The Maggie Murders (14 page)

And no, she hadn’t felt cheap.
The sex had been electrifying. The man had been passionate, firm and
disappointingly absent when she woke in the morning. Exactly the type of lover
her husband would have approved of. Yet here she stopped, as she realised this
was one exploit she’d never entertain him with now.

She hadn’t been able to remember
his name, because she hadn’t asked for it in the first place. Jane wondered why
this detail kept disturbing her? The room had been paid for in cash and the
signature in the hotel register was illegible.

‘Fancy a night cap?’ Jane’s
meditations on Connie were broken off by Tim appearing in the doorway
proffering the remains of the wine.

‘Why not?’ she smiled and pulled
Tim on to the sofa beside her. Swigging the wine back in one mouthful, she
pushed him back on the sofa and straddled him.

‘Time for me to be bad cop…’

‘What if…?’

But she had already eased herself
out of her t-shirt and freed her breasts.

****

The added police presence in and
around Exmouth was bad news for Nigel Byrne as he returned along the Hulham
Road with a fare. The Ford Granada he’d been loaned by Cedar Cabs was in about
the same state of health as he was. Byrne was overweight, had a smoker’s cough
and if he’d been bothered to keep any of the appointments made for him by Mandy
with their GP, would have discovered he’d developed a serious heart condition;
the car had a bald front tyre, faulty gearbox and a broken taillight. For the
traffic police it was a gift – the detectives in CID might struggle to get the
murder off their books, but here was another crime waiting to be processed,
turned into a statistic and then added to their performance tables. The fact
that Byrne was moonlighting and unlicensed was just the cherry on the top.

The flashing blue lights in the
mirror would have announced to a less complacent man that the game was up, but
Nigel Byrne had been trying to blag his way out of things ever since his mum
had caught him stealing change from her purse. He assured the elderly lady in
the back that he’d have this bit of bother sorted out in no time and that she’d
be down at the tea dance on the front in plenty of time.

He was right about the lady. One
of the supernumeraries attending the murder scene gave Ethel Greenacre good
cause to praise ‘those nice boys in blue’ with her septuagenarian dancing
friends by giving her a ride to the Pavilion, but Nigel Byrne was not able to
smarm his way out of a trip to the station. Even taking the crumpled photos of
Rob and Mikey out of his wallet and trying the hard working father in need of a
break routine on the cops hadn’t worked. A search of the car had turned up the
cannabis he’d picked up for Abel on an earlier trip that day. As he was bundled
into the back of the squad car something other than just self-pity did make its
way into his mind, which was the nagging refrain that this time Mandy would not
forgive him and the knowledge that if she did take the boys to her mum’s again,
this time he wouldn’t be getting them back.

‘Do you believe her?’ Spilsbury
asked as he wheezed into his chair.

‘Partly.‘

‘What about the man she was
screwing?’

‘I’ve checked with the hotel and
no-one can recall taking a booking for a gentleman in Room 12 on the night in
question. There is a signature in the register, but it’s illegible and could
just as easily be her name.’

‘Hardly, a gentleman!’

‘You seemed to be giving her the
once over sir, or is that you just find it difficult to talk to the face when
interviewing taller women?’

‘No need to get sarky, Sergeant.’

‘We’ve put a call in, but trying
to trace a holidaymaker, if he was a holidaymaker, during the tourist season is
going to be like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Mrs Baker’s
description of tall dark and handsome doesn’t exactly help. I’ve asked for an artist’s
impression, but we’ll be lucky to get more than Julio Iglesias sporting an
enormously large cock given her remembrance of that night.’

Spilsbury blushed visibly. It
wasn’t just the effort of having walked down the corridor in the summer heat
which made his blotchy, booze damaged skin redder than before, rather the fact
that Jane now swore like a regular bloke. He could have put up with the more
earthy comments from a proper policeman, but not from a member of ‘the gentler
sex’ as he liked to term all the ones he didn’t regard as whores or tarts. This
expectation of how nice women should speak extended to Mrs Spilsbury, his
daughter and the ladies at the cricket club. Perhaps not everyone could speak
as if they were in an Ealing Comedy, but at least they might try!

‘Can we put her in the frame,
Sergeant?’

‘If we don’t believe that story
about her husband being okay with her sexual escapades?’

‘Which is frankly rubbish.’

‘Then we could argue she had no
use for a man who could no longer get it up for her?’

‘No need to spell it out woman,
we’ve had quite enough sordid details for one day.’

‘So you’ve no philosophy on the
sexually liberated modern young woman expressing her physical desires outside
the bounds of a conventional relationship, sir?’

Spilsbury’s eyes grew a little
more bulbous, if that were possible and the sweat stains appearing under his
tan suit jacket were rippling even further out.

‘I just want to know if we can
make a case against her?’

‘For having sex outside
marriage?’

Spilsbury was growing
increasingly apoplectic as he loosened his kipper tie. He moved uncomfortably
in his seat and his usually pasty face reddened further.

‘For murdering her husband! I
don’t care if she’s the Whore of Babylon; I just want someone put away for
this!’

Spilsbury rather spoilt his
moment by jabbing a stubby finger in Jane’s direction, whilst at the same time
overturning half a Styrofoam cup of cold coffee onto his lap as he swept it
with his sleeve. Its contents formed an unsavoury alliance with the crumbs from
the pasty he had just consumed; a force of nature that his Burton’s trousers
did not seem up to repelling.

Whilst the D.C.I. spread the
stain further across his lap, as he angrily swooped at it with some Kleenex
supplied by Jane, she reflected more keenly on Connie’s possible guilt.

‘As far as I can see, Sir –
careful you’re rubbing it in not out, she had nothing to gain from leaving her
husband. John Howard, the man from the charity she named as her lover, was
clearly very embarrassed to be talking to us. He’s a local councillor and quote
‘happily married’. He’s admitted to the affair, which I’d say was mutually
beneficial. They’d both get their rocks off two or three times a month and then
go back to playing Happy Families. I wouldn’t say either of them would have
used the ‘L’ word, it was just plain and, from Connie’s description, not such
simple sex.’

Spilsbury looked up unamused from
his clean up endeavours, as Jane passed him her remaining hanky.

‘Connie doesn’t need money
either. The house was in her name and Calum had nothing apart from his
disability pension. His compensation money went on converting their house to
his needs. To be honest, I think she loved him and pitied him.’

‘Pitied?’

‘He was a hero, sir. Served with
distinction in Northern Ireland. An all-round action man until The Falklands
placed him in a wheelchair. Looking at the photos of him in uniform, you can
see why Connie fancied him. I imagine Mrs Spilsbury took quite a shine to you
when she saw you in uniform.’

In spite of himself, the D.I’s
podgy face gained the impression of a smile as the younger woman’s half barb
turned itself into an unintended compliment.

‘We’ve also got nothing from
forensics to tie her to the scene.’

‘But she’s got no alibi?’

‘If she was at the hotel, then she’s
been honest when she says she was very discreet in leaving it, though I’d say
she’s got previous for slipping away from assignations like that.’

‘Anything to tie her in with the
other murder?’

‘They were both on election
nights, involve arson and took place within a couple of miles of each other;
however there’s no obvious family or financial connection between the victims.
Yet I still believe they’re linked.’

‘Well, I don’t.’

‘Care to elaborate, Sir?’

This was most certainly sarcasm,
though if Jane had been conscious of meaning to express it out loud, she would
have been surprised.

‘Former DI Sobers seemed to think
there was some homophobic reason behind Kellow’s death. I can’t say I’m in
whole hearted agreement, but that looks like the best lead we had. Sgt Baker
certainly wasn’t a woofter, whatever the truth behind his wife’s bizarre story
and so we’re looking at either jealousy or money. Dig a bit deeper into their
finances, for all we know the wife’s blown her fortune on one of those share
deals and has an insurance policy on hubby’s life.’

Jane’s face remained neutral, but
her husband could have told from the tilt of her head and the way her fingers
curled around the edge of her chair that she didn’t buy into Spilsbury’s
theory.

****

Again it was Debbie who provided
Jane with the tip that led her to discovering more about Connie’s other extra
marital affairs. The possibility that her last but one lover, John Howard might
have killed Calum Baker out of jealousy had been a non-starter. This lead had fizzled
out, when they’d discovered the local councillor had indeed spent the night of
the election celebrating the results coming in with the crème de la crème of
the local Tory party. Jane just hoped their other suspects weren’t all so well
connected as Connie’s handsome lover.

Fortunately, what Debbie had
unearthed looked more promising. The Catholic Church had become fairly adept
about keeping its dirty linen out of the papers, but unfortunately for them
Debbie’s younger cousin had been attending St Winifred’s RC Primary School when
Nativity-Gate had kicked off.

To be fair, it wasn’t the type of
story which was likely to make even the inside pages of a local weekly paper.
Some of the Red Tops might have made something of the more salacious details
along the lines of ‘Nativity Play Love Triangle Shocker’ or ‘Away in a Ménage’,
yet this one had managed to remain a very local scandal.

A visibly pregnant teacher on
maternity leave had suddenly appeared at the back of the school hall on the
last night of the Christmas Term in 1983 and had started shouting the odds
about her husband having an affair with another member of staff. Thankfully,
the children’s Nativity Play had actually finished and the Head was conducting
the raffle when the incident happened.  A lot of details seemed to have been
embellished over the ensuing years – Jane for one did not believe that anyone
in real life would have called out ‘She’s a fucking whore and she’s going to
burn in the fires of Hell!’

What did interest Jane was that
one of the people involved was Connie Baker and one of the few things that most
people agreed on when Jane sought to substantiate the story was that Catherine
Sullivan had threatened to kill both her and her family.

St Winifred’s RC Primary School
stood two thirds of a way up a lane leading away from the town centre to the
hospital at the top. From this level you could make out the blue estuary in the
distance over the roof tops of the town houses below.  A convent stood in one
part of the grounds, whilst the school itself was a red brick Victorian
building.

Jane had been disconcerted to
find out the head was a nun, she wasn’t sure how she was going to handle a nun.

As it was, the dark wooden
bookshelves, filled with impressive educational and philosophical volumes, made
Sister Ruth’s cramped Headmistress’s office even more intimidating than she’d
imagined. Sister Ruth, an iron haired matron of what appeared to be half a
century’s teaching experience, but which was probably more like thirty years,
interrogated her from behind her pebble lenses.

‘Tea? Or would you prefer coffee?
I can make you some squash if you’d prefer? Or would you like to be naughty and
have a small sherry, it is after school now?’

Her friendliness surprised Jane
and placed her on her guard. She’d conducted enough interviews herself using
this technique.

‘Just a black coffee and no sugar
please.’

‘Ah, a little sugar wouldn’t
spoil your beautiful figure, my dear.’

Was the woman flirting with her?
Jane hadn’t been expecting a lesbian come on in a Catholic primary school.

‘No, just black please.’

‘Like my habit, ‘said Sister Ruth
smiling, ‘are you sure I couldn’t tempt you to a biscuit? They’re Sister Anne’s
special recipe?’

Jane felt it was best to humour
her and so took a biscuit as the best possible way of getting down to brass
tacks.

‘Now it’s our little sex scandal
you’d be wanting to talk about, if I’m not mistaken?’

Jane’s face would have lost her a
game of poker at that moment.

‘Why else would some big shot
police woman want to see me?’ smiled Sister Ruth, ‘Another biscuit?’

Jane accepted – the woman was
being genuinely nice to her – wasn’t she supposed to be rapping her over the
knuckles with a ferula, or locking her up in a cupboard?

‘Now how did you know that?’

‘Well, no-one from the outside world
ever seems to really want to discuss the good things which happen here: the
happy children, the hundreds of milk bottle tops we donated to the Blue Peter
appeal, or the lovely services we have at the end of term, but if there’s a
sniff of a scandal my telephone seems to ring more times in an afternoon than
in the preceding ten years. Having been here since 1962, I can tell you the
Sullivan business was the closest we’ve come to having a scandal in that time.’

Jane felt herself redden. The
kindly sister was making her feel like a gutter journalist of the worst type.

‘As I said on the telephone this
is related to two on-going murder enquiries and I can assure you no word of
this will get out to the press.’

‘Well maybe if it did it wouldn’t
be such a bad thing. The trouble about these things is they can quickly build
up in people’s minds to becoming worse than it really was. Even now I hear the
most distorted rumours being whispered as truths at the school gates from
parents who should know better than to make idle gossip. Though it’s the
visiting priests are the worst; they love a good bit of tittle-tattle!’

‘Please give me your side of the
story,’ asked Jane opening her notebook, ‘it probably has no bearing on our
investigation, but I’d like to hear it anyway.’

‘It was a sad business and cost
St Winifred’s two good teachers and a lot of trouble as well.’

‘Good teachers?’ queried Jane.

‘I’m not here to judge their
morals, but Mr and Mrs Sullivan were both good at teaching their classes.’

‘Yet the school let them go?’

‘Well Catherine Sullivan,
Catherine Moloney as was, didn’t want to come back. She was on maternity leave
at the time of it all and her husband Andrew Sullivan resigned.’

‘And Connie Baker, the teaching
assistant?’

‘She went before she was pushed.’

‘You would have sacked her?’

‘Our Lord may forgive her; I fear
our School Governors wouldn’t have.’

‘Did you know about Connie
Baker’s affair with Andrew Sullivan?’

‘Not until Catherine’s outburst
at the Christmas Play – that’s the one thing I found most distasteful about the
whole business, involving the children. The poor, wee bairns should have been
spared that. It took us quite some time to try and settle that one, although
fortunately we had the holidays to recover and the younger they are, the more
quickly they get used to changed circumstances. Fortunately, we already had a
very good teacher covering Kate’s maternity leave and I was able to take
Andrew’s classes.’

‘What happened at the Nativity
Play?’

Sister Ruth sat back in her chair
and took a sip of her tea.

‘It wasn’t what people made it
out to be afterwards. The children had finished the play and were being
gathered together by their parents. Some were having more photographs taken and
the rest were collecting squash and biscuits from the serving hatch. I saw
Catherine coming into the school hall and was pleasantly surprised to see her,
as she’d been off since the summer on maternity leave. When I got closer, I’m
short sighted as you can probably tell; I saw she was in some distress…’

Again, Sister Ruth paused during
her narrative. For the first time in the interview, Jane thought the nun looked
her age.

‘I noticed Catherine looking
around the hall; she was caressing her belly and was on the edge of tears. Then
I followed her gaze to the kitchen. Andrew and Connie had been helping to serve
drinks to the parents. He was holding a glass in his hand and smiling at her as
she seemingly brushed a crumb off his cheek. I imagine Catherine saw more in
that gesture than I did, or took it as the final proof of something she already
knew, as she suddenly swept her arm downwards and scattered all the miniature
figures making up the Nativity Scene which I’d placed by the Christmas tree.’