They had just come in and told Mac he could go. They had spent hours accusing him of murdering Melissa, and then, calm as you like, someone had come and told him he could go now. Thanked him for his cooperation.
Downstairs, his landlady was hoovering. Next, she would be washing. It was Monday. He had met Melissa on Friday night, if you didn’t count the introduction at the paper, and he didn’t. She hadn’t even remembered meeting him.
He had found her on Friday, and lost her by Monday. But he had lost her anyway. He had never had her. He picked up the packet of cigarettes the constable had finally obtained for him – making him cough up the money for them – and shook it, but he had smoked them all.
He wondered what had happened, that they had let him go. Nothing had changed from his point of view. He was still the man who had found two bodies in four days, and instead of sympathy all he had got was suspicion and questions. And no explanation.
The paper kept ringing up, trying to speak to him, but he had told his landlady he wasn’t speaking to anyone, and she was better than a pit bull terrier if you wanted to discourage someone. He wasn’t going to talk to them about what had happened. He still couldn’t believe it himself. Didn’t want to believe it.
He needed cigarettes. He heaved himself off the bed, and pulled on his jacket. He could go to that pub across the road from the police station, he thought. That was where the court reporter hung out, because he picked up bits of information from the police who would go in there when they came off duty. He might find out what had happened. Why it had happened.
He didn’t suppose he would ever know why it had happened to him.
Lloyd and Finch kept a close eye on Parker as Judy told him what they had pieced together. Lloyd was watching for his emotional reactions, in the hope of trapping him into an admission. Finch was watching for his physical reactions; Parker was handy with his fists, and Judy was likely to make him very angry.
‘Bobbie kept the appointment with Melissa Whitworth, calling herself Sharon Smith,’ said Judy. ‘She said all the things that you had told her to say. That there had been a possessive boyfriend – that was to make it easier to believe that you had started a fight just because she was speaking to another man. That Whitworth sometimes hated her, so that he would be a candidate. And of course, the revelation itself would give Mrs Whitworth a motive. The more the merrier. Anything to muddy the waters.’
Parker stayed silent.
Lloyd felt less than confident of success. It was obvious that Bobbie had learned her technique from Parker, as he listened without any visible reaction to what Judy was saying. The only emotion he had shown at all was when Judy mentioned the rape, and he had got that under control. If he didn’t condemn himself, they were done for.
They needed proof. So far, they hadn’t even found anything to connect him to the fraud, never mind the murders. And Bobbie Chalmers would obviously go to her grave without telling anyone. She hadn’t even slipped up after she had been raped; this morning she had denied it had ever happened, and would clearly continue to do so.
‘Bobbie went into the ground when the interview was finished,’ Judy continued. ‘You probably gave her some sort of signal from the balcony, to get the timing right. You made sure Lionel Evans was there too, and you told him Sharon was on to you. That gave him a motive too. Then you said she was down on the terraces, but Evans didn’t see Sharon – only you. And you didn’t invite Evans to come with you to talk to her. You went down, and she asked Barnes if he had the right time. You started a fight in full view of the police, and you hit a policeman to make certain you were arrested.’
Parker finished his drink, and looked unconcerned.
‘So as far as we knew, Sharon was alive and well when you were taken away by the police, and dead before you were released. Then you set about making it look to Lionel Evans as though her death was a body blow to your financial operations. But of course, it wasn’t her death that meant you had to get out, it was the fact that she had found out. You had already made certain over the previous month that as much money as possible would be available for your departure.’
Parker smiled. ‘It’s a nice story,’ he said. ‘Do you have any proof?’
No, thought Lloyd. But you keep talking, Jake. Then we’ll get somewhere.
‘And last night,’ Judy carried on, in her clear, no-nonsense voice, ‘you killed Mrs Whitworth. Who was going to be next? Barnes? He’s got police protection now, Mr Parker.’
There was a silence after Judy had finished speaking, and Lloyd prayed that Finch had learned not to break it.
‘Are you serious?’ Parker asked, at last.
‘Yes,’ said Lloyd.
‘You’re arresting me for murder on that rigmarole?’
‘We have evidence,’ said Judy.
Parker shook his head, and got himself another drink. It was early to be drinking; that was good, thought Lloyd. And Judy’s bald statement was bothering Parker. She wouldn’t elaborate, and if he was any judge …
‘What sort of evidence?’ asked Parker.
‘We can prove that Sharon Smith was never in Melissa Whitworth’s car,’ Judy said
‘How? The woman’s dead.’
‘Cat hairs,’ she said.
Parker turned, the bottle in his hand. ‘What?’ he said.
Judy gave him a little smile. ‘ Cat hairs,’ she repeated.
Lloyd looked relaxed, but his soul was on the edge of his seat.
‘There is no way that anyone could possibly have been sitting in the passenger seat of Melissa Whitworth’s car for half an hour without getting covered in cat hairs,’ Judy said. ‘She took her cat to the vet on Friday afternoon, and the seat was still thick with the things the next day. I checked the forensic report.’ She shook her head. ‘ No cat hairs on the suit that Sharon was wearing. Not even one.’
Parker turned back and poured his drink. ‘ Is that right?’ he said. ‘Fancy. But that only proves that it wasn’t Sharon Smith who gave the interview to the paper,’ he said, and picked up his drink and sat down again. ‘ Not that Bobbie or anyone else did.’
They knew that. They had rather been counting on the fact that Parker wouldn’t think of it in the stress of the moment. But apart from the drinking, Parker was showing very little sign of stress.
‘No,’ Judy said evenly. ‘That’s true. But we have an eyewitness in Bobbie’s case.’
Last ditch stuff, thought Lloyd. If the cat hairs hadn’t thrown him, this wouldn’t.
Parker took a sip of whisky. ‘What sort of an eye witness?’ he asked. ‘Barnes? That would get thrown out at the first hearing. He saw a woman for about ten seconds in the dark, in the fog. So he says he doesn’t think it was Sharon Smith – so what? All he’d have to go on would be a photograph.’ He smiled. ‘And anyway, it was Sharon, as I keep telling you.’
‘Not Barnes,’ said Judy.
Lloyd was as surprised as Parker.
‘We have another witness. He was arrested last night. A witness who followed Bobbie out of the ground, who saw her being picked up by Melissa Whitworth, and being driven back to where she’d come from. Who watched her get out of the car again, and start walking back down Byford Road to her own car, which I imagine was parked on the road behind the old post office. Who watched her change back into her own clothes, waited for her to close the boot and then overpowered her and raped her repeatedly. He’ll want that taken into consideration, Mr Parker.’
The blood drained from Parker’s face, and he took out another cigarette, reaching over for the lighter as he got himself under control again.
‘Not Bobbie,’ he said, with difficulty. ‘Some other poor kid, maybe. But Bobbie wasn’t there. She was in Malworth. Ask her. Ask her about any of this rubbish. She won’t confirm it.’
Lloyd knew that was all too true. Judy had tried to rattle him, and had failed.
‘No,’ she agreed. ‘She’s saying nothing, Mr Parker. But she can be identified. And it would make a change, wouldn’t it? The rapist walking down a line of women, picking out his victim? Bobbie would love that, wouldn’t she?’
Parker’s mouth fell open, and his eyes grew wide with horror.
‘Of course, you could save us some time, and save Bobbie the trauma.’
Parker stared at her.
‘Don’t think I wouldn’t do it, Mr Parker,’ she said, her voice like ice.
He leapt to his feet. ‘But … it – it would kill her! She – she can’t even bear me to go near her! You can’t let that bastard—’ Parker was deathly pale.
‘She’d do it, too, wouldn’t she?’ Judy went on. ‘In the hope that he didn’t recognise her. She’d do it. For you. Are you worth it, I wonder?’
Parker shook his head. ‘Bobbie didn’t break any laws,’ he said. ‘Leave her out of this, and I’ll make a statement. Everything. The scam – Sharon, everything. But you have to promise to leave Bobbie alone.’
‘She impersonated Sharon Smith while you murdered her,’ Judy said ‘That makes her a murderer too. We can’t leave her alone.’
‘No,’ said Parker, his voice agonised. ‘No. She didn’t know why she was doing it. I told her Whitworth had cheated me. I said I was trying to make trouble for him. I swear to God that’s all she thought she was doing! She’d never have done it if she’d known – you’ve got to believe me! She knew I was in trouble about money, that’s all – I told her she mustn’t say she’d been anywhere near the ground. That’s why she said the rape happened in Malworth.’
He appealed to Lloyd, having given up on Judy. ‘ Leave Bobbie out of it,’ he pleaded. ‘I’ll tell you everything if you promise to leave Bobbie alone.’
Lloyd took a deep breath, and thought about it. He believed Parker, though it might not be too easy to convince other people. But he could try. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘As far as I’m able.’
Parker let out a huge sigh of relief, and sat down again, heavily.
‘Sharon wanted me to give the money back. She guessed we were going to make it look like Whitworth’s doing, and she didn’t want him to know anything about it. Three million pounds, and she wanted me to give it back! I tried to explain, but she wouldn’t listen.’
Lloyd frowned. ‘ Explain what?’ he asked.
‘That it was Evans who would carry the can, not Whitworth! Only an idiot like Evans would ever think Whitworth could really be put in the frame. I conned Evans into believing he could get away with it, and taking Whitworth on was part of the con. That’s all.’
‘All,’ repeated Lloyd. It sounded like quite enough to him.
‘Evans was greedy,’ Parker said. ‘Like all the others. You can always con greedy people – not one of these investors checked that I could really deliver what I was promising, because all they could see was a fast buck. I just had to spend enough to make it look like something was happening, and they were throwing money at me.’ He sighed. ‘But maybe I got greedy too,’ he said. ‘I should have got out sooner.’
Lloyd raised his eyebrows at the rare moment of honesty.
‘But Sharon wouldn’t budge. She didn’t want her boyfriend finding out that he was just window-dressing, not if he didn’t have to.
‘A month, she said. Or she would tell Whitworth, and they’d go to the police. Ungrateful little bitch. I just wanted to …’ He closed his eyes. ‘ I thought of it when I saw that advertisement in the paper,’ he said. ‘It seemed a fair bet that it would be Whitworth’s wife who was writing the article – I rang the number, got her answering machine, and …’ He shrugged. ‘To start with, it was just a way of giving you more suspects,’ he said. ‘But then I saw its potential.’
‘And the whole thing was arranged for Sharon’s benefit?’ asked Lloyd. ‘The opening, the match – everything?’
Jake nodded. ‘I arranged it for a Friday, because that way the Saturday paper would only have the bare details. You wouldn’t have released her name or photograph. I’d have more time that way.’
Parker’s years of street-violence had not been frittered away, Lloyd thought.
‘I told Sharon I was prepared to talk about it, and to meet me at the ground before six-thirty. And I spun Bobbie a tale,’ he went on. ‘She agreed to do it – but I swear to God she didn’t know why. She was never going to know – she was supposed to leave next morning,’ he said. ‘Dennis was taking her to the ferry. She’d have been abroad – she would never have known what had happened.’
Lloyd frowned. ‘What about you?’ he asked.
‘I was going to get my money on the Monday morning, and I’d have been away by the time the paper got Sharon’s photograph, and Whitworth’s wife blew the whistle.’ He looked at Judy again then, his eyes bleak. ‘ Bobbie didn’t know what to do when Whitworth’s wife pulled up beside her,’ he said. ‘She thought going back to the ground was the best thing. But the place was shut down – so she made some rude comments and got herself thrown out of the car,’ He gave a long, shuddering sigh. ‘She thought she was safe then,’ he said. ‘But that bastard got her.’
Judy looked away from him as he continued.
‘And she was in hospital. She couldn’t leave. I had to kill Whitworth’s wife before she saw Sharon’s photograph. You knew Bobbie! It would take you thirty seconds to put two and two together. I had to get her out of the way.’
If they stayed here much longer they’d be agreeing with him that murdering two women was an eminently reasonable way out of one’s problems, Lloyd thought, and stood up. ‘James Edward Parker, I am arresting you for the murder—’
Parker got to his feet slowly, waving away the caution. ‘I have to get some clothes on,’ he mumbled.
‘Finch,’ said Lloyd. ‘Go with him.’
When they had left the room, Judy looked up from her notebook. ‘I’m not very proud of that,’ she said.
‘It worked,’ said Lloyd, with a shrug.
‘I’m not sure you understand the seriousness of your situation, Mr Drummond,’ said Merrill.
Colin still didn’t speak.
‘When you were in custody on Saturday, you permitted a doctor to carry out a medical examination, during which you agreed that a blood test could be done,’ said Merrill, slowly and carefully.
Colin shrugged again.
‘Do you ever read the papers, Mr Drummond?’ he asked. ‘Or watch the news?’
He read motorbike magazines. Nothing else. Nothing else was worth reading. Above the bike magazines in the newsagent’s, there were these girlie ones. A waste of money. They were ten a penny on the street – why look at pictures of them in magazines when you could have one any time you liked? He’d sooner look at a 750cc any day. You didn’t see them every day. And he watched videos mostly.
‘Have you ever heard of genetic fingerprinting?’ asked Merrill.
Colin raised his eyebrows a little. Fingerprints. They were trying to catch him out. They were trying to make him say that they couldn’t have found his fingerprints, because he wore gloves. Merrill must think he was stupid.
‘It’s a sort of extra-special blood test,’ said Merrill. ‘It can distinguish one person from another, just like fingerprints can, but you get the match from blood, or skin, or hair – or semen. You know what that is, do you, Mr Drummond?’
Colin could get annoyed with this. He didn’t answer. If Merrill wanted to believe he was stupid, let him. Lloyd knew he wasn’t stupid. And Lloyd’s girlfriend would know he wasn’t stupid, too. Soon.
‘I assume you do,’ he said. ‘And with violent crime – with rape especially – that means it might as well be a fingerprint.’ He leant forward a little. ‘We get the samples from the victims,’ he said, ‘and we take blood tests from possible suspects, and look for a match. They tested a whole town once before they got who they were looking for. They got him in the end, though. But we were lucky – we didn’t have to do that – you fell into our laps, as it were.’
Colin’s eyes grew thoughtful. It sounded as though they weren’t going to let him go.
‘It’s a legal means of identification, Mr Drummond. And really, it’s better than a fingerprint. You might touch something at the scene of a crime in all innocence. But there’s no inadvertent way to leave a genetic fingerprint, and no way that this wasn’t out and out rape. If you raped these women, we can prove it,’ he said. ‘Do you want to make a statement?’
Colin nodded. In a way, he didn’t mind. He wanted people to know what he’d done. He’d like to tell them he’d done five of them, not just four. But the one he did on Friday was dead; they’d say he’d killed her, and he hadn’t.
He’d leave that one out.
Jake dressed slowly, with Finch chivvying him. He opened the shirt drawer, and took out a shirt, gathering up the pistol at the same time, slipping it in his pocket, very grateful to Lloyd for not continuing the search for incriminating evidence of his involvement in the fraud.
He opened the wardrobe, and chose one of his specially imported Chinese silk ties from the rack.
‘I see you didn’t waste any of those beauties on your victims,’ said Finch drily.
Jake looked at himself in the mirror, carefully knotting the tie, and spoke to Finch’s reflection. ‘ Too identifiable,’ he said. ‘I bought one at a chain-store. I hadn’t done that for ten years – you know that? And then before I knew it, I had to buy another for Mrs Whitworth. Thank God for Sunday trading, eh?’ He smiled at his own joke, though he didn’t feel at all like smiling.
‘Ready?’ said Finch impatiently.
‘Ready,’ said Jake, turning and drawing out the gun. ‘ Keep your hands where I can see them,’ he said. ‘And turn round.’
‘Don’t be stupid, Parker,’ Finch said, raising his hands, his eyes wide with apprehension before he reluctantly turned his back on him.
‘Now – can you feel that?’ Jake asked, touching the back of Finch’s neck with the gun.
‘Yes.’
‘The moment you can’t feel it, you’re dead. Walk very slowly out of the room,’ said Jake.
Lloyd was in the hallway; he froze when he saw Finch emerge.
‘Tell her to come out here where I can see her,’ said Jake. ‘Slowly, with her hands up. And yours.’
Lloyd never took his eyes off him as he relayed the message, his voice unnaturally calm.
She appeared in the doorway, closing her eyes for a second, as though the situation might have altered when she opened them again. But it hadn’t.
Jake controlled his breathing, and his tendency to shake, before he spoke. ‘We’re leaving here. If you want to keep him alive, you won’t try to stop us. Out,’ he said to Finch.
‘Parker – where is this going to get you?’ Lloyd asked.
‘You don’t think I went into this without making sure I could disappear? You would have been looking for me once the photograph went to the paper. So I can vanish, and I will. Move,’ he said, pushing Finch in the back, making him stumble. ‘Stop!’ he shouted, as they lost contact. He released the safety catch; Finch was much more careful as they made slow progress past a grim-faced Lloyd and a pale, frightened Inspector Hill. Jake wished it was her he had at the end of the pistol.
He had to get Bobbie, then get far enough away to dump Finch, and get out of this. There was no way he was going to prison for years. No way he was leaving Bobbie to them.
‘I have to open the door,’ said Finch. ‘Look – it’s locked. I need to use both hands, and I might lose contact – I don’t want you shooting me just because I was trying to open the—’
Jake doubled over in the middle of the explanation as Finch’s elbow suddenly thrust into his solar plexus, and he felt the gun slip from his grasp, saw it kicked out of his reach. Someone pulled his hands behind his back and handcuffed him.
‘It’s over, Jake,’ said Finch, scooping up the gun, making it safe, handing it to the inspector.
Jake, coughing and spluttering, was lifted to his feet by the two men. He shouldn’t have had the other drink. It had slowed his reactions. Had he jeopardised his deal? He looked at Lloyd, and decided that he trusted him. ‘You promised,’ he said.
Lloyd nodded. ‘I promised.’
It was the fraud squad now, all right. Turning the office upside down, carting off boxes and boxes of files and accounts and computer disks.
Lionel’s father and grandfather would be turning in their graves, of course. And he supposed it was a dreadfully ignominious end to almost a hundred years of exemplary legal practice.
But he was very, very glad that it was over.
Simon Whitworth got out of the police car and stared at the mean little house, standing on its own, with no neighbours. They had asked if there was someone they could get to be with him, but he had said no. He wasn’t staying. He would go home. Back to his mum and dad, like a child. He needed his mum and dad. But he didn’t want them coming here. Not here.
They’d have liked Sharon. Some of the terrible weight that had been pressing him into the ground had been lifted when they had told him what had really happened. Sharon had just been Sharon. She had been exactly what he thought she was. She had never met Melissa, never said those things. She had loved him. Too much to tell him what she had discovered, because then he would have known why he had been taken on by Evans, and she had known that that would have hurt him. That was why she’d gone to Parker instead of to the police. Because of him. And the weight had come pressing down again, harder than ever.
And Melissa. She had been protecting him, too. Was that all he could inspire? He had left her alone, and Parker had come and snuffed her out too. All because of him. No Melissa. No Sharon. He didn’t think he could get his mind round that. His case was already packed, and there was nothing else he wanted from this place. He opened the door.
Robeson yelled indignantly that he hadn’t been fed since yesterday, and Simon went into the kitchen, Robeson weaving through his legs. He spooned catfood on to a plate, then went up to get his suitcase. He dragged it out from under the bed, and threw a few more things into it. He couldn’t think about what he was going to do. He didn’t know if he would ever be able to do anything again. He couldn’t think about inquests and funerals and trials. He was going home, that was all he knew.
Downstairs, he could hear the rattle of Robeson’s disc on the plate as he cleaned it. Simon went out, leaving the door open, and went to the car, throwing the case in the back. He looked back at the house. He had to do something with the cat. He could take him with him, but he didn’t know if he would come. Look what happened to him last time.
‘Robeson,’ he called. ‘Here, puss.’ He opened the passenger door; Robeson ran down the path and jumped on to the passenger seat, curling up. Simon patted him. Robeson had, after all, proved that he hadn’t killed anyone.
But they had died because of him. And Robeson couldn’t make that better.
Judy had taken a statement from Drummond; now that he knew that his fourth victim had not been murdered, he was pleased to give details. He had raped Bobbie Chalmers, then driven off afterwards, as he always did, with the bike unlit. He had heard the police siren, and known that they would catch him, so he had jettisoned the mask and the knife.
He had been quite upset about that; he had been unable to get another flick-knife, and had had to make do last night with a kitchen knife. She, he had informed her, had been within an ace of being his fifth victim, and he made her a promise that she would be his sixth.
She drove back to Stansfield, thinking about the girl who had been raped in her stead, thinking about the total lack of remorse on the young, handsome face as he had told her what he had done, what he had intended doing to her, if Lloyd hadn’t changed his mind.
Barstow was packing up the personal stuff in his office, which consisted of a tiny space partitioned off from the CID room; he wasn’t going until the end of the week, but Judy had moved in with him already, and elbow-room was severely limited. She sat down at the quarter of a table which she had been allocated, and began the mountain of paperwork that the morning had produced.
‘Two results,’ said Barstow, encouragingly. ‘Good ones, at that.’
Judy tried to smile, but she had never felt less like doing so. Parker’s greed had ruined too many lives to feel any uplift about his arrest.
Barstow went out, and Lloyd came in about two minutes later, closing the door.
‘Parker is being as good as his word,’ he said. ‘A full confession. It seems he killed her in the changing rooms, left her there, then simply collected her once Whitworth had driven him back to the ground, and left her where Mad Mac found her.’ He shook his head. ‘ Bobbie Chalmers had slipped the receipt for the clothes under Barnes’ seat – Parker picked it up and put it in Sharon’s bag. So I don’t think I can keep my promise,’ he added, with a shrug. ‘She was an accessory at the very least.’
‘You just promised to do your best,’ said Judy, dully. ‘You’ve done that.’
‘Are you OK?’ he asked.
She nodded.
He contrived somehow to find a space on the overcrowded table to perch. ‘No, you’re not,’ he said.
She looked up at him. ‘That note,’ she said. ‘ The one that was left on the car?’ She gave a short sigh. ‘It said – in effect – that I had lost two good men their jobs. And I have, haven’t I? Drummond deserved a lot worse than they gave him.’
Lloyd looked at her for a long time before he said anything. ‘They lost their own jobs,’ he said quietly, when he did speak. ‘The moment they took the law into their own hands. They have no right to wear a police uniform, and you have no right to condone what they did.’
God, he could be a pain sometimes. ‘Have you read this?’ she asked, pushing the statement over to him.
‘No. And I don’t care what it says. If you want the right to beat someone you stop in the street, go and live somewhere where people disappear because they have the wrong politics, where society is frightened of its police. Because that’s what you’re advocating, if you think anyone deserves to be abused by people in authority.’
He was angrier than Judy had ever seen him. He lost his temper, lost his patience with her, all the time. But he had never been this angry with her.
‘I was going to be next,’ she said in her own defence. ‘That girl last night was raped because I wasn’t.’
‘I know you were!’ he shouted. ‘Merrill told me. And that girl was raped because these two broke the rules. I’m not pretending I don’t bend them and stretch them – everyone does sometimes. But you don’t do what they do. So don’t let me hear you saying that he deserved it – what he deserved was to be safely in custody, where he would have been if they had been doing their jobs – not lying in wait for you, not raping anyone!’
Finch knocked and came in. ‘I wondered if anyone would like to go for a drink,’ he said.
Lloyd looked at him. ‘Now that it’s just the three of us,’ he said, still angry, ‘I have to say that that was a very stupid thing to do.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Finch.
‘If someone is holding a gun on you, you do what he says,’ said Lloyd. ‘The safety catch was off – you could have had your head blown off!’
‘Sir,’ said Finch. ‘But it’s just that if there is one thing that worries me more than a villain with a gun, if s a cop with a gun. And I wasn’t about to become his hostage for bloody hours, with guys in bullet-proof vests waiting to take a pot-shot at him! I did it because I thought I was going to have my head blown off if I didn’t! Sir,’ he added, as an afterthought.
Lloyd sighed. ‘Oh, what the hell,’ he said. ‘Yes – lets go for a drink.’
‘I don’t feel much like celebrating,’ said Judy.
‘No,’ said Finch. ‘Neither do I, really. But I thought we could unwind a bit.’
Judy conceded that unwinding might be a very good idea, and they walked from the station to the pub on the corner. Finch walked beside her; Lloyd walked a little way behind them.
‘Would you have put Bobbie Chalmers in a lineup?’ Finch asked.
Judy had watched Parker, correctly gauged his feelings for Bobbie, and then used them against him. That was enough ruthlessness for one day. She shook her head.
‘I would,’ said the voice from the rear.
They went into the pub, and Finch tapped Lloyd’s elbow, nodding over to the bar, where Gil McDonald sat staring into space, his hand round a glass. He looked up when he felt himself being watched, and made his unsmiling way to where they were claiming a table.
‘Fruit juice,’ he said, putting the glass of orange down firmly on their table.
Lloyd smiled. ‘Good,’ he said.
Mac lit a cigarette. ‘Are you going to charge me with anything?’ he asked.
Lloyd frowned. ‘Like what?’ he asked.
‘I wiped that tape – from the rumours flying round this place, it sounds like it could have been evidence.’
‘It could have been,’ said Lloyd, sitting down beside Judy. ‘But thanks to the inspector, we won’t be needing it.’ He looked up at Mac. ‘I am really very sorry about Mrs Whitworth,’ he said.
Mac nodded. ‘So am I,’ he said. ‘ But – well, I don’t think she would think much of me if I went to pieces now.’ He turned to Judy. ‘If you’re still interested in a test drive, you won’t be seeing me,’ he said. ‘I’m moving on.’
Judy managed a smile. ‘Good luck,’ she said.
Mac went off; Finch went to get the drinks, and Judy caught Lloyd’s hand under the table. ‘Sorry,’ she whispered.
Lloyd shook his head. ‘I just keep thinking what if I’d just gone home? It would have been you that—’
He broke off as Finch came back, a drink in each hand.
‘I know you’re right about guns, sir,’ he said. ‘ But I just saw his attention wander, and took my chance.’
Lloyd took his drink. ‘ Let’s forget it,’ he said.
Finch smiled, and gave Judy her wine. ‘You were wrong about one thing, though,’ he said.
Lloyd squeezed Judy’s hand, then let it go. ‘I’m never wrong,’ he said, taking a deep draught of beer.
‘He’s never wrong,’ said Judy.
‘You were this time,’ said Finch, reaching back to the bar to get his own drink and sitting down. ‘I’d far sooner have had another lecture on apostrophes.’
Judy didn’t know why Lloyd was laughing, but the winding-down process was working. She liked Finch, and she was back at Stansfield, which was what she had wanted ever since the transfer to Malworth. It was the last tiring that Lloyd wanted, really; he could have blocked it, and he hadn’t. But then he was the unselfish one.
One of them had to be.