Free The Price Of Darkness by Graham Hurley Page A

her.
    ‘She’s got the telly on. Do you mind if I push off for a break?’
    ‘Not at all. How is she?’
    ‘Fine.’ Jessie shot him a look.
    Suttle stayed in the corridor while Jessie went into the bedroom, explained about her colleague and asked whether she needed anything from downstairs. Then he stepped inside and closed the door behind him.
    Sally Mallinder was sitting on the bed with her back against the headboard, watching three people discussing a carriage clock. She was a striking woman, middle-aged, blonde. She’d kicked off her shoes and made herself comfortable, her bare feet tucked beneath her. She was wearing a loose cotton shirt outside a pair of blue culottes and was very obviously pregnant.
    ‘ Cash in the Attic. ’ She nodded at the screen. ‘I never miss it.’
    Suttle, for a brief moment, was nonplussed. He’d come to inquire about a murder, not watch daytime TV.
    ‘Do you mind?’ He bent to the set and turned it off.
    Before she had a chance to protest, he pulled up a chair and sat down. Half an hour ago he’d debriefed the D/C who’d managed to establish a name for Mallinder’s regular visitor. She was a Bengali prostitute called Aliyah, and with luck she’d be volunteering herself for interview at Kingston Crescent at some point this afternoon. For now, though, Suttle needed a domestic angle on the dead man.
    ‘Can I just say, Mrs Mallinder—’
    ‘How sorry you are? Sure. Of course. Thank you.’ She was still looking at the blankness of the screen. At length she glanced across at Suttle. ‘So what do you want to know?’
    ‘It’s about your husband, obviously. In cases like these we try and establish a sequence of events leading up to what happened. It’s just a start, that’s all.’
    She said she understood. Jonathan had left home around half eight on Monday morning. He’d dropped the kids at school and given her a ring from his mobile around lunchtime. Everything had seemed perfectly normal. He was cheerful about the meeting he’d just had and said he’d probably be back some time late tomorrow afternoon.
    ‘That’s yesterday afternoon,’ she added.
    ‘Of course.’ Suttle had his notepad on his lap. ‘Did he say anything else about the meeting?’
    ‘No. But then he never went into details. Jonathan was a man who lived his life in boxes. Business was box one. We were box two.’
    ‘Second best?’
    ‘Alphabetical order.’ She looked away. ‘Though sometimes, I admit, it was hard to tell.’
    Suttle scribbled himself a note. Bitterness was like a bad smell, he thought. You couldn’t miss it.
    ‘You’re telling me you knew very little about your husband’s business life?’
    ‘I’m telling you he spared us the details. I knew broadly what he got up to - the deals he was doing, what might happen at the end of it - but if you’ve come here to ask me about his diary, about who he met, where they fitted, what happened, I’m afraid I can’t help you.’
    ‘Was it always like that?’
    ‘Yes. In many respects he was a very private man.’
    ‘And family life? Do you mind me asking?’
    ‘Not in the least. Family life was wonderful. He was active, he did stuff, he was funny, he’d stayed young at heart, the kids adored him. What else would a woman want?’
    What else indeed. Suttle made another note. Then he looked up.
    ‘No problems, then?’
    ‘Domestically, you mean?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘None. We led a very full life, always have done. Jonathan worked hard and played hard. I respected that, gave him space if you like.’
    ‘Space for what?’
    ‘Space for this …’ She nodded vaguely towards the window. ‘I don’t know what it is with Portsmouth but my husband just loved it. Given half a chance, I’m sure he’d have moved us all down.’
    ‘And you?’
    ‘I never got it, never understood the charm of the place. We had a weekend down here once, the whole family. The dockyard was OK, the kids loved the old boats, but the city itself …’ She