‘And Richardson too. He wasn’t a million miles from suspicion in the Kerr case, as you’ve pointed out. A man who owed Richardson money is found in a field with his head smashed in and his brains sticking out. And now Williams owes Richardson money and his head is also smashed to a pulp. That’s too much of a coincidence, Sergeant. And both would, in a sense, be more angry with Max Williams than Amanda.’
‘That would tie in with what Dr D’Acre said. You know, Mr Williams was murdered passionately, Mrs Williams coldly. One single, neat blow to the head would enable Sheringham to sleep at night. But Richardson’s anger would make him want to repeatedly batter Max Williams, and keep battering him, long after he’s dead. Then they team up and tidy the house, sanitize the crime scene and dig the grave, easy job for men built like they’re built. Pity they’re not stupid enough to alibi each other.’
‘We’ve still got to get the Crown Prosecution Service to run with it, it’s not for nothing that the GPS is known as the Criminal Protection Society in the canteen and the Police Club.’ Hennessey paused. ‘You look worried, Yellich.’
‘I am. It’s the cleaning of the house, sir.’
‘What about it?’
‘Well, it’s not actually politically correct.’
‘Cleaning a house?’
‘No…my point. It’s not politically correct.’
‘Come on, within these four walls, out with it.’
‘Well, boss, it has a woman’s touch to it.’
Hennessey paused. ‘It does, doesn’t it?’
‘I just can’t see the likes of Richardson or Sheringham being efficient with a cloth and a bottle of disinfectant.’
‘I can’t either.’
‘Mrs Richardson!’ Both men spoke at once and held eye contact as they did so.
Hennessey completed it for both of them. ‘It was her livelihood that went down the tubes as well. By the sounds of it, Mrs Sheringham would be more likely to murder her husband than either of the Williamses, nor can I see her being handy with the housework, that sort always has a “woman who does”. Is that the phrase?’
‘Mrs Richardson claims she was in Ireland over the weekend. If that alibi can be broken we’re on our way, boss.’
‘We are indeed.’
‘So what do we do now, boss, pick her up?’
‘Yes.’ Hennessey sat back in his chair. ‘Or do we? I wonder? No. Look, you seem to have a way with the ladies…’
‘I wouldn’t say that, boss.’ Yellich grinned.
‘You did well with Mrs Sheringham, you got the measure of her, all right. Go and see Mrs Richardson, take the measure of her. Me, I’m going to Selby.’
‘Selby?’
‘Selby. “Shored-up” has contacted me. Reckons he’s got information to sell. You know him and his games…but he’s come up with the goods before. And the weather’s fine, and Selby’s a pleasant little town. It’s certainly better than the last place we met. Have you ever been to Doncaster on a rainy day in January?’
‘No, can’t say I have, boss.’
‘Don’t. When you’ve seen her, visit his bank.’
Yellich had to keep reminding himself to keep an open mind.
The phrase ‘salt of the earth’ kept occurring to him when he spoke to Mrs Richardson. Yet he was all too well aware that the most unlikely people had committed desperate, terrible crimes. In his early days as a fresh-faced constable, he had allowed first impressions to cloud his judgement and let possible suspects go on their way only to find later that they had committed the crime in question and had slithered out of the arms of the law with a display of relaxed innocence. Only now, with some years’ service behind him, did he accept that everybody can commit crime, and even the most unlikely person will do so. Reluctantly, he accepted the police-canteen culture which states that, “They’re all guilty unless you know otherwise. And I mean know.”
‘There’s no point in denying it, son.’ Colleen Richardson was a tall, well-built, large-boned woman, who sat in a leather armchair in the front room of her Georgian-style house at the entrance of a new build estate on the edge of Huntingdon.
A Persian cat slunk into the room and hopped silently onto Yellich’s lap.
‘That means he likes you,’ Mrs Richardson smiled. She spoke with a strong Irish accent. ‘Not all our visitors get that treatment. I tend to let my animals do my thinking for me. I’ve found over the years that if they like someone then that person is all right, and they’ve never been proved wrong. Female intuition is nothing compared to animal instinct. But if she annoys you, lift her off.’
‘She doesn’t bother me.’ Yellich stroked the cat’s ears and back. The beast began to purr softly. He pondered that cats are nice creatures unless you happen to be a mouse. Your view depends on your standpoint. Mrs Richardson, with her pleasant manner and very well-appointed home, with framed black and white photographs of old Ireland - a man on a cycle, on an endless rural track, another which could be anywhere but was entitled ‘Phoenix Park 1912’ - may well be a nice woman, unless you were her victim. Then he said, ‘No point in denying it. What do you mean?’
Colleen Richardson reached for a cigarette from a cigarette box which was far too elaborately designed for Yellich’s taste, and lit it with a cigarette lighter of the type which, he thought, had gone out of fashion many years earlier. A huge paperweight of a contraption, conventional mechanism at the top but a body as big as an orange, and the colour of same.
‘No point in denying it. He hated Williams. I’ve never known two things about my husband. I’ve never known any reason to fear him, and I’ve never known him capable of hate. The Williamses came into our lives and I knew both. Reckon after twenty-something years of marriage, I finally knew my husband. But they say that you never really know the person you live with, either they keep changing so they’re one step ahead of you, or you keep discovering something new about them. But Michael didn’t kill them.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I know what I just said, but I do know my husband well enough to know that he didn’t kill them. He’s got a terrible temper, but if he was violent I would have seen that by now, surely to God. I mean, he’s been in a few pub fights when he’s been too much in the black stuff and when he was a youth, but nothing since and nothing when he’s been sober.’
She inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. ‘To think that when I went away to Ireland I thought things couldn’t be worse. Michael’s business in the bog, us having to sell this house to pay his crew and supplies, and this, the home we’d worked so hard for…Michael built these houses, did you know?’
‘I didn’t.’
‘Two streets, for young or junior professional people, he picked out a corner plot for this house. Extra bit of land, you see…so I went to see my old father in Galway, told him things couldn’t get worse and sure, when I came back he’s become a murder suspect. Just shows, when you think you’re on the bottom, when you think it can’t get any worse, you get pushed down even further…I mean, in the name of the Holy Mother, where is the justice in that? Is there justice in the world, let me ask you that?’
‘We haven’t charged your husband with anything, Mrs Richardson.’
‘Being a suspect is bad enough. Thank the Almighty our children are away so they don’t see this.’
‘Where are they?’
‘Leeds. They’re flapping their wings, their father taught them the trade, so they’ve moved away. Richardson Brothers, Builders, Leeds. Sure, I can see Michael asking them for a job. You’ll be making a case against Michael?’
‘No. That’s old-fashioned police thinking.’ Yellich continued to stroke the cat and then stopped and lifted the beast from his lap. It occurred to him that by favouring Mrs Richardson’s pet he was blurring professional boundaries. The cat arched its back in indignation and curled up on the deep pile carpet in front of the hearth into which Yellich noted that Mrs Richardson was in the habit of throwing her cigarette butts. ‘We used to do that. Identify a suspect, try to build a case against him, if we could we’d run with it. Now we tie.’