Peter Robinson - Playing With Fire

“What is it, then?” Alice Mowbray asked.

“I’m afraid I’ve got some rather bad news for you,” she said.

Alice put her hand to her necklace. “Oh?”

“It’s about your ex-husband. I don’t know if you’ve seen or heard any news this morning…?”

“Only the Sunday papers,” Alice said.

Annie knew the Jennings Field blaze had been too late to make the national Sunday papers. “Well, I’m afraid there’s been a fire at the caravan where your ex-husband was living.”

“Oh, no,” said Alice. “Is Roland hurt?”

“There was one person in the caravan at the time. As yet, we can’t be certain if he was Mr. Gardiner, but I’m afraid that person is dead, whoever he is.”

“I don’t believe it. Not Roland.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Mowbray, but it’s true. If it is him. Are you all right?”

Alice had turned pale, but she nodded. “Yes, I’ll be fine.” She looked at her husband. “Darling, can you fetch me a glass of water, please?”

Eric didn’t look too happy at being asked to fetch and carry in front of another woman, but there wasn’t much he could do about it without looking a complete arsehole, except his wife’s bidding.

“I’m sorry to spring such a shock on you like this,” Annie said, “but there are some questions I need to ask.”

“Of course. I understand. We’ve been apart for over two years now, but it’s not as if I don’t… well, still have some feelings for Roland. Was he… you know…?”

Annie knew all about divorced men’s feelings for their exwives at first hand, through Banks, and they could be complicated. She felt lucky that Phil had never been married. “I’m afraid the body was badly burned,” she said, “but if it’s any consolation we think he was unconscious before the fire started.”

Alice frowned. “Unconscious? But how…?”

“Sleeping pills, perhaps. But we don’t know anything for certain yet. That’s why I need to talk to you.”

Eric came back with a glass of water and a pill and handed them to Alice. “What’s this?” she asked, looking at the pill.

“Your Valium,” he said. “I just thought you might need it.”

Alice set the pill aside. “I’m fine,” she said, and sipped some water.

“He was a useless pillock,” Eric said.

“Pardon?” Annie said.

“Her ex. Roly-poly. He was a prize pillock.”

“Eric, don’t be so disrespectful.”

“Well, he was. I’m only telling the truth, Allie, and you know it. Why else are you here with me while he was off living in a poky caravan in a godforsaken field somewhere? He was a loser.”

“Mr. Mowbray,” Annie said, “I don’t think you’ve quite grasped the situation here. A man, possibly Roland Gardiner, is dead.”

“I heard you the first time round, love. And I say it doesn’t make a scrap of difference. He was a useless pillock while he was alive, and he’s a useless pillock dead.”

Annie sighed and turned back to Alice, who was glaring at her husband. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” she said. “He’s not usually rude like this.”

“Never mind,” said Annie, giving Eric Mowbray a dirty look. “Maybe he’s just trying to hide his grief.” Or something else, she thought. She turned back to Alice. “One problem we do have is with identification. Dental records are often useful in such cases. Could you tell me who your family dentist is? Doctor, too.”

“I don’t know if Roland ever went after he left,” said Alice, “but we went to Grunwell’s, on Market Street. Our family doctor’s Dr. Robertson, at the clinic on the Leaside Estate.”

Annie knew the place.

“We don’t know much about your ex-husband,” Annie went on. “Is there anything you can tell us that might be of any use?”

“He was just ordinary, really,” said Alice.

“You can say that again,” said Eric Mowbray.

“Shut up, Eric,” said Alice.

Annie was fast starting to think that Eric Mowbray had outstayed any usefulness she might have erroneously attributed to him in the first place. “Mr. Mowbray,” she said, “perhaps you could leave us for a while? I have some questions to ask your wife.”

Mowbray got up. “Fine with me. I’ve got work to do, anyway.”

After he’d left the conservatory, the two women let the silence stretch a few moments, then Alice said, “He’s a good sort, really, Eric. Just got a bit of a sore spot where Roland’s concerned.”

“Oh? Why’s that?”

“Because he’s my ex. Eric’s the jealous type.”

“I see,” said Annie. “Does he have any reason to be?”

“Not of Roland.”

“What does Mr. Mowbray do for a living?”

“He’s in computers. He makes very good money. Look at this conservatory. It certainly wasn’t here when me and Roland were together. Nor the Volvo. And we’re having our holidays in Florida in February. We’re going to Disney World.”

“Very nice. Do you own any other vehicles?”

“Eric used to have a Citroën, but he sold it.”

“No Jeep or Range Rover?”

“No. Why?”

“Was Roland a successful businessman?”

“I often thought he was in the wrong business,” Alice said. “He just wasn’t that much of a salesman. Didn’t have the oomph. Didn’t have an ounce of ambition in his entire being. No get-up-and-go at all. Sometimes I thought he’d have been far better off as a schoolteacher, maybe. And happier. Still, he wouldn’t have earned much money at that, either, would he?”

Money seemed to figure large in Alice Mowbray’s view of the universe, Annie gathered, and perhaps in her second husband’s, too. Jack Mellor had already hinted as much the previous night. “Did he not try to get another job?” she asked.

“It would have been a bit difficult for him, wouldn’t it?”

“Why? Lots of people get made redundant and find new jobs.”

“Redundant? That’s a good one. Where on earth did you get that idea?”

“Your husband didn’t lose his job?”

“Oh, Roland lost his job, all right, but it wasn’t through redundancy. No. He was fired. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I never thought he had it in him.”

“Had what in him?”

“He’d been on the fiddle, hadn’t he?”

“Had he?”

“Yes. Something to do with forging orders and cooking the books. Stealing from the company. I must say he didn’t have a lot to show for it, but that’s typical Roland, that is. Small-time, even as a crook. No ambition.”

“Can you tell me the name of the company he worked for?”

Alice told her. Annie wrote it down.

“Did Roland have any enemies?”

“Enemies? Roland? He was too much of a mouse to make enemies. Never offended a soul. He’d never stand in anyone’s way enough to make an enemy. No, Roland was likable enough, I’ll give him that. He had a natural charm. People liked him. Perhaps because he was so passive, so easygoing. He’d do anything for anyone.”

“This forgery business, did he have a partner?”

“Did it all by himself. As I said, you could have knocked me over with a feather.”

“How long were you married?”

“Ten years.”

“Quite late in life, then?”

Alice narrowed her eyes. “For Roland, yes. He was thirty-two when we married.”

Annie didn’t dare ask Alice how old she was. “Had he been married before?”

“Neither of us had. I must admit, he turned my head. He could be a real charmer, could Roland. Until you got to know him, of course, then you saw how empty it all was.”

“Was the divorce amicable?”

“As amicable as these things go. He didn’t have anything I wanted, despite his little business on the side, and he seemed quite willing to let me keep the house.”