The Widow(32)

“No. We both wanted children, but we couldn’t.”

Sparkes waited a beat.

“It was a physical problem with Glen. The doctor said,” she faltered. “We love kids. That’s why I know Glen could never have had anything to do with Bella’s disappearance.”

The child’s name was now in the room, and Sparkes asked the question he’d been waiting to ask. “Where was Glen at four o’clock on the day Bella went missing, Mrs. Taylor?”

“He was here, Inspector Sparkes,” Jean answered immediately. “Here with me. He wanted to see me.”

“Why did he want to see you?” Sparkes asked.

“Just to say hello, really,” she said. “Nothing special. Quick cuppa and then off to the depot to get his car.”

“How long was he home?”

“About, about forty-five minutes,” she said a little too slowly.

Is she doing the maths in her head? Sparkes thought.

“Did he often come home before returning the van?” he asked.

“Well, sometimes.”

“When was the last time he called in like this?”

“I’m not sure—I can’t remember . . .” she said, ragged blotches spreading to her chest.

“I hope she doesn’t play poker,” Matthews said later. “She has more tells than I’ve seen for a long time.”

“How did you know it was four o’clock, Mrs. Taylor?” Sparkes asked.

“I had an afternoon off work because I’d worked Sunday morning, and I heard the news at four on the radio.”

“It could’ve been the news at five. There’s a bulletin every hour. How do you know it was four?”

“I remember them saying it. You know, ‘It is four o’clock; this is the BBC News.’”

She stopped to sip her water.

Sparkes asked about Glen’s reaction to the news of Bella’s disappearance, and Jean told him he was as shocked and upset as she was when they saw it on the news.

“What did he say?” Sparkes asked.

“‘Poor little girl. I hope they find her,’” she said, carefully putting her glass on the table beside her. “He said he thought it was probably a couple whose child died who took her and went abroad.”

Sparkes waited for Matthews to catch up in his notebook and turned to Jean Taylor. “Did you ever go in the van with Glen?”

“Once. He prefers driving on his own so he can concentrate, but I went for a ride last Christmas. To Canterbury.”

“Mrs. Taylor, we’re having a good look at the van at the moment. Would you mind coming to the local station to give your fingerprints so we can rule them out?”

She wiped a tear away. “Glen keeps his van spotless. He likes everything spotless.

“They will find her, won’t they?” she added as Matthews helped her on with her coat and opened the front door.





EIGHTEEN


The Detective

SUNDAY, APRIL 8, 2007


Glen Taylor was proving to be a man with an answer for everything. He had a quick brain and, once the shock of his arrest wore off, he seemed almost to be enjoying the challenge, Sparkes told his wife.

“Arrogant little sod. Not sure I’d be so confident in his position.” Eileen squeezed his arm as she passed him his evening glass of red wine.

“No, you’d confess everything immediately. You’d be a terrible criminal. Chops or fish tonight?”

Sparkes perched on one of the high stools Eileen had insisted on when breakfast bars were de rigueur and helped himself to shards of raw carrot from the pan on the counter. He smiled at Eileen, relishing the entente cordiale in the kitchen that evening. Their marriage had been through the usual peaks and troughs of a shared life but, although neither would admit it out loud, the children leaving home had put it under unexpected strain. They had talked before about all the things they would be able to do, the places they’d see, the money they could spend on themselves, but when it happened, they found their new freedom forced them to look at each other properly for the first time in years. And, Bob suspected, Eileen found him wanting.

She’d been ambitious for him when they were going out and then married, urging him to study for his sergeant’s exams and bringing him endless cups of coffee and sandwiches to fuel his concentration.

And he carried on, bringing home his triumphs and disasters, as small promotions and anniversaries passed. But he suspected she was now seeing what he’d actually achieved in the cold light of late middle age and was wondering, Is that it?

Eileen squeezed by with some frozen chops and ordered him to leave the veg alone.

“Hard day, love?” she asked.

It had been an exhausting day, combing through Taylor’s statements for gaps and inconsistencies.

Images of children being sexually abused found on his computer were, according to the suspect, “downloaded by mistake—the Internet’s fault” or without his knowledge; use of his credit card to buy porn was done by someone who had cloned his card. “Don’t you know how rife credit card fraud is?” he’d asked scornfully.

“Jean reported our card stolen last year. She’ll tell you. There’s a police report somewhere.” And there was.

Interesting that it was around the time the papers started writing about the link between credit cards and online child sex abuse, Sparkes mused, going over the interview transcript at his desk later. But it was circumstantial.