Page 20

20

Monday afternoon

Somehow the bungalow looked less well kept than it had last time. Perhaps after the shock of Unwin’s death no one had had the time or inclination to water the plants in pots leading up to the front door. Or perhaps it was all in his imagination. As he and Eddy walked up the path, the sound of raised voices came towards them from inside the house. One of the voices was very familiar.

“What on earth is Patsy doing here?” Charlie asked.

Eddy shrugged. “I haven’t seen her since this morning, to be honest. Mam said she was going to leave her in bed for a lie in.” he said.

Bed, or rather sex, was the subject of the shouting match they could hear through the open window. Charlie put his hand on Eddy’s arm, signalling to him to stop and listen.

“Just admit you were jealous,” an unknown male voice was saying, and not quietly.

“But I wasn’t.” This was Patsy. “Yes, Unwin had other lovers. That was his choice. So, what? It’s not a crime and no one got hurt. I could have had other lovers if I’d wanted, but I didn’t.” Patsy sounded remarkably calm, but then, in a crisis, she usually was.

“Listen to yourself, Patsy. This is the real world, not some self-help book. Josh would sleep with anyone, and you wanted to get married. Does not compute, sweetheart.”

“He’s right,” Eddy said, in a quiet voice. “Unwin was some kind of sex addict. But Patsy didn’t kill him.”

“Shh,” Charlie said, wanting to hear Patsy’s response. It came in a convincingly measured tone.

“There is nothing wrong with liking sex,” she said. “Unwin was always open and honest about his affairs. Sometimes they included me, sometimes they didn’t. You don’t want to hear the truth. Open relationships are a thing. That’s what we had, like it or not.”

There was a cry and the sound of breaking glass. Adrenaline spiked in Charlie’s body. Patsy shouldn’t have been there, but she was his colleague, and all his protective instincts engaged. A glance at Eddy told Charlie that he felt the same way.

Let’s get in there.

“Police!” Charlie shouted and tried the door. It was open, and they could see through to the kitchen at the back of the house, where Patsy stood with her hand against her cheek, which was streaked with blood. In two strides, Eddy was next to her, wrapping her in his arms. Patsy shook him off, with an I’m OK. Don’t fuss.

Charlie turned to see Patsy’s assailant, angry enough to charge them with assault on a police officer, and angry with himself for letting it happen. He saw a man with his hands on his hips, staring fixedly at Patsy from the other side of the room.

The man flicked his eyes between Patsy and Eddy. “Hah! didn’t take you long to find a replacement.”

From his appearance, the speaker could only be Unwin’s brother. Charlie automatically checked to see if the man had any possible weapons to hand. There was nothing, but Charlie felt the handcuffs in his pocket itching to click around the man’s wrists. Instead, he

produced his warrant card.

“Mr Unwin, I’m DS Rees, one of the team investigating your brother’s death. What’s going on, please? Why is my colleague bleeding?”

Unwin’s brother was bright red with anger or frustration, or both. “What should be going on is you arresting Patsy here.”

“PC Hargreaves is a police officer as well as a visitor to your home.” Charlie looked at the floor, where shards of a heavy juice glass were scattered on the floor. “If you threw that glass, it’s assault, at the very least. Now, what’s going on?”

“She’s not telling the truth,” Unwin’s brother said. “She killed him.”

“I asked what happened here,” Charlie said. “Patsy? Did he throw that glass at you?”

Patsy shook her head. “At the wall. The bits bounced. It looks worse than it is. Only a graze, honestly.” And wasn’t that typical Patsy? Always the truth, even after she’d been injured and accused of murder. The amount of blood looked like more than a graze.

“Take her to the car and check those cuts. First aid kit under the passenger seat.” Charlie said to Eddy. Then to Alex Unwin: “If PC Hargreaves has more than a superficial cut, I will be arresting you.”

When the two of them had left, Charlie turned to Unwin’s brother. “Suppose we sit down, and you tell me all about it,” he said as calmly as he could, though his worry about Patsy made calmness an effort. He stepped over to the table, avoiding the broken glass, and pulled out two chairs. “Start with your name and address.”

Unwin’s brother sat down with a bad grace, slumping in the chair, but poking his head forward aggressively. “Alex Unwin. Flat 12, Hayday Mansions, Cambridge. I’m a PhD student.”

“Thank you,” Charlie said. See, wasn’t that easy? “You are accusing Patsy of murdering your brother Josh?”

Alex nodded repeatedly, his face still red.

“What evidence do you have for that allegation?” Charlie asked.

“She was jealous as fuck. She wanted to keep him to herself, and it wasn’t happening. Josh wasn’t ready to settle down.”

“Is that what Josh told you?”

There was a moment of silence. “He didn’t have to. He was still seeing lots of other people.”

“So, he didn’t tell you that he was unhappy with Patsy? You guessed it from his behaviour? You see, Patsy says that she knew Josh slept with other people; that it was an accepted part of their relationship.”

Alex slapped his hand down onto the table. “No one believes that! That’s not how relationships work.” He shook his head. “For God’s sake, tell me you don’t believe that crap.”

Charlie didn’t know what to believe. He had seen Unwin put himself in danger to protect Patsy. They had seemed happy when they were together, and there was no doubting Patsy’s devastation at his loss. But plenty of people had told him about Unwin propositioning his colleagues, enough to suggest there was truth in the stories. At the same time, he had never caught Patsy in a lie, so if she said the relationship was genuinely open and ethical, he was inclined to believe her. He put the question of belief to one side.

“Apart than the nature of their relationship, do you have any other evidence that Patsy meant any harm to your brother?” Charlie asked.

“You’re on her side. I might have known. The police always stick together.” Alex gave a hollow laugh. “I’m wasting my time here.”

That will be a no, then.

“Regardless of what you think of the police, Mr Unwin, I should remind you that assault is a serious offence. I don’t know whether PC Hargreaves will wish to press charges so I would advise you to keep away from her and be careful about what you say about her in public.”

“Don’t you want me to make a statement?” Alex’s expression implied that he wasn’t inclined to be sensible.

“ Not at this point, Mr Unwin. If you think of anything else I might need to know, please get in touch.” He gave Alex a card. But he still didn’t know what to think.

Thankfully, Patsy had been telling the truth about the extent of her injury. When Charlie got out to the car, she was sitting on the passenger seat with the door open. Eddy was crouched in front of her, very carefully cleaning dried blood from her face with an antiseptic wipe.

“It really isn’t much,” Patsy said.

Eddy growled – no other word for it -- and Charlie wanted to do the same.

“That’s not the point,” Charlie said. “You could have been badly injured.”

“But I wasn’t,” Patsy protested.

“You’re still going back to Mam’s,” Eddy said.

“And this time, you stay there,” Charlie added. He could hope.