Chapter 14
SELLERS
Sellers couldn’t work out if he was finding Paddy Stelling’s company soothing or alarming.
The man seemed to have no … What was it?
Sellers had been racking his brains and failing to come up with a word that described the main thing that seemed to be lacking.
If Paddy had been a streaming platform, Sellers would have said content was what was missing. A contentless man.
Oomph – that was it. Paddy Stelling had no oomph about him, and spending time alone with him was draining Sellers of what little of the stuff he had left, which wasn’t much at this time of night.
The two of them were sitting on tartan-upholstered sofas in a long, thin lounge, half of which had been turned into a library.
Gareth Upton had referred to the room twice as ‘Mulberry’ when suggesting where Sellers might speak privately to Paddy, perhaps because of its wine-coloured curtains and carpet.
Sellers knew mulberry was a colour as well as a fruit, and he suspected it was this colour, though he personally would have called it claret.
God, he could have murdered a bottle of red right now. He wondered if Gareth Upton had any spare. It wasn’t the kind of question you could ask of a grieving widower, unfortunately.
‘Tell me about your relationship with Marianne,’ he said to Paddy. ‘Was it good? Did the two of you get on well?’
‘All right, I s’pose.’
For fuck’s sake, make an effort, man. Sellers was tired, and didn’t want to expend unnecessary energy any more than Paddy did. ‘Can you elaborate?’
‘Marianne was always a bit … hot and cold, you know?’
‘No, I don’t,’ said Sellers. ‘You’re going to have to explain. Please.’
‘She used to want us to have a good relationship,’ Paddy said. ‘She invited me out for lunch once – just me, not Jemma. I thought that was odd, but it would have been rude to say no, I thought, so I went. Free lunch? I’m not going to turn it down.’
‘When was this?’ Sellers asked.
‘Just before Jemm and I got married. Before the starters had even arrived, she locked eyes with me and told me she had a confession to make, that it was serious and I’d better prepare myself.’
Sellers waited – too long for his liking. Was that it – the end of the story, as far as Paddy was concerned? Mentally, Sellers rolled up his sleeves yet again. ‘And? Did she confess to something?’
Paddy nodded. ‘Told me she really wanted us to be close. To have a proper mother-son relationship, she said, and for that to work, she had to tell me the truth, or else she’d be the world’s biggest hypocrite, and she hated hypocrisy more than any other …
whatever, failings – and then she basically told me that for years she’d feared I was a total shit.
Words to that effect, anyway. I told her not to worry about it. ’
‘Was it something you’d done, or said?’ Surely being a total shit required more gumption than this man possessed. Maybe not. It might just be possible to do it in a passive, inert way.
‘I’d been a bit of a user in the past,’ said Paddy.
‘Given Jemma the runaround. In it for myself, not giving much back. I wouldn’t have expected Marianne to approve of me then, and she didn’t.
But now I’d turned it around and she loved me, apparently.
Made me out to be some kind of hero for realising I’d been a knob for ages and then being less of one.
Most people never change, she said, never improve, but I had.
She respected me now. That’s why she couldn’t let me believe she was just this nice, friendly mum-type under false pretences, without knowing all the hostile things she’d said about me in the past. And then she came out with them all – a big long list, pretty brutal.
It was important for me to hear every single one, she said. ’ Paddy grimaced.
Sellers felt a pang of guilt, thinking of how his girlfriend, Sondra, liked to say that he’d improved beyond all recognition since she’d first met him. She could never, ever find out that he’d eaten beef lasagne tonight.
‘Then she got all emotional,’ Paddy went on. ‘Started crying, saying she should have known all along that I’d come good, that I was a nice guy underneath. Not demonic.’ Paddy stressed the last word. ‘Not a boil on the arse of humanity.’
Sellers assumed these were things Marianne Upton had told her son-in-law that she’d said about him previously.
‘I never told Jemma, not about the lunch or any of it,’ Paddy said.
‘Why not?’
‘Dunno.’ He seemed quite content not to understand his own motivation. ‘It was all just weird. I suppose I didn’t want to freak her out. Marianne didn’t tell her either, I don’t think.’
‘Did she say anything else, apart from confessing to bad-mouthing you?’
‘Yeah, she told me she was going to leave me five hundred grand in her will,’ Paddy said matter-of-factly, as if this kind of thing happened to him every day. ‘And before you say that gives me a reason to kill her – no, it doesn’t. She changed her will again later.’
So he knew about that part.
‘Yeah, she told me that too,’ Paddy said, seeing the question on Sellers’ face.
‘Didn’t explain why. I didn’t ask, to be honest. Her business.
But my share went from ￡500,000 to nothing.
Some you win, some you lose, I guess. Not that I wanted her money, particularly.
I mean, I didn’t not want it, but … I was kind of neutral on it, you know? ’
‘You didn’t want five hundred grand?’ What was wrong with this plank?
‘Not especially,’ said Paddy. ‘Jemma’s trust fund and her job, and the bits and bobs I earn, all of that’s enough for me, her and Lottie. We’re well off compared to most people.’ He scratched the side of his nose.
‘Do you know when Marianne changed her will, or why?’ Sellers asked.
‘Must have been about a month after what happened to her in 2012,’ said Paddy.
‘That’s right: the attack was November, and she told me around Christmas.
Must have been,’cause the two of us were in the lounge when she said it and the Christmas tree was up.
I don’t know why, no. It was like she blamed me for someone trying to kill her, which made no sense.
I wasn’t in the house when it happened – I was out with Jemma, on our way back from a broken-down train.
I had nothing to do with it. But it was like Marianne didn’t seem to realise that. She’s never forgiven me.’
‘For what?’ Sellers asked.
‘Well, nothing.’ Paddy said this as if it ought to be obvious. ‘Nothing I know of, anyway. She’s been against me since then, that’s all I know. Listen, would it be okay if you didn’t mention any of this to Jemma?’
‘She doesn’t know about the will either? The five hundred grand, first given, then taken away?’
‘Nothing. I never said anything. Look, you don’t know Jemma,’ said her husband. ‘Give her anything to latch onto and she’ll go on about it for months. I did tell her one thing Marianne said to me around the same time, Christmas 2012, and she wouldn’t let it go.’
‘What was that?’ Sellers asked.
‘Marianne asked me what I thought was the opposite of murder. I said, “Suicide”. She laughed and said, “Wrong”, but she didn’t tell me what she meant or why she’d asked. I mentioned it to Jemma and she wouldn’t stop bringing it up, for weeks, trying to get me to help her work out what it meant.’
‘Don’t you think Jemma would want to know what you’ve just told me? It sounds like quite a lot to keep secret from your wife.’
‘You don’t know the half—’ Paddy changed his mind, evidently, and started again.
‘It’s not a secret. That makes it sound …
I don’t know. It’s more just … there’s no point muddying the waters, is there?
Chatting shit about people when it wouldn’t do any good.
Especially now, when there’s enough drama, and Jemma and Gareth don’t need anything else on their plates. You know?’
What Sellers knew was that nothing could convince him Paddy Stelling hadn’t just stopped himself from blurting out, You don’t know the half of it.
What else was he keeping to himself because he’d decided it would make everyone’s lives easier?