‘Yeah, yeah, I was. I told the police they weren’t doing enough.’ Winter fumbled in the pocket of his silk shirt for a packet of cigarettes, then stopped and pushed it abruptly back.
‘And after the New Year we start to get personal appearances: the face at the window in the middle of the night. When was it you set up on your own in Peckham, Mr Winter?’
Winter shot Brock a startled look. Then his eyes darted away and he made a show of thinking.
‘January, I guess. Why? You mind if I smoke?’
‘Not at all. It’s your house.’
Winter got up and started roaming round the room looking for an ashtray. Eventually he returned to the sofa empty-handed.
‘That’s an unfortunate coincidence, you see, Mr Winter, you being an obvious suspect.’
‘What?!’ he protested, half rising off the sofa again. ‘Well, of course. You must have known that. You have the obvious motive, don’t you? To get your aunts to leave Jerusalem Lane so that you could sell the place to the developers. You must have spoken to them about that, didn’t you, tried to persuade them to leave?’
‘Yes, but in their own interests, I…’
‘Naturally. And you spoke to the developers again, didn’t you, to get their help to persuade the old ladies?’
‘I did it for them, tried to get extra money for them…’
‘Of course. But when all these things didn’t work, and they remained so stubborn, well, you can see the conclusions people could draw.’
Winter didn’t reply. He flicked a gold lighter and held its trembling flame to a cigarette. He took a deep lungful.
‘Forty per cent of murders are committed by someone within the family, Mr Winter, and another forty by people who know their victims.’
‘Oh Jesus! You’re not going to…’ Smoke came belching from his face as he jumped up again.
‘So it’s important that we clear up any doubts in that area as soon as possible. For your sake. You agree?’ Winter stared at Brock. ‘I want two things. First, I want you to agree to an officer searching your flat in Peckham. We can get a warrant, of course, but it will look better for you if you give your consent.’
Winter hesitated. ‘I’ll be back there this evening. If you want to send someone round then.’
‘No, I want to do it straight away. All right? They’ll be very careful not to break anything. You won’t even know they’ve been. I’ll get you to sign a note of agreement here, just so I don’t get into trouble.’ Brock chuckled and wrote a few lines on his notebook and passed it over for Winter to sign.
‘I don’t know.’ Winter looked worried.
‘Better if you do,’ Brock said reassuringly.
‘They won’t have a key.’ Winter protested again.
‘Not a problem, Mr Winter.’
He bowed his head, took another drag at his cigarette. ‘I didn’t kill her,’ he said.
‘I dare say not,’ Brock replied gently, as he gave Winter a pen. But you’ve done something you don’t want to talk about, he thought, as Winter scrawled his signature on the pad.
‘And the second thing is that I want you to sit down with this list of dates and prepare a statement of your whereabouts at each of these times. I’ll give you an address, and I want you to go there later today and make a statement to my Sergeant Gurney with that information. All right?’
Winter nodded. His ash fell on the carpet.
‘He’s smoking again, isn’t he?’ Caroline Winter spat out. ‘I warned him I wouldn’t have him smoking in here again. The place stinks for days afterwards.’
‘I know what you mean,’ Kathy nodded. ‘The new kitchen looks terrific, Mrs Winter.’
‘Oh yeah, do you like it? I thought I’d get it done right before I finally threw the bastard out.’
‘Yes, he mentioned you were having a trial separation.’
‘Trial nothing!’ she laughed. ‘This is it, baby. Finito. Kaput. The end. I put up with Mister Wonderful playing around with those tarts he employs for long enough. God, it used to make me physically ill going into one of his bloody salons with him, you know what I mean? The way he talked to them and teased them and touched them up. He thought he was God’s bloody gift he did. A heat-seeking dick. He thought he’d found fucking paradise, prancing around from one salon to the next. Well’-her eyes glittered with malice-‘now’s the time to pay, lover boy.’
‘He did seem rather chastened today, compared with when we saw him last.’
‘He doesn’t know the half of it, luv. I’ve ’ad a solicitor and an accountant working on this for months. I’d never have let him through the door today except for Peg. When he phoned, I told him he’d have to bring her here-he’d never be able to look after her in that pigsty he’s got in Peckham. But once she’s out of here, so’s he.’
‘We thought we might take care of that, Mrs Winter,’ Kathy said. ‘We’re going to look after her for a few days. Just to be on the safe side.
‘Has he stopped hitting you, then?’ Kathy added.
Caroline looked sharply at her.
‘Who told you that?’
‘Nobody told me. I thought I saw some marks on your face the last time we met. Is he a very violent man?’
Caroline took a deep breath and stared out of the window. A family of thrushes was splashing innocently in a birdbath on the terrace outside. She watched them for a minute, then said, ‘What’s “very”?
‘Anyway,’ she shrugged, ‘like a few other women in my situation, I’ve discovered the ultimate revenge. It’s called money.’
‘And he has been worried about money for some time, hasn’t he?’
‘Oh, I see what you’re getting at. Well, I’d like to help, believe me. Nothing would suit me better than to have him put away for twenty years-after I’ve stripped him clean, that is. But I’m not sure I can. He’s always been a chancer with money, you know, wanting it all, borrowing, leasing, gearing. Yeah, I suppose the last year has been worse for him, though. I think he was hoping to set up that bitch Geraldine whatsit in a nice little love nest at one point, and then when I told him he could clear off as soon as the kids had had their Christmas, he must have seen the writing on the wall.’
‘One thing you can do for me, Mrs Winter, is to go through this list of dates, and see if you can vouch for his whereabouts on any of them.’
Caroline’s lip, its scarlet outline defined with the precision of a razor, curled with amusement. ‘Will it get him in more trouble if I say I can or I can’t?’
‘Just the truth, please, Mrs Winter.’
‘Don’t worry, darling,’ Caroline laughed. ‘You know I couldn’t tell a fib.’
She glanced down the list.
‘You ’aven’t got the 8th of March down here.’
‘A week ago? Why should we?’
‘That’s when I had my break-in.’
‘This house was broken into?’
‘Yeah. And it was that bastard what did it. I changed the locks when I kicked him out, and this was him having a go at me. He pinched things of mine. Some jewellery he’d given me, stuff like that. He made it look like a burglary, broke a window downstairs, but I knew it was him.’
‘How?’
‘It was a Thursday afternoon, and he knows I always go and see my mum on a Thursday afternoon. The answering machine was on when I got back, and there’d been a couple of calls with no messages. You know, he was just checking.’
‘Anyone could have done that.’
‘Yeah, well, it was him, all right. I smelled him, didn’t I, in the loo.’
‘What, his aftershave?’
Caroline laughed. ‘No, dear. His piss. He’d gone to the lavatory and not flushed it. And he’d been drinking. I could smell his stink. That was him all over, Prince bloody Charming.’
‘Did you report this?’
‘Yes. The coppers came round and took a list of the things that were missing, and fingerprints and everything.’