‘Do you know where they were during the break which Mr O’Connor called in the proceedings?’
‘No. I don’t know where they were when their host was shot down.’ She waited for a reaction to this sharpness, but received none. ‘I expect you’d like to know where I was, too. I can tell you that.’
‘If you would, please.’
‘I stood up and walked around the room. I found I was quite glad to stretch my legs a little and talk to one or two people I knew. I didn’t leave the main banqueting hall. So there’s one person you can rule out of your murder calculations.’
Clyde made a note, nodding without comment. It certainly didn’t rule her out, not yet. They’d need corroboration from some other source, and if she’d spoken to different people as she claimed, it was probable that no one person would be able to confirm that she’d remained in the banqueting hall throughout the break.
Peach said very quietly, ‘The PA is a key figure in any businessman’s life. We expect the wife to be able to tell us most about domestic arrangements and complications. The PA tells us about a man’s working life, which occupies as much or more of his time than his home life. Who do you think shot down James O’Connor on Monday night?’
She had uncrossed her legs whilst he spoke, as if an informal pose was inappropriate for the discussion of these grave matters. She sat not with arms folded but with a hand palm down on each thigh. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know much about his family life: he preferred to keep that totally separate from his work. Any successful businessman makes enemies. I know it’s a long step from enmity to murder, but my feeling is that it was one of those business enemies who had him killed.’
Peach nodded slowly, as if accepting the logic of this. The black eyebrows rose a little beneath the bald pate. ‘Had him killed?’
‘You know far more about this than I do. I believe the use of professional killers is not unknown.’
‘“Not unknown”.’ Peach savoured the negative for a moment, as if relishing her ladylike way of phrasing something unpleasant. ‘Contract killers, we call them. And you’re right: the use of such people is fairly common in the more dubious circles in which James O’Connor chose to move.’
She winced a little at the involvement of her employer in this murky world, but she wasn’t stung into a defence of Jim O’Connor, as he’d hoped. They left her with the usual request that she should go on thinking about the matter. Peach said in the car as they drove away, ‘She told us what she’d planned to tell us. No less and no more. How much more the efficient Mrs Derkson knows remains to be seen.’
Peach felt suddenly tired as he neared the shabby semi-detached house which had been his home for the last eight years. He worked fourteen-hour days without complaint when he was cracking a case, but the feeling that he was getting nowhere despite many hours of interviewing and poring over files always exhausted him. Frustration was always much more wearing than progress.
He had his eyes down and his brain deep in thought as he manoeuvred the car between others parked on the suburban street. He was so preoccupied that he almost missed the old Fiesta parked just far enough from the gates to give him easy access to his drive. His mother-in-law was here. Most coppers would have been depressed by that conclusion to a taxing day. Percy had never been most coppers, and his eyes now brightened at the prospect of a little time with Agnes Blake.
The seventy-year-old turned with a smile as he entered the kitchen. ‘I’ll be on my way in a few minutes, Percy. I was just showing our Lucy how to make a good curry. She’s far too ignorant in the kitchen to make a good wife, but I’m working on it.’
‘He didn’t marry me for my cooking, Mum!’ said her daughter daringly.
‘Wash your mouth out, our Lucy! You weren’t taught to talk dirty in my house.’
‘Nor in mine, Mrs B!’ said Percy promptly. ‘I don’t know where she picks these ideas up. Police canteen, I expect. I’m often shocked myself, the things I overhear in there. Sometimes I think it’s no place for a wife of mine.’
‘Go on with yer!’ said Agnes delightedly. She came from the old Lancashire school, where it was all right for men to be racy but quite unladylike for women to join in with them. In her youth in the long-vanished mill, the women had been bawdy enough among themselves at meal breaks, but chaste and demure in the presence of men. But her son-in-law understood all of this — indeed it sometimes seemed to her that he understood all of her world. She loved it when they tuned in to each other and embarrassed the daughter she loved.
Percy said firmly, ‘And you can’t possibly leave this curry now. You’ll need to stay and give your verdict upon it. I’m just an amateur in these things.’
Though Agnes made her protestations that she did not want to disturb them after a working day, she was clearly delighted to stay and even more delighted that it was Percy who insisted upon it. The curry more than passed muster. Although Mrs Blake insisted that Lucy had conducted every stage of its preparation, Percy maintained that he detected the expert supervisory touch of the older woman in the delicate aromas and subtle flavours of the finished product.
Agnes Blake giggled like an adolescent as Percy laid on the praise with his shameless trowel and insisted that they finished the lot. Lucy indulged him and took her teasing in good part, because she was so delighted to see her widowed mother enjoying herself here rather than disappearing dutifully to her empty cottage. Then she stood up and announced, ‘You two don’t need me. You’re like two excited kids when you get together. I’ll get the dessert. Ice cream and blueberries all right for you daft pair?’
Percy growled appreciatively as her rear end disappeared into the kitchen. ‘It might be true, you know, that I didn’t marry her for her cooking. And when she pours herself into tight trousers like that, I’m putty in her hands. It’s worse than her mucky language, Mrs B. I’m only a weak-willed man; we’re no match for clever creatures like you.’
Agnes tried and failed to look disapproving. ‘No sign of any grandchildren, yet, though. I’m not getting any younger, Percy. I want to see my grandson playing cricket for East Lancs, like his dad.’
‘You mustn’t put pressure on the lad. He might turn out to be a golfer.’
‘A GOLFER!’ Agnes Blake’s contempt brayed out in capital letters, which caused her daughter to giggle in the kitchen. One of the best things about her mum was that she always rose to the bait. ‘He’ll not be a golfer, if I’m still around to stop it. With Bill’s genes and yours, he’ll be a CRICKETER!’ Her husband had been a consistently successful opening bowler in the Northern League, whilst Percy had until two years previously been a nimble-footed batsman in the Lancashire League. ‘You retired far too early, you know, Percy. You could still do it if you’d a mind to. I was only saying yesterday to-’
‘There’s no guarantee it would be a boy, you know,’ said Percy hastily. He didn’t want Agnes to get on to her hobby-horse of how he should still be playing cricket for East Lancs.
‘No guarantee it will be anything, the way you two keep putting it off,’ said Agnes gloomily.
‘Better get on with your sweet quickly. I’ve already brewed the tea,’ said her daughter breezily, returning to the room with an energy which showed that she had been listening to the conversation.
‘She has a career to make, you see, Mrs B,’ said Percy, his dejection echoing that of his mother-in-law. ‘I’m not getting any younger myself, but these girls want it both ways nowadays.’ He considered the bawdy possibilities of the phrase, but decided not to exploit them. ‘At the rate we’re going, I’ll be crippling about with a stick before any lad we produce is playing cricket.’
‘It’s true, our Lucy,’ said Agnes eagerly. ‘Your man’s older than you are and I’m seventy now. Don’t you think you’re being a bit selfish, love? You’ve got our needs to consider as well as yours, you know.’
But Agnes Blake’s forte wasn’t being pathetic, and underneath her insistence on a new generation she was torn; she wanted her bright daughter to have the career which had never been possible for her. Percy assured her that they would discuss the matter seriously and she was content to leave it at that.