The Price of Butcher's Meat

8

As Shirley Novello left Kyoto House, she felt reasonably pleased with herself.

Okay, she hadn’t lit upon that crucial bit of information that was going to crack the case, but that only ever happened in detective stories. What she’d got were three witness statements, each packed with useful detail, plus the bonus of Charley Heywood’s e-mail observations on recent events and activities involving the main protagonists. How useful these might be remained to be seen. Probably just a lot of sisterly gossip.

She opened her car door.

From the passenger seat, Minnie Parker said, “Hello.”

“How the hell did you get in?” demanded Novello.

“It wasn’t locked,” said the girl.

“It bloody well was,” said Novello.

Faced with such vehement certainty the girl didn’t argue but said, “Okay. But you left your window open a bit.”

“Yeah? That’s forced entry, I could do you for that. What are you doing here anyway?”

“I’m waiting to be interviewed,” said Minnie.

“Sorry?”

“That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it? Interviewing witnesses? Well, I was at the hog roast too. I’m a witness.”

There was no denying this, thought Novello. The thing was, the children hadn’t appeared on Clara Brereton’s guest list. And Wield hadn’t noticed. No reason he should have, probably. But it gave Novello a frisson of glee to think that even old Supersarge could have a kryptonite moment.

Also it gave her a problem. Proper procedure was to arrange an interview with a responsible adult present and preferably a specialist officer doing the questioning. Probable result, zilch. But that was Wield’s problem. Or Pascoe’s when he showed.

No harm in testing the water though…

“Okay, give me it straight, kid. What did you see?”

Minnie screwed up her eyes in an effort of recall. Or creativity.

Novello said, “Listen, kid, it doesn’t have to be a madman running around with an ax. It’s ordinary stuff that helps, so long as it’s true. You went swimming, didn’t you?”

“That’s right.”

“You and who else?”

“Paul, that’s my brother, and the Heeley twins-Lynn and Larry, and Tony Jebb.”

Novello made a note.

“How old?”

“The twins are nine, Tony’s eleven.”

“Older than you then.”

“Yes, but I’m the best swimmer,” retorted Minnie.

“Great. Any adults?”

“Mr. Jebb, Tony’s dad. And Miss Lee. Mr. Jebb runs the souvenir shop. Miss Lee’s an acupuncturist. She’s Chinese or something, I think. Oh, and the twins’ dad, Mr. Heeley, he’s a joiner.”

Novello was impressed both by the girl’s readiness to give useful information and the ease with which acupuncturist rolled off her lips, but then she was Tom Parker’s daughter. She checked her interview list. Jebb was one of Seymour’s, Heeley was hers, while Miss Lee was marked down to Bowler.

This meant both her colleagues should at some point discover there’d been children present. How would Wield react to being told he’d missed a bit? Perhaps best to let one of the others find out!

“They swim? The adults, I mean.”

“No. They just sat and talked. Then when the storm started they called for us to come out. That was a real pain. The others got scared but I thought swimming when there was thunder and lightning would be really cool. Do you swim? You look like you could.”

“Oh yeah? Meaning I’m slim and silvery like a trout? Or broad and blubbery like a sea lion?”

“Well, you look strong,” said the girl cautiously.

“You’d better believe it. Okay, so you had to come out of the water. Then?”

“We ran back up the cliff path. Charley was coming down to fetch us and she grabbed hold of me and Paul and we ran into the house and said hello to Mum, then Charley took us upstairs to dry us off and then she let us sit at one of the upstairs windows and watch the storm.”

“Nice of her. You like Charley?”

“She’s great. She’s going to marry my uncle Sidney, you know.”

“Is that right? No, I didn’t know that. She known him a long time?”

Minnie considered then said, “Not very long. And it’s a secret, so maybe you shouldn’t say anything just yet.”

Novello, recalling that Charley had only been here a week and that by her own account her acquaintance with the Parker family only extended another three days beyond that said, “This one of those secrets even Charley and your uncle Sid don’t know about?”

“Maybe,” said the girl.

“Then I’ll definitely keep it to myself. Okay, so you watched the storm. And then?”

“Then when it was over we went down to Mum and everyone went outside again and then people started yelling ’cos they’d found Big Bum…”

“Sorry?”

“Lady Denham, I mean. Is it true she was roasting alongside the pig?”

“More or less,” said Novello, who thought it was better for kids to get some kind of grisly delight out of horrors rather than nightmares. “You see her at all?”

“No. I wanted to take a look, but Mum dragged us away straight off,” said the girl regretfully.

Novello gave her a poke and said, “I mean earlier, dummy.”

“Only when we arrived.”

“How did she seem?”

“She was really nice.”

“Is that unusual?”

“Well, she always makes a big fuss about seeing me and the others when she comes to the house, but it only lasts a few seconds, then she forgets all about us.”

“But this time…?”

“She seemed really happy to see us, to see everyone.”

“What sort of happy?”

“You know, like adults get when they’ve had a couple of drinks, or done sex.”

Trying to shock me? Impress me? Or is she really as laid back as she sounds? wondered Novello. Anyway, this wasn’t a road to go down outside of a properly constituted juvenile interview.

“So who did you see after you came back from the beach?”

“Lots of people. Everyone was rushing around to get sheltered from the storm.”

“Can you be a bit more specific? I mean, can you remember anyone in particular?”

“I know what specific means,” said Minnie resentfully. “I saw Teddy Denham. He was in his trunks too, but he hadn’t been swimming. Not with us anyway.”

No, thought Novello. I know what he’d been doing.

“Anyone else?”

“There were a lot of men, from the council, I think, ’cos the mayor was with them in his chain. And they were grabbing bottles and glasses from the bar to take inside, then Mr. Hollis from the pub arrived and said he’d take care of that. No one seemed to be bothering with the food and I wanted to stop and get some ’cos we hadn’t had any yet and swimming always makes me hungry, but Charley said no, let’s get you all inside.”

“So Charley was in charge of you by then? What happened to the other adults?”

“Mr. Jebb was there with Tony, and Mr. Heeley was looking after the twins. Didn’t see Miss Lee. She sort of vanished when we got to the top of the cliff path. Anyway, when we came out later all the food was spoilt. I think it was Clara’s fault, she usually looks after all that sort of thing at the hall, and I expect Big Bum, I mean Lady Denham, would have given her a right rollicking if she’d seen all that food gone to waste.”

The phrase and the intonation suggested she was quoting something overheard.

Novello glanced at the car clock. It was time to be on her way.

She said, “Then, after they discovered…”

She paused in search of a euphemism and Minnie said impatiently, “The corpse.”

“That’s right. Did your parents take you straight home?”

“Yes. I wanted to stay and see what happened next, but you know what adults are like.”

Slightly flattered to be included as a non-adult, Novello said, “Yeah. I work for a couple of adults and they can be a pain.”

She reached across the girl and opened the passenger door.

“Okay,” she said. “That’s fine. Thanks a lot.”

“Are we finished?” said Minnie, sounding disappointed. “You don’t want to hear about the others?”

“What others?”

“The ones I saw out of the window while the storm was on.”

Oh God, thought Novello. I really should have kicked Minnie out of my car straight off, belled Wield, told him about her and the other kids, left him to set up proper interviews.

On the other hand, having got this far, if I dig up something really useful, then any bollocking I get will probably be token.

Probably.

“Tell me,” she said.

The girl screwed up her face in the effort of reconstruction. Or construction. Novello recalled her own childhood confessions when her keenness not to disappoint Father Kerrigan had caused much blurring of the boundaries of fact in search of significant sin. With pubescence the blurring had continued but the motive had completely reversed.

“I was looking out of the window watching the storm and down at the bottom of the lawn I saw Miss Denham-”

“Hang on,” said Novello. “Everyone says it was black as night and the rain was sheeting down and there was a gale filling the air with leaves and stuff. You must have very good eyes.”

“Yes, I have,” said Minnie somewhat complacently. “And when the lightning flashed, it was as bright as anything.”

“So during a flash of lightning you saw…what exactly?”

“I saw Miss Denham. Why won’t you believe me?” insisted the child angrily.

Novello replied very quietly, “What I believe’s not the point, Minnie. It’s what you really believe. Just remember what we’re talking about here. It’s something really horrible. It isn’t a game. So tell me again what you saw.”

The homily had its effect.

The girl said, more hesitantly now, “I really did see someone, and I think it was Miss Denham. At least, it could have been, and there was someone with her…a man…”

“Who?”

“I don’t know!” she cried. “He looked sort of familiar, but I couldn’t really say who it was. They were coming out of the shrubbery between the lawn and the hog roast…”

Novello tried to recall the configuration of house, lawn, and hog roast.

“That would be about three hundred yards. Looking obliquely. That’s sideways.”

“I told you I’d got good eyes,” said the girl.

“And you saw this in one lightning flash?”

“Yes. When the next one came they were gone.”

It was time to finish here, thought Novello. She’d gone a lot further than testing the water. If taken to task, it would have been good to be able to point to some significant discovery, but what she’d got was, in the vernacular, neither owt nor nowt.

She said, “Anyone else see these two people-your brother or Miss Heywood, say?”

“I don’t think so.”

“And did you mention what you saw to either of them?”

“No. I mean, I didn’t know it was important then, did I?”

“Kid, you don’t know that now,” said Novello. “Right. Thanks. Off you go.”

“Don’t I get to sign something? And shouldn’t you have been getting all this onto tape?” demanded the girl.

“Later,” said Novello. “You may have to go through all this again, with either your mum or dad present. Then you’ll probably do the recording and signing thing. Think of this as a sort of rehearsal, okay?”

“Okay,” said Minnie, not moving. “So where are you going now?”

“What’s that to you?”

“Maybe I could come with you. I know all the shortcuts round here.”

“Come on! A town this size, everything’s so close, who needs shortcuts?” said Novello, who was an urban animal and rated any settlement with a population of less than fifty K a village. “Anyway, shouldn’t you be in bed?”

“I’ll be ten next birthday!” declared Minnie indignantly.

“So what do you want? A telegram from the Queen? Go go go, or I may have to arrest you.”

She saw the girl’s eyes light up at the possibility and gave her a push that sent her sprawling through the open door onto the edge of the lawn.

“See you later,” Novello called, dragging the door shut, starting the car, and sending it racing down the drive in a single gravel-spewing movement.

In the mirror she saw the girl had got to her feet and was running after the car, shouting indignantly.

Receding fast, she was difficult to hear and impossible to lip-read.

But she thought she made out the words, “You’ve got a big bum too!”