’

‘Oh.’ A pause. ‘It’s just that the past few months I’ve thought she was drinking more than usual. She doesn’t get drunk, but once or twice when she’s come over we’ve sat talking and she’s just gone on drinking, long after I’ve had enough and—’ she gave a little, nervous laugh, ‘frankly, long after I’ve wanted to get to my bed.’

‘Do you think the heavier drinking was to do with some problem she had?’

Again the hesitation. Mrs Prentiss gazed towards the dark window, which showed only a reflection of the lighted room, nothing beyond. ‘I wondered whether she had something on her mind that she wasn’t telling me about. She’s been – less lively and cheerful these past few months. More thoughtful. But then,’ she turned the direct, dark eyes on Swilley frankly, ‘there’s her age to consider. The Change is not easy for anyone.’

Too genteel, Swilley thought impatiently, to use the m-word. ‘You must all be about the same age,’ she suggested.

‘Phoebe and I were just two months apart. My birthday’s February the eighth, and hers is April the eighth. Josh was born in June, but the previous year.’ She emptied her glass with a sudden movement. ‘I’m talking too much, aren’t I? I’m forgetting why you’re here. You don’t want to know all this stuff.’

‘It all helps to build up the picture,’ Swilley said. ‘She never married?’

‘No,’ said Mrs Prentiss. ‘It never seemed to be something
she wanted. Her career and her political interests filled her life. I asked her once, when we were in our thirties, if she wasn’t worried about the biological clock ticking away, if she didn’t want children before it was too late, and she said, “I can’t think of anything I want less than a husband and family.”’

‘But she had boyfriends, presumably?’

Mrs Prentiss shrugged. ‘Men always wanted her – she was so beautiful and exciting. She had affairs from time to time, but they were just casual. Even when we were younger, men were just an add-on in her life. Her career was everything.’

‘I’m wondering, you see, who would have had a reason to kill her,’ Swilley said. ‘Do you know the names of any of her recent affairs?’

‘No. I don’t think she’s had anyone recently,’ Mrs Prentiss said. ‘The last one I know of was last summer, a man she saw for a couple of months. But she came to a garden party of ours in August alone, and said she’d got fed up with him, and she hasn’t mentioned anyone since.’ She looked straight into Swilley’s eyes; she sat very still, enviably free from the human propensity to fidget, her hands folded together, back straight; revealing her distress at the murder of her friend only by a certain rigidity in her shoulders and face.

‘Would she have talked about it more to your husband, perhaps? I understand he dropped in on her at her flat sometimes.’

Mrs Prentiss eyed her tautly. ‘Why shouldn’t he? It was a three-way friendship. There wasn’t anything underhand going on. Josh and Phoebe were friends in just the same way that Phoebe and I were.’

‘I wasn’t suggesting anything,’ Swilley said blandly, ‘but it’s interesting that you jumped to that conclusion.’

Mrs Prentiss flushed. ‘It isn’t the first time suggestions have been made. We live in a tabloid world.’

Swilley gave a faint shrug. ‘At any rate, your husband was probably the last person to see her alive. He visited her yesterday evening.’

‘Who told you that?’ Mrs Prentiss asked sharply.

‘We have a witness,’ was all Swilley would give her.

‘Well, your witness is wrong,’ Mrs Prentiss said firmly. ‘Josh was here all yesterday evening.’

‘Then how do you account for his car being parked in her street?’

She didn’t even break stride. ‘It wasn’t there yesterday, I can assure you. Your witness must have seen another Jaguar. They’re not exactly rare.’

‘You’re quite sure your husband was here all evening?’

‘All evening and all day as well. He was working from home yesterday. He never left the house at all. Surely’, she said, her eyes widening, ‘you can’t be trying to suggest that Josh had anything to do with it? That would be ludicrous. He loved Phoebe as much as I did. Please don’t say anything like that to him: it would break his heart.’

‘I’m not suggesting anything,’ Swilley said calmly. ‘A witness said he was at the flat yesterday and we have to check that statement. You must understand that. There’s no need for you to get upset.’

‘My best friend is murdered, and there’s no need for me to get upset?’ Mrs Prentiss cried hotly. ‘I suppose it’s all in a day’s work to you, but you can’t expect the rest of us to be so completely callous. And then to accuse my husband of being the killer!’ Her voice shook.

‘Mrs Prentiss, if he visited her, she might have said something to him that would help us, that’s all we were wondering. Nobody’s accusing anybody of anything.’

‘Well, if that’s what you want to know, why don’t you ask him?’

‘Oh, we will,’ said Swilley.

The bitter cold didn’t last long. By next day a normal English winter had reasserted itself: mild, overcast, with a fine prickling drizzle from a blank and whitish-grey sky.

Hollis, updating the whiteboard, said, ‘You’ve chosen a right funny time o’ year to get married, Norma. You’ll want to get the plastic wedding dress and white wellies out.’ He was the other detective sergeant on Slider’s firm, an odd-looking man with bulging green eyes, a ragged moustache, and a strange, countertenor voice with a Mancunian accent. His oddities made him a successful interviewer: people were so mesmerised by his face and voice, he got things out of them without their noticing.

Norma shrugged. ‘Least of my problems. I’m just hoping this murder doesn’t turn out to be a sticker. I’ve got enough on my plate without that.’

‘Lots of nice overtime to pay for all the booze we’re going to drink at the reception,’ Mackay pointed out.

‘If you think any of you lot are getting invited you’ve got a screw loose,’ Norma said brutally.

‘If you think we’ll get paid for the overtime, ditto ditto,’ Hollis added.

There was a brief and electric silence. Budgetary restraints had curtailed quite a few investigations recently, and much unpaid overtime had been worked, not without grumbling.

Atherton, a folded-open newspaper in his hands, looked up. ‘Don’t say that, Colin. Please don’t say that. I dropped a packet yesterday on Maurice’s three-legged pony. Shy Smile!’ he said witheringly, with a glare at McLaren.

McLaren shrugged, his mouth full of pastry. ‘I never said she’d win,’ he bubbled flakily. ‘I said she’d walk it.’

‘So she did, while the other horses ran gaily past her,’ Atherton said bitterly. ‘I’ve got to recoup my losses. Anybody got any tips for Lingfield Park?’

‘Never mind the bloody racing,’ Mackay said impatiently. ‘What about this overtime thing? I can’t afford to work for nothing. I haven’t paid for Christmas yet.’