impression of someone who didn’t really belong there. Kathy suspected that he probably wouldn’t have known where things were to make them a cup of coffee, even if he had wanted to.
‘Well?’ he scowled at them.
‘She’s quite upset, Mr Winter, as you said. She feels she should be nearer her home in Jerusalem Lane, and I’ve said we’ll arrange a hotel room for her. Someone will call for her this afternoon. We’ll make sure someone keeps an eye on her for a few days.’
Winter stared at him in surprise, and it took him a few seconds to respond. He started to frame some objection, but Brock abruptly cut in.
‘What were your movements on Tuesday night, then, Mr Winter? Here with your wife?’
Winter looked away. ‘No, no. If you must know, Caroline and I have split up. I only stayed here last night because of Aunt Peg.’ His eyes strayed over to the blankets in the corner.
‘Ah. With Ms McArthur, then?’
Winter hesitated. His thinking processes seemed to have slowed down, and the cockiness they’d experienced six months before had gone. He raised his chin slowly, in some gesture of defiance perhaps.
‘I have my own place s’matter of fact.’
‘Really? You’ve broken off with Ms McArthur, have you?’
Winter’s jaw had locked, and he was speaking through his teeth. ‘No. We’re still good friends. We’re just reassessing the situation, that’s all.’
‘So, where were you on Tuesday night then, from, say, 9.30 p.m. through till the following morning around 7.30?’
‘I was at my flat, 3d Rye Gardens, Peckham, next to Peckham Rye Common, all that time.’
‘Alone?’
‘No. I had a friend with me.’
‘Name?’
There was the sound of a key in the front door and Winter’s speech suddenly speeded up. ‘Shirley Piggott… No. Two “g”s and two “t”s
… She works in my Peckham salon. You can reach her there.’
Kathy got up and went out to meet Caroline Winter and head her off to the kitchen while Brock continued with her husband. ‘I want to talk to you about these disturbances that have been going on around 22 Jerusalem Lane for the past five months or so.’
Winter avoided Brock’s impassive stare. ‘Yeah, sure,’ he muttered, and developed a sudden interest in wiping some carpet fluff from the heel of his shoe.
From his inside jacket pocket Brock pulled out a copy of the print-out Gurney had provided and unfolded it slowly. ‘What’s your theory about these, Mr Winter?’
Winter shook his head. He finished with the shoe and his right hand began to play with the gold rings and Rolex watch that he wore on his left.
‘Kids, maybe. Vandals.’
‘Kids or vandals, you think?’ Brock slowly took his half-lens glasses out of their case and perched them on his nose. He read from the list. ‘“Night of October 12th: water stopcock in yard broken off. Water Board took two days to find the fault and restore water supply. Night of October 16th: dog dirt pushed through letter box. Night of November 2nd: lighted fireworks pushed through letter box…” Pretty sick kids, wouldn’t you say, and unusually persistent? Sounds more like a calculated campaign of intimidation to me. Look at this. Christmas Eve: three abusive phone calls saying this was the last Christmas the old ladies would ever see, plus broken glass left all over the front door step. You must have been pretty worried, weren’t you, sir?’
‘Yeah, yeah, I was. I told the police they weren’t doing enough.’ Winter fumbled in the pocket of his silk shirt for a packet of cigarettes, then stopped and pushed it abruptly back.
‘And after the New Year we start to get personal appearances: the face at the window in the middle of the night. When was it you set up on your own in Peckham, Mr Winter?’
Winter shot Brock a startled look. Then his eyes darted away and he made a show of thinking.
‘January, I guess. Why? You mind if I smoke?’
‘Not at all. It’s your house.’
Winter got up and started roaming round the room looking for an ashtray. Eventually he returned to the sofa empty-handed.
‘That’s an unfortunate coincidence, you see, Mr Winter, you being an obvious suspect.’
‘What?!’ he protested, half rising off the sofa again. ‘Well, of course. You must have known that. You have the obvious motive, don’t you? To get your aunts to leave Jerusalem Lane so that you could sell the place to the developers. You must have spoken to them about that, didn’t you, tried to persuade them to leave?’
‘Yes, but in their own interests, I…’
‘Naturally. And you spoke to the developers again, didn’t you, to get their help to persuade the old ladies?’
‘I did it for them, tried to get extra money for them…’
‘Of course. But when all these things didn’t work, and they remained so stubborn, well, you can see the conclusions people could draw.’
Winter didn’t reply. He flicked a gold lighter and held its trembling flame to a cigarette. He took a deep lungful.
‘Forty per cent of murders are committed by someone within the family, Mr Winter, and another forty by people who know their victims.’
‘Oh Jesus! You’re not going to…’ Smoke came belching from his face as he jumped up again.
‘So it’s important that we clear up any doubts in that area as soon as possible. For your sake. You agree?’ Winter stared at Brock. ‘I want two things. First, I want you to agree to an officer searching your flat in Peckham. We can get a warrant, of course, but it will look better for you if you give your consent.’
Winter hesitated. ‘I’ll be back there this evening. If you want to send someone round then.’
‘No, I want to do it straight away. All right? They’ll be very careful not to break anything. You won’t even know they’ve been. I’ll get you to sign a note of agreement here, just so I don’t get into trouble.’ Brock chuckled and wrote a few lines on his notebook and passed it over for Winter to sign.
‘I don’t know.’ Winter looked worried.
‘Better if you do,’ Brock said reassuringly.
‘They won’t have a key.’ Winter protested again.
‘Not a problem, Mr Winter.’
He bowed his head, took another drag at his cigarette. ‘I didn’t kill her,’ he said.
‘I dare say not,’ Brock replied gently, as he gave Winter a pen. But you’ve done something you don’t want to talk about, he thought, as Winter scrawled his signature on the pad.
‘And the second thing is that I want you to sit down with this list of dates and prepare a statement of your whereabouts at each of these times. I’ll give you an address, and I want you to go there later today and make a statement to my Sergeant Gurney with that information. All right?’
Winter nodded. His ash fell on the carpet.
‘He’s smoking again, isn’t he?’ Caroline Winter spat out. ‘I warned him I wouldn’t have him smoking in here again. The place stinks for days afterwards.’
‘I know what you mean,’ Kathy nodded. ‘The new kitchen looks terrific, Mrs Winter.’
‘Oh yeah, do you like it? I thought I’d get it done right before I finally threw the bastard out.’
‘Yes, he mentioned you were having a trial separation.’
‘Trial nothing!’ she laughed. ‘This is it, baby. Finito. Kaput. The end. I put up with Mister Wonderful playing around with those tarts he employs for long enough. God, it used to make me physically ill going into one of his bloody salons with him, you know what I mean? The way he talked to them and teased them and touched them up. He thought he was God’s bloody gift he did. A heat-seeking dick. He thought he’d found fucking paradise, prancing around from one salon to the next. Well’-her eyes glittered with malice-‘now’s the time to pay, lover boy.’
‘He did seem rather chastened today, compared with when we saw him last.’
‘He doesn’t know the half of it, luv. I’ve ’ad a solicitor and an accountant working on this for months. I’d never have let him through the door today except for Peg. When he phoned, I told him he’d have to bring her here-he’d
