‘I have my rights. You can’t speak to me like that.’
‘I can and I will. Let’s start again. You knew that Christine Mason was a vulnerable woman. You’d seen her with Colin Young. Did you have a hidden camera in his room, watching them gyrate on the bed, imagining it was you instead of the murdered man?’
‘You, Detective Chief Inspector, have a perverted mind.’
‘You became infatuated with her, wanted her for yourself, but how? It consumes you, this jealousy, the realisation that you can’t have her, so why should he? You hatch a plan. You’re a methodical man. You run the plan through in your head: the positives, the negatives, the flaws.’
‘This is errant nonsense.’
‘Is it?’
‘It took us a long time to find out who he was, but you may have succeeded before us. You knew the man is for hire, or he had been in the past. You had followed Christine Mason that day down to Hyde Park, knew why she was there, who she was waiting for. And then, the next day, you go down to Hyde Park and wait in the same place. The man comes jogging by, you move out quickly, a rock to the head, and he falls into the lake.’
‘If I had known about her taking the money, why would I have killed him?’
‘A good point,’ Isaac said. ‘There’s one component that’s missing.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Even before Colin Young, you had fancied Christine Mason. And then, there she is, madly in love with a young man, a man you could never hope to compete with.’
‘I did fancy her, even asked her out once for a meal. Harmless in itself, and she told me about her husband, and what a good man he was and how he'd be so upset.’
‘Precisely. She gives you a story. It sounds plausible and you back off. And then, she’s in one of the hotel rooms with another man, going hell for leather. How did it feel? The anger, the jealousy, the attempts at a gentle seduction, and a charmer takes her with no trouble. It must have hurt.’
‘I did fancy her, what man wouldn’t? But I never spied on her, nor did I kill her lover. After that, with him dead, and my knowledge of her embezzlement, I confronted her, told her that I knew and that I would protect her.’
‘And she flung herself at you with open arms,’ Wendy said.
‘It wasn’t as sordid as you make it out to be. I had feelings for her.’
‘Very well, Mr Marshall, we will accept your statement for now,’ Isaac said.
Marshall turned to Wendy. ‘Christine is safe as long as you leave it as it is,’ he said.
Chapter 20
Wendy wondered how Terry Hislop could have slept with one sister, married the other. But that was in the past, and no doubt he hadn’t been as fat or as slovenly back then.
It wasn’t important, but what Bridget had found out subsequently was. Terry Hislop had a history of violent and erratic behaviour.
‘One year after divorcing from Gwen, the man took to the bottle,’ she said.
‘What did you find?’
‘A drunken brawl at a pub close to Liverpool, three men were taken to hospital, one with a broken bottle pushed into his face, another with a …’
Wendy interrupted. ‘Hislop has a scar on his left cheek,’ she said.
‘Let me finish,’ Bridget continued. ‘Another with a broken arm after he had slammed into the bar, and the third was unconscious for two days after his head had been pushed into the floor.’
‘Does that mean he’s a suspect now?’ Wendy said.
‘Once in the past is hardly the criterion of a man capable of murder,’ Larry said. ‘I used to drink in my teens, got belligerent on occasions, yet ended up here at Challis Street.’
‘You fixed yourself up,’ Wendy said. ‘Terry Hislop’s not had it so good. He told me that business was fine and he was content, but who can be sure. He’s running a panel beater’s, and now he’s got an ex-biker chick doing the accounts, sleeping with him as well if I was reading the signals correctly.’
‘Long way from Christine and her sister,’ Isaac said.
‘You’ve met them both. Attractive, educated, well-dressed. His assistant wasn’t any of those. He told me that the last time he’d been in London was five years ago. Any way of checking if that’s true?’
‘Not unless the man admits to it. Bridget said. ‘What about the woman in the office? Any chance of her talking?’
‘Unlikely. If the tattoos on the knuckles are any indication, she’s been on the wrong side of the track on more than one occasion. She was polite to me, but only because she had to be. And Hislop looks like he can’t be trusted not to do a quick respray on a stolen car.’
‘Larry, any benefit in you and Wendy going up to Liverpool, giving them both the third degree?’ Isaac asked.
‘Not for me,’ Wendy said. ‘I’ve got to meet with Christine Mason again. We need confirmation as to whether Archibald Marshall was telling us the truth or feeding us a line.’
‘What he told us will be true,’ Isaac said.
‘Why do you say that?’
‘He knows you’ll check with her. He’s played it well, destroyed our case against him, protected the woman. She’ll not be the same the next time you meet her.’
‘Even so, I intend to.’
***
Isaac had made the trip out to the hospital to see how Janice Montgomery, the mother of Matilda and Barry, was faring. It had been a short visit, as Stanley Montgomery had seen him arrive and had reminded him that it was a family matter, his wife was his responsibility, and that the police fishing for information about anything untoward, or
