Left You Dead

13

Niall Paternoster heard the doorbell chime. He hadn’t been expecting the police to arrive so quickly. The call handler had said an hour, which he’d taken to mean two hours, or three, or whenever we can be bothered to send someone. This was around half an hour. He hastily downed the rest of his second Red Bull and dumped both cans in the kitchen bin, dug a mint gum from his shorts pocket and popped it in his mouth.

Chewing hard, he hurried through into the lounge and peered out of the window. He saw a police car, the blue-and-yellow Battenberg paintwork gleaming in the bright sunlight. Two figures, partly obscured by a rose bush, stood on the doorstep. He heard a faint staccato, crackly burst of voices.

Opening the front door, he was greeted by a short, black female uniformed officer in her early thirties with spiky black hair and a chubby, impish face, and a tall, burly uniformed white male, in his late forties, with a genial, slightly apologetic expression. Both of them were bulked out by their stab vests and batteries of kit.

‘Mr Niall Paternoster?’ the woman officer asked.

‘Yes.’

The tall officer fiddled with the radio clipped to his chest and the voices of his radio chatter quietened.

‘I’m PC Little and this is PC Alldridge. We understand you’ve reported your wife missing?’

‘Yes, since yesterday afternoon.’

‘May we come in, sir?’

‘Please,’ he said, stepping aside and ushering them forward. ‘Thank you for—’ He finished the sentence by windmilling his hands.

Closing the door, walking with a confident swagger, Niall led the way into the modern, minimalist lounge at the front of the house. Directing the officers to a sofa, he sat in the identical one facing them, across the glass coffee table with the chessboard. ‘Can I get you anything to drink? Tea, coffee, water?’

Holly glanced at her colleague, who shook his head. ‘We’re fine, thank you,’ she said. She could smell the residue of cigarette smoke and had noticed Niall was looking wired as he opened the front door. She studied the man for a moment, who was chewing mint gum — to mask alcohol? In his thirties, she guessed, he was good-looking in a slightly rough way, with short but unruly brown curls, the shape of someone who worked out, and muscular tattooed arms.

Glancing around routinely, she took in the elegant, tidy room and saw that one wall was entirely book-lined. Mostly crime novels and true crime books, apart from some shelves that were filled with DVDs, almost exclusively again crime dramas and true crime documentaries. There were framed photographs of Niall Paternoster and, presumably, his wife above the ornamental modern fireplace, and more sun-faded photographs in the bay window at the front, one in a large silver frame obviously taken in a studio. There were several well-tended plants in modern pots and the inevitable huge, flat-screen television on the wall.

She noticed Niall Paternoster kept sucking on the index finger of his right hand. When he removed it from his mouth, a thin ribbon of blood formed.

‘Are you all right, sir?’ she asked.

He smiled sheepishly. ‘Yes — I cut my finger on a damned potato peeler.’

‘Vicious things, potato peelers,’ John Alldridge said.

Niall stared at him, unsure if he was making a joke. Alldridge’s deadpan expression gave him nothing.

‘Mr Paternoster, can you give us some details about your wife, please, and the reasons why you are concerned about her?’ Holly Little asked.

Over the next five minutes, Niall repeated the information he’d already given to the call handler as the officers went through their questions, the tall male one tapping away ploddingly with two fingers on a tablet.

When Niall had finished, the woman officer asked him, ‘Have you checked if your wife’s passport is here? Or has she taken it?’

He looked dumbfounded for a moment. ‘Well... I... I didn’t think to look. Hang on a sec, we keep them in a drawer in my office.’ He jumped up. ‘I’ll just check.’

He hurried out of the room then returned a couple of minutes later, looking shocked. ‘It’s not there,’ he said. ‘Mine’s in the usual place but hers isn’t there.’

‘Can you think of any reason why it isn’t there?’ Alldridge asked.

He shook his head. ‘No... none... it doesn’t make sense. We always keep them together.’

‘What access does your wife have to a mobile phone, an iPad, laptop or any other mobile electronic device?’ Little asked.

‘She has a phone, of course, and an iPad and laptop; she’s forever posting stuff on social media,’ Niall said.

‘Are any of them here?’

‘Her iPad and laptop are. She has her phone with her — she never goes anywhere without it — but it was very low on battery, which is unusual. I couldn’t get through to her when I tried to ring her. She told me she’d switched it off to save juice, but I kept trying in case she switched it back on.’

‘What about her car?’ Little asked.

‘It’s outside — the BMW Three Series convertible.’

‘And your own car?’ Alldridge asked.

‘I don’t have one at the moment. I lost my business — it went under — we share hers. I drive a mate’s taxi and occasionally use it if I’m stuck for transport.’

Alldridge nodded, then peered at the chessboard for some moments before looking up. ‘So, the last time you saw your wife was in the Tesco car park?’

‘Yes, as I said, she was going to run in and grab a bag of cat litter. She insisted on going to the Holmbush store because she said it’s the only place where the one she wants is always in stock.’

There was a brief silence, broken by Holly Little. ‘How would you describe your relationship with your wife, Niall?’

He shrugged. ‘It is — you know — OK. We have our ups and downs — don’t any couple?’

‘What kind of downs?’ Alldridge asked.

Again, Niall shrugged. ‘Normal stuff. Stupid arguments — you know — bickering over nothing.’

‘Such as?’ Alldridge pushed.

‘Well.’ Niall pinched his chin. ‘Yesterday it was about the cat litter.’

‘Cat litter?’ Little prompted.

‘Yes. We’d been out for the day — lunch and a walk around the grounds of Parham House, near Pulborough — it’s the sort of place we’d like to live one day.’

‘Beautiful place — that’s a big ambition,’ Alldridge said.

Niall’s eyes narrowed. ‘Yep, well I’m planning to launch an internet venture that’s going to be big, too.’

‘You’d been out for the day, what then happened?’ Little prompted, ignoring his hubris.

‘I was in a hurry to get back to catch the end of the Belgian Grand Prix and Eden wanted to pick up some cat litter on the way home.’ He raised his hands. ‘We had a bit of a to-do about it.’ Blushing, he said, ‘It probably sounds stupid.’

‘Most rows are over small things,’ Holly Little said with a forced smile. ‘Did you row often?’

‘Often enough. But not really rows. As I said, just silly stuff.’

‘Enough for your wife to leave you, do you think?’ She came back at him a lot more sharply now.

‘No way.’ He sucked the blood away from his finger again.

‘You said she took her handbag with her when she left the car,’ Alldridge said. ‘What did she keep in it?’

‘Honestly? I’ve no idea. The usual stuff, I suppose — wallet, credit cards, phone, some make-up — oh and some mints — she had a thing about not wanting bad breath.’

Masking something on her breath, like you? Holly Little was tempted to reply. Instead, she said, ‘Do you think she left because of something you said?’

He reacted like he’d been stung by a wasp. ‘What — what are you implying?’

‘I’m not implying anything, sir.’

‘Presumably you and your wife do online banking?’ Alldridge asked, jumping in to calm him down.

‘Yes.’

‘Have you checked your bank and her debit and credit cards to see if she’s spent anything since you saw her? For instance, did she buy any cat litter?’ he asked.

‘Good point,’ Niall said. ‘She only ever uses her debit card — she doesn’t like running up interest. Give me a moment, I’ll check our online banking.’ He lifted up his phone, tapped the screen and waited. ‘No transactions on her regular card,’ he announced. ‘I’ll just check the other card.’ He tapped the screen again, then after a short while shook his head. ‘Nope. She’s not bought anything or withdrawn any cash since I saw her, not from the accounts I can see.’

Alldridge looked again at the chessboard, studying it more closely now. He frowned, thoughtfully. ‘You’re in the middle of a game?’

‘Yes, Eden and I play regularly — she taught me how to play a few months ago. We used to play Scrabble, but she has a much better vocabulary than me — she’s better educated — and always thrashed me. She thought if I learned chess, we might be able to play something that’s more of a level playing field for us.’

Alldridge nodded. ‘Who’s white?’

‘Eden.’

‘And whose move?’

‘Mine.’

The officer leaned forward, studying the pieces more intently now.

‘Do you play?’ Niall asked.

‘Yes, whenever I can — I’m a member of a chess club.’ Alldridge nodded thoughtfully. ‘Interesting situation you’re in.’

‘Not great, a rook down, eh?’ Niall said. ‘I think I’m struggling.’

‘Looks like she used Botvinnik’s classic English Opening and you’ve countered with his French Defence,’ Alldridge said approvingly.

‘I’m not too up on all the Grand Master moves,’ Niall said. ‘I tend to play survival chess.’

Smiling, Alldridge studied the game for a few more moments then switched his attention back to the job he was here to do. ‘It may be a silly question,’ he said, ‘but have you checked the house thoroughly? The outside? Do you have a garden shed?’

Niall looked, for an instant, as if the thought had not occurred. ‘Yes, well, yes, there’s not exactly much to check.’ Then, defensively, he added, ‘Like...’ He windmilled his arms again. ‘This place is not exactly a stately home set in rolling acres, is it?’

‘Like Parham House?’ PC Little interjected.

‘Is a huge mansion like Parham House the kind of place you feel you should be living in?’ Alldridge said a little sarcastically.

‘Yes, and as I said, one day I... we... will.’

The two officers shot a glance at each other. ‘I think it might be a good idea if we check the house and your garden with you, sir,’ Holly Little said.

‘Be my guests, but I can tell you, she’s not here.’

‘Let’s make sure, shall we?’ she said.