‘Not an easy thing to hide then. There’d have been stained clothes, marks on a floor, walls. Someone would have seen. Shouldn’t we put out the usual plea through the press? Wives and girlfriends who noticed anything odd…’
‘Of course, Eddie. It’s already in hand.’
Porteous stayed behind when they all filed out, collecting his papers into an ordered file. On the way to the door he stopped and glanced behind him. Melanie Gillespie, half turned in the photo, her mouth wide in a grin of recognition, seemed to be looking at him. He had an image of her alone and in pain, heard the screaming. He turned his back on the photo, deliberately distancing himself from the smile. That way lay madness.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Crispin Randle, father of Theo, former Tory MP, had died. Porteous thought, with some satisfaction, that the fat psychologist hanging round with Hannah Morton had missed that bit of information. He’d dug it out from the registrar. Crispin had died five years before from liver failure. The doctors Porteous tracked down suggested that alcohol consumption had been a major contributing factor.
Stella Randle, the widow, was living in Millhaven, in a flat close to the sea front, not very far down the coast from the cemetery where Melanie Gillespie’s body had been found. Porteous had made the appointment to visit by phone and she had been strangely uninterested, rather vague, so he turned up not even sure that she’d be in. The flat was in a crescent built around a communal garden. It had always been a poor Victorian imitation of Georgian grandeur but now it looked shabby and down at heel. A locked wrought-iron gate prevented him from parking right outside so he left his car on the promenade and walked. The grass in the garden was long, the borders overgrown.
Stella Randle opened the door to him herself. She had a faded charm, which matched the building. When he introduced himself she seemed not to recollect that they’d spoken earlier in the day and throughout the interview he was unsure whether her vagueness was genuine or an attempt to deceive. She was in her mid-fifties, dressed in what seemed to Porteous to be a parody of the character she was playing. She wore a pleated skirt, a little cashmere cardigan and even a string of pearls. In her youth she would have been pretty, a little foolish but aware of her limitations. Now she still tried to be girlish.
‘Come in. An inspector. What fun! You will stop for tea?’
There was a wide hall, then a huge high-ceilinged room with a bay window looking out to sea. He had been expecting clutter, furniture from a big house crammed into a flat, but the room was surprisingly empty. There was one sofa – well made but modern – and a couple of coffee tables. On one lay a library book, a romantic novel, face down. The floor had been stripped and varnished and in front of the marble fireplace there was a Moroccan rug of a startling indigo blue.
She must have sensed his surprise.
‘Crispin drank everything away,’ she said. ‘If he hadn’t died when he did the flat would have gone too.’ She looked round the room, saw it perhaps through his eyes. ‘Why don’t we go into the kitchen? We’ll be more comfortable there.’
The kitchen was shabby too but less austere. There were herbs in pots on the window-sill, a bunch of flowers and a brightly coloured oilskin cloth on the table. A portable television stood on one of the counters. A plate and a cup were draining next to the sink.
‘Tea then,’ she said and set a kettle on the gas ring. Still she hadn’t asked Porteous what he was doing there.
‘I’m afraid I may have some bad news,’ he said.
‘Oh?’ She seemed untroubled. Perhaps years of living with an alcoholic had inured her to the possibility of bad news.
‘It’s your stepson Theo.’
‘Theo?’ It was as if she barely recognized the name. She seemed to trawl back through her memory before it made sense.
‘Have you seen him recently?’
‘No, no. Not for years.’
‘Had your husband kept in touch with him?’
‘My husband was very ill, Inspector. Long before he died.’
It was hardly an answer but he let it go.
The kettle gave a piercing whistle. She seemed grateful for the distraction. Her attention was taken up then with warming the pot and making the tea. Porteous set the photograph of Theo as Macbeth on the table. ‘Is that him?’
‘Oh goodness, after all this time, really I couldn’t say.’ She’d only glanced at the picture, was more intent on looking in the cupboard for matching cups among a jumble-sale assortment.
‘Please look at the photo carefully, Mrs Randle.’
‘I haven’t seen him since he was a young boy.’
‘All the same.’
He spoke firmly and her resistance went. She sat at the table, took a pair of reading glasses from the pocket of her skirt and studied the photograph.
‘It could be him,’ she said at last. ‘That hair. Yes, I rather think it is.’
‘Do you have any photos of him as a young boy?’
He could tell she was about to say no without thinking about it, then she caught his eye and changed her mind.
‘There was one. He was pageboy at our wedding. Even Crispin didn’t have the heart to get rid of those. Not that they were worth anything…’ She jumped to her feet. He thought she was about to fetch the album, but she poured out the tea and arranged chocolate biscuits on a plate.
‘If I could look at it…’ he prompted.
‘Yes.’ The forced gaiety disappeared quite suddenly. ‘I don’t see why not.’ She left the kitchen, shutting the door behind her. When she returned some time later her eyes were red. He wondered what had made her cry. He hadn’t told her yet that Theo was dead. She hadn’t asked.
She had certainly been happy when she married. She beamed from every shot. The photos were in a red leather album, separated by flimsy sheets of tissue paper. They had been taken in a garden. She hadn’t worn a traditional wedding dress but a short white frock with a lacy white coat over the top. She must have been in her early twenties but had the enthusiastic grin of a school girl. She held a posy of garden flowers and there was a circlet of ox-eye daisies in her hair. Randle stood beside her, proud, rather paternal. His face looked a little flushed and Porteous thought he might have been drinking heavily even then.
‘They were taken at Snowberry,’ she said. ‘That was Crispin’s house. It had been in the family for years. It was foolish of course but I thought I’d grow old there. I imagined it full of grandchildren at Christmas. I was very young. Perhaps I fell in love with Snowberry as much as I did with Crispin.’ She gave a sad little laugh. Her hands had stopped turning the pages of the album.
‘You said there was a photo of Theo,’ Porteous prompted gently.
‘Theo. I did try very hard with Theo. I’d hoped he might dress up for the wedding. I can’t remember now what plans I had…’ She stopped, lost in thought. It seemed to be very important to her to remember what she had wanted the boy to wear. She looked up smiling triumphantly. ‘A sailor suit,’ she said. ‘I think that was it. I’d seen a picture in a magazine… I didn’t have bridesmaids. It wasn’t a big affair. Crispin didn’t want the fuss. He’d done all that the first time round. Anyway Theo wasn’t having any of it. I don’t think he resented my taking his mother’s place. I don’t think it was anything like that. Crispin said not at least, and we always seemed to be good pals. Perhaps it was his age. At the last minute anyway, he refused to wear the costume I’d chosen for him. Had an almighty tantrum.’ She smiled and it seemed to Porteous that she remembered the boy with genuine fondness. ‘Crispin was furious. I said it didn’t matter. Why should it? So Theo came to the wedding in his school clothes. Short grey trousers and a cherry-red tie. Very festive and perfectly appropriate. He was very sweet actually. He came up to me later and said he was sorry for making a fuss. I said I supposed the sailor suit was a bit sissy and he gave me a kiss. First time ever.’