Milward had spoken to Simon once since last Wednesday, on the telephone. Without apologising, she’d explained how wedded she’d been at first to Stephen Elton in the role of chief suspect, and given Simon her reasons, in the manner of someone who’d forgotten she’d been proved wrong. Her ‘thank you’ had been distant and non-specific. Simon would have preferred one that came firmly attached to a mention of he and Charlie having risked their lives and put Milward’s case to bed for her in the process.
‘Look at what we know,’ said Proust. ‘Smith’s been in trouble with the law for most of his life. An alcoholic, a wife-beater, a gambler. Seed’s got a clean slate.’
‘Which is why anyone with a brain’d believe him over Smith,’ Simon pointed out. ‘Len Smith had no reason to kill Mary Trelease. ’ He hadn’t expected this, not on his first day back at work. To be in the thick of things, as if he’d never been gone, arguing his case, as he always did; an unpopular case, as it always was. Proust wasn’t a fool; by now he was surely aware of the extent to which Simon and Charlie had gone this one alone-reporting to no one, with no official authorisation.
When they’d been summoned to the Snowman’s office, neither of them had been in any doubt that a bollocking was coming. Nothing official-Proust wouldn’t want to put his name to the suspension or sacking of anyone the tabloids were calling heroes, and neither would the Chief Super or the Chief Constable-but something that, nevertheless, would let Simon and Charlie know that they would be paying for the sins of their over-inflated egos for a long time to come.
They’d rehearsed their resignation speeches all the way to Proust’s glass cubicle. Sam Kombothekra had looked as surprised as they had when the Snowman had started to talk as if it was business as usual, as if Simon and Charlie had been in the loop all along.
‘Smith had a reason to kill her, Simon,’ Kombothekra said now. ‘She’d been sexually abusing his stepson for nearly a year. I know what you’re going to say: Smith’s own abuse of Aidan started long before Mary Trelease came on the scene…’
‘Making him something of a hypocrite if he subsequently killed her for what he himself had been doing for years,’ Proust interjected.
‘He wouldn’t see it that way,’ said Kombothekra. ‘Aidan was his, simple as that. No one else had a right to touch him. Mary Trelease was also his, and she’d made him angry. I can see exactly why he might strangle her.’
‘Except he didn’t,’ said Simon.
Kombothekra carried on as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘Trelease would wait for Smith to pass out, which he did reliably every night, and she’d start on Aidan. In Smith’s eyes, what he did was justice. He’s proud of it. “I’d kill anyone who laid a finger on one of my kids”-that’s what he told me, and it’s what he’s been saying to anyone who’ll listen to him since he’s been banged up.’
‘The men who come out with that shit are the ones who don’t give their kids a second glance from one year to the next,’ said Charlie. ‘They want to talk about killing, that’s all-next best thing to doing it.’
‘If Smith didn’t and doesn’t care about Aidan Seed, why is he willing to do time for a crime Seed committed?’ asked Proust.
‘He cared,’ said Simon. ‘Lots of abusers love their kids.’
‘Shame,’ said Charlie. ‘Pure and simple. Seed’s brother and sister both say Smith went to pieces after their mum died. He was a classic insecure bully. Once his punch-bag was gone, he couldn’t handle being on his own-the drinking got worse, and he moved Seed into the master bedroom, into his bed. Mary Trelease was strangled in that bed in the middle of the night. How could Smith explain to the police that his stepson was in bed with him and his girlfriend? A man like him’d rather go down for a murder he didn’t do.’ She shook her head in disgust. ‘Aidan was twelve when Pauline Seed died. Can you imagine what it must have been like for a boy of that age-forced, under a constant threat of violence, to share a bed with your stepfather?’
‘The brother and sister can’t say for sure, but both reckon Smith started abusing Seed as soon as the mother died,’ said Simon. ‘Neither did anything to stop it, though, because they didn’t know for sure if there was anything to stop, and they both lived in fear of Smith. Luckily for them, they were older, and only had a few years to sit out before they could leave home.’
‘Aidan wasn’t so lucky,’ said Charlie. ‘And those bastards left him there to rot-their own little brother. Of course Smith was sexually abusing him, and even if he wasn’t, they knew what sort of life he was forcing on him. Aidan wasn’t allowed out, apart from to go to school-even that, only sometimes. More often than not, Smith kept him off school, for company. He wasn’t allowed to bring friends back to the house-that was while he still had friends. Once he started to withdraw into himself, they gave up on him quickly enough.’
‘He wouldn’t have wanted to bring anyone back,’ said Simon. ‘Would you want your mates to see that you shared a bedroom with your stepfather, if you were a twelve-year-old boy?’ He knew all about not wanting friends to get even the smallest glimpse of one’s home life. In his case, it was pictures of the Virgin Mary and painfully uptight parents he’d been ashamed of.
‘Whatever Smith’s done or not done, there’s no doubt Seed means a lot to him,’ said Kombothekra. ‘Even though Seed’s never visited him in any of the prisons he’s been in, Smith’s clinging to the hope that one day he might. Every time I speak to him, he asks me to pass the same message on to Seed. He never mentions his other two stepkids. I think he’s forgotten they exist. Sir, if you look at it from Simon and Charlie’s angle, the message might be Smith’s way of letting Seed know he’s going to carry on lying for him. I mean, even if he’s really lying for his own sake, he’d want Aidan to believe otherwise, wouldn’t he, if he’s hoping for a reconciliation?’
‘Is your head that easily turned, sergeant?’ Proust snapped. ‘That’s not what you were saying before Waterhouse and Sergeant Zailer turned up. “Tell Aidan I’d never let anyone hurt him-I never have and I never will”-you and I agreed, did we not, that Smith was referring to the murder of Mary Trelease?’
‘Why not take his words literally?’ Simon suggested. ‘“I never have”-all right, granted, that might be a reference to Smith having strangled Trelease, though it’s more likely to be a reference to his having covered for Seed and taken the blame. But what about “I never will”? Smith’s nowhere near Seed’s life now, is he? How can he stop people from harming him? He didn’t stop Martha Wyers from putting a bullet in Seed, did he? “I never will” is Smith’s way of letting Seed know that he’s going to carry on lying to protect him.’
‘We’re talking about a Neanderthal inebriate, Waterhouse. Precision of language is unlikely to be his primary concern.’
‘Actually, Smith hasn’t had a drink in more than twenty years, sir,’ said Kombothekra, causing the Snowman to bang his mug handle harder on the desk.
‘I think you’re wrong, sir,’ Simon told Proust. ‘I think Smith’s message to DS Kombothekra was very precisely worded: to let Seed know he’d continue to keep their secret, while on the surface seeming to mean only that he’d killed Mary Trelease-the meaning you took from it. You can’t say that just because he’s from a council estate he’s incapable of deliberately making a statement that has two possible meanings.’
‘But now that Smith knows Seed’s confessed, that he wants the truth to come out, wouldn’t that give him pause?’ asked Kombothekra. ‘I’ve heard the way he talks about Seed.’ He looked around the small office apologetically. ‘I’m the only one of us who has. Heard it first-hand, I mean. Seed’s all he’s got. I mean, I know he
‘The last twenty-odd years of his life, banged up in one miserable, stinking hole after another, have been about protecting Seed,’ said Simon with feigned patience that he knew everyone in the room could see through. ‘Okay, maybe there was an element of self-interest-he was ashamed to admit he’d shared a bed with his stepson-but all these years sitting in his cell? He’ll have dreamed up a different story, a better one-himself as the self-sacrificing hero. Both the brother and sister have said how much Smith loves Seed-too much.’
Kombothekra nodded. ‘That’s what they told me, and they told Kerry Gatti the same thing.’
‘Gatti’s a fucking liar,’ said Charlie in a stony voice. Simon hid a smile behind his hand. She’d been furious to discover that according to Gatti’s version of events, he had willingly handed over two of his files to her. He’d also denied another of Charlie’s claims: that he hadn’t known, when she’d met him at the Swan pub in Rawndesley, that Martha Wyers had changed her name legally to Mary Trelease. Gatti wasn’t any more prepared to lose face than Len Smith was.
Simon said, ‘If Smith tells the truth now and Aidan takes his place in custody, what’s it all been for?’ He looked
