‘I wasn’t sleeping, he drugged me.’
‘Drugged?’
‘Slipped me a sedative I reckon, the Duty Manager too.’
‘Why?’
‘To not be notice slipping away? To not be missed by the Manager at breakfast? To be absolutely sure he’d have time to do this?’
‘What about the Constable outside?’
‘He’s there to stop people getting in, not the residents leaving. Waldron told him he had an early start.’
Now it was Rose’s turn to take a moment out in confusion; but Glass just pushed this imagined advantage,
‘Rase here must have old him what was going on.’
The Superintendent spun on him, ‘You stop right there! If you’ve a case to make you make it at the station and in private, you hear?’
‘Well sir, please count on me doing just that.’
Rose’s head was still shaking, ‘Right now I’m not sure what to think about how any of you have behaved.’
‘Me?’ asked Glass incredulously. ‘What have I done?’
‘You can ask me that… after you let a suspect get away from under your nose, with men crawling all over him? And you’re laying down judgement on others?’
‘But, sir.’
‘”But, sir” nothing.’
‘Then I would just like it put on record that I was in favour of bringing Mars in for questioning last night.’
‘Noted. That was my call, you all witnessed it. Lord, will you look at us here: what a mess. What state’s Mars in?’
‘He’ll be injured, bleeding; might have hurt himself more getting over the fence.’
‘Then a six foot-plus man in such a state is hardly inconspicuous. Get everyone out there and get him found.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Glass left the room in as calm a manner as he had answered that last question, but Grey knew that inside he’d be seething. It had been the kind of meeting that you witnessed only rarely over the span of a career, and which you were lucky to get out of with everyone involved keeping their jobs. In this case the focus was obviously Glass’ anger, and Grey couldn’t see the fall-out of it meaning any less than a resignation: either Glass’ own, or his forcing someone else’s.
‘And what about you, Grey?’ asked Rose after he’d gone. ‘Are you fit?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good, because whatever’s gone on here we need you working it all out.’
‘But I couldn’t have guessed at this…’
‘It’s our job to guess, isn’t it? Isn’t that what Glass’ lot are always being told? To stick to pounding the beat and to leave the deducing to CID? Take a minute, then I need you out searching.’
Left alone in the room, Grey had his first proper look at any part of the Mars house: at the dark furniture Ludmila had mentioned; and above the unused fireplace a picture that, even had he not already heard of it, could not have failed to catch the attention.
In dark shades of grey and brown were rendered jagged mountains reaching up into the sky; and in front of them, so small you had to get up close to see, a bear, it’s fur almost black, up on its hind legs, its front claws outstretched. Beneath it were two men almost off their feet, one turning and scrambling away, as the other tried hopelessly in vain to get a round off from his shotgun before the raging beast was upon them.
What was the name painted in the bottom right hand corner: “ Bellow ”, “ Barrow ”? The inscription in the gilded frame read, “ Bear Rearing at Hunters ”.
Avoiding the crowded hall, he found a connecting door through to an equally austere dining room — where only one chair was not pushed neatly back beneath the table — and from there another door led through to the kitchen. This final room was generally spick and span: among the cups and cereal bowls in the sink were only three large plates, the same number of dirty knives and forks. It was an obvious deduction for Grey that the cleaners had been sent away these past three days; this was Mars back in bachelor-mode, keeping his cleaning to a minimum.
Chapter 24 — Social Services II
Professional disappointment didn’t even come into it, as Cori acknowledged they wouldn’t have the answers they needed from Esther today. The teenager was still a child, soft in the centre, not yet hardened by the world no matter the blows it appeared to be throwing her. So, sat in that comfortable, colourful room alone, Cori did what she was taught to do, and put herself in Esther’s situation that crucial afternoon.
What would Esther have spotted from the letter as she tried to read it? That the painting mentioned could only be the one in her father’s house; also that the names of the purchasers were Mars; and if she had ever been told that her grandfather’s name had been Samuel, then that ‘Mr S Mars’ was as likely as not him. The next deduction was the crucial one; and depending on how clearly Esther was thinking at the time and on how much her mind was able to admit to itself, she would have realised something somewhere between at the very least, that in having this letter in her flat meant that her tutor, Stella had something to do with her family; and at most, that Stella had somehow been, in a previous existence, nothing less than her grandfather’s wife, her father’s mother, her own grandmother.
Cori wondered whether those facts would all have been too much at once; not that deep down Esther wouldn’t have begun to realise them. But such speculation was all academic, for without anything on tape or any route of Esther’s discovery getting to Patrick Mars, then Cori and her fellow officers were in the same situation they had been in last night: that of fiercely believing Mars’ guilt, but having no way of proving that he knew where Stella was living to be able to go and attack her there.
She switched her phone back on, and felt it buzz at least five times. The briefest of calls to the station confirmed the bare bones of what had gone on elsewhere this morning, and had her up and looking for Janice. She would be able to tell Cori of the procedure now with regards to Esther’s interview, and whether it wouldn’t be worth her while instead heading back to the station. In the tiny kitchen at the centre, Cori found Janice with Maisie Night,
‘How’s Esther?’
‘Better, thank you. She wanted some time alone.’
‘That’s understandable.’
‘Drink?’ asked Janice.
‘No, that’s what I’ve come to ask you. There’s a lot going on back at the station, and if you don’t think there’s any prospect… then I might go back for a bit and help out?’
Janice looked similarly doubtful, ‘I don’t think we can ask Esther to go through that again today.’
Cori had guessed as much, but something held her back from leaving; Maisie finally asking her,
‘You’ll have figured it out then, Sergeant, what’s upset her?’
‘Did you know Stella yourself?’ she asked back.
‘I knew of her,’ answered Maisie. ‘I’d read her name on papers. Patrick hardly spoke of her.’
‘But he kept her things, didn’t he: the glassware?’
‘Yes, there were nice pieces in the house and I’d guessed they weren’t from his father. That house needed all the brightening up it could get. She collected silver too — I’d seen the receipts — though there was none of that there by my time. Maybe Samuel had sold it off?’
‘So did you know who Esther was referring to when she asked you if you knew a Stella Dunbar?’
‘No, it didn’t click, until I saw the letter later on. In fact I remembered, when Esther showed me the letter, that Patrick had told me the story of when they bought that awful bear painting.’
