She waves a hand airily and her gold bangles clatter. ‘But he hasn’t actually done anything, as far as I’m aware?’
‘He’s been associating with members of a family who were involved in an East Oxford sex-grooming ring. We have still to establish how far he might be implicated.’
‘Oh, I doubt you’ll be able to prove anything against Jamie. He’s all talk. He likes to strut it about, but when it comes down to it, he’s a bit of a coward. He takes after his father.’
She may look superficial, this woman, but she has Barry Mason bang to rights.
‘Did you know he’d been seeing Daisy?’
She raises an eyebrow. An eyebrow that’s been painted on. ‘My dear Inspector, I didn’t even know he’d been seeing Barry. We don’t exactly keep in touch. I move in very different circles these days. Barry pays maintenance for Jamie, of course, my lawyer saw to that. He puts it into an account in my name. In cash.’
I look around. At the mirrors, the vast flat-screen TV, the swanky metal light fittings, the view of the river. So this is where Barry’s money has been going. Siphoned off to this house, month after month, for at least the last ten years. I wonder what Sharon thinks about that. Meanwhile Moira is watching me. ‘I know what you’re thinking, Inspector, but it’s a question of principle. Barry left me, and Jamie is his child. He can’t expect Marcus to fork out for him.’
I suspect that’s very much Marcus’s view as well, and for the second time today, I feel a tiny flicker of sympathy for Sharon Mason.
‘Barry has the standard access rights. Not that he’s ever exercised them.’
I’m incredulous. ‘Not at all? How old was Jamie when you split up?’
‘Just turned four.’
So Barry Mason walked away from a four-year-old child who up till then had called him Daddy. A child he’d read to, tucked in, piggy-backed, pushed on a swing.
Moira is still eyeing me.
‘To be fair to my less-than-estimable ex-husband, it was Sharon’s idea,’ she says. ‘The whole “fresh start” thing. Though I did bump into her and Barry once – it was London Zoo, of all places.’
‘I know. Jamie said. He recognized his father.’
That stumbles her for a moment. ‘Really? Frankly, you stagger me. He hadn’t seen Barry for years.’
‘You’d be surprised, Mrs Northam. How much children can hold on to things like that.’
She gathers herself once more. ‘Well, anyway, Jamie had dragged me to see the spider house, horrible child, and out of the blue there was Sharon, with this tiny pretty little girl. Desperately awkward, can you imagine? We just stood there staring at each other for about five minutes, trying to think of something to say. And then Barry appeared and she rushed him away like we’d just sprouted leprosy. I got a note from Sharon after that, clarifying – that was her word – that she and Barry wanted no further contact, and that it was best for the children too.
‘To be honest,’ continues Moira, ‘I think the real reason for all that fresh start baloney was that she didn’t want Barry coming round here, even to see Jamie. She wanted him all to herself. Not very keen on sharing, our Sharon. Unfortunately for her, Barry is very keen on sharing. Likes to spread himself around in liberal quantities. If you catch my drift.’
‘Do you know how they met?’
‘Oh, she was his secretary, back in the day. That building firm of his? I used to work there too, until I had Jamie, at which point he hired her. I turned up one afternoon with the baby in the stroller to find this bimbo in stilettos and a short skirt and earrings the size of hubcaps. I said to Barry, she’d be quite pretty if she didn’t try so damned hard. She was supposed to be engaged to someone back then. A mechanic – Terry or Darren or some such. But he clearly wasn’t going to deliver the lifestyle she was after, and I think she set her sights on Barry the minute she clapped eyes on him. It was Barry this, Barry that – in fact, we used to joke about it. But she must have got him into bed eventually because the next thing I know she’s claiming to be pregnant and Barry’s being led by his you-know-what straight into the divorce courts. I made him pay though. For the company, I mean. He’d put it all in my name in case he ever went bust, and I forced him to buy me out at the top of the market. He had to take out the most enormous loan.’
And what with that and the child support, no wonder money is tight. I make a note to myself and then look up at her again. I’m sure the tan is fake. The tits certainly are.
I gesture round the room. ‘You seem to have moved on very successfully.’
She laughs, a little self-consciously. ‘Oh, Marcus is much better husband material than Barry ever was. He’s not that interested in sex.’
She smooths her skirt over her rather too visible thighs, and eyes me, an unspoken question hanging in the air. But I have a type too, and believe me, Moira Northam’s not even close.
She stares at her manicure, and then at me. ‘And Marcus already had the requisite son and heir so I didn’t need to ruin my figure having any more.’
I smile. It seems called for. ‘You said “claimed”.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Just now, you said Sharon “claimed” to be pregnant. Wasn’t she?’
She opens her hands and the bangles jangle again. ‘Who knows? It’s the oldest trick in the book, after all, and men never seem to know any different. Lord, you’d think they’d have learned to keep it in their pants by now. All I do know is, nine months later, no baby. And they had to have IVF to have Daisy. Or at least that’s what someone told me.’
And that probably cost them too.
‘And as far as you know, Daisy didn’t know she had a half-brother – she didn’t know about Jamie?’
‘Not unless Sharon or Barry told her, and I think that’s highly unlikely. As far as Sharon’s concerned, Barry’s life before her has been entirely – what’s that word? Redacted. That’s it. Even to the extent of claiming that she only started seeing him after we divorced, which is obviously completely untrue.’
‘And did Jamie know about Daisy?’
She flushes, just a little, under the tan. ‘I can assure you I never mentioned her. I have no idea how Jamie can possibly have found out. I’m afraid you will have to ask him.’
‘I’ll do that. I will also be asking him – again – about where he was when Daisy Mason disappeared. Because until we can confirm his whereabouts I’m afraid we can’t eliminate him from our inquiries.’
She smiles. ‘That’s exactly what I wanted to talk to you about. I don’t know why Jamie is being so stubborn – perhaps he thinks a spell in the cells will do wonders for his street cred with those insalubrious associates of his. Anyway, the point is this: I know precisely where he was on Tuesday afternoon. He was with me.’
‘That’s easy to say, Mrs Northam – ’
‘Very possibly. But I happen to have proof. Marcus’s niece is getting married next week, and we were at my ghastly sister-in-law’s for the rehearsal. There are even pictures, though Jamie won’t thank me for showing them to you. He doesn’t like to be seen in proper trousers. Lord knows how I’m ever going to shoe-horn him into morning dress.’
She takes out her phone, finds the photos and passes the handset over to me. I notice, in passing, how easily her hands give her away. Her face is botox-bland but her hands are veining and blotching with age. She reaches for a tissue in her handbag and I see it’s exactly the same as Sharon’s. Only I’m prepared to bet this is one thing about her that’s the genuine article.