Killing Me Softly (14 page)

Opening her door, Jenny jerked her head in the direction of one of the lighted front rooms, where a figure could be seen crouched over a flickering computer screen. ‘Hard at it, already, by the looks of things,' she remarked with a grin. Trust our Keith.'

They walked down towards the lighted room and Jenny tapped on the french window. The tall, handsome DC, surrounded by files and papers and computer print-outs, busily flicking through the computer, jumped a mile, then came sheepishly to the window to let them in, smoothing his blond hair self-consciously.

‘Are you winning?' Abigail asked.

‘Not likely!' Farrar looked sourly at the screen and gestured to the files and papers. ‘This is not why I became a detective! This whole bloomin' lot's a shambles. Business and personal stuff, all mixed up. It's more than I can get to grips with.'

‘And here was I, thinking you liked nothing better, you and your computers.'

He looked offended and said stiffly, ‘Oh, I've no problem with the technology, ma'am, it's the financial shenanigans I can't cope with.' He had enough trouble balancing his own books, with a wife who spent money as though there was no tomorrow.

‘That's not what you're here for,' she said sharply. It was unlike Farrar to admit to being outclassed, but the financial side would be handled by the experts, anyway. They'd be moving in soon to sort that out, which he knew well enough. His brief was simply to produce a list of the victim's business associates, and any other incidental information he could glean by the way, but that was a routine task, obviously too mundane for someone of his potential. She fought the impulse to snap, but didn't succeed. ‘You keep your mind on what you were told to do, never mind trying to sort out the high finance, that clear? Forget anything else, except where it touches on his personal life, that should keep you busy enough.'

‘That's what I've been trying to do,' he complained, looking hurt, the reproof sliding off him. ‘Sort the wheat from the chaff. I'm getting down to the dross now, the stuff he just shoved in drawers and forgot about.'

‘Sort of thing we all do from time to time,' Jenny commented.

Farrar's look said, ‘Not me,' and Abigail could believe it. ‘Keep at it, Keith,' she said coldly. ‘We'll look in again before we leave.' They left the way they'd come in.

‘One day, I'll tell him –' she began, as they crossed the forecourt to enter the house in a more orthodox fashion through the front door, then amended what she was going to say, recollecting it was young Jenny she was speaking to. ‘What's the matter with him? He looks down in the mouth.'

‘Poor lad, he's having problems at home. They've been trying for a baby for yonks and Sandra's just been told it's unlikely they'll ever succeed. She's giving him a hard time.'

Abigail, who liked children, as long as they weren't hers – not yet, at any rate – didn't ask how Jenny had acquired this information. Young as she was, Jenny had a sympathetic ear that encouraged people to confide in her. She was developing skills in that direction which would bear watching. No doubt the information she'd just imparted explained a lot about Farrar, Abigail thought, though it didn't account for everything: he was, as Mayo said, a cocky bastard, it did no harm to put him down occasionally. But she'd better beware of letting him become a major problem.

Abigail had chosen to bring Jenny with her to Clacks, having had a gut feeling that Clare Wishart responded more easily to women than to men.

She was all the more surprised, therefore, to find with her a man who was introduced as David Neale – quiet, bespectacled, bankerish-looking, a man who, it appeared, lived up to his looks and did indeed deal with the finances at Miller's Wife. He had a warm smile, a firm handshake. A trustworthy man.

Clare was pale and subdued, the dark, finely drawn brows emphasizing her pallor, but she was bearing up and appeared to have come to some quiet accommodation with herself about her loss. She and Neale were drinking coffee in a small sitting-room off the hall which, like the large room where they'd sat yesterday, overlooked the back of the house but not, Abigail noted, the bridge. She saw Jenny looking somewhat disconcerted by the toughened glass panel set into the wall, so that the millstream could be seen rushing down into the race; how could you live with that dizzying reminder of ceaseless movement, that continual sound of water underneath the house?

Neale immediately offered to leave them alone when he learned who the visitors were, but Clare's murmured request begged him to stay. He gave a slight nod and settled back in his chair, following her departure with his eyes when she went to fetch fresh coffee.

A silence ensued. Neale coughed. ‘Damnable business, this,' he remarked, in a pleasant Scottish burr. ‘Such a tragedy, getting killed with one's own gun!'

‘Dangerous things in the wrong hands, shotguns,' Jenny said neutrally.

‘I imagine so, though they're not something I'm familiar with. Not with my eyesight,' he added.

Abigail had known excellent marksmen who had worn spectacles. Wasn't that the point of wearing them – to correct imperfect vision? But images of the pleasant and correct Mr Neale in casual country wear, potting birds or rabbits, weren't easy to conjure up. She smiled at him and let Jenny carry on with the small talk ... How well had Neale known Wishart? she was asking. Scarcely at all, it appeared, they'd only met when Tim had popped into Miller's Wife and Neale happened to be on the scene at the time.

‘My wife recently died and was ill for some time before that. It didn't leave much opportunity for socializing,' he offered briefly.

Jenny nodded sympathetically and consulted her notes. ‘Mrs Wishart tells us you drove her home yesterday afternoon.'

‘Yes, I did.'

‘She can't remember exactly what time you arrived ... maybe you can tell us more precisely?'

‘She went with me to look over a house that's for sale. We'd had traffic problems on the way back and it was getting late. It was three thirty exactly when we got here, so I turned round straight away. I had an appointment at four o'clock that I was anxious not to miss.'

‘Who was that with?'

‘A boy called Damien Rogers. I help out at the Old Chapel sports and social centre, and he'd promised to meet me there. But he didn't turn up,' he said, putting his hand into his pocket with the automatic gesture of the habitual smoker, fumbling around and seeming surprised to find himself empty-handed when he brought it out.

Intercepting the look which passed between Abigail and Jenny, he blinked behind his glasses, fingering his tie. ‘Have I said anything I shouldn't?'

Abigail said, ‘I'm sorry to have to tell you that Damien died during Friday night. As the result of a drugs overdose.'

Several seconds crept by. ‘We are talking about the same Damien Rogers? The one who lives on the Somerville Estate?'

After a few more words, there seemed to be no doubt that they were.

‘Why had you arranged to meet Damien, Mr Neale?'

Neale passed a hand across his face. ‘I knew he was taking drugs. So many of them are, I don't have to tell you that. Damien ... he'd take anything he could get hold of, he'd begun shoplifting to pay for his habit... I wanted to talk with him, to persuade him to get some help. I wasn't surprised when he didn't turn up. In fact, I'd have been surprised if he had. I believe he only promised – well, to appease me. His parents weren't aware of what was going on, and I'd warned him I must tell them if he wouldn't try to kick the habit.'

‘Are you a professional drugs counsellor, Mr Neale?'

‘Not as such. I merely try to help.'

Abigail decided not to say what she thought. A threat to tell the parents was unlikely to be effective, but Neale was no doubt sincere, a decent man, genuinely shocked. It would do no good at this stage to tell him that, earnest and well-meaning as they were, non-professional attempts such as his were more likely to hinder than help. She would bear in mind that Neale could be a possibly useful contact as far as the drugs scene was concerned, however.

‘Do you have any idea where Damien was getting his supplies?' she asked, more in hope than expectation, and of course, Neale hadn't.

At that point, Clare came back, bringing more cups and a fresh pot of coffee, and the conversation was abandoned, to be resumed later, if necessary. ‘Amy has something to tell you,' she said, pouring coffee.

‘Fine, if she's up to it.'

‘Oh, I think so. She'll cope with all this, never fear. Not immediately but, for sixteen, she's amazingly strong. It's Richie I'm worried about.'

‘He's taking it badly?'

‘He won't speak to anybody, though I don't think it's entirely because of – what's happened. He came home very upset the night before, Friday night, and won't say why.'

‘A tiff with a girlfriend, maybe, teenage moods?' Neale offered diffidently. ‘Something like that?'

‘I expect you're right.' Clare directed a distracted, grateful smile at him. She was about to fetch Amy, when Abigail detained her.

‘Before you go, I think you should know that we've had the results of the post-mortem on your husband.'

‘Oh.' Clare sat down again.

There was no way of wrapping this one up. In so many words, Abigail told her that it had been confirmed that there were now grounds for going ahead and treating the case as a suspicious death. ‘Which means, of course, that we don't think it was either accidental or self-inflicted, and that someone else was involved.'

‘Murder, in fact,' Clare said tonelessly.

‘Clare –' Neale began as she briefly closed her eyes.

‘It's all right, it's what we were expecting, after what the inspector said before.' She took a deep, steadying breath. ‘In a funny sort of way, it's a relief. At least he didn't do it because I refused to help him. He had money worries, as I've told you, and he'd been depressed about them – but whatever they were, I didn't want to believe he would take his own life because of them. And he knew enough about guns not to be careless with them.' There was a silence. ‘Well, maybe that makes what Amy has to say all the more important. I'll ask her to come down.'

When, in a few moments, mother and daughter were sitting side by side on the sofa, Abigail was struck by the strong resemblance between them, the same pale skin, the same silvery hair. Today, Amy had one side tucked back behind her ear. The big, loose top she wore over her jeans, covering her from her chin to her fingertips, was roomy enough to encompass two of her. Her slight, immature figure drooped inside it, but youth was kind to her: her dewy-complexioned face showed no signs of recent weeping, until speaking of the tragedy brought tears which brimmed, and threatened to spill over. Her chin trembled. It was a square, very determined little chin.

‘I've remembered something that Mum thinks might be important,' she began in a soft, barely audible voice when she'd blinked the tears back, then stopped and bit her lip, looking at her mother, who nodded encouragement.

‘Take your time, Amy, there's no rush,' Abigail assured her. Amy swallowed hard several times, looked down at her small, clenched hands and eventually was able to begin. ‘Well, one night last week ... a man came to the house to see my father.'

‘Which night was that?'

‘I can't remember. Thursday, I think.'

‘It must have been Thursday,' Clare intervened. ‘Daddy wasn't home on Wednesday, and you were in the games room with your friends all Friday evening.'

‘Oh yes. Well, I didn't know he was there, this man, until I went into Daddy's study. My friend, Katie, had just rung to say she'd got tickets for the Scorpions' concert next week in Hurstfield and I went in to ask him if he would take us.'

‘We think, whoever this man was, he must have just come in through the side french window,' Clare put in. ‘Tim was alone in the study not fifteen minutes before, when I went in for a stamp –'

‘And I'd been on the telephone in the hall for ages, talking to Katie, so he couldn't have come in through the front door without me seeing him,' Amy added.

‘So what happened?'

‘When I opened the study door this man was standing by the fireplace. Then Daddy got up from his desk and came to see what I wanted. He stood in front of me so that I couldn't go into the room. He was looking really, really cross and told me to go away, he didn't want to be disturbed. He banged the door behind me. Wow. I was so mad at him! Well,
I'd
done nothing wrong, had I?' Tears threatened again, but after a moment she went on in an anguished little voice, ‘The thing is, I – well, I went back to talk to Katie, and I heard Daddy yelling – and then, everything went quiet again. I was there in the hall for quite a while, but the man didn't come out that way.'

‘Would you recognise him again?'

She played with a gold signet ring on her little finger. ‘I'm – I'm not sure, I only got a glimpse. I might.'

‘Can you describe him?'

‘Well ... hair brushed back, sort of greasy.'

‘Do you happen to remember how he was dressed?'

‘I don't know. Black, I think, but I can't be sure. It was dark-coloured, anyway. Bomber jacket and black jeans. Trainers.'

It would be. The universal uniform. ‘You heard your father shouting – what about the other man? Did you get any idea of what they were quarrelling about?'

Amy looked uncertain, then shook her head.

‘It was probably about money,' Clare said flatly.

‘You didn't hear the other man at all? Not even the odd word?'

‘No,' Amy whispered. In the ensuing silence, she looked at her feet. The untucked-back side of her hair curved down and hid her face.

‘Is there anything else you haven't told me, Amy?'