‘If you get on all right with the son, that’s good,’ Halliwell said as it became clear to him that some advice was being sought. ‘That can be difficult, taking on family as well, if you’re serious, I mean. I’ve got two stepchildren. It was no picnic at first.’
‘Easier when they’re grown-up with their own lives to lead.’
‘Is she talking about marriage, guv?’
‘Whoa — not yet, but I guess it will come up. We’ve slept together.’
‘And are you as keen as she is?’
‘You know me better than most, Keith. I’m resistant to change, but I can’t say I enjoy the single life.’
‘Ideally, you’d like to re-run your marriage to Steph?’
‘Dead right, and that’s not fair to any woman. If I move in with Paloma I’m going to have to break with the past.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Well, now you know what’s bugging me. It doesn’t excuse me for snapping at you just now.’
The traffic was moving again.
‘If it’s any help, I’m well happy at home,’ Halliwell said, shifting the gearstick. ‘That’s how I put up with all the shit at work.’
The desk sergeant beckoned as they entered the nick. With a surge of optimism, Diamond went over. ‘Have we got him?’
‘Got who, sir?’
‘Lang — the man on the run.’
‘I haven’t heard anything.’
‘So why call me over?’
‘You’ve got a visitor upstairs. A Mrs Agnes Tidmarsh, friend of the dead woman. She came in twenty minutes ago and offered to help.’
36
‘F irst-time caller, as they say on those radio phone-ins,’ Agnes Tidmarsh said, ‘so my knees are knocking, but I heard you on the television and thought it was my duty to come in.’ She had tinted red hair back-brushed into a kind of aureole and eyes so dark that the iris and pupil merged into one. Her pale face was heart-shaped, dominated by the cheekbones and ending in a pointed chin. She was in black, a cobwebby blouse and calf-length skirt with a fringed hem. Difficult to tell if it was mourning for her friend or fashionable gothic. The only jewellery was a hefty silver cross pendant on a black leather tie.
Diamond said, ‘All I know about you is your voice from the answerphone. Are you local?’
‘If Midsomer Norton is local.’
‘Local enough.’
Young DC Gilbert, sitting in on this interview, said, ‘Isn’t that the village with the stream running through the high street?’
‘Yes,’ she said, giving him an appreciative smile, ‘it used to flood regularly until they dug a drainage tunnel.’
Diamond let Gilbert know with a look that small talk wasn’t required. To Agnes Tidmarsh he said, ‘You came in out of duty, you said?’
‘Or friendship.’ A shiver ran through her. ‘I still can’t believe this. We were friends since university. I was her chief bridesmaid.’
‘Which university?’
‘Oxford. Joss read modern languages at St Hilda’s. She was very good.’
‘And you?’
‘Criminology.’ She reacted with a disarming smile when he raised his eyebrows. ‘Which I was hopeless at. I’m afraid I overindulged in the social life. I left without taking my degree — or getting a husband, for that matter. But I’m not here to talk about myself. Is Marty still missing?’
This required a quick mental adjustment. Marty was Martin Steel, the husband.
‘He is. We’ll come to him. You were telling me about Jocelyn. What did she do after Oxford?’
‘Went straight to Luxembourg as an interpreter in the European Court of Justice. Real pressure, but very fulfilling. After about five years she was moved to London and did government work. That was when she met Marty. He was a solicitor with a top London law firm. They married quite soon and lived in Holland Park. Gave lovely dinner parties. I met some terrifyingly clever people there and would have felt completely inadequate, but Joss was marvellous. Made a point of drawing me into the conversations and giving me confidence. She was a brilliant hostess and a dear friend.’
‘So they didn’t come down here until later?’
‘Only on visits. The West Country had been Joss’s first home. Her parents lived at Monkton Combe. Her mother still does, but in an old people’s home. Sweet little lady. How she’ll stand up to this I’ve no idea.’
‘She’s taken it bravely.’
She glanced at him, then at Paul Gilbert. ‘She’s been told?’
‘I saw her this afternoon,’ Diamond said, wanting to move on.
‘Did you? That was difficult, I’m sure. I couldn’t have faced that. But now she knows, I’ll visit her tomorrow. I know where she is.’
‘When did they buy the house at Midford?’
‘Four years ago, at least. Marty changed his job. There was a falling-out with some of his colleagues. Not his fault. He’s brilliant with clients and they were jealous of his success. Two or three of them ganged up on him and were taking the work that was rightly his, so he resigned and bought into this partnership in Bristol. By then Joss’s mother was living alone down here and they saw it as an opportunity to move closer, and keep an eye on the old lady.’
‘Joss retired at that point?’
‘Yes, she became the country gentlewoman, as she used to say. She’d learned to ride when she was growing up and the prospect of owning her own horse and riding each day excited her. But I think — well, I know for a fact — she didn’t realise how isolated she would feel. We’d meet sometimes for a heart-to-heart and I could tell she was restless. Marty worked long hours, weekends sometimes, setting up this new legal practice. Joss was bright and gifted, very friendly, but didn’t enjoy her own company.’
‘Depressed?’
‘That’s putting it too strongly. Frustrated. What she really wanted was to start a family, but it doesn’t always happen when you want it. The sad part is that a couple of years before they moved down here she had a termination. She was in that high-pressure government job and it wasn’t the right time. Neither of them was ready for a family then. She kept it quiet from everyone, including her mother.’
‘And when the right time came along, the stork didn’t?’
She gave a little shrug as if to say that life was like that.
‘Did she ever discuss the fitness regime?’
‘Well, of course. I saw that gym with all the machines, and the swimming pool and the hot tub. She had her own trainer, you know. I used to tease her about him.’
‘In what way?’
She blushed and shook her head. ‘Girlie talk. Unrepeatable.’
‘About what they got up to?’
‘What they might have got up to, but didn’t. I could only joke about it because we both knew she was…’ She paused for the right word. ‘I was going to say undersexed, but I don’t mean that.
Well-behaved is more like it. Having a fling with anyone else was out of the question.’
Diamond listened to her evaluation of her friend with an increasing sense that there was some jealousy behind it.
‘This personal trainer. Did you ever meet him?’
‘No. I knew he was there Friday afternoons, so I stayed away.’
