A police car. Lionel had thought that they might at least turn up in an unmarked car. The village would be buzzing by mid-morning at this rate. He frowned. Two uniformed constables? He had rather been expecting a tough, gimlet-eyed chief inspector, with two sharp young detective sergeants in tow. Surely two constables weren’t about to examine his accounting records?
No. They’d be there with the warrant or whatever. And Simon thought he had problems, just because he’d had a spat with Melissa and lost his job. There were times when he would have given almost anything for Frances to start yelling at him. And what wouldn’t he give never to have seen the inside of a solicitor’s office in the first place? But it had been expected. That was what his family had always done.
Evans and Son and Grandson – that was what his grandfather had called the firm when Lionel joined it. Fortunately – in some respects, because he had really been rather fond of his grandfather – the old man had died not long afterwards, and Lionel’s father had contracted the name to Evans and Evans. Which was what it had continued to be called even after his father’s death. Until Simon came along. Lionel had realised that having his name on the brass plate meant more to Simon than his percentage; it had been the lure that had hooked him.
Lionel had tried to make Simon go home and have a shave and some breakfast, but he was just sitting at his desk, staring into space. He could hardly have been expected to be any too pleased at Lionel’s news, of course. It was hard to know how to tell someone that there had never really been a job for him anyway, and now that the Evans part of Evans and Whitworth was about to be publicly disgraced, the Whitworth part should think about moving on.
That had seemed to upset him more than anything. Much more than the bust-up with his wife – more even, than Sharon’s death, in a way. He’d hidden his feelings about that in the vain hope that his wife wouldn’t find out. But he couldn’t hide his feelings about losing his job.
There had been no knock on his office door. If they were looking through the stuff in the secretary’s office without so much as telling him that they were on the premises …
He walked across the room, and stepped out into the corridor. The policemen were taking Simon out. They stopped, one either side of Simon, almost having to hold him up.
‘Melissa’s dead,’ Simon said, his voice expressionless.
Lionel’s eyes grew wide. ‘Dead?’ he repeated.
‘I think,’ said Simon very slowly, ‘that they think I killed her.’
‘No one said that, sir. We just have to ask you a few questions, that’s all.’
‘Oh, my God – what happened? When did it happen?’
Simon looked at the policemen, who looked at Lionel.
‘Do you want me to come, Simon?’ Lionel asked, forgetting for the moment his own appointment with the constabulary.
Simon shook his head. ‘I didn’t kill her,’ he said.
‘No, of course not. I just thought—’
But Simon shook his head again, and was escorted to the waiting car.
‘What were you doing there?’ Finch asked.
Mac couldn’t think straight. She was dead. She was dead. He looked at Sergeant Finch. ‘I … I just went to see her,’ he said.
Finch looked disbelieving. ‘Odd time to visit someone, wasn’t it?’
‘She came to see me yesterday,’ he said, still unwilling to believe what he had seen with his own eyes. It was some sort of cruel joke. It was a mistake, it wasn’t true. She wasn’t dead. She wasn’t.
‘What happened when she came to see you?’
‘Nothing,’ said Mac, shaking his head, bewildered. She had sat in the armchair, he had sat on the bed. Nothing had happened.
‘Why were you at Mrs Whitworth’s house at eight thirty in the morning?’
Mac looked up at him. ‘Do you have a cigarette?’ he asked.
‘I don’t smoke. Answer the question.’
He needed a cigarette. They’d brought him tea, but he needed a cigarette.
‘I wanted to see her.’
Finch sat down with a sigh. ‘What about?’ he asked.
Mac shook his head. He couldn’t talk about it. He couldn’t think about it. The last thing he’d said to her was get out. Get out. And now she was dead, and he couldn’t answer questions about him and Melissa. It was private, it was his hurt – he didn’t want to share it.
‘Why did you go to see her?’
‘It’s got nothing to do with you!’ Mac shouted.
‘You have found two bodies in four days, McDonald! I think that’s got something to do with me. Why were you there?’
Oh God, he needed a cigarette. ‘She – she told me she didn’t want to see me any more,’ he said.
‘When? When did she tell you that?’
Mac looked at him with eyes that-wouldn’t focus. ‘He had to think about every word before he understood it. ‘Please, can you get me a cigarette?’ he asked.
Finch shook his head. ‘When did she tell you she didn’t want to see you any more?’ he asked.
‘Yesterday,’ said Mac, now that he had sorted out the question.
‘Why didn’t she want to see you any more?’
‘She – she thought I’d been blackmailing her,’ said Mac.
‘She didn’t want to see you because she thought you were blackmailing her?’
Mac shook his head. ‘No – no, she didn’t want to see me because I wasn’t,’ he said.
‘Make sense, McDonald!’ he shouted.
Mac licked his lips. He needed a cigarette. ‘She saw her husband,’ he said, trying to explain. ‘That’s why she didn’t give you the tape. She thought I was …’ He ran out of steam. Finch would never understand anyway.
‘And this morning?’ Finch ran his hands over his face. ‘ What time did you get there?’
Where? Mac needed a cigarette.
‘What time?’ Finch picked up his paper cup, screwing it up, throwing it into the bin as he spoke.
Mac frowned, and drank some more tea, but it was cold, and he wanted a cigarette. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I walked. I don’t know.’
‘Were you angry?’
No. He hadn’t ever been angry with her.
‘What did you do when you got there?’
Where? Mac had lost the thread.
‘Answer the question, McDonald.’ Finch stood up, and opened the door in answer to a knock. He held a brief conversation with someone, but Mac couldn’t hear what they were saying.
‘What happened when you got to the house?’ asked the other man, who until now had stayed silent.
‘I’ve told you.’
Finch left the room, and Harris recorded the fact.
‘I went in.’
‘Did you see anyone else?’
Mac shook his head. ‘Her car was outside, but it was the only one there. Her husband must have gone to work. I wasn’t going to go in if he was there – I didn’t want to get her into … The door was open, though. I knocked, but no one answered. So I went in. And she was … she was lying there. Just like on Friday. Just the same. Exactly the same. I thought I hadn’t been awake all night after all. I’d fallen asleep. I was dreaming. I …’ He took a deep breath to steady himself. ‘And I phoned the police,’ he said. ‘Again.’
‘You’re sure that’s how it happened? Maybe she was there when you arrived. Maybe she opened the door to you. Maybe you asked her to reconsider, and she wouldn’t. Isn’t that what happened, Mac?
Did you have a row? Did she tell you to get out?’
No. No. He’d told her to get out. He closed his eyes.
‘Did Sharon upset you too?’ he asked.
Sharon. Sharon Smith. A name on a tape. That was all; he didn’t
even know what she looked like. Just a name on a tape. Had she
caused all this?
‘Did she say she didn’t, want to see you any more either? Is that
what it is? Women don’t appreciate you, do they, Mac?’
Mac shook his head slowly. The rain that had fallen steadily all
morning, soaking him on his long walk to Melissa, brushed dismally
against the window, blown on the wind.
‘Tell me again about this morning.’
Mac stared at him. ‘I’ve just told you,’ he said. ‘I’ve told you
over and over again. He must have killed her.’
‘Who?’
Mac made little patterns on the formica with his finger as he
spoke. ‘Whitworth,’ he said.
Harris looked sceptical. ‘Why would he do that?’ he asked.
‘Because of Sharon Smith,’ Mac said. ‘ Because of me. I don’t
know.’
‘We have to ask you to stay here, Mr McDonald,’ said Harris.
‘While we make further inquiries.’
Mac nodded. ‘Can someone get me cigarettes?’ he asked.
Harris sighed. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said.
Simon sat in the interview room, unshaven, unmoving, unblinking, as Chief Inspector Lloyd and Sergeant Finch waited for some sort of explanation that he couldn’t give.
The two people who meant most to him in his life were gone. People survived that; they lost families in accidents, in natural disasters. In unnatural disasters, like bombs on planes. But someone had singled out Sharon and Melissa, and he didn’t know who, or why. Or how to survive it.
They thought he had done it. Perhaps he had. Perhaps while his mind told him he had been driving along a street or sleeping in a chair at his desk, he had in reality been strangling the two women he cared for.
This was the interview room where he had seen Parker on Friday night. He had been in dozens in his time; in the early days, he had inclined towards criminal law. He had enjoyed it; there was a pleasing camaraderie in the weekly magistrates’ court sessions. A kind of shorthand evolved between solicitors and justices, and even-between the justices and regular petty offenders.
But there had been more money in conveyancing. You would never get fat on legal aid.
‘Did you murder your wife, Mr Whitworth?’ Finch asked.
Whitworth shook his head slowly.
‘You were very angry with her, weren’t you?’
The shake turned into a nod. ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Why?’
He lifted his eyes painfully to Lloyd’s. ‘ She said such dreadful things about Sharon,’ he said.
Lloyd nodded.
‘And they weren’t true. I know they weren’t.’
Lloyd sat down. ‘ Why would she lie?’ he asked.
Whitworth dropped his eyes again. ‘ I think …’ He stopped, and shook his head again. ‘I thought,’ he amended, ‘that she must have – you know. Killed her.’ It hurt him physically to say the word.
‘What made you think that?’ Finch asked.
Lloyd stood up, and feigned interest in the cabinet of the cassette recorder. Simon looked over at him. He knew police tricks at interviews. Asking sudden questions, non sequiturs, in an attempt to catch people off guard. That was why he had wandered off; he wanted to listen, then throw in a question to catch Simon out.
‘I didn’t believe that Sharon had said those things,’ he said. ‘ That she preferred married men – that I needed the excitement. That I hated her.’ He was shaking his head again, as he spoke. ‘She said that, you know. After you’d gone. That Sharon said I felt so guilty that I hated her. I thought Melissa was making it all up.’
Lloyd seemed to be paying no attention, but he was, of course. Simon knew that, and almost gave him the answers to Finch’s questions, so much in charge was he of an interview in which he appeared to be taking no part.
‘But you believe it now, Mr Whitworth?’ asked Finch.
Lloyd was watching him closely as he answered. ‘I believe she said it,’ Simon conceded. ‘But it wasn’t true. I was the first man she had ever been with. I know I was. And we’d only made love a few times. She … she didn’t like using the office. She was always afraid Lionel would come back for something.’ He smiled sadly. ‘We’d stay late, but sometimes – most times – we would just talk. Get to know one another.’
‘But you had sex with her on Friday, didn’t you?’ Finch said.
‘Yes,’ Simon said, miserably. That made it sound so sordid, and it wasn’t. It wasn’t.
‘Whose idea was it to use the changing rooms at the sports ground? Hers?’
Simon frowned. ‘We didn’t,’ he said.
‘Sharon got the key from Parker, saying she wanted to change her clothes – did you meet her there?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘We were in the office.’
‘But she left the office at six,’ said Lloyd. ‘We know she did. She went to the superstore and bought the clothes she was wearing.’ He walked over to Simon, coming close, making him shrink back a little in his chair. ‘Did you meet her at the ground?’ he demanded. ‘Did she engineer it all? Get both you and your wife up there, hoping to bring something to a head?’
‘No.’ Simon groaned.
‘It all looks as though it was arranged, Mr Whitworth.’
Simon covered his face with his hands. ‘ I loved her,’ he said. ‘And I didn’t want to hurt Melissa – I didn’t want to hurt either of them!’
He heard Lloyd sit down again. ‘ But you did hurt them,’ he said, his voice gentle. ‘Didn’t you?’
‘They’re dead,’ Simon said distractedly, his face still buried in his hands. ‘ They’re dead. They’re both dead. I don’t understand.’ He bent over the table, in physical pain.
‘But you didn’t mean to hurt them,’ said Lloyd. ‘We understand that.’
The pain went; Simon knew that tone of voice. Lloyd thought what he’d said was some sort of confession. He sat up. ‘ I didn’t kill them,’ he said.
‘What did you mean when you said you didn’t want to hurt them?’
‘I just meant … I thought I could …’ He shook his head. ‘You know,’ he said. He had thought he could have his cake and eat it. Have both of them, hurt neither of them. ‘But I did hurt them,’ he said. ‘If Sharon really did say those things to Melissa – she must have been desperate. She must have wanted to break us up any way she could. Because I didn’t have the guts to tell Melissa I was leaving.’
‘You thought your wife had killed her?’
He nodded.
‘Is that why you killed your wife?’
Whitworth sighed. ‘I didn’t,’ he said. ‘ I didn’t. I don’t understand. Someone …’
‘What happened last night after we left?’ asked Lloyd.
‘She … she kept saying things about Sharon. I just walked out. I slept in the office.’
Lloyd got up. ‘All right, Mr Whitworth,’ he said. ‘ We’ll leave you to think very hard about what happened last night. Then we’ll talk to you again.’
No. No, he couldn’t bear to talk about it any more. ‘I’m not answering any more questions,’ he said, surprised at the firmness of his own voice now that he had come to even as negative a decision as that. ‘I’ve told you what happened. I’m not obliged to say anything.’
‘Neither you are,’ said Lloyd abruptly. ‘ Interview terminated.’
He was taken to a cell. He sank down on to the bench, and doubled up with the pain again.
‘Do you need a doctor?’ the constable asked.
‘No,’ said Simon.
He supposed he needed a solicitor. But he couldn’t bear the thought of anyone he knew seeing him in this condition. If only he knew why they had died. Why Sharon had said those things to Melissa. He couldn’t have been that wrong about her. She couldn’t have been that good an actress. And even if she had been – why would she have bothered?
The money? This money that Jake Parker and Lionel were misappropriating? Dodgy share certificates, bogus land deeds – his head had still been spinning with Lionel’s confession when the police had come to tell him about Melissa.
Sharon surely hadn’t been mixed up in that.
Dennis Parry. Lloyd looked at the name of the registered owner of the car he had seen outside the Whitworths’, and sighed. Someone who had broken down, as Judy had said. Nothing to do with this. He glanced out of the window, and saw Judy’s car pull in.
He waylaid her before she went diving off anywhere else. ‘Judy,’ he said, and jerked his head towards his office.
She followed him in, shaking rain from her hair. ‘Anything?’ he asked.
She shrugged a little. ‘Freddie says that it is an exact copy of Sharon’s murder,’ she said. ‘Well – he wasn’t as definite as that, but that’s what he meant. He’ll be doing the post-mortem tomorrow – he can’t fit it in today.’
‘I’ve seen Whitworth,’ he said. ‘ He denies everything, of course. I’ve left him to stew for a while.’
Judy sat down. ‘We couldn’t have known,’ she said.
‘You saw him! He couldn’t wait for us to leave so that he could get his hands on her!’ Lloyd shouted. ‘You checked that it was all right for us to leave!’
Judy nodded. ‘And she said that it was,’ she reminded him.
Lloyd sat down, little comforted by her words. Andrews would be here any minute, and he wouldn’t think that they couldn’t have known what Whitworth would do. ‘How long had she been dead?’ he asked.
She looked a little unwilling to impart the information. ‘Freddie saw her half an hour ago, and his estimate is eight to ten hours.’
About five minutes after they left, in other words. And he had made a joke about rows. He had discounted the Whitworths and their petty affairs because he was so certain that the fraud must have been at the bottom of it, so convinced that Drummond had been lying. Andrews had warned him about that, which was the only reason he had gone to the Whitworths again that morning.
‘Lloyd,’ Judy said sternly, reading his thoughts. ‘If she didn’t think she was in danger, why should we have done?’
‘Because that’s our job,’ he said.
But he had to snap out of the comforting self-pity, and he had more news to impart to Judy. She would like this news, though. It was one of the few things he didn’t feel guilty about. He got up and went over to the door, closing it. ‘Speaking about jobs,’ he said. ‘I got a wink tipped this morning.’
Judy twisted round to look at him, her eyes instantly suspicious, just from his tone of voice.
He smiled. ‘Barstow’s got that job – he’s going as soon as we can find a replacement.’
Her eyes were wary now.
‘Apparently,’ Lloyd said, ‘HQ need Barstow very soon – and want the post here filled without a gap. In the circumstances, they think it sensible for you to transfer permanently.’
Eyes widening, as she tried to fathom his reaction. She frowned. ‘And you didn’t block it?’ she asked.
He smiled. ‘As if.’
‘But if I worked here, we’d have to continue the way we are,’ she said. ‘Domestically.’
Lloyd nodded. He knew when he was beaten. They were going to continue the way they were until Judy decided otherwise. In the meantime, he’d rather have her working with him than never see her at all. And it really had come from headquarters this time.
‘And you don’t mind?’ she said.
He shrugged. ‘Not if you don’t. You’ll hear officially this afternoon, I understand. It won’t affect your chances of promotion – they just think you’d be better off not at Malworth.’
What his informant had actually said was ‘After promotion is she? Well, she’s good – the Chief likes her. She could go far in personnel, admin work – but she’s gone as far as she’s going in CID if you ask me – you want a small wager on it?’ Lloyd didn’t tell Judy that bit. Especially since he hadn’t taken the bet.
He put on a cassette of Whitworth’s interview, and let Judy hear it. She listened, her face thoughtful, until he switched off the machine.
‘What do you think?’ he asked.
‘He’s a mess,’ she said
‘Mm,’ said Lloyd. ‘But is he a mess because his wife and girlfriend have both been murdered for no apparent reason, or is he a mess because he murdered them?’
She shrugged. ‘That’s what we have to find out,’ she said. ‘The lab or Freddie might come up with a bit more this time.’
‘What does your instinct tell you?’
She smiled. ‘It tells me it hasn’t got the faintest idea,’ she said. ‘But while there might have been another motive for Sharon’s murder, I can’t see that there’s one here. This has got to be domestic.’
‘Yes,’ said Lloyd, heavily, sitting down.
‘Perhaps he thought if he killed them both, that would solve his dilemma,’ she said.
Nothing would surprise Lloyd. ‘Either way, it looks as if he killed his wife after we left last night,’ he said. ‘I’d better go and confess to Andrews.’
Finch knocked and came in. ‘Am I interrupting, sir?’ he asked.
‘I welcome the interruption,’ said Lloyd.
Finch pulled a chair from the wall. ‘OK?’ he said.
Lloyd nodded. It was the same fine line that he himself walked with his superiors; the minimum of deference. He liked it, but he didn’t think it would go down too well with Andrews. He hoped that Finch had some native cunning in these matters.
He sighed aloud. He had had the CID to himself for six months until Andrews had arrived. He had already been told that he mustn’t let subordinates become too familiar, that he mustn’t encourage the use of first names. No fear of that, sir, he had said with utmost honesty. Even Judy didn’t know his first name, so he was damn sure Finch wasn’t going to. He’d been chewed out about his fixation with Drummond, and now … Now transfer to traffic was staring him in the face. Judy would probably get his job – he should have taken his HQ mole up on his wager.
Finch looked anxiously at him, and Lloyd realised that it was the sigh that had caused him to delay saying whatever it was that he had been going to say. He smiled. ‘Fire away, Tom,’ he said.
‘I’ve got the strength on what went down on Friday night with Drummond,’ he said. ‘ If you still want it, that is.’
The strength on what went down. Oh, well. Finch was observant, and reasonably literate; he was bright, and he wasn’t a yes-man. You couldn’t expect an elegant turn of phrase into the bargain. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘ I still want it.’
‘Back in August, these two were on traffic duty in the centre of Malworth, which consists mainly of catching people running the red lights in the evening,’ he said. ‘It has to be the most boring shift in the history of policing.’
Lloyd nodded.
‘Then what should they see but a motorbike without lights going through on red at about sixty miles an hour. So they give chase – but you know the Chief’s orders about high-speed chases in built-up areas. They don’t radio in.’
Lloyd shrugged acceptance of that.
‘Then he starts ducking down alleyways and up steps and all sorts of daft tricks, and they lose him.’ Finch leant forward a little. ‘The first rape took place that night, but they don’t make any connection, because it was in Stansfield. But then on Friday night, they’re operating a radar trap on the dual carriageway just beyond where the speed limit comes down to forty. And along comes a motorbike, without lights, doing about eighty. They give chase again, and he isn’t fast enough into Malworth to get the opportunity to do his trick riding, so they catch him.’
‘And beat him up because he gave them the slip last rime?’ said Lloyd.
Tom wrinkled his nose. ‘Not exactly,’ he said. ‘They’ve stopped him for speeding, and riding without lights. They’ve warned him that he might be prosecuted for reckless driving, and they should have just let him go. But they want to get a bit of their own back, so they hang on to him, in the hope of finding something. The bike’s his, his insurance and licence are in order, he’s not drunk – they search him for drugs, and find out that he’s dressed in black from top to toe. Jacket, sweater, jeans, boots, gloves.’
Lloyd waited.
‘By this time there have been two more rapes, and the girls had all described someone wearing black. But you can’t arrest someone for wearing black,’ said Tom. ‘So they ask him where he’s been – and they ask him about the previous time they saw him. He catches on to the fact that they didn’t report chasing him that first night, so he knows they’re on dodgy ground. He starts saying things on purpose to make them think he’s the rapist, but nothing they could hold him on. They go back to the car. Then he calls out something about getting their wives, and what he’ll do to them. One of them lost his rag, and the rest you know.’
‘They believed Drummond was the rapist, and didn’t even mention it to the incident room?’ Judy said.
Finch shrugged. ‘They were in too deep by the time they’d thumped him,’ he said.
Lloyd sighed. ‘ Thanks, Tom,’ he said.
Tom left, and Lloyd looked at Judy. ‘ What do you think of their story?’ he asked.
‘Sounds just about stupid enough,’ she said. ‘And Drummond sounds just about weird enough to fantasise about being the rapist,’ she said. ‘From what you’ve said.’
‘He was indeed.’ Well weird enough, as Finch would say.
‘He dresses like him,’ she said. ‘He follows girls, he watches people in cars … he wanted the traffic men to think he was – he wanted you to think he was. Too bad for him that he’s the one person we know it isn’t.’
So Drummond got beaten up because they thought he was the rapist, not because he’d been with Sharon, and then seen her murder. He was just a voyeur, as Judy had said. And when nothing at all had happened in the car, he’d made something more exciting up. And that meant that Lloyd was in deep trouble, because it had been a domestic all along; he had left Mrs Whitworth in extreme danger, while he pursued a shaky, unsubstantiated theory of his own.
‘You were right,’ he said to Judy. ‘I was wrong. Simple as that.’
Judy never looked smug when she had been proved right. He did. He knew he did. The phone rang, and he picked it up with a shrug, expecting an angry summons upstairs.
‘Lloyd? Ron Merrill.’
‘Hello, Ron – what can I do you for?’ said Lloyd, sounding as though he hadn’t a care in the world.
‘We caught the bastard. Well – two fitters coming home from doing a double shift did. Running back to his bike after he’d attacked a girl. And you were right all along.’
Lloyd frowned. What had he been right all along about?
‘It was Colin Drummond,’ said Merrill.
Lloyd stared at the phone.
‘No one’s had a squeak out of him yet, but I’m about to have a go, and I’ll make the little bugger think hard about the mess he’s in.’
An apt description of Mr Drummond, thought Lloyd, still tongue-tied. If Merrill had been in the room, he would have kissed him.
‘Are you still there?’ asked Merrill.
Lloyd smiled. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m still here.’
‘Tell Judy, will you?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Lloyd. ‘I’ll tell Judy.’ He hung up.
‘Tell Judy what?’ she asked.
He told her.
‘But it can’t be him,’ was Judy’s instant, illogical, and un-Judy-like response. ‘How could he be in two places at once?’
‘He wasn’t,’ said Lloyd. That was the whole point, as he had told Judy last night. Drummond hadn’t raped Bobbie Chalmers; someone else had, someone who knew exactly what Drummond’s MO was. Lloyd, who had hoped all along that he was wrong about that, was now a very relieved man. He sat back, hands behind his head, thinking it through.
Judy got out her notebook, and turned the pages, shaking her head. ‘Maybe he has an identical twin,’ she said, with a reluctant half-smile.
Lloyd smiled. ‘ It answers all the puzzles,’ he said. ‘Sharon spent the first half – as it turns out, the only half – of the match in the changing room with someone. Whitworth, presumably. I think he’s denying it because he caught a glimpse of his wife, and he thinks she killed Sharon. If he admits that he saw her there, it’ll look like he killed his wife for revenge.’
‘That is what it looks like,’ said Judy.
‘Barnes got Parker out of circulation.’ He closed his eyes. ‘And Drummond was waiting for Sharon,’ he went on. ‘ He probably followed her there. He certainly followed her when she left.’
‘Why didn’t he rape her?’ Judy asked. ‘ He had plenty of opportunity. What was different about Sharon?’
Lloyd tipped the chair back, as his new improved scenario unfolded. ‘Drummond followed her because he was going to kill her,’ he said slowly. ‘Not because he was going to rape her. That was the one thing he had no intention of doing to her.’
Judy frowned. ‘Do you still think he knew her?’ she asked.
Lloyd shook his head. ‘He didn’t know her at all,’ he said. ‘He had been offered a deal.’
‘By us?’ She shook her head as obstinately as ever.
‘By them,’ said Lloyd, careful to preserve the distinction between the good guys and the bad guys. ‘By corrupt police officers. They are not ‘‘us’’ – not to me, they’re not.’
Judy looked irritated. ‘Nor to me,’ she said. ‘I just don’t think—’
‘He followed Sharon, waiting for his chance. But Melissa Whitworth came along and picked Sharon up, and he had to hang fire until she had driven away, leaving Sharon on her own.’
He was thinking aloud now. Thinking aloud, and tipping his chair back on its hind legs. Two dangerous things to do, but if he was any judge, it was worth the strong possibility of his achieving the feat of falling flat on his back and flat on his face at one and the same time.
‘He killed her, then rode off on the bike. He knew he was going to be stopped by the police; it had all been arranged. He rode the way he did to give them something to stop him for, because the stop on the dual carriageway – at that particular time – was going to ensure that we believed him to be the one person who couldn’t be the rapist.’
Judy’s permanent frown grew deeper, and she shook her head.
‘Meanwhile,’ he said, ‘someone in Malworth was making sure that Parker understood that he and his were vulnerable, covering his own traces with his impersonation, and at the same time eliminating Drummond from the rape inquiry.’
‘Why?’ she asked.
‘In return for getting rid of Sharon, who had found out what was going on. It could be,’ he added, ‘that the quiet, shy, retiring Sharon was trying her hand at a spot of blackmail. She must have shown her hand some time ago for all this to be arranged.’
‘Who?’ said Judy. ‘Who was she blackmailing?’
Lloyd didn’t answer. ‘What Drummond hadn’t bargained for was being beaten up,’ he said, taking the whole thing through to its logical conclusion. ‘These two took the opportunity to mete out a little punishment for his misdeeds, since he wouldn’t be having to answer for them anywhere else.’ He rocked gently as he spoke. ‘And what they hadn’t bargained for was someone picking up the incident on the computer, connecting it with Sharon’s murder, and bringing Drummond in for questioning.’
‘Why did they put themselves in such a dodgy position in the first place?’ she asked. ‘If they had wanted to beat him up, they could have done it any time. Why choose a time when you know you’ve already reported stopping him? It’s much more likely that they just lost their tempers, if you ask me.’
‘Whatever,’ said Lloyd airily. ‘It all got very messy. Drummond told us about the car, and added his artistic touches about her taking her clothes off to make us believe that it was a man who was in the car with her. But he knew that it was a woman – and someone else knew who it had to have been.’
Judy looked unconvinced. ‘ You can’t blame police corruption this time,’ she said. ‘You and I and her husband knew that it was Melissa Whitworth who picked her up,’ she said. ‘Last night. No one else knew. So – are you accusing me of being behind all this, or making a confession?’
He smiled.
‘No one else knew,’ she repeated.
‘McDonald knew,’ said Lloyd.
Judy sat back a little.
‘McDonald,’ said Lloyd. ‘ Who was ‘‘lost’’ for two hours on Friday night, when Bobbie Chalmers was attacked. Who has a very low opinion of women in general, something to prove, and access to any car that happens to be in the garage where he works. Mr Parry’s car, for instance.’ He sighed. ‘And we’re hanging on to McDonald until I’ve checked it out.’
She looked at him seriously. ‘Do you really believe that police corruption is at the bottom of all this?’ she asked.
Lloyd sighed. ‘I don’t want to,’ he said. ‘But someone is. Someone with access to confidential police files.’
‘Not necessarily,’ said Judy, thoughtfully. ‘One of the victims could have told someone what happened to her. Someone who carried out a copy-cat attack.’
Lloyd gave her a look this time. ‘At precisely the right moment to give Drummond an alibi?’ he asked, getting up. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Where?’ she asked.
‘Green’s garage,’ he said. ‘To eliminate McDonald, with any luck. I don’t want to believe he could do a thing like that.’
‘I can’t see anyone at all doing it,’ she said, standing up, and tutting irritably as she picked at something on her skirt. ‘Damn,’ she said. ‘I remember why I didn’t just hang this up in the wardrobe, now.’
Lloyd never ceased to wonder at Judy’s tidiness. He never hung things up in wardrobes until he ran out of surfaces to drape them over But she knew why she hadn’t.
‘I meant to brush it,’ she said. ‘It’s covered in hairs from Mel—’ She stopped mid-word. ‘Sharon met Melissa on Friday evening,’ she said.
He didn’t know at what, but his gun dog was pointing; Lloyd congratulated himself on getting Judy on to the inquiry, and convincing Andrews that she was needed on a permanent basis. He needed Judy at work just as much as he needed her in his life. All he had to do was fire off his blunderbuss imagination, and she would spot any shot that hit home.
‘Identical …’ she said, her voice far away. ‘It was all a performance.’
Lloyd stared at her. ‘You’re not seriously suggesting that Drummond does have an—’ he began.
‘She had shown her hand … of course she had. The money started going in bigger amounts.’ She looked triumphantly at Lloyd. ‘Do you have the forensic report on Sharon’s clothes?’ she asked.
‘Not yet – they won’t even have started on them yet, I don’t think,’ he said.
‘No – the ones she was wearing when she was found. I haven’t actually seen it.’
‘Yes.’ He went back to the desk, and dived into the pile of papers, extracting the report with the expertise of the truly orderless.
She practically grabbed it from him, and read through it, her eyes darting from line to line. Then she pushed some stuff over on his desk to make a tiny, tidy oasis, and started checking through her notebook, frowning now and then, then making definite ticks, her brow clearing as she sat back, nodding slowly.
‘What?’ he said, coming round to her side of the desk, looking over her shoulder at the undecipherable Judyscript, unable to bear the suspense any longer. ‘What is it?’
She looked up. ‘We were both wrong,’ she said. ‘And we were both right.’
He had never been in Malworth police station before. He had followed Lloyd and his girlfriend there yesterday, but until last night, he had never been inside. It wasn’t like Stansfield. It was an old building, with heavy varnished doors and big door-handles. Its cells were like something you’d see in an old film. He’d told them not to tell anyone he was here.
Now he was in an interview room, with a constable, waiting to be asked more questions. He hadn’t said a word so far. They couldn’t prove it was him, and he’d be walking out of here like he’d walked out of Stansfield. He’d ditched the knife when he heard people coming after him, and it wasn’t against the law to wear a ski-mask. Two of Malworth’s traffic division had beaten him up, so he would say they’d set him up if they tried to hold on to him. He’d be leaving here very soon.
The door opened and a heavy-set man came in, and sat down. ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Merrill,’ he said. ‘You know why you’re here, don’t you, Mr Drummond?’
That was better. None of that Colin stuff. And Merrill didn’t move around all the time. He just sat down like everyone else. Colin shrugged.
‘A young girl was raped last night,’ said Merrill. ‘She was the fourth rape victim in recent weeks. What can you tell me about that, Mr Drummond?’
Colin looked uninterested. He was uninterested. It was the next one that interested him.
Mrs J. Hill. That was what it said on the name-plate on the door. It had been exciting, planning it for a particular target, rather than the opportunist raid that he had finally carried out. Watching them until one strayed off alone was all right, but he still liked the idea of a planned strike. He’d be out of here in no time, and this time he would get her when she was really alone.
Or thought she was.
They stood outside Bobbie’s flat in Malworth, in a tableau of determination and frustration, the drizzle seeping into everything, covering the cars in a glaze of tiny drops. Lloyd hadn’t come up to the flat; Judy had pointed out that whatever else Bobbie Chalmers might be, she was still a very recent victim, and a man’s presence might not help the interview.
What interview? Bobbie Chalmers had said nothing from the moment Judy had cautioned her. Nothing at all. Judy had tried everything she knew, but her success on her first visit had been the result of Bobbie’s having to talk about what had happened to her to someone. Now, she was out of hospital, and Judy was beginning to realise what strength she must have when she had not just been brutally attacked.
She had shown Bobbie the search warrant, asked to look in the boot of the car, and gone down to tell Lloyd that she had got nowhere. Now he stood beside the car, watching as Bobbie Chalmers sorted out the keys on her ring.
Judy had hoped to keep the two incidents separate, but if it was the only way to get answers, then it was. ‘I know who raped you, Bobbie,’ she said.
There wasn’t even a vestige of a pause as Bobbie selected the key. ‘I wasn’t raped,’ she said.
It was the first time she had spoken, but Judy didn’t feel the little surge of adrenalin that she usually did on producing a response, because she knew this one was going to get her no further. Even she didn’t need her notebook; that was going to be the extent of Bobbie’s statement.
‘Open the car boot, please,’ she said, with the resigned air of one who knew that there would be nothing in the car boot. But she had got the search warrant, so she might as well search.
Bobbie opened the boot; Judy looked through the oddments, and stood back. ‘You can close it now,’ she said.
Lloyd had been watching the performance with an air of what could only be described as amusement; Judy glared at him. They needed answers, and they hadn’t been given any; needed evidence, and they hadn’t found any. It wasn’t funny. She closed her unused notebook. ‘We may want to ask you more questions,’ she said.
Bobbie nodded.
Lloyd walked up to her, and smiled. ‘Well, thank you, Miss Chalmers,’ he said, with his very best Welsh accent. ‘ Nice to have met you – oh, incidentally – Mr Parker can vouch for someone called …’ He made great play of finding a piece of paper, and his glasses, and what he was looking for. ‘Ah, here it is. He can vouch for a man called Dennis Parry, can he?’
Dennis Parry had denied ever having heard of Jake Parker, of course.
Bobbie frowned slightly. ‘ You’d better ask him,’ she said.
‘We tried, but we can’t contact him. He’s not at home, and he’s not in the office. Parry said you knew him, but obviously you don’t– we’ll just have to go ahead and charge him.’
Judy found Lloyd’s facility for lying a little disturbing at times.
Bobbie looked flustered for the first time. ‘What – what’s he supposed to have done?’ she asked.
Lloyd put on the expression that suggested he was worried that he might have put his foot in it. ‘Look,’ he said, transparently changing the subject. ‘ You shouldn’t be standing out here in this weather. You get back inside, and keep warm.’
‘He works for Jake,’ Bobbie said uncomfortably, throwing the information over her shoulder as she turned back towards the doorway. ‘Sort of.’
They got back into the car, with Lloyd being intolerably smug. ‘You met your match at last,’ he said. ‘I knew you had to one day.’
‘Pity you didn’t try your technique sooner,’ said Judy.
‘She isn’t going to say a word about Friday night,’ he said. ‘ Not to anyone.’
No. Judy sighed. She could see this whole thing going down as unsolved. And she was damned if that was going to happen.
‘Jake Parker next,’ said Lloyd. ‘I think we’ll take Finch with us, though.’
They wouldn’t find anything there either, Judy thought gloomily. ‘She’ll be on the phone to him right now, warning him,’ she said. ‘I don’t suppose your insistence that he was somehow uncontactable will stop her.’
Lloyd shrugged. ‘Probably not,’ he said. ‘But if I know Mr Parker, he will have removed every shred of evidence already, so what difference does it make?’
None.
Jake tore up the last of the evidence that could point to him in any way at all, put it in the log-burning Aga, and watched it go up in flames. He’d hated that pretentious bloody thing when he’d moved in. Having to get logs out of their plastic covering in their wooden log bin like some gentleman farmer when he was in the middle of an industrial town. Having to work out how to boil an egg on it. Now, he loved every inch of its rustic body.
But he was hot. He peeled off his shirt, and went along to the bathroom, whistling softly to himself as he undressed. At least it wasn’t a log-burning shower. He had just stepped into it when he heard the phone ring.
Oh, to hell. Let it ring.
He felt better once he had showered. As he turned off the water, he heard the banging at the door, and frowned. He knew who knocked like that, and it wasn’t double-dazing salesmen.
‘All right, all right!’ he shouted. ‘Don’t knock the door down, boys. I’m coming.’
He plucked his bath-robe from the door, and wrapped it round himself as he walked along the corridor, and opened the door.
‘Mr Parker,’ said Lloyd.
‘Mr Lloyd. And Detective Inspector Hill – perhaps I should get dressed, since there are ladies present.’
‘This is Detective Sergeant Finch,’ said Lloyd, as all three walked in past him.
‘We’ve met,’ said Jake. He wished he had put some clothes on. He felt very vulnerable. He closed the door, and walked into the living-room, where Finch was already opening drawers in a swift and professional search of the bureau. Too late, thought Jake, glancing at the warrant that Inspector Hill was holding up for his inspection.
‘I thought it would be a different department who was dealing with this,’ Jake said pleasantly. ‘You won’t find anything, Sergeant Finch,’ he added. ‘I wasn’t involved.’ He smiled. ‘But I suppose you have to look,’ he said.
‘Your offices are also being searched,’ said Lloyd.
Jake nodded. ‘I thought they would be,’ he said. That was why he had gone in on Saturday morning and destroyed anything and everything that might connect him with the scam. He had covered his traces. He knew how the police worked.
And because he did, he was just a little worried. Lloyd and his lady inspector were on the murder inquiry.
‘It would be a month ago, would it?’ said Lloyd. ‘When Sharon came to you and told you what she had discovered?’
Jake took a cigarette from a box on the coffee table, and lit it with the heavy table-lighter. He sat on the sofa. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It was Friday. Just before the opening do.’
Finch had moved on to the bookcase, pulling out books, holding them by their covers, shaking the pages.
‘Then too,’ said Lloyd. ‘But I rather think her first visit was about a month ago. And she told you that she knew what you and Evans were up to.’
Jake still smiled, and poured himself some whisky. Guess-work. This was guess-work. He had taken care of everything – they could guess till they turned green, they couldn’t prove a thing.
The inspector had her notebook out again. My – she had been busy since yesterday afternoon.
‘She came to you first, rather than go straight to the police,’ said Lloyd. ‘ Blackmail?’ He raised his eyebrows in a query. ‘Perhaps,’ he went on. ‘But from what I’ve heard of her, I think not. You had been good to her – you had got her the job with Evans when she had to move back to Stansfield. She didn’t want to make trouble for you if she could avoid it:
Jake drew smoke deep into his lungs, and released it in a blue stream. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘The first I knew about it was Friday.’
Lloyd sat down, while the industrious Finch began on the hi-fi cabinet, with its LPs and cassettes and videos and compact discs. He’d be there all day. And he would find nothing. Jake reached across to the ashtray, but the ash fell from his cigarette on to the flowered upholstery. Shame. ‘ If you don’t mind, Mr Lloyd, I’m a busy man. I should be at work – so perhaps you’d come to the point.’
‘Mrs Melissa Whitworth was murdered last night,’ said Lloyd.
‘Simon Whitworth’s wife?’ asked Jake.
‘The very same,’ said Lloyd.
‘Well,’ said Jake. ‘Still waters and all that. I mean, what the hell made him do a thing like that?’
‘We don’t think he did. Do you know anyone called Dennis Parry?’
‘Parry … Parry …?’ Jake frowned. ‘No,’ he said.
‘That’s odd,’ said Inspector Hill. ‘Bobbie says he works for you – on a sort of unofficial, untaxed, uninsured basis, I suppose. But he works for you, all the same.’
Jake took another drink. It wasn’t a sip. More a gulp. He’d have to watch that. He smiled at her. ‘Old habits,’ he said. ‘Deny everything. Yeah, all right – he works for me. What’s he done?’
‘His car was outside the Whitworths’ house last night,’ said Lloyd.
‘Yeah? Didn’t know he knew them.’ Finch should get some sort of medal for sheer persistence, Jake thought, as he watched him. He felt almost sorry for him, as he worked his way through the owner’s record collection. ‘You should be talking to Dennis, in that case,’ he said. ‘Not me.’
‘We have. His memory seems to be as faulty as yours – he couldn’t recall your name either.’
Good old Dennis. ‘So what was he doing at Whitworth’s place?’ asked Jake.
‘Oh, he wasn’t. He was somewhere else with a dozen witnesses – almost as though he knew he might need them. And he can’t think who might have borrowed his car.’
Jake smiled. ‘And how can I help?’ he asked.
‘We’ll come to that,’ said Lloyd. ‘In the meantime, I would like to ask you some questions concerning the murder of Sharon Smith. You are not obliged to say anything, but if you do, anything you do say may be given in evidence.’
Jake smiled. ‘Do you think I had something to do with it?’ he asked.
‘I think you did it, Mr Parker,’ said Lloyd.
‘I was in one of your own cells when Sharon was murdered – ask him.’ He pointed at Finch, who had stood up from his task, and dusted himself off.
‘Nothing, sir,’ Finch said.
‘No. I thought not,’ said Lloyd. ‘It was worth a try.’
‘Shall I …?’ Finch nodded in the general direction of the rest of the house.
‘No,’ said Lloyd. ‘I’m sure Mr Parker has destroyed anything and everything which connects him with the fraud.’
Jake was very glad to hear Lloyd’s decision, but less than happy with their response to what he had just said. They couldn’t go accusing him of murder, and then ignore him when he pointed out that they had been holding him at the time.
‘I said I was in your cells,’ he repeated.
‘No,’ said Inspector Hill. ‘You weren’t.’
Jake turned to face her.
‘You were in our cells when Bobbie was raped,’ she said. ‘But not when Sharon was murdered.’
He began to breathe too quickly, too shallowly, and forced himself to slow down, and think. He mustn’t let what happened to Bobbie throw him. That’s why she had mentioned it, to make him lose his concentration. They were trying to trick him. They had talked to Bobbie; she’d told them about Dennis. But she had no reason to think that she shouldn’t tell them about Dennis. She wouldn’t have told them anything else, he knew that.
He got up slowly, and poured himself another drink. Slow down. Slow down, Jake. Don’t let them panic you. ‘ Your blokes carted me off in a van when the match was abandoned,’ he said. ‘Sharon was still alive then. So – she died after I was released, is that it?’
Inspector Hill shook her head. ‘ She died about a quarter of an hour after she left the office,’ she said. ‘She died the moment she kept her appointment with you. Because she had threatened your financial future.’
Take it easy, Jake, take it easy. Sit down. They know, but they need proof, and that they haven’t got. Not now. He sat down, and took a long, calming draw on the cigarette. ‘ Even if you were right that I was involved in this fraud – which you’re not – why would I kill her? It’s because she’s dead that you know about the fraud at all.’
‘We know about it because you told us, Mr Parker,’ said Lloyd. ‘And you told us because your girlfriend was raped, and your hand was forced.’
Jake closed his eyes. He’d never forgive himself for letting Bobbie in for that. And they had no right to keep bringing it up like that.
‘Sharon left the office, and walked straight up Byford Road to the football ground,’ the inspector went on. ‘That would take her twenty minutes at the most – the weather was quite clear then. She went to where she had arranged to meet you. The changing rooms. You were waiting for her. You killed her, you removed her outer clothes, and you got her into a brand-new leisure suit as best you could. You left the newspaper cutting in her skirt, and the key to the changing rooms in her bag.’
Jake laughed. ‘You’d have a hell of a time taking that to court,’ he said. ‘ Considering she was at the match two hours after that.’
Inspector Hill carried on. ‘Meanwhile, Bobbie Chalmers had made another appointment. To meet Mrs Whitworth. At the football ground. And just after six, she went into the superstore and bought an exactly similar leisure suit.’
He had got rid of that. Bobbie had locked it in the boot, and he had retrieved it yesterday morning, once he’d picked up her keys. It had gone straight into the Aga. It was gone. There was no evidence.
Remember that, Jake, he told himself, in the face of the inspector’s brown gaze. No evidence. No proof.
No case to answer.