Cold Sacrifice (8 page)

The outburst startled Sanjay. His thin black eyebrows disappeared beneath his fringe and his eyes widened stupidly as Henry slammed a bottle of milk down on the counter. He was still yelling.

‘You mind your own fucking business.’

Henry stared past the shopkeeper’s head.

‘That,’ he yelled, pointing a shaking finger at the whisky. ‘Give me that large bottle.’

‘Ah.’

Sanjay gave a knowing smile, reassured to discover the ostensible cause of his customer’s aggression. Henry let it go. It was certainly one explanation for his volatile behaviour, if not the right one. Clutching the bottle of Scotch, he hurried home. Later on he would sort out an alibi, once he had done some serious thinking. But first he was going to get plastered. He could afford the most expensive bottle of Scotch, and there was no one to spoil his enjoyment by nagging him about wasting money.

A
FTER AN EARLY LUNCH
, Ian drove back to Herne Bay and parked in the street alongside Henry Martin’s house. He and Rob would be returning together to speak to the widower again soon. With any luck, they would make an arrest and the investigation would be over. But before that, there was a lot of work to get through. Right now it was vital to gather as much information as possible. They not only had to make an arrest, they had to make sure their case was watertight. A prosecution that failed to get a conviction was a waste of police time and effort, as well as an opportunity for the killer to make good his escape – and possibly kill again.

For the second time in two days, Ian knocked on the Jamiesons’ front door. This time it was opened by a short, stout man with greying hair. His bushy beard and moustache were white.

‘Yes? What is it? What do you want?’

His brisk tone softened after he had put on steel-rimmed spectacles to peer at Ian’s warrant card.

‘Hmm, a detective sergeant? Well, in that case, perhaps you’d better come in.’ He hesitated. ‘What’s this about?’

Briefly Ian explained the purpose of his call and Mr Jamieson nodded, his head turned quizzically to one side.

‘Yes, Patsy told me you’d been here, asking questions.’

‘Your wife?’

‘Yes, yes. Come on in. I expect she’ll want to see you.’

He turned and bawled his wife’s name and a second later she came into the hall, wiping floury hands on a dish cloth.

‘Sorry, I’ve got a cake in the oven.’

She led them into a large square kitchen, neat and clean apart from a floury work surface.

‘You’ll have to excuse the mess,’ she added hurriedly.

Her husband smiled complacently at her and Ian felt a surge of optimism. Baking on a Sunday afternoon, content in her marriage, Mrs Jamieson could appear before any jury as a decent, reliable witness. He accepted the offer of a cup of tea and was disappointed when it wasn’t accompanied by a slice of the cake he could smell. It couldn’t have been ready yet. Bad timing, he thought. He hoped that wasn’t a bad omen. Sipping his tea, he listened to Mrs Jamieson discussing her neighbours as though she had been preparing for his visit. It was hardly necessary for him to prompt her with questions.

‘I always said he’d do her an injury one day,’ Mrs Jamieson began, speaking very loudly.

Her husband remonstrated with her.

‘There’s lots of couples argue.’

‘Not like that,’ she replied, turning to face her husband.

There was a pause.

‘Like what?’ Ian asked and the Jamiesons both turned to him looking slightly surprised, as though they had forgotten he was there.

‘You weren’t here during the day,’ she went on, speaking to her husband. She turned back to Ian. ‘He wasn’t here in the day. He didn’t hear it all.’

‘All what?’

‘Now, Patsy,’ her husband warned her, but she rounded on him.

‘Stop interfering, Donald. I’m only saying what I heard, no more and no less. You don’t know what went on.’ She turned to Ian and lowered her voice. ‘You wouldn’t know it, because he lip-reads, but my husband’s deaf.’

Ian sat down and took out his notebook. Mrs Jamieson’s account of her neighbours was petty and inconsequential, but she was keen to talk about them and Ian was prepared to listen to her again. Somewhere in her ramblings she might inadvertently furnish him with a lead. It was five years since the Jamiesons had moved into their ground floor flat, next door to the Martins.

‘They own the whole house,’ she said, a touch sharply, as though that was something reprehensible. ‘Just the two of them and that boy of theirs.’

Ian guided her gently to talk about the arguments she had overheard.

‘I don’t like to eavesdrop, but in the summer when I sit out on the patio, I can’t help hearing them. It’s not like I go out specially to hear what’s going on in there.’

Ian nodded to indicate he understood.

After a few more minutes talking around the subject, Mrs Jamieson tackled the issue of her neighbours’ rows.

‘He screams at her, I mean really yelling. It would make a trooper blush, the way that man talks to his wife – talked to her, I suppose I should say. Well, let’s hope she’s gone to a better place.’

She shook her head sadly, and offered Ian another cup of tea which he declined.

‘What kind of things did he say?’

‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly repeat what he said. Such foul language. It was shameful, really it was, for a man to speak to his wife like that.’

‘Can you remember what they argued about?’

‘Oh, all sorts from the sound of it. Anything and everything. He didn’t like this, and he didn’t like that, this wasn’t right, and that wasn’t right. It was endless. And then there was the divorce.’

‘The divorce?’

‘Yes, he wanted a divorce. He was always on at her about it.’

‘And what did she say about it?’

‘The honest truth is that I never heard a peep out of her. She wasn’t one to raise her voice. But she can’t have agreed to a divorce, because whenever it came up he used to scream and shout at her for being obstinate. Though God only knows why she refused to get divorced. It can’t have been much of a life, living with a foul-mouthed man like him. She’d have done far better to have given him his divorce and got clean away. Still, she didn’t, and now look what’s happened. If he couldn’t be shot of her one way… ’

Ian looked up from his notebook.

‘Are you suggesting Mr Martin killed his wife as a way of ending his marriage?’

‘Well, he couldn’t get away from her any other way, could he? Not with her refusing to get a divorce.’

‘But that doesn’t mean he was responsible for her death.’

‘Oh doesn’t it?’ she asked, with a knowing smile.

Ian was irritated. He wasn’t there to play guessing games.

‘Mrs Jamieson, if you have any evidence to suggest that Mr Martin was implicated, directly or indirectly, in his wife’s death, you must tell me. Otherwise this is all just speculation and gossip.’

Startled by his peremptory tone, she dropped her coy expression and continued gravely.

‘It’s only what I heard about him insisting he wanted a divorce and getting angry with her for refusing. But he did threaten to kill her, I’m sure of that. I heard him. I was out in the garden, on the patio, reading my book, or trying to with them having one of their set-tos next door. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, just the faint drone of her voice in the background.’

‘So you couldn’t be sure it was Martha he was speaking to?’

‘No, except that he was begging her for a divorce, so it must’ve been her, mustn’t it? Anyway, he was going on and on about it, and threatening to make her sorry. She must have said something like, “over my dead body” or, “you’ll have to kill me first” because he shouted out, “I bloody well will kill you, if that’s what it takes to get rid of you”.’

‘Are you sure that’s what you heard?’

‘As clear as I can hear you now. He must have been standing right by the open window.’

‘And you couldn’t have been mistaken?’

‘No. I remember it, word for word. It’s not the sort of thing you forget. I was sitting quietly, minding my own business, in the garden, and I heard him shouting at her. It upset me, I can tell you.’

As Ian scribbled down the wording, Mr Jamieson leaned forward and patted his wife on her knee.

‘What about it then?’ he asked.

‘What?’

‘The seed cake. Is it ready yet?’

Mrs Jamieson smiled indulgently.

‘Poor thing, he didn’t hear a word I said, did you dear?’

H
E CONSCIOUSLY ENJOYED DRINKING
in the comfort of his own home without anyone watching him and criticising, but the pleasure soon faded. The house felt disconcertingly empty. Even the noise of the television didn’t fill the silence. He flipped restlessly between channels, scowling at false laughter and seemingly endless adverts. Mark had gone out. No one else ever came round. Until now, Henry hadn’t realised how much he had come to depend on Martha. For thirty years she had lingered in the house like a bad smell. It was no wonder he had lost interest in her as a woman when all she did was complain. She was so bloody self-righteous, as though their problems were all his fault. And it was maddening, the way she would stare at him in silence whenever he lost his temper. Yet any time he was in trouble, Martha had been there for him. When he had been laid up with the flu, Martha was the one who had brought him soup, and propped him up on his pillows so she could feed him, like a baby. He had broken his ankle slipping over on the ice one winter. Martha had taken him to the hospital, looking after him until he was fit again.

‘It’s my duty,’ she had said primly when he wanted to thank her for taking care of him. ‘I’m your wife.’

She had never shown him affection, but she had always been there. Maybe that should have been enough.

It was ironic that he was in trouble as a consequence of her death, when she was the only person who would have helped him. His son was refusing to vouch for him, even though Henry had sworn he had been asleep on the sofa on Friday evening. As his son, Mark should have taken his word for it. Henry had been banking on his co-operation. Instead, Mark had as good as accused him of following Martha to the park, sticking a knife in her heart, running home again, and lying about it to save his own skin. If he couldn’t rely on Mark to furnish him with an alibi, he would just have to find someone else. But only Martha would have been prepared to lie to protect him. There was no one else.

About to pour another whisky into his glass, he thought better of it and set the bottle down on the table. Drinking alone was depressing and besides, he needed to remain sober if he was going to fight his way out of his present troubles. His head cleared as he walked along the street. It was a fine evening, but chilly. Under any other circumstances he would have been happy, free at last, with money to burn. He tried to imagine how he would be feeling if Martha had passed away naturally. Outwardly like any other grieving widower coming to terms with the death of his wife, inside he would be rejoicing at his good fortune. He wouldn’t be tormented by the crippling fear that now plagued him. Without an alibi for the time of Martha’s death, he was as good as convicted. Only unlike his dead wife, he was a fighter. Having wasted more than thirty years of his life tied to her, he refused to let her ruin what little time he had left. The police were on to him, but he would get the better of them yet. With a little planning he could outwit the lot of them.

He walked along the front until he came to a rundown pub. At nine o’clock it was almost empty. A middle-aged man lounged in one corner, while a couple of young lads sat laughing together at a table. An old tart was sitting up at the bar, eyeing everyone who came in. She glanced over at Henry, and turned away again. She wasn’t much to look at, but she gave him an idea. He didn’t have any friends to speak of, just a few workmates. But he had money. Lots of it. Instead of a short, he ordered a black coffee, strong and bitter, with two sugars. He needed to stay alert if he was going to carry out the plan that was forming in his mind. Gulping down the hot sweet drink, he turned the possibility over in his mind. The more he thought about it, the more excited he became. Nothing was a problem for a wealthy man.

Sitting at the bar, he grinned to himself. No one took any notice. They probably thought he’d had one too many. It didn’t matter. It no longer mattered what anyone thought of him, because he had enough money to do whatever he wanted. Enough money to buy their good opinion if he cared to have it, which he didn’t. The money was going to make it worth the thirty years of hell he’d endured with his wretched wife. Poor Martha. He couldn’t help smiling as he imagined her sitting in judgement on him, up in her self-righteous heaven. She couldn’t take her money away from him now. It was all his. He could do what the hell he wanted with it, and the first thing he was going to do was dish some of it out to another woman. See how Martha liked that. He swayed slightly as he stood up, drunker than he had realised. It was probably just as well. He would need some Dutch courage if he was going to carry out his plan.

As he stood up, the old tart at the bar caught his eye. He returned her gaze thoughtfully, unsure if she was suitable for his purposes. On balance, he decided she looked too shrewd. He didn’t want anyone asking too many questions. Nor did he want to deal with someone living right on his doorstep. He turned and left without looking back. Before he put his plan into action, he needed to do some research. There could be no mistakes.

H
ENRY DROVE FAST ALONG
the Thanet Way, enjoying the freedom of the long straight flat dual carriageway. Taking the A28, he slowed down for the speed cameras in Birchington, then put his foot down again until he reached Margate. There were signs of regeneration along the front, but not far behind the façade the High Street was virtually derelict. Almost half the shops were boarded up. Some displayed ‘To Let’ signs. The only place that looked as though it was thriving was a large cheap clothes store. He found a place to park and continued to explore the area on foot. Behind the amusement arcades that faced the sea he found what he was looking for: a dingy black door with a sign ‘Over 21s Only’. A bored-looking bouncer stood outside, rolling a cigarette. He looked at Henry without blinking. Broad-shouldered, wearing a padded jacket over his stab vest, he had a flat square face with a big crooked nose and blubbery lips.