‘Now sit yourself down and tell me what it’s all about,’ said Mrs. Pollard — or Lynne, as she asked Gerry to call her. But first, unlike her daughter, she offered tea, which Gerry was happy to accept after her drive.
Lynne Pollard disappeared into the kitchen and fussed for a while, while Gerry took the opportunity to examine the living room. She didn’t remember seeing many photographs at Charlotte Westlake’s house, just one of Charlotte and a man she assumed to be Gareth, her late husband, but Lynne Pollard more than made up for it. There were framed photographs of Charlotte’s graduation, her wedding, Charlotte as a child and as a teenager (Gerry guessed), not to mention Charlotte with Adele and Charlotte with Daniel Craig. How these meetings had come about, Gerry had no idea. She was glad she had discovered that Charlotte was an only child, because any sibling visiting this shrine would go away with an enormous inferiority complex, if that wasn’t an oxymoron.
Lynne Pollard came back with a teapot, cups, and all the necessaries on a tray and perched at the edge of an armchair upholstered in what resembled a Laura Ashley pattern. She was a short, plump woman with a recently permed head of blue-grey hair. Her face was round and relatively unlined, with a smooth pinkish complexion, small nose, and a wobbly double-chin. She wore brown slacks, moccasin-style slippers, and a loose beige cardigan over a white blouse. Apart from a couple of rings, the only jewellery she wore was a cross on a silver chain around her neck. She wore a little lipstick and a touch of rouge, but no mascara or eyeliner.
‘You’ve got a nice view,’ Gerry said.
‘On a good day, yes. Cradle of the Industrial Revolution. That’s what my husband used to say.’
Gerry happened to have discovered in her researches that Mr. Pollard had died not terribly long after Charlotte Westlake’s husband, but she thought it only polite to ask after him. ‘Is your husband deceased?’
‘Yes. Cyril passed on three and a half years back. Heart. Just like that. Went to bed one night, dead by morning. Never smoked in his life, took a one-hour constitutional every day, hardly touched a drop of alcohol except a small dry sherry at Christmas. It just goes to show you, doesn’t it?’
Exactly what it went to show her, Gerry had no idea. Maybe that life was fleeting and one should enjoy every moment. Well, she tried to do that already.
Lynne Pollard stirred milk and sugar into the tea. ‘So what’s all this about? It’s not every day I get a visit from a police detective.’
Gerry gestured towards the photographs. ‘You must be very proud of your Charlotte,’ she said.
‘Christine,’ Mrs. Pollard corrected her. ‘She was always Christine at home. And, yes, Cyril and I were terribly proud of her. She got into Oxford, you know. Oxford! The only girl from her school to do it in the year.’
‘What about her career?’
‘Oh, wonderful. You know she mixed with some of the most important, famous people you can imagine. Politicians, pop stars — there’s her with Adele — you name it. If they needed something organising, they asked for Christine. Well, Charlotte, I suppose, as it was her professional name.’
‘How did you feel when she went to work for Mr. Blaydon?’
‘Is that what this is about? Connor Blaydon?’
‘You knew him?’
‘Met him on a couple of occasions. Perfect gentleman. You know, there’s been a lot of lies and slanders slung around about him since his death.’
‘It was murder, Mrs. Pollard, and I’m one of the officers investigating what happened.’
‘We all know what happened, love. And it’s Lynne. Those foreigners killed him, that’s who. Wanted him to be part of their evil crime empire and he wouldn’t have it. Turned them down flat.’
‘Did Char — Christine tell you this?’
‘Yes. She knew him well enough. Why haven’t you arrested them yet, that’s what I’d like to know?’
‘They’re on the run,’ said Gerry.
‘Then you’d better hurry up and catch them before we cut ourselves off from the Continent for good.’
Gerry didn’t see any point in telling her that Albania wasn’t yet a member of the EU. Not that it mattered much any more. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s Connor Blaydon’s murder I came to talk to you about. Christine has been very helpful — as you say, she knew him best — but we wondered if you too could shed any light on his background, maybe fill in a few blanks?’
‘I don’t see how I can help you, love. He was Christine’s friend.’
‘Yes, but you met him. You said so.’
‘Only on a couple of official occasions.’
‘How long had Christine known him?’
‘I know she did some events for him early on, when she was first in the business after university. Then she cut back a bit on the events when she married Gareth and it was after he died that she went to work for Mr. Blaydon. But you already know that.’
‘When did she leave university?’
‘When she was twenty-one. 1998 that would have been.’
‘And after that?’
‘She went off travelling with her friends.’
Gerry remembered Charlotte saying something about going to Thailand and Vietnam, then the Mediterranean. ‘For how long?’
‘Nearly a year. She’d saved up a lot from her summer jobs, and it was something she’d always wanted to do.’
‘So she came home when?’
‘July, it would have been. July 1999.’
‘And she lived with you here?’
‘No. She had friends in Oxford and she stayed with them until she got herself fixed up with a job. Surely she could tell you all this. Her memory’s probably a lot better than mine.’
‘I don’t think there’s anything wrong with your memory. Besides, it’s useful to get a different perspective. I’m especially interested in the time she spent abroad. Do you know where she was last, say, June that year?’
‘1999? They were in Greece then.’
‘Whereabouts?’
‘I honestly don’t remember exactly. Greek names. I’ve never been very good with those. Tell you what, though, just hang on a minute.’
Gerry heard her go upstairs, then the sound of cupboard doors opening and closing. A minute or so later, Lynne Pollard came back down with a cardboard box and put it on the low coffee table. As far as Gerry could tell, it was full of envelopes and postcards.
‘I’ve kept everything she’s ever sent me,’ Lynne said. ‘Every letter, every card, ever since she went on her first school exchange when she was fourteen.’
Gerry looked at the treasure trove of Charlotte Westlake’s past and smiled at Lynne. ‘Where shall we begin, then?’ she asked.
Banks pulled up in the car park of Eastvale General Infirmary at three o’clock that afternoon and headed straight for the basement. The high-tiled corridor echoed as he walked along towards the autopsy suite and Dr. Karen Galway’s office.
Dr. Galway was sitting at her L-shaped desk, which was piled high with file folders. She was wearing a powder-blue blouse, and her white coat was hanging from a hook behind the door. She had bright green eyes, a rather long nose, thin, tight lips, and a high domed forehead over which hung a fringe of greying hair. A framed print of Rembrandt’s ‘The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp’ hung on the wall opposite her desk. While Banks admired the artist’s skill, he could think of any number of Rembrandt paintings he would rather have hanging on his wall.
‘Catching up with paperwork?’ he asked.
The doctor rolled her eyes and spoke with a trace of Dublin accent. ‘Like you wouldn’t believe.’ She swivelled her chair to face him. ‘Sit down, please. I wasn’t expecting you. I heard you’d caught a nasty bump on the head.’