‘No,’ Isaac replied. There had been some uppers and downers sold around the schoolyard when he was in his teens. He had tried one once, made him sick and sad. He never tried them again. Even the drunken nights with his mates, he had largely avoided; the alcohol put him to sleep and affected his ability to chat up the young women.
‘Garry was melancholy, at peace with the world. He wrote the postcard, put a stamp on it, and put it in the mail. The next day he tried to get the postcard back. Even offered a bribe, but it was too late. The postcard was on its way, and there was nothing he could do about it.’
‘His mother treasured it. Did you contact her?’ Isaac asked.
‘I phoned her once after Garry had left me.’
‘Why?’ Wendy asked.
‘Curious, I suppose. If Garry could treat me the way he did, and he hated his mother so much, then what was she like?’
‘And what was she like?’
‘She knew who I was. Accused me of turning her son against her. It was not a pleasant conversation. In the end, I slammed the phone down.’
‘Did Gertrude Richardson ever mention this to you?’ Isaac asked Wendy.
‘Never, but my time with her was limited. She was friendly that last night when she had seen Garry, but she died soon after.’
‘She saw him after thirty years!’ Emma Hampshire looked astonished.
‘Yes,’ Wendy replied.
‘What did he look like?’
‘Do you really want to know?’
‘I suppose not.’
‘Mrs Hampshire,’ Isaac said.
‘Please call me Emma.’
‘At any time did you have reason to believe that someone would want your husband dead?’
‘After he left me, he fell in with a bad crowd. They may have.’
‘He was found in a house belonging to Gertrude and Mavis Richardson. Did you ever visit that house?’
‘Bellevue Street? I never visited, although I knew about the mansion.’
‘How?’
‘Garry pointed it out once.’
‘He never thought to go in?’
‘He said he used to visit there as a child, nothing more.’
Isaac turned his focus to Kevin, the son. ‘What do you know about your family history?’
‘Mum’s told me about Malcolm Grenfell. Is that what you are asking?’
‘Yes.’
‘People make mistakes, and I can believe what she tells me about my dad. I can remember him vaguely, but I never saw any presents or Christmas cards from him after he left. As if he didn’t care.’
‘Bob Hampshire did,’ Isaac said.
‘He was a good man.’
‘Why the drugs?’
‘Susceptible to them. My father’s generation became alcoholic, my generation took drugs.’
Isaac felt that the interview was going nowhere. If Emma Hampshire knew anything, she was keeping it close to her chest. As for Kevin, he may have been too young.
Wendy thought that Emma Hampshire and her son were good people. Isaac tended to agree, but experience had taught him that the most unlikely people were often closer to the action than appeared at first glance. He was not ready to discount either of them yet.
***
Isaac and Wendy drove over to Barbara Bishop’s house in Knightsbridge. There appeared to be no one at home on their arrival. Wendy phoned the woman’s mobile. Barbara Bishop appeared five minutes later.
‘Yoga class,’ she said.
‘This is Detective Chief Inspector Cook,’ Wendy said.
The woman, wearing yoga pants and a tee shirt, looked up at Isaac. ‘I need a shower. Give me five minutes. Help yourself to coffee, the cups are in the cupboard to the right of the sink,’ she said.
Wendy took up the offer, found some biscuits as well. Ten minutes later the woman returned, dressed in a white blouse and a short skirt.
Mrs Bishop, by your own admission you were the last person to see Garry Solomon alive.’
‘I told Constable Gladstone this last time.’
‘I am aware that you spoke to Sergeant Gladstone, and that you were very cooperative. Sometimes it pays for a different police officer to ask the same questions. Garry Solomon’s death is highly suspicious, but we have no reason for it.’
‘He was a good man with me,’ Barbara Bishop said. ‘I would have married him if he had been available.’
‘What did he feel about you?’ Isaac asked.
‘He loved me. I’m certain of that.’
‘Did he say so?’
‘A woman knows, it doesn’t need words.’
‘What mood was he in when he left that day?’
‘Cheerful.’
‘And where was he heading?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You asked him?’
‘He said he would be only forty minutes and then he was going to take me out to the movies.’
‘Did you see anyone suspiciously loitering in the street?’
‘No.’
Chapter 27
Forensics had come back. ‘We managed to get you the phone number off the work order you sent us,’ a deep woman’s voice said. Larry recognised the tell-tale sign of a heavy smoker.
‘Can you email it to me?’ Larry asked.
‘It will be in your inbox within ten seconds,’ the woman replied, a rasping cough interrupting her speech.
Larry had been back in the office when the woman had phoned. He had not had much to do that morning other than to tidy his desk, always a bit of a mess due to his habit of not tidying the night before. He could not understand how Isaac managed to keep his so tidy, and then there was DCS Goddard. Their DCS’s penchant for a clean desk was legendary. ‘Clean desk, clean mind,’ he would say if pressed.
Larry sipped his coffee, pressed the key repeatedly to refresh the inbox on his laptop. Bridget had said that it was not necessary, but he was impatient. In forty seconds, not the ten promised, he saw that he had received a new email. It was what he wanted. Bridget was working hard in
