Shap watched, waited until she’d handed over their change. ‘Paula. I was thinking, he’ll have a mobile, won’t he? Give me the number, I’ll get in touch direct.’
She looked away quickly, blinked, looking up as though something in the air would tell her what to do. Swung her gaze back to his. ‘I’ll tell him to call you,’ she said. Wheeled away before he could persist, through the door to the kitchens.
Downstairs, Janine and Richard explored the stylish dining room with its Moroccan tiled table, glass shelves and carefully arranged candelabras and glazed pots. They found nothing. The search of the lounge was fruitless too.
‘You know what strikes me,’ she said, keeping her voice low, ‘is how impersonal it all is. There’s no clutter, no letters and photos or mementoes,’ she paused. ‘No kids?’ Could that explain it?
‘I haven’t any, either,’ said Richard, ‘but I still have stuff. Not that I’ve had chance to unpack it yet.’
‘Photo there,’ she nodded at the wedding snap in its fine golden frame. Lesley Tulley in a cream knee-length dress, short veil, leaning against her husband beneath a rose arbour, head against his shoulder. His hands around her waist. They looked very happy. Lesley Tulley said they had a happy marriage. Why did Janine have doubts about that? Something about Lesley’s reactions? About the feel of the house too.
It wasn’t just the elegance and the space; it was a mood, a tension in the atmosphere. Someone has just been murdered, she reminded herself; could have something to do with it.
The study looked more like what she was used to. Files and papers lay on Matthew Tulley’s desk. All of it related to St. Columbus High School. Richard went through his briefcase.
She examined the shelves. A couple of silver flight cases and some padded bags containing camcorders and photographic accessories. The rest given over to books. She ran her eye along the rows; no fiction to speak of, some books on jazz and photography but mostly education and management books, papers from various examining boards, thick files relating to Standards and the National Curriculum.
Richard began to search the filing cabinet while Janine went through the desk. In the bottom drawer, underneath everything else, she found a pack of condoms.
‘What have we got here?’ She held them up to show Richard. ‘He’s playing away?’
Richard gestured. Could be.
Why else hide them? Janine thought.
When they checked in the kitchen, the washing machine was empty. Janine peered out, there was nothing on the rotary dryer in the garden. She went through to the sisters, now waiting in the lounge.
‘We’d like to have a look in the garage.’
The double garage stood to the left of the house, its side entrance a few steps from the side door that led out of the kitchen. Lesley unlocked it and led them in.
‘Thank you, we can lock up after if you leave the key.’
Janine waited for Lesley to go. There was a tumble dryer in the corner but it was empty. She looked along the workbench that ran across the back of the space. Tools neatly stored, nails and screws in containers. No knife. No empty place shouting ‘here was a knife’. She shook her head at Richard.
They took a turn round the garden. It was a fresh day, cold enough for hats and gloves but the sky was a vivid blue, setting off the bare branches and the dark skeletons of the trees. ‘No sign of fresh digging,’ Janine pointed out, thinking still about the washing Richard had seen.
‘Need a warrant to get a proper look.’
‘No chance, yet.’
She crushed a sprig of conifer between her fingers, sniffed the pine scent. ‘You got a garden, your new place?’
‘Flat. Not even a window box.’
Janine nodded towards the side of the house and they turned that way. ‘Ours isn’t bad, Pete used to do a lot. The lawn’s more of a football pitch now though, Tom practising his flying tackles.’ She was curious about Richard; beyond saying that he was single again he hadn’t volunteered anything else about his marriage break-up to her. ‘Wendy still down there?’
‘Yep. We sold up, she got her own place.’ His voice was neutral, no clue as to whether he was sad or glad.
Janine nodded at the wheelie bin. Richard rolled his eyes but moved forward. Janine’s phone went off, the lousy marching drill number, Richard recoiled.
‘Hello?’
‘DS Shap, boss. Paula, Dean Hendrix’s girl – claims not to know his whereabouts. Not exactly falling over backwards to help us out.’
Janine sighed, another obstacle. ‘Thanks, Shap,’ she turned to Richard. ‘No joy from the Hendrix girl friend.’
Richard opened the top of the bin and they peered in. Bin-liners neatly tied. ‘Take it all away.’ Janine said.
‘Without a warrant?’
‘With Mrs Tulley’s permission, though she’d be an idiot to have dumped anything in that.’ When would they get a break, some movement in the case? ‘Christ, I hope forensics have something we can get our teeth into. Or the eyewitness gives us a positive result. If we can just put one of them there.’ Richard lifted the bags from the bin and placed them beside it.
‘Right,’ Janine said briskly, ‘let’s see what she’s got to say about her dirty washing.’
Emma was just leaving when they joined Lesley in the house. She needed to call home for more clothes and to sort her flat out for the following days when she would be staying at Lesley’s. Once she’d gone, Janine told Lesley, ‘we’re eager to locate some clothing that was here yesterday in the washing machine.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Sports clothing, jog-pants something like that. In yesterday morning’s wash?’
Lesley’s brow creased in a frown, she shook her head. ‘I didn’t wash anything yesterday.’
Janine glanced at Richard. An innocent mix-up or something more serious?
‘You’re sure, please think very carefully.’
Lesley continued to shake her head. ‘I’m sure.’
Janine stood up first, outwardly calm but thinking all the while that now they had something more to go on, now she had a place to start, a loose thread to pull on, and she couldn’t wait.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DS Shap knocked on Ferdie Gibson’s door more loudly. ‘Come on,’ he said under his breath. He thought he heard sounds inside so he waited. He glanced down the road where two elderly women were in conversation. Bundled up in woolly hats, coats and gloves.
At last the door was pulled back and Ferdie stood there. Hair so short you could see the bumps on his skull and a smudged tattoo, some sort of moth or something on his neck.
Shap showed him his ID. ‘Morning Ferdinand,’ he said.
‘Ferdie,’ the lad replied.
‘Whatever. Can I come in a moment?’
Ferdie looked as though he was about to refuse.
‘Unless you want all the neighbours knowing your business.’ He swung his eyes to the old women.
In the drab living room Shap explained that they had a witness who had seen a man answering Ferdie’s description leaving the allotments where Matthew Tulley had been killed.
‘Well, it weren’t me,’ Ferdie replied. ‘I wasn’t anywhere near there.’
‘Where were you, Ferdie?’
‘In bed, I told them others.’
‘You sure about that?’
‘Yes,’ he said aggressively.
‘Sure enough to prove it.’
‘What d’ya mean?’ His eyes narrowed, emphasising the feral look of his features.
‘We want to hold an identity parade, see if this witness can pick out who he saw.’
‘Well, it weren’t me.’
‘So you’d attend the parade?’
‘Why should I?’
‘Clear your name. There’s a lot of people muttering about how you had a grudge against Matthew Tulley. You’d already gone for him with a knife before, hadn’t you?’
‘Yeah. And you know what he did, give me brain damage, that’s what. I can’t concentrate, I get these attacks. And he’s still teaching.’