‘The CPS don’t do uphill struggles, sergeant. You know that as well as I do. They prefer gentle strolls down country lanes.’
Sam nodded unhappily. ‘In their eyes, Smith’s a killer, yes, but he’s not a liar.’
‘He isn’t a killer,’ said Simon. He wasn’t interested in other people’s eyes and the things they saw that weren’t there. After last week he was less interested than he’d been before. Most people were idiots, even those whose rank and years of experience might suggest otherwise. Coral Milward had been so determined to nail Stephen Elton for Gemma Crowther’s murder that she’d wasted God knows how much time trying to break down what she’d called Elton’s ‘suspiciously solid’ alibi. It was solid because he’d been telling the truth.
Elton, Simon had heard from Colin Sellers, was a habitual user of prostitutes, both male and female. (‘No droughts for him, lucky sod. World’s his oyster—both hemispheres.’) After helping to clear up at Friends House on the night Gemma was murdered, he’d paid a visit to one of his regulars, a sixteen-year-old called Sharda who shared a bedsit in Seven Sisters with three other illegal immigrant sex workers. Elton’s alibi was also his motive: Gemma Crowther had known about his habit and regularly threatened to expose it to their Quaker friends if he didn’t follow her orders to the letter. Effectively, he was her domestic slave. Elton had been foolish enough to admit to Milward that he’d frequently fantasised about killing Gemma, and only didn’t because he loved her. ‘You’ve got to admit, though, that’s a good reason,’ Sellers had remarked this morning to Simon, entirely without irony.
Mary Trelease hadn’t been interviewed at all, despite a long and elaborate description she’d given Ruth Bussey of an encounter with a detective from London. All lies. Dunning had called at 15 Megson Crescent several times and got no response. When he finally got round to entering the premises by force, Trelease and Ruth Bussey had already left for Garstead Cottage. Simon had found this out from DC Kevin Prothero, the newest member of Milward’s team, the one to whom she’d assigned the task of dealing with some of the more awkward loose ends. Two of these were Simon and Charlie.
Milward had spoken to Simon once since last Wednesday, on the telephone. Without apologising, she’d explained how wedded she’d been at first to Stephen Elton in the role of chief suspect, and given Simon her reasons, in the manner of someone who’d forgotten she’d been proved wrong. Her ‘thank you’ had been distant and non-specific. Simon would have preferred one that came firmly attached to a mention of he and Charlie having risked their lives and put Milward’s case to bed for her in the process.
‘Look at what we know,’ said Proust. ‘Smith’s been in trouble with the law for most of his life. An alcoholic, a wife-beater, a gambler. Seed’s got a clean slate.’
‘Which is why anyone with a brain’d believe him over Smith,’ Simon pointed out. ‘Len Smith had no reason to kill Mary Trelease. ’ He hadn’t expected this, not on his first day back at work. To be in the thick of things, as if he’d never been gone, arguing his case, as he always did; an unpopular case, as it always was. Proust wasn’t a fool; by now he was surely aware of the extent to which Simon and Charlie had gone this one alone—reporting to no one, with no official authorisation.
When they’d been summoned to the Snowman’s office, neither of them had been in any doubt that a bollocking was coming. Nothing official—Proust wouldn’t want to put his name to the suspension or sacking of anyone the tabloids were calling heroes, and neither would the Chief Super or the Chief Constable—but something that, nevertheless, would let Simon and Charlie know that they would be paying for the sins of their over-inflated egos for a long time to come.
They’d rehearsed their resignation speeches all the way to Proust’s glass cubicle. Sam Kombothekra had looked as surprised as they had when the Snowman had started to talk as if it was business as usual, as if Simon and Charlie had been in the loop all along.
‘Smith had a reason to kill her, Simon,’ Kombothekra said now. ‘She’d been sexually abusing his stepson for nearly a year. I know what you’re going to say: Smith’s own abuse of Aidan started long before Mary Trelease came on the scene . . .’
‘Making him something of a hypocrite if he subsequently killed her for what he himself had been doing for years,’ Proust interjected.
‘He wouldn’t see it that way,’ said Kombothekra. ‘Aidan was his, simple as that. No one else had a right to touch him. Mary Trelease was also his, and she’d made him angry. I can see exactly why he might strangle her.’
‘Except he didn’t,’ said Simon.
Kombothekra carried on as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘Trelease would wait for Smith to pass out, which he did reliably every night, and she’d start on Aidan. In Smith’s eyes, what he did was justice. He’s proud of it. “I’d kill anyone who laid a finger on one of my kids”—that’s what he told me, and it’s what he’s been saying to anyone who’ll listen to him since he’s been banged up.’
‘The men who come out with that shit are the ones who don’t give their kids a second glance from one year to the next,’ said Charlie. ‘They want to talk about killing, that’s all—next best thing to doing it.’
‘If Smith didn’t and doesn’t care about Aidan Seed, why is he willing to do time for a crime Seed committed?’ asked Proust.
‘He cared,’ said Simon. ‘Lots of abusers love their kids.’
‘Shame,’ said Charlie. ‘Pure and simple. Seed’s brother and sister both say Smith went to pieces after their mum died. He was a classic insecure bully. Once his punch-bag was gone, he couldn’t handle being on his own—the drinking got worse, and he moved Seed into the master bedroom, into his bed. Mary Trelease was strangled in that bed in the middle of the night. How could Smith explain to the police that his stepson was in bed with him and his girlfriend? A man like him’d rather go down for a murder he didn’t do.’ She shook her head in disgust. ‘Aidan was twelve when Pauline Seed died. Can you imagine what it must have been like for a boy of that age—forced, under a constant threat of violence, to share a bed with your stepfather?’
‘The brother and sister can’t say for sure, but both reckon Smith started abusing Seed as soon as the mother died,’ said Simon. ‘Neither did anything to stop it, though, because they didn’t know for sure if there was anything to stop, and they both lived in fear of Smith. Luckily for them, they were older, and only had a few years to sit out before they could leave home.’
‘Aidan wasn’t so lucky,’ said Charlie. ‘And those bastards left him there to rot—their own little brother. Of course Smith was sexually abusing him, and even if he wasn’t, they knew what sort of life he was forcing on him. Aidan wasn’t allowed out, apart from to go to school—even that, only sometimes. More often than not, Smith kept him off school, for company. He wasn’t allowed to bring friends back to the house—that was while he still had friends. Once he started to withdraw into himself, they gave up on him quickly enough.’
‘He wouldn’t have wanted to bring anyone back,’ said Simon. ‘Would you want your mates to see that you shared a bedroom with your stepfather, if you were a twelve-year-old boy?’ He knew all about not wanting friends to get even the smallest glimpse of one’s home life. In his case, it was pictures of the Virgin Mary and painfully uptight parents he’d been ashamed of.
‘Whatever Smith’s done or not done, there’s no doubt Seed means a lot to him,’ said Kombothekra. ‘Even though Seed’s never visited him in any of the prisons he’s been in, Smith’s clinging to the hope that one day he might. Every time I speak to him, he asks me to pass the same message on to Seed. He never mentions his other two stepkids. I think he’s forgotten they exist. Sir, if you look at it from Simon and Charlie’s angle, the message might be Smith’s way of letting Seed know he’s going to carry on lying for him. I mean, even if he’s really lying for his own sake, he’d want Aidan to believe otherwise, wouldn’t he, if he’s hoping for a reconciliation?’
‘Is your head that easily turned, sergeant?’ Proust snapped. ‘That’s not what you were saying before Waterhouse and Sergeant Zailer turned up. “Tell Aidan I’d never let anyone hurt him—I never have and I never will”—you and I agreed, did we not, that Smith was referring to the murder of Mary Trelease?’
‘Why not take his words literally?’ Simon suggested. ‘“I never have”—all right, granted, that might be a reference to Smith having strangled Trelease, though it’s more likely to be a reference to his having covered for Seed and taken the blame. But what about “I never will”? Smith’s nowhere near Seed’s life now, is he? How can he stop people from harming him? He didn’t stop Martha Wyers from putting a bullet in Seed, did he? “I never will” is Smith’s way of letting Seed know that he’s going to carry on lying to protect him.’
‘We’re talking about a Neanderthal inebriate, Waterhouse. Precision of language is unlikely to be his primary concern.’
‘Actually, Smith hasn’t had a drink in more than twenty years, sir,’ said Kombothekra, causing the Snowman to bang his mug handle harder on the desk.
‘I think you’re wrong, sir,’ Simon told Proust. ‘I think Smith’s message to DS Kombothekra was very precisely worded: to let Seed know he’d continue to keep their secret, while on the surface seeming to mean only that he’d killed Mary Trelease—the meaning you took from it. You can’t say that just because he’s from a council estate he’s incapable of deliberately making a statement that has two possible meanings.’
‘But now that Smith knows Seed’s confessed, that he wants the truth to come out, wouldn’t that give him pause?’ asked Kombothekra. ‘I’ve heard the way he talks about Seed.’ He looked around the small office apologetically. ‘I’m the only one of us who has. Heard it first-hand, I mean. Seed’s all he’s got. I mean, I know he
hasn’t
got him, I know Seed wants nothing to do with him, but in Smith’s mind, Seed’s his life, the only thing he’s living for—the hope that one day they’ll be reconciled. Simon’s right, Smith’s not stupid. He knows there was no need for Seed to confess after all these years. Why would he keep up his so-called protection, knowing it’s unwanted?’
‘The last twenty-odd years of his life, banged up in one miserable, stinking hole after another, have been about protecting Seed,’ said Simon with feigned patience that he knew everyone in the room could see through. ‘Okay, maybe there was an element of self-interest—he was ashamed to admit he’d shared a bed with his stepson—but all these years sitting in his cell? He’ll have dreamed up a different story, a better one—himself as the self-sacrificing hero. Both the brother and sister have said how much Smith loves Seed—too much.’
Kombothekra nodded. ‘That’s what they told me, and they told Kerry Gatti the same thing.’
‘Gatti’s a fucking liar,’ said Charlie in a stony voice. Simon hid a smile behind his hand. She’d been furious to discover that according to Gatti’s version of events, he had willingly handed over two of his files to her. He’d also denied another of Charlie’s claims: that he hadn’t known, when she’d met him at the Swan pub in Rawndesley, that Martha Wyers had changed her name legally to Mary Trelease. Gatti wasn’t any more prepared to lose face than Len Smith was.
Simon said, ‘If Smith tells the truth now and Aidan takes his place in custody, what’s it all been for?’ He looked at Kombothekra. ‘You’ve got kids. Don’t you ever stop them doing something they’re gagging to do because you think you know what’s best for them and they don’t?’
‘Maybe Smith wants it to be true,’ said Charlie. ‘That he killed Mary Trelease. Better for his pride: he strangled his girlfriend when he caught her trying to force herself on his teenage stepson. In that version of the story, Smith gets to come out a hero, in his eyes and, for sure, in the eyes of most of the guys he’s been swapping stories with since the early eighties. I’d bet everything I own that Smith
did
sexually abuse Aidan. Maybe he couldn’t help himself, and hated himself for it—if he genuinely loved Aidan, he might well have done. If he tells the world and possibly himself, too, that Mary Trelease was the abuser, and that he put a stop to the abuse by killing her, he’s redeemed, isn’t he?’
‘Exactly,’ said Simon. ‘Think about the other version of the story: for years, he sexually abused the stepson he loved because he was lonely and desperate and fucked-up after his wife died. Then he got a new girlfriend—Mary Trelease, a cinema usherette whose own two kids had been taken into care, an alcoholic and a heroin addict. Smith brought her into the family home, into his bed, but even then he couldn’t let Seed go. He made Seed sleep in the bed with them . . .’
‘Aidan was his comfort blanket,’ said Charlie.
‘Whatever he was, Smith wasn’t willing to do without him. Maybe he stopped abusing him once he had Trelease to take care of his sexual needs, but Seed still had to lie there every night, listening to the two of them having sex.’ Simon kept his eyes on Proust as he spoke. He knew Charlie thought talking about sex made him uncomfortable, and he hated the way she studied his behaviour. It made him feel like an alien under a microscope.
‘You’ve read the brother and sister’s statements, sir,’ she said. Her less confrontational tone made Simon aware that he’d been raising his voice.
Keep your cool. First, find some from somewhere, then when you’ve got it, keep it.
‘Aidan used to creep out on to the landing to get away from Smith and Trelease, but Smith would come out of the bedroom stark naked—he’d actually interrupt sex with his girlfriend—to drag him back in. If he was in that bed, Aidan had to be in it too: house rule. The brother and sister each witnessed it on more than one occasion. Both said that, as well as being aggressive, Smith was clearly scared.’
‘According to both siblings, Smith claimed he couldn’t sleep if Seed wasn’t in the bed with him,’ said Kombothekra, looking down at his notes. ‘Said he had panic attacks. Maybe he felt the same even after he got together with Trelease.’
‘Pity we can’t put Seed brother and sister behind bars,’ Proust muttered. ‘For presenting themselves as victims of equal status as much as anything else. By the time Mary Trelease appeared on the scene, they were both about to leave home. They couldn’t have gone to the police once they’d left? No, not them—they opted to drop in for tea and cake every so often instead, witness one or two horrors, then be on their way.’