Then they had discussed the funeral arrangements – all on hold until the coroner released the body, which both Frank and Moira had viewed yesterday at the mortuary. The talk had reduced both of them to tears.
Understandably, his in-laws were taking Katie’s death hard. She had been more than just their only child – she had been the only thing of real value in their lives, and the glue that had kept them together. One particularly uncomfortable Christmas, when Moira had drunk too much sherry, champagne and then Baileys, she had confided sourly to Brian that she’d only taken Frank back after his affairs, for Katie’s sake.
‘Like that beer, do you, Brian?’ Frank asked. His voice was posh English, something he had cultivated to mask his working-class roots. Moira had an affected voice also, except when she drank too much and then lapsed back into her native Lancastrian.
‘Yes, good flavour. Thank you.’
‘That’s Spain for you, you see? Quality!’ Suddenly becoming animated for a moment, Frank Denton raised a hand. ‘A very underrated country – their food, wines, beers. And the prices, of course. Some of it is developed out, but there are still great opportunities if you know what you’re doing.’
Despite the man’s grief, Brian could sense that Katie’s father was about to launch into a sales pitch. He was right.
‘Property prices are doubling every five years there, Brian. The smart thing is to pick the next hot spots. Building costs are cheap, and they’re jolly efficient workers, those Spaniards. I’ve identified an absolutely fantastic opportunity just the other side of Alicante. I tell you, Brian, it’s a real no-brainer.’
The last thing Brian wanted or needed at this moment was to hear the details of yet another of Frank’s plausible-sounding but ultimately fatally flawed schemes. The miserable silence had been preferable – at least that had left him to his thoughts.
He took another sip of his beer and realized he had almost drained the glass. He needed to be careful, he knew, as he was driving, and he didn’t know how the family liaison officer, waiting in her car downstairs like a sentinel, would react to the smell of alcohol on his breath.
‘What have you done to your hand?’ Moira asked suddenly, looking at the fresh plaster on it.’
‘I – just bashed it – getting out of a car,’ he said dismissively.
The doorbell rang.
The Dentons exchanged glances, then Frank hauled himself up and shuffled out into the hallway.
‘We’re not expecting anyone,’ Moira said to Brian.
Moments later Frank came back into the room. ‘The police,’ he said, giving his son-in-law a strange look. ‘They’re on their way up.’ He continued staring at Brian, as if some dark thought had entered his head during those moments he had been out of the room.
Brian wondered if there was something else the police had said that the old man was not relaying.
67
In the Witness Interview Suite, Glenn Branson switched on the audio and video recorders announcing clearly as he sat down, ‘It is twenty-one twelve, Sunday 6 August. Detective Superintendent Grace and Detective Sergeant Branson interviewing Mr Brian Bishop.’
The CID headquarters were becoming depressingly familiar to Bishop. The walk up the entrance stairs, past the displays of police truncheons on blue felt boards, then through the open-plan offices and the cream-walled corridors lined with diagrams, and into this tiny room with its three red chairs.
‘This is starting to feel like Groundhog Day,’ he said.
‘Great movie,’ Branson commented. ‘Best thing Bill Murray did. I preferred it to Lost in Translation.’
Bishop had seen Lost in Translation and was starting to empathize with the character Murray played in that movie, wandering sleep-deprived through an unfamiliar world. But he wasn’t in any mood to start discussing films. ‘Are your people finished in my house yet? When can I move back in?’
‘I’m afraid it will be a few days yet,’ Grace said. ‘Thank you for coming up here tonight. I apologize for disrupting your Sunday evening.’
‘That’s almost funny,’ Bishop said acidly. He nearly added, but didn’t, that it hadn’t been any great hardship to escape from the grim misery of his in-laws and Frank’s sales pitch for his new business venture. ‘What news do you have for me?’
‘I’m afraid we have nothing further to report at this stage, but we are expecting results from DNA analysis back during tomorrow and that may give us something. But we have some questions that our investigations have thrown up, if that’s all right with you?’
‘Go ahead.’
Grace noted Bishop’s apparent tetchiness. It was a considerable change from his sad, lost-looking state at their last interview. But he was experienced enough not to read anything into it. Anger was one of the natural stages of grief, and a bereaved person was capable of lashing out at anyone.
‘Could you start, Mr Bishop, by explaining the nature of your business?’
‘My company provides logistical systems. We design the software, install it and run it. Our core business is rostering.’
‘Rostering?’ Grace saw that Branson was frowning also.
‘I’ll give you an example. An aeroplane that should be taking off from Gatwick, for instance, gets delayed for some reason – mechanical, bad weather, whatever – and cannot take off until the following day. Suddenly the airline is faced with finding overnight accommodation for three hundred and fifty passengers. It also has a knock-on series of problems – other planes in the wrong places, the crew schedules all mucked up, with some crew going over their permitted working hours, meals, compensations. Passengers having to be put on different flights to make connections. All that kind of stuff.’
‘So you are a computer man?’
‘I’m a businessman. But yes, I have a pretty good grasp of computing. I have a degree in cognitive sciences – from Sussex University.’
‘It’s successful, I presume?’
‘We made the Sunday Times list of the hundred fastest-growing companies in Britain last year,’ Bishop said. There was a trace of pride beneath his gloom.
‘I hope all this won’t have a negative impact on you.’
‘It doesn’t really matter any more, does it?’ he said bleakly. ‘Everything I did was for Katie. I—’ His voice faltered. He pulled out a handkerchief and buried his face in it. Then suddenly, in a burst of rage, he shouted out, ‘Please catch the bastard. This creep! This absolutely fucking—’ He broke down in tears.
Grace waited some moments, then asked, ‘Would you like a drink of anything?’
Bishop shook his head, sobbing.
Grace continued to wait until he had calmed down.
‘I’m sorry,’ Bishop said, wiping his eyes.
‘You don’t need to apologize, sir.’ Grace gave him a little more time, then asked, ‘How would you describe your relationship with your wife?’
‘We loved each other. It was good. I think we complement—’ He stopped, then said heavily, ‘Complemented each other.’
‘Had you had any arguments recently?’
‘No, I can honestly say we hadn’t.’
‘Was there anything bothering your wife? Troubling her?’
‘Apart from maxing out her credit cards?’
Both Grace and Branson gave thin smiles, uncertain whether this was a lame stab at humour.
‘Could you tell us what you did today, sir?’ Grace said, changing tack.
He lowered the handkerchief. ‘What I did today?’