She shrugged. The memory went. The present cascaded back and she dropped her head into her hands, started weeping.
Henry let her. By the time she’d got over the bout, the tea had arrived, a cup was poured, a Nice biscuit propped on the saucer. Henry handed it to her.
‘What’s happened?’ she asked. ‘To Mum and Dad.’
‘Before I get into that, can I just ask how you heard?’
‘From my brother.’
‘Right, OK.’ Henry’s brow furrowed. She’d almost spat the word ‘brother’.
‘And then I saw the news, even though no names were mentioned.’ Her voice faded.
Henry watched her. She was a nice-looking woman, early thirties now with nicely trimmed bobbed hair and a fine complexion. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring and Henry assumed she had travelled alone to get here.
‘You’re the officer in charge, aren’t you?’
‘I am, and I’m very sorry for your loss.’
‘Thank you,’ she swallowed meekly. ‘Can… can you tell me what happened?’
Henry blew out his cheeks. Then he took her through his step-by-step guide to the scene of a double fatal shooting, plus dog. He told her enough to fill in some of the gaps in her knowledge, but not too much. Firstly for reasons of consideration. Relatives rarely appreciated gory details. Secondly because, as always, Henry liked to have the upper hand, just in case. Just in case this woman had something to do with the murders. Maybe she’d planned it. Or maybe not, but any half-decent detective kept something back. That said, unless she was a very fine actor, her horrified reactions to his story were very real indeed.
When he’d finished she stared numbly at him, her mouth open. Eventually she said, ‘Unbelievable.’
‘We think the person responsible might be involved with Russian gangsters… but we have a lot of things to look at before we are certain of that.’
‘Russian gangsters?’ she said incredulously. Her face was screwed up tightly, but her eyes narrowed fractionally.
Henry picked up on it. ‘Do you know anything about that?’
‘Oh Christ, oh Christ,’ she said rubbing her face intensely. ‘No, no not really.’
‘I think you do,’ Henry said.
Her face then set, as though a decision had been made. Her lips went into a tight line and she breathed through her nose, which dilated.
‘C’mon, tell me,’ he said.
‘Ugh,’ she said. ‘Look, I haven’t had much to do with Mum and Dad for a while now. Not through any fallout, just, y’know — I’ve been living in London, got a decent job and I don’t have a lot of time for travelling up and down the country. So what I’m saying is that I haven’t been in their lives much, but we do keep in touch-ish.’
‘When did you last speak to them?’
‘I spoke to Mum about three days ago.’
‘How was she?’
‘Uptight… fit to burst.’
‘About what?’
She snorted contemptuously. ‘Fucking Cyprus,’ she said with vehemence. ‘I’m sorry, didn’t mean to swear.’
‘That’s OK — do it myself occasionally.’ Henry poured her a refill of tea and gave her a little time to come down. ‘What about Cyprus?’ he probed.
She tilted her head from side to side, marshalling her thoughts. ‘Mum and Dad have been going out there for years — holidays, y’know? In fact a few people who live in the village go out there a lot and have property there. My brother moved out there and actually set up in the property business. He encouraged Mum and Dad to buy a place and invest in some land. Dad bought a villa — quarter of a million, I think… but I also heard it was a good deal. I mean… way too good. Tom — my brother — introduced them to a well shady developer and I knew it just wasn’t right. But Tom said it was and Dad always believed him.
‘Fancy investing in a property over two thousand miles from home and in a culture you don’t understand, with people you don’t know. Trouble at the best of times and I bloody warned them! Tom and I had horrible arguments about it… and then I started hearing things about… stuff…’
‘What stuff?’
‘It sounds so unreal and dramatic.’ She sighed and gave a helpless shrug. ‘Russians… prostitutes…’ She closed her eyes. ‘Trafficking… girls.’ Her head was shaking. ‘But I truly don’t know the details, honestly. I kept my head in the sand. I think they got into a situation they couldn’t get out of…’
‘Or maybe they were trying to get out of?’ Henry suggested.
‘Possibly.’
‘Does the name Malinowski mean anything to you?’
She looked as though she’d been hit by a truck. ‘He’s the property dealer in Cyprus,’ she whispered.
‘And did your parents know Harry Sunderland?’
Melanie Speakman’s eyes suddenly burned. ‘He’s the one who got my parents out to Cyprus in the first place. He’s got property there, too. He had something to do with setting Tom up in business… I wouldn’t trust the slimy bastard as far as I could chuck him!’
THIRTEEN
Henry spent an hour talking to Melanie Speakman, after which she said she’d made arrangements to stay over at a friend’s house in Bispham, near Blackpool, where Henry could contact her whilst he carried out his investigation.
She got a lot off her chest in that time and although deeply upset and grieving over her parents’ deaths — and the dog, of course (who, Henry learned, wasn’t Carlo. Carlo had died long ago and been replaced by Milo, same breed) — she seemed more in control when she left than when she’d arrived. Henry Christie the counsellor, acting as a catalyst.
‘I don’t know if any of this is any use,’ she admitted.
‘It’s hard to say, but when we start digging I’m sure that if what you’ve told me is a factor, then it’ll all become very obvious very quickly.’
To be honest, she hadn’t told him much — just names and supposition and grim feelings. But that was the start of the route — information, conjecture, leading to intelligence, then to evidence.
‘Thanks.’ Her eyes searched his. ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking,’ she said, ‘but when you came to my twenty-first, I was sure you were wearing a wedding ring. I know it’s a long time ago and it’s a bit of a girlie thing to remember… but…’ She glanced down at his left hand.
From the shadow that instantly scudded across his face, she knew she had touched a nerve.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said hastily. ‘Not my business, just being curious. Women, you know…’
Henry’s expression softened. ‘It’s OK,’ he said with a half-laugh. ‘I was married.’ Shit, he thought, why is this so hard to say, even to a stranger? ‘She passed away last year. Cancer.’ He said the word in the same way Melanie had referred to her brother earlier.
‘I’m really sorry… but I’d like to say that if you hadn’t been drunk and wearing a wedding ring, there would have been a good chance of scoring back then.’
‘Nice to know,’ he chuckled, flushing a little. ‘I hope I wasn’t too embarrassing.’
‘No, you were funny.’ She inhaled deeply. ‘I’ll be off to my friend’s, then. Please keep in touch.’
‘I will.’
Henry showed her out of the building and watched her walk across the car park to a red Porsche Carrera in one of the bays. She got into it and drove away. He watched the car pass under the raised barrier at the exit, then turn onto the dual carriageway that ran past headquarters.
His mind churned with the new information as he went back inside, intending to take the tea pot and cups back to the kitchen.
