Simeon's Bride (7 page)

‘What is it, Dewi?’ McKenna, morning sunshine highlighting the shadows painted by misery’s palette about his eyes, smiled vaguely at the young detective standing rather uncomfortably at the office door.

‘I wouldn’t bother you, sir, only Mr Turtle’s like a bear with a sore head this morning, snapping at anything moving, so I thought you’d better see these.’ He placed a pile of flimsy paper on the desk. ‘They’re faxes, sir. Come in overnight on the missing women.’

‘Anything useful?’

‘No, sir. Not a thing,’ Dewi said. ‘I suppose you can always look at it the other way, and say we know who the woman isn’t. Narrowed it down a lot’

‘You should be an alchemist, Dewi. Turn negative into positive,’ McKenna said. ‘How many are we left with?’

‘Forty-one. The Irish police don’t reckon there’s anyone missing who’d fit the description. Seems not half so many women go missing in Ireland.’

‘Which police in Ireland?’ McKenna asked. ‘North or South?’

‘That lot in Dublin.’

McKenna grinned at him. ‘Well, don’t be surprised if we don’t hear from the police in the North … although we might well have a response from Special Branch.’

‘Them?’ Dewi looked as if he would like to spit. ‘Wouldn’t give you the dirt from under their fingernails if they could help it. We may as well write off Northern Ireland, then. Sir, d’you mind if I ask you something?’

‘Not at all, Dewi.’

‘It occurred to me when we were looking through the computer files…. I just wondered where all these missing people go.’

‘I don’t really know,’ McKenna admitted. ‘Maybe some of them just can’t stand things any more, and run away … escape … some are probably on a life insurance fiddle, because the family can have them declared dead after seven years, and collect the money.’ He paused, then said, ‘I think quite a few may well be murder victims.’

‘My nain reckons some of them fall off the edge of the world‚’ Dewi grinned. ‘She still won’t have it the earth’s not flat. She says you couldn’t see the horizon otherwise.’

‘Dr Roberts left a message for you yesterday.’

‘Did he, Jack?’ McKenna asked. ‘What is it?’

‘Said to tell you Rebekah was pregnant. About three months gone.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Jack’s face was drawn, his eyes red-rimmed. ‘What’s wrong?’

Jack hesitated for a moment before replying. ‘Did you speak to Mrs McKenna last night, sir?’

‘She’s gone to stay with her sister.’

‘Oh.’

‘Jack, unless whatever is worrying you is entirely private, perhaps you should tell me.’

‘Bloody hell!’ Jack exploded. ‘It’s like telling tales out of school!’ He squirmed in his seat. ‘Oh, sod it! I had a row with Emma, and ended up sleeping on the sofa, and I can’t remember the last time that happened.’

‘And I suppose the row was about Denise and myself?’

‘Too right,’ Jack agreed. ‘And whether or not I should say so,’ he added, ‘I think you’re well rid of her. She saw a solicitor yesterday, and dragged Em along to hold her hand, and had a hell of a shock when the solicitor said she couldn’t expect you to keep her for the rest of her days. I’m sorry, I really am, because she should have told you herself. Oh, God!’ He buried his head in his hands. ‘What a mess!’

‘I see,’ McKenna said slowly. ‘Well, no point in fretting, Jack. The mess’ll get bigger before it gets smaller.’ He lit a cigarette, drawing smoke hungrily into his lungs. ‘Don’t make things worse by falling out with Emma.’

‘I’ve not got you here to talk about yourself, young man,’ Mary Ann said, closing the door behind McKenna. ‘If you want to say anything to me, I’ll listen, but I’m not one for poking my nails into other people’s wounds.’

‘How are you?’ McKenna asked.

‘Middling,’ she said, easing her bones into the armchair. ‘Fair to
middling at best. Can’t expect much else at my time of life, can I? I should be grateful I can still get about.’

They sat in silence for a while, shouts from the schoolyard beyond the open windows of her cottage disturbing the quiet.

‘Don’t you think it’s strange the seagulls don’t come here?’ McKenna commented.

‘Too many trees,’ Mary Ann said. ‘Gulls like open spaces. Plenty of rooks and crows, though,’ she added. ‘Hundreds in the trees by the church, and more each year … sitting up in those high branches cawing and shrieking at each other from morning ’til night … it’s like that film, sometimes. I half expect to see them swoop down on the kiddies out playing, tearing their hair and pecking their eyes out.’

‘Do many children live in the village?’

She thought for a moment. ‘D’you know, I doubt there’s any nowadays, never were that many…. My lad was always begging us to move, but his dad worked on the estate, and the cottage went with the job.’ She paused, looking down avenues of time. ‘Tied cottages. Tied down the folk in them as good as slaves.’

‘Weren’t you expected to move out when your husband died?’

‘In the old days, there’d be no choice,’ Mary Ann said. ‘Could’ve freezed to death in a field for all them at the castle cared…. By the time Dafydd passed on,’ she went on, ‘most of these cottages were sold, because there wasn’t hardly anybody working the estate any longer. They’d run out of money, see. Frittered it away on high living and fineries. One of the sons gambled away the few coppers left over. A fortune they had, Michael. A fortune …’ she said grimly. ‘Still, I get to stay here as long as I pays the rent every week. Not that I get much for it … not even a bathroom, in this day and age. Have to make do with the kitchen sink and the
ty
bach.’

‘Don’t you ever feel bitter?’ McKenna asked. ‘Hard done by?’

‘I’ve a roof over my head as long as I need it. It’s enough. At one time, I’d’ve liked my own place,’ Mary Ann said. She grinned. ‘I used to feel so bad with jealousy sometimes I gave myself the bellyache! Seeing the girls I went to school with getting wed and buying a little house somewhere nice in Bangor, getting it ready for the babies…. Then you see them a bit later on,’ she went on, the smile gone, ‘when there’s another mouth or two to feed, with grey hairs at twenty-five, worrying about paying the house loan, and bitter, hating their husband because he isn’t bringing enough money in to pay the bills. More than one marriage I’ve seen go to the devil that way.’ She struggled to her feet, and went to the kitchen to make tea. ‘No cake today, Michael,’ she called out. ‘I’ve fallen out with Beti Gloff… temporarily, you might say.’

‘Why?’ McKenna followed, leaning against the doorframe, watching the old woman creep from sink to cooker in the dingy little lean-to.
‘What’s she done?’ he asked.

‘Well, she does messages for me on account of my legs, and for Mair and Faith as well,’ Mary Ann said, putting a match to the gas stove. ‘Our Beti likes going off to town, so it’s no hardship … gets her away from that useless husband of hers, except on pension day when he goes with her.’ She leaned on the table, waiting for the kettle to boil. ‘She fiddles the cash a bit, you see. Adds fifty pence or so here and there to the bills, shortchanges us, even though we all pay her for going. I know she does it, Mair knows, Faith knows, and Beti knows we all know, but every so often, it doesn’t hurt to remind her, if you get my meaning.’

He laughed. ‘No flies on you, is there, Mary Ann?’

‘I like to think not,’ she said. ‘Not like that poor little thing you dug up the other day. Rebekah, was it?’

‘We think so,’ McKenna nodded.

‘I told young Dewi,’ Mary Ann said, ‘they should burn that Gallows Cottage to the ground. It’s an evil place.’

‘The woman who lived there a few years back had some building work done. Any idea who did it?’

‘Did you know she paid for it, as well?’ Mary Ann said. ‘Paying through the nose in rent, and doing it up into the bargain. Must’ve wanted her head seeing to! It wasn’t anybody local did the work,’ she added. ‘Saw the vans once or twice. From somewhere Manchester way, but I couldn’t say where … didn’t take any real notice. Now, if I’d known it was important, I could have, but I didn’t, did I?’

‘How d’you know she paid for the work?’

‘How do folk know anything?’ She shrugged. ‘I seem to recall Prosser told the vicar.’

‘The vicar doesn’t remember seeing the woman at all. Says she never went to church.’

‘He wouldn’t, would he?’ Mary Ann sneered. ‘Pickled any brains he ever had in gin, he has. Has a hard job remembering to go to church himself of a Sunday, by all accounts.’

McKenna took the tray of tea, and carried it into the parlour. She followed, shuffling and snickering. ‘Nothing to beat a bit of nasty gossip, is there?’ Sitting down again, she added, ‘I’ve a bit more gossip. That’s why I asked you here. Beti wanted to tell you herself, because it’s her gossip, only I wouldn’t let her because she’s been a bad girl, diddling us out of our pennies. I don’t know if it’s any use to you,’ she rattled on, ‘and I really can’t say whether Beti isn’t making it up, looking for a slice of the attention John Jones got for finding the body, but she reckons she’s seen the car that woman from Gallows Cottage was driving. And very recent. Round Bangor, she said, and going along towards the council estate.’ Mary Ann smiled at the expression on McKenna’s face. ‘Says there was a man driving it, but she couldn’t see his face.’

‘There must be thousands of cars like that on the roads,’ McKenna said. ‘How could Beti know it was the right one?’

‘I asked her that, didn’t I?’ Mary Ann said. ‘Said she couldn’t get you on another wild goose chase. She swears it’s the same car because there’s some odd-looking ornament dangling in the back window. Sort of thing she’d notice, you know, even if she hasn’t a clue otherwise.’

He poured out tea, and offered Mary Ann another cigarette. ‘D’you think Beti would come to the police station to look at some photographs of cars?’

‘Oh, she’d love a bit of excitement like that. Just so long as you send a police car for her.’ Mary Ann’s eyes gleamed with amusement.

‘If I didn’t have my wits about me,’ McKenna said quietly, ‘you’d lead me astray. If I send a police car for Beti, she might think you’d grassed her up about her little fiddles. Mightn’t she? And that would be very exciting. Wouldn’t it?’

Mary Ann smacked her hand on her knee. ‘Worth a try, Michael! Send Dewi. He’s got the patience of a saint, and he’ll need it to get any sense from her. D’you know,’ she went on, ‘I can’t help but wonder sometimes if Beti’s not one room short of a house. She keeps wittering about that Simeon … swears blind she’s seen him in the woods.’

‘Simeon?’ McKenna repeated. The memory of the elusive figure at the edge of the twilit woods on Wednesday swam to the surface. ‘What does he look like?’

‘I don’t know what he looks like, do I?’ Mary Ann said. ‘I’ve never seen him. But there’s always been talk in the village. Tales handed down … Beti says it must be Simeon because she knows everybody round here, and he’s a stranger, but I said he could be one of them gipsies off the site down the road, doing a bit of poaching.’

‘Does he look gipsyish, then?’

Mary Ann nodded. ‘Longish dark hair, according to Beti. Darkish skin. Thin, she said; sort of hungry-looking.’

‘I might’ve seen him on Wednesday, when we dug up the body. In the woods,’ McKenna said. ‘He legged it when he saw me.’

‘He would if he were up to no good, wouldn’t he?’ Mary Ann pointed out. ‘If he’s poaching, coming across a van-load of coppers is the last thing he wants.’

‘Why don’t we just put Mary Ann and Beti on the payroll?’ Jack said tetchily. ‘It’s a bit galling, you know. Mary Ann mentions gipsies, so we hare off to the site. Beti sees a car, which, you must admit, sir, could be any of the millions of cars in Britain, so we rush up to see her with photographs. Don’t you think,’ he went on, ‘there’s a distinct possibility they’re making monkeys out of us?’

‘Even if they are,’ McKenna said, ‘there’s bugger all we can do about
it. What else have we got to investigate? And by the way, Jack, the assistant chief constable wants an interim report. So I thought you can write it up. Stretch your imagination a bit.’

‘Oh, thanks very much! Why me? Training for promotion?’

‘An exercise in creative thinking.’

‘Well,’ Jack reflected, ‘if nothing else, it’ll keep me out of Emma’s way until she’s calmed down a bit.’

A worm of unease wriggled in McKenna’s gut. Not for one moment did he believe Emma would calm down unless she kept well away from Denise, who would be marshalling forces for an onslaught on her husband. Emotional, loyal Emma was ideal cannon fodder … He must warn Denise. There was no room in his conscience for another ruined marriage.

‘What is it?’ Jack asked.

‘Eh?’

‘What are you thinking about?’

‘Oh, this and that …’ McKenna said vaguely. ‘John Beti finding the body when he did, for one thing. Doesn’t that strike you as being rather odd?’

‘No,’ Jack said. ‘Why should it?’

McKenna pulled a cigarette from the open packet lying on the desk. ‘John Beti’s lived in those woods for years. I daresay he knows every inch of them like the back of his hand. And I think Dewi was right about the poaching. Fresh salmon come upriver, not to mention rabbits and whatnot in the woods.’

‘So?’

‘So it’s a bit hard to swallow, isn’t it?’

‘What is?’

‘That John Beti has not,’ McKenna said, lighting the cigarette, ‘in the past three or four years, ever set foot in that particular part of the woods. And it is, therefore, rather strange he only found the body last week.’

‘Maybe he didn’t notice it before,’ Jack said. ‘It wasn’t much more than a shadow in the trees, you know.’

‘Maybe so,’ McKenna said. ‘I still think he knows more than he’s letting on.’

‘We could interview him again. Put the screws on….’ Jack smiled. ‘You never know, he might’ve topped her himself. Maybe she was his girlfriend, and threatened to tell on him to Beti. They do say,’ he added, ‘we should go after whoever finds the body.’