Barry Maitland: The Marx Sisters

Brock smiled. ‘ “The Yard moves in mysterious ways, its blunders to perform”… Actually, I never really know what they’ll put me on next. Part of the attraction. I agree that this didn’t sound too promising at first, but I’m rather enjoying it. Don’t mind, do you, me tagging along?’

‘Oh no! Of course not. It’s great being able to work with someone like you. It was just-well, after your last case, I mean this isn’t the same sort of high-profile thing at all.’

Brock’s previous case, the ‘City Securities Slayings’ Mr Hepple had referred to, had been in the headlines for weeks. Two young police officers had been shot dead in the City by a gang escaping with the contents of a bank’s security boxes. Brock, in charge of a team drawn from the Serious Crime Branch and Robbery Squad, had eventually identified the gang leader as Gregory Thomas North, a professional criminal with a record of violent robberies, known as Upper North because of his dangerous habit of psyching himself with stimulants before a job. On the point of arrest, North had disappeared, surfacing a few days later in South America, beyond the reach of extradition.

‘Everyone in Division got really worked up over that,’ Kathy said. ‘Half of us had been on the case, anyway, doing leg work for the Yard, and when it turned out the way it did… You must have felt terrible, sir.’

‘Yes, well, we may yet have a little surprise in store for friend North,’ Brock grunted. He said no more, and they continued in silence through the southern boroughs until they came out among the oak and silver birch woods around Chislehurst Common.

Terry and Caroline Winter lived in a house called Oakdene, which was separated from the road by a lawn, rose beds and a red-brick drive, much of which was obscured by expensive silver German cars. The house belonged to the Tudorbethan school of suburban domestic architecture, built in the thirties when Lutyens’ models were still fresh and were copied with some substance and conviction. Wall panels of herring-bone-patterned red brickwork were framed by dark, heavy timbers and sheltered by a wide gabled roof, whose clay tiles were now dark green with algae nurtured by the broad overhanging boughs of oak and ash. A light visible through the diamond-paned leadlight windows of the ground floor shone out against the gloom of the afternoon.

Brock parked in the street and they walked to the front door, breathing in the damp, lonely smells of autumn woodland. Terry answered the door and led them across a dark panelled hall into the lounge. The central heating was up high, and he wore a black shirt and jeans, both with conspicuous designer labels. The sleeves of his shirt were loosely rolled back on his forearms, exposing a heavy gold chain on one wrist and an expensive-looking gold watch on the other. He looked younger than his early forties, with a lean, tanned face and thick, dark wavy hair. He indicated casually towards the new leather suite and flopped into a director’s chair on a swivel base.

‘Well,’ he said in a neutral voice, ‘what’s the story?’

Kathy answered. ‘We still aren’t sure of the cause of your mother’s death, Mr Winter. We hope to have that established soon, but in the meantime there are procedures we work through which are designed to help us clarify the situation. We interview neighbours, close relatives…’

‘And solicitors, apparently,’ Winter interrupted smoothly. His eyes flicked quickly, appraisingly over Kathy, and he gave her a wolfish smile. ‘I’ve just had Mr Hepple on the phone. He seemed to feel that, since he’d told you the contents of my mother’s will, he might as well let me know too.’

‘Weren’t you familiar with the terms of your mother’s will before then?’ Kathy said quietly, holding his eyes.

‘In general terms. Mum had told me what she had in mind.’

‘And were you happy about the arrangements? I’m thinking about the term that allowed your aunts to stay at 22 Jerusalem Lane in perpetuity.’

His face became expressionless, his eyes cold. He stared at Kathy rudely for a while, examining the dimple on her chin. Then he shrugged and, rocking slightly in his chair, which gave a little squeak, he turned to Brock.

‘Up to her. It was her house. She always felt kind of protective towards Eleanor and Peg. I think she felt the old ducks didn’t know how to look after themselves. Not really practical like, in business matters.’ He turned back to Kathy and grinned deliberately at her.

At that moment his wife entered the room. She was an attractive strawberry-blonde, carefully groomed to a casual wind-ruffled look, and dressed in a silk shirt and loose linen trousers. She glanced at her husband, took in his leer at Kathy and walked over to the two officers to shake their hands.

‘We’re sorry to disturb you and your husband, Mrs Winter,’ Kathy said. ‘It must have been upsetting for you both.’

‘Oh, yeah.’ Like her husband, her accent was broad cockney, which she had made huskier over the years, especially with strangers. ‘It was unexpected. Even though she was over seventy, she was always very lively. She was a real character.’ The way she narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips might have been taken to mean that ‘character’ was the most charitable word she could find for her mother-in-law.

‘I felt so helpless, too, when Eleanor phoned, not being able to find Terry, and then having to tell him such a dreadful thing over the phone, when he did eventually ring in.’ She looked angelic as she laid this out so sweetly. Her husband’s chair squeaked more loudly, and a frown passed briefly across his face.

‘Your husband was out yesterday afternoon?’ Kathy said easily, girl to girl.

‘Yeah,’ Terry Winter broke in. ‘I often am on a Sunday afternoon. That’s when I go round the salons, checking stock for the next week. It’s the only chance I get.’

‘What salons are those, sir?’ Kathy asked.

‘Victor Haircare. I franchise five salons in the south-east.’

‘Oh yes, I know them.’ Kathy smiled. ‘That’s where I go, on the Finchley Road.’

‘No, that’s not one of mine. Mine are all south of the river. Lewisham, Forest Hill, Peckham, New Cross and Deptford.’

‘So you drive round all of those on a Sunday afternoon?’

‘Yeah. The managers leave out their stock books for me and I order up for the next week. I don’t let them do that.’

‘What time did you leave home yesterday?’

‘About 2.’

‘More like 1.30, wasn’t it, darling?’

Caroline smiled sympathetically at her husband, then turned to Brock. ‘He works so hard.’

‘Maybe,’ said Terry, shrugging.

‘And Eleanor phoned when?’

‘Oh, about 5.30. There was a programme I’d been watching on holidays in the Pacific. It had just ended. Well, first I tried Terry’s car phone, and there was no reply, so then I started phoning round all the salons. But there was no reply at any of them, either. I was getting really worried.’ She turned to Kathy who noticed her startling violet eyes, and wondered whether she was wearing coloured contact lenses.

‘I thought, what if Terry’s had an accident, just at the time when his mother’s had one too. Wouldn’t that be just too awful?’

‘I was at Deptford, the last one.’ Terry’s words cut across the end of her sentence. ‘Before I went in I parked the car and went to the cafe next door for a cup of coffee. When I got through in the salon I got into the car and thought I’d better ring Caroline to let her know I was on my way.’

‘At what time?’

Terry looked as if he was uncertain, but Caroline smoothly answered, ‘Oh, well after 6. I was going round the twist. Well, I’d phoned all the numbers twice by this time and I didn’t know what to do. I was on the point of calling the police, you know?’