Chapter Six

Thursday evening, Adam arrived home at a decent time, although he'd brought work with him to complete for Monday. He wanted to keep Friday after school entirely free for entertaining Mrs. Bright, who'd earlier dropped them both a message to say she'd bring all the ingredients with her for cooking dinner so they needn't worry about shopping, and would Hamish need feeding? With the domestic arrangements for Friday settled, he concentrated on the day at hand. Individual pizzas and a bowl of salad was a perfect combination for the present busy circumstances.

He'd just got his dinner on to cook when Robin arrived home, more chipper than he'd been the last few days.

"Making progress? And shall I put your pizza on as well?" Adam gave his husband a hug before returning to cooking duties.

"I think so and yes, please. We're at the ‘lots of information and a few semi-suspects' stage."

"Sounds intriguing. Although, if you want to discuss it, it'll have to be over dinner as I've got homework I need to complete tonight. Sorry."

"I guessed you might. Hello." Robin bent to pick up the dog. "No, not a good idea. You're getting too heavy for this." He put Hamish back on the floor, then got on his haunches to fuss over the Newfoundland. "I'd appreciate talking it over with the pair of you. Spectator gets a better view of the game than the players and all that, so you might do your usual and spot something we've missed."

"I'll try not to disappoint. Although he's only going to be able to contribute any wisdom if it concerns food."

"Nothing dog biscuit-related at all in this case, I'm afraid. All I have are in-laws who don't have an alibi for the time the victim was killed, which we've been able to narrow down a bit because we've a witness who heard a loud argument when he was bird-watching near the crime scene. We've found Mark Bircher's car too, and I saw Christine Probert, who both sends her best to you and proved a mine of information."

"You have been a busy boy. I wish I'd brought some stickers home from school to reward you with."

"Up yours." Robin rolled his eyes. "I'm about to be busier still. I've got to go and see Mark's brother, who lives in Bedford. He says he's got his lower leg in plaster from a football injury, meaning he isn't that mobile. He's got a hospital appointment in the morning, so we won't see him until early afternoon. M25 on a Friday. Bliss."

"Further bliss driving home on the same road early evening. Ah." Light dawned. "You're standing me up for our date with your mum?"

"It's a possibility. I'll pack a case but I don't want to stay over, so I'll only do that if anything turns up that wants investigating at the Bedford end or farther north. Otherwise, chances are I could be back late. I'll keep you both updated. No, I'll keep all three of you updated," Robin added, giving the dog another scritch. "I'll ring Mum in a minute and let her know what's what. Unless you want to rearrange entirely?"

"Nah. I'm happy to do some son-in-law bonding, especially when we can discuss your faults ad nauseam behind your back. As long as you give me a heads-up on anything your mate Henry in fraud has reported on this inheritance lark." Adam was pretty well prepared on that front, already having scoured Ryan's website, which displayed some glowing—assuming they were genuine—reviews of his services. He would happily discuss the strategy of using a professional with his mother-in-law because, irrespective of whether the inheritance turned out to be a swindle, she might still want to delve into Bright history. Ryan would definitely have a wider range of experience in that area than either Adam or Robin could offer.

"Henry thinks it's above board, unless it's a totally new and extremely well worked-out variety of scam. It certainly doesn't match any pattern he knows of. He's quite a little tinker, is Henry. He rang Mum's solicitor to discuss it and managed to wheedle enough information from him to satisfy his natural scepticism. Possibly more than Mum did."

"Why is that mischievous? Isn't it a case of doing his job?"

"Well, the fraud part is, but I'm not sure it was his job to emphasise the income and inheritance tax angle, although I suppose that's always a good card to play."

Adam chortled. "That's how they caught Al Capone. Very useful weapon if all else fails."

Robin slapped his forehead, overdramatically. "Hey, maybe that's what's going on. My mum's secretly a gangster and this is a cunning plan on behalf of the authorities to entrap her. That's why there's all the secrecy."

"Twit. Come on, ring your mum and give her the bad news, then we can get this eaten and you can tell me the rest."

Once the call had been made and they were settled at the dining table with their food, Robin said, "Right. Not sure where to begin briefing you."

Adam snorted. "‘Briefing'? I'm not the local gutter press. Start with anything related to your mum, because that's the bit I need to remember."

"I've thought of that already, so it's already in writing. I left it in the bedroom in case himself got tempted to eat it. There's some stuff about tax treaties to share with her because Henry thinks that might narrow down where the money's coming from. He's not hopeful about finding some legal loophole that will force any other parties involved to reveal the identity of the mysterious benefactor to Mum's solicitor."

"Hm." Adam chewed at a pizza crust. "I keep thinking this sounds like something out of Dickens. Money put into trust to be handed over at some unspecified point in the future when the donor is gone. So whoever could be harmed by whatever was being covered up getting uncovered can no longer be hurt."

"Could be. I hope this murder case turns out to be less tangled, but you know how often they aren't." Robin tucked in again. "I met the dead man's in-laws today, and I had to reassess all my stereotypes. Never pre-judge people." He waggled his knife in the direction of Hamish, who appeared as uninterested in the life advice as Campbell would have been. "They came across as a nice couple. Didn't set my rozzer's nose twitching, which is actually a shame, given they have no alibi for when we think he died, but they've no obvious motive for a bust up with him. Not from their side, anyway."

Adam picked up the hint. "From his, though?"

"Could be. Turning out to be a bit of a mystery man, Mark Bircher, or at least somebody I can't get a handle on. We've been told by two different people that the Packers—the in-laws I met today—had stopped her getting traditional treatment for her leukaemia until it was too late. They insist that's a load of cobblers and they'd have paid for her to have private treatment if they'd known early enough."

"I realise you never met the dead bloke, so it's a one-sided analysis, but who do you believe?"

"That's one of the problems. In each case I believed what I was told, although I don't have Mark's point of view from the horse's mouth. The Packers came across as truthful, and while I don't know Ryan the genealogist from Adam—excuse the pun—he'd have to be an incredibly accomplished actor to have been lying through his teeth." Robin picked up the final piece of crust on his plate with evident relish: leaving it for last was a ritual he always went through when they had pizza.

"Perhaps he bored you so much you believed him as a line of least resistance?"

Robin grinned. "Maybe. But Christine Probert confirmed much of what he'd said. She gave a slightly different slant on things because she said Suzy had admitted that some of the blame, if that's the right word, was her own denial of the problem. The Packers told us the same thing, although Christine also reckoned that Mark blamed the parents completely for what happened."

"Perhaps he did. Perhaps he told Ryan what he thought was the truth, because that's what his wife, Suzy, had told him and it fitted with his point of view." Easy to put the blame on other people in such a harrowing situation. "Did he see her parents often?"

"I don't believe so. Why?"

"That would reduce the risk of the inconsistency coming out. If she'd told the two parties slightly different stories." Adam finished the last of his salad, watching as Robin thought through his suggestion.

"Okay, that's possible, although why would she lie to him or to her parents? Because she enjoyed playing both sides against the middle?"

"What about if she was lying to herself too? It's always easier to blame someone else than blame yourself. Actually—" Adam drummed the table "—it may not be what Suzy said so much as what he wanted to hear, if that makes sense. What if he felt guilty that he hadn't spotted something amiss with her and could only cope with that guilt by deflecting it elsewhere?"

Robin nodded slowly. "Or there could be another person entirely, one perhaps we haven't come across yet, who's been stirring the shite and playing one side off against the other. Maybe Mark discovered he'd been misled and gets into a row with them."

"His death does sound increasingly like an argument that went wrong. Not that I'm an expert." Although Adam was gaining so much experience discussing cases, he'd put money on being able to hold his own in an incident room. "Any idea of who this mystery person could be?"

"A cousin he didn't realise he had until recently? Yeah, I know"—Robin waved his hand—"it's similar to Mum's enigmatic inheritance, but that's not the Bright family history informing my thinking. Mark Bircher's mother was adopted, and he had no idea until she told him in the days before she died."

"Blimey, that's a spooky coincidence. Although if that programme they're always going on about in the staffroom is anything to go by—the one we keep seeing advertised about reuniting family members—it's more common than you might imagine." That show wasn't the kind of thing he and Robin would watch, but during lockdown they'd found a great Judy Dench film, based on a true story about forced adoptions, that would have moved them both to tears irrespective of the family connection.

"What's more common? Adoption or not telling people their true family history? I can't imagine Dad hiding the truth from us, if he knew it, or why anyone would want to." Robin's face clouded. "I'm starting to really feel for this victim, despite whatever flaws he had. Maybe it was finding that out about the adoption so late in the game that made him want to blame parents generically for everything."

"I wonder why his mother didn't tell him when he was planning to get married. He and Suzy might have been cousins."

"Either Mrs. Bircher senior knew enough about her family history to be able to eliminate that for herself, or she was too scared to speak up. From what little I've gleaned, I don't think she passed anything she knew down to her son. Hence him calling on Ryan to help out." Robin blanched. "Unintended incest."

"Eh?" Adam felt like he'd missed a step in the conversation.

"Sorry, I was remembering aloud. I came across a case of it when I was a sergeant. Tragic, really. This couple turned out to be half siblings via a shared father and either their mothers hadn't known or deliberately hadn't told them until it was too late. The woman had been adopted."

"That's terrible." Adam had seen that kind of plot in a couple of TV shows but never come across it in real life, although it was always possible that it had occurred among the various school communities he'd worked in and he'd never realised. Families played their cards close to their chests. "Any chance something similar went on with your dead man?"

"I don't think so—it was his mum who was adopted, not him. I don't know why Mark and Suzy didn't have any children, or why she'd miscarried one, but we can't rule out consanguinity. However, there are all sorts of reasons, including a matter of choice, why people don't." Robin shrugged. "Anyway, I'll see what the brother has to say about the family background and why Mark was heading to Woodhall Spa. Which is somewhere in Lincolnshire and where Mark was supposed to have been visiting last Saturday through to Tuesday. If I end up there tomorrow night, don't say you weren't warned."

Lincolnshire. That rang a bell. "Was he into war history as well as family stuff?"

"Not that I'm aware of. Why?"

"I'm sure it was Woodhall that one of the teachers at school was raving about visiting. It's got some connection to the Dambusters." Adam tried to recall the conversation. "They had their mess there, I think."

"If the Dambusters were 617 squadron, then you're probably right. His father-in-law mentioned the connection. Your teacher's keen on Lancaster bombers, is he?"

Adam rapped the table. "Robin Bright, you can go and sit on the contemplation step and think awhile about stereotypes. She's keen on Lancasters. Dragged her husband to some airfield up there so she could have a ride on one. Went to see the memorial flight too, because everything was in a relatively small area."

Despite the admonishment he'd received, Robin's face brightened. "Does East Kirkby have an air force connection as well?"

"No idea. Why?"

"Because Mark was due to be going there in May. I can see I've either got a Google session coming up, or we'll need to get Ryan in a second time, because if that area still had service personnel based there after the war, Mark's biological grandfather might have been one of them. His mother was born in 1948, so she could have been a slightly delayed war baby. That couldn't apply to my dad, of course."

Back there again. Robin obviously wasn't ready to leave that topic alone.

"This is hitting really close to home, isn't it?" Adam said.

Robin flashed him a sheepish grin. "Just a bit. I mentioned the family adoption coincidence to Ben, although I've asked him to keep quiet for the moment. He's a good lad, he'll do what he's told, but it's not fair to make him hold on to secrets for too long. What do you think—should I tell the rest of the team?"

"If you're happy to. It'll look more suspicious than it should if you don't, especially if it turns out the adoption angle is relevant to the murder. They'd know something was up, anyway, every time you mentioned it." Adam leaned over to stroke his husband's hand. "You'd be great to play strip poker against because you do tend to wear your feelings on your face."

"Remind me not to get into a game of it, then. Unless it's with you." Despite the lighter note, Robin's voice still bore a hint of constraint.

"Is that all that's bothering you? Might as well take the chance to get everything off your chest to everyone's favourite agony uncle, Adam."

"You really can read me like a book, can't you?" Robin glanced at the dog. "Hamish, you won't be able to get away with anything when Adam's on the case. Remember that." He turned back. "I've had a few unsettling thoughts, and I don't know if they're new or if seeing the family history stuff in Mark's home has stirred up some uneasiness I've tried to bury. Dad always told us he didn't want to know who his real parents were, but what if he was only saying that?"

Adam squeezed Robin's hand. "Would he have lied to you about it? Even if it was only a white lie?"

Robin clearly needed to consider that for a moment, then shook his head. "That wouldn't have been in character. He never told us fibs, apart from the usual stuff—like pretending that Santa had called on Christmas Eve and his reindeers had left the half-eaten carrot under the tree. I was wondering whether he might have been lying to himself. Saying that he was happy not knowing who his parents were, because that was an easier choice, a less painful option than maybe uncovering something better left covered up."

"Do you want me to ask your mum tomorrow? I could text her and suggest she bring an overnight bag, given that you might be home late. I'll make up the spare bed, get a couple of glasses of white in her, and ask a few son-in-law-type questions. Always a chance she'd open up to me in a way she might not to her best boy."

"I'd appreciate that." Robin, hunched shoulders relaxing, was clearly happier now he'd aired his doubts. "Let me clear the table while you get on with your homework. I could do with something mindless to fiddle about with. I might take Hamish for a once round the block and get us both some fresh air."

Adam got up and gave him a kiss. "Do whatever you need to do. I've got a date with some school improvement plans."

"Enjoy." Robin snorted. "I think I'd rather have this murder to solve."

"Sez you."

It was a relief to see his husband's humour restored.