“You’ve come to see me first?” Her voice was soft, lilting, very Irish. She had a photograph of the Pope on her mantlepiece and wound a rosary around her wrist, clinging to it like a comfort blanket.
“It’s the way my boss likes to work.” King returned her smile. “He likes to be on firm ground before he moves. He thinks that that is better than jumping in with both feet. And in this case, we are not under a deal of pressure.”
“He’s probably right.” Mrs. O’Sullivan warmed to the chubby, bearded cop who sat in her living room. “There’s much to be said for caution. So you’re interested in Mr. and Mrs. Minto?”
“Yes. Particularly Mrs. Minto.”
“Why, have you found his body?”
“Can’t tell you.”
“Which can only mean you have. Don’t worry, son, I won’t be tipping Mrs. Minto, or whatever her name is now.”
“She married again?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me.”
“You seem not to like her?”
“I didn’t. Still don’t. I try not to think bad things about folk, but I didn’t take to Mrs. Minto.”
“Do you have any idea what happened to Mr. Minto?”
“I have no proof, but you see things if you clean in a house. It’s the part of my job which is interesting. It’s the people in the house. I’ve been a housekeeper all my days, son, no two houses are ever the same. It’s what makes you stay, the people, I mean, and it’s also what makes you leave.”
“So tell me about the Minto house, as you knew it?”
“A poisonous house. He was all right, Mr. Minto, a calm man, unnatural that. He was self-made but had a calmness about him which I’ve always associated with professional men. Other self-made men I’ve cleaned for all seem to have been angry, bitter, they’re driven, driving themselves hard. Mr. Minto had the manner of a doctor, but he’d made his money at a string of clothing shops.”
“What was she like?”
“Feisty. A wee feisty woman. I’ve heard that there is a chemistry which works between large, calm, biddable men and feisty wee women and I suppose that is what made their marriage work. But it was one of the households which made me pleased I never remarried. My husband was killed when he was young, we were not long married.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I never wanted another man. I was happy on my own. The Minto household made me realise how the two golden years I had as a marriage were better than the twenty-odd they had. I couldn’t live with that woman, but like I said, he seemed to be able to. Are you married, son?”
“Yes. One child. A boy.”
“Nice.”
“So, twelve years ago? The Minto household?”
“It was my second-last job before I hung up my dusters for good. The reason that I carried on was that I didn’t want to end my working days in the Minto household. So I went to do for Mr. McMillan, retired bank manager and widower.”
“What made the Minto house poisonous?”
“She did, at all times, but especially from the day she let the young man in the house, and his Landrover parked in the driveway.”
“She let a young man in the house?”
“Practically. She was in her forties, he was a student in his twenties. Clean-cut, handsome, slim. He’d be in the house when Mr. Minto was at work. I was supposed to dust and clean and vacuum and not realise what was going on.”
“But you knew?”
“Of course I knew. It made it difficult for me. I liked Mr. Minto. He’d pay me each week and there was always this voice inside me saying ‘your wife... your wife...’ but I could never say anything, but I couldn’t stay either so I went to do for Mr. McMillan. I wasn’t surprised when Mr. Minto disappeared. He didn’t disappear, she did away with him and put his body under the cellar steps.”
“Under the cellar steps?”
“Well, isn’t that where you put your dead bodies?”
King raised an eyebrow.
“The police searched the house, they questioned me. I was with Mr. McMillan by then, but I’d only left the Minto home a day or two earlier so I was questioned. But I couldn’t tell them anything. I said that I thought, but only thought, that Mrs. Minto had a thing going with the young man and Mrs. Minto, for all that she was a feisty wee thing, knew how to keep her head. Maybe the police should have questioned the young man a bit more — he wasn’t as hard-nosed as she was. He would have cracked.”
“You think so?”
“Cleaning women work with people as much as anyone. A cleaner sees how a house functions. Don’t see a cleaner as just a woman fussing over the brass. She’s a woman with eyes and ears.”
“What do you know of the young man?”
“Durham, David Durham was his name, but you’ll have a record of that.”
“We do.”
“He was a student. Wanted to be a schoolteacher. Pleasant lad by his manner, but what he was doing behind Mr. Minto’s back made him unpleasant, and Mrs. Minto, looking so smug and pleased with herself. It was then that in the middle of polishing I just downed tools and left.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“It was not until later that I realised what was different.” Ian Dollar had the healthy leathering skin of a countryman. He stood outside of his office, over the door of which was a sign which read Dollar’s Garden Centre. “I left the Minto house more or less the same time that Mrs. O’Sullivan left. Just after her, in fact, but for pretty much the same reason. I just didn’t like the household. I didn’t like Mrs. Minto messing about with her fancy man behind Mr. Minto’s back and her attitude... I mean, not bothering what me and Mrs. O’Sullivan thought, or even at all concerned that we knew what was happening. The attitude that the hired hands don’t matter, not really human beings, just robots doing tasks that they’ve been set to do. That attitude belongs to another age, and we’re well shot of it. But above that, more than that, Mr. and Mrs. Minto were ‘new’ money, they’d come up from the housing schemes. They’re the last people that should treat people like that... He was all right, but, see, her...”
“So you left?”
“Well, Mrs. O’Sullivan showed me the way. She left to have a pleasant final job to retire from. Me, I was a youngish lad, late twenties. I left to do what I’ve always wanted, start a garden centre.”
King looked around him. “You’ve done all right.”
“It’s fairly stable now. Didn’t realise the amount of work it would involve, but I stuck it and now I’m into profit.”
“So, tell me what you noticed to be different.”
“The pickaxe handle in the potting shed. About the time that Mr. Minto disappeared. It had been moved and wiped clean.”
“Really?” King saw the significance.
“Yes. I assume you’ve found his body, hence the interest.”
“You can assume what you wish to assume. Tell me about the pickaxe handle.”
“Well... confess I like your caution... well, the pickaxe handle stood in the potting shed, never used, just stood there, painted black, thick end on the ground, thinner end up against the wall. Remained like that for years gathering dust. I went into the shed shortly after Mr. Minto had disappeared and I noticed that the handle was gleaming black, as though it had been washed clean, and that it had been inverted. I didn’t see the significance at the time, if there is any significance at all.”
“I think there is a significance. Tell me, who had access to the potting shed?”
“Just myself and Mr. and Mrs. Minto.”
“Do you think the handle will still be there?”