‘Uh-huh. What do you want to know?’
Challis spread the photographs of Coulter and the other men across the table. Scobie had done a good job: there was nothing to indicate that the men had been photographed naked. ‘Do you recognise any of these men?’
She glanced from one to the other. ‘No.’
‘The man who shot your mother? The man driving the old car?’
She shook her head emphatically. ‘No.’
He collected the photographs and substituted her drawings. ‘Remember these?’
Georgia eyed him brightly, seriously. ‘That’s my name in the corner, see?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s my mum on the ground.’
Challis nodded. ‘I’m mainly interested in the driver of the car the bad men came in.’
‘I’ve got other pictures,’ she said.
‘Have you?’
She left the room, Challis and the aunt exchanging polite, sad smiles. Meg passed him a cup of instant coffee. The central heating cut in and Challis felt warm air gust over him from a wall vent. He sipped his coffee: it was terrible coffee, weak, stale, and nothing would ever put it right: sugar, milk, or an extra spoonful of granules.
Georgia returned with three drawings. The situation was potentially morbid and unhealthy, a small child reliving her mother’s murder through drawings and conversation, but Challis was reassured by the warmth and peacefulness of the kitchen, the fact that Meg wasn’t chiding Georgia or hovering anxiously, and Georgia’s own air of wisdom and maturity. ‘These are good drawings too,’ he said.
Two were essentially the same drawing, but the third showed the killer’s car in profile. Cream body, yellow driver’s door, just as she’d described it on the day of the murder.
Challis returned to the drawings that showed the driver, his arm hanging out of the window. It was a typical young tough’s driving pose. And there was that same lumpy hand on one of the new drawings, the outline smudged.
Challis was wary of asking leading questions, so he pointed and said, ‘I always had trouble drawing hands when I was a kid.’
Georgia frowned. Was Challis criticising her drawing skills, or merely admitting to his own? ‘First I did a proper hand, then remembered and rubbed out one of the fingers.’
‘Rubbed out?’
‘Does it hurt,’ Georgia said, ‘if you get a finger chopped off?’
Chalks went very still. ‘I expect it does,’ he said carefully. ‘Do you remember which finger?’
She held up her right hand and gazed at it critically. ‘This one,’ she said finally, pointing to her ring finger.
It was lunchtime when he got back to the office. Ellen and Scobie were there, their hard, tense, hopeful smiles telling him there’d been a development.
41
Raymond Lowry’s wife was a small, discouraged-looking woman with drawn features. ‘It was more verbal than physical,’ she said. She paused. ‘Ray had anger-management issues.’
She used the term awkwardly. ‘Is that the expression Janine McQuarrie used?’ asked Challis.
Deborah Lowry shifted about in consent. They were in a CIU interview room overlooking the carpark. Ellen leaned forward and touched the woman’s wrist. ‘You say he was more verbal than physical, meaning he did sometimes hit you?’
‘Yes.’
‘So you sought counselling.’
‘I wish I hadn’t!’
‘Why?’
‘I didn’t know what she was like!’
‘Janine McQuarrie?’
‘She went right off, said men like Ray needed to pay, a simple rap over the knuckles in court isn’t enough, they have to be confronted.’
‘And she confronted your husband.’
‘She could have got me killed doing that! He came storming home afterwards, slapped me around, said he’d kill me, kill her.’
Challis sat back in the plastic chair and folded his arms. ‘Is he capable of killing someone? Do you think he did it?’
Deborah Lowry shrugged, looked sulky, as if her choice of husband reflected badly on her character.
‘You were concerned enough to come here today and make a statement,’ said Ellen encouragingly.
‘Ray’s got a terrible temper. Who knows what he’s capable of? Ever since he left the Navy he’s been kind of drifting. His mobile phone business is struggling. He…’ she finished, gesturing helplessly.
When she was gone, Challis called Dominic O’Brien at Bayside Counselling, who refused to hand over Janine McQuarrie’s file on Deborah Lowry. ‘Mrs Lowry is now my client, Inspector.’
‘Ah.’
O’Brien pressed home his advantage with a tone of portly satisfaction. ‘And I do not intend to reveal my own assessment of her.’
Challis sighed irritably. The irritation apparently communicated itself to O’Brien, who went on to say, ‘However it is my judgment that Mrs Lowry is not a threat to herself, or anyone or anything else. Look elsewhere for your murderer, Inspector.’
At two o’clock that afternoon, Raymond Lowry was brought in for questioning. Ellen led by saying, ‘You used to be in the Navy, Mr Lowry.’
Lowry examined his nails, a picture of boredom. ‘So?’
‘You travelled widely, ending up at the base near Waterloo. You liked the area, and when you left the Navy you decided to settle here with your wife.’
‘So?’ repeated Lowry, glancing at Challis as if to say that he knew where Ellen was getting her information from.
‘A good place to raise a family and start a business.’
Lowry stared at her.
‘But your wife doesn’t live with you any more, does she?’
Challis, seated to one side of the interview room as if merely an observer while Ellen Destry asked the questions, saw Lowry’s jaw tighten. He took in the man’s powerful build, large teeth bared in a mocking smile, and small ears tight to the head. Ex-Navy, now a shopkeeper who sold mobile phones: what disappointments drove him?
Challis slid his gaze sideways to meet Ellen’s and gave her a tiny nod. The tape machine was running. Lowry hadn’t requested a lawyer yet.
‘You and your wife had marriage difficulties, Mr Lowry?’ Ellen asked.
Full of fake concern, and Lowry wasn’t buying it. ‘Nothing unusual about that.’
‘Of course not. But not everyone seeks counselling from a psychologist.’
It was stuffy in the little room and Lowry had hung his polar fleece jacket on the back of his chair. He wore jeans and a V-necked cotton sweater over a white T-shirt. Under it all he was bulky from steroids or the gym. He frowned. ‘What are you on about?’
‘Your wife saw a psychologist, Mr Lowry. Didn’t you know that?’
He shrugged. ‘The Navy sent me to three bases in two years. That was disruptive. Plus she was scared I’d be sent to the Gulf and come back in a body bag.’ Another shrug. ‘Nothing to be ashamed about. That’s why the Navy has a counselling service.’
‘I’m not talking about the past, I’m talking about now, this past year. And I’m not talking about the Navy’s psychologists. I’m talking about Janine McQuarrie.’
Challis watched Lowry scowl. ‘I suppose my wife told you all about it.’
‘It doesn’t matter how we know. What matters is your response. You said, and I quote, “I could kill the bitch.” Do you remember saying that, Mr Lowry?’
‘Yep.’
‘Well, did you carry it out?’
‘Nope.’
He was abrupt, unruffled, contemptuous. Challis leaned forward. ‘You were angry. We can understand that.’
‘If I was to murder anyone it would be my wife.’
‘Shoot her in the head like you shot Janine McQuarrie,’ Challis said. ‘We’re searching your house and business, Ray. Are we going to find the gun you used?’
‘You were questioning me on Tuesday morning. How can I be in two places at once?’
‘So, who did you hire?’
‘Look, am I under arrest?’
‘No.’
‘Do I need a lawyer?’
‘I don’t know-do you think you need one?’
Lowry continued to sit impassively. Eventually he said, ‘I’ll humour you for the time being.’
Ellen leaned forward and said, ‘Janine McQuarrie tried to empower your wife, didn’t she? And you didn’t like it.’
‘Doesn’t mean I killed her.’