“It was your affair …”
“Affair?”
“Your do, that she disappeared from.”
“That hardly makes me responsible.”
Audrey wished he would look at her when he spoke, not keep wandering round the blessed table all the time, squinting down at all those balls like a general poring over a battle plan. “Besides,” she said, moving herself so that she was close to his eye line, “isn’t she your librarian’s best friend or something?”
“Dana, mm. Live together, I believe. Flat-share, not you know …” He made his shot and the green rolled slowly towards the pocket and hovered there, close to the rim, refusing to drop out of sight.
“Not what, Andrew?”
With something of a sigh, he straightened and reached for the chalk. “I mean they’re not-what-d’you-call-it? — gay.”
“Really? However would you know?”
“Surely you can tell?”
“I don’t know. Can you? I shouldn’t have thought it was that easy. Especially nowadays.”
“Likes the men, too much, Dana. You’ve met her, seen the way she dresses. Christmas Eve, for instance, more out of that frock or whatever it was than in.”
“Andrew, I don’t think all lesbians have their hair cut short and wear motorcycle suits.”
For a moment, he stared at her, he didn’t think he had ever heard his wife say the word lesbian before.
“Anyway,” Audrey Clarke tasted the tip of her forefinger, she had been making tartlets with lemon cheese.
“It’s just not like you, that’s all. You’re so anxious to be on top of things. As a rule.”
“Audrey, if I thought my presence would make the least difference, I should be there already. As it is, I’m on holiday and I intend to enjoy it. With you.”
There had been a time when Audrey Clarke had found that somewhat anxious smile of her husband’s attractive, skin furrowing deep between his eyes; she supposed she must have.
“I’m popping out,” she said, “stroll down by the sea.”
He watched her walk away, a middle-aged woman in a long tweed skirt, a barbour jacket, and green Wellington boots, a Liberty print scarf tied about her head. When she was well clear of the house, Andrew Clarke looked up Dana Matthieson’s home number and dialed it from the hall.
The answerphone clicked on first and Andrew was lowering the receiver when Dana’s voice broke through. “Nancy? Nancy, is that you?”
“It’s Andrew,” he said, more high-pitched than he had intended. “Andrew Clarke. I was just wondering how you were. I mean …”
But Dana had hung up and he was left talking to the air.
“Bastard!” she whispered softly to herself. “Bastard!”
Dana was squatting by the low table where she had taken the call. She had been getting out of the bath when Andrew Clarke had phoned and she had two towels carelessly round her, water trickling on to the floor. Every time she looked in a mirror and saw her mascara smeared down her face again, she told herself she was through with crying, she had no more tears left. Shivering, she clasped her arms across her chest and rocked lightly heel to toe, forwards and back, crying again.
Eighteen
“So, Charlie, getting any closer, d’you think?” Skelton had both hands flat against the wall, arms straight, stretching his legs muscles till they were fully taut; last thing he wanted, running back up Derby Road, one of his hamstrings going.
Resnick shrugged. “This lad Hidden’s coming in today, all accounts he was the one went out with her most recent.”
“And the bloke Divine and Naylor checked out yesterday?” Skelton was lifting one leg with his hand, fingers around the toe of his running shoe, holding it so that the heel touched his buttock, right leg first and then the left.
“Got an alibi for all the relevant times. We’re checking it out. But what I’ve heard, I don’t fancy him, frankly.”
“The car, Charlie, that’s the key.”
Resnick nodded: as if he needed reminding.
“You’ve not come up with anything more yourself? Not got a clearer picture?”
Stubborn as a stain, the dark blur clung to the edge of Resnick’s vision, refusing to take on true color or shape, its driver a notion of a person, nothing more.
“Someone offered her a lift, Charlie, no two ways. Like as not, someone she didn’t know, met that evening, fancied her, danced with her a bit, like as not. Whisked her off with his eye to the main chance. After that, who knows?”
With any luck, Cossall and his team would have pushed through their initial inquiries by the end of the day. Matching men and cars that had been present. After that, it would be a slow process of elimination. And time, they knew, was the one thing Nancy Phelan likely didn’t have.
“There’s a press conference at three,” Skelton said. “Her parents’ll be there, too. Not what I’d’ve wanted, but nothing I could do about it. So if you think Hidden’s going to lead us anywhere, you’ll let me know as soon as you can.”
“Right.”
Skelton turned away, jogged a few paces on the spot, lifting his knees, then set out along the pavement at a tidy pace, fumes from the incoming traffic dancing round his head.
Resnick knew it was Graham Millington in the Gents’ as soon as he arrived at the door. From inside, the unmistakable sound of Millington whistling his merry way through the songs from the shows told him that his sergeant was back on duty.
“‘Phantom of the Opera,’ Graham?”
“‘Carousel’ that,” Millington said, slightly offended. “Wife and I went down to see it in London before Christmas. That Patricia Routledge-never’ve thought she’d have a voice like that, never.”
He shook himself a few more times, just to be sure, zipped up and stepped away. “That song-what is it? — ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone,’ scarce a dry eye in the house.”
“Fellow coming in this morning,” Resnick said, “Nancy Phelan’s boyfriend. Sit in with me on that, will you?”
“Right.” Checking in the mirror, Millington brushed a few flecks of white from the shoulders of his dark suit. Dandruff best not be coming back, he thought he’d seen the last of that. “Right, I’ll be there.”
And he sauntered off into the corridor, reinterpreting Rodgers and Hammerstein with an atonality that would have made Schoenberg proud.
Robin Hidden was late. Three sets of roadworks on the M6, a caravan overturned on the AIM. He was perspiring beneath his sweater and corduroy trousers when he made his way into the station, stammering when he announced his name. It was something that happened when he was feeling excited or stressed. Nancy had teased him about it, how the words he called out when they were making love came in spurts.
“Robin Hidden?”
Startled, he looked round to find a man with a roundish face and trim moustache, smart suit, and neatly knotted tie. “Detective Sergeant Millington.”
Robin didn’t know if he were supposed to shake hands with him or not.
“If you’ll just come with me.”
He followed the sergeant up two steeply winding flights of stairs and right along a corridor to an open door; behind this was an empty space, nothing that you could call a room, and beyond that another door.
“Through here, sir, if you please.”
This was more what he had been expecting, what he had seen on the television, the table, plain, pushed over towards the side wall, empty chairs on either side. What he’d been less sure of, the tape machine on a shelf at the rear, double recording decks, a six-pack of cassettes, cellophane-wrapped, waiting to be used.
“Mr. Hidden, this is Detective Inspector Resnick.”
A large man coming towards him, holding out his hand; the grip was firm and quick and almost before it was broken, the inspector and his sergeant pulling out their chairs, sitting down. Waiting for him to follow suit.
“Should be some tea along, any minute now,” said Resnick, glancing back towards the door.
“Likely need something,” Millington added pleasantly. “Long drive like that.”