Local Gone Missing(58)

There was a long pause but Elise was happy to wait.

“Look,” he said finally, lifting his eyes to hers. “It was only supposed to be a one-off. A pity shag. But she wouldn’t let it go.”

Poor Pauline, Elise found herself thinking, despite herself.

“No one needs to know, do they?” he pleaded. “I mean, she’s old enough to be my mother.”

“Grandmother,” Caro murmured.

“If it was so embarrassing, why did you sleep with her?” Elise said. “Was she paying you?”

“No!” The gardener’s voice went up an octave. “Well, she bought me a few presents.”

“Like what?”

“Clothes, mainly. Look, I suppose I felt sorry for her. Living in that awful caravan with her boring old fart of a husband. And she still looks good. She used to be a model, you know?”

“We do. What about Charlie? Did he know about the two of you?”

Bram shrugged. “It was nothing. We had sex occasionally. End of.”

“You weren’t planning to set up together? Pauline wasn’t going to dump Charlie and move you into the caravan?”

“No way! It wasn’t anything like that.”

“Not for you, but perhaps Pauline had other ideas?” Elise said. “Did Charlie catch you that night? He’d had a lot to drink and it could easily have turned nasty. It’s just I notice you’ve got marks on your upper arms and neck.”

The gardener’s hand went straight to his throat.

“Pauline gets a bit physical,” he muttered. “She’s broken a nail before now. Anyway, I didn’t see Charlie Friday night. Not at the caravan or on the road when I drove home.”

“What time was that?” She knew because his departure at twenty-one fifty-five had been recorded on the camera but she wanted to see if he’d lie.

“Ten, I think. The news headlines were playing on my car radio.”

“What about when you came back Sunday lunchtime?” she said, running her finger down to the date beside the reference number.

“I . . . well . . . I want a lawyer if you are going to carry on like this,” Bram said.

Elise slipped back into the ladies’ quickly to splash some cold water on her face while the duty lawyer was called in. She’d sent a team to go over O’Dowd’s place and bring in his pickup for examination. Pauline would be on her way in. Elise stared at the woman in the mirror. She was there. DI Elise King was back.





Forty-three


THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2019





Pauline


Pauline stood and swished the curtains across the window when yet another car pulled up. She wasn’t answering the door anymore. Bloody press.

She counted to ten after the knock at the door and then watched as the reporter—a young man with rather a sweet face—walked away backward, filming the caravan and house before getting in his car. She cursed the day she’d met Charlie.

She’d played with the thought of asking Bram to take her away from it all many times over recent months. When the warning signs had started. The letters from the bank that Charlie tucked into his pocket as soon as they arrived. But she’d known it wasn’t sensible. Gorgeous bottom but he’s got no money, Pauline, she’d told herself. And now, of course, it was out of the question.

She should be okay financially, though. When all the fuss over Charlie’s death died down. There was a very generous insurance policy. She’d seen it in his desk drawer years ago and made a note of the policy number just in case—but she hadn’t found a will yet. That was a bit of a worry. Their old solicitor in London said he hadn’t got it. Where else would it be? Had Charlie hidden it? Why? The specter of bloody Birdie making off with all the money haunted her when she was at her lowest.

But for now she had to concentrate on sticking to her story that she knew nothing about his debts. “Money was Charlie’s department,” she practiced as she applied some lipstick.

It was an approach Pauline had decided on long ago with regard to Charlie’s business life. She never asked questions because if you don’t know, everything is deniable. Her second husband had taught her that—it was pretty much Henry’s only legacy.

Henry had died on his ride-on mower just three years after they’d married. One of the neighbors had actually said he’d died in the saddle. And being a widow instead of a divorcée had been quite nice at first. She’d enjoyed the attention. And black was so slimming. But the sympathy suppers had petered out after she’d flirted with one of the husbands and the women in the book group had stopped appearing at her door with cakes and casseroles. She’d been cast adrift. She’d faced her first winter alone in the converted farmhouse in Morpeth, most of it in the three-foot circle around her wood burner, the cold creeping around her back and her heart.

But even that thin comfort had been snatched away from her. Henry’s money had gone with him. He’d left it to his bratty children and they’d insisted on selling the farmhouse from under her. They’d never liked her.

“He hadn’t got round to changing his will,” she’d told friends. “Neither of us expected him to die so young. But I’ll be fine.”

And Pauline had been sure she would. She was nothing if not a survivor. She’d had Charlie bubbling away on a back burner for a while. Her plan B. They’d been introduced at a business do in London she’d attended with Henry. He and Charlie had got on like a house on fire and he’d been very attentive to her while Henry chatted up the waitresses. There’d been the occasional runner-up’s lunch for Charlie when she came down to town, letting him pat her knee under the table and giving him a peck on the cheek outside the restaurant. All very aboveboard but she’d fed his hope that he might reach the winner’s podium one day.