The Bad Samaritan (22 page)

“Either of you,” said Charlie, taking this in. “So you and your husband found him the job at Pizza Pronto. You didn't know of any connection between him and Mills then?”

“Not the slightest idea. His name never came up. At least, now I think about it, when we were looking for a job for him Gi—someone did mention Dark Satanic. We should have twigged, maybe, but we didn't. Of course I got inklings, or rather stronger indications than that, at the party, but the first hard information I had was when Stanko telephoned this morning.”

“Did Mills's activities surprise you?”

“
No
.” She thought, trying to put her instincts into words. “You know, calling him Dark Satanic Mills was a joke, but like a lot of jokes there was a serious judgment behind it. There always seemed about him a total lack of moral sense—that in addition to the fact that I just found him, well,
yucky
.”

“But he was a member of your husband's congregation.”

Rosemary laughed.

“I don't see what that's got to do with anything. There are a lot of thoroughly dislikable people in my husband's congregation.”

“OK, OK—point taken.”

“Though I have to say I did find him the
most
dislikable.”

“You didn't have to . . . fend him off at any time?”

“Good Lord, no. I think he knew perfectly well how I felt about him. If he didn't, then I wasted a lot of body language and facial language.”

“Never even had to slap him down?”

“No.”

“What do you know about his home life?”

She gave a moue of distaste at the thought.

“Not very much. I suspect he didn't
have
very much. There's a rather sad little woman sitting there, but mostly he was out and about, making contacts and money. She had had very little to do with us at church in recent years. But her father—old ‘Onions' Unwin—was a faithful member. A roaring hot gospeller in his time, and nonconformist, but more respectable with old age. Mills had a lot to do with him and ran his business for a while. They'd usually come to church together.”

“Not recently?”

“I believe he's pretty infirm at the moment, and a little bit senile. That was the impression I got the last time I saw him.”

“When was that?”

“Oh maybe a year or so ago. He and Dorothy were walking in Herrick Park. He looked so lost and uncertain. I tried to be sympathetic, said he must have a lot of time on his hands now the business was sold, but he just said, ‘What? what?' like the mad George III and seemed—well, like him, gaga.”

“And what about her? As a person.”

“As I said, I very seldom see her, but if you were to press me I'd say she's a woman—was a woman—locked in an unhappy marriage and for some reason seeing no way out for herself. Maybe all I'm saying is that that's how I'd feel if I was married to him, but I don't think so. That said, I don't get the impression that she is a woman who is naturally happy or hopeful. Before she was married
she went with her father to the Baptist Church which has closed down now. The impression she gave was that she was a bit put-upon—by him then, later by her husband.”

“She didn't have a wide circle of friends?”

“Hardly any, that I know of.”

“Why do you think Mills—by the way, his real name was Milosevic—”

“Milosevic! So there was a Yugoslav connection, was there? How interesting.”

“Why do you think he was a regular churchgoer?”

“I don't know. I often wondered. It wasn't as though he was likely to meet an enormous number of business contacts there. He had the Rotary for that. One thing it could give him, though, was respectability. Perhaps with his lack of background—English background, anyway—that was what made it worthwhile for him: something to belong to, something to be said to belong to by people who mattered. Instead of being the Balkan on-the-make adventurer that he was, people mentioned him as a churchgoer—a sober, respectable English type. Though the other side always shone through, as far as I was concerned.”

“Did the Church also give him a wife?”

“I don't really remember the sequence of events. We talked about this before. It seems to me he was always thick with Dorothy's father right from the first, but whether he met Dorothy through him or earlier I just don't know. You'd have to ask her.”

“Was his grudge against you something to do with the church?”

“We just didn't like each other,” said Rosemary, unfazed. “He didn't have a grudge against me.”

“He told someone he did.”

She looked at him with a blankness that he could have sworn was genuine.

“A
grudge
?”

“The burden of his remark was that you'd done him an injury, and he wasn't going to forget it.”

“Done him an injury?” She shook her head, frowning. “I'm sure that can't be right. I'm not conscious of ever doing that.
Who
says he said that?”

“I can't tell you. But part of the paying back was spreading the story about you and Stanko in Scarborough.”

“Really? I thought . . . Never mind. He was always very supportive to my face about the parish rows. Told me to fight the old cats—that sort of thing.”

“Maybe that was part of the working out of the grudge—keeping the pot boiling.”

“Maybe. Maybe it was part of the two-facedness that amused him. But the question is: what was the grudge to start with? I can't think of anything.”

“Will you go on thinking?” asked Charlie, getting up to go. “It's probably quite marginal, but then again—”

“Of course . . .” She looked at him closely. “You are telling the truth about Stanko, aren't you? That you haven't made up your mind about his guilt or innocence?”

“Oh yes, I'm telling the truth. I feel we still haven't come to grips with the question of the knife. If Stanko had a knife on him, why did he have a long and vicious fight with Mills without thinking of using it? Apparently he had him unconscious on the ground before the idea occurred to him.”

“I agree, that doesn't make sense. And by the way he told me he certainly wasn't carrying one.”

“I'll report that, for what it's worth,” said Charlie equably. “I think you're a bit biassed. I'm not, but I'm trying to fit the pieces into a sensible pattern. Equally difficult: who could have come along fully prepared to cut somebody's throat.”

“Any woman—say a student—could carry a knife, after all the attacks on women in this area. A woman walking across Herrick Park at night could well feel the need for one as protection.”

“She'd be a lot better advised
not
to walk across Herrick Park at night, but to stick to the lighted streets.”

“People don't always do the sensible thing,” said Rosemary, “particularly young people.”

“It's something we'll look into. Certainly there may be a lot of women—women of all ages—who might have a grievance against Stephen Mills.”

“I can well imagine,” said Rosemary grimly.

“On the other hand, in spite of all the scare stories about crime in the press, this country is still a place where the ordinary, law-abiding citizen does not go around carrying a knife.”

“Have you thought that Stephen Mills might have been carrying it himself?” asked Rosemary, then looked as if she wished she hadn't.

W
hen she opened the door she was wearing the same sort of nondescript clothing she had had on the day before: each garment could have been interchanged with no difference made to the overall effect. She seemed to be completely indifferent to the effect made, and this apparently was habitual. This time Charlie looked straight into her deep, dark eyes; but they were no more revealing than they had been the day before. It was like groping through underground caves that were close, stifling, part of an unending chain. There was certainly no sign that Mrs Mills felt fear, or even apprehension, on seeing them at her front door.

“Oh, do you have some news?” she asked, in a dry, low voice. “I'm so glad. There are so many people ringing or calling, and there's almost nothing I can tell them.”

She led the way through to the sitting room. She had the curtains pulled in obedience to a largely dead custom—one which perhaps her father had insisted on. Again, they all sat down, none of them very sure of themselves, blinking in the dim light. She put on an expectant face, as if she thought she was about to hear that the case had been solved. Oddie started the questioning.

“Mrs Mills, did you know that your husband carried a knife?”

“Stephen? Oh no, he wouldn't do that. He didn't have any enemies.” She caught a look in Oddie's eye and quickly amended her statement. “Of course he may have been carrying one on Saturday night.”

Don't underestimate her, Oddie said to himself.

“Why should he carry one on Saturday night?”

“Because he'd be coming home across the park. There have been a lot of nasty incidents in the park at nighttime. Well, you'd both know about that. It would have been just elementary self-protection.”

Oddie did not tell her that Forensics had said, on the basis of the fabric in the pocket of Mills's jacket, that the indentations were consistent with his habitually carrying a knife.

“You see, we think that was the murder weapon. One can imagine all sorts of possible scenarios. For example, your husband took out the knife during the fight, he was easily disarmed by his attacker who had martial arts expertise, and this man later picked up the knife and murdered him.”

He did not mention the alternative possibility, that the knife was removed from his pocket by someone who knew it was there. Mrs Mills nodded seriously.

“Yes, I see.” She dabbed at her eyes with her fist. “It seems so horribly
long
, doesn't it, the whole process. First the fight, and then—
that
.”

“Mrs Mills, how much did you know about your husband's business activities?”

She screwed up her face.

“Well, not very much, really, except roughly what he did. I told you all about that. I do remember his excitement when he set the business up. Ten or eleven years ago it must be now. Such a happy time! So much enthusiasm and drive!”

In his mind Oddie took a metaphorical pinch of salt.

“Did you know about the office in number 94 Ilkley Road?”

“Is that where it is? I knew he had some sort of overspill office. It was one of the consequences of success, I think. ‘Just off to the second office,' Stephen would say.”

“Did you know he was running a sort of sideline to the business from there that was, among other things, bringing illegal immigrants into the country?”

There was a silence. Mrs Mills had been maintaining a hard, bright tone, in keeping with her pretence that she was a recently widowed but loving wife, devoted to her husband and to his activities. She made a last shot at propping up the fiction.

“But that's quite impossible! Stephen was impeccably honest. He was a Rotarian.” In spite of the tension Oddie and Charlie almost laughed. Again she saw their reaction and immediately backtracked. “Stephen was a man with a conscience. Ask any of his business associates, anyone in the parish. They all trusted him absolutely.”

“Mrs Mills, we
know
. The question is, did you know?”

She tossed her head.

“I certainly did not, and I don't believe it. You're making a terrible mistake . . . . Maybe Brian Ferrett has been doing things Stephen knew nothing about.”

“Did you know your husband took women to number 94 as well?” asked Charlie.

“You really have been digging for muck, haven't you?” Dorothy Mills asked bitterly, but looking down to shield her eyes. “Stephen often needed secretarial assistance. Naturally—they had only one girl at European Opportunities Ltd. I suppose policemen always believe the worst, don't they?”

Charlie had had enough of the pantomime.

“And did you accept that it was just secretarial assistance he
was after when he brought girls back here and took them upstairs?” he asked.

“He didn't!” she cried, in a voice that was getting progressively more unconvincing. “What kind of filthy nonsense have you been listening to?”

“Janet Sheffield struck me as a very truthful young lady,” Charlie said.

There was a long silence, then Dorothy Mills muttered feebly, “Stephen wasn't perfect. What man is these days?”

“Mrs Mills, bringing your girlfriend home, flaunting her at your wife, and then going upstairs and bedding her is not just ‘not being perfect.' I think the time has come for you to be honest with us, don't you?”

Again she sat there, thinking, the ticking clock the only sound in the room. Then she turned to Oddie.

“Could you arrange for someone to be with my father? I should like to make a statement, and that had better be at the police station, hadn't it?”

Oddie slipped out into the hall to radio to headquarters. Charlie sat impassive, but even he was surprised when Mrs Mills turned to him and said almost conversationally: “I think it will be best to tell the truth about him, don't you?”

“It will, much the best. I think you'll find we know a lot of it already.”

“I don't think so. Most of it only I can know.”

Then she stayed quiet until a car came with the inevitable policewoman to look after the old man. Charlie offered Mrs Mills his arm; she got up from the chair and walked out ahead of them to the car.

•   •   •

When they got to police headquarters in the centre of Leeds, Mrs Mills waited quietly in the outer office, a nondescript lady
who could have come in about a lost dog. When Oddie had arranged an interview room she followed him obediently as if she were one. But when all three had sat down and Oddie was getting out a tape, she showed that she had a mind of her own.