Finch was never going to leave; it was nearly lunch-time, almost time to close up the office, and he’d arrived before ten. Simon knew that he was already under suspicion, thanks to Melissa’s strange behaviour, before they got on to any possible motive.
Why had he phoned the police? It had been a ridiculous thing to do. If he hadn’t …
‘You reported your wife missing—’
‘I simply said that she hadn’t come home,’ Simon corrected, years of magistrates’ court training not going amiss. All right, he’d brought all this down on his head, but he was damned if he would let them put words in his mouth.
‘You reported that your wife had not come home, and then we find your secretary dead. It’s an odd coincidence, isn’t it?’
‘It’s a coincidence, Sergeant. I fail to see that there is anything odd about it at all. It was a filthy night, and my wife decided to stay overnight at an hotel rather than drive home through thick fog. She was unable to get hold of me because I was at your own police station all evening! I was worried precisely because of the weather.’
Finch looked reflective. ‘You came to the station at about nine fifteen,’ he said. ‘And left at ten forty-five or thereabouts. Is that right?’
‘Yes,’ said Simon, trying not to think about any of it. What was Sharon doing at the football ground with Parker or this other person? Why was she there at all?
‘And before you were called to the station?’ Finch asked, breaking into his private misery. ‘Where were you then?’
Simon stiffened. ‘I was here,’ he said. ‘Working late.’
‘Alone?’
‘Not all the time. Sharon was here until about six.’
Finch didn’t try to disguise his irritation. ‘She didn’t leave here
until six?’ he said. ‘Couldn’t you have mentioned that earlier, Mr
Whitworth? We are trying to piece together her movements yesterday
evening, and we thought that she left when the office closed at
five.’
‘Yes. Sorry.’
‘Did she mention her plans for the evening?’
Simon looked up. He didn’t want to think about any of this. It
was hard enough getting through today as it was. But he would
have to think about it. And he didn’t want to answer questions
until he had. ‘ No,’ he said.
‘Did she ever mention boyfriends to you, by any chance?’
Simon shook his head.
‘Any men friends that you know of?’
Simon closed his eyes. ‘She … she was very quiet,’ he said.
‘Reserved. She didn’t … she didn’t talk much about—’
‘So what do you make of Mr Parker’s story? Two men righting
over her in public?’
Simon stood up. ‘I hope you’re not asking me to tell you what
passed between me and my client, Sergeant.’
Finch smiled. ‘ No, sir,’ he said.
Finch went, at last, and Simon sat for a long time staring out
of the window at the shops across the road, and wondering how
in the world he was going to get out of this in one piece.
Sharon hadn’t.
Colin had been left on his own again, but now the chief inspector was back. This time his manner was brisk, no-nonsense.
‘Someone answering your description was seen at the football ground, walking towards the car park at the same time as Sharon Smith.’
Colin shrugged again. He’d been waiting for this. They had abandoned the match at just about the same time; the people nearest the exits had been leaving.’ He knew that someone might have seen him. ‘I never killed her,’ he said.
‘Don’t you like girls, Colin?’
Colin stiffened. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he said.
‘Most young men of your age have girlfriends.’ Colin shrugged.
‘You’re a good-looking lad. Are you shy? I know what women can be like, Colin, believe me. They can make a man feel this small.’ The chief inspector indicated with finger and thumb just how small.
Colin’s head shot up. They didn’t make him feel small. ‘ They don’t frighten me!’ he shouted. He could feel the chief inspector relax, as soon as he had said the words, and he knew he should have kept his mouth shut. He looked down at the table, and waited for another question.
‘Have you thought about where you were on those other dates?’
‘I can’t remember.’
‘I’m sure you can, if you try.’
Colin didn’t answer.
Lloyd stood up. ‘ Let’s see,’ he said. ‘August fifteenth – that was a Thursday. What do you normally do on a Thursday evening, Colin?’
‘Watch television,’ he muttered.
‘Oh? What do you watch?’
Colin shrugged.
‘And September seventh – that was a Saturday. Do you go out on Saturday nights?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘Where do you go?’
‘Just out on the bike.’
‘And September the tenth – that was a Tuesday.’
Colin looked up at him. ‘What’s special about those dates?’ he asked.
‘Women were raped on those dates, Colin. By someone tall, wearing dark clothes – and now a young woman has been murdered, and you turn up.’
Colin went cold.
‘Did Sharon Smith speak to you?’ asked Lloyd suddenly. Colin shook his head. ‘Where did she go?’ Colin swallowed. ‘She … she just walked away after the fight
started. They said the match was abandoned – I went to my bike.
I just left at the same time, that’s all.’
‘How did you get so battered and bruised?’
He looked down again, and repeated what he had said over and
over again. ‘I fell off my bike.’
Lloyd stood up. ‘We know that’s not true,’ he said, then reached
over to the tape recorder. ‘I think you tried to rape her too, but
she fought back. So you strangled her. Interview suspended
twelve-thirty p. m.,’ he said. ‘Think about it, Colin.’
Judy looked at the girl who lay on the bed, at the angry-red graze down one side of her face, and the even angrier eyes.
‘Miss Chalmers? I’m Judy Hill from Malworth CID,’ she said.
‘I didn’t send for the police.’
Judy sat down. ‘ No,’ she agreed. ‘But you told your flatmate that someone had jumped you.’
‘Did I?’ The girl looked away.
‘She phoned us and said that you had been attacked.’
The girl swallowed hard. ‘She had no right,’ she said.
‘She has every right to report a crime, and I have every right to investigate it.’
The young woman’s eyes looked back at her. ‘What crime?’ she said.
Judy took a breath. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘You and I are the only people in this room. And we both know that you were the victim of a rape.’
‘Do we?’
Judy tried to gauge what the girl’s reasons were for denying that the rape had happened. There seemed to her layman’s eyes to be no psychological block; one look at Bobbie Chalmers was enough to see the impotent anger that she felt. She wasn’t denying the experience to herself, only to the police.
‘Do you know him?’ Judy asked, her voice quiet. ‘Were you with him?’
Bobbie’s eyes blazed at the suggestion. ‘ Of course I wasn’t with him! He grabbed me from behind! He forced me face down on to the—’ She broke off, her bruised face reddening, the fire leaving her eyes.
There was little point in apologising, but Judy did anyway. ‘Did he say anything?’ she asked.
The girl’s lips were pressed together with sheer fury at what Judy had just done; Judy was glad to see the anger, but it meant for the moment that she wouldn’t get an answer.
‘Was he carrying a weapon?’ she tried.
Still, no answer. So Judy just waited. She could hear the sounds of the hospital beyond the side-ward. Someone laughing in a corridor; a television somewhere, with what sounded like a cartoon playing; the lunch trolley going its rounds.
‘He had a knife,’ the girl said quietly, her eyes blank now, blank with the misery of the memory.
Judy wrote that down. She had no witness to the conversation, and she couldn’t use her notes if the girl wouldn’t make a formal statement, but everything helped.
‘Did you see the knife, Miss Chalmers?’ she asked, her voice as quiet and calm as she could make it.
She nodded.
‘Can you—?’ Judy broke off. ‘It’s Bobbie, isn’t it?’ she asked. ‘Your first name? Do you mind if I call you Bobbie?’
She shook, her head, fighting tears. Judy left her to it for a moment or two, while she looked through her notebook.
‘Can you describe the knife?’ she asked, once Bobbie had got control again.
‘Flick-knife.’
‘Did you see his hands?’
‘Gloves. Black gloves.’
Judy thought before asking her next question. The other girls had been a different proposition; they had been hysterically pouring out details before anyone could sort them out. Their reticence would start when it finally came to court, but Bobbie’s had begun already.
‘Could you describe the attack?’ she asked gently. Their man had a definite method of operation. ‘ I have to know if this was the same man who attacked these other girls,’ she explained.
Bobbie’s lip trembled as at first she shook her head, and screwed her eyes tight shut. Then tears forced their way through the lashes, and she began to speak about what had happened to her, her voice low.
‘Did you see his face?’ Judy asked, when the girl fell silent. She was trying to sound as much like a machine as she could; everyone was different, everyone dealt with the horror in a different way. Bobbie Chalmers didn’t want a comforting mother figure. She didn’t want to talk about it at all. She was answering the questions put to her, and the more impersonal they could sound, the easier she would find it to answer them.
She was shaking her head. ‘He … he wore … one of those—’ She ran a hand down the length of her face. ‘You know. One of those—’
Judy couldn’t prompt her.
‘Mask things. With holes.’
Judy wrote down ski mask. ‘Did you see anything else he was wearing?’
The tears were being wiped away, and the girl was fighting back again. ‘Dark clothes,’ she said. ‘I didn’t see him – he was waiting …’ Her voice tailed off, and she gathered herself together once more.
‘Did he say anything?’ Judy asked, her voice not betraying the importance of the question.
Bobbie Chalmers nodded, and told Judy what she had been waiting to hear, what all the others had told her. He had said the same thing to each of them.
‘Look, Bobbie,’ Judy began. ‘I know you’ll have heard scare-stories about the court proceedings—’
‘Are you saying it isn’t like that?’ Bobbie suddenly demanded, the anger turned once again on Judy.
Judy shook her head. ‘No,’ she said.’ ‘The defence counsel is trying to get his client off, and he’ll use anything they think will work with the jury. But judges don’t let them get away with too much – and you have a barrister too, you know – one who’s on your—’
‘Do you know what I do for a living?’
Now she came to mention it, Judy didn’t. She shook her head.
‘I’m a hostess,’ she said. ‘In a night club in Barton. I don’t sleep with the customers, but there are some that think I should. And it would be made out in court that I do – wouldn’t it?’
‘Not necessarily,’ Judy began.
‘No? You want to see the costume I wear? I’m asking for it, aren’t I?’
Oh. Judy didn’t have to see it. The question said it all, and she couldn’t pretend it was the best background in the world. But this was different. ‘Bobbie,’ she said firmly. ‘You were jumped. From behind. By a total stranger. You were the victim of a particularly brutal rape. Your lifestyle’s got damn all to do with it!’
‘I’m not going to make a statement,’ she repeated.
‘Was that where you were last night? At the club? Was it one of the customers?’ She remembered the carbon monoxide. ‘ Was he in the car park?’ she asked.
Her eyes widened slightly, but she shook her head.
‘Where then?’ Judy waited; she had to know where the attack had taken place. They had to track him down from the locations he chose, amongst other things. So far, there were only two constants; what he did, and what he said. The attacks had taken place on different nights of the week, sometimes weeks apart, sometimes only days apart. The more that they could pin down as a pattern, the more likely they were to get him. Eventually, Bobbie would have to say something, like before. Judy wouldn’t speak again until she did.
‘The Jetty,’ she said miserably, after long moments of silence. ‘ I was getting into my car.’
The Jetty was the local name for the widest of the many alleys which ran through the blocks of shops in Malworth, and which was used as an unofficial car park in the evening. It was a new location; she wasn’t sure whether that was a help or a hindrance to the investigation.
About how far along the Jetty were you parked?’
‘I don’t bloody know!’
No. It just might have made SOCOs’ job easier if she had known.
‘What time did it happen?’
‘About ten past nine.’
No hesitation about the time; that was a little unusual.
‘Bobbie – do you know who it was?’
‘No,’ she said tiredly.
‘Then why not help me?’
She took a deep, deep breath and held it for a long time before releasing it slowly. ‘I’m going away,’ she said. ‘Abroad. I’m not coming back here. I’m not going to any court.’ She looked at Judy. ‘I’m not going to stand up in public and tell some bloody judge what that bastard did to me! So nothing happened. No one raped me. This is how I get my kicks. All right?’
Judy shook her head. ‘I can’t pretend it hasn’t happened, Bobbie,’ she said. ‘You’re his fourth victim. We have to catch him.’
Lloyd was certain that they already had. If Bobbie could be persuaded to attend an ID parade, they would have enough to hold him until they could get physical evidence, which they had in abundance from the other three victims.
One thing had occurred to her about the time; she had to find out. ‘OK,’ she said gently. ‘Just one more question, and I’ll go. It’s important, or I wouldn’t ask it. Have you any idea how long the attack lasted?’
Bobbie looked defeated when she answered. ‘Twenty minutes,’ she said. ‘I thought it was hours and hours, but it was just …’
Judy frowned. ‘How can you be so sure?’ she asked.
‘My car,’ she said. ‘ You have to let it run with the choke out for a while or it just dies on you. So …’ She bit her lip, then resolutely carried on. ‘I started the car, and the radio came on – the news was just finishing – they said it was five past nine.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I got out and put something in the boot. I’d just closed it – he … he pushed me down behind the car.’
And the exhaust was pumping out fumes all the time, thought Judy, closing her eyes for a moment.
‘When he went away, I felt sick and …’ She blinked away tears. ‘I got back into the car, and they were saying it was twenty-seven minutes past nine. I couldn’t believe it … I couldn’t – I thought …’ She closed her eyes. ‘I thought it must be nearly morning,’ she said.
Judy took a card from her bag and handed it to the girl. ‘Rape counselling,’ she said. ‘It’s a rape-victim support group.’
Bobbie let it drop on to the cover. ‘The hospital already gave me one,’ she said.
Judy stood up. ‘Ring them, please, Bobbie,’ she said. ‘ You don’t have to worry about telling them what happened. It’s happened to them too. And it’ll help to tell someone. No one’s going to take down any details and reel them off in court – you’ll be talking to someone who really understands.’
Bobbie looked up at her, and shook her head.
Judy shrugged, and went to the door.
‘And if I get any more police here I’ll tell them you’re lying,’ she said. ‘Have you got that? You can make me go to court, but you can’t make me tell them anything!’
Outside the room, Judy found someone whom she took to be Bobbie’s flatmate, hovering anxiously. ‘Marilyn Taylor?’ she asked.
‘Yes. Are you the police?’
‘Judy Hill. Malworth CID.’
Marilyn looked at her apprehensively. ‘Was she mad at me?’ she asked.
Judy smiled, and shook her head. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘Does Bobbie have any family round here, do you know?’
‘I don’t think so. She’s got a boyfriend – she’s going away with him soon.’
Judy sighed. ‘She told me. She’s not hoping to keep this from him, is she?’ Marilyn shrugged. ‘I said I’d ring him,’ she said. ‘She wouldn’t
let me.’
‘And I don’t suppose I’m allowed to know his name?’
‘No. She wants to handle it her way.’
Judy gave in gracefully. In truth, she didn’t need Bobbie’s evidence;
it was exactly the same as the others, and her indignant rage
wouldn’t go down too well with some judges, who seemed to think
that it couldn’t have been that bad if the victim was still together
enough to be angry.
She just hoped Bobbie could handle it.
Melissa had found as many things to do as she could, and still Mac waited. Eventually, she came back to her desk, and sat down.
Mac looked at his watch. ‘It’s after one,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you let me buy you a long lunch?’
She looked up at him. ‘I’m not hungry.’
‘Neither am I.’
She frowned, a little puzzled for a moment, then closed her eyes briefly. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said sharply.
‘What’s silly about it?’ he asked, his voice urgent. ‘My landlady’s away for the day. We could go to my digs.’ He looked to see if anyone was overhearing them, but the office was practically empty as people went about the business of news-gathering, with some real news to gather, so she had no protection.
‘Mac,’ she said. ‘I’m married, I’ve never done anything like that in my life before … I’d had too much to drink on an empty stomach. Can’t we just forget it?’
Mac shook his head, smiling. ‘I’ll never forget it,’ he said.
The truth was that neither would she, but this was just too much to take. ‘Look – that policeman is practically accusing me of murder, and you want to—’
‘Why is he?’ asked Mac.
She gave a long, shuddering sigh. ‘ She worked for my husband,’ she said resignedly. ‘And my husband reported me missing last night. So they want to know where I was. In case Simon and I are part of some plot to kill the girl, presumably – I don’t know.’
‘What did you tell them?’
‘I said I was at the hotel alone. I didn’t have much option, did I?’
‘Did he believe you?’
She shrugged. ‘ He seemed to accept it.’
‘So forget it. They’ll get whoever really did it, and we can all relax.’
‘Last night was a one-off situation,’ Melissa said in a fierce whisper. ‘It’s not going to happen again, all right?’
The editor came back in. ‘Am I actually allowed to use my own office now?’ he asked. ‘Oh – Melissa. Dig up what you can on the victim, will you? Schools, work, that sort of thing. Her address is on the board – her name’s Sharon Smith.’
The name seemed to echo round the empty newsroom as Mac’s eyes flicked towards her. She stared at the VDU; the editor went into his office, and closed the door.
‘I think we should have lunch now, don’t you?’ Mac said quietly.
Jake came out of the suite of offices that he rented from Malworth Borough Council, but allowed business acquaintances to believe he owned, and pulled a packet of cigarettes from his pocket, lighting one on the steps.
The whole morning wasted because Evans had gone to Birmingham. Jake hadn’t bargained on Evans simply disappearing; if he didn’t come back, Jake would be running a considerable risk, and he had no intention of running any more risks than he had to.
He started up the car, and pointed it homewards. Evans had to come back sooner or later, and he couldn’t say what he wanted to say to him with the security man eavesdropping. He accelerated away, the cigarette clamped between his lips, mentally rehearsing what exactly he was going to say when he did locate Evans.
But waiting for him on the mat as he unlocked the front door was a note from his driver-cum-minder Dennis to say that he had been unable to get a reply from Bobbie’s flat that morning, and had seen no sign of life.
Jake stared at the note, all thoughts of what he was going to say to Evans driven out by this new crisis. He dialled Bobbie’s number; the phone rang out for long minutes before he hung up, his face tense and worried.
What the hell had gone wrong now?
Melissa finished what she was doing on the VDU. She hadn’t looked at Mac, hadn’t spoken. Then she picked up her bag. ‘I’ll be at the bus stop,’ she said quietly. ‘Don’t leave with me.’ And she walked out of the room.
Mac read the notice board for a few moments, then left, calling cheerio to Donna, who had at least presumably confirmed to the police that he had been going to take her to the opening, and that she wasn’t dead.
He walked towards the bus stop, where Melissa’s red car sat, and got in beside her. ‘ You didn’t give the police that tape,’ he said. ‘Did you?’
‘I told her that what she told me would be confidential,’ Melissa said, pulling away from the stop. ‘ Which way?’
‘Turn right at the end,’ said Mac. ‘And don’t bullshit me.’
‘I’m not. Just because she’s dead doesn’t mean that her private—’
‘You had that tape in your bag yesterday. You couldn’t have been back to the office since interviewing her, or it would be in your tape rack, which it isn’t. Which means you interviewed her yesterday. The day she died. Left.’
She pulled out on to the bypass, where wisps of the ever-present mist still floated amongst the haystacks.
‘Did you tell Mr Lloyd that?’ Mac asked.
‘No.’ She overtook a tractor, and pulled savagely back into the left-hand lane. ‘Why don’t you join forces with him?’ she asked. ‘Since you’re such a good detective?’
‘Is it still in your bag?’ he asked, twisting round to the back seat.
The car squealed to a halt as he felt around in the bag, and she pulled his hand away. ‘Leave that alone!’ she said, her eyes blazing.
‘Come on, Melissa, let’s hear it,’ he said, pushing her hand off his arm, and rummaging in the bag again, bringing out the tape. ‘Let’s hear what Sharon Smith had to say for herself the day she died.’
She snatched it from him. ‘ What business is it of yours?’ she shouted.
The tractor sounded its horn as it pulled out round them.
‘I found her! And the police think I’m just as likely to have done it as you or your husband or anyone else. I don’t believe in coincidence either. So I want to know what she said that’s so bloody secret!’
She looked at him for some moments, then silently handed him the tape.
He took it out, taking a moment to work out how it went into the car stereo. ‘It’s left at the roundabout, first left again then third on the right,’ he said, as he pushed it in.
Melissa switched on the hazard warning lights and the car stayed where it was, she staring straight ahead while he listened to every word that the predictably shallow Sharon had had to say. Then he got to the bit that mattered.
‘… where do you go for privacy?’
‘The office, usually.’
So that was it. He looked at Melissa; her face held the pink blush of anger that it had when he had first seen the tape.
‘Well …’ think that’s all I need. Thank you for giving me your time!
‘Is that it?’
‘Yes.’
The tape went dead, and Melissa slowly turned towards him, the flush gone. ‘So you see,’ she said. ‘What happened with you and me was …’ She searched for the right words. ‘A simple act of revenge. Nothing more.’
Mac released the tape, and put it in his jacket pocket. ‘It’ll be safer with me,’ he said.
Melissa said nothing.
‘It’s left at the roundabout, first left again then third on the right,’ Mac said again.
Melissa’s eyes burned with resentment as they slowly left his. She put the car in gear and pulled away.
‘DI Hill, Malworth, for you,’ said Detective Inspector Barstow.
Lloyd took the phone. ‘ Yes, Judy,’ he said.
‘Two things. I understand we’re faxing the report on the Drummond stop to you now, and I can tell you that Drummond isn’t the rapist after all.’
Lloyd closed his eyes. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked, but he knew there was no point. Judy didn’t make statements like that without hard evidence to back them up, and already he was rethinking his strategy concerning Drummond.
‘The rapist was going about his business at the far end of Malworth at about five past nine last night. The assault went on for over twenty minutes,’ she went on, her voice brisk. ‘ The speed trap clocked Drummond at nine thirty-two, almost ten miles away, coming from the opposite direction.’
That was hard evidence, Lloyd conceded. ‘ So we’ve got four rapes now?’
‘Yes, but she says she’ll deny that anyone raped her if I pursue it, and she means it. There would be no useful purpose served in forcing her to give evidence.’
Lloyd frowned. ‘ Why won’t she co-operate?’ he asked.
‘She thinks she’d get raped all over again in court,’ said Judy succinctly. ‘And she’s leaving the country soon. She just wants to get away.’
‘Are you sure she was raped by the same man? Sounds more like she knows who raped her, and isn’t saying.’
‘It was the same man,’ Judy repeated, her voice firm and uncompromising. ‘The papers know about the mask and the knife, but we’ve never released what he says or his MO. Whoever attacked Bobbie Chalmers had that off to a tee.’
So Sharon’s murder hadn’t been a rape gone wrong. There had, he supposed, been very little evidence to support his rather shaky theory that Drummond was the rapist. But Drummond was still his man for Sharon’s murder. Perhaps Drummond was yet another of Sharon’s boyfriends that she didn’t have. He had seen two men brawling over her in public; perhaps that hadn’t met with his unqualified approval.
‘How is she?’ he asked belatedly, of the rape victim.
‘As well as can be expected,’ said Judy crisply.
Lloyd said goodbye, and hung up. Judy always held him a little to blame just for being a man after she had dealt with this sort of thing. Still – perhaps dealing with a series of rapes would put her off the idea of applying for promotion to the planned rape squad, about which there had been more rumblings, of course, since this lot had started.
If it didn’t put her off, the experience would mean that she’d walk into the job, if the squad ever did get set up. Lloyd sighed.
‘A Mr Evans in the interview room, sir – Harris says you’ll want to see him.’
Lloyd doubted that.
Mr Evans sat at a table with Detective Constable Harris; Lloyd glanced at the constable.
‘Mr Evans of Evans and Whitworth, sir,’ said Harris, and turned to Evans. ‘He was at the football match too.’
Evans looked pale. ‘I … I can’t believe that Sharon’s dead,’ he said.
Lloyd sat down. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Evans,’ he said. ‘I know it must be a shock to you, but the more we can find out about Sharon, the better. She came to work for you ten months ago, is that right?’
‘Yes. She was very good – worth much more than I was paying her. She was a secretary, receptionist, office manager – she had made herself virtually indispensable.’ He looked away. ‘I shall miss her very much,’ he said simply.
‘Did she talk about her private life at all? Boyfriends, that sort of thing?’
Again, Evans shook his head. ‘ I don’t think she had a boyfriend,’ he said. ‘She never mentioned one.’ He looked back at Lloyd. ‘She was a very nice girl,’ he said.
Lloyd smiled. ‘Nice girls have boyfriends,’ he said.
Evans coloured a little. ‘Oh – of course they do. I just meant … she wasn’t the sort to … to …’
‘Get herself strangled?’ offered Harris.
Evans coloured more deeply. ‘ She was a very nice girl,’ he said again, defiantly.
Lloyd thought about that. It was the impression he had got from the family, and the friend who had come to look after Mrs Smith. It was the impression Finch had got from Whitworth. But it wasn’t the impression he was getting from her behaviour. Damn it, she had had boyfriends all right, and Drummond was probably one of them. That was why all the lies, all the discrepancies.
‘One more thing,’ he said. ‘ We found a key in Miss Smith’s handbag – her mother doesn’t recognise it. Did you perhaps give her a key to some cupboard, or …?’
Evans was shaking his head.
Lloyd stood up. ‘Thank you, Mr Evans,’ he said. ‘Detective Constable Harris will show you out.’
He went into the murder room, where there was a buzz of activity that he hoped meant that they were actually getting somewhere. People talking on the phone to would-be witnesses, some of whom would have useless information, some of whom would be attention-seekers, and one, every now and then, with real information, like the one who had seen Drummond follow Sharon into the car park.
On the wall was a plan of the Byford Road Sports and Leisure Complex, with the little recess in which Sharon’s body had been found marked with a cross. On the blackboard were lists of names: people who had been interviewed, people who still had to be interviewed, people who could conceivably be suspects, people crossed off.
Sharon’s description was there, and what they knew of her movements. Cross-references might lead them off in another direction, but for now he only had Colin Drummond. The system had worked well to produce him as quickly as it had; the computer had logged the stop on the dual carriageway into Malworth of one Colin Drummond, driving in a reckless manner from the direction of the old village, which was also the direction of the football ground.
Lloyd remembered the bike roaring through the village now; remembered wondering vaguely and unoriginally, in the midst of his miserable evening with Judy, where the fire was. When Drummond was brought in with a cut lip and a black eye, having noticeable difficulty in moving, and answering the descriptions they had been given of the rapist, they had all thought that they could pack both the rape and the murder incident rooms up again.
‘The tie,’ he said to Detective Inspector Barstow, when the inspector got off the phone.
Barstow unlocked a cupboard, and produced the tie, which was enclosed in clear plastic.
‘Are the parents still here?’
‘They’re not leaving without Colin,’ said Barstow, mimicking what Lloyd assumed was Mrs Drummond’s voice.
‘We’ll see,’ said Lloyd.
Perhaps the Drummonds might be a little more forthcoming about Sharon. Perhaps quiet, unassuming Sharon who had no discernible boyfriends wasn’t quite what her nearest and dearest thought she was. Or said she was, at any rate. It had always seemed quite remarkable to Lloyd how many of the young women who died violently had been quiet girls with no boyfriends. But that was a male chauvinist thought, he supposed.
Mr and Mrs Drummond were in reception, looking drawn and anxious.
‘How long are you going to keep Colin here?’ Mrs Drummond demanded as soon as Lloyd had got them into an interview room, by dint of turfing out the occupants.
‘Well, that depends on Colin,’ said Lloyd. ‘You see, I have to know what went on.’
‘We had to find out from a neighbour that Colin was here!’ she said, her voice shrill with anxiety. ‘She said Colin could hardly stand up straight when he got home last nights! What’s been going on?’
‘That’s what we’re trying to find out,’ said Lloyd, ‘as I’ve just said. Has Colin ever mentioned a Sharon Smith to either of you?’
‘Is that her?’ asked Drummond.
Lloyd raised his eyebrows in a query.
‘Is that this girl that’s got herself strangled?’
Lloyd nodded. ‘Yes, Mr Drummond,’ he said.
‘No, he hasn’t.’
Lloyd ran his hands over his face. ‘Maybe you should take some time to think,’ he said.
‘I don’t need time. And if you can’t do better than this, you’d better release him. Now.’
Lloyd produced the tie. ‘Do you recognise this?’ he asked.
Mrs Drummond looked at it, shaking her head. ‘No,’ she said.
‘Could it be one of Colin’s?’
Drummond laughed. ‘Colin’s only got one,’ he said.
‘No, he hasn’t!’ said Mrs Drummond, stung. ‘But he doesn’t wear them, except for work,’ she said. ‘We only came back from holiday this morning to … to all this.’ She blinked away the tears.
‘Does Colin have a girlfriend?’
‘That’s his business!’ said Drummond.
‘Ssh, Desmond,’ said Mrs Drummond, soothingly, as one might to a grizzling baby. ‘No,’ she said. ‘ Not yet. He’s only a boy.’
Lloyd thanked them, and went back to the murder room, where Barstow was tearing off a fax from the lab.
‘Right,’ said Lloyd to the assembled company. ‘ Drummond isn’t the rapist, so I was wrong about that. But I’m going to have one last attempt to make him tell us how he came by his bruises. Meanwhile – see if we can’t dig up a girlfriend that Sharon Smith might have spoken to about her love life.’
‘Please God, there’s some DNA evidence on her body,’ said Barstow, handing Lloyd the report. ‘Her clothes aren’t going to be much help. They were new. But Finch was right about the sawdust,’ he added. He looked at Lloyd, a look that Lloyd was not unused to getting. ‘I think we’re taking a bit of a flyer with Drummond,’ he said. ‘Sounds like she was inside one of the buildings at one point – it could have been one of the workmen.’
Lloyd smiled. ‘DNA evidence would be nice,’ he said. ‘But we managed without it before, and I expect we can manage without it now.’
He looked at the report. New leisure suit, velour. New shoes, trainers. Traces of mud, of blood (her own), of builders’ sand. Traces of sawdust. The mud and sand were present where her body was found; the blood was from a small graze on her arm. The sawdust was unaccounted for as yet. Scene of crime officers would be examining the interiors of all buildings.
Good for Finch, he thought. Who needed forensic scientists when they had Finch’s nose?
He looked at the list of site workers, most of whom had been interviewed, none of whom had admitted still being there at that time in the evening, and he hoped they weren’t going to have to interview them all again.
Drummond was in the interview room by the time he got there, looking scared stiff, as he had all along. His eyes rose to Lloyd’s as he came in. Lloyd sat down, and clasped his hands behind his head, tipping his chair back on two legs, just a tiptoe between him and disaster. It always disconcerted people, he’d found. It was worth the risk. He didn’t speak at all.
After long moments, Drummond looked up from the formica which he had been studying. ‘I never killed her,’ he said.
‘Were you at the match with her?’
‘No. I didn’t know her.’
‘Have you got a girlfriend, Colin?’
Colin looked a little puzzled. ‘No. I’ve already told you.’
‘I think you did have a girlfriend,’ said Lloyd, swinging gently backwards and forwards, his eye on the ceiling. ‘I think Sharon was your girlfriend. I think you saw her at the match, saw two men fighting over her. I think you followed her to the car park, and dragged her round the corner, where no one could see. You wanted to know what was going on with her and Parker, She was struggling and kicking – she was probably saying things – you couldn’t take it. So you strangled her.’
There was silence after he’d finished speaking; Lloyd didn’t look down from the ceiling. He rocked slowly back and forth. ‘ Is that why you strangled her? Because she’d been playing around with Parker again?’
Colin shook his head slowly. ‘It’s them you should be talking to,’ he said. ‘They’re the ones who were fighting over her. I didn’t know her.’
‘Nice try, Colin. But unfortunately they were in police custody from then on. And you’re the one who left with her.’
‘I just … I just went after her,’ said Colin. ‘I never killed her! I just – I saw her in the car. I never killed her.’
At last, at last. Lloyd didn’t dare move, and just hoped the chair legs were stronger than they looked. ‘What car?’ he asked.
‘I never killed her! She was in the car, and she started taking her clothes off! I never killed her!’ Colin was growing ever more agitated, then stopped speaking suddenly, his face white.
Lloyd’s eyes came slowly down from the ceiling, and the crack in the brand-new plaster, to rest on Colin Drummond.
Drummond visibly got himself under control, his eyes growing less afraid and more wary as he thought the whole thing through. And in that instant, Lloyd had lost him, he knew; Drummond was beginning to realise how little they really had on him.
‘Slow down,’ Lloyd said, trying to rescue the situation by switching strategy. ‘And begin at the beginning.’ His voice was friendly, his manner that of someone who understood. But when Drummond started to speak, Lloyd wondered just who was kidding whom.
‘I thought she might talk to me. But she just walked away. I went and got the bike. I followed her. A car picked her up.’
Lloyd shook his head. ‘She never left the football ground, Colin,’ he said.
‘She did! She did. They went back to the football ground! It was dark by then. Empty. They parked right over at the far side – it was obvious what—’ He swallowed. ‘ I waited for a while,’ he said. ‘Then I just got on the bike and went away. I must have forgotten the lights.’
Lloyd let the chair down slowly. He still waited for Drummond to carry on with his story. For that’s what it was, and soon he’d trip himself up on his own fiction, even if he had stopped himself spilling it all out this time.
‘I got stopped on my way into Malworth by the police. That’s it that’s all.’
‘Not quite all, Colin.’
Drummond swallowed. He wouldn’t look at Lloyd.
‘When did you fall off your bike?’
The question lay there between them. Drummond had swung wildly between lies and truth about everything, but now Lloyd had the faxed report of the officers who had stopped Drummond on the dual carriageway; the end was in sight. A nice, speedy arrest, a confession, a charge, a prosecution. Then it was up to other people to decide what to do with him. Not his problem, thank God.
‘There was no car, Colin,’ he said, his voice gentle, almost sympathetic. ‘No one picked Sharon up, because Sharon never left the ground. You dragged her back, behind the wall. You did know her, didn’t you, Colin? And when Parker and Barnes began fighting over her, you realised that she wasn’t quite what she made herself out to be – and you lost your temper, isn’t that it?’
Drummond was pale, the bruises on his face standing out.
‘And you didn’t fall off your bike. You got those bruises because Sharon kicked and punched, not by falling off a bike. You had them when the police stopped you. We know that, Colin – there’s no point in denying it.’
‘She left the ground. She got into a car,’ Colin repeated mutinously.
Lloyd looked back at the ceiling.
‘There was a car,’ said Drummond. ‘There was. I swear it. Someone picked her up, they took her back there. They did. That’s who killed her, it must be.’
‘Colin …’ Lloyd began wearily. ‘If you didn’t know her, why were you so interested in what she was doing in—’
‘But I didn’t fall off my bike,’ Drummond said suddenly, interrupting Lloyd’s question.
‘What did happen?’ asked Lloyd.
‘I got beaten up.’ Lloyd sighed. My God, he didn’t give up. ‘ By whom?’ he asked. ‘By the traffic cops,’ said Drummond. Now he’d heard everything.
Lionel arrived home, and reached the front door as the phone started ringing. Panic made him unable to find his front-door key; when he did, he dropped the bunch. By the time he had retrieved them and found it again, Frances had answered the phone.
‘Oh – hold on,’ she was saying, as he practically fell into the house. ‘He’s just come in.’ She looked at him. ‘Someone called Jake Parker,’ she said, handing Lionel the receiver. ‘He’s been trying to get you all day.’
Lionel closed his eyes briefly, and took the phone, waiting pointedly until she had gone back into the sitting room and closed the door before he put it to his ear. ‘Hello,’ he said, cautiously.
Parker’s voice was low and menacing, and it took Lionel a moment or two to take in what he was saying.
‘You stupid bastard, Evans,’ he said slowly. ‘What the hell did you have to kill her for?’