“Maybe you misunderstood.”
“Sounds like it.”
“C’mon,” I told him. “Let’s go upstairs. That’s where the story of Tony and Margaret begins and ends.”
The path we’d pioneered the night before was designated with blue tape so we stayed with it, although it wasn’t necessary. In the bedroom little adhesive squares with green arrows on them indicated items of interest that were invisible to my eyes. They were scattered randomly over the carpet near the bed, and concentrated around the disturbed surface of the duvet. Dave bent down and examined the area.
“Doesn’t look like blood,” he announced, straightening up.
“Other bodily fluids,” I suggested. The SOCO had probably found spots and splashes by using an ultra violet lamp or Luminol spray.
Next door was the woman’s room, all done in pink and lace, with a dressing table crowded with the things some ladies need to apply before they can face the world. She wore Obsession perfume and Janet Reger undies. A wedding photograph, similar in style to the one in Latham’s room, stood on the dressing table but pushed to the back, behind all the jars and bottles and aerosols. It was lightly covered with powder either from her compact or left by the fingerprint experts. In it, Silkstone was wearing a morning suit and his wife a traditional white dress. They were a handsome couple and it was impossible to date this one, unlike Mr and Mrs Latham’s.
The husband had his own room. It was furnished in a mock tartan material that looked pretty good and the bookcase was filled with coffee-table manuals about cars. We had classic cars, the world’s fastest cars, the most expensive cars, Ferraris, Porsches, and so on. There were yearbooks about the Grands Prix going back about ten years and a collection of Pirelli and Michelin calendars for a similar period. They were all big glossy books, heavy on pictures, light on words.
I found his reading books on the bottom shelf. They were by people like Dale Carnegie and Mark McCormack, and had titles such as How To Sell Crap To People Who Didn’t Know They Needed It; and What To Do With That Second Million. When this is over, I thought, I could do worse than read one or two of these. Or perhaps even write one.
There was a framed photograph of Silkstone on the wall behind the bed, and another of Nigel Mansell, autographed, on the facing wall. Silkstone was posing beside a Mark II Jaguar and looked about twenty. It was a snapshot, blown up to poster size, and was badly focused, but the numberplate was legible. He had a faint blond fuzz on his head, like a peach, which for a young bloke was seriously bald. Dave joined me as I was staring at it.
“Not as nice as your Jag,” he said.
“It’s not, is it.”
“Ever regret selling it?”
“Mmm, now and again.” I turned to face the other picture. “What do you reckon to that one?” I asked.
“It’s great. Our Daniel would love it.” Daniel was his son, a couple of years younger than daughter Sophie.
“Why Mansell? He’s not a gay icon, is he?”
“No, of course not. He’s a happily married man.”
“He has the moustache.”
“So has Saddam Hussein.”
“He is gay.”
“Yeah, as gay as a tree full of parrots. Listen,” Dave said. “Mansell was the greatest driver of his day, and lots of other days, because he was such a fierce competitor. He liked to win. At everything. That’s why people like Silkstone look up to him. He’s a winners’ icon, not a gay one.”
“Mmm, makes sense,” I agreed.
Dave looked at his watch, saying: “It’s time we were off.”
The friendly neighbourhood spy had informed his contact at the Gazette that I was on the scene, and a reporter was waiting for us as we emerged from The Garth. She had spiky red hair, a ring through her nose and a bullish manner.
“Are you the investigating officer?” she demanded.
“Yes,” I told her, resigning myself to making some sort of statement. “And just who are you?”
She rattled off one of those names that rhymes with itself, like Fay Day or Carrol Barrel, as if it were self- evident who she was and only a parochial fool like myself wouldn’t know. This woman was ambitious, going places, and a small-town murder meant nothing more to her than a by-line. Next week she’d either be applying for Kate Adie’s job or back on hospital radio. “And is the raid on this house related to the murder last evening at West Woods?” she asked.
News travels fast, I thought. I drew a big breath and launched myself into it: “We are investigating a suspicious death at a residence in the West Woods estate,” I told her, “and have arrested a person. Our enquiries have brought us here, where we have found the body of a woman. At this point in the investigation we are not looking for anybody else. Our press office will release further information as and when it becomes available.” I can reel out the cop-speak with the best of them, when I don’t want to say what I’m thinking.
She couldn’t believe her luck. “You mean there’s still a body in there?” she demanded, her eyes gleaming.
“No,” I said. “It was removed earlier this morning, for post-mortem examination. Now if you’ll excuse me.”
She produced a mobile phone — it was hanging on a thong around her neck — and called for a photographer, House of Death headlines buzzing through her head.
The PC on duty asked if I wanted the integrity of the scene maintaining and I said I did. We had a quick word with the house-to-house people, but they had no great revelations for us, and drove back to the nick.
On the way Dave said: “You’re not happy with this, are you?”
“Just playing safe, Dave,” I replied.
“What’s the problem?”
“No problem. According to Silkstone, Latham killed his wife so he killed Latham. Motive — revenge. Taking into consideration the balance of his mind, and all that, he’d be done for manslaughter and could be free in a year.”
“That’s true,” Dave said. “And if he was on remand for a year he could be released straight after the trial.”
“But what if,” I continued, “they were both in on it? What if they were both there when Mrs Silkstone died? That could mean a life sentence. This way, he’s put all the blame on Latham, who is in no position to defend himself.”
Dave thought about it, before saying: “You mean, they were having some sort of three-in-a-bed sex romp, and it all went wrong?”
I glanced sideways at him. “Do people do such things in Heckley?” I asked.
“Not to my knowledge,” he replied.
“Maybe they were over enthusiastic,” I suggested, “and she died. They invented some sort of story but Silkstone thought of a better one. He killed Latham and came to us.”
“It’s a possibility,” Dave agreed.
“Alternatively,” I began, exploring the possibilities, “ perhaps Silkstone did them both, all alone and by himself. It’d be cheaper than a divorce.”
“And tidier,” Dave added.
“And possibly even profitable,” I suggested. “That’s something to look at.”
“We’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Dave cautioned. “Let’s wait for the DNA results.” He was silent for the rest of the way. As we turned into the car-park he said: “The bloke’s lost his wife, Charlie. Don’t forget that.”
“I know,” I replied, adding: “I think I’ll ask the professor to look at the crime scene, see what he thinks.” The professor is the pathologist at Heckley General Hospital, and at that very moment he was turning his blade towards the fair skin of Mrs Margaret Silkstone, subject of our debate. I locked the car doors and we headed for the entrance.
There was a message from Annette waiting for me at the front desk. A neighbour had positively identified Peter Latham, who had died from a single knife wound to the heart. Time of death between three and six o’clock,
