The Seths lived in Dullatur on the outskirts of Glasgow. Although technically part of the sprawling new town of Cumbernauld, Dullatur had a distinctly old world feel to it, with many of the pale sandstone buildings dating back to the Victorian era. The Seths’ home was down a bumpy single-track road called The Lane.
April loved property. Every Wednesday morning she always made a beeline for the Daily Herald’s property section. If she’d had her way she’d have been a writer for a homes and gardens magazine. ‘What could be more fun than poking your nose around someone else’s pad?’ she’d say.
Many believe that the eyes are the windows to the soul, but April reckoned to really know someone you had to see how they lived and how they decorated their homestead. She pressed the buzzer on the gate’s video intercom.
A croaky voice answered abruptly and asked what she wanted.
This was April’s time to shine. She may have been past her prime but no one was better than this old hack on a doorstep. ‘Is that Martin Seth?’ she gushed. ‘You probably won’t remember me but we met at the Daily Herald’s model contest last year.’ Truth be told, April had only seen the Seths from a distance sipping champagne with the previous editor Danny Brown at the city’s Princes Square shopping complex, which the newspaper had hired for the annual event. As the paper’s women’s editor it was April’s job to cover the beauty pageant and look after the contestants backstage, which mainly involved trying to stop them scratching each other’s eyes out.
‘Do you mind if I come in?’ April asked hopefully. There was no answer but seconds later the two cast iron gates swung open.
The staff snapper Jack Kennedy had deliberately stayed out of sight of the video camera while April worked her magic. Now he slipped through the gates and fell into step behind her. There was no way he could go back to the office without a picture of the grieving widower.
April had always wanted to see the Seths’ mansion and it didn’t disappoint. A racing green Jaguar sat on the long gravel driveway. The front door to the large house was ajar. She chapped gently on the door and shouted through the crack, ‘Can we come in?’
There was no answer, so she took that as a yes and let herself and the photographer into the hallway. A chessboard floor led to an extravagant marble staircase, above which a gaudy chandelier dangled. But April noticed that the place was in some disarray. It was beyond the normal family mess seen in most homes. Kids’ clothes were dumped in piles, having not quite made it as far as the washing machine, and a slice of stale toast lay beside the hall phone. It wasn’t just housework that had gone to pot, the place was suffering from long-term neglect. The scuffed walls were in desperate need of a lick of paint and several floor tiles were cracked.
April tentatively made her way to the rear of the house, shouting, ‘Martin! Martin!’ periodically.
There was still no answer. The rear of the old Victorian pile had a very contemporary glass and steel extension. April didn’t think the mix of old and new worked, but she could see why the Seths had added it. One level down, the underwater lights of a swimming pool glittered.
She tried again. ‘Martin! Martin!’ Still no answer. April made her way towards the pool. Like the rest of the house it had seen better days; green slime clung to its sides and in the murky depths April could make out a dark shape. It was a body.
She screamed, ‘Martin!’ before quickly composing herself and turning to the photographer. ‘You’ll have to go in – I can’t swim.’
Martin Seth coughed and spluttered as the full, and quite considerable, weight of April Lavender bore down on him.
Fortunately, she had remembered most of her first aid training from her days as a Navy Wren. April filled her lungs and engulfed Martin’s mouth once more, blowing into his airways. Then she bumped his chest again, leaning down as hard as she could. But she wasn’t the waif-like Wren she’d once been. Back then she’d had to kneel on the chest of the practice dummy to make the electric buzzer go off. This time the same manoeuvre had her subject gasping, ‘Get off! You’re killing me, you great, big fat lump.’ So much for gratitude.
Martin Seth spat the remains of the slimy green pool from his lungs and slumped, dripping wet, against a sun lounger.
Having dived in to pluck Seth from the bottom of the pool the photographer was now busy capturing Martin’s lowest moments on camera. His suicide attempt could be interpreted in two ways, either he was too griefstricken to carry on or he had done it because of a guilty conscience. That’s the way the photographer saw it anyway. After years of peering down a camera lens almost everything became two-dimensional.
April fussed over Selina’s widower. ‘That was a very silly thing to do, Martin. What about your kids?’
Martin looked crestfallen.
‘Right, cup of tea?’ April suggested. She was of the belief that there was nothing that couldn’t be cured with a cuppa. She wrapped a towel she found over one of the loungers and ushered him to the kitchen, carefully slipping in the first question: ‘I’m so sorry for your loss, Martin. When were you told?’
‘The cops called just after you rang the buzzer. They didn’t say what was up exactly, but I knew it was Selina. I knew it had to be bad.’
April was many things, but she was nobody’s fool. She knew a lie when she heard one.
Half an hour later the police did arrive – two CID detectives and two female family liaison officers. April filled them in with what had happened then was unceremoniously asked to leave as they conducted their inquiries. She called Elvis.
‘What you got?’ he answered without any preamble.
‘A lying bastard,’ replied April. ‘And yourself?’
‘An adulterous cow,’ said Connor. ‘Sounds like a match made in heaven. I’ll call the Weasel.’ He knew the first rule of journalism was to call the desk head immediately after a job. ‘See you back at the broom cupboard,’ he added.