The Midnight Hour, page 5
‘Were they friends with any of the neighbours? I spoke to Eric Prentice on Tuesday. He said that he knew Verity and Bert from way back.’
Alma made a noise that could almost be described as a snort. ‘Eric wasn’t a friend. Oh, he was always hanging round Verity with his tongue hanging out, just like that stupid dog of his, but she couldn’t stand him.’
This was interesting. Eric had definitely given the impression that he was on friendly terms with Verity, although he had said that she didn’t like his dog. Suddenly Meg remembered Verity saying, ‘I can’t stand short people.’ Had she been thinking of Eric Prentice?
‘We’re trying to build up a picture of what happened on Sunday the nineteenth,’ said the DI. ‘The day Bert died. Did you see the Billingtons that day?’
‘No,’ said Alma. ‘I don’t go in on a Sunday. The first I heard was when Verity rang me that evening. She said that Bert had been “taken”. It seemed a funny word to choose. But then Verity had had a very religious upbringing.’
‘What did you do?’ said Meg. ‘Did you go round to the house?’
‘Of course,’ said Alma. ‘By the time I got there, David and Sheena had arrived. Aaron was there too. He was the one who actually found his father’s body. That must have been terrible for him. They were very close.’
Meg remembered this afterwards. It was the first time she had heard of anyone being fond of Bert Billington.
‘What about Seth?’ Meg couldn’t help asking.
‘He’s away. Filming up north somewhere. He’s meant to be coming home this weekend. That’ll please Verity.’
‘Is Seth her favourite?’ asked the DI. It seemed an unusually human question, coming from him.
‘Verity tries to be fair,’ said Alma, ‘but Seth is the apple of her eye. Although that’s understandable. He was always such a sunny, lovable boy.’
Seth is your favourite too, thought Meg.
‘As you may know,’ said the DI, reverting to his normal ‘policeman on duty’ voice, ‘we are treating Mr Billington’s death as suspicious. Do you know anyone who might have wished him ill?’
Wished him ill. Where did the DI find that one? It sounded like a curse.
‘No, I can’t think of anyone,’ said Alma. Meg thought of Sheena saying that Alma knew everyone’s secrets. Well, if she did, she wasn’t revealing them.
‘David mentioned a woman who took her own life,’ said the DI. ‘Were you aware of the tragedy?’
‘Glenda Gillespie?’ said Alma. ‘Of course I remember. It almost broke Verity’s heart. That poor, silly girl.’
Was she referring to Glenda or Verity? wondered Meg.
‘Verity almost had a breakdown when Glenda and Angela died,’ said Alma. ‘It was a difficult time for her. Her marriage was under strain. The older boys were growing up, David was married. That was when she decided to leave Lytham. She wanted to come back down south.’
And you moved to Rottingdean, thought Meg. She wondered whether this, too, was due to the shock waves from Glenda’s death.
‘Do you know if the Billingtons ever heard from Glenda’s family?’ asked the DI. ‘David said that he’d offered compensation, which was refused.’
‘David was very cut up about Glenda,’ said Alma. ‘I almost think he was in love with her too. Of course, he was married to Sheena by then. They might even have had Anton.’
David and Sheena had two children, Meg knew. Anton and Deborah. Anton, now aged seventeen, would have been a baby when Glenda died.
‘Do you know if Glenda’s family stayed in contact?’ the DI asked again.
‘No, they didn’t,’ said Alma. ‘As for Bert, he never mentioned her name again.’
But you remembered it, thought Meg. And you remembered her daughter too.
* * *
They left Rottingdean and drove over the racecourse hill to Hove, where they were interviewing Aaron Billington in the garage he owned. Although Meg had lived in Brighton all her life there were still parts of Hove that were a mystery to her: mansion blocks with names like Montpelier and Sackville, builders’ yards and railway arches and strange little shops where you couldn’t imagine anyone ever making a purchase. Billington Motors was in one of these places, a secret courtyard surrounded by high-rise flats.
‘It’s a mews,’ said the DI. ‘These used to be stables once. There would have been a grand house nearby. Look at that gateway.’
There were no gates now, just an archway guarded by two stone lions. The DI sounded wistful. Meg thought the DI was just the sort of person to think everything was better in the past. She preferred the future herself.
Aaron was under a car when they arrived. He wheeled himself out using one of those planks on wheels. Meg’s brother Declan had one. He sometimes brought it home to let the younger ones play on it.
The DI made the introductions. Aaron stood up. He was tall, like his brothers, and very similar to look at, although his hair was longer and slightly lighter than David’s. In his blue boiler suit Aaron didn’t look much like the son of a famous impresario and Meg thought that he’d modified his accent to suit his surroundings. Verity might have been born within the sound of Bow Bells but now she was drawlingly posh, ‘daahling’. David had the clipped voice of a businessman, but Aaron swallowed the ends of his words in the way that Meg did. She’d already noticed that her sister Aisling, after five years at grammar school, sounded subtly different from her siblings.
Aaron led them into a small office that smelt strongly of petrol, an aroma that Meg liked. The DI wrinkled his nose though and seemed reluctant to sit on the stool that was offered to him.
‘As you know,’ he said stiffly, ‘we’re now treating your father’s death as suspicious.’
‘I knew,’ said Aaron. ‘I knew as soon as I saw him.’ He rubbed his eyes with an oily hand.
‘Can you take us back to that day?’ said the DI. ‘I think you arrived at your parents’ house at about three p.m. on that Sunday?’
‘Yes,’ said Aaron. ‘I often pop in on a Sunday afternoon. Mum met me at the door. She seemed a bit vague but that’s usual these days. She was fussing about some roses she’d picked. I went into the sitting room and Dad was sitting in his armchair, his glass of whisky next to him, just like he always did.’ Aaron’s voice shook. He, at least, had been genuinely fond of his father, thought Meg.
‘I went up to him,’ said Aaron, ‘and as soon as I saw his face, I knew. It was all wrong. As if it had been frozen. Almost sneering. I took his hand to find a pulse. Nothing. I told Mum to call an ambulance. Which she did. Eventually.’
‘What do you mean, “eventually”?’ asked Meg.
Aaron looked at her as if registering her presence for the first time. At least he was slightly taller than her which made the scrutiny less embarrassing.
‘She just stood there for ages,’ said Aaron. ‘I had to shout at her.’
It would be normal to be shocked, thought Meg. But was Aaron implying that there was more to Verity’s inertia than shock?
‘Did you notice anything odd in the room?’ asked Meg. ‘Anything that looked out of place?’
‘Not really,’ said Aaron. ‘I wasn’t really thinking. Everything was just like it always was. Dad’s empty lunch plate was on the table next to him and his whisky glass.’
‘Was that empty too?’
‘No. Half full, I think.’
Meg thought that the DI was thinking the same as her. If foul play had been suspected immediately, they could have examined the glass and its contents. As it was, all evidence of Bert Billington’s last meal had been cleared away.
‘What happened next?’ asked DI Willis.
‘The ambulance came and they did all that mouth-to-mouth stuff but I could see it was useless. They took him to the hospital though and I followed on my motorbike.’
‘What about your mum?’ said Meg. ‘Did she go in the ambulance?’
‘No,’ said Aaron, ‘she stayed at home. I told her to telephone Alma to come and sit with her but she didn’t call her until later. I telephoned David and Sheena from the hospital. They came down immediately. They were at Tudor Close by the time I got back.’
‘Mr Billington,’ said the DI, ‘when we first spoke on the telephone, you expressed a concern that your mother might have accidentally caused your father’s death. Is that still something that you think?’
Aaron rubbed his face again, leaving black marks on either side of his nose. ‘Mum was tired of looking after Dad,’ he said. ‘She read all these books by Americans. You know, the ones protesting about the war in Vietnam.’
Meg felt as though the war in Vietnam had been going on all her life. She thought of photographs she’d seen of protestors carrying banners saying, ‘Bring our GIs home’ and ‘Ho Chi Minh is going to win’. The people in the photographs, men and women, all had long hair and grim expressions.
‘Mum read a book by some American woman,’ said Aaron. ‘It was called The Feminine Mystery. Something like that. After that Mum started to say that women shouldn’t have to stay home and be housewives and look after men. She said they should have jobs.’
‘Imagine that,’ said Meg.
To her surprise, Aaron laughed. ‘She’d approve of you, all right. Doing a man’s job better than a man, that’s what she’d say. I’m all for women being equal. It’s just . . . it was tough on Dad.’
‘Your father didn’t agree with it?’ said the DI.
‘Well, he was getting older,’ said Aaron. ‘He had a right to expect Mum to look after him. I mean, he’d supported her all his life. Supported all of us. We never wanted for anything.’
Meg tried and failed to imagine herself making a similar statement. She felt that she had wanted for almost everything when she was growing up. Despite this, her father often referred to himself as ‘the breadwinner’.
‘Did your mother say she didn’t want to look after your father?’ she asked.
‘She didn’t say it outright,’ said Aaron, ‘but I knew it was what she was thinking.’
‘Did your mother ever say that she wanted to harm your father?’ asked Meg.
‘Not as such, no,’ said Aaron. ‘But she used to say that she felt trapped. Sometimes she looked at Dad like she hated him.’
‘Mr Billington,’ said DI Willis. ‘Your brother David mentioned a woman called Glenda Gillespie to us. Does that name mean anything to you?’
‘Why was he talking about that?’ said Aaron. ‘Glenda’s got nothing to do with Dad. She died years ago.’
‘Do you remember her death?’ asked Meg.
‘I remember people talking about it,’ said Aaron. ‘I was living at home then, just about to start National Service. I remember Mum crying and Dad trying to comfort her.’
Meg had written all the dates in the front of her notebook because she was bad at mental arithmetic. Aaron was born in 1931, which would have made him eighteen when Glenda committed suicide. Old enough to have known exactly what was happening. David, born in 1923, would have been twenty-six, married with a young child. Seth would have been twenty.
‘Are you close to your brothers?’ she asked. ‘I’ve got a little brother of eight and I sometimes feel that I’m like a second mum to him.’
This wasn’t true although Meg’s mother had worked hard to foster this illusion.
Aaron had looked defensive at first but seemed to soften slightly at the mention of Meg’s brother, a common reaction with people who hadn’t met Connor.
‘I was close to Seth when we were growing up,’ he said. ‘But then he was away at drama school and acting. David always seemed a lot older. He was in the war and then working in London.’
‘Can you think of anyone who might have had a grudge against your father?’ The DI asked his favourite question.
‘No,’ said Aaron. ‘Everyone loved Dad.’
Meg almost thought that he believed it.
* * *
Meg and the DI drove back to the police station in silence. The DI seemed deep in thought, probably dreaming of the days when garages were stables and apartment blocks were grand houses. Meg was thinking about Aaron saying, ‘Sometimes she looked at Dad like she hated him.’ Had Verity hated Bert enough to kill him? She was still the most likely suspect.
‘What did you think of Aaron?’ the DI asked at last, as he parked behind Bartholomew Square.
‘He seemed OK,’ said Meg. Then remembering that DI Willis had once condemned ‘OK’ as an ‘Americanism’, she said hastily, ‘He seemed genuinely fond of his father, unlike David or Sheena.’
‘Have you heard of the book he mentioned?’ asked the DI. ‘The Feminine Mystery?’
Meg was quite flattered to think that the DI saw her as a reader. She wasn’t a great one for books, although she liked reading the stories in Aisling’s magazines.
‘No,’ she said. ‘But I could find out about it.’
‘You do that,’ said the DI. ‘It sounds like it might be up your street.’
They were almost at the entrance of the imposing building that housed the unimposing CID offices. Meg stood aside to let two higher-ranking officers go past and, by the time she reached the double doors, the DI had disappeared.
What did he mean by saying the American book sounded up her street? Meg wasn’t sure that it was a compliment.
* * *
Emma was reading to Marianne and Sophie. They were on The Hobbit at the moment, which they were all enjoying although Emma couldn’t help noticing the total lack of female characters. It seemed that hobbits, elves and dwarves lived in all-male communities, like monks. Or Oxford dons.
While Bilbo was outwitting the trolls, Emma heard the phone ringing downstairs. As she finished the chapter, she heard the receiver go down. When she got down to the sitting room, Edgar was sitting on the sofa, looking slightly dazed.
‘Who was that on the phone?’ asked Emma.
‘Max,’ said Edgar. ‘He wants us to have lunch with him and Lydia on Sunday. At the Grand.’
‘Gosh,’ said Emma. In her mind she was sorting through her wardrobe. Did she even possess a garment suitable for lunch with Lydia Lamont at the Grand? There was her blue silk, which was safe but a bit dull. There was the green shift that she’d bought last time she’d had a meal with Max but that seemed a bit hippy-ish for Lydia. Maybe she should buy something new? But she didn’t have time to go shopping and, besides, it was a waste of money. She realised that Edgar was speaking.
‘Max said that there’s no filming this weekend. Seth Billington’s coming down to see his mother. I’ll send WDC Connolly to interview him.’
Emma and Sam would have to find a way to interview Seth too. Surely Verity would invite them over? She was the one who had engaged them, after all. Emma had telephoned Verity to ask if she’d seen the woman in the brown coat but Verity had only said something vague about everyone wearing brown these days and what a shame it was. Emma needed to talk to her again. She hadn’t told Edgar about the mysterious caller described by Ted Grange. It’s because I need to investigate further, she told herself. But she was honest enough to know that she also wanted to get ahead of the police, to present them with the solution to the case with all the loose ends tied up in a bow.
‘Max said that Seth was worried about his mother,’ said Edgar. ‘He said that the younger brother, Aaron, suspects her of killing his father.’
‘She said as much to me,’ said Emma.
‘She mentioned it to Bob too. He and WDC Connolly went to see Aaron today. They said that he seemed genuinely cut up about his dad but he didn’t have any proof against his mum apart from her believing in women’s equality.’
At least Edgar said this with the regulation amount of irony. Emma answered in kind. ‘If she believes in women’s rights then she’s definitely a murderer.’
She wouldn’t tell Edgar about the woman in the brown coat yet.
Seven
‘I can’t ask Seth Billington for his autograph,’ said Meg. ‘Not in the middle of an interview.’
Three pairs of eyes stared accusingly at Meg across the breakfast table. They belonged to Aisling, seventeen, Collette, ten, and—amazingly—Meg’s mother, Mary, forty-eight years old and, Meg would have thought, far too old to care about film stars.
‘What about a signed photo?’ said Aisling. She was studying for her A-levels and the acknowledged brains of the family. You wouldn’t think it now though.
‘Great idea, Ash,’ said Meg. ‘I’ve got a few questions to ask you about your father’s murder, Mr Billington, but first will you sign a photo for my little sister?’
‘And for me,’ said Collette.
‘For God’s sake.’
‘Margaret,’ called Mary, from where she was leaning against the gas stove because she wouldn’t smoke at the table. ‘No blasphemy in this house, please.’
At the sound of her raised voice, Padre Pio, the budgerigar, start to chirp loudly. He was christened by Patrick, Meg’s older brother, after the Italian priest who was the only other creature to enjoy Mary’s uncritical adoration. Mary, a devout Catholic, often bemoaned the fact that, out of seven children, not one was in holy orders. The eldest, Marie, was married with a child of her own. Patrick and Declan had recently moved out to share a flat in Portslade. Patrick was an electrician and Declan an apprentice car mechanic. Nobody, not even Father Costello, had ever considered them potential priests.
‘Was his father really murdered?’ said Aisling, letting milk drip from her spoon.
‘That’s what we’re investigating,’ said Meg. She shouldn’t have said the word aloud but the desire to put her siblings in their place was too strong.
