Kill My Darling (29 page)

‘You can call him Ian to me,' Connolly said.

Stephanie looked doubtful.

‘You're quite close to him, aren't you?' Connolly went on. Anyone who could think Ian Wiseman was a fluffy bunny-rabbit must be pure dotey on him. It'd sicken you, she thought, but she kept her face kindly and interested. Plenty of time to throw up later. ‘You're fond of him?'

‘I love him!' Stephanie burst out. Evidently the pressure to tell had overcome the dam of fearful restraint. ‘And he loves me! I know he's married, but he doesn't love his wife. How could he? She's old and fat and dull and – and she doesn't understand him! She's not interested in anything he does, just sits at home watching TV all the time. He's a wonderful person, and she just doesn't get it, how lucky she is. And now he's in trouble, and he needs me, and I can't see him!
She
won't be any use to him. He's all alone, and I can't help him!' Huge tears formed in the doe eyes.

Connolly hastily thrust a tissue at her. Love a' God, she'd want to listen to herself! ‘Come on, Stephanie. Cool the head, now. Sure, nothing's happened to him. He's just answering some questions for us. And you
can
help him.' A blurry look of hope. ‘Stop the crying, now, blow your nose, and talk to me like a sensible woman.'

They had come to a bench, fortuitously empty, and Connolly thought it better to sit down while Stephanie got herself together. She provided a couple more tissues, and mopping up was soon achieved. Stephanie stopped crying as easily as she had started, but she still looked miserable – and why not? Connolly thought.

‘So tell me about Ian,' she said. ‘He's coaching you, is he? What is it, tennis?'

‘No,' Stephanie said. ‘That's just the excuse. Someone saw us together and one of the other teachers asked him, so he said he was coaching me. It kind of spread, a bit, and a few people at school think I'm getting coaching, which is a laugh really, because I'm no good at sports. If it got to my mum and dad they'd go mad, because they'd know it wasn't coaching, cos they'd have to pay for it, and they're not, so you won't tell, will you?'

‘So what
do
you do together?' Connolly asked, leaving that one.

‘Go out in his car, mostly. Go for drives. We stop somewhere and sit and talk, and—' Suddenly she blushed, richly, and Connolly felt a quickening of pulse. ‘We go to the pictures sometimes,' Stephanie went on quickly, as if to avoid the subject. ‘And for meals, or we get a takeaway and eat it in the car. When the weather was nicer we sat outside, like on Horsenden Hill or somewhere like that.'

‘It's been going on for a while, so?'

‘Since September. When we came back to school. I bumped into him the first day back and dropped my books and he helped me pick them up and kind of touched my hand accidentally and we sort of smiled at each other. And then he said, “Glad to be back?” and I said, “Yes,” and he said, “Me too,” but I knew he meant something different by it, from the way he was looking at me. And I started hanging about after school to see if I could catch him coming out, but he's got games a lot after school. So I started staying to watch and he saw me and one day after a match when he came out from the changing rooms he saw me and said I must be frozen and would I like a cup of tea.' Her eyes were misty with rapture. ‘So we went to this café out Uxbridge way, where nobody'd know us, and we talked and talked. And that was the start of it.'

‘So you've been meeting regularly since then?'

‘Whenever he can. It was awful over Christmas because there was no school and he was with his family and I was with mine and all I could think of was that we ought to be together. I couldn't wait to get back to school. And the minute I saw him—'

‘Great,' Connolly said, to forestall any more syrup. Gak! That muscle-bound, narky little eejit? The girl was a looper. ‘Did you have a regular day you met?'

‘No, it was any time we could manage, but it was often a Friday evening because there are no games after school on a Friday. Weekends were harder, because of our families.'

‘What about Friday week past? Did you see him then?' Connolly asked, as casual as open-toed sandals.

Stephanie sighed like a high-speed train going into a tunnel. ‘That was the last time I saw him.'

‘Tell me about it.'

She seemed only too glad to – a chance to discuss her beloved? Bring it on! ‘We met straight after school. I walk up to the main road and there's a place where I wait for him, where there's never anyone around, and he comes along in the car and picks me up.'

‘And what did you do then?'

‘We went to the pictures,' she said.

‘Where?'

‘The Royale Leisure park. You know, on the A40, by Park Royal station. It's big enough so no one'd see us. We went to the four fifteen show, then when we came out we got something to eat.'

‘In a restaurant? Or a pub?'

‘He doesn't go into pubs. He doesn't drink. He says it rots your brain and ruins your body. We went to cafés sometimes, but more often it was takeaways.'

‘And that Friday?'

‘He took me to Starvin' Marvin's – you know, that American diner, sort of opposite the Hoover building?'

‘I know it,' Connolly said. Your man's a prince, she thought. It sat beside the A40 trunk road, a silver Airstream caravan-type construction, decorated inside with chrome and neon and boasting of real American diner food of the nachos, wings, ribs and burgers type. Reviews Connolly had heard of it were mixed, though the malted milkshakes were supposed to be good. McLaren had been an occasional customer before his recent epiphany, but as McLaren would famously eat a dead pony between two baps that didn't necessarily count as an endorsement. But romantic candlelit tryst it was not.

‘Let me see,' she said. ‘You went to the four fifteen show, so you'd be out o' there, what, half six?'

‘Quarter to seven,' Stephanie said.

‘And you'd be in Marvin's an hour, maybe?'

‘I don't know. I wasn't watching the clock. About that, I s'pose.'

‘So call it eight-ish. What did you do then?'

‘Went for a drive. It was a lovely night – cold, but kind of icy-clear, you know? Ian said we should go somewhere out in the country where we could see the stars. You can't see them where there are street lights. So we did.'

‘Where did you go?'

‘I don't know. We drove for a while. Where we ended up, it was kind of hilly, and there were a lot of trees, and not many houses about. Something Woods, I think he said. Ash Woods, was it? I dunno. But we ended up in this car park on top of a hill, with, like, all trees round it, and in front it kind of dropped away down the hill. And you could see millions of stars up above. It was beautiful.'

‘And you did what there?'

‘Talked,' she said. She blushed again.

‘And? Did he kiss you?'

She looked mortified.

‘More than that?'

Hurt and angry eyes in the blazing face met Connolly's. ‘We were lovers! He was my first ever. We'd been lovers all along, nearly since the first time! You think I'm just some stupid kid with a crush on my teacher, but you don't know! We loved each other! We were going to get married!'

‘Did he tell you that?'

Amazingly, the blush intensified. She was so red you could have stuck her on a mast to keep aircraft away. ‘We talked about it that night. He said how unhappy he was with his wife. He said he was going to leave her as soon as he could find the right time to tell her. Then we'd be together. We'd get married. He said he'd probably have to leave his job, but he'd soon get another one. And we'd have to move away somewhere people didn't know us. And he said he'd have to find a way to tell his daughter, because she wasn't that much younger than me and she'd find it hard to accept. But he said all problems were there to be solved, and we'd solve them.'

Connolly didn't know what to make of this. Was he flying a kite, or shooting a line? Did he really want to cut loose with a wee teeny-bopper, or was he just saying it to keep her sweet? Or – the idea came to her with a sudden rush of blood to the head – was he planning his post-murder escape, and thinking he might as well have some company along for the ride? The bit about having to leave his job . . . moving away . . . Another thought occurred to her, unwelcome and shocking, but it would explain some things, notably Stephanie's deep unhappiness.

‘You're not pregnant, are you?'

She couldn't get any redder, but her eyes filled with tears. ‘No,' she said. ‘Course not. We do all about that at school. But I wish I was! Then I'd have something of his. I don't care what you say, I don't believe he's a murderer. You don't know him like I do. He could never do that. He'd never lift a finger to a soul.'

Connolly thought of telling her that he hit his daughters, but didn't. Sure, the whole thing was blown now and she'd probably never see him again, so what harm? ‘So how long did you stay there, makin' love and gazin' at the stars?'

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Are you making fun of me?'

‘Far from it. I see no fun in the whole caper. Did you not think he was spinning you a line? You'd want to cop on to yourself, a nice bright girl like you. Men like him don't leave their wives.'

‘They do! All the time!' she cried passionately, but in her eyes was the bitter knowledge that Connolly was right.

‘Listen, willya – men that are going to leave do it right away. The ones that talk about waiting for the “right time” never do it. Ah, c'mon, I'm not givin' out to ya. We've all gone through it, fallen for the wrong geezer and made a holy show of ourselves. You're not the first and you won't be the last. But this time it's important, because other things hang on it. So I need you to tell me how long you were up this hill, wherever it was, and what time you came home.'

‘I don't know how long we were there,' she said, half sulky, half passionate.
Sure if she tells me love knows no time I'll be forced to clatter her
, Connolly thought. ‘It was hours, anyway. We didn't want to leave each other. But my dad goes mad if I'm out after midnight – honestly, he's such a dinosaur! – so we had to go. Ian drove me home and dropped me at the end of my road, like usual, and when I got in it was a quarter to twelve.'

Ah, thought Connolly. Another grand theory down the Swanee. ‘You're sure about that?'

‘Yeah. Course. I looked at the clock to make sure I was all right.'

‘So you'd been with Ian the whole time, every minute, from around four o'clock until a quarter to midnight? Every moment?'

‘Yeah,' said Stephanie, looking vaguely proud of her prowess as Ian-time-consumer; until something else occurred to her, her eyes widened and her jaw dropped like the temperature on a Bank Holiday. ‘Is that – does that mean – is it his alibi? Am I his alibi? Does it mean he didn't kill her after all?'

‘If you're telling me the truth,' Connolly said.

‘I am! I am! I swear it! Oh, I knew he didn't do it! He couldn't!' For a moment euphoria reigned, and then drained slowly from her young little face. ‘But – it'll all come out now, won't it? I'll have to go in court and swear it, and my parents'll know, and everyone at school. Will he get into trouble? I mean for – for me? I'm over age, but . . .' Her face had sunk to misery level again. ‘But he's married, and he'll have to take care of his wife and kid. He'll go away and I'll never see him again. It's all over,' she concluded with absolute certainty.

‘Yeah,' said Connolly. She could say no less; but she said it with sympathy. The poor kid had got it bad, and she wasn't one to dance on the body, even though this was one wake that should be welcomed by all. Stephanie'd had a lucky escape, though she was too dumb to see it. But she'd only want a run-in with Mr ClearBlue to put sense on her.

‘So when someone was killing Melanie, Wiseman and Stephanie Bentham were in a car park somewhere wearing the head off each other,' Connolly told Slider on the phone. ‘She says he left her home at a quarter to twelve.'

‘That's too late for him to have got over there and murdered Melanie before the food left her stomach,' Slider said. ‘Which means he's in the clear. Unless she's lying?' he added.

‘She's knickers mad about him, and she'd tell a lie at the drop of a hat to save him, but I don't think she is. She told me all that before she realized she was givin' him an alibi. I think it's gospel, all right.'

So Slider went back to Wiseman, who was looking worn now, more than angry: worn and depressed. Probably the realization of the complete destruction of his life either way had arrived in his brain.

‘Do you want to tell me where you really were on Friday night?' Slider asked.

‘I've told you,' he said, with an effort at a snap. ‘I have nothing more to say.'

‘Even if I tell you I
know
where you were, and with whom?'

Wiseman flinched.

‘And it was nothing to do with coaching – or not coaching of any sport known to the Olympics board, anyway.'

‘How
dare
you make jokes—' Wiseman began, mottling.

‘I truly don't think it was very funny,' Slider said seriously. ‘You're lucky the girl was of age, or you could be facing very serious charges.

‘I never—' He swallowed. ‘I don't know what you're talking about.'

‘Oh, must I spell it out for you?' Slider said wearily. ‘The girl has told us everything, voluntarily. You've been having an affair with one of your pupils, a seventeen year old called Stephanie Bentham, and at the time of Melanie's death you were with her, having sex in your car in a car park. A very shabby figure you will cut if that comes out.'