The Loving Husband Page 6

  Ben was stirring in his sheepskin cocoon so she lifted him out quickly and still in her coat she sat to feed him at the kitchen table. She looked back at the door, the mat askew, the floor heavily marked with bootprints, and something began to tick, her wet feet at the door, mud on them as she had slid them into Nathan’s boots. Nathan had been out in the field, not wearing boots, just the shoes he’d gone out to the pub in. Wet mud on the floor last night. She tried to make sense of that, but just the image of Nathan taking off his shoes at the door defeated her, the way he knelt, untied a knot, methodical, fastidious. Fran looked at the table where the two-day-old newspaper lay. She could remember Nathan opening the paper, saying something. A stack of books she’d ordered for herself, one cardboard parcel not even opened yet though it had arrived weeks ago. A plastic carrier bag with something flat and square in it.

  The evidence bag containing the sodden tights had been removed.

  There was something else, distinct from misery. It sat at the base of her skull where fight or flight lived, waiting.

  What was in the carrier bag? What did it matter? This was just distraction. But she leaned over Ben to turn it towards her, tilted her head to look inside, her breathing constricted. She heard a sound from upstairs and everything stopped. Someone called down, ‘Mrs Hall?’ DS Gerard.

  He was in her bedroom, standing at the far side of the bed and looking down.

  ‘What are you doing up here?’ Fran said from the doorway, trying to sound reasonable. The room was full of pale clean light, flooding across the landscape. She remembered, as if from far away, how much she had loved it, their first morning here. Gerard stood between her and the windows. ‘Don’t you have to have a warrant or something?’ Trying, too late, to make it sound like a joke. DS Gerard looked up, gave her a stiff smile. ‘Just trying to save time,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry if I startled you.’

  ‘I got Rob on the phone,’ said Fran.

  ‘So I gathered.’ Gerard let out a sigh. ‘It’s a difficult conversation to have. It must have been a nasty shock for him.’

  ‘I just … I wanted to be the one to tell him,’ she said, stubborn. Gerard nodded, non-committal.

  ‘He’s up a mountain in Wales. He’s coming down. He’s got to walk out though, it’s some kind of course—’

  Gerard cut her off, gently. ‘It’s fine. We’ll make contact with him. It’s fine.’ His voice was so calm and level, she found herself wondering, does he care? Does he even care? He frowned, and she could feel her heart thudding as she came up to the bed on the opposite side.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘Do you think now might be a good time,’ he said, quiet, reasonable, ‘to get down to the station?’

  Ali Compton was late by seven minutes, but it didn’t matter, it turned out. ‘Not here yet,’ said Derek, looking up from the front desk. Sergeant Derek Butt, in weary receipt of more stupid jokes than Ali could remember. Sometimes she wondered if he’d stuck at desk sergeant, evading promotion, just because of his name. She didn’t even have that as an excuse, compassionate grounds not counting for much as an excuse for career stasis, with them that mattered.

  ‘Thanks, Derek.’

  ‘He’s requested interview room four,’ he told her, watching for her reaction, and Ali raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘That’s interesting. Pressed for space are we today?’

  Interview room four was no one’s favourite place. The station – state-of-the-art, three years old – had a nice new airy set of rooms specially designed for the bereaved. It doubled up as an interview suite for children but as far as she knew – and Ali, like most of them, had a grim radar for incoming cases involving minors – it wasn’t in use.

  ‘Nope,’ said Derek. ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Ah well,’ Ali said, ‘I’m sure he has his reasons. As sure as I am that, being Doug Gerard, and a believer in full disclosure and gender equality, he will bring me right up to date.’ She sighed. ‘Anything else I should know?’

  ‘I believe the wife was the one that found the body.’ Derek averted his eyes, expressionless. ‘And there was a call from DI Craddock, asking when DS Gerard was expected back.’

  Doug Gerard had given her the impression Craddock was letting him have his head with this one. Maybe that had just been wishful thinking, or maybe this wasn’t just a domestic, after all. She saw Derek frown at her shirtfront and she pulled the cardigan closed over a blob of something that must have landed on her shirt between buttoning it at the top of the stairs and saying goodbye at Mum’s kitchen door. Mum looking up at her, lip quivering. ‘I’ll be back to make you a sandwich,’ Ali had said, already dreading the grief she’d get over that at the nick. ‘That’s sorted with work. Half one at the latest. I’ve put it in a note.’ Two weeks off was a long time.

  ‘Oh, shit,’ she said, looking down.

  ‘More like porridge, if you ask me,’ said Derek mildly. ‘Long time no see, Detective Constable Compton. How was your leave? Barbados, was it?’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ Ali said, smiling in spite of herself. She liked Derek. ‘Can’t you tell by the tan?’ And then from behind her she heard the pneumatic hiss of the automatic doors.

  Ali saw the baby first, because the woman’s head was bent, looking down at him in the car seat. Asleep, pale cheeks, she could even see eyelashes. Stubborn little mouth. Detective Sergeant Doug Gerard was coming through the door beside the woman, smooth-chinned for once and it looked like he’d scrubbed under his fingernails too. Aftershave. That walk he had, there was a word for it, lord of all he surveyed though he was no more than a DS. Not for much longer if ambition counted for anything, and it did.

  Carswell bringing up the rear, surreptitiously picking his nose. Ali was already resigned to the possibility that before she knew it Ed Carswell, who had nothing going for him but low cunning and a panting desire to impress Doug Gerard, would be telling her what to do, too.

  Then the woman looked up from the baby and Ali had to keep a lid on it because she knew who the aftershave was for. A woman, not quite any woman, but a vulnerable one, halfway decent would do, and Fran Hall was more than that. Even knackered, even terrified, she had one of those faces. DS Gerard had scrubbed up for that face; the swagger he took with him everywhere, whether the victim was good-looking or not.

  ‘This way, Mrs Hall,’ Gerard said, all reassuring, heading for the stairs behind reception, and Ali saw her take it in, the gloomy stairwell, the wall already scuffed, three years in, from surly lads scraping their boots along it as they were led down.

  ‘Sorry, we’re under a lot of pressure for space,’ Ali heard him lie, ‘we’ll be down in our basement interview rooms.’ Then, almost as an afterthought, as Ali came after them, ‘This is Ali Compton,’ and he glanced back at her. ‘Your FLO. The best we’ve got.’ Maybe the victim’s wife would pick up the sneer attached to that, maybe she wouldn’t.

  ‘Mrs Hall,’ Ali said. And the woman stopped then and although Gerard made an impatient noise she didn’t move, stubborn. ‘Fran,’ she said, and Ali thought, Not just stubborn. She’s in shock.

  In shock or not Fran Hall turned to Doug Gerard then and said, ‘I want her in there too.’ Nodding at Ali, unblinking. Behind Ali, Carswell let out a nervous snigger.

  ‘I had thought,’ he kept his voice reasonable, but Ali could see Doug Gerard was annoyed, ‘for the preliminaries I thought it might be as well if Ali – Detective Constable Compton – took charge of … of the, of your…’

  ‘Ben’s asleep, though,’ said Fran Hall, holding herself very stiff. ‘And I’d like her in there. Please.’

  Even Derek Butt was looking over, curious, Carswell gawking excitedly and that flat, dead look on Gerard’s face that said, She’s not a fucking nurse, you know, a chaperone, you’re not entitled, but all he said – smooth as you like, as if he was humouring her and it was all the same to him, anyway – was, ‘I don’t see why not.’

  Cramped and windowless, reserved f
or toerags, there was barely room for a solicitor and his briefcase in interview room four, let alone three police officers and a woman with a baby seat. If the baby in it began to cry … well. That’d be Ali out of the picture.

  ‘Just a minute,’ said Gerard on the threshold, jerking his head to Ali to follow him out. ‘Let’s track down another chair, shall we?’ Closing the door on Carswell and Fran Hall, he stood under the corridor’s striplighting, legs braced as if he was about to go in for a tackle.

  ‘Right,’ he said in a level undertone, pissed off and not bothering much to disguise it now.

  ‘What’s the story?’ Ali said, holding her ground. ‘They’ve been here a year, he’s from round here. She found him, I know that, three a.m. call. Someone with a grudge? He got into something?’ She frowned. ‘Is the wife a suspect?’

  Gerard made as if to pick something out of his teeth. ‘Look,’ he said, examining his fingertip, looking up at her as an afterthought. ‘Obviously there’s no time to bring you up to date on progress, on our thinking so far.’

  Ali folded her arms across her chest, getting the message straight off: as far as Gerard was concerned she was a glorified nanny. ‘Right,’ she said.

  ‘So for the moment,’ droning, ‘I’d like you to act as … a fresh pair of eyes, let’s say. I’m interested in your impressions, unencumbered.’ My arse you are, thought Ali. ‘And of course…’ leaning close so she got a whiff of sweat under the aftershave, ‘I don’t want you getting under my feet in the incident room, your place is in the field.’

  ‘No desk for me, then?’ said Ali, mildly. Surprise surprise.

  He ignored her. ‘But you’ll remember you’re part of the investigative team. Everything you get out of her comes straight to me.’ Then Doug Gerard grabbed the plastic chair parked at the door, and put it into her hands.

  Back inside she set the chair at Fran Hall’s side of the table, and taking advantage of the minute or two Gerard stood there muttering to Carswell above their heads, she leaned towards Fran Hall. The victim’s wife was perched frozen on her chair, her hand still on the handle of her baby’s car seat, ready to grab him up and run.

  ‘Sorry about the room,’ said Ali and she saw Fran Hall look round, dazed, as if she hadn’t noticed where she was.

  Ali had seen that particular look before, her head followed Fran Hall’s trying to work it out, but then Carswell and Gerard were sitting down opposite them and Gerard was explaining that this was just a chat, she wasn’t under caution. They would be recording it, was that all right with her? Fran Hall just nodded, still dazed. No idea, thought Ali, but then again if Gerard’s got anything to do with it he’ll keep us both in the dark for the duration. Carswell, his mouth open in concentration, pressed buttons on the recorder, and the woman flinched at the sound.

  Battered wife? There was a bit of that about her, and Ali’d seen enough of those to know. Was that the theory they weren’t bothering to update her on? Ali had a look at her but the woman’s eyes slid away, dodging. Battered wives often lost sympathy all round on account of that look; she’d seen jurors turn stony at the sight of them: how could they let it happen? Easy, is the answer to that. But the baby looked healthy and there was nothing visible on Fran Hall, no bruises, no hair yanked out, no burns or scarring.

  ‘A couple of things,’ said Doug Gerard, leaning back. ‘First. He was at the pub, you said?’

  Fran Hall nodded. ‘The Queen’s Head.’

  ‘In the village, right? He was a regular?’ Gerard knew something, Ali could hear it in his voice.

  ‘Once or twice a week,’ Fran Hall said, very quiet.

  ‘You didn’t go with him?’

  She hesitated, shook her head.

  ‘He’d walk there, I suppose?’

  She shook her head again. ‘He took the car. He … it was quite a long walk, right at the other end of the village. He wasn’t much of a drinker.’

  Ali looked at Gerard, then Carswell. Who took the car to the local pub? Idle locals who knew they wouldn’t be caught? Fat, lazy, habitual drunk drivers? Was that who Fran Hall had been married to? Gerard didn’t look back at Ali.

  ‘Well, forensics will tell us that. If he’d been drinking.’ He tapped his pen on the table, turning it. ‘Another thing, though,’ he added, casual. ‘His clothing was disturbed and we wondered…’ Ali looked up, from him to Carswell.

  ‘What?’ Fran Hall said, interrupting. ‘Disturbed, what do you mean by that? Disturbed?’

  Gerard sounded patient. ‘Was he in the habit, maybe, of going outside to urinate? Last thing at night, coming home from the pub?’ When Hall just stared at him, he said, ‘Going out for a—’

  ‘I know what urinate means,’ she told him.

  ‘It’s a territorial thing,’ said Ali, thinking, He won’t like that. ‘Like dogs. Some men do it.’

  ‘Maybe round here they do,’ said Fran Hall, white-faced, and Gerard shifted in his chair. If he was in any doubt as to whether to dislike her, thought Ali, it’s gone. Hates a smart mouth on a woman. Ali didn’t think it had even been meant that way.

  ‘Are you saying he might have been … there might have been…’

  ‘No evidence of anything sexual,’ said Doug Gerard, with that smile he probably practised in the mirror, full of himself. ‘No other evidence, I should say. At present we’re looking at it as an explanation as to why he was out there, in the middle of the night.’

  Fran Hall sat very still, and he put on his soft voice. Showing that he cared. It did work with plenty of suspects, give him that, as well as in a chat-up situation.

  ‘Timing. I need to go over that again with you.’

  ‘Timing?’ Fran Hall pressed herself back into the seat, arms straight, hands under her thighs. On the other side of the table Gerard crossed his legs, easy, one ankle resting on a knee, black socks, a bit of ankle. Ali reached into her pocket for her notebook and there was a flicker in Gerard’s face, of irritation. She took out a pen from the other pocket.

  ‘You said,’ Gerard pulled out his own notebook to consult it, ‘your husband came in at around midnight, maybe after midnight. You woke up around two hours later and he was gone.’

  ‘Two oh seven,’ said Fran Hall, so quiet you almost couldn’t hear it.

  ‘But you couldn’t put an exact time on when your husband first came in?’ The room was silent: number four always felt to Ali like a padded cell. There’d be psychology in them building in an interview room this much like a dungeon, but she didn’t fancy looking too closely at it.

  ‘I didn’t look at the clock,’ Fran said, and Ali saw her swallow. ‘I heard him, the change in his pockets. He’d turned the light off in the corridor, I don’t know why.’ She sounded choked. ‘I looked at the clock, I was … I didn’t know if I was awake or asleep, really, it was just red lights, I didn’t register…’ As Ali watched she turned her head, as if she was looking round her own bedroom in the dark.

  ‘It couldn’t have been earlier? Around, ten, say?’

  Fran Hall shook her head, pale. ‘I’d have only just gone to bed by ten. I read for a bit. I got up, I went … to the bathroom.’ Her eyes slid sideways to Ali, then back. ‘Anyway. I didn’t go to sleep till close to eleven. When he came in I’d say I’d been asleep for at least an hour. Deep sleep, whenever that comes.’

  ‘So you feel it was after midnight.’ Ali bent her head over her notebook, writing it all down, there might not be time to listen to the tapes. They might not make it easy. ‘He woke you.’

  ‘Yes. He did. Well. Not fully.’ Ali raised her head, shot a glance at the men. They didn’t seem to have heard what she had heard.

  ‘Did he say anything?’

  Fran Hall shook her head, still looking at him like she was half hypnotised. ‘No,’ she said slowly, blinking. ‘Why?’

  Gerard going all poker face. ‘We’re working out timing. Time of death.’ She stared. ‘It’s to do with the forensic people, input from you goes into the equation.’

&nbs
p; Ali scented bullshit – plus he wouldn’t catch her eye. They went over the timing again, and then another time. She didn’t write it down after a bit, just watching, trying to work it out. Fran Hall’s hand was back on the handle of her child’s baby seat; the wedding ring was loose on it, nails cut short but kept nice. The trainers, muddy but not the kind you bought round here, not the kind you wore. Gold chain round her neck, good highlights but grown down almost to the end, months, maybe a year since Fran Hall had had her hair done.

  Ali put a hand to her own hair and grimaced: she couldn’t even remember when she’d washed it last and their eyes met, just for a second.

  Then it seemed to be winding down, though Ali couldn’t see what they’d got that was new. Gerard yawned, uncrossed his legs, leaned forward and folded his notebook and as he turned to Ed Carswell, started on about the weather and some five-a-side match at the weekend that might have to be cancelled, Ali leaned forwards.

  ‘Do you work, Mrs Hall? I mean, did you, before – work outside the home?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Fran Hall slowly, eyes wide, glancing from Doug Gerard, who had stopped mid-conversation to frown at Ali. ‘Yes, I worked on a magazine. In London.’

  ‘Magazine,’ said Ali, nodding, offering her respect. ‘Nice job, that. Glamorous. You gave up work, all that, to come out here?’ Gerard was looking tetchy. He didn’t like the idea of Fran Hall up in London, Ali could tell, up in London dressed up smart, chippy little Doug Gerard from, where was it? Up to Hull or somewhere. Nowhere. She ignored him. ‘Must have been a hard choice, coming out here,’ she said, quiet. ‘Must have been a sacrifice.’

  ‘Not as glamorous as people think,’ said Fran Hall, and her lips were pale. ‘A lot of travel, and it was the children. I wanted to be home with the children.’