‘I can take you there,’ said Stacie suddenly. ‘I don’t know the address, but I remember the house.’
‘We call in?’ asked Cori of Grey alone, knowing the Superintendent was waiting on their return.
‘We could have Esther in the hour.’
‘Come on then,’ she said to all, ‘the car’s this way.’
Chapter 15 — The Wheelwrights
In Cornelia Smith’s experience, it was often the husband who had the larger car, the wife the smaller. But not in her family, she needing the fast and also capacious modern estate in her civic role; while Brough Smith, ever the technological connoisseur, considered that it offered a certain cachet in his standing amongst those under his charge to see their boss arrive for work in the tiniest of European two-seaters. Were it not for the practicality that underlined even his most expressive impulses, he would have even gone for the convertible.
‘Why didn’t you park by the shops?’ Cori and the Inspector were asked by Stacie, as the group walked she short distance across the Hills estates to where Cori had parked. With the question left unanswered and the Kehoes piled into the back seat, they sped into the older part of town.
‘So, Stacie,’ asked Grey as they drove, ‘what were you studying for with Stella? What’s your dream?’
‘I want to stay in the Sixth Form and study English.’
‘And she’ll get there too,’ beamed her father, ‘with the results she’s getting.’
‘Then we wish you all the best.’
The house in question was indeed distinct from its neighbours: a kind of ranch-style dwelling, possibly Spanish in inspiration, detached though smaller in scale than might be found on the set of a spaghetti western and hemmed in by the trees at either side of the garden. What was important though was that with its distinctive roof tiles and pale terracotta colouring it was memorable to Stacie, and she was certain when she picked it out.
The Inspector got out alone and rang the bell. As soon as Cori saw a figure move behind the frosted glass and open the porch door, he waved back at her, this being her cue to drop the Kehoes at the station to have someone take Stacie’s statement, before coming back to collect her colleague.
‘Mr Night?’ asked Grey as the porch door opened.
‘Wheelwright.’ answered the man who had a cordless phone in his hand and seemed all of a dither.
‘Inspector Rase, Southney Police. You haven’t been answering your phone.’
‘Sorry, it’s been a hectic couple of days. I’ve only just got back myself.’
‘Where from?’
He stared at the Inspector like he didn’t know that asking questions was his job.
‘Work, if you must know, before they forget what I look like.’
‘Does Esther Night live here?’
‘My wife and I are Esther’s foster parents.’
‘Is Esther here, Mr Wheelwright?’
‘No, she’s with her mother in Leicester. It’s Esther you want to talk about?’
‘We do, and really rather urgently.’
The man paused before resigning himself to the inevitable, ‘Then perhaps my wife is the best person to speak to. She’s been visiting the family this morning. She’ll be back any minute. Will you come in? Can I get you a drink?’
Even letting Wheelwright lead him through the several interlinking rooms that led to the lounge meant they didn’t get properly started for another minute, Grey asking as they walked,
‘Then until your wife arrives perhaps you could fill me in on a bit of the background?’
But it was his host who made sure he said his piece first upon reaching the room,
‘Well, if you could hold on for fifteen minutes. The call I was making when you arrived,’ he said gesturing with the phone still in his hand, ‘was to Esther’s social worker. She’s on her way over here too, and I would prefer any discussion about Esther to be in their presence.’
Grey held his temper, ‘Mr Wheelwright, this isn’t a case of truant or whatever other trouble you think Esther might have gotten herself into.’
‘No,’ the man’s face turned to Grey’s, serious but without anger. ‘It’s about Stella Dunbar, isn’t it. We’d read that she’d died.’
‘And did you know that Esther could have been one of the last people to see her alive?’
‘She had her lesson that evening, yes.’
‘We believe that Esther was back there at nearly ten o’clock.’ Grey could see he hadn’t known this.
‘And when was Stella killed?’
‘Not very long after. Mr Wheelwright, why did Esther leave town?’
‘Perhaps my wife can tell us that when she arrives.’
‘You didn’t know she was going?’
‘No, we didn’t know Esther had gone till she didn’t come home on Monday night.’
‘You didn’t raise the alarm?’
‘Her mother called us before midnight, otherwise we would have.’
‘How did she get to Leicester?’
‘By pure luck it seems: she jumped the last bus.’
‘And how did she..?’
‘She has twenty pounds on her for emergencies. If she asks us to replenish it we don’t ask why. It’s a trust thing, Inspector: building up her confidence in other people by showing we have confidence in her; the same reason why we don’t question her too harshly if she’s ever out later than expected.’
‘A teenager could take advantage of such a set up.’
‘Esther doesn’t, she’s a good girl. I only hope all this won’t…’
There was a sound of cars pulling up as if in convoy, and then a clatter of bodies and luggage coming through doors. From the hallway Grey heard:
‘Ah, hello Janice.’
‘Hello Louise.’
‘And, who are you?’
‘Sergeant Smith. My Inspector is already talking to your husband.’
‘And why wasn’t I called about this? You know we recommend being present for any discussion with the police.’
The men were then descended on by a flock of women.
‘Jeff, what are you doing talking with the police without Janice here?’
‘Love, we’ve barely gotten past introductions. Now everyone sit down, and I’ll make a pot of tea.’
Jeff Wheelwright returned with the tea things to join a group sat in plush leather armchairs and two-seat sofas around a low glass coffee table. The group comprised the Wheelwrights Jeff and Louise, their social worker Janice (whose surname they would later learn was Roper) and the two detectives.
‘Shall I be mother?’ As the one standing to serve Jeff naturally took charge of conversation,
‘Now the police are here as they think Esther may have been at the Cedars later than we thought on the night her tutor died.’
‘We read of the death in the paper yesterday, Inspector,’ said Janice. ‘Today’s issue says you believe it’s murder now?’
‘We know it was; and there was a second resident murdered last night, though some way away from the building.’
‘Oh my.’
‘It gets worse.’ Jeff was sitting down with his own cup, finally. ‘From what you were saying as you came in, you think Esther may have been there near the time the died?’
This bought glances from the other women as if to say, so you two had been talking about the case before we got here… However Louise Wheelwright, calmer now she was sat down after her journey, though none the less stressed for that, eventually conceded,
