Death Row - Mark Pearson [102]
Way past time.
She never did make the train.
*
It was a small lounge and Jack Delaney, Sergeant Halliday and Terry Blaylock pretty much filled it. Sally Cartwright stood by the door.
Delaney looked at the woman sitting on the sofa. She seemed to be overwhelmed by their presence. He remembered her as a larger-than-life woman. Big in every sense of the word. The years since he had last seen her had seemed to diminish her somehow. He guessed she was probably in her sixties, with grey hair that had once been a magnificent auburn. She looked up at him quizzically and then smiled.
‘I remember you. You were the Irish copper, weren’t you?’
‘I still am, ma’am,’ said Delaney.
‘You used to come into the pub for your lunch back in that dreadful time.’
‘I did.’
She clicked her fingers. ‘The fisherman’s platter. Better than your Aunty Nora’s, you used to say.’
‘You have a good memory, Mrs Blaylock.’
‘Only thing I do have nowadays,’ she grunted.
‘But it was me Aunty Noreen.’
‘We don’t do food any more.’
‘I know.’
‘Stopped doing it when my husband died. Didn’t have the heart for it any more.’ She looked at the picture that Delaney was holding. ‘Is that the photo?’
Delaney nodded and held the photo out to her. She took it and looked at it without saying anything for a moment or two. And then she nodded. ‘Yes, that’s the sick pervert. To think he had been drinking in my pub all those years.’
‘He moved away after the children disappeared?’ asked Sergeant Halliday.
‘That’s right. To Ruislip. Where they got him eventually.’
‘And that’s your brother with him?’
The woman nodded sadly. ‘Yeah, that’s Graham.’
Delaney picked up on the bitterness in her voice. ‘I understand you had a falling-out, hadn’t spoken to him in years.’
‘That’s right. And, quite frankly, when I heard he’d topped himself I didn’t even shed a tear.’
‘What was the argument about?’
The woman shook her head. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Who are the other people in the picture, Mrs Blaylock?’ asked Sally. ‘Your son doesn’t remember them.’
Mrs Blaylock threw her son a dismissive look. ‘Yeah, well, it was before his time, wasn’t it? When the pub was a successful ongoing business.’
‘I didn’t ban smoking, Mum. I didn’t bring on the recession.’
‘No, you didn’t do anything, did you? Just like your uncle!’ she snapped back at him.
Delaney gestured towards the picture. ‘Mrs Blaylock?’ he prompted.
Sergeant Halliday’s phone trilled. She glanced quickly at the caller ID and switched the phone off.
‘They called themselves The Rockabillies.’
Delaney reacted. ‘A musical group?’
Mrs Blaylock snorted and shook her head. ‘No. They were a pub-quiz team, that’s all. They dressed up like that for the final. They thought it was funny.’
‘Why The Rockabillies?’ asked Sally.
‘Garnier’s second name was Bill – well, William, anyway. And the guy standing next to my brother was called Bill too. He was always singing some rock-and-roll tune or other. So that’s what they called themselves.’
‘Bill who?’ said Delaney.
‘I’m sorry. I can’t remember his surname. He was a fisherman. Down on the coast. He inherited a house somewhere in the area. He supplied us for a little while. My husband dealt with him.’
‘And who are the others?’
Mrs Blaylock held up the photo: five men all wearing Elvis-style quiffs, some of them wigs. One of the men, wearing a black suit, had his back to the camera. Mrs Blaylock pointed to the fourth man in the group, a young man somewhere in his twenties, considerably younger than the others. ‘I know him because he used to work for me as a commis chef. Just sorting out the vegetables, that kind of thing. He was never going to be a cook.’
‘What’s his name?’ Delaney pulled out his notebook.
‘Tim Radnor,’ the woman replied. ‘He left when my husband died.’
‘Where did he go? Do you know?’
‘He went to work at Harrow School. Up on the hill, you know?’
Delaney nodded.