I went to Weybridge instead.
I parked on Elgin Crescent, on St George’s Hill, in front of the house that Reginald and Mary Bradbury had once lived in.
I had been to this address many times, both during the years I had courted their daughter and after we were married. Sunday lunches of roast beef plus all the trimmings had always been a favourite.
I got out of the car and stood looking at it through its wrought-iron gates.
Set back behind an evergreen yew hedge, the property had changed little in the three years since Mary had left, but I had forgotten how big it was. I suppose it would have had to be big to have been sold for more than three million quid. Such was the opulence of exclusive developments in London’s leafy Surrey suburbs.
I walked up and down the road looking at the houses on either side, trying to see which of them was a likely candidate as a home for the Wilsons. The one on the right was undergoing some work with a concrete mixer and a stack of breeze blocks visible on the drive.
I decided to try the other side first, on the grounds that a mature couple might not bother with renovations after such a long time in the property. Also, it had no locked gates with an intercom button, as the others did. It was all too easy to tell someone standing at the gate to get lost via a disembodied speaker. Less so when they were face to face at the front door.
I pushed the bell and waited.
Nothing happened.
I pushed the bell again, longer this time, and I could faintly hear a ringing deep in the premises.
I was about to go when I heard a bolt being drawn back. Then the door opened about four inches, brought up short by a sturdy-looking security chain.
‘I’m sorry,’ said a male voice through the crack. ‘We don’t want to buy anything. Please go away.’
‘That’s all right then,’ I replied jauntily. ‘Because I’m not selling. Are you Mr Wilson?’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ said the voice with a hint of surprise.
‘Mr Jim Wilson,’ I said. ‘Married to Gladys?’
‘Who are you?’ asked the voice, the door still open just four inches against the chain.
‘I’m Mary Bradbury’s son-in-law.’
The door closed briefly and I could hear the chain being removed. When it reopened wide I could see a small grey-haired man I took to be in his late seventies standing there.
‘Oh, dear,’ he said. ‘Have you come to tell us bad news? We saw Mary two weeks ago and she didn’t look at all well then.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘No bad news. I was with her earlier this morning.’
‘Oh, good,’ Jim Wilson said, now smiling. ‘I’m so pleased. Gladys and I are very fond of Mary. But I do fear she won’t be with us for much longer.’
‘I’m afraid that you’re right,’ I said. ‘She’s had rather a bad diagnosis.’
‘Yes,’ he said gloomily. ‘She told us.’
It was my turn to be surprised. If Mary had told the Wilsons two weeks ago that she had cancer, then why hadn’t Amelia known about it?
Mr Wilson looked at me.
‘So how can I help you?’ he asked.
‘It’s a bit delicate to talk about out here,’ I said. ‘Could I come in?’
He hesitated, clearly debating with himself whether it was wise. He decided that it was, and he stepped to one side and waved me in.
‘Come through to the kitchen,’ he said. ‘Gladys and I are just having a spot of breakfast.’ He laughed. ‘We tend not to get up very early these days so we never have breakfast before eleven, and then we have our lunch in the middle of the afternoon.’
‘Very sensible,’ I said. ‘I hate getting up early. All those cold dark mornings are best avoided.’
He smiled at me and I wondered if he thought I was taking the mickey.
Because I was.
But I found I liked Jim Wilson, and Gladys turned out to be a treat as well.
They were having smoked salmon and cream cheese on toasted bagels. Quite a breakfast.
‘Would you like one?’ Gladys said. ‘I have plenty more in the fridge.’
‘That would be lovely,’ I said, realising that I’d also had nothing to eat so far today.
Gladys fetched another bagel, cut it in two and put the halves in the toaster.
‘Poor dear Mary,’ Gladys said. ‘First she hears about the cancer and then her sweet Amelia gets killed. We saw Amelia very recently, you know. She was with Mary when we went to visit. What a dreadful business. I just can’t bear it that such a lovely girl was murdered. And in her own house, too. I hope that horrid husband of hers gets what’s coming to him.’
‘Now,’ said Jim Wilson, cutting in. ‘What was so delicate you couldn’t...’ He stopped and stared at me with his mouth hanging open. ‘My God,’ he said with a trembling voice. ‘You’re him.’
‘Who?’ Gladys asked, clearly confused.
‘Amelia’s husband.’
They both suddenly looked terrified, as if they had let a monster into their home.
‘Please don’t hurt us,’ Gladys wailed pitifully.
‘Get out of my house,’ her husband demanded, standing up and pulling himself to his full height, which was still an inch or two shorter even than I.
I didn’t move but sat there in silence and, at that moment, the bagel popped up in the toaster, making all of us jump.
‘I didn’t kill Amelia,’ I said, for yet another time. ‘I can prove that I was fifty miles away in Birmingham at the time she was killed. Otherwise the police wouldn’t have let me go. It’s only the damn press that are still accusing me of murder, and it isn’t true.’
It wasn’t quite the whole truth but... it seemed to do the trick. The Wilsons gradually relaxed and Gladys even took another bite of her bagel.
‘I loved Amelia,’ I went on. ‘I loved her with all my heart. And I want to see the person responsible brought to justice more than anyone.’
Jim Wilson sat down again.
‘So why are you here?’ he asked.
‘I know this sounds strange,’ I said, ‘but I believe that, during your recent visit to Mary, you said something about the price that her house next door was sold for, and I think that could be relevant in determining who killed Amelia.’
It was a tenuous connection but, if I could prove that Joe Bradbury was a liar and a fraudster, and one who would even steal from his own mother, then I might be some way to proving that he was a murderer too. If nothing else it would stop the police believing he was as honest as Mother Teresa.
‘I don’t know what that could be,’ Jim said. ‘We talked mostly about other long-standing friends of both ours and hers. I can’t see how that could help find Amelia’s killer.’
‘How about the couple that bought Mary’s house? Did you speak about them at all?’
‘Alan and Margaret Newbould,’ Gladys said. ‘Nice couple.’
‘Do you know them well?’ I asked.
‘Quite well,’ she replied. ‘They are friendly enough if we see them out somewhere or over the garden fence. But they’re not like Mary and Reg.’ She laughed. ‘With them, we almost lived in each other’s houses at times. Such a shock for us all when Reg died.’
She sighed.
Death was always a shock, all the more so when it was unexpected, sudden and violent. Worse still when it was at the hand of another.
‘Have you seen the Newboulds recently?’ I asked. ‘Perhaps that was what you told Mary about?’
They both thought in silence for a moment.
‘I saw Margaret quite recently,’ Gladys said. ‘I was going for a walk and she was standing outside while some men were unloading a van. She waved at me and I stopped for a chat.’
‘What was being unloaded?’
‘Electrical goods, I think. A new washing machine and a dryer.’