One recalcitrant and disagreeable man who under pressure had revealed a hitherto unknown secret. One so awful that he could not bring himself to say the word, let alone allow his son’s name to be spoken again.
‘If Christine saw Barry Montgomery with a young and beautiful woman in the taxi, it could have turned her,’ Wendy said. ‘In the hotel, the man could have been discreet, a sideways glance, a phone number on a piece of paper. And even if Christine had seen him in the hotel talking to other women at the bar, what would she have thought? She was so enamoured of the man that she wouldn’t have been able to make the connection. But with Matilda, she didn’t know that she was his sister.’
‘In the back of a taxi? What would she have seen?’ Larry said. ‘They’re hardly made for a bystander to see inside.’
‘Larry’s right,’ Isaac said. ‘If Christine Mason had seen any affection between Montgomery and his sister, it couldn’t have been in Paddington.’
‘Maybe in Pembridge Mews,’ Bridget suggested.
‘If that were the case, then she would have known she was his sister,’ Wendy said.
‘Why? To her, he was Colin Young, not Barry Montgomery. She could have found out Matilda’s name, not so difficult to do. And then she could have seen him with Amelia, realised that the man was not only cheating on her with one woman but two.’
‘Wendy, focus on Christine Mason. Larry, find out what you can about Barry Montgomery’s secret life,’ Isaac said. ‘I still don’t get the reason for the Fitzroy. It’s a reputable hotel, not the sort of place to condone such behaviour. What would happen to their reputation if it became known as a place for well-heeled and lonely women to meet up with attractive young men?’
‘Its clientele’s demographic would change,’ Larry said, appreciating the humour.
‘Get your mind out of the gutter,’ Wendy said. ‘We’re not all desperate, and don’t go standing around in the foyer of a fancy hotel looking for someone to pay you for your time. You’ll go hungry if you do.’
‘Okay, team, to work,’ Isaac said. ‘Bridget, work with Larry, check the classifieds. We need a complete history of Barry Montgomery by tomorrow. And why the Fitzroy?’
‘What about the shared house where Barry and Stanley Montgomery came to blows?’ Larry asked.
‘According to Stanley Montgomery, there were no blows, just an argument, some jostling. Is it the most important line of enquiry?’
‘It depends on whether the girl Barry was dating can tell us more.’
‘Very well. Check it out. But let’s be clear, Barry Montgomery was, according to his father, selling himself. So that brings into account jealous women, angry husbands. And unfortunately, more suspects, some in this country, some possibly overseas.’
‘It’s closer to home than that,’ Wendy said.
‘How can you be sure?’ Isaac said.
‘Instinct. It’s what Amelia Bentham said about the foxhunting that still continues. Once the hounds have got a sniff of the fox urine that they use, they’ll not give in until they’ve killed something. We’ve got the smell now, the smell of success.’
To Larry, they were no closer than before.
‘Wendy’s right,’ Isaac said. ‘The sixth sense tells me that we’re close. Amongst those we have in our sights, one of them is guilty.’
***
Christine Mason did not take kindly to the aspersion that she had known all along what Colin Young was, and that she had been complicit in his prostituting himself to lonely and wealthy women.
‘He loved me, I know that now,’ she had protested. Too strongly, Wendy thought when she had put the possibility to her. It wasn’t as if her approach had been harsh. On the contrary, the two women had met in a park close to the Fitzroy.
Wendy was fully cognisant of the grilling given to Stanley Montgomery, the intimidating surrounds of Challis Street. Not that Isaac and Larry had any intention of holding the man, but fear had been a factor in getting him to open up. Not appropriate for Christine Mason, Wendy had insisted when it had been suggested by Larry.
‘I’ll do it my way,’ Wendy had said.
‘Results, no letting the woman slip out from under,’ Isaac had said.
‘When have I let you down?’ Wendy replied. Not that her DCI and DI were wrong. She knew that Christine Mason knew more than she had let on, but what had she seen in the taxi?
And there was another thing that concerned Wendy. She had heard ‘beautiful’ used twice to describe Barry Montgomery, the first time by Christine, the second by Amelia. Could any man be that beautiful? A description reserved for Adonis, the spouse of Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty and love; for Eros, the god of attraction; for Achilles, the Greek hero of the Trojan war, the son of King Peleus and Thetis, a sea nymph; and for Paris, who had stolen Helen away from Menelaus, the King of Sparta. Not for a man from London, not for someone who was not Greek and not a figure from ancient mythology.
A friendship of sorts had been built up between Sergeant Wendy Gladstone and Christine Mason. She recognised in Christine the effects of age starting to show, the vulnerability that no longer was she a young teen savouring adolescent love, nor a newlywed with a husband who spent all his time with her, and then the children, growing up, forming relationships of their own, grandchildren even, and the stark realisation that life was slowly ebbing away.
Wendy had felt all of these emotions, although they had not affected her to the same degree as the woman she sat with, the woman who dressed younger than she should, applying makeup to cover the imperfections, the
