'Maybe, I don't know. The bastard just started hating me. I suddenly realized that, whatever the cause, he actually hated me! So I got out. You don't have to take that kind of risk, do you? Not if you're not a prostitute.'
Ellie cast a longing eye at her romantic novel.
'Where are you living now?' she asked to fill a small silence.
'Oh, I'm back in the house and he's out now. I went straight to Thelma and she got things sorted very quickly. She's marvellous, isn't she? Not that Mark raised much objection, to give him his due. Suburbia probably cramped his style, anyway. Too open. Too many eyes behind too many lace curtains.'
She sipped her coffee, then added abruptly. 'This fellow your husband's after. There was another one yesterday. I read it in the paper.'
'They're not certain yet it was the Choker,' said Ellie, cautious again.
'Whoever, he must hate us pretty much too,' said Lorraine, frowning into her coffee.
The doorbell rang.
'That'll be him,' said Lorraine. 'He won't wait. We've a right to protect ourselves, haven't we? A duty.'
'I suppose so.'
Ellie stood up.
'Don't bring him in. I'm finished,’ said the woman, draining her mug. 'You'll get a shock when you see him. I hope it doesn't affect the baby. He's gone weird. You know what he's doing this vac? He's going to Saudi Arabia with a mini-bus camping party. I think he lied about his age, told them he was thirty. The kids get embarrassed. Shit!, I get embarrassed!'
Ellie opened the front door.
Mark Wildgoose was leaning against the jamb and didn't bother to straighten up. He had a thin dark mobile face which might just about pass for a dissolute thirty. The legend on his T-shirt said The Greatest! It looked as if it could do with a wash and he smelt sweaty.
'The kids are pissed off,' he said over Ellie's shoulder. 'Me too. Are you going to be all bloody day?'
'See what I mean?' said Lorraine. 'Despite his language, they let him teach English and Drama at the Bishop Crump Comprehensive School. He used to be my husband. He might even know your husband.'
'Hello,’ said Ellie, pretending this was an introduction. 'I'm Ellie Pascoe.'
'Hello,' said Wildgoose. 'Look, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be rude, but she said a minute and the children are very hot. Your husband… Pascoe? Works in the education office, does he?'
'He's a policeman,' interjected his wife. 'He may have interviewed you. When that woman was killed, remember?'
'Of course I remember, but I don't remember the policeman's name. Look, are you coming now or not?'
He was plainly exasperated but Ellie could not really see anything amounting to hatred in his expression, though he did look as if he might have pushed half a grapefruit in his wife's face if he'd happened to have half a grapefruit.
'Yes, I'm coming,' said Lorraine Wildgoose wearily. 'Thanks for the coffee, Ellie.'
'Coffee!' Wildgoose cried with an expressive movement of the shoulders as he headed back for the car.
His wife lingered still.
She wants me to press her, thought Ellie.
'Which woman?' she said.
'I forget her name. The one they found in the allotment shed. They talked to everyone who had an allotment.'
'And your husband…?' Ellie was surprised.
'Yes,’ said Lorraine wearily. 'Last year he was into self-sufficiency. Grow your own veg. I wouldn't let him dig up the lawn so he applied for an allotment. I knew it wouldn't last. He hardly goes at all now.'
'Why are you telling me this, Lorraine?' asked Ellie.
'Telling you what? I'm just talking. My life's in such a turmoil, I don't know what I'm doing half the time,' said Lorraine. 'That's why I'm so glad you can take over this job. You'll let me know if there's anything you don't understand.'
'That's very likely,' said Ellie.
'OK.'
Outside a horn blew. One short, two long blasts.
'Qu'il est triste, le son du cor, au fond du bois,' said Lorraine. 'That girl Brenda Sorby. She went to the Crump Comprehensive, you know.'
Now the car had started up, the engine revving noisily.
'Ciao,' said Lorraine. 'Don't forget, ring if there's anything I can do.'
'I will,’ promised Ellie. 'I will.'
When she returned to the sofa, for a long while she found her romantic thriller unpickupable.
Chapter 9
Sergeant Wield had had another unsatisfactory session with Dave Lee. The gypsy stuck to his story that he had driven Rosetta Stanhope up north on a visit to friends 'to take her out of herself'.
When pressed for detail he said vaguely, 'Teesdale, somewhere near Barnard Castle,' adding that as they were on the move, he couldn't say where they'd be now. Thereafter all that he would add to his story was a mounting degree of exasperated profanity.
He was equally vague and equally profane when the topic changed to his movements earlier in the day. He couldn't remember when last he'd seen Pauline. Early. Nine o'clock perhaps. Nor what they'd talked about. The other cop, the good-looking one, had just gone, so mebbe it was about him. Nor when precisely he'd left the fairground. Dinner- time, somewhere about then.
But he was certain about his pint in the Cheshire Cheese and that he'd been back at the aerodrome no later than one-fifteen which all present would confirm.
Wield didn't doubt it, but turned to the landlord of the Cheshire Cheese for less partisan confirmation of Lee's timetable. Wally Furniss was a round, rubicund man who, had he been an actor, would have made a large fortune playing jovial English landlords in costume dramas. Instead, he made a small fortune playing the same role in real life. Death seemed to be his friend. Recently widowed, he had emerged from the ordeal redder and jollier than ever. And the awful fate of Mary Dinwoodie behind his pub had crowded his bars and broadened his smile in the weeks since.
Wield, used to landlords who were surlily resentful or distastefully sycophantic, found himself greeted with what felt like genuine pleasure and a large vodka and tonic.
'You remembered,' he said. It sounded a foolish thing to say but Furniss grinned delightedly, tapped his brow, and said,’Trick of the trade.'
His memory was equally good when it came to Lee.
'The gyppo? About twenty-five past twelve. A pint of mild and a pastie. Said it was stale, and I asked him how he'd know! He ate it up, though. Yes, we have one or two of his lot in when they're camping on the 'drome. It's just the other side of the by-pass. No, I don't mind 'em, as long as they stick to the taproom, which they mostly do.'
'The night Mrs Dinwoodie was killed, were there any of them in then?'
Furniss pursed his lips. 'Not that I can say definite, else I would've done, wouldn't I?'
Wield had to agree.
'Mind you, they were about,' added Furniss. 'I remember saying, just a bit before, that some of 'em were back early this year. It's usually just the week before the Fair that they start congregating. Poor sods probably got turfed out of their last spot a bit unexpected.'
'That's interesting,' said Wield. 'Dave Lee, now, the fellow I was asking about, was he one of them?'
'Couldn't say for sure,' said Furnis regretfully. 'Are they mixed up in this Choker business, you reckon?'
'Just enquiries, Mr Furniss,' said Wield heavily. 'And I'd appreciate it if they stayed between you and me.'
'My lips is sealed,' said Furniss with a contradictory breadth of smile.
'And you're sure they were around before Mrs Dinwoodie's death?'
'Oh yes. Ask at the Aero Club if you want to find out just when. They keep a close eye on them down there. Lots of valuable stuff around that place, not to mention the bar! If I catch any of them hanging around outside here, I send them packing pretty quick. Paying customers are one thing, light fingers another! Same again, Sergeant?'
Wield shook his head and put his glass down.