Shallow Grave (10 page)

‘And Jennifer Andrews was working here last night, was she?’

‘That’s right,’ he said, though his eyes moved about a bit.

‘She was here all evening?’

‘That’s right,’ he said again.

‘In the restaurant or in the bar?’

‘Well, she came on to help me in here, so that Karen – that’s our girl – could help the wife out in the restaurant. Had a big party in, Lin did. Jen came on about seven, or a bit after, and then Karen went through to help Lin.’

‘And what time did she leave?’

‘What, Karen?’

Atherton curbed his impatience. ‘No, Jennifer.’

Jack Potter stared at him, and his face congealed with guilt. ‘Look,’ he said. Atherton looked, but he seemed not to be able to go on. His eyes shifted sideways and back. ‘Look,’ he said again, pleadingly now, ‘I want to tell you the truth, but you’ve got to keep it from the wife. I mean, it’s nothing bad,’ he added hastily, ‘but I don’t want Lin coming down on me for it. She’s got a sharp tongue, my wife, and – well, married life’s hard enough, d’you know what I mean?’

Atherton smiled, inviting confidence, persuasive as the Serpent on commission. ‘Every marriage has its little secrets,’ he said.

‘You’re not wrong!’ Jack said gladly. ‘Women? I tell you, it’s a juggling act, keeping ’em sweet. Well, look, strictly between you and me – the thing was, Jen wasn’t really working here last night. She’d arranged it with the wife lunchtime, and all I knew was what they’d arranged between them, about Karen going in the restaurant and everything. So Jen comes in at about seven, like I said, or a bit after, and Karen goes through, and Jen and me chats a bit, because there’s no-one in the bar yet; and then she says, Jen says, “Look, you don’t really need me here tonight, do you?” Well, Tuesdays are quiet – in the bar at any rate. So she says, “You can manage without me,” and I says yes, and she says, “Good, because I’ve got to go somewhere, to see someone.” And she gives me a wink, just like that, you know.’

‘Did she say where she was going?’

‘No,’ he said, and seemed to find it a naïve question. ‘Well, the thing was, she wanted me to cover for her. Now Eddie was barred, it meant he couldn’t come in and check up on her, so he’d think she was in here, and—’ He shrugged.

‘What time did she leave?’

‘About half seven, it must have been. She went out through the back, down the passage past the ladies’ and out through the garden, and that was the last I saw of her. She said she’d be back later but she never. Luckily Lin never came through until after ten, so I just told her Jen had finished and gone home.’

‘Why didn’t she want Linda to know where she was?’

‘Well, Lin’s a bit – careful with the money. It’s not that she’s not generous, I don’t say that, but she’s the one that keeps the books and everything and she’s – careful. She wouldn’t’ve liked if it I’d paid Jen for the evening and she wasn’t here.’

‘But then why did you have to pay her, if all you were doing was providing cover for her?’

‘Well, if I hadn’t paid her, Lin would’ve known she wasn’t here.’

‘Why shouldn’t your wife know Jennifer wasn’t here?’ Atherton asked, patiently trotting another circle.

‘Well, Lin’s a bit, you know, strait-laced,’ Jack said, with what seemed like sudden inspiration. ‘She would never tell a lie, my wife, which is why Jen never asked her to cover for her.’

‘Did you think Jennifer was going to meet another man?’

Jack looked defensive. ‘I don’t know, I don’t know where she was going. It was probably all innocent, but Eddie wouldn’t’ve thought so, which is why she needed me to cover for her. I’m sure it was all innocent. She just wanted to get away from Eddie.’

As yarn went, Atherton thought, this was multi-coloured lurex thread. He went on unravelling. ‘So what would you have done if your wife had come through during the evening and found Jennifer not there?’ Atherton asked.

‘Well, she wasn’t likely to, with a big party in, but Jen said if she did I was just to say she’d felt a bit iffy and gone home; but as it was, Lin was really pushed and never come through till closing, so she never found out, and I never said.’

‘And what about Karen? Didn’t she come through at any point?’

‘Oh, yes, she was fetching the drinks for the restaurant. But I just told her to keep schtumm. She’s a good girl, she does what I tell her.’

‘I see. But surely the customers would know Jennifer wasn’t there, and let it out some time?’

‘Well, they wouldn’t expect her to be there anyway, so why should they mention it to Lin that she wasn’t?’ Atherton offered no reason. ‘You won’t tell her – Linda – will you?’ Jack pleaded, and laughed unconvincingly. ‘There’s no harm in it. I just want a quiet life, that’s all.’

Atherton let it go. ‘What about Eddie Andrews? Did he come to check up on his wife at all?’

‘Twice,’ Jack said, seeming relieved to reach something more stable underfoot. ‘First time he came it was around eight, eight thirty. He’d had a few by then, I could tell. He comes bursting in through the door over there, but I nipped out smartish and stopped him, and told him to get out. “You’re barred,” I said, “and besides which we don’t allow work clothes in here.”’

‘He was in his work clothes?’

‘Oh, yes, mucky boots and all. So I grabbed him by the shoulder and hustled him out, and he was, like, trying to look behind me and saying, “Where’s my wife?” so I said she was in the storeroom and he wasn’t going to annoy her, not on my premises, and I shoved him out. And he stood there a bit, arguing with me, but I just said I wasn’t moving until he’d gone, so after a bit he got into his pickup and drove off.’

‘And the second time?’

‘That must have been near eleven o’clock. Not long before closing, anyway. He came in just like before, only I was serving someone and I wasn’t quick enough to catch him before he got up to the bar. Anyway, he asks where Jen is and I told him she’d left and gone home, and he said I was lying, she’d gone off somewhere and I knew where. Well, in the end I told him if he didn’t clear out I’d call the police – which he didn’t want, because he was well over the limit and still driving about in that truck of his. So after a bit he goes, and that was the last I saw of him.’

‘Where was your wife at the time?’

‘She was in the kitchen clearing up and getting ready for the morning. She didn’t see any of it, fortunately, but I told her afterwards, of course. I mean, I told her Eddie’d been in drunk looking for Jen after Jen’d gone home. She said, Lin said, I ought to phone Jen and warn her, but I said Jen could take care of herself and we shouldn’t get involved, and she saw the sense of that.’ He stopped and gazed at Atherton with fawning eyes. ‘I didn’t know how it would turn out. I mean, covering up for Jen, I was just doing a favour for a friend, that’s all. I didn’t do wrong, did I?’

‘That’s entirely your business, sir,’ Atherton said, ‘but as far as these timings go, we shall have to have a statement from you about it.’

‘Yes, I do see that.’ He bit his lip, frowning anxiously. ‘But it wasn’t my fault he killed her, was it? I mean, who’d have thought he’d do a thing like that? All right, he got drunk and mouthed off a bit, and he had hit her once or twice, according to what Lin says, but I’d never have thought he had the balls to really do it.’

Atherton thought of Eddie Andrews, drunk and looking for his wife, being fobbed off so easily by Jack Potter, and was inclined to agree with him.

In the CID room, the sandwiches were out in force. ‘I don’t suppose anyone got me anything,’ Slider said plaintively.

General mastication was arrested for a micro-second of guilty silence; then McLaren said, ‘I got an egg and cress here you could have.’

‘I don’t want to deprive you.’

‘No, it’s all right, guv, I got plenty.’

That was true. He was already eating a sandwich, and Slider saw on his desk, besides, two jumbo sausage rolls (made with real jumbos, to judge from the grey colour of the filling), a Cellophane-wrapped Scotch egg, a Twix, a big bag of salt ’n’ vinegar crisps, an apple turnover and, betrayed by its slippery stench, a Pot Noodle sweating it out from the microwave in the coffee-room next door. Slider accepted the sandwich. It was the depressing sort of low-grade egg and cress on white sliced, with margarine instead of butter, and the thin slices of hard-boiled egg which, given nothing to weld them together, fall out of the side of the sandwich when you lift it. But beggars, Slider reckoned, couldn’t be critics, and he was famished.

‘You can have my Kit Kat as well, boss,’ Norma said, slinging it over, belatedly troubled by conscience.

‘Thanks,’ said Slider.

‘Don’t mensh.’

Hollis had already got the name and details up on the whiteboard, along with the photographs of the body and its position. ‘My second murder since I’ve been here,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘And I thought it was going to be quiet.’

‘We don’t know that it’s a murder,’ Slider said patiently, but he still had no takers. Over the groans he said, ‘She might have
died of natural causes: pegged out in the middle of a naughty, for instance, leaving someone in an embarrassing position, or a blind panic, with a body on their hands. Don’t let’s get carried away. Remember Timothy Evans.’

‘What, the Christie murders geezer?’ Mackay asked thickly, through a cheese-and-pickle gag. ‘What’s he got to do with it?’

‘He went to the police station to say he’d put his wife’s body down a drain, but the officers assumed he was confessing to murder, and he never smiled again.’

‘Careless talk costs lives,’ Atherton remarked.

‘And careless listening, too,’ Slider warned. ‘So let’s wait for the post-mortem report before we go assuming anything.’

‘My money’s on murder anyway,’ Mackay said, swallowing. ‘And it doesn’t take a genius to guess who.’

‘Disappointed?’ Hollis said.

‘Oh, I like a challenge, me. But it’s got to be the husband, hasn’t it?’

‘I met Murder on the way: he had a face like Eddie A.’ Atherton said. He intercepted Slider’s look and said defensively, ‘You can
et tu
me all you like, but our Eddie’s story’s got more holes in it than the Labour Party manifesto.’

‘All right,’ Slider said, settling on the edge of a desk, ‘I can see you’re not going to heed my warnings, so let’s have it out in the open.’

Atherton, stretching his elegant legs across a good part of the room, extended his thumb. ‘Point one – to begin at the beginning: Andrews says that the work on the terrace was at Mrs Hammond’s instigation, that she practically begged him to do it, though he told her it wasn’t needed. But she says he told her it had to be done, the terrace would fall down otherwise. Why would he lie about that, except to cover up that the existence of the hole was all his idea? And what was the hole for, if not to conceal his wife’s body?’

‘He may just have wanted the work,’ Norma said.

‘Everyone says he’s doing very well,’ said Atherton. ‘She was dripping jewellery, and he has just a stately pleasure dome decreed—’

‘Eh?’

‘Built himself a big new house, which, vile though it is in every detail, is someone’s idea of luxury.’

‘He might have put himself into debt satisfying her and building it,’ Norma pointed out reasonably. ‘We don’t
know
he didn’t have money troubles.’

‘Good point.’ Slider nodded. ‘That’s something to check up on.’

Norma went on, ‘All the same, I can’t see why he lied about whose idea the work was. It’s nothing to us if he persuaded Mrs H. to part with unnecessary cash. It does look as if he’s trying to dissociate himself from it, which looks guilty. So I’ll give you half a point, Jim.’

‘Ta very much,’ he said, and extended his forefinger. ‘Point two: he says he went home from work and stayed there all evening, had supper, watched telly and went to bed. But the house is as immaculate as if the cleaner had just left it – which I propose is the case. Mrs Chatterbury did for them on Tuesday morning after both Andrewses had gone to work, and she was the last person to set foot in the house before we arrived.’

‘But hang on,’ McLaren objected, ‘surely Mrs Andrews would’ve gone home at some point? I mean, minimum, a smart-looking bint like her wouldn’t’ve stayed in the same clobber all day, would she?’

‘You’d expect her to’ve gone home to change before going to the pub for the evening,’ Hollis seconded.

‘According to Jack the Lad, she wasn’t going to the pub for the evening,’ Atherton pointed out. ‘She was going on a date.’

‘All the more reason, then,’ said Norma.

‘Check on that,’ Slider said. ‘What was she wearing at lunchtime? But I suppose she might have changed without leaving any trace in the house, though God knows why she should.’

Atherton sighed and extended his middle finger. ‘Point three: Andrews says he worked through his lunchtime and stayed home all evening, whereas we already know he made three visits to the Goat In Boots. Why is he lying?’

‘Because he’s dead stupid,’ McLaren said pityingly.

‘Harsh words from a man who has to write L and R on the bottom of his shoes,’ Swilley said.

‘And point – whatever this finger is,’ Atherton pursued patiently, ‘we have from several sources that the Andrewses were on bad terms and given to quarrelling, and that he was
a jealous beast and had been known to hit her. We know he was looking for her, and probably the worse for drink.
Ergo,
dear friends, we may postulate that he found her – somewhere – and had a row with her; killed her – somehow – and put the body in his nice handy hole, meaning to fill her in with concrete in the morning. Unfortunately for him, the early-rising Mrs H. got there first. Simple.’