‘That wasn’t part of the deal, was it? You’d paid him to stay away.’
Gillespie shrugged. The fight seemed to have gone out of him. ‘Eleanor thought that was the start of all Mel’s problems. Ray going away.’
‘What problems?’
‘She was never an easy child. Bright of course, but attention seeking, hyperactive. Then in the last few years there’s been the anorexia.’
‘Was she being treated for that?’
‘Oh, she’s been treated for everything.’ He must have realized that sounded callous. ‘We wanted her to be happy. I don’t think she ever has been, really. When we moved here and she started making friends I thought things were looking up. But in the couple of weeks before she died she was more disturbed than I remember.’
‘Who was her psychiatrist?’
‘Dr Collier at the General. He seemed a decent enough bloke, but I don’t know how effective he was.’
Oh, he’s effective, Porteous thought. Trust me. I know.
‘He wanted to treat Mel as an inpatient. She hated the idea. He was talking about sectioning her. Not on the food issue. She was eating enough, just, to keep her alive. But because she seemed to be depressed.’
‘How did that manifest itself?’ Porteous thought he sounded a bit like a doctor himself.
‘Listlessness, insomnia, withdrawal.’ He paused. ‘Sometimes I thought she’d lost all touch with reality.’
‘In what way?’
‘She seemed to hate her mother and me. She couldn’t believe we were trying to help her. There was some fantasy about us trying to control her.’
Just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you, Porteous thought and stopped the facetious words slipping out just in time. It was true. In hospital he’d met a man who was convinced he was about to be blown up by the IRA. The staff thought he was psychotic. A week after leaving the place he’d been killed by a car bomb. He dragged his attention back to the present, was aware of Eddie staring at him. He nodded at Eddie to take over the questions.
‘Had Melanie complained of any unwanted attention? Unusual phone calls, perhaps, strangers trying to engage her in conversation.’
‘I told you. In the last few days before she was killed she didn’t go out.’
‘She hadn’t had a problem with her boyfriend?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘They hadn’t had a row, for example?’
Clever Eddie, Porteous thought. On the look out for another connection. But Gillespie shook his head.
‘I don’t know how Joe put up with her but he was always remarkably patient. Eleanor and I like him a lot. He’s respectable, despite the hair and the clothes. Comes from a good family. He was devoted to Mel. It was a relief when they started going out together. It was someone else to keep an eye on her. You know?’
Porteous nodded. ‘Would it be possible to speak to Mrs Gillespie now? We could talk in her room if that would be easier.’
‘No. She won’t want that. But you’ll have to wait while she gets ready.’
‘Perhaps in the meantime we could look in Melanie’s room. Is it as she left it?’
‘Yes. The police said not to touch anything. I’ll show you.’
The room was on the next floor, long and narrow, with two bay windows, each with a padded seat. The furniture was expensive, much of it custom built to fit the space, but the posters and cards on the walls, the candles and joss-sticks, the piles of clothes and papers turned it into any other student pit. On the desk there was a CD player and a rack of tapes. A door in the opposite wall led to a small bathroom.
‘You’ll have to excuse the mess,’ Gillespie said. ‘She wouldn’t let our cleaning lady in. Something else to fight over.’
‘You can leave it to us, sir. We’ll come down when we’ve finished.’
Gillespie turned. They waited in silence until they heard his footsteps retreating down the polished wood stairs.
‘Well?’ Porteous asked. ‘What do you think of him?’
‘He’s told us some of it.’ Eddie had already started on the dressing table. He pulled the top drawer right out and began feeling carefully through an octopus of tights. ‘Thrown us a few crumbs – like the fact that he’d paid the dad to go away. But he’s not told us everything. Not by a long chalk. Perhaps it’s not relevant. If he’s having an affair with his secretary, for instance. I don’t suppose that would have anything to do with the murder. But he’s keeping secrets and I don’t like it.’
‘I’m not sure.’ It was unlike Eddie to get so heated. Lack of sleep, Porteous thought. He felt more sympathy for Gillespie. ‘Perhaps he just feels guilty because he sent the father away and screwed up the kid.’
‘No,’ Eddie snorted. ‘His sort don’t do guilt.’
They sorted through the mess but they didn’t find a hiding place. No cache of love letters. No diary, which Porteous had been hoping for. He’d thought an introspective young woman like that would have kept a written record of her thoughts and feelings. No photo of her father, which he’d been looking for too. He’d have liked something to show the manager of the pub.
In the bathroom there was still a dirty towel on the floor. There was a small wall cupboard empty except for a bottle of anti-depressants on a shelf inside. It was dated a month before but it was still full. Had she stopped taking her medication because she thought she could manage without? Or was she saving the pills for a grand suicidal gesture?
Eddie was replacing the final drawer. ‘Nothing. Still, if Gillespie knew there was anything incriminating he’d have had plenty of time to get rid of it. There’s this… for what it’s worth…’
It was the National Record of Achievement from her school. The academic reports were glowing. There was a number of unaccounted absences, but allowance had obviously been made. The teachers had written sympathetic comments about Mel’s courage in the face of her medical difficulties. Eddie snorted again.
‘You don’t think she had serious health problems?’ Porteous asked.
‘Well, it’s not like cancer, is it? Self-induced and self-indulgent. If you ask me she could have done with a bit of healthy neglect.’ He opened the door of one of the wardrobes. Porteous had already been through the clothes checking the pockets. ‘Look at all that stuff. She didn’t get that in C&A or New Look. My Ruthie would give her eye-teeth for one of those frocks.’
‘Not a justification for murder though, is it?’ Porteous said quietly. ‘Being spoiled by your parents.’
Stout stopped, horrified, his arm still flung out in a gesture of righteous indignation.
‘You’re right. That was crass. I don’t know what came over me. It was that man. I let him get to me. One of the first rules, isn’t it? Don’t blame the victim.’
‘Have we finished?’ Porteous asked, a bit embarrassed to have had such a dramatic effect.
‘Just a minute.’
Stout straightened the cover on the crumpled bed. It was dark blue with gold stars and moons, too young for the sophisticated young woman they’d come to know, perhaps a relic from childhood. He felt under the pillow and came out with a photograph in a small silver frame.
‘The boyfriend?’ Porteous asked. Then more interested. ‘Or the father?’
‘Neither.’
It was of a small girl, perhaps eighteen months old, with blond curls tied with a ribbon. She had a plump face and dimples.
‘There’s no younger sister, is there?’
Porteous shook his head. He slipped the photograph from the frame. On the back of the print was written ‘Em’. ‘Another coincidence,’ he said. ‘The Randle child who was killed in the fire was called Emily.’
‘The photo’s much more recent than that,’ Stout said. ‘Unless they had Teletubbies thirty years ago. Look at that top she’s wearing.’
‘Perhaps the Gillespies will know.’
‘Aye,’ Stout said. ‘And perhaps they’ll tell. Which is another thing altogether.’