Close to Home (DI Adam Fawley #1)(64)

I’m not surprised to find the door is opened by a housekeeper in a black dress and apron – in fact, the only thing that surprises me is that they haven’t gone the whole hog and got themselves a bloody butler.

The woman shows me into the cavernous sitting room and Moira Northam rises from a white leather sofa to meet me. The first thing that comes to my mind is that Barry Mason has a type. The blonde hair, the heels, the jewellery, the rather artificial way of dressing. The only difference is that Sharon is ten years younger, and getting her animal-print miniskirts from Primark.

‘I hear Jamie has got himself into bother again,’ says Moira, gesturing me to sit down. She has a large glass of gin and tonic by her side. She doesn’t offer me one.

‘I think this is a little more serious than “bother”, Mrs Northam.’

She waves a hand airily and her gold bangles clatter. ‘But he hasn’t actually done anything, as far as I’m aware?’

‘He’s been associating with members of a family who were involved in an East Oxford sex-grooming ring. We have still to establish how far he might be implicated.’

‘Oh, I doubt you’ll be able to prove anything against Jamie. He’s all talk. He likes to strut it about, but when it comes down to it, he’s a bit of a coward. He takes after his father.’

She may look superficial, this woman, but she has Barry Mason bang to rights.

‘Did you know he’d been seeing Daisy?’

She raises an eyebrow. An eyebrow that’s been painted on. ‘My dear Inspector, I didn’t even know he’d been seeing Barry. We don’t exactly keep in touch. I move in very different circles these days. Barry pays maintenance for Jamie, of course, my lawyer saw to that. He puts it into an account in my name. In cash.’

I look around. At the mirrors, the vast flat-screen TV, the swanky metal light fittings, the view of the river. So this is where Barry’s money has been going. Siphoned off to this house, month after month, for at least the last ten years. I wonder what Sharon thinks about that. Meanwhile Moira is watching me. ‘I know what you’re thinking, Inspector, but it’s a question of principle. Barry left me, and Jamie is his child. He can’t expect Marcus to fork out for him.’

I suspect that’s very much Marcus’s view as well, and for the second time today, I feel a tiny flicker of sympathy for Sharon Mason.

‘Barry has the standard access rights. Not that he’s ever exercised them.’

I’m incredulous. ‘Not at all? How old was Jamie when you split up?’

‘Just turned four.’

So Barry Mason walked away from a four-year-old child who up till then had called him Daddy. A child he’d read to, tucked in, piggy-backed, pushed on a swing.

Moira is still eyeing me.

‘To be fair to my less-than-estimable ex-husband, it was Sharon’s idea,’ she says. ‘The whole “fresh start” thing. Though I did bump into her and Barry once – it was London Zoo, of all places.’

‘I know. Jamie said. He recognized his father.’

That stumbles her for a moment. ‘Really? Frankly, you stagger me. He hadn’t seen Barry for years.’

‘You’d be surprised, Mrs Northam. How much children can hold on to things like that.’

She gathers herself once more. ‘Well, anyway, Jamie had dragged me to see the spider house, horrible child, and out of the blue there was Sharon, with this tiny pretty little girl. Desperately awkward, can you imagine? We just stood there staring at each other for about five minutes, trying to think of something to say. And then Barry appeared and she rushed him away like we’d just sprouted leprosy. I got a note from Sharon after that, clarifying – that was her word – that she and Barry wanted no further contact, and that it was best for the children too.

‘To be honest,’ continues Moira, ‘I think the real reason for all that fresh start baloney was that she didn’t want Barry coming round here, even to see Jamie. She wanted him all to herself. Not very keen on sharing, our Sharon. Unfortunately for her, Barry is very keen on sharing. Likes to spread himself around in liberal quantities. If you catch my drift.’

‘Do you know how they met?’

‘Oh, she was his secretary, back in the day. That building firm of his? I used to work there too, until I had Jamie, at which point he hired her. I turned up one afternoon with the baby in the stroller to find this bimbo in stilettos and a short skirt and earrings the size of hubcaps. I said to Barry, she’d be quite pretty if she didn’t try so damned hard. She was supposed to be engaged to someone back then. A mechanic – Terry or Darren or some such. But he clearly wasn’t going to deliver the lifestyle she was after, and I think she set her sights on Barry the minute she clapped eyes on him. It was Barry this, Barry that – in fact, we used to joke about it. But she must have got him into bed eventually because the next thing I know she’s claiming to be pregnant and Barry’s being led by his you-know-what straight into the divorce courts. I made him pay though. For the company, I mean. He’d put it all in my name in case he ever went bust, and I forced him to buy me out at the top of the market. He had to take out the most enormous loan.’

And what with that and the child support, no wonder money is tight. I make a note to myself and then look up at her again. I’m sure the tan is fake. The tits certainly are.