Michael Fowler - Secret of the Dead

* * * * *

Retired DCI Alan Darbyshire lived in a semi-detached refurbished police house nestled amid half a dozen others in a small cul-de-sac. He had been easy to find on the pension payroll computer.

Hunter and Grace didn’t call ahead, they wanted to see his reaction when they turned up unannounced, flashing their warrant cards.

Recalling what Barry had told him earlier, Hunter knew that cops and guilty ones at that felt the pressure just as much as guilty villains especially when they were being interviewed by one of their own. What prevented Hunter from approaching this interview the way he would have desired was Alan Darbyshire’s rank even though he was retired. Despite what Barry had told him, he knew that in some way Darbyshire would have earned his promotions and it had been instilled in him throughout his career that respect should be granted to those of seniority, regardless of what you thought of them.

As Hunter pulled up outside the retired DCI’s home he glanced across at Grace, wondering if she could tell he was uneasy. He checked his watch as he alighted from the CID car. Just after 10.30am. He made a mental note of the time as he pushed open the front garden gate.

Double-glazed windows and a side extension had been added to the property in an attempt to differentiate it from the other police houses around it. Hunter knew that many other cops who had bought identical police houses during the Thatcher era had done the same.

The man who answered the door was the same height as Hunter but twice his build. He was vastly overweight, with a double chin that blended into a flabby neck. His hair was thinning and Brylcreemed back in a style which Hunter thought lent itself more to the early 1960s than today’s fashion, and he had a neatly trimmed pencil-thin moustache.

Hunter pushed his warrant card in front of the man’s face and introduced Grace and himself. “We’re here about the murder of Jeffery Howson. I guess you saw it on the local news last night?” He watched for a reaction. There was none.

Casually, Darbyshire answered, “I got a phone call on Monday afternoon about it actually. You know what the police grapevine is like, even if you are retired. I guessed you’d be coming sooner or later to talk to his old colleagues.” Then he checked with, “It is a social visit?”

Quick-off-the-mark, Hunter replied, “Course, why shouldn’t it be?”

“Only kidding,” he grinned. “You’d best come in then. Oh, and if you wouldn’t mind taking your shoes off before you come in the lounge,” he added, padding away in carpet slippers to an open door at the end of the hallway.

The room they entered was tastefully decorated and furnished, though a little too chintzy for Hunter’s tastes. A plain cream carpet, allied with similar coloured painted walls, was complemented by a mocha coloured large two-seater Windsor style sofa and two matching armchairs. Swag-and-tail curtains framed the large lounge window. Above the replica Adam’s fireplace, Hunter spotted one of Ashley Jackson’s wild moorland scenes, and despite the fact that it was a print he knew it would have set Darbyshire back a few hundred pounds.

This was a different scene to the one he had taken in at Jeffery Howson’s home.

Alan Darbyshire lowered his bulk into the armchair, nodding at Hunter and Grace, indicating them towards the sofa opposite. “Make yourselves comfortable,” he said, then added, “Now what can I do for you?”

“We’re trying to build up a picture of Jeffery. We know you were a colleague of his for quite a good few years.”

“We started out as DCs together,” Darbyshire said. “And then I was his DS when I got promoted. I was lucky, they kept me in the department and we carried on working together on the same team until I was promoted again. We always kept in touch though, before and after retirement.”

Grace had already removed her notebook from her handbag and begun making notes.

“How did he die, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Course not Alan. He was suffocated.” Hunter wasn’t going to expand on the fact that a cushion was used to carry out the act, while another person held him down. Given the fact that Alan Darbyshire could also have been involved in the murder, he needed to be guarded about what he divulged.

The retired DCI inhaled sharply. “Good God. Poor Jeff.”

Hunter watched his face. He looked genuinely shocked.

“When did you last see Jeffery?”

He took another deep breath and composed himself. “It’d be about two weeks ago now. I called in to see how he was. As I’ve already said, we still kept in touch, though visits dropped off over the years. You may have already gathered that Jeff was very much a recluse, kept himself to himself. I don’t think he really got over his wife leaving him. She took his daughter as well, which made it even worse. And when she married again, well that really hit him hard. It’s awful to say, especially with what’s happened to him, but I thought at one stage he was going to top himself so I spent a lot of time with him. That’s why I asked you how he died.”

“It definitely wasn’t suicide.”

Alan nodded an acknowledgement. “So what else do you want to know?”

Hunter responded, “As much as you can tell us. You know the type of thing we’re after. We’ve only spoken to his daughter so far.”

“He thought the world of Katherine. Her being taken away was the hardest part for him, though they’re back in touch with one another now, which I’m guessing you will already know. He rung me and told me when she moved back to work up at the hospital and said she’d found a house just round the corner from him. That made a world of difference to him, I can tell you.”

“Why did he and his wife split up?”

Alan Darbyshire shrugged. “You know how it is. Being a copper’s not easy. The unsociable hours and everything that comes with it. Being married to a detective is even harder for some wives. The long hours.”

“When did things start to go downhill for him?” Hunter already knew from Jeffery Howson’s daughter’s background statement that his wife left him in 1984, the year following the Lucy Blake-Hall case, and he wanted to check how much Alan Darbyshire was prepared to reveal.

“Jenny, his wife, was always a bit of a funny bugger. In our early days me and my wife, and Jeff and Jenny, went out such a lot together, but to be honest I always got the impression she did it just for Jeff’s sake. She could be a bit stuck-up. I know she used to give him some right earache when we went out on drinking sessions. I don’t think she was happy with him being a detective. What I’m getting at is that things between them were always strained and they just deteriorated. I personally thought good riddance when she went, but Jeff was devastated. He did everything to try to get her back but she wasn’t having any of it. In fact, to spite him she went off with someone else. If you ask me, I think she had a fancy man all along. I used to tell him he was better off without her.”

At the periphery of his vision, Hunter caught Grace rolling her eyes. He could guess what her views were of Alan Darbyshire. He smiled to himself. No doubt when they got back in the car she would express them. Moving on he said, “Okay thanks for that. That gives us some picture of his life. Now when did you last see Jeffery or speak with him?”

Alan Darbyshire rubbed his flabby chin and looked up to the ceiling, then replied, “To be honest, once we both retired, things drifted away between us. I took on a part-time job doing some security work, while Jeff became a bit of a recluse. I think the only time he went out was to nip down to the bookies. He used to like his horse racing. Then a good couple of months ago Jeff phoned me up after getting his bad news about the lung cancer, so I called round to see him. He was pretty down. I offered to take him for a beer but he didn’t feel up to it. I nipped over at least once a week during the past few months. I watched the cancer eat him away. It wasn’t a nice thing to see.”