nodded. ‘Reckon I do, what’s he done to get in trouble this time with the law? If he carries on, I’m going to have to ban him. He’s bad for my business all these coppers turning up looking for him.’
‘How do you know I’m a copper?’
He arched an eyebrow at her. ‘Who else would you be? No one wants to know where Stan is for anything good.’
He pointed towards the toilets. ‘If you hang around, he’ll be out in a minute.’
She felt her shoulders relax and perched on one of the bar stools.
‘I’d offer you a drink, but have you got any ID on you? I mean you look all of about seventeen and I’m not getting caught serving underage. Sneaky bastards caught my daughter out last year. She got an eighty quid fine.’
‘I’m not here to catch you out. Can I have a Coke, please, and whatever Stan drinks.’
The barman nodded. Poured out her Coke and a pint of lager, passing them to her. She handed him a fiver, but he pushed it back.
‘On the house, but don’t tell Stan that. It’s the only free drink he’s getting off me this month.’
He walked away, leaving her sipping the Coke and staring at the door to the gents. Finally it opened and Stan walked out looking much cleaner than she’d expected him to.
He stood and stared at her. She nodded her head.
‘Stan, I need to talk to you.’ She pointed to a table in the corner and crossed the room, holding the pint of lager towards him. She saw him glance towards the exit, then back at the drink she was holding. If he’d thought about escaping it had only been for a fleeting moment; instead he followed her and sat down opposite.
‘Morgan.’
‘Stan, let’s not mess around. I know you worked as a gardener for the Potters and the O’Briens. Please can you tell me what you knew about them, what sort of people they were, if they had any problems we might not have been aware of? I want to find out who would kill those families; they deserve justice.’
He stared into his pint, and she tried to keep her voice calm; if she got angry then he’d clam up for definite.
‘I know you don’t really care about anyone except yourself but come on. Saul Potter was a good man from what I’ve been told about him, and he gave you work when a lot of people turned their back on you. Don’t do this for me, do it for them, do it for Saul. He was murdered along with his wife and daughter. He didn’t deserve that, none of them did. So if you know anything—’
‘Saul was a good bloke, you’re right. He never looked down his nose at me. His wife now, she wasn’t such a good person.’
Morgan felt her heart skip a beat. He carried on talking.
‘She was cheating on him; I saw her a few times when he was at work. Carrying on with that pompous prick, it upset me. I didn’t know what to do about it, though, so I didn’t do anything and look what happened.’
‘What was his name?’
‘Barker, Greg Barker. He’s our esteemed mayor. I’m not proud of myself, you know; I wish I’d have done something, but I didn’t know what to do and now they’re dead.’
‘It’s a difficult situation to be in.’
He stared at her; she kept his gaze.
‘That day you saw them, you know you’re the last person we know about to have spoken to them. Can you tell me what they said, how they were with one another?’
‘Saul told me to come back the next day. He said he needed a hand to cut a few of the trees back. He slipped me twenty quid. He was a bit quiet; he said to go up to the house and ask Olivia for something to eat. He was good like that, always made sure I had food when I was there.’
‘He sounds great. And what was Olivia like that day? Was she okay, her usual self?’
He shook his head. ‘Not really, she never liked me much. I could see the way she’d look me up and down, caught her rolling her eyes to her daughters a couple of times. That kind of thing. But she always made me a sandwich and gave me a can of pop. She looked a bit upset that day; her eyes were a bit red as if she’d been crying. Didn’t say much at