never be able to look after her in that pigsty he’s got in Peckham. But once she’s out of here, so’s he.’
‘We thought we might take care of that, Mrs Winter,’ Kathy said. ‘We’re going to look after her for a few days. Just to be on the safe side.
‘Has he stopped hitting you, then?’ Kathy added.
Caroline looked sharply at her.
‘Who told you that?’
‘Nobody told me. I thought I saw some marks on your face the last time we met. Is he a very violent man?’
Caroline took a deep breath and stared out of the window. A family of thrushes was splashing innocently in a birdbath on the terrace outside. She watched them for a minute, then said, ‘What’s “very”?
‘Anyway,’ she shrugged, ‘like a few other women in my situation, I’ve discovered the ultimate revenge. It’s called money.’
‘And he has been worried about money for some time, hasn’t he?’
‘Oh, I see what you’re getting at. Well, I’d like to help, believe me. Nothing would suit me better than to have him put away for twenty years-after I’ve stripped him clean, that is. But I’m not sure I can. He’s always been a chancer with money, you know, wanting it all, borrowing, leasing, gearing. Yeah, I suppose the last year has been worse for him, though. I think he was hoping to set up that bitch Geraldine whatsit in a nice little love nest at one point, and then when I told him he could clear off as soon as the kids had had their Christmas, he must have seen the writing on the wall.’
‘One thing you can do for me, Mrs Winter, is to go through this list of dates, and see if you can vouch for his whereabouts on any of them.’
Caroline’s lip, its scarlet outline defined with the precision of a razor, curled with amusement. ‘Will it get him in more trouble if I say I can or I can’t?’
‘Just the truth, please, Mrs Winter.’
‘Don’t worry, darling,’ Caroline laughed. ‘You know I couldn’t tell a fib.’
She glanced down the list.
‘You ’aven’t got the 8th of March down here.’
‘A week ago? Why should we?’
‘That’s when I had my break-in.’
‘This house was broken into?’
‘Yeah. And it was that bastard what did it. I changed the locks when I kicked him out, and this was him having a go at me. He pinched things of mine. Some jewellery he’d given me, stuff like that. He made it look like a burglary, broke a window downstairs, but I knew it was him.’
‘How?’
‘It was a Thursday afternoon, and he knows I always go and see my mum on a Thursday afternoon. The answering machine was on when I got back, and there’d been a couple of calls with no messages. You know, he was just checking.’
‘Anyone could have done that.’
‘Yeah, well, it was him, all right. I smelled him, didn’t I, in the loo.’
‘What, his aftershave?’
Caroline laughed. ‘No, dear. His piss. He’d gone to the lavatory and not flushed it. And he’d been drinking. I could smell his stink. That was him all over, Prince bloody Charming.’
‘Did you report this?’
‘Yes. The coppers came round and took a list of the things that were missing, and fingerprints and everything.’
‘They fingerprinted the bathroom?’
‘Yeah. But then he’d been round the previous evening, hadn’t he, so his prints would be everywhere. After they’d gone I thought about it. I phoned up the coppers and told them not to bother. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of thinking I was worried.’
‘If he’d wanted things, couldn’t he just have taken them when he called round?’
‘I’d never have let him, or I’d have got the solicitors on to him. Also, he wanted to frighten me. I know him.’
‘What about your alarm system?’
‘Yeah, well, I never turned it on, did I? It was raining and so I left the cat inside, and she would have set it off. But Terry knew I did that, you see.’
Kathy nodded, thinking. ‘Was there a lot of mess?’
‘Not really. I hardly noticed it at first. And nothing electrical taken. That’s what made me suspicious.’
‘What about in here?’
‘The kitchen?’
‘Yes. Where do you keep your freezer bags, Mrs Winter?’
Caroline stared at her for a moment, stunned. Then, without a word she went over to a cupboard. She opened it and stepped back. There were half a dozen different types and sizes of packets of plastic bags inside. Kathy took out a green bin liner and dropped a number of the packets inside.
When she straightened up, she saw Brock standing by the kitchen door.
‘Ready?’
‘Can I have a word, sir?’
They went out into the hall and she quickly told him about Caroline’s break-in.
‘Right,’ Brock said. He led her back into the living room where Winter was still poring over the list Brock had given him. ‘You have a set of keys to 22 Jerusalem Lane, don’t you, Mr Winter?’
Winter looked at him warily. ‘My mother’s keys, yes. Why?’
‘Where are they?’
Winter shrugged. ‘Upstairs. I’ve got a drawer of odds and ends in my… in the bedroom.’
‘Shall we have a look?’
It was a small drawer in the dressing table by the window. He opened it and stared. It was quite empty. He turned angrily to his wife, standing by the door. ‘What have you done with my stuff? There was a gold cigarette case in here.’
Caroline shook her head, her mouth turned down in exaggerated disbelief. ‘ I haven’t touched it, Terry.’
He turned to appeal to Brock. ‘This is where they were, Inspector. This drawer was full of stuff.’
There was a moment’s heavy silence as they stared at him.
‘Tell you what,’ Brock said at last, ‘I’ll get my Sergeant to come down here straight away. He can take you back up to town. Save any problems.’
19
From the front garden of the Kowalskis’ house the Channel was invisible in the fog which shrouded Sussex south of the Weald. Foghorns sounded from the white blanket, mournful and threatening.
At first Mrs Kowalski seemed the same as before, determined to be as obstructive as possible, but as they talked to her in the narrow hallway of her house Kathy began to notice a weariness, as if the woman were condemned to play a part she had grown tired of. She kept repeating things she had said only a short time before. And when Brock told her that Eleanor Harper had been found murdered on the previous day, the news literally knocked her flat. For a moment she stared blankly at his face, and then abruptly crumpled at the knees. They lifted her through into the downstairs sitting room, and Kathy fetched a glass of water from the kitchen. Brock told Kathy to stay with her while he went upstairs to see her husband.
Adam Kowalski was sitting in the same chair and in the same position as when they last saw him, but looked as if he had aged six years rather than six months. His face had no more colour than the fog beyond the window pane.
‘Your foot recovered, Mr Kowalski?’ Brock said heartily.
