Hennessey and Yellich both thought Mrs Torr’s description of her late brother’s house as being “lovely, old” was apt. It was eighteenth century, graceful, balanced lines, the type of house which had given way to the Victorian Gothic style. It stood in landscaped grounds and was ivy-clad. A rabbit hopped across the lawn, doves cooed in a dovecote beside the house, a blackbird sang.
Mrs Watch, when she was met, was a woman with cold eyes. Tall, slender, all in proportion, but moved like a woman with considerable physical strength. A rapid piece of mental arithmetic by both officers put her age at thirty-three. She did indeed look about that age, having reached that age with a life blessedly free of arthritis-inducing drudgery or figure-ruining multiple pregnancies. Her clothes were sombre in a tasteful and expensive sort of way, but by far the most striking feature of her appearance was her jewellery, not her taste but her love, nay need of it: earrings; long necklaces; heavy, multiple bracelets; also heavy, multiple rings, too many to count; ankle chains on both ankles. She “received” the officers in the drawing room, after they’d been shown in by the muscular youth with timid eyes who had answered the door.
“My husband?” She had a hard voice. “He disappeared. He disappeared eight years ago. Presumed dead six years ago.”
“Well, he’s now reappeared. At least, his corpse has.”
The woman threw an angry glance at the youth who looked sheepishly away despite his well-toned bulk, hidden only by T~ shirt and shorts and training shoes.
Hennessey saw the glance, as did Yellich. No police officer would have missed it. Both officers knew that this case was about to crack wide open.
“You may have seen the TV reports… the body on the canal towpath?”
A second angry glance at the youth, who was, it appeared, no more than eighteen or nineteen years of age. Hennessey wondered if he called Mrs Watch “Mummy.” It seemed that sort of relationship.
“When did you last see your husband, Mrs Watch?”
“When I walked out on him. We had a row. I left him. He lived here in this huge house all by his little self for a while. Then he disappeared one night. During the bad winter.”
“What did you row about?”
“Can’t remember.”
“You can’t? Your last row and you can’t remember what it was about?” Hennessey had been married. His wife had died young of natural causes, so natural not even the medics knew what had caused it and offered only “sudden death syndrome”, which seemed embarrassingly inadequate to explain why a twenty-three-year-old woman of perfect health could suddenly collapse in the street as if in a faint, but in fact in death, probably before her head met the pavement. George and Jennifer Hennessey had had one row, it had taken place thirty years earlier, and he could recall it word for word. It had been about whether to have a pond in the garden or not. He had capitulated but wasn’t able to dig the pond until two years after he had scattered her ashes in the garden, where he still went to talk to her each day, rain or shine.
“I can’t. Something silly, like all rows, but it was the end. I left him then.”
“No matter. The body on the towpath. It had mummified. It had been kept in airless conditions for eight years. Where? Would you know?”
“No.”
Hennessey turned to the youth. “Do you know?”
“No…” He glanced at the woman and shook his head vigorously. He looked nervous. He had something to hide.
“Eight years ago, you were how old, son?”
“Eleven.”
“Got your life ahead of you, haven’t you? Pity to throw it away on a murder charge.”
“I didn’t murder him.”
“I’m sure you didn’t, but if you had anything to do with the remains, the body, and placing it on the towpath, you can be charged with conspiracy to murder. Even eight years after the event, when at the time you were in short trousers learning algebra.”
“And it could carry a life sentence,” Yellich added.
The youth paled.
“Got a name, lad?”
“Kevin.”
“Kevin what?”
“O’Reilly.”
“All right Kevin, you’re coming with us.” Hennessey saw that there’d be no confession from Mrs Watch. After eight years, forensic evidence would be difficult to prove.
“Is he under arrest?” Mrs Watch flushed with anger.
“No, he’s coming of his own volition, aren’t you, Kevin?”
Kevin O’Reilly pulled nervously on the cigarette.
“Didn’t think we’d get much out of you with madam the queen there.” Hennessey smiled as he handed O’Reilly a white plastic beaker full of piping-hot coffee. “Believe me, you’ve got more to fear from her than you do from us. We, Sergeant Yellich here and me, we’ve been doing this for a long time. You’ve got guilt written all over your face, you’re shaking like a leaf. You’re in over your head, aren’t you?”
Kevin O’Reilly nodded.
“Known her long?”
“About six months. We met at the gym.”
“The gym?”
“She works out, desperate to keep her figure. She invited me home. It went from there. She made all the running… I was… I mean, I’d never…”
“All right, Kevin.”
“Do I need a lawyer?”
“If you want one. But this is still off the record.”
“Did you mean what you said about a life sentence?” O’Reilly looked at Yellich.
“Oh, yes. Technically it’s possible. Unlikely, but possible. But you’ll collect a good seven or eight years, minimum.”
“I couldn’t handle prison.”
“I know you can’t, Kevin. Big strong lad, but you’re a little boy inside. I can see that.”
“There’s only one way you can avoid the gaol, Kevin.”
“There is, isn’t there?” He looked round the interview room, dark, spartan. “I moved the body, I left it where it was found.”
“Alone?”
“She drove the car. I told her I’d put it in the canal and it had sunk. She told me to do that, but I panicked. Just dropped it on the canal side.”
“Where was the body kept?”
“In the cellar. There’s a little alcove. She put the body in there, and then bricked it up. She has to sell the house, you see. She sold his business, lived off the proceeds for six years -holidays, clothes, jewellery. Mainly jewellery. You’ll need a van to shift all her jewellery, she’s got a room put aside just for the jewels. But the money’s dried up so she’s got to sell to raise money to live, move to a smaller house. ‘Trading down,’ she said. Anyway, couldn’t sell the house with a body in the cellar. Now I think she picked me up in the gym for that job and that job alone. But she could have done it herself, there was no weight in him at all.”
“Did she tell you she had killed him?”
“Not in so many words, but it all points that way.”
“Does, doesn’t it?”
“I’ve helped myself?”
“Hugely. You may even escape prosecution for this information.” Hennessey smiled reassuringly. “All right, let’s get this down in the form of a statement, then we’ll get back and have a chat with Mrs Watch.”
NORA B. by Ken Bruen
She had a mouth on her.
Jesus, like a fishwife.
And mean with it?
You fooking kiddin?
She’d slice your skin off with three words.
I was a cop, out of the Three Seven in those days.
Man, we’d do the night shift
Give me
Your scumbags
Your dopers
Your skels
Your preds
The zombies
Had ‘em all and twice over.
They came out of the fucking sewers, menacing, feral and lethal
And lemme tell you, we were ready for em…no fucking innocents there.
We had a stone simple rule.
Fuck ‘em first.
We did.
Always.
Our Sarge, half wop, half Mick and deadly, he’d go,