Songbird Read online

  The thing is, you’d never know just by looking at him. Or looking at anyone. As the road climbed the first proper hill, you could look back over Barnsley, over the roofs of thousands of homes, where hundreds of thousands of people live, and know that in every family, amid the love and the laughter, there are secrets and lies.

  Chapter Fifteen

  There was plenty of room on the driveway in front of the house but it becomes second nature to park in the road and take a look, even when the people you’ve come to see are victims, rather than persons of interest or suspects. The Fletchers’ family home was a modern, four or five-bedroomed, detached house on a small estate, St Martin’s Gardens, the sort that is invariably advertised as “executive”, though quite how this word became attached to a particular form of real estate is a mystery – ask a hundred people to describe their job and it’s a near-certainty not one will call themselves an executive. The unfenced garden in front of the house was neatly planted and well-maintained, with the original architect’s idea of suburban chic – small conifers, low flowering shrubs and mixed heathers in the borders. The red Mazda 6 saloon they had seen parked by the caravan at Pinehills was here, and alongside it was a Peugeot Partner van, white with green lettering on the side panel – “LHCS Ltd Boiler Installation and Servicing”.

  Detective Constable Butler pursed her lips, frowned a little, looked around at the neighbouring houses which were of a similar size and style, and said, ‘I’d always imagined that Luton was a dump but this is pretty posh, isn’t it?’

  Alison Reeve nodded.

  ‘Those don’t come cheap anywhere south of the border.’

  It wasn’t clear which border she had in mind but here in Luton the Fletchers’ place had to be worth half a million pounds. They hadn’t come across as people with money but then, looking at the car, the Mazda, Serena realised it was a newish model, maybe not a year old – that’s another twenty-five grand at least.

  She said, ‘Looks as if we’re not the only visitors, ma’am.’

  ‘The summer boiler service, I expect. I need to get mine done. My gas bill last winter was horrendous. Before we go in, is there still nothing from Ford on Michelle’s mobile account?’

  Serena opened her phone and checked.

  ‘No. I told him it was the priority again this morning. The thing is, we don’t have any contacts with that carrier, no shortcuts.’

  Reeve tapped the steering wheel in irritation.

  ‘You said yesterday we’d only get the metadata but even that might have helped this morning. We could have started eliminating numbers. Is Ford up to leaning on them a bit?’

  ‘I’m sure he is, ma’am.’

  ‘Maybe. But he’s not up to accidentally letting them think he’s a detective chief superintendent, is he?’

  Serena Butler had acquired a variety of ranks and roles in her pursuit of information about mobile phone accounts. She kept quiet now because the DCI was annoyed at their lack of progress, and because she was tired. She actually looked tired and it was understandable under the circumstances.

  Reeve sighed and said, ‘Check in with him after this first interview. Come on, we’ve got too much to do today as it is. Let’s hope this boiler hasn’t burst and flooded the house. Michaela Fletcher needs to give what we have to say her full attention. She isn’t going to like some of it.’

  Graham Fletcher opened the door. Reeve expressed a little surprise but standing behind her, Serena Butler had seen the smart green boiler suit with the LCHS logo on the breast pocket and made the connection straight away; whatever the letters stood for, it was Fletcher’s own company. They followed him along the wide hallway and into a lounge, where Michaela Fletcher was getting up from a leather couch.

  Fletcher said, ‘I just called in to make sure everything was alright. I’ve got a couple of installations in the area, so I thought I’d be here. Is there any news? Any developments?’

  No, said Reeve, but they were making progress with their inquiries. The four of them were standing now, a little awkwardly in the immaculate lounge. The rugs on the polished wood floors were the real deal, thought Serena, and the price of one of those would carpet her entire flat.

  Michaela Fletcher said, ‘I’ll put the kettle on. Tea or coffee? You’ll want something after that drive.’

  Reeve said, ‘A cup of coffee would be very welcome. Can we talk in the kitchen? We don’t want to keep you long, and we’re also going to see Mr Simms this morning, as you know.’

  Serena caught the look from her boss – Reeve wanted to speak to Mrs Fletcher without her husband getting in the way. As the detective followed his wife towards the kitchen, Fletcher was clearly planning to go with them when Serena said, ‘You run your own company then, Mr Fletcher?’

  He stopped and looked at her with an odd expression, as if he was seeing her for the first time.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘LCHS – what does that stand for?’

  ‘Luton Central Heating Services.’

  ‘And how long have you been in that business?’

  This time Fletcher took a few steps back towards Serena, probably realising what it was she was doing.

  ‘We’re in our ninth year. Started out as a one-man band. Now I have several blokes working for me, and some of those vans you saw out on the drive. We used to manage it from home but since we moved here the business has been run from a commercial park in town.’

  Serena looked around the lounge, making it plain she was taking in the detail.

  ‘Business must be good. You have a lovely home.’

  Fletcher nodded as if this was a simple and self-evident fact, and then said, ‘Well, that’s Michaela’s doing. She has good taste. Obviously…’

  He made a gesture towards himself, made a joke and smiled at her too directly. It felt just a little uncomfortable under the circumstances, what with the bereaved sister just next door, and she wondered whether Alison Reeve had managed to get straight to the difficult matters she had to raise with Michaela Fletcher.

  Serena said, ‘So you spend most of your time in the office these days, managing things?’

  ‘A bit of that but I’ve got a good woman to run it for me, and we’ve just taken on another girl. I still like to get out on the job, sorting out the technical stuff. But I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty.’

  He held them up towards her, looking at her between the outspread fingers, and said, ‘Interested in business, are you?’

  ‘Not especially.’

  ‘Only you seem to have a lot of questions about it. Look, I can see your boss wanted a private word with my wife. I can understand that, I don’t have a problem with it. But has anything come up? What does “making progress with our inquiries” actually mean?’

  ‘Pretty much what it says, Mr Fletcher. We’re awaiting the results from lots of tests and we’re speaking to some of the people who were staying at the caravan site. We should soon be able to get access to Michelle’s phone records. That’s usually helpful.’

  Fletcher stepped closer to her, and when he spoke again it was in a lowered voice.

  ‘Right. I’ve been wondering whether I should have mentioned this before – I didn’t because Michaela’s been upset enough as it is. The two of them… It’s a complicated relationship, right from when they were kids. You know, the old sibling rivalry? Sometimes they’re very close, other times they’re fighting like a couple of cats. If you were anywhere near it, you couldn’t help getting caught up in it.’

  Serena said, ‘I’ve got sisters, Mr Fletcher. It all sounds familiar and normal enough to me.’ But she was watching him and wondering whether there was something here – Fletcher looked as if he had more to say.

  He went on, ‘Obviously, I don’t know what was happening down at the caravan but Michelle sent me a couple of texts that evening. It’s my guess she’d been drinking. I don’t know if Michaela’s told you but… Anyway, she wasn’t making a lot of sense. So, in the end I rang her up. I was just trying to c
alm her down and keep the peace. It wasn’t the first time I had to do that. I said go home and sleep it off, you’ll feel like an idiot in the morning. I mean, the things you say, not realising…’

  Serena looked at Fletcher for several long seconds. Reeve ought to be hearing this but when there’s a flow, a momentum, you don’t want to interrupt it. Keeping her voice level, she said eventually, ‘You had texts from Michelle on the Thursday, and spoke to her on your phone? What time was this, Mr Fletcher?’

  ‘I’m not sure exactly. Latish in the evening. She was about to go off on one – you can tell with her. So I told her to calm down, like I said. Not the first time I’ve had to get between them. And Michelle was… Well, she was unstable, let’s be honest. She had a few issues.’

  Serena processed what he’d told her and let him see that she was doing so. Sure enough, just as the old boy always told them, it was Fletcher who felt the need to say more.

  ‘You can see why I didn’t mention this to my wife. She’s lost her sister. The last thing she needs to hear is that Michelle was having a go behind her back. It put me in a bit of an awkward spot, didn’t it?’

  Be understanding. Be sympathetic. Be grateful for valuable intelligence like this.

  ‘I can see it did, Mr Fletcher. I’ve played piggy-in-the-middle myself more times than I care to mention. Can you be any more precise about the time of that last phone call? Did Michelle say where she was then?’

  Fletcher only had to take out his phone and check the time of that call but Serena wanted him to keep talking for now.

  ‘It has to have been around nine o’clock. She didn’t say where she was but she went out of somewhere so she could hear me better. Somewhere noisy, with music. That’s why I thought she was probably a bit the worse for wear. It would have been somewhere with a bar.’

  ‘You’d say Michelle drinks a lot?’

  ‘Too much. On top of her other problems, well, it was like having a live grenade in the room sometimes. I did my best. We all did. Poor Barry, he didn’t know what to do with her half the time.’

  Reeve’s voice came through the kitchen door – ‘Of course we will, Mrs Fletcher’, sounding like she was winding things up. Serena didn’t want Michaela coming in before she’d finished in here.

  ‘Mr Fletcher, if you have your phone with you, we can check the time of that call to Michelle.’

  He felt in the pockets of the overalls and said, ‘I’ve only got the works phone with me. Mine’s on my desk back in the office.’

  ‘OK. We’d like to see the record of the texts and the call. That sort of thing helps us to put together a picture of what she was doing on Thursday evening, and when. If you could mail screenshots of those to me I’d be very grateful. I’ll give you a card and write my email on it.’

  As she did so, she added, ‘Would you be able to do that today?’

  ‘Yes, not a problem. I’ll go straight back to the office. Sorry if I ought to have mentioned it earlier but…’

  He nodded towards the kitchen. And then, ‘Do you think I should tell her now, Michaela? You said you’ve got sisters. Would you want to know?’

  The kitchen door opened and Mrs Fletcher came through first, her eyes a little red and her face pale. Serena said to the husband, ‘I wouldn’t want to hear it, but I’d want to know, if that makes sense.’

  He looked around at the three women, one by one, and nodded.

  Reeve said, ‘What was that about? What would you want to know?’

  They were back in the DCI’s car, still parked outside the Fletchers’ executive home. The sun had been heating it up for an hour, and Reeve stabbed a finger at the electric window buttons one by one until they were all open.

  Serena repeated what Fletcher had told her, wondering how Reeve would react – she had her own thoughts ready but wanted to hear those of the senior investigating officer first.

  Reeve said, ‘Correct me if I’m wrong but today’s Wednesday, isn’t it? Five days since we found his sister-in-law’s body. We spoke to him on Friday. I saw him again on the Saturday morning at the station, and he never mentioned he’d had contact with her on the Thursday until now?’

  Serena said, ‘He told me he’d wondered whether he should. He kept quiet because he didn’t want to upset his wife any further – that’s his reason. Apparently, they often argued and he had to keep the peace. When Michelle started texting him and then he called her, he knew she’d been drinking. He told her to calm down and sleep it off – then the next thing he hears is that she’s dead. I can sort of see why he didn’t go and tell her sister that Michelle had been bitching behind her back, ma’am.’

  Alison Reeve leaned forward and pulled off her jacket, which she then threw into the back seat. She tugged at her white blouse as if she might remove that as well, before she compromised and undid the top two buttons.

  ‘Global bloody warming… We’d be better off getting into the deodorant business.’

  She put both hands on the steering wheel as if the car was moving and stared at the house they’d just left. In the garden to their right, two doors away from the Fletchers, there was a lilac bush with faded mauve blooms. Serena watched as a small party of Goldfinches, a charm of them, settled there briefly before taking off again in bounding flight, the sun caught in the yellow wing-flashes that gave them their old English name. It was a brief moment of silent, suburban peace.

  Reeve said then, ‘So, just now, Graham Fletcher decides to mention it. Is that what happened?’

  ‘Not exactly. I told him that we were expecting to have Michelle’s phone records soon.’

  Reeve turned her head and looked at Serena Butler – she didn’t need to say anything else. Serena nodded and said, ‘Which is why he decided to tell me about it now. Better to have mentioned it himself than wait for us to get back to him with questions.’

  Reeve said, ‘I don’t think it’s significant; he’s still a witness, just a slightly more useful one. It’s a two-hour drive up to the coast in a fast car. He was here at home, enjoying some peace and quiet, no doubt, until the crazy sister-in-law got in touch. We’ll get him to account for his movements on Thursday. And we need to see what’s on his phone.’

  ‘Already sorted, ma’am. He says he’ll send screenshots this afternoon.’

  ‘Good. Make sure he does.’

  Another pause. Every senior officer has their own style and their own pace. DCI Reeve liked silence every now and then.

  ‘Mrs Fletcher was upset by the autopsy details I shared. I thought there’d be some comfort in the knowledge that her sister hadn’t been raped but… The alcohol damage. She seemed to take that badly, as if she should’ve done more to stop it. I said, no-one can prevent that, it’s like trying to stop a river with your bare hands. She said, but if she hadn’t been drinking, she might still be alive, and I couldn’t really argue. Robinson’s own test showed she was well over the driving limit. Judgement impaired. Where did she go in that state? Who did she meet?’

  ‘And why did he murder her? It has to have been a him, doesn’t it, ma’am?’

  Reeve said, ‘According to every other programme on the BBC, the world is full of strong women now.’

  She saw Serena Butler’s head turn towards her and added, ‘But yes, unless I’m completely losing my touch, we’re looking for a bloke. And now our day just gets worse. We have to go and interview Barry Simms.’

  Reeve turned the ignition key and Serena pulled on her seatbelt. She said, ‘Did Michaela say they’d been arguing on the Thursday? Did she say what mood Michelle was in?’

  Reeve was looking at the rear-view mirror, waiting for a red Jaguar saloon to ease its way past. Then she pulled the stick down into Drive and waited for the automatic gearbox to engage.

  ‘I got the feeling they’d been having a nice time. And if you’re doing your job properly, Detective Constable Butler, you’ll think that’s a little odd.’

  There was a maze of streets connecting the council housing estates built af
ter the second world war, and it took Alison Reeve three attempts to locate Biscot Road. To be more accurate, they are now ex-council housing estates, after Margaret Thatcher turned the world upside down and gave the occupants the right to buy houses they had previously lived in as tenants of local authorities. Many did so, liked the idea and voted Conservative for the next three elections, changing British society irrevocably. But not everyone had the means or felt inclined to join the property-owning democracy; councils handed over control of the remaining public housing to non-profit-making associations, who after a time and the realisation that they really could not make a profit, handed them on to other odd, anomalous organisations. Governments came and went but no one has found an answer to the problem – what to do with those people who are too poor, too chaotic or just too awkward to buy their own home?

  Biscot Road was typical, and Serena Butler recognised it straight away because it was where she grew up herself. Most homes had been bought but here and there a few of the old local authority houses remained stubbornly in small clusters. You could tell which was which easily enough. Over the years, the owners had improved their properties with upvc double-glazed windows and doors, with superfluous porches over front entrances, with textured wall-coatings and differently-coloured roof tiles. Some had added tarmac driveways and little brick walls, intended to add a touch of distinction. One or two had wrought-iron gates, miniatures of those you might see at the entrance to a country estate.

  And in contrast, of course, were those still run by housing associations. Some work had been done, they had been ‘modernised’ but to a uniformly low standard. By and large the front gardens were unkempt, and in one, two doors away from the Simms’ house, a fridge was nestling between overgrown buddleia bushes. On the opposite side of the street, three front gardens had managed to accumulate seven cars, none of which was ever likely to hit the road again.