leer at Kathy and walked over to the two officers to shake their hands.
‘We’re sorry to disturb you and your husband, Mrs Winter,’ Kathy said. ‘It must have been upsetting for you both.’
‘Oh, yeah.’ Like her husband, her accent was broad cockney, which she had made huskier over the years, especially with strangers. ‘It was unexpected. Even though she was over seventy, she was always very lively. She was a real character.’ The way she narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips might have been taken to mean that ‘character’ was the most charitable word she could find for her mother-in-law.
‘I felt so helpless, too, when Eleanor phoned, not being able to find Terry, and then having to tell him such a dreadful thing over the phone, when he did eventually ring in.’ She looked angelic as she laid this out so sweetly. Her husband’s chair squeaked more loudly, and a frown passed briefly across his face.
‘Your husband was out yesterday afternoon?’ Kathy said easily, girl to girl.
‘Yeah,’ Terry Winter broke in. ‘I often am on a Sunday afternoon. That’s when I go round the salons, checking stock for the next week. It’s the only chance I get.’
‘What salons are those, sir?’ Kathy asked.
‘Victor Haircare. I franchise five salons in the south-east.’
‘Oh yes, I know them.’ Kathy smiled. ‘That’s where I go, on the Finchley Road.’
‘No, that’s not one of mine. Mine are all south of the river. Lewisham, Forest Hill, Peckham, New Cross and Deptford.’
‘So you drive round all of those on a Sunday afternoon?’
‘Yeah. The managers leave out their stock books for me and I order up for the next week. I don’t let them do that.’
‘What time did you leave home yesterday?’
‘About 2.’
‘More like 1.30, wasn’t it, darling?’
Caroline smiled sympathetically at her husband, then turned to Brock. ‘He works so hard.’
‘Maybe,’ said Terry, shrugging.
‘And Eleanor phoned when?’
‘Oh, about 5.30. There was a programme I’d been watching on holidays in the Pacific. It had just ended. Well, first I tried Terry’s car phone, and there was no reply, so then I started phoning round all the salons. But there was no reply at any of them, either. I was getting really worried.’ She turned to Kathy who noticed her startling violet eyes, and wondered whether she was wearing coloured contact lenses.
‘I thought, what if Terry’s had an accident, just at the time when his mother’s had one too. Wouldn’t that be just too awful?’
‘I was at Deptford, the last one.’ Terry’s words cut across the end of her sentence. ‘Before I went in I parked the car and went to the cafe next door for a cup of coffee. When I got through in the salon I got into the car and thought I’d better ring Caroline to let her know I was on my way.’
‘At what time?’
Terry looked as if he was uncertain, but Caroline smoothly answered, ‘Oh, well after 6. I was going round the twist. Well, I’d phoned all the numbers twice by this time and I didn’t know what to do. I was on the point of calling the police, you know?’
‘Oh Christ, Caroline, you’re exaggerating. It wasn’t that long.’
‘So after you eventually spoke to your wife, sir, you turned directly back towards the City and went to your mother’s house?’
‘Yeah, sure.’
‘Arriving there’-Kathy consulted her notebook-‘at6.33.’
There was a moment’s silence, and then Caroline got to her feet brightly. ‘I’ll make some tea,’ she said. ‘OK for everyone?’
Kathy got up too and said, ‘I’ll give you a hand, if that’s all right. I’m always nosy to see other people’s kitchens, actually.’
‘Oh well, you’ve come to the wrong place then,’ Caroline said as they went through a panelled connecting door. ‘I’m about to have all this redone.’
Kathy looked around at the gleaming appliances and crisp white ranges of cupboards and units. ‘Oh! It’s beautiful.’
‘No.’ Caroline curled her lip. ‘It’s all wrong. I’ve never liked it much. There’s much better equipment on the market now. And I’m going to have it all done in oak-to go with the house, you know?’
The worktop on the island unit in the middle of the room was covered with open magazines of kitchen designs, but there was no sign of food or recipe books.
Kathy looked round as the door from the hall clicked open and a young woman stood in the opening. She stared at Kathy in surprise.
‘Oh, this is one of our two girls, Sergeant. Alex, say hello to the Sergeant-I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.’
‘Kolla. Kathy Kolla. Hello, Alex. How are you?’
The girl muttered something indistinct and ducked her head. Kathy judged her to be hardly out of her teens. Beneath thick spectacle lenses her eyes looked red and blotchy, and her mother went over to her, crooning sympathetically.
‘All right, luv?’ She turned to Kathy as she put an arm round her daughter’s shoulder. ‘She was really cut up about her gran, weren’t you, luv?’
Kathy saw the girl wince under her mother’s grip. She seemed the most unlikely of offspring for the Winters, physically awkward, socially uncomfortable and apparently uninterested in her appearance. She stood for a moment, ungainly and morose while Caroline dug her long painted nails into her arm, then pulled away and ran back across the hall and up the stairs.
‘She’s upset.’ Caroline screwed up her cute little nose. ‘You don’t need her, do you?’
In the living room, Terry got to his feet. At first it didn’t look as if he knew why, then he pulled out a packet of cigarettes and offered one to Brock, who shook his head. Terry pulled out a small gold lighter and lit up, inhaling deeply on the first drag.
‘This ain’t easy,’ he said. ‘You can understand how someone feels when their mother’s just died. Especially if people are suggesting she might have been murdered.’
‘Of course,’ Brock said. ‘I remember when my mother died. She was in hospital. When I left I got on a bus to go home, and it reached the depot before I realized I’d gone in the opposite direction.’
Terry nodded.
‘The Sergeant wasn’t trying to be intrusive about her will,’ Brock said, his brows knitted with concern. ‘But it was a natural thing to wonder, when we heard the conditions. I suppose I might have been a bit annoyed with my old mum if she’d left me something, but then said in effect I couldn’t have it for, well, who knows? Twenty, thirty years?’
Terry looked at him suspiciously. ‘My aunts are entitled to feel some security at their time of life. I don’t begrudge them that.’
‘They’re quite a formidable pair, your aunts, aren’t they?’ Brock said.
‘Mad as hatters,’ Caroline replied, bringing in the tea, and then, seeing the expression on her husband’s face, corrected herself. ‘No, they’re sweeties really. I get on well with them, especially Peg. I think Eleanor disapproves of me sometimes.’
She giggled and poured out the tea.
6
As they were driving back into London against the evening tide of traffic, Dr Mehta came on the phone. ‘I thought you might like a preliminary report, Brock.’ The disembodied voice of the pathologist filled the car interior.
