“I do too,” Ray answered. “They’re definitely people of interest. The wife and the husband. If Gerald had an affair with her, then that could have been the spark for either of them to do away with him.”
“How do you mean?” Joseph asked, not sure that he believed that Janet could be a killer.
“Well, think about it. He tells her that it’s over, she takes a dislike to that and lashes out, maybe in the heat of the moment, and who knows what happens next? And as for the husband, well, I should think that would be obvious as to why he would be in the reckoning.”
Joseph didn’t offer a counter. He knew he couldn’t. Not yet anyway. But as the day wore on, a new thought took hold. A plan that would allow him to save some face and be able to come back and tell Ray that he’d spoken to both the Scotts after all.
It was a little after two when he put the wheels in motion, offering to head over to the docks and help oversee the search. He had every intention of heading there eventually. But not at first. The schools hadn’t let out yet and therefore Mrs Scott would still be at home, preparing to head off to pick up her children. He turned and headed for the rear of the station where the cars were kept.
He hesitated when he reached his vehicle. Should he really be doing this? He tried his best to avoid driving where possible. An unavoidable part of the job. But the thought of being in charge of that much power, of that much responsibility, made him deeply uncomfortable inside. What happened if he made a mistake? Took a wrong turn, attempted to take a bend too fast, or worse, failed to spot a pedestrian walking out into the street? The thoughts invaded his mind whenever he got behind the wheel of a car, leaving him locked in a mental battle between his fears and the need to get to where he was going. As a police officer, he’d seen first-hand the carnage that they could cause. Broken bodies merged with twisted chassis. The screams of loved ones unable to do anything for a child run down. Cars were killers. A barely necessary evil in this world, yet for some reason their popularity kept growing, which could only ever lead to more carnage. Thankfully, the drive didn’t take long. His timing turned out to be nearly perfect. Janet exited the house just as he opened the gate.
“Oh, hello,” he said. “I’m DS Walsh.” He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket to pull out his badge. As he did so, he noticed how Janet turned so that her right side faced away from him.
“You’re the one who came the other day,” she stated nervously.
“Yes, I hoped I might get the chance to talk to you if you’ve got a minute?”
“No,” she said, before repeating it again. “No. I’ve got to get the children. I’m sorry.”
She didn’t move from her position at the door, keeping half of her face hidden.
“I can give you a lift if you want, we can talk on the way. I wouldn’t want to make you late.”
Her face twitched as she looked for any reason to say no.
“Please,” he insisted. “I’m only going to have to keep coming back until you speak to me. Neither of us want that, do we?”
She turned, shaking her head at him sadly as she did so. He saw then the bruise along the side of her head. It reached up from near her ear, spreading across her cheek and her right eye. “I don’t really suppose I have a choice, do I?”
Joseph wanted to say something to her. Some sort of suggestion that maybe things could be better, or at least an apology for her wounds. For his part in them. But he couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge them. He just smiled weakly, opened the gate, and escorted her to his car.
*
“I know what this is about,” she said as they started to drive. It wouldn’t take long to get to the school and she had asked him to let her out a couple of streets before so no one saw her getting out of the car with another man.
“Gerald Trainer,” he confirmed.
“What happened?” she asked.
“We don’t know yet.”
“But he is dead though? Definitely?”
“Yes.”
She turned her head to the window and swallowed, fighting back tears. “Of course.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I need to ask about your relationship with him.”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know,” she sniffed.
“I need to hear from you.”
“We were lovers,” she turned her head to face him, anger replacing sadness. “There? Is that better?”
“I’m not trying to humiliate you.”
“Try or not, you’re doing a bloody good job. Humiliating me. Hurting me.”
“It was Alfie that hit you.” As he said it, it sounded more like an alibi than an accusation of the real perpetrator.
“When you went, he came in. I don’t know if he finally put two and two together or if he had known all along and now that someone else knew, he simply couldn’t ignore it. Doesn’t matter, does it? He did what he did.”
“I’m sorry that happened. If you wanted to press charges…?” he offered.
“Oh, yeah. That would work, wouldn’t it? Pressing charges against my husband. Have the whole bloody thing come out in the open.”
“I didn’t mean…” he began, but she wasn’t done.
“I’m the one who done him wrong, aren’t I? I was the one messing around behind his back. What choice did he have?” It sounded as if she was reading from a script. Not one she had written either.
“No man has a right to strike his wife.”
She looked at him with contempt. “I thought you were supposed to be the police.”
Joseph didn’t bother objecting. He needed to get to the point before he lost her completely. “Could Mr Scott have killed Gerald?”
She snorted. A sound somewhere approaching a laugh. The closest thing she’d come to brevity. “Alfie? No. I don’t think so. Alfie’s the sort who likes to win his fights. Make of that what you will. Wouldn’t have a fair fight if his life depended on it. And believe me, I know the strength of both of them, and Alfie wouldn’t have stood a chance.”
