“Is Ted, your husband, in London?” Callie could feel herself panic slightly. Did she really think Mrs Savage wouldn’t know that Ted was her husband? She felt an overwhelming urge to giggle, but managed to turn it into a cough and turned in her seat to look out of the window at the view of the sea, or at least where the view of the sea would be if it wasn’t a dark and cloudy night, with not even a bit of moonlight reflecting off the water.
“Yes, he’ll probably drive down later tonight after the sitting, or tomorrow, if it goes on too long.”
Callie knew that Westminster business often went on late into the night, MPs were always complaining about it and how it was unduly hard on those with families. She turned back as Mrs Savage put a mug of tea down in front of her and stood facing Callie, staying on the other side of the breakfast bar.
“Now, Dr Hughes, perhaps you’d like to tell me exactly why you were sneaking around my garden at this time of night?” Her tone was still fairly light, faintly remonstrative as if she expected Callie to confess to a fetish about garages, or a crush on her husband.
Callie hesitated, playing with the mug before coming to the conclusion that the only course of action was to tell the truth, or, at least, the partial truth.
“I wanted to see if you had a boat.”
“A boat?” Mrs Savage seemed surprised. “Well, we do, as a matter of fact.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think you will find many people living along here who don’t.”
“No, I don’t suppose you would.”
“And why did you particularly want to see if we had a boat?”
“Because, whoever killed Michelle Carlisle and Daniel Spencer, had to have access to a boat in order to dump their bodies at sea.”
Mrs Savage vigorously stirred her drink, and took a sip. She hadn’t been expecting that answer, Callie could tell.
“And you thought we might be involved?”
“I was trying to exclude Ted.”
“And have you?”
“No. But perhaps you can help me there.”
“I can certainly do that, because it’s just ridiculous. Ted is a good man.”
“Yes, I’m sure he is.” Callie wasn’t so sure, but she didn’t want to antagonise the woman any more than she already had.
“Don’t let your tea get cold,” Mrs Savage said, nodding at the mug in front of Callie.
“Do you think it’s possible that your husband might have known Daniel?” Callie asked as she sipped the drink, trying not to show her distaste as she realised that it had been sweetened. Perhaps Mrs Savage was more rattled than she seemed and had mixed up the two mugs.
“It’s possible,” she replied. “Ted knows a lot of people in London. He’s a sociable man, you’ve seen that. He flirts with everyone. Men and women. People get the wrong idea.”
“In what way?”
“They think he’s interested in them when he isn’t really.” She gave Callie a look that suggested Callie was one of those people.
“Did you know he was gay?” Callie asked. She didn’t honestly believe that his wife wouldn’t know if he was, but it was always possible. She took another sip, once she had got over the shock at how sweet it was, she had to admit it was quite nice. Sugar was a treat she didn’t often allow herself, so she had some more, she deserved it after the shock of being found behind the garage. Sweet tea for shock, that was what they said, didn’t they?
“He isn’t, strictly speaking. That would be too easy, too uncomplicated for Ted. He is attracted to people of either sex, or rather, both sexes,” Mrs Savage continued. “I’ve always known that, but I loved him and wanted to try and make a go of it. I thought we would, for a while, despite his frequent infidelities.” She seemed truly sad that it hadn’t worked out as well as she had hoped.
“It must have been difficult.”
“Yes. I knew he was seeing other people, of course, but I had no idea about the rent boys, or the drugs. I would have stopped it if I had known, you see, told him to stop destroying everything we had worked so hard to build. Then that boy turned up and tried to get money out of us.”
Callie’s eyes had begun to close, she was feeling so tired, but they opened with a jolt as she realised that Mrs Savage had known about the blackmail. Or had Callie just told her, she couldn’t quite remember the conversation. What had she said?
“As if I would ever let a nobody like him ruin a good man’s career. Ted was worth a hundred times more than that, that skinny streak of street scum,” Mrs Savage continued. “I mean, I could cope with the other people, he could always come out of the closet, or confess to being a sex addict and if that was all it was, there would have been no danger, nothing to threaten us with. I could have put a positive spin on it, about him having the courage to come out, tell the truth. I could have been the understanding wife and helper, standing by him. We could still live together, even. But this!”
Callie was struggling to understand what she was saying, and her voice seemed to be coming from further away.
“Ted’s failing is that he’s just too trusting. He always wants to believe the best of people, to help them, even if they don’t deserve it. He wanted to pay the boy off, thought that would be the
