'Jesus. And for this I give up my Saturday?'
'I could invite her up here for a while,' said Ellie.
'All right, you win. But listen, are you sure you feel OK?'
'Never better. I'll give Thelma a ring, maybe. Now what was it you said about breakfast?'
Later as he cleared away the tray, he said, 'Are you sure there's nothing else you want?'
She looked lugubriously down at her swelling breasts and belly.
'How about a nice big shiny egg we could take turns to sit on? And when it hatched, out would pop a nice little brat about six years old with your eyes and my nose all neatly dressed and talking and ready for school.'
He smiled so uncertainly that she laughed at him and pulled him down and kissed his mouth.
'OK,' she said. 'I'll say the right things and do the dewy-eyed bit, but not all the time. And whatever I have, I promise you I'm bringing the little sod up to be a transvestite.'
'Everyone'll be transvestite by the time he's old enough to enjoy it,' said Pascoe. 'Me, I sometimes wish I could spend my Saturdays lying in bed, contributing to the Life Force.'
'Get knotted,' she said amicably. 'It's the police force that's got you hooked. Now push off, or you might miss being in at the kill and you know how you'd hate that.'
He was on the landing when she called out, 'Peter!'
He rushed back in full of anxiety.
'Yes? What's wrong?'
'Nothing. Christ, you mustn't be so nervous. You'll never last another four months! No, it was just what Andy was saying about that boy's statement. I just thought.'
'All right, Sherlock. Shoot.'
'Well,' said Ellie, running her fingers through her hair. 'You know you laughed at me when I said that perhaps what the medium said in her trance might have come out of some time-slip caused by the violence of death?'
'Yes, I remember it well.'
'All right. But now there doesn't need to be a timeslip, does there? I mean, if she didn't meet her boyfriend, who knows what time she got killed? The sun could have been shining anyway. Perhaps that medium woman got some of it right after all.'
Sergeant Wield had the perfect excuse for calling on Mulgan at home. He had promised to pick up the list of Brenda Sorby's transactions on the day of her death, but developments had prevented him from doing so the previous evening.
Mrs Mulgan, looking worried almost to the point of fear, admitted him first to the entrance hall of their ugly detached bungalow where he spoke with her in a low voice for several minutes, then to the lounge where Mulgan, reading the Daily Mail in his shirtsleeves, looked annoyed and made it clear he'd have preferred to deal with the sergeant on the doorstep. Unabashed, Wield accepted Mrs Mulgan's offer of a coffee.
'What use can this stuff be to you anyway?' asked Mulgan after his wife had gone out.
'The information about the money was very useful indeed, sir,' said Wield.
'Yes. Well, that was different. These other transactions can hardly be relevant. I hope you're not going to be bothering our customers.'
'I'm sure every one of them would want to help catch our man, sir. Every little helps. Someone somewhere knows something.'
'You mean, someone's protecting this lunatic?' said Mulgan incredulously.
'Maybe. Or perhaps someone doesn't realize what they know. Could be you, sir.'
'Me?' said Mulgan, thick lips pursed. 'Hardly. I gave you a comprehensive statement.'
'First statements aren't usually. Comprehensive, I mean. I mean, they can't be, really.'
'First statements.'
'Oh yes, sir. Often one's enough, but when we get a bit bogged down, we start crossing the t's and dotting the i's. We'll be going over everything again with everyone. For instance, sir, we know all about what you did that Thursday till the time the bank was closed, but nothing after that.'
'Oh yes you do,' said Mulgan sarcastically. 'You made sure, without, I may say, a great deal of subtlety, that I was at home that evening about the time that poor Brenda was killed.'
'What time was that, sir?'
'Between eleven and midnight the papers said. During the storm.'
'That's true, sir,' said Wield ambiguously. 'I'm sorry if we were heavy-handed, but we have to check everyone. No, it's the earlier bit of the evening I'm interested in. We're still trying to find someone who saw Brenda earlier, so those as would have recognized her are particularly interesting. Did you go straight home from the bank?'
'I think so. I may have popped into the shops along the parade. It's very handy; at least my wife thinks it so.'
He laughed and played with the square, black-rimmed spectacles he wore to read his paper.
'It was Thursday, sir,' prompted Wield gently. 'Half-day closing here. But late opening in the town centre. You didn't go into the centre, did you?'
'No. I very rarely do. And Thursday or not, Jennings', that's the newsagents, he's always open. I usually pick up an evening paper there.'
'Then you'd drive home?'
'Yes.'
'Arriving when?'
'Six at least. Often earlier.'
'Nice to have regular hours, sir,' said Wield appreciatively. 'I expect Mrs Mulgan likes it too. Do you eat at the same time most nights?'
'Yes. Half six, usually. It's our main meal of the day. If you want the details, Sergeant, though I can't imagine why, my wife and I will probably sit and have a sherry and talk about the day, then we eat, wash up, go out for a stroll perhaps if the weather's nice, or potter in the garden. Watch a bit of television, then bed. That's about it.'
'And that night was no different.'
'Very few of them are different enough to be distinguishable, Sergeant,' said Mulgan. 'Had it been, though, I would certainly recall,'
He put his spectacles back on and looked pointedly at his newspaper as though to indicate the interview was over.
Wield gave him a quarter-minute.
'It was a Thursday, though, sir,' he said.
Mulgan didn't look up.
'Yes?' he said.
'And your wife was saying that most Thursdays she goes to visit her mother in the afternoon. She often doesn't get back till eight. Or later.'
Now Mulgan looked up again.
'That's right,' he said. 'And as it was a Thursday, she probably wasn't in when I got home and probably didn't get back till late. What are you trying to say, Sergeant? And why didn't you tell me you'd been cross-examining my wife too.'
'No, honestly, I'm sorry,' said Wield, rearranging his features into a new chaos which his tone signalled meant distress. 'All I wondered was, did you maybe stop off, have a drink somewhere that night? I mean there'd be no rush to get home, would there? And if so, did you perhaps see anything of Brenda, just passing, I mean? Or talking to someone?'
The bait was a bit obvious, he thought. Guilty or innocent, Mulgan would see it dangling there.
‘I’ll tell you something, Sergeant,' said the manager with a sigh. 'Then perhaps you'll go away and leave me to get on with my weekend, and tell the world you're a liar if you try to use what I've told you. I fancied Brenda. Yes, it's clear someone's suggested this to you, and it's true. She was a nice girl, I felt relaxed with her and we could have a laugh and a joke together. If I'd had the slightest encouragement, well, who knows what any of us might not do with encouragement! But I didn't and when I realized our other junior Miss Brighouse, who no doubt is your source of information, was ready to make a joke of it, I became the soul of correctness. I have no desire to be
