When he had seen Blanche Davies from a distance he had thought her pretty. Close-up he could see that she was beautiful. Head-turningly beautiful, with the kind of looks that had enabled her sister to embark on a theatrical career.
‘You must be Sergeant Bradley.’ She looked from Anna to Trevor.
‘I am, and this is Sergeant Trevor Joseph.’
‘Please come in.’ She opened the door wide. A girl from the same astonishingly beautiful mould as Blanche was sitting at a table in the living room.
Both Anna and Trevor recognised Adam Weaver’s daughter from the photographs in the suitcase, but if they hadn’t seen them, they would have taken her for Blanche Davies’ daughter. The resemblance was remarkable.
‘This is my niece, Hannah,’ Blanche ushered them towards a small, wooden-framed three piece suite. ‘Have you finished your homework, Hannah?’
‘Yes, Auntie.’
‘These police officers have come to discuss a case with me.’
‘Can I go upstairs and watch television?’
‘Yes, and afterwards we’ll have that game of chess I promised you.’
The girl packed her school books into a small rucksack and Trevor had a sudden pang of nostalgia for a family life he hadn’t experienced since he’d left home. He wondered what a daughter of his and Lyn would look like, should they ever be lucky enough to have one. She would be dark of course, with brown eyes. Both he and Lyn had brown eyes, although his hair wasn’t as dark as hers. It was most peculiar, while he’d been living with Lyn all he had been able to think about was Daisy. Now that Lyn had left him all he could think about was her.
‘Pretty girl,’ Anna complimented after Hannah left the room.
‘I have difficulty remembering she’s not mine.’
‘How long has she lived with you?’
‘Two and a half years.’
Trevor recalled that two and a half years ago Laura Weaver’s hacked and dismembered body had been discovered by a postman, whose curiosity had driven him to follow a trail of blood from the front door of the Weaver’s cottage.
‘Would you like coffee?’
‘No thank you, we’ve just eaten,’ Anna refused for both of them.
Blanche removed a tray of coffee cups and uneaten biscuits from the table and carried it through to the kitchen. When she returned she sat opposite them in an armchair. ‘You said on the telephone it was something to do with my brother-in-law.’
‘Have you heard from him since he escaped from prison?’ Trevor asked.
‘No, Sergeant.’ She crossed her legs. ‘And that has surprised me.’
‘Why?’
‘Whatever faults he had, and there were quite a few, Adam was a devoted father. And I have to concede that as far as I could tell, he was also a devoted husband.’
‘But he did kill your sister?’
Blanche looked Trevor straight in the eye.
‘That’s what the jury decided. Although if you had asked me beforehand, I would have said Adam was incapable of killing a mouse, let alone a human being.’
‘Are you saying that you don’t think he killed your sister?’
She thought carefully before she answered.
‘What I’m saying is that from what I saw, Adam and Laura’s relationship was no better, and no worse, than any other married couple’s, particularly when you consider the nature of their profession. If anything, Laura was the more highly-strung and volatile of the two. When the police knocked on my door to tell me that they suspected Adam of killing her, I found it hard to believe. Later when I heard how Laura had died, I found it impossible. I always thought of Adam as a singularly gentle person, but then of course like most actors he could be charming when he chose to be. Utterly charming,’ she murmured. ‘And like most actors, including my sister, it was sometimes difficult to differentiate between the real person and the role-playing. But for all of that, the Adam I knew could not have killed any living thing,’ she stressed, ‘certainly not in the way described in court.’
‘It must have been a difficult time for you, and Hannah,’ Anna sympathised.
‘It wasn’t just Laura’s murder and the trial. My father died of a heart attack a month before Laura.
My mother was terminally ill with cancer at the time. She died shortly after the trial finished, and my brother who had to identify Laura’s body, had a nervous breakdown.’
‘Leaving you to cope?’
‘Someone had to. There was Hannah,’ Blanche said simply.
‘Where was Hannah when it happened?’
‘Staying with a school friend. It was the friend’s birthday party and she’d been invited to spend the night.’
Trevor tried to remember the Weaver family’s movements on the night Laura had been murdered.
Laura Weaver had been killed in their country cottage, and Adam had claimed that he’d visited an off-licence and slept at their London flat, but he’d been unable to produce a single witness to substantiate his alibi. And he’d admitted that he and his wife were having problems and they’d quarrelled earlier that day.
‘Did your sister tell you that her marriage was rocky?’ Anna asked.
‘As I told the police at the time, Laura didn’t confide in me. I knew little more than what appeared in the gossip columns. My sister had been successful in her own right, and the theatrical world is a social one. She and Adam went to lots of parties. The chances are that, if Hannah hadn’t been staying over at a friend’s that night, she would have been left in the London flat with her nanny. Hannah often only saw her parents at weekends.’
‘I remember Laura being a hostess on a game show.’
‘If you recall that much, Sergeant Bradley, you must also remember that her name was linked with that of the show’s presenter.’
‘Just as Adam Weaver’s was linked with that of his co-star.’
‘That rumour was started by a journalist, who needed a story,’ Blanche said dismissively.
‘Did your niece come to live with you straight after the murder?’
‘The day after. The police took Adam into custody to help with their enquiries so I went up to London to fetch her.’ Blanche opened a cigarette box on the coffee table at her side. Taking one, she offered the box around. When the others declined she apologised. ‘I know I shouldn’t, but since the murder I succumb now and again. Laura and I weren’t close, but we shared a lot of things –including our childhood.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Anna said. ‘We must be bringing back painful memories.’
‘You are,’ Blanche replied honestly. ‘Where are all these questions leading?’
‘We have reason to believe that your brother-in-law may be living in this area.’
Blanche stared at Trevor. ‘So that’s why you asked if he’s contacted us?’
‘His fingerprints were identified inside a suitcase found in the town yesterday. Are you absolutely sure he hasn’t tried to contact you or his daughter?’
‘I’d know if Adam came anywhere near us, Sergeant.’
Anna glanced at Trevor, and he knew what she was thinking. Just how much should Blanche Davies be told about Adam Weaver’s change in appearance?
‘We don’t think Adam Weaver looks like he did two years ago,’ he said carefully.
‘Adam was an actor.’ Blanche flicked her cigarette into the ashtray. ‘I went to see him in
The
Merchant of Venice
at the Theatre Royal in Bristol four years ago. The first act was over before I realised he was playing Shylock.’
‘I don’t mean a theatrical disguise.’ Trevor pulled the Tony photographs from his pocket, and handed them to Blanche. ‘We think this is what he looks like now.’
‘But that’s impossible. The mouth is entirely different, the nose…’ she looked up. ‘You think he’s had plastic surgery?’
‘Sort of,’ Trevor prevaricated.
‘This looks nothing like him. Nothing at all.’
She thumbed through the prints, before pausing at the full-length one of Tony taken from the video film. ‘You really think this man could be Adam?’
‘I know it’s hard to believe, but yes.’
‘It’s not just the face, it’s the body. This man is so thin.’
‘Would you mind if we showed Hannah these photographs?’ Anna asked.
Blanche drew on her cigarette and thought for a moment before answering. ‘Would she have to be told why?’
‘Not if you didn’t want us to tell her.’
‘Then how would you explain your reason for showing them to her?’
‘That we’re looking for the man. That we’re hoping she might have seen him.’
‘She’s a bright child.’
‘You said yourself he looks nothing like Adam Weaver.’
Blanche stubbed her cigarette in the ashtray before going to the foot of the stairs and calling her niece.
‘Haven’t you done enough bloody damage?’ Peter hissed as he bumped into Valance in the doorway of Tom Morris’s hostel.
‘The public have a right to know the facts.’
‘The public don’t give a bloody damn about facts. You’re a ghoul, pandering to ghouls, Valance.
The lowest life-form on earth…’
‘Come in, officers,’ Tom Morris stood above them on the stairs. He stepped back to make room for Peter and Andrew to pass.
Valance continued out through the front door.
‘You get a lot of trouble with him?’ Peter asked.
‘Nigel? No, all I have to do is steer him towards one or two of our more vociferous and aggressive clients.’
‘I’ll remember that technique the next time I bump into him.’
‘He won’t be hanging around here much longer,’ Tom showed them into his office. ‘The dead are dead, and the injured out of sight in hospital. There’s nothing left to hold the media’s interest, although we do have one thing to thank the press for. Since the national coverage of the fire, donations of cash and food have flooded in.’
‘I hope you’re making the most of them.’
‘We are,’ Tom answered. ‘Everyone who works here is only too aware how short the public’s memory can be when it comes to deserving causes.’
‘We called in to see if you’d heard any more about our man?’
‘If we had, we would have contacted you. Have you tried Sam Mayberry?’
‘We’ve tried everyone including Captain Arkwright.’
‘Not likely to find him there.’
‘Unless he’s wearing drag,’ Peter suggested facetiously.
‘I hear some of the squatters from that factory have moved into a derelict pub down the bottom end of High Street,’ Tom closed the blinds on the window.
‘We checked the place last night. In fact we combed the whole bloody town last night,’ Andrew grumbled.
‘And we’ll be doing the same tonight,’ Peter echoed. ‘Can we run through the places your soup kitchen covers, Tom? It might save us some leg-work if we leave a radio with your people again.’
‘As Constable Murphy saw last night, we cover the underpass, the multi-storeys, the docks – and that’s it. We avoid the squats, as we can’t condone law-breaking. All the volunteers have seen the photographs. We have one on our barrow. Tell us what more we can do, and we’ll do it.’
Hannah, hands behind her back, stared at the photograph, bit her bottom lip to stop it from trembling, and nodded.
‘You’re sure, Hannah?’ Blanche asked.
‘That’s the man,’ Hannah whispered. ‘The man who was outside my school. The one Miss Phillips telephoned you about. Who is he?’
‘Just a man who’s been sleeping on the streets,’
Anna answered.
‘Has he done anything wrong?’
‘We can’t be sure, not yet,’ Anna answered.
‘But we want to talk to him about a fire in a building.’
‘He lit it?’
‘Perhaps not, but we do know he was in the building and he might have seen the person who did.’
Hannah dropped the photograph on to the table.
‘Then he is just a dirty old man?’
They all picked up on the disappointment in her voice.
‘I’m afraid it looks like it, Hannah.’ Blanche Davies’ voice was unsteady as she reached for another cigarette. ‘You can go back upstairs, we won’t be much longer.’
‘Can I get myself a glass of milk?’
‘Of course, darling.’
She skipped off into the kitchen leaving all three adults conscious that she was still within earshot.
Trevor picked up the lighter next to the cigarette box and lit Blanche’s cigarette for her.
‘I should have remembered, I’m sorry. I never connected the incident to Adam,’ Blanche said after they’d heard the kitchen door close. ‘Hannah’s headmistress telephoned me at work last week. She said a vagrant had been seen outside the playground watching the children. When someone noticed him, Hannah ran out of the playground. She thought it was her father –’ her voice tailed off.
‘Why would Hannah have thought that? Anna asked. You just said yourself that this man looks nothing like Adam Weaver’
‘She followed his back, when he turned and Hannah saw his face she stopped running after him.’
‘Were the local police given his description?’
Trevor dropped the lighter on to the table.
‘The officer who interviewed Hannah and the teachers said there wasn’t much he could do other than keep an eye out for the vagrant and ask him what he was doing.’
‘Did you get the name of the policeman?’
‘He told me, but I can’t remember. The headmistress will have it. It’s Cowslip Primary School.’
‘You said Hannah believed this man was her father until he turned around?’ Anna asked.
‘I assumed it was wishful thinking. I told you, Adam was a good father. Hannah misses him. The mind can play curious tricks.’ She looked Trevor squarely in the eye. ‘You’re absolutely sure this is Adam?’
‘He has his fingerprints.’
‘What happens now?’ Blanche asked.
‘We have his description; we keep looking until we find him.’
‘Did we see Brian Marks leaving here just as we arrived?’ Trevor asked.
‘Yes,’ Blanche answered, surprised at the abrupt change of subject.
‘May I ask what he was doing here?’
‘He’s our family solicitor. He handled Laura’s estate after the – accident.’ She nodded towards the kitchen to remind Trevor that Hannah was still nearby. ‘Laura engaged him because her cottage was only four miles from his office.’
‘Was that the cottage where –’
‘Where the accident happened,’ Blanche interrupted when Hannah returned to the living room with her glass of milk and a plate of toast, which explained the time she’d taken. ‘Be with you soon, darling.’