'Til Death (DI Steven Marr Book 1) - UK Crime Fiction Whodunnit Thriller (6 page)

Throw Gregor Stanic into the picture and you had one attractive wedding party. Was jealousy the motive? It wouldn’t have been the first time.

When Michelle returned, accompanied by her husband, Marr could tell immediately that Anna had definitely been a daddy’s girl. Though he’d found out about the death of his daughter less than twenty-four hours ago, John Markham looked like he hadn’t slept for weeks. There were dark bags beneath his eyes, and he looked unsteady on his feet. He looked so different to the man in the photo.

John reached out to shake Marr’s had, mumbling his name before sitting down in one of the armchairs. Michelle leant her arm around his shoulders.

‘Thanks for agreeing to see me, both.’ Said Marr ‘I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to come around yesterday.’

John said nothing, but Michelle gave Marr a smile as she poured out the tea for all three of them. Cups of tea in the face of the worst that life had to offer.

‘I’ve just been to talk to Gregor Stanic…’ Mar said, noting that John Markham reacted to the name with a slight shake of the head.

‘Poor lad…’ he said. Marr didn’t think John was trying to contribute to the conversation. He seemed removed from what he said: an impartial observer, miles away from his real life.

‘What did you think of Greg?’ Marr asked.

The question was more towards John, but it was Michelle that replied.

‘I found him a bit difficult to get used to, I suppose’ she said, gently stroking her husband’s shoulder as she talked. ‘In the early days, at least. He was a bit of a Jack the Lad: flirting with other girls, messing around, trying to make Anna jealous. I thought he was just a dumb playboy, and Anna did too, I think. But after a while he became more serious. The games stopped. He seemed to grow up a bit: I think Anna was good for him. He was always really attentive, buying her presents, spoiling her.’

‘Was he ever possessive?’ Marr asked.

‘No, not at all. Whether he had it in him, I don’t know, but it’s not like Anna would have taken any of that nonsense anyway. I always remember when she was about thirteen, she brought this boy round to watch TV. They were holding hands, playing boyfriend and girlfriend. Anyway, he asked Anna – no, he told Anna, no please or thank you – to fetch him a drink.’

‘I’m guessing he didn’t get it’, Marr said.

‘No he got it, if by ‘it’ you mean a mouthful of language I won’t repeat and a swift kick out the door.’

Michelle looked down at the carpet, though by the slight smile on her face it was obvious she wasn’t really seeing the pattern. Michelle was seeing her head-strong girl tearing some thirteen year old idiot a new one. Stanic had described Anna as brave, strong – take no prisoners. Seeing the proud look on Michelle’s face, Marr wondered if those characteristics hadn’t come from her mother, rather than her father.

‘Greg said that you’d helped them a lot with the wedding?’

Michelle nodded.

‘We did what we could. John’s early retirement meant a good pension, and the money we inherited after his mum died a couple of years ago, we don’t have a mortgage anymore. It was just nice to be able to help, especially with Greg and Anna saving up for their own house.’

‘They didn’t own it already?’

Michelle shook her head.

‘I know Anna thought about moving back here to help them save quicker, but I don’t think either she or Greg would have liked that. Understandably so; if John had asked me to live with his parents I’d have run a mile, especially if we had no clue when we’d be able to leave.’

Michelle sighed.

‘It’s tough for them, the next generation. We bought this house for £60,000, and that was only twenty years or so ago. It’s worth four times that now, and not because of any work we did.’

John nodded slightly. He’d been so still, the movement almost made Marr jump, but Michelle continued, hardly seeming to notice.

‘I read in the paper about a woman who bought a three bed maisonette in London, she got it for £40,000 about thirty years ago. Just sold it for something like £650,000. She wasn’t playing the market or anything, she just lucked out. There’s hundreds of twenty year olds out there who’ll never own their own homes; they’ll just inherit ours.’

Marr nodded. That much was true. He still counted his blessings that he and Lizzie had bought their own house a year before the crash. They’d thought about waiting: if they had, they definitely couldn’t have gotten the mortgage they did. Not without paying stupid interest rates and crippling themselves.

In some ways, it was hard not to understand why some kids made the wrong decisions. The frustration. The anger. He saw it all the time in shoplifters, pub fighters, muggings. Twenty-one year olds who’d been told that if they got their grades, went to college and got a degree, the world would give them a comfortable life.

Fat chance. They did what they were told, and got nothing. So what did they owe the world?

‘Anna’s friend Caroline, did you talk to her much?’ Marr asked.

Michelle smiled.

‘Oh yes, Caroline and Anna were very close. They’d known each other for years. When they were still at university togehter they’d come here for the weekend sometimes, I’d do Anna’s laundry, give them a home cooked meal. Then a big breakfast the next morning if they had a hangover. The usual student thing. We haven’t seen Caroline quite as much over the last couple of years, but I think that’s more down to the fact that Anna was so busy. She probably didn’t see Caroline much herself.’

‘Gregor said that he thought Anna looked after her?’

Again, a nod from John seemed to come out of nowhere. It looked like it took considerable effort.

‘Caroline had problems,’ he said, quietly. ‘She was a good girl, don’t get me wrong, but she just seemed…well, troubled. She could be really quiet one day, and the life and soul the next. Really up and down.’

‘She was always polite’ added Michelle ‘but some weekends it was a bit like getting blood from a stone.’

‘Could Caroline have killed Anna?’ Marr asked.

They both shook their heads.

‘No,’ Michelle said. ‘No, I don’t think Caroline would have been capable of hurting anyone, let alone Anna. It was tough to see her so down sometimes. I always got the impression she was a really caring person, but that she just found life a bit difficult.’

Marr nodded, not quite sure that caring had much to do with anything. Being caring didn’t mean you weren’t capable of violence. Caring could be a mask. Thousands of domestic violence cases started off with a ‘caring’ partner, a partner who only wanted their boy or girlfriend to be ‘safe’. And then ‘safe’ became ‘indoors’, and so on…

‘Anna’s friend, Thomas Coulthard. Did you have much to do with him?’

Michelle looked at her husband for a moment. Marr could tell that she was struggling to place the name. After a moment, though, her face relaxed and the smile returned.

‘Oh, of course, Tom’ she said, nudging John in the arm as if to pass on the memory. ‘Don’t you remember him, John? The overweight lad, he used to come round sometimes after school.’

John closed his eyes and nodded.

‘Oh of course, yes. No, I didn’t know Anna still saw him. She never mentioned him, not to me anyway.’

Michelle nodded her agreement.

‘That’s true, Inspector, Tom never came up in conversation. I suppose he might have been planning to come to the wedding. In fact, I think I remember seeing his name on the invitations, now you’ve reminded me.’

‘Caroline had mentioned him. She seemed to think he and Anna were still quite close.’

Michelle looked surprised.

‘Well, I suppose it’s not impossible. Most of the time Anna would be by herself if she came to see us – unless Greg was with her, of course - so we never really saw much of her friends. They all had their own lives to live. I’ve always thought that was one of the sadder things about getting older: you still have friends, of course, but you’re never as tight-knight as when you were younger.’

Marr thought about when he’d last seen James, the best man at his wedding. Two years, at least. They still exchanged texts here and there, of course. But actually organising spending time together was tough. Work, love, travel: life was full of things happy to get in the way.

‘Do you remember much about Thomas, even from when he was younger?’

Michelle shook her head.

‘No, not really. I thought he probably had a bit of a crush on Anna. A schoolboy crush, that is: he was probably about ten at the time. He was very polite, quite shy but always well-mannered. I’m not sure what his home life was like. In a way, I wondered why he and Anna were friends: she was so headstrong, even then. Maybe he just liked being around someone who could be in charge.’

‘What was Anna’s romantic life like before she met Greg?’

This time, it was John’s turn to smile.

‘It was what she wanted it to be’ he said. ‘I’ll say this much: being a father to a pretty girl can be scary. Especially when she started to get older, and you saw the boys drooling after her. Anna…well, there never seemed to be any problems. She went out with boys, I’m sure, but she never seemed that bothered by them. Understandable: Anna was always clever, even at that age, and we both know that teenage boys are idiots.’

Marr smiled.

‘Very true’ he said..

‘I’m not naïve enough to assume nothing happened in the twenty-one years before she officially moved out, and I don’t doubt university was what university is, but until she met Greg we never got the sense of anything serious.’

Michelle nodded along as her husband talked. Her eyes were shining, but Marr didn’t get the impression she was about to burst into tears. It was sorrow, and it would continue to come and go, probably for the rest of her life.

Marr remembered a vague quote Lizzie had mentioned to him: it was from some poem, though he couldn’t remember which one.

The sorrow of remembering in present pain past happiness.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Only Marr and Becky remained in the office that evening. Marr checked his watch: half past six. He’d told Lizzie that he’d be home by seven at the latest.

Exhaling deeply, he stood up.

‘Cup of tea?’ he asked.

Becky looked up from her paperwork, and smiled.

‘Brilliant plan.’

A few minutes later, they were both sat with their feet up on nearby chairs, chewing over the case and the evidence, or lack of it.

‘Stanic didn’t do it?’ Becky asked.

Marr shook his head.

‘I just don’t see it. He might have been a lady’s man when he was younger, but I don’t think he’s a killer. He loved Anna. What sort of jack the lad leaves the army to become an accountant if it’s not to settle down?’

Becky rolled her eyes.

‘You should do a course in gender studies,’ she said.

‘You should do a course in gender studies,
sir.
’ Marr replied. Becky found a spare paper clip on the desk and threw it at him.

‘What about Caroline Marcus?’ she asked, once she was satisfied a return throw wasn’t coming.

Marr thought about it. What
about
Caroline Marcus?

‘I don’t know yet,’ he said, picking up a pen and twirling it between his fingers, ‘Only Sam’s spoken to her. ‘Something a bit off’ was all she said. But then the poor woman had just lost her best friend. Who the hell wouldn’t be a bit off?’

‘You could talk to her yourself.’ Becky suggested

Marr shrugged.

‘I could, but it’s not like I don’t trust Sam’s judgement. Also, I don’t want to step on her toes.’

Becky nodded, slowly. Then, not taking her eyes from his, she said:

‘Congratulations, by the way.’

Marr must have looked puzzled, because Becky immediately qualified the statement:

‘The baby: congratulations’

‘Oh, thanks’ he replied.

‘Big news, you must be excited.’

Marr nodded.

‘Yeah. Nervous more than excited. Ten years as a cop ought to be enough preparation for loud annoying things that wreck your sleeping habits, though.’

Becky smiled.

‘How’s Lizzie?’ she said. Marr had never got used to Becky calling his wife by her first name. He didn’t quite know where it had come from: Lizzie and Becky had talked a few times before, but he never got the impression they were close.

‘She’s OK. The opposite of me, really: excited more than nervous. Hang on…who told you about the baby?’

Becky looked at him.

‘Sam.’

‘Oh’ replied Marr, pursing his lips in thought.

Sam knew.

And
he
hadn’t told her.

‘Lizzie and Sam were friends, remember.’ Becky said, reading his expression. ‘Maybe less so these days, but back when you first arrived…’