Suspects, page 16
‘No. I tell people I’m a bookkeeper and work at home if they ask. That sounds so boring they never question me about it. I expect they’d tar and feather me if they knew the truth. I hope I can rely on you not to tell anyone.’
‘Of course we won’t, Miss Wyatt. I’m impressed by your honesty. But we’d better go off now to our next call. Thank you for the coffee.’
‘Just don’t come back,’ she said, and smiled impishly.
21
Rose Freeman had been watching the police go up and down the close all day. She felt she was being left out, so when her doorbell rang, and she found DS Dowling and PC Coombes on her doorstep, her face lit up. But her delight vanished as soon as they told her they wished to question her and her husband about what they were doing on the night of the murder.
‘But we told you we were in our garden,’ she said, her voice suddenly more shrill, her features sharper.
‘We’re aware of that, Mrs Freeman, but we have more questions to ask.’
‘You’d better come in, then,’ she said grudgingly.
Dowling had spoken to Rose Freeman twice before. She’d collared him at the re-enactment, putting on a fine show of being an almost auntie to Chloë in the hope of getting some information from him. The second time was when he’d come to see Gareth Price about his fence and she’d rushed outside as soon as she saw the police car and remained in her front garden, watching to see if he was going to take Gareth away.
The interior of the Freemans’ house was exceptionally bland and stuck in the seventies with magnolia walls and a brown brocade three-piece suite. An electric imitation coal fire was set in a very cheap MDF surround. Above the mantelpiece was the Green Lady print by Tretchikoff. There were no other pictures or books, and Dowling guessed that watching the neighbours was their main source of entertainment.
Somehow the décor of the room said everything about Rose Freeman. No real heart, imagination or personality. A woman who thrived on the failures, disappointments and tragedies of other people’s lives. Whether her husband had become a weak non-person through her constant nagging and interest in anyone but him, or whether he had been born to become her assistant, was anyone’s guess.
DS Dowling felt a surge of pleasure in knowing that he was lucky enough to have a wife who was also his best friend, and he hoped that once this killer was caught, they could have a holiday and remind themselves they were lucky to feel the same about each other as they had on the day they married.
‘Tell me, Mrs Freeman, do you work?’ he asked.
‘No. Call me old-fashioned but I always believed being a wife and supporting my husband by cooking and cleaning and making sure he had an ironed shirt was not just a full-time job but the recipe for a happy marriage.’
Dowling took one look at John Freeman’s hangdog face and knew there was no point in asking if he agreed with his wife’s statement. He wouldn’t dare stand up to her.
‘This job of looking after your husband seems to take up so little time that you’re able to monitor the comings and goings of all your neighbours too?’ he asked, wanting to goad her.
‘I don’t monitor, I take an interest,’ she snapped back at him. ‘Isn’t that right, John?’
‘Yes, dear,’ John replied, with the minimum of enthusiasm.
‘I believe you worked at Cavendish House department store before your marriage?’ Dowling said. ‘Which department?’
‘I was a buyer for handbags and luggage,’ she said.
‘But that isn’t true,’ Dowling said, so glad she’d fallen into his hands. ‘You were the Ladies powder-room attendant, were you not?’
Her face flushed scarlet, and her husband suddenly looked animated.
‘If you lie about this, how do you expect me to believe you were in your garden all evening at the time of the murder?’
‘But I was! Tell them, John.’ She turned to her husband, with pleading eyes.
‘We were in the garden that night,’ he said, after a few moments’ thought. ‘At least I was. My wife spent most of the evening going backwards and forwards to the front window to check on our neighbours.’
‘Is that so, Mr Freeman?’ Dowling half smiled at the man. ‘Did she tell you when Mr Church went down to the park to look for his daughter?’
‘I believe it was around half past seven.’
‘And at what time did your wife tell you she thought Chloë must be missing?’
‘By eight,’ he said, hanging his head. ‘I told her I ought to join Mike and look for her, but she said I’d just get in the way.’
‘So did she go back into the garden to be with you, or did she stay at the window?’
‘She stayed at the window. She had pulled a chair over by it. She was there until at least ten thirty when I went to bed.’
Dowling and Coombes exchanged glances. They could almost imagine the roasting John Freeman was going to get when they left. Rose looked furious.
‘Well, Mrs Freeman, you were in the best position to see people going in or out of the close. So who did you see?’
Dowling knew she couldn’t have seen anyone with bloodstained clothes as she would have reported that immediately. But she might have seen someone she hadn’t thought to mention before.
‘I saw Wilma Parkin go out about six. I expect she was off to her church. She seems to almost live there. Then Terry went out a bit later, not in his car, he was walking. He came home about half past eight, and Wilma was brought home by her vicar just after nine. I saw Brian Alcott go out too ‒ that was around seven. He was walking, not in his car, which I thought was odd, as May had left it at home when she went out and took a taxi. I also saw Gareth Price come home so drunk the friend who’d given him a lift had to hold his arm. It was dark then, but I saw him holding on to the lamppost outside his house.
‘But it was Mike Church who concerned me most. He kept going out to look in the park for Chloë. When it was dark he took a big torch and he was calling her name too.’
‘Did you see Rob and Maureen Willis or Trudy Singer go out?’
Rose shook her head. ‘No, but then the Willises rarely go out in the evenings. They’re real homebodies. As for Trudy Singer, well, we hardly see her. She once told me that when her husband is away she’s in bed before nine. He was away that night. That poor child of theirs must have a miserable life. She’s down in the park sometimes till after dark and her mother’s in bed!’
‘Was she late that night?’ Coombes asked.
‘No. I saw her on the lawn outside her house about eight thirty. She was in pyjamas. I think she must’ve been wondering what was going on down at the Churches’.’
‘You haven’t mentioned Alfie or Dee Strong,’ Coombes reminded her.
‘I never saw Alfie at all, but Dee went out about half six. She didn’t go in the car, she walked down the road. She wasn’t dressed up like she usually is at night. She was wearing a black sleeveless dress, and had plimsolls on her feet. First time I ever saw her without high heels.’
‘Did you see her come back?’
‘No … Funny you should ask that but when I went to bed I said to my John, “She never came home tonight.” I wondered if she had a fancy man.’
Dowling knew Rose had run out of information about her neighbours when she asked him how long he’d been in the force, then about his wife and kids. It was time to go, and he was very relieved. She might have given him a great deal of information, some of it extremely useful, but he’d never met any woman quite as malicious as she was. She really enjoyed other people’s misfortunes.
Brian Alcott was called at Cheltenham Crown Court just before midday. He’d been there since nine thirty, and his solicitor arrived a little later. He’d never had cause to need a criminal lawyer before, so he’d agreed to use the duty solicitor the police had summoned when he was arrested on Sunday morning. Mr Drew didn’t look impressive: small, plump and balding, with a permanent look of displeasure on his face.
The police had come for him and May at five o’clock on Sunday morning, Brian had stumbled to the door half asleep thinking it must have something to do with the fire at Alfie’s. When they said they were arresting them both for bringing cigarettes illegally into the country and evading tax, he’d nearly fainted with shock and terror.
Regardless of what Mr Drew looked like, the solicitor had managed to convince the police that May had known nothing about the cigarettes so she was off the hook. He’d got bail for Brian too, as he pointed out, ‘It’s hardly the crime of the century.’ But he had lectured Brian on the folly of being involved with the criminal classes.
‘The police appreciate you didn’t smuggle them yourself, having checked your passport to see if you’d been out of the country,’ Drew said, his look of displeasure deepening. ‘But I’m warning you, the courts take tax evasion very seriously as it’s a crime against the Crown. If you plead guilty tomorrow morning, as you must, it will be dealt with straight away. You can expect a very large fine, and of course the cigarettes will be confiscated.’
May had driven Brian to the court on Monday morning but she refused to come in with him. ‘I can’t risk people I know seeing me,’ she said. ‘I told you when you first came up with this idea about cheap cigarettes that it was a bad one. But you wouldn’t listen. This is your problem.’
Being furious with his wife as he waited to be called into court at least gave him something other than his fear to dwell on. How could May say such a thing when she had benefited from the sales for over a year? He’d told the police she hadn’t known about it to save her skin but now she was turning her back on him.
He was fined five thousand pounds, and he arranged to pay it off at a thousand pounds a month.
When he got out into the street again he felt tainted, as if he’d been in a filthy cell with real criminals, who robbed and wounded people. He went straight into the nearest pub and had several large whiskies, then took a taxi home to tell May what he thought of her.
When he got there he found the front door open. As he stepped into the hall and looked into the sitting room, he saw two police officers pulling open drawers and poking in the sideboard.
‘What now?’ He held his fists to his head as if losing his mind.
May appeared from the kitchen. ‘It’s all your fault,’ she snarled at him, nudging him into the kitchen so the police couldn’t hear them. ‘I said you should tell them the truth about where you were the night Chloë was killed. Now they’re pulling our home apart looking for evidence that you killed her.’
‘But you know I could never do that,’ he wailed. ‘I’ve taken the entire blame for the cigarettes to spare you. But no one is going to pin murder on me.’
‘You’ve been drinking,’ she said, her lips pursed in disgust. ‘You stink of it. I’ve had more than enough for one day. I’m going to stay with my sister.’
Then he noticed a suitcase packed and ready in the kitchen. She was leaving him to deal with all this. ‘What sort of wife walks away when her husband needs her?’ he asked, and despite trying very hard not to cry, he failed and tears flowed down his face.
‘A wife who is sick of you being stupid,’ she snapped.
He lunged forward to strike her.
‘Don’t, sir!’
The voice came from one of the police officers, stopping Brian in his tracks. The young officer had opened the kitchen door. ‘You don’t want to find yourself up on an assault charge, do you?’ he added.
Brian drove his fist into the wall instead. He made no impression on the wall but instead hurt his knuckles.
‘Go now, Mrs Alcott,’ the policeman said. ‘I’ll make your husband a cup of tea.’
Rose Freeman watched from the sitting-room window as a police officer came out of the Alcotts’ house with May. He was carrying a suitcase, which he put into the boot of her car.
‘May’s leaving him,’ she yelled to John. ‘Does that mean Brian killed Chloë?’
‘My God, woman,’ John said from the doorway. ‘Is there no end to your vindictive delight in other people’s problems?’
‘You what?’ she said, turning to look at her husband.
‘You heard what I said,’ he hissed at her. ‘You’ve always got to put the boot in, haven’t you? What on earth did I ever see in you?’
‘Don’t be so nasty,’ she said indignantly. ‘You’re just as interested in what’s going on as I am.’
‘No, I’m not.’ He raised his voice in anger. ‘Like a fool I’ve put up with it, but I can’t stand it any more. We’ve got no friends at all in this street. They all hate you and laugh at you behind your back. I like Brian, I like Alfie too, and I can’t delight in them having such a bad time.’
‘Alfie deserved all he got,’ she said stubbornly. ‘I still believe he killed Chloë, and as for Brian, May’s always led him by the nose. She thinks she’s way above everyone else in this street. All she’s got is some crummy tanning places in Birmingham but she flounces around with her designer handbags and shoes as if she owned a jeweller’s in Bond Street.’
‘You are a malicious, hate-filled woman and I can’t stand another moment of it,’ John shouted at her. ‘Who are you to sit in judgement on other people? When I met you, you were a lavatory cleaner, and you come from a rough housing estate in Gloucester. Your mother was a tart and your father was in and out of prison. Would you like me to run up the road and tell our neighbours all that?’
‘Why did you marry me, then?’ She tossed her hair back indignantly.
‘Because, you stupid woman, I actually fell in love with you. You were rough then, but I liked that you wanted to better yourself. When I bought this house and, yes, it was all my money, you put nothing into it, I wanted you to feel safe and happy. I expected us to have a family, and it was disappointing when that didn’t happen. But you showed no sorrow ‒ you said you didn’t even like children. Remember that?’
John’s heart was racing. He didn’t like to argue, not with Rose or anyone else, and he’d certainly never attacked her verbally before.
‘Why should I like children? My parents never liked any of us. Mum dropped a new one every couple of years and expected me to take care of them.’
‘Thousands of people have childhoods as bad as yours or even worse. But they don’t all take it out on other people. I’ve shown you nothing but love and understanding. I even tolerated you becoming more and more obsessed with what our neighbours were up to because I thought it was to do with your childhood. I should have taken you to a psychiatrist.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with me,’ she yelled at him. ‘You’re the pervert! I know you go to that massage parlour behind the shops. I followed you one night. You filthy bastard.’
‘I go there when I can’t stand what you’ve become any more,’ he admitted. He had a pain in his chest now and he was finding it hard to breathe. ‘You even bring your malice to bed, going on and on about Janice next door and her men friends, or how snooty Mike Church is. I can’t make love to a woman who is so filled with hate for other people. It takes all the joy out of me.’
He clutched at his chest as the pain became like a red-hot poker going through him. The room swam and he felt himself falling.
22
Janice couldn’t help hearing the row between Rose and John because the windows were open on both houses.
‘Good on you, John, tell her what a disgusting person she is,’ she said aloud, smiling as she imagined Rose’s astonishment at John rounding on her.
Yet Janice was shocked that he’d finally snapped. She would never have expected that from him.
Their voices were growing louder and louder, but when John started on about her job, her family, that she couldn’t even read when he married her, Janice wanted to shut the window, she’d heard enough.
But suddenly John’s voice became different. His speech had slowed and become a little slurred. It sounded like he was having difficulty breathing.
She heard a crash as if he’d fallen and then Rose screamed.
Janice didn’t stop to think. She just ran out of her door to her neighbour. She could see Rose through the reeded glass on her door: she was using the telephone in the hall, and as soon as she saw Janice, she opened it.
‘I think he’s having a stroke or a heart attack,’ Rose blurted out, to the emergency service on the phone and Janice. ‘I don’t know if he’s breathing. Please come quickly.’
Janice found John lying on his back in the sitting room. She listened, but couldn’t hear breathing and she couldn’t find a pulse either. Loosening his shirt collar, she put the heel of her hand over his heart and, with the other hand above it, began CPR. She’d learnt to do it in a first-aid class, but it was a few years ago and she wasn’t sure she was doing it right. When she’d done thirty presses, she decided to do mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
It was one thing practising on a big doll, quite another doing it to a real person, and the thought that she could be killing him rather than saving him was terrifying.
Yet she thought she’d got him breathing again ‒ there had been a spluttering noise ‒ so she went back to the CPR. Aware that Rose was watching her, she yelled at her, ‘Go out in the road and get one of the coppers.’
Rose disappeared and Janice continued, alternating CPR with mouth-to-mouth. All at once a burly policeman came rushing in. ‘Okay, miss, I’ll take over,’ he said.
Rose had never been so silent. Her face was ashen, and she was wringing her hands. ‘He isn’t going to die, is he?’ she asked, in a small voice.
‘Not if we can help it,’ the policeman said. ‘Your friend here has done a good job with him.’
At last they heard the ambulance and Janice had never felt so relieved.
‘You go with him,’ Janice said, putting an arm around her neighbour because she looked so scared and lost. ‘I’ll lock up for you. Take some money with you for a taxi home. I’ve got to go out. If I hadn’t, I’d offer to pick you up later.’
She’d always thought Rose was made of steel, yet she was leaning into her now like a child, her whole body limp. ‘He’s going to be okay,’ Janice told her. ‘Take a cardigan ‒ it might be chilly later.’
