Pleasure and a Calling (28 page)

‘Will this take long?’ I asked.

‘Oh, I shouldn’t think so, sir,’ said Monks.

He swung open the door to an empty room and seated me at a table. He sat down and asked for my name, age and occupation. I gave as my address the empty designer apartment overlooking the river. Now he summoned a uniformed officer, who stood behind me and said nothing. Monks himself left the room. The minutes ticked by. Clearly he was trying to get me rattled, though knowing that didn’t make me less so. Part of me feared that they would soon be busy breaking down the door of the riverside apartment in the hope of finding tweed clothing to match fibres found under the fingernails of the victim (though the tweed clothing in question had long been disposed of), or checking my toothbrush for DNA consistent with droplets of sweat or dried spittle on his clothing. Of course, they would find not so much as a stick of furniture and wonder why.

It was twenty-five minutes before Monks returned, with DC Roberts but with no apology for the delay. He switched on a tape recorder, and said who he was, who I was, the names of Roberts and the other officer, and the date and time.

‘Just saves time, sir,’ he said. He had a file in front of him.

‘Am I a suspect? Or something?’

‘Would you prefer a lawyer to be present?’

‘No, of course not. Why should I?’

‘Why indeed, sir.’

He reassured me that I wasn’t under arrest. I was free to go whenever I pleased, though I imagined that could change the second I tried to leave. I crossed my legs and tried to appear relaxed. My big worry at this point was that I could be here, helping the police with their enquiries, for hours. Whatever happened here was unlikely to be worse than Abigail arriving
home to find Sharp’s copy of her key, knowing that it was I who had left it there.

For obvious reasons Abigail had kept her silence about Sharp. It was why she wanted to leave town – to put this horror behind her and return to her uncomplicated life in London where she had a network of friends and colleagues. She too probably felt her involvement with me was a mistake, an attraction arising from an instinct to be comforted. Finding the key would change all that. Now the horror was on her doormat. Now she would come forward, do the right thing (the thing she probably always imagined she would do as a principled young woman interested in poetry and cycling), declare herself as the other woman, reveal Sharp’s missing matching luggage, pour cold water on the absurd theory of his having had an affair with Mrs Cookson and jab the finger of guilt at me, perhaps with a frightened, uncontrollable scream.

‘In your own words …’ Monks was saying, reiterating that this was simply a witness statement. We needed to go through the whole story once more – the moment I had arrived at the Sharps’ that day, the state of the house, precisely what Mrs Sharp had said, precisely what had occurred between us and so on.

‘Between us?’

‘Everything. She was in some distress. Did you try to comfort her?’

‘Well, yes, of course, to an extent.’

‘Everything,’ he said.

I retold the story – the mess, Mrs Sharp’s bandaged hand, Sharp’s alleged infidelities, the tale of the dog, allegedly killed by Sharp. Should I mention the handkerchief I’d lent her when she was crying?

‘Ah yes, the dog …’

Every now and then he interrupted to ask about, confirm, clarify or elaborate on something. DC Roberts, his notebook open, watched me, and said nothing. What was his problem? I couldn’t believe they had solid evidence of my involvement. All they knew for sure was that I was around on the day, alongside Mrs Sharp. Perhaps they thought she and I were in cahoots. That’s what the remark about comforting her was about. Obviously they were just fishing.

By now many more details of the case had trickled out of the press and into the town. Sharp’s body had been out for a week in the open in warm weather. Rats, cats and crows had pecked and nibbled at it; foxes had carried off chunks of the poor man. (According to the
Sentinel
, the Cooksons had recently quarrelled with a neighbour who kept chickens over Mrs C’s habit of putting out food for foxes in the evening.) What was left of Sharp was badly decomposed. The police hadn’t been able to prove their pet theory that the body had been moved – as it would have to have been, for example, if Sharp had died in the fight at home with his wife. Perhaps they were still trying to make a case against Mrs Sharp acting alone – that she had in fact followed her husband to the Cooksons and then hit him with something hard. But there had been two different sorts of injuries: one trauma caused by some unidentified blunt impact, which may or may not have been the patio stones, the other a smack in the head with a weapon that had left a distinct impression, though no one was saying what, or even which blow had killed him. But murder in any event, they had now stated. Perhaps Sharp had stepped backwards, fallen and cracked his head on the patio and then been finished off by Mrs Sharp or persons unknown. This was what was going through the minds of the police and the townsfolk, though none of the various scenarios entirely made
sense. However you put together the pieces there were always one or two that seemed to come from a different, missing puzzle.

I reached the end of my statement. We seemed to be winding up. Unbelievably, over two hours had passed since they’d picked me up. The senior man had his hands flat on the file in front of him now, as if he might open it. ‘We’ll just need to rerun the tape, check that everything’s in order, Mr Heming. Technology and all that.’

‘Of course.’

DC Roberts left the room. DS Monks asked about the business – whether I was the sole owner, how many staff I employed and so on. What was this now? Had we finished? Was this just small talk?

‘Actually, there are one or two other matters. When you were leaving the Sharps’ on that day, and you told Mrs Sharp you’d be back later with your sales forms, what happened?’

‘What do you mean “happened”?’

‘Where did you go?’

‘Probably straight to the office. It was a Saturday. Quite busy, I imagine. Probably I got caught up in something.’

‘OK, and that’s why you didn’t return. Not that Saturday, or Sunday, or Monday – or even Tuesday or Wednesday. Mrs Sharp said she had to call your office on Thursday. This tallies with the diary in your office – Mrs Pegg registered the call.’

‘Wendy, yes, she’s very efficient.’

‘But even then, according to Mrs Pegg’s record, someone had to attend in your place. Miss Katya Stan-ka …’

‘Stankaviciene, yes. Soon to be Jones,’ I added with a quick smile.

He looked at me.

‘She’s engaged to a Welshman.’

‘So why the delay?’

‘Katya?’

‘Mrs Sharp. Don’t you need the business?’

‘To tell you the truth, I did wonder, given the attitude of the husband, whether the Sharps might not be more trouble than they were worth. After all, the man from Worde & Hulme was practically thrown out on to the street by Mr Sharp.’

‘True, although now, by this time, of course – the Thursday afterwards, almost a week later – Mr Sharp was lying dead in the garden of your other clients, Mr and Mrs Cookson.’

‘Tragically, yes, though I could hardly have known that.’

Monks gazed thoughtfully at me for what must have been a good half-minute while Roberts closed his notebook and waited. Then Monks said, ‘Does the name Damato mean anything to you?’

My heart almost stopped dead. But then I immediately realized he was talking about the company I had set up to handle my property and finances. I preferred to keep it private, but it wouldn’t have been impossible for a competent investigator to link me, and my agency, with the William R. Heming listed as the sole director of Damato Associates, which owned the riverside apartments and other properties dotted around town. This was not a disaster. If you enquired further – for example, with the tax authorities – you would find that William R. Heming paid what he owed promptly and without argument through a London accountant, who also handled financial transactions and movements of monies on his behalf. None of this was illegal, though I was aware that people who liked their privacy – or secrecy, as Zoe would say – were regarded with suspicion. For someone with an interest in not being noticed, it goes without saying that I didn’t want to be suspected.

‘Mr Heming?’

‘I won’t deny that it does.’

‘I’m sure this is just tittle-tattle,’ he said. ‘Someone raking up the past.’ From his file he pulled out a photocopy of a newspaper cutting and slid it across the table. ‘Ancient news from the Norwich Coroner’s Court,’ he continued.

When I saw it, my heart started pounding again.

It concerned an inquest into the death of Harold Buckshaw, forty-seven, an unmarried council worker. There was no picture. The headline, over one column, read ‘Tragedy of Former Parks Man’.

‘This is twenty-seven years ago,’ I managed to say.

The lifeless body of Mr Buckshaw, the court heard, had been found by a dog-walker in shallow water following a wintry night. A post-mortem examination found that he had been drinking heavily. The previous August, Mr Buckshaw had been acquitted by Norfolk magistrates in connection with the abduction of two children. Witnesses said that Mr Buckshaw had been depressed when he lost his job with the parks department and was regularly seen drunk in the locality. A police witness said that Mr Buckshaw had previously reported two assaults on his person and criminal damage to a window at his council flat in Lower Eastley. On the evening before Mr Buckshaw’s body was found, two young women coming out of the Wherry public house saw him being assaulted by two youths. The cause of death was drowning. The coroner returned a verdict of misadventure.

Someone had circled the reference to the abduction in red and written ‘THIS IS HEMING! Ask him about the DAMATOS!’

‘So what about the Damatos?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ I said. ‘The Damatos lived opposite.’

Monks scratched his nose. ‘The case notes tell us that your local police spoke to your father, but no action was taken.’

‘Well, why would it? I had nothing to do with it. And I was barely older than they were.’

‘You were ten. These other children were three.’

I shrugged. ‘What can I say?’

‘Ah, Memory Lane,’ Monks said, opening the file again. ‘I don’t know what you would make of this letter. It appears to be from the headmaster of your old school to your mother.’

Again, it was a photocopy.

Dear Mrs Heming,

Thank you for your accompanying letter of 12th July and kind donation. I do appreciate your frankness and help in this matter. A Treasure Trove indeed. Though, I trust, not Pandora’s Box! As you can imagine, I am as shocked as you are that William has intruded on the privacy and property of the other boys with such disappointing disregard for the acceptable norms of behaviour – or even risk of discovery! That it appears to have gone on for so long is of particular concern. Certainly, had you not withdrawn him from school on account of the other matter, I am afraid William would certainly have been expelled, for technically this is theft, though I appreciate the items stolen – greetings cards, letters, a ball of rubber bands, various personal gewgaws that boys will collect – are of little value in themselves. In the light of the latter observation, I think it best that we do not attempt to return these items to their rightful owners. As far as the school is concerned, we are prepared to put this episode behind us and move forward. I will return the chest, of course.

I accept your point in mitigation that William may have
been affected badly by the death of his father last year, but his behaviour is nevertheless worrying. William’s scrapbooks containing information and defamatory comments on other boys are especially disturbing.

You say he has opted not to continue his education but has taken a post with a respectable family firm. In this I wish him well and hope that his experiences have, in some way, taught him good lessons for the future.

Yours sincerely,

E. H. Akers

Headmaster

Again, a postscript had been appended in an angry scrawl of red biro: ‘Ask him about his PSYCHIATRIC REPORT’.

‘Should I ask you about your psychiatric report?’ said Monks.

‘Actually, that’s my aunt, not my mother—’

‘If we could stick to the subject in hand.’

‘I really have no idea who you’re talking about. This is obviously some kind of mischief-making – and a libel!’

‘Who would want to make mischief for you, Mr Heming?’

‘My cousin, I imagine. She is deranged, I’m afraid. And resents my success. And, frankly, all this is such a long time ago. It’s hard to remember the person I was then, let alone answer for him. Who could? And as you see, the offences were minor. Stealing football programmes and sweets from boys’ rooms? OK, you have me!’

‘They say old habits die hard, sir.’

‘Or sometimes they just die. Have you no youthful indiscretions in your closet, Detective Sergeant Monks? As Mr Akers says here, we must move on.’

‘How did your father die, Mr Heming?’

‘
What
? He died in a boating accident. In Norfolk.’

‘And you were …’

‘At school. In Yorkshire. I was traumatized. That’s why I had to have counselling. I imagine that’s what my cousin is raving about.’

Monks pondered, or pretended to ponder, then gave the eye to Roberts, who left the room. I checked the time, fearful that the more I looked at my watch the longer Monks would keep me here, wearing me down, waiting for me to trip myself up with a lie. I sensed something was building. They hadn’t finished with me. Abigail would be home in half an hour.

Another ten minutes passed.

I didn’t even have my car.

Monks said nothing. He just waited.

If they did break into the riverside apartment (and were they even allowed to do that without arresting me for something?) and find it empty they would then surely return to the other flat, rightly assuming it was mine after all. And then …

The door opened and Roberts returned. He was carrying something in a plastic bag. Monks opened it and with exaggerated care laid its contents on the table in front of me.