End in Tears (5 page)

CHAPTER 6

G
ated estates were not common in this part of Sussex, but it seemed to Wexford that each time a new enclave of middle- to high-income houses was built, living there wasn't considered secure without gates at its entrance, a key-operated barrier, and an English version of a concierge in the gatehouse. The one on duty at Riverbank Close, Sewingbury, was a six-foot-five African in black jeans and T-shirt with
RIVERBANK
in yellow letters on the front. The driver of the car that preceded Wexford's through the gateway received a hearty “Good morning, sir” and a smile of radiant amiability, while Donaldson was greeted with cool contempt and a demand for identification from all of them.

“I suppose,” said Burden when they were in, “that if I lived here, if I were the kind of person who'd want to live here, I'd love that guy and feel really safe when he was on duty. As it is, however…”

Wexford nodded. “I first saw this kind of setup in California and hoped it wouldn't have to happen here.”

“Does it have to happen here?”

“I don't know, Mike. Where's the riverbank, anyway?”

“About half a mile away and the river's what you might call a tributary of the Kingsbrook if it hasn't dried up altogether by now.”

Some sort of building work was evidently going on at number four. A board in the front garden proclaimed the construction workers to be Surrage-Samphire, Specialist Decorators and Restorers, but as is the well-known way of builders, no decorator or restorer was in the house at present, though the hall, which seemed to be in the process of being paneled, was a chaos of wood strips, glue pots, brushes, sheets of paper, and dust sheets. “But no bricks,” as Wexford remarked to Burden later.

Though expected, they had to ring twice before someone came. She was a teenage girl in a denim miniskirt of extravagant shortness and a bustier so revealing that, much to Wexford's amusement, Burden turned away his eyes, though whether in prudery or suppressed lust was unclear.

“Yes?”

“We have an appointment with Mrs. Hilland,” said Wexford, stepping in among the building materials without waiting to be invited. “And you are?”

For a moment he thought she would tell him it was no business of his but she relented a little and said, “Cosima Hilland.”

“Daniel is your brother?”

Everyone knew that, her look seemed to say. The question was unworthy of reply. Picking her way over pots and a stack of wood strips, she led them to a pair of double doors and said, “In there,” as if she had only just thought better of giving the two of them a push.

The mother was about the same age as Diana Marshalson, a thin tired-looking woman of faded blond prettiness. She got up from the chair in which she had been sitting, writing something at a desk. Wexford had noticed, from the moment they entered the house, that this was one of the few in the neighborhood with efficient air-conditioning but perhaps only one among many in Riverbank Close. With not a window open, the room was as cool as on an autumn day. Outside the sun glared over parched lawns and distressed trees with drooping leaves.

The woman said nothing, neither smiled nor held out her hand, but raised her eyebrows to an alarming extent so that the penciled ellipses vanished into her fringe. Wexford took this as an inquiry as to their business in her house rather like her daughter's “Yes?” Not invited to sit down, Burden sat in spite of this omission and Wexford, once she had returned to her chair, did so too. A phone call had been made before their visit, but she gave no sign that she knew of it. She sat in silence, first gazing out of the window, then turning her eyes on Wexford.

He responded by asking her if he was right in thinking she was Mrs. Hilland.

“Vivien Hilland, yes,” she said, her voice several degrees higher up the class scale than the home she lived in. A small manor house would have been more appropriate.

“You will have heard of Amber Marshalson's death.”

“I suppose that's why you're here.”

“Your son is the father of Amber's child, I believe.”

“I believe so too,” she said. “From what I hear and read, about a third of all men who think they are their child's father are wrong. It may be so in this case, but my husband and I prefer to think Daniel is Brand's father.”

“Quite so,” said Wexford, sighing inwardly. “Where is your son now?”

“He's an undergraduate at the University of Edinburgh.” She paused as if expecting one of the policemen to ask her what an undergraduate was. “At the moment, however,” she went on, “he's in Finland with friends. By some lake or other.”

“Does he know of Amber's death?” Burden asked.

“My husband left a message on his mobile. He hasn't yet responded. He and Amber were no longer…er, together. They hadn't been since six months before the child was born.”

“We'd like the number of his mobile, please, Mrs. Hilland.”

She looked as if about to protest but shrugged instead and wrote it down on a piece of paper she tore from a block on the desk. The girl Cosima came in, drinking Coke out of a can. She passed them without a glance, opened one of the French doors and, leaving it open, wandered into the garden where she lay facedown on the lawn. Mrs. Hilland's eyebrows went up again.

Footsteps sounded in the hall and a man put his head around the door. “Just to let you know I'm going into town for that beading,” he said. “I won't be long.”

He was handsome, blue-eyed, and smiling. Her face softened. She almost simpered. “All right, Ross. That's fine.”

“When did you last see Amber?” Wexford asked when the man had gone and Vivien Hilland's flush had faded.

“Oh, two or three weeks ago. She used to bring Brand quite often. After all, he's my grandson.”

“Yes.”

“The last time, if that's what you want to know, would have been—let me see—July the twentieth. I know the date because it was when the builders started. It was Diana Marshalson who recommended Ross Samphire. He'd done some work through their studio. I remember I was talking to him when she and Brand arrived.” There was nothing granny-like about Vivien Hilland, but now she was talking about Brand a degree of animation had crept into her voice. She had even moved on to answering when no question had been asked. “He's very like Daniel to look at and that's as it should be.” She didn't explain this rather cryptic remark. “My husband and I would have preferred it if he and Amber could settle their differences and he live with her during his university holidays. That's why we were letting her have the flat. You do know about the flat?”

“No, we don't.”

“I thought Diana Marshalson would have told you. Of course you're aware that my husband, Stuart Hilland, that is, used to represent the parliamentary constituency of South Crenge in the House of Commons for the Conservative Party.” That had to be the most circumlocutory way possible of saying the man was a Tory MP, Wexford thought. “When he went into the Commons we bought a flat in Crenthorne Heath, but unfortunately he lost his seat when this terrible Labour government came in in nineteen ninety-seven. We've had tenants in the flat since then, but the present lease comes to an end in November and we offered it to Amber.”

“She and Brand were going to move to London?”

“Well, very suburban London. She didn't object. She was thrilled at the prospect of having a place of her own. Kingsmarkham Council wouldn't do anything for her. Well, what can you expect?”

“This offer,” said Burden, “was conditional on Daniel also living there when he could?”

“Frankly, I thought it should have been, but my husband wouldn't have it. No, it was just for her. I really don't understand why you're asking all these irrelevant questions. It was surely some pedophile or psychotic who killed her, wasn't it?”

“I don't think so,” said Wexford. “I'd like to ask another question you may think irrelevant, Mrs. Hilland. Where were you on Wednesday morning between, say, one and three
A.M
.?”

“I?” As if the room were full of people. “I? In bed, of course.” Almost before the words were out, second thoughts seemed to dawn on her. “No, I wasn't. Of course I wasn't.” She had become almost human. “My husband and I had been to this very long play in town—London, that is—and we had supper afterwards and he drove us home. We got in about half-past two.”

“I see. Thank you. Your daughter was alone in this house?”

She took it for criticism. “Cosima is a very responsible sixteen. She's quite old for her actual years.” As if on cue, the girl got up from her prone position on the grass and sauntered in, dropping her Coke can as she came.

“Daddy and I got in about half-past two yesterday morning, didn't we?”

“I don't know,” Cosima said. “I sleep at night.”

“You heard us. I know you did. You called out something to us.”

“‘Fuck off,' I expect it was.”

Vivien Hilland began to scream at her. “How dare you use that language, you foul-mouthed little slut! And pick up that Coke can. Pick it up, go on.”

Shaking her head slowly from side to side so that briefly she looked like the mature person her mother had optimistically said she was, Cosima passed through the room and, once outside it, crashed up the stairs, as heavy-footed as someone three times her weight. Mrs. Hilland turned on them a forced smile. “Now, is that all?”

“For now,” said Wexford.

Outside, Burden wiped his forehead on an immaculate handkerchief, though it had been cool inside the house. “She'll be picking up that can now.”

“Pity she wasted her energy on screaming reproaches when it's ten years too late. Why didn't Diana Marshalson tell us about the flat?”

“Thought it wasn't relevant, I dare say. Is it?”

“Don't know,” said Wexford. He withdrew his hand from the car door with a sharp exclamation; the metal was burning hot. “God, that hurt. Diana, if not her husband, will have been overjoyed at the prospect of seeing the back of Amber, whom she had never really got on with, and the baby she obviously sees as a nuisance.”

“You're saying this takes away from her any motive for killing Amber. Not that I for one suspected her but she did dislike the girl and she has no alibi.”

“Her husband would have noticed if she'd left the house, surely. Anyway, she didn't. She had every reason for keeping Amber alive. Let her go to Crenthorne Heath and take Brand with her and maybe they'd hardly see her in the future.

“I wonder,” he said as they got into the car, “if there was some amount of jealous rivalry between the families. The Marshalsons, presumably since Diana left the company, don't seem to have been too flush with cash. They don't own a London flat. If they had, Amber and Brand would have been settled in it for a year by now.”

“And she'd be still alive.”

“Maybe. But ‘what ifs' are useless, aren't they? We can't read the book of fate and thank God for it. Chance and contingency rule all. For instance, Donaldson could take us back to Kingsmarkham via the Stowerton bypass or take the B road through Framhurst. If it was the latter we might pass under that bridge where there was the crash back in June and someone might drop a lump of concrete on us. If we take the bypass a truck might come off the slip road without looking and send us all to kingdom come. Who knows?”

“I always take the bypass, sir,” said Donaldson seriously. “But if you'd rather it was Framhurst…?”

“Oh, no, no,” said Wexford, laughing. “We'll take your way.”

 

Ben Miller was a tall handsome boy, fair-haired and thin. Hannah and Baljinder had found him alone in his mother's little end-of-a-terrace house in Myfleet. She was at work, as was his sister, who also lived at home. Ben had been working at his computer, not as Hannah had at first thought playing some game online, but writing a dissertation for his return to university in six weeks' time.

“You seem to have been the last person to see Amber Marshalson alive,” Hannah said to him after they were all supplied with glasses of water, a necessary prerequisite for any sort of conversation in the heat, which today was climbing to thirty-three Celsius. “Can you tell us about that? In as much detail as you can manage, please.”

“I was at school with Amber,” Ben Miller said. “We'd known each other for years and years. It's terrible, this thing that's happened to her. I can still hardly believe it.” He looked genuinely distressed. “What happened that night? Well, I went to the Bling-Bling Club at around nine with my girlfriend. She lives in Kingsmarkham. She's called Samantha Collins.” Ah, the “Sam” one, a woman after all, thought Hannah. “And after a bit some other people we know joined us. There was Lara, Lara Bartlow. And Chris Williamson came with his girlfriend—what's she called?—oh, yes, Charlotte, Charlotte Probyn, and then two more girls came, Veryan and Liz. I've no idea what their other names are.

“I don't drink and Amber doesn't—didn't, I mean. Horrendous, isn't it, when you're talking about someone and you have to change the tense because they're dead? I was going to drive Sam home and then take Amber on to Brimhurst. God, I wish I'd taken her all the way to her house. It's just that we often all met in Kingsmarkham and I nearly always took her home—well, I did since her accident. She'd never driven since that happened. But I always dropped her at the end of Mill Lane. I never thought and I don't think she did…”

“What accident would that be, Ben?” Bal asked.

“When she went into the back of that car in Brimhurst Lane.”

“She drove into the back of a car?”

“You must know about it.” Ben Miller revealed himself to be one of the many who took it for granted that CID knew the details of every traffic accident. “It was when some bastard dropped a lump of concrete off the Yorstone Bridge. It didn't hit Amber, it hit the car in front of her and she went into the back of it. Well, anyone would have. It shook her up and she wouldn't drive again. I mean, I expect she would have eventually, but it was early days, the crash only happened in June.”