Clayton sat with his head lowered. ‘All right,’ he said at last, ‘I did see her by arrangement, but not several times, just that once. She kept phoning me here, at the office, saying she couldn’t forget me, couldn’t we meet, all that kind of thing. I told her it was finished, better let it stay that way. But she wouldn’t be put off, she kept on ringing.’
He raised his eyes, his tone grew more confident. ‘In the end there was nothing for it but to see her. I thought I could make her see reason, spell it all out, get her to accept it. I fixed to go over to Cannonbridge one Saturday morning. She got the bus into Cannonbridge and I picked her up at the bus station. We drove out into the country. We talked for about an hour. I persuaded her she had to put the whole thing behind her, forget me, find some boy her own age. She cried a bit and then she agreed it was the sensible thing to do. She’d known in her heart that was the way it would end–that was why she’d brought the camera. She wanted the snapshot as a keepsake, she knew she wouldn’t be seeing me again.’
‘What time did you drive her back to Cannonbridge?’
‘It would be about half past eleven, a quarter to twelve.’
Kelsey shoved the snapshot forward. ‘Take a look at those shadows. That photograph was taken in the late afternoon.’
Clayton dropped his head again.
‘Karen’s girlfriend at the college tells us Karen said something recently about being mixed up with a married man,’ Kelsey continued. ‘She gave her friend the strong impression she was still involved with him–and that he was the man she was mixed up with when she was living with her foster parents.’
Clayton sat in tense silence.
‘Did you kill Karen Boland?’ the Chief asked suddenly. His head jerked up. ‘Good God, no!’
‘Then tell us the truth,’ Kelsey urged. ‘If you didn’t kill her you’ve nothing to fear.’
A light dew broke out on Clayton’s brow. ‘I’m not so sure about that.’ He pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at his face. ‘It’s what you’ll read into everything that scares the hell out of me. I wouldn’t be the first innocent man to end up with a life sentence.’
He pushed back his chair and got to his feet. He went over to the drinks cupboard and poured himself a stiff drink. He stood with his back to them. ‘I realize I’m in one hell of a jam,’ he said between swallows. He remained silent for some moments and then appeared to reach a decision. He swung round to face them.
‘All right, I did see her several times. I kept telling myself it couldn’t last, she’d get tired of it. Every time I set off to meet her I swore it was the last time. But I didn’t see her at all last Friday. I swear to God I didn’t. I had to lie about it all. I knew the moment you found out I’d been seeing her you’d immediately think it was me that killed her.’ He gave a short bark of a laugh. ‘That’s what I’d think in your shoes, I’d be certain of it.’ He drained his glass and at once refilled it.
Kelsey changed tack. ‘Do you know exactly how Karen died?’
Clayton stood motionless, staring at him, his glass frozen in his hand. The Chief began to spell it out, every last horrific detail. Long before he had finished Clayton had broken down into terrible, shaking sobs.
The Chiefs voice ground relentlessly to its conclusion. He sat for some time without speaking. At last Clayton fell into a trembling silence.
‘It wasn’t just a silly, meaningless flirtation,’ Kelsey said into the silence.
Clayton gave a tremulous shake of his head. He came slowly back to the desk, half fell into his seat.
‘I don’t expect you to understand,’ he said in a low, faltering voice. ‘I couldn’t properly understand it myself. I was never young at the right time in my life, I think that was at the root of it. It was never anything but work, work, work. That was all I ever thought about: getting on, getting somewhere.’
He looked across at Kelsey, his eyes exhausted, his face drained. ‘One day about a year ago, a man I’d known for years, a businessman like myself, the same age as me, he was walking out to his car one morning and he fell down dead.’ He shook his head, expelled a wavering breath. ‘That pulled me up sharp, I can tell you. All that work, all that struggle, all over, finished, inside a minute. What was it all for? Why was I still working every hour God sent? I was successful enough, I had more money than I knew what to do with. I’d made more than enough provision for the future, for my family. Why couldn’t I slow down, start to take things easy, think of something else for a change?’
He stared down at the desk. ‘Then I met Karen.’ He glanced briefly up. ‘I don’t expect you to understand,’ he said again. ‘It was as if, inside, I was still a boy, I’d never grown up. I knew from the first moment it was madness but it didn’t seem to matter, I was swept along. I’d never been in love before, never with anyone, never in the slightest degree.’ Tears ran unchecked down his face. ‘For her to end up like that. She was a lovely girl.’ He fell again into convulsive sobs.
Kelsey waited till he had regained some measure of control. ‘To get back to last Friday,’ he said. ‘Did you make any phone calls to Karen that day?’
Clayton sat slumped, as if he hadn’t heard. The Chief repeated his question in a sharper tone. ‘And this time we’ll have the truth first time round,’ he added brusquely.
Clayton made an effort to rouse himself. ‘No, I didn’t phone her at all on Friday. I did sometimes phone her at the college but not last Friday. I was very busy all day, I had no reason to phone her. We’d already fixed to meet this week, Wednesday, most probably. She was to ring me here on Tuesday, to arrange where and when.’
‘I put it to you that you tried to phone her at lunchtime on Friday. You rang the college but couldn’t get hold of her.’
He shook his head. ‘No, that isn’t so.’ His tone was immensely fatigued. ‘I had lunch with a customer at a hotel on Friday.’ He supplied the Chief with details.
‘Did you phone her later on Friday, at twenty minutes to six? Asking her to meet you outside the college as soon as classes ended?’
‘No, I did not.’ His voice was stronger now. He shifted into a more upright position. ‘I was nowhere near the college at that time. I didn’t go to Cannonbridge at all on Friday. At six o’clock I was with Braithwaite, in his office.’
‘When was the last time you met Karen?’
‘Last Tuesday, at lunchtime,’ he answered promptly. ‘She came out of college and went to sit on a bench in a little public garden nearby. We’d met that way before. I pulled up for a moment, she jumped in and we drove out of town for a couple of miles. I took her back in time for her next class–she didn’t have one till three o’clock on Tuesday afternoons.’
‘This customer of yours, Braithwaite–why exactly did you call on him last Friday?’
‘No special reason. I was over that way. He’s a good customer, he’s dealt with us for years. I always make a point of personal contact with customers, I see them as often as I can.’
‘Did you call on him to dun him for money? To get him to pay his bills?’
Clayton didn’t appear at all put out, he answered readily. ‘I did mention the bills while I was there but I didn’t make a song and dance about them. Braithwaite apologized for keeping me waiting for the money. He told me he was having difficulty getting some of his own bills paid but he was getting that sorted out. He had hopes of a good order that would put him straight.’
‘Did you put pressure on him? Threaten to bankrupt him?’
‘I most certainly did not,’ Clayton said with a return of vigour. ‘We started out in business together. I had some narrow squeaks myself in the early days, I know what it is to hit a bad patch.’
‘Did you call on Braithwaite at all last Friday?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Then I suggest it wasn’t in the evening but in the morning, on your way over to the exhibition.’
‘I called on him in the evening. You can ask him yourself.’
‘We have asked him.’
‘Then he’s confirmed what I’ve told you. He must have confirmed it.’
‘Yes, he confirmed it all right. Hardly surprising when you can bankrupt him any day you choose. Try trotting out that sort of confirmation in court and see how far it’ll get you.’
‘It doesn’t alter the fact that it’s the truth,’ Clayton said with stubborn defiance.
‘Have you been in touch with Braithwaite since last Friday evening?’
He answered readily. ‘Yes. I phoned him at home on Friday evening, about half past nine.’
‘Why did you phone him?’
‘To say I’d been thinking over what he’d told me about his financial difficulties. I made one or two suggestions I thought might be of help, getting his own bills paid.’
‘Or did you phone to say you wouldn’t take legal steps to recover the money he owed you if he would tell the police you were with him between ten to six and six-thirty on Friday evening?’
‘I said nothing of the sort,’ Clayton maintained with heat. ‘It’s a monstrous suggestion, not a shred of truth in it. Did you talk to Braithwaite’s secretary? She was there all the time, in the outer office. She saw me arrive, she saw me leave, she spoke to me both times. She brought in tea while I was talking to Braithwaite. Am I supposed to have squared her too? Threatened her? Blackmailed her?’
‘You’re well aware you can leave the secretary to Braithwaite to deal with. She identifies with him.. If he goes bust she loses her job. That sort of back-up story isn’t a fat lot of use. Juries aren’t fools.’
A brief silence fell. Kelsey looked at him squarely. ‘I ask you again: Did you kill Karen Boland?’
Clayton drew a long, weary breath and shook his head. ‘Why in God’s name would I want to kill her?’
‘I put it to you that Karen was very far from pestering you to resume your relationship. She was thankful when it was all over, thankful she’d been forced to come to her senses when it came out into the open.’
He leaned forward. ‘I suggest it was you who made all the running, who did all the pestering. You kept trying to see her after she’d moved, you wouldn’t accept it was over. You started hanging around outside the college, you kept phoning her there. She was torn both ways, still very fond of you but knowing she mustn’t let it start up again, that would spell disaster. In the end she did meet you once or twice, tried to get you to accept the fact that she wanted the whole thing finished with.
‘You never went near Braithwaite last Friday. You drove straight over to Cannonbridge after you left the exhibition. You phoned the college for the second time that day. This time you spoke to Karen. You told her you’d be waiting outside, after class. She agreed to see you, but only for a moment.
‘When she came out it was starting to rain. You told her to get in the car, you’d run her home, there could be no harm in that. She got in.
‘On the way you began to beg and plead with her. Wouldn’t she just meet you sometimes? It would be quite safe, no one need know. She was strongly tempted. She said yes, she would, then came to her senses again and told you no, she couldn’t, it would be madness. If the Wilmots found out she’d be sent packing in disgrace. It was far too big a risk.’
Kelsey stabbed at the air. ‘It was this on-again, off-again attitude, this chopping and changing as she sat beside you, that tipped you over the edge. You pulled up and made a lunge at her. She jumped out in fright and ran off, into the wood. You ran after her.’
He sat back. ‘Afterwards you ran back to your car, jumped in and made for home.’
Throughout it all Clayton had sat in trembling silence, slowly, ceaselessly, shaking his head. When the Chief had finished he made no reply but continued to shake his head.
The phone rang suddenly on his desk. He made no attempt to answer it. The sound went on. He suddenly reached out and lifted the receiver for an instant, silencing the instrument.
Kelsey glanced at his watch. Time to be getting back to the station. And he had an appointment later in the afternoon with the Social Services in Cannonbridge. He got to his feet and stood looking down at Clayton, who made no move.
‘Any time you feel like changing your story,’ Kelsey told him, ‘get in touch. Any time, day or night. We’ll be ready to listen.’
Kelsey’s appointment at the Social Services department was with the senior officer in overall charge of Karen’s case after she had left Wychford and gone to live at Overmead. Also present was the young female social worker who had been responsible under his direction for visits and reports. She struck Kelsey as conscientious, dedicated to her work.
She had called at Jubilee Cottage on a number of occasions, had satisfied herself that Karen was settling in well, there were no problems. Her last visit had taken place eight days before Karen’s death. She had called in the evening, had spoken to both the Wilmots as well as to Karen.
‘She was very happy at the college,’ she told the Chief. ‘She liked the course, she felt confident of doing well. I asked if she had any difficulties with either of the Wilmots but she said far from it, they were both very kind, very helpful and supportive.’
Neither she nor the senior officer seemed at all surprised or disconcerted when Kelsey told them he knew for a fact that Karen had had some contact with Paul Clayton in recent weeks. The department had no record of either of the Lorimers having at any time attempted to contact the girl.
Kelsey asked what the financial arrangement was between the department and the Wilmots.
‘They were paid the usual fostering allowances,’ the senior officer told him. ‘In exactly the same way as her previous foster parents were paid. The fact that Karen was related to the Wilmots didn’t affect the allowances.’
He turned a page in his file. ‘Wherever possible the department looks to the parents to reimburse at least some of these expenses. In Karen’s case the trust fund paid over agreed sums to the department for her maintenance.’
Kelsey sat up. ‘Trust fund?’ he echoed.
‘Yes. Her father set the fund up for her. I don’t know the details but I’m sure her father’s solicitor, Mr Spedding, over in Okeshot, would tell you anything you wanted to know. He’s a trustee, as well as being one of Karen’s guardians. My impression is that Karen would have come into a very nice little nestegg later on.’