All the Lonely People by Martin Edwards Page B

you’d been furious with her. Only natural in the circumstances.”
    â€œBelieve it or not, I was glad to see her again.”
    Macbeth moved forward, his lean body tense. “Did you sleep with her on Wednesday night?”
    â€œI told you. She slept in the bedroom, I had the couch.”
    â€œAre you absolutely sure about that, sir?” Skinner conveyed disbelief without sacrificing a scrap of politeness.
    â€œI’m hardly likely to have forgotten.”
    â€œYou see,” Skinner persisted. “Mrs. Devlin was obviously an attractive woman. Charming, vivacious. Everyone we’ve spoken to has agreed about that. And she was your wife, sir, come home after two years with another man.”
    â€œWe didn’t sleep together, Chief Inspector. I wish we had.”
    â€œYou told us last time,” said Macbeth, “that you hadn’t seen her throughout that two-year period. Do you wish to change that statement?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œThen it isn’t true that you’d been meeting your wife regularly for some time?”
    â€œTotally untrue.” Harry was startled. The trend of the interview was puzzling him and he looked from one detective to another in search of a clue to their line of reasoning. Their faces were trained to yield no secrets, but he was conscious of frustration not far below their surface assurance. They were uncertain of their ground, he could tell. Important pieces were missing from the picture that they were trying to build and so they were pursuing a speculative enquiry in the hope of stumbling across a fresh signpost to the truth. He was well acquainted with how they must feel after years of cross-examining resilient witnesses - themselves policemen, more often than not - who refused to break down but whom he suspected of holding the key that he sought. The tricks of their trade closely resembled his own: the haphazard questioning, the dodgem swerves from blandness to provocation.
    Might as well steal the initiative. “So what progress have you made with the investigation, Chief Inspector? Any prospect of an arrest in the near future?”
    â€œNot imminently, I’m afraid, sir. As you can gather, our enquiries are continuing. We have received some valuable information, it’s fair to say.”
    â€œSuch as?”
    â€œWell, sir, you’ll appreciate that we have to limit what we disclose at this stage, even to the husband of the deceased.”
    The deceased. The words struck him like a slap on the cheek, a reminder of the fact of Liz’s death. He said, “Have you traced her lover yet?”
    Macbeth snorted. Skinner said calmly, “I’m sorry to say that my sergeant isn’t finding it easy to come to terms with the existence of your wife’s new lover.”
    No need to feign bewilderment at that. “I don’t understand.”
    â€œI’ll spell it out for you, sir. We’ve interviewed a large number of people who were on good terms with your wife, including several of the friends and relations you told us about. So far, none of them can come up with a name for this new man in your wife’s life.”
    â€œNothing odd about that, it’s typical Liz.” How to explain her to men whom she had never met? “She would like to dramatise the situation, make a mystery where none existed.” A thought occurred to him. “And she certainly told her sister a little about the man.”
    â€œTogether with one or two others, that’s perfectly true. But it is a mite surprising that she played her cards so close to her chest, wouldn’t you agree? I gather that she was a lady who liked to - if I may say so - talk about herself.”
    â€œThe man’s married. She didn’t want his wife to find out.”
    â€œCould be, sir.” Skinner’s eyelids drooped. “Then again, there seems to have been a widely held opinion that one day the two of you would get back