John Harvey: Off Minor

“Jealousy?”

“All that time when, even though they’d parted, Diana was still tied to Michael, emotionally. Time I would have wanted her with me.”

She brushed her cheek against Lorraine’s and opened the front door. “I hope there’s news of Emily soon, good news.”

Lorraine stood there, watching Jacqueline Verdon until she was out of sight, closing the door only then and wandering off into the living room to collect the coffee things, thinking about the relationship, Diana’s and Jackie’s, how protective, how fiercely caring the older woman had seemed. She knew she should go upstairs to Michael now, even if it were simply to sit with him and watch the movement of horses, dogs and men, hold, if that were what he wanted, Michael’s hand. You’ll live to regret it, her mother had said, you mark my words. But she could never, Lorraine thought, not even bothering to stem the tears, never ever have meant this.

Naylor negotiated the tray without spilling overmuch: two teas and a coffee, sugar, packets of UHT milk, plastic spoons. Resnick was by the window, looking out. Shepperd had barely moved in his chair, shoulders slumped forward, arms extended between his legs, fingers touching but not entwined. Not long into the first session, Resnick had felt Shepperd becoming over-anxious, words stumbling into one another, the accelerated tremor near the eye, the sweat. Either he was about to shut down altogether, refuse to answer, or start asking for a solicitor, legal representation. There and then, Resnick wanted neither.

“How’s the tea, Stephen?” Sitting opposite him, the pair of them, Naylor’s chair pulled slightly further back and round.

“Stephen? Tea?”

“Fine.”

“Good.” Resnick grimaced at his own coffee, decided adding milk was the better part of valour. He angled his eyes towards Naylor and the tape machine. “All right, then, Stephen, what do you say we push on?”

No reply.

Naylor set the mechanism in motion, twin tapes beginning to wind simultaneously. “This interview,” Resnick said, “continued at eleven forty-seven. The same officers present.” He shuffled back in his chair, wanting to appear relaxed, needing to be comfortable. “Let’s forget about Emily Morrison for a while; let’s talk about Gloria instead.”

Shepperd’s body jerked. “I’ve already told you …”

“Not about Gloria, Stephen.”

“I’ve told you, I don’t know her.”

“Gloria.”

“Yes.”

“But you know who we mean?”

Shepperd’s head was lowered towards the table, his voice indistinct. “You mean the girl who was … who was killed.”

“That’s right. Gloria Summers.”

“I don’t know her.”

“But she was in your wife’s class.”

“Not for long.”

“Sorry?”

“She wasn’t there for long, Joan. She was hardly there any time at all.”

“Half a term.”

“No.”

“According to the head teacher, your wife taught there for almost half a term. What’s that? Six weeks? Eight?”

Shepperd was shaking his head strongly. “She was never there that length of time, never.”

“But while she was there, however long, you went with her, to the school.”

“I drove her, yes, usually. She can’t drive.”

“You carried her things inside.”

“No?

“Never?”

“Not hardly.”

“All those things infant teachers take with them; egg boxes and cartons and pictures and heaven knows what else. I can’t see you just sitting in the car and watching your wife struggle with all of that on her own.”

“All right, I helped, sometimes, when there was a need, I helped.”

“And you helped around the school as well,” Resnick brisker now, beginning, lightly, to bear down. “The head teacher could scarcely stop singing your praises. All of that free time you put in, the expertise. So much there was even talk of a presentation …”

“There wasn’t any presentation.”

“Only because you declined.”

“There wasn’t any presentation.”

“They considered what you’d done worthy of one. They were deeply grateful. Equipment mended, new pegs in the cloakrooms …”

“Look, what I did, it was nothing. Took me no time at all, that’s why I wasn’t having them give me anything for it.”

Resnick realized that he was sitting too far forward, arms on the table; slowly, he levered himself back and smiled. “You’re a modest man, Stephen. You don’t like people to make a fuss.”

Shepperd looked at the ceiling, slowly closed his eyes.

“When, later on, after your wife had left the school, when Gloria disappeared, all that in the papers, everyone talking about it, your wife talking about it, as she must have done, you did know who they meant?”

Shepperd’s hands were back between his legs, wrists locked tight.

“When she talked to you about it, you knew who she meant?”

“Of course I did.”

“You did know her, then?”

“Not know her, no, but when she said, Gloria, ’course then I knew who it was.”

“You remembered her?”

“Her picture was everywhere. You could hardly look in a shop window in town without it was there.”

“And you didn’t recall her from the school, your wife’s class?”

“No, not specially.”

“I wonder, Stephen, can you remember what she looked like now?”

“What for? I mean, I don’t see the point, I …”

“What did she look like, Stephen? Gloria?”

The nerve at the side of his head had started to tic again. “She was, I don’t know, how would you describe her? Pretty, I suppose. Fair hair, sort of long. I don’t know what else there is to say.”

“Pretty, though, you would say that?”

“Yes.”

“Prettier than Emily Morrison?”

“What?”

“I said was she prettier than Emily Morrison? You know, of the two of them, which one would you say was the more attractive? Which did you prefer?”

“Now you’re being stupid. You think you’re being clever, but you’re being stupid. Playing games.”

“What kind of games, Stephen? What kind of games are these?”

“You know damn well.”

“Then tell me.”

“Trying to trick me, that’s what you’re doing. Trick me into admitting something that isn’t true.”

“Admitting, Stephen? What do you think I want you to admit? That you find one girl prettier than another? Hardly a crime.”

“All right,” Shepperd said, pushing his chair back from the table, standing. “All right, that’s enough.”

Resnick and Naylor looked back up at him, neither responding.

“You asked me about Emily and I agreed, yes, I knew who she was, once or twice I’d talked to her in Joan’s class. You’ve tried all manner of ways to get me to say I was near her house on the day she went missing and it hasn’t worked because I just wasn’t there. And now you want me to say I knew this Gloria, like I knew Emily, and it isn’t true. It isn’t. And that’s all there is to it. I’m not going to talk about it any more. And you said, you can’t make me. Not without you arrest me, isn’t that what you said?”

Resnick signaled to Naylor to switch off the tape.

“I’m asking you now,” Shepperd said, “is that what you’re going to do?”

“Not now,” Resnick said. “Not yet.”

“Christ, that was stupid! So bloody … he even said it himself, Shepperd, think you’re being clever, but you’re being stupid, and, God, he was right. I pushed, I prodded him too hard and in the wrong direction and what I got was the opposite of what I wanted. Now he’s not going to give us a thing without we arrest him and we can’t arrest him unless he gives us more than we’ve already got. Jesus, what a mess!”