Lloyd. Mickey Drake didn’t think he could ever call him Lloyd. It seemed all wrong, calling a senior officer by his surname. But it was true that everyone else did. He’d heard Jack Woodford call him Lloyd – even Judy did. He had some sort of hang-up about his first name. Anyway, you never knew where you were with the man. All pals one minute, and ordering you home like a stray dog the next. Still, he seemed all right. And he had warned him that he pulled rank when it suited him.
He pulled the phone across the desk, and dialled Malworth.
‘DCI Hill, please,’ he said.
‘Judy Hill.’
‘I’ve just come back from the lab,’ he said.
‘Oh, good. What happened?’
Mickey didn’t know what she had been expecting to happen, ‘He picked up the car,’ he said.
‘What did he do?’ she asked.
Mickey gave a short sigh out of earshot of the phone. ‘He got in and drove it away, ma’am.’
‘Don’t you start,’ she warned him.
‘Call me Judy,’ had been the first order she had given him, when they had worked together. That had proved to be a whole lot easier than calling the chief inspector Lloyd. He smiled. ‘Sorry, but I don’t know what else you want me to say. He just drove it away.’
‘But it was locked, wasn’t it?’
Mickey ran a hand over his face. ‘ Yes,’ he said. ‘Sorry. He unlocked it, got in and drove it away. Ma’am.’
‘What with?’
Mickey frowned. A key. What did people usually unlock cars with? His mouth opened slightly. A key. He closed his eyes.
‘Does the dead silence mean you’ve stopped being sarcastic?’ she asked.
‘He had a key to it,’ said Mickey. ‘ On his key-ring.’
‘And she didn’t. The garage had her key – that’s the one under the seat, that Mr Austin didn’t need to use, because he’s got one on his ring. I’ve got Lloyd’s on my ring – he’s got mine, though God knows why. He’d sooner crawl through broken glass than use my car. But most people with two cars do.’
‘Do you think he actually used her car, then?’
‘Oh, I’m sure he used it,’ said Judy.
There was a minor hubbub outside the office, and Mickey half rose, craning his neck to see through the glass partition to the desk. ‘Good God,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Tasker’s just walked in with Mervyn the Mouthpiece.’
‘Who?’
‘Beale’s solicitor. He’s reasonably straight, though. But he’s good. And very, very expensive, so Tasker must be in good with Beale.’
‘Whatever you have to do, Mickey, keep Tasker there until I get there,’ she said.
‘That shouldn’t be too difficult,’ said Mickey. ‘I think Mr Tasker’s going to be with us for some time.’
Lloyd had now joined Tasker and Mervyn, looking heartily relieved to see Tasker all in one piece. As they were being taken into an interview room, Mickey relayed Judy’s message, and her belief about Mrs Austin’s car.
He didn’t seem even to be listening. ‘ Right. I’ll go in first – you come in after about quarter of an hour, and ask anything you think is relevant. I’m assuming that the high-powered legal advice means that we’ll have plenty to discuss with Mr Tasker.’
Lloyd went off, and Mickey twiddled his thumbs for fifteen minutes, whiling away the time rehearsing informal conversations that began ‘Lloyd, I’ve been thinking …’ He still couldn’t imagine it. He’d have to settle for not calling him anything. When the time was up, he knocked on the door, and joined the grim-looking tableau.
Mervyn was being smooth and conciliatory. ‘ My client was alarmed, Chief Inspector. That’s why he … went to ground. He has explained that he was worried that he would be implicated in this crime.’
‘He is implicated in it,’ Lloyd said.
‘Look,’ said Tasker, leaning over the table towards him. ‘I haven’t killed anyone. Why would I want to kill her? We’d arranged to meet the next day. At her studio – she was … she was going to see me again.’
‘Her studio?’ queried Lloyd.
‘Yes.’
‘You didn’t go there,’ he said. ‘ We were there all day, Mr Tasker.’
Tasker looked a touch desperate. ‘No,’ he mumbled.
‘Why not? Because you knew there was no point?’
‘No!’ He saw Mickey for the first time, and sighed. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said.
Mickey smiled, and sat down. ‘ Yes,’ he said. ‘ It’s me.’
‘This is Detective Sergeant Drake,’ said Lloyd to Mervyn.
Mervyn stood up and shook hands. ‘How do you do, Sergeant Drake.’ he said, smiling, and sat down again.
‘Detective sergeant?’ said Tasker. ‘You’ve done all right for yourself.’
Mickey still smiled. ‘You haven’t answered the chief inspector’s question,’ he said. ‘ Why didn’t you go to the studio?’
‘I was busy.’
‘Doing what?’
‘None of your business,’ said Tasker.
Mervyn fixed him with a stare, and Mickey watched interestedly as Tasker wilted under it.
‘I just changed my mind,’ said Tasker. ‘ It didn’t seem such a good idea next day.’
Lloyd sat back, tipping the chair back, rocking gently on its back legs. ‘Why are your fingerprints on the Austins’ phone?’ he asked.
Tasker glanced at Mervyn before he spoke. ‘The phone was ringing when we got to the door,’ he said. ‘ She went in to answer it, and I followed her in. I – I stopped her picking it up.’
Lloyd let the chair fall forward with a thump. ‘You certainly did,’ he said.
‘No! I just stopped her … I wanted to say goodnight.’
Lloyd raised an eyebrow. ‘A very permanent goodnight,’ he observed.
‘I never touched her!’
‘Oh – you just said goodnight. Hardly worth stopping her answering the phone, was it?’
Mervyn was watching Tasker like a cat; Mickey got the odd feeling that Tasker was on his own in here. Mervyn was on their side.
‘I don’t mean that,’ Tasker said miserably. ‘I mean I didn’t hurt her.’
Constable Merriwether was writing, and Tasker looked over at him. ‘I just kissed her goodnight,’ he said. ‘You make sure that’s what you put down!’
‘When did she remove her wedding ring?’ Mickey asked.
He shrugged. ‘Before I saw her,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know! She said she was angry with herself.’
Lloyd rocked gently back and forth. Mickey hoped the chair legs held out. ‘Someone else was angry with her too,’ he said. ‘Who, do you suppose?’
Tasker looked at Mervyn again.
‘My client really doesn’t have any knowledge of that,’ said Mervyn.
‘But he must have thought about it,’ Lloyd said. ‘If he didn’t kill her. She died minutes after you left her, Tasker. The place was practically demolished – you disappeared off the face of the earth.’
Mickey saw Tasker begin to understand what he was getting at. Mervyn, who had understood all along, was tense, still watching Tasker as though he could pull his strings. Lloyd’s chair waited in suspended animation, and Mickey held his breath.
‘You think I saw someone,’ said Tasker. He shook his head, ‘ I didn’t, I’d have killed him, believe me.’
Mickey did. Lloyd relaxed, and resumed the rocking.
‘I reckon her old man was in there all the time,’ Tasker said. ‘Watching us.’ He looked down at the table. ‘She was surprised the flat was in darkness. She thought he’d be in. I think he was.’
Lloyd tipped the chair way, way back, as he thought. It was all for show, as though this was a wholly new concept, and not one that Judy Hill had been putting forward for some time.
‘It was a bit dangerous, wasn’t it?’ he asked, after a moment.
‘Getting close enough to see the flat, if she thought her husband was home?’
Mickey smiled inwardly at the sodden Welshness, normally only just apparent.
‘I made her let me walk up with her,’ said Tasker.
Mickey waited for the chair to fall forward dramatically, but it didn’t. It remained, precariously balanced on its back legs, while Lloyd looked up at the ceiling.
‘Made her?’ he asked, his voice light.
Tasker sighed again. ‘I was worried about some nutter in a car.’
‘A nutter in a car? Where did he suddenly spring from?’ asked Lloyd.
‘Well – we’re at the old post office, and this bloke comes in a car and just sits and watches us.’
Lloyd glanced at Mickey. ‘Ah, that car,’ he said. ‘We know about that.’ Now he let the chair fall forward, but with much less force. ‘And that worried you, did it?’
‘He’d done it earlier,’ said Tasker. ‘ When we were outside the pub.’
Lloyd frowned. ‘ When?’
‘About ten minutes after we came out – about half past ten, or so.’
Mickey looked at Lloyd, barely shaking his head.
‘And he stopped and watched you that time too?’
‘He didn’t exactly stop the first time. Just slowed right down as he passed us. It bothered Lennie a bit.’
‘And then at the post office, you say it happened again?’
‘Only he stopped this time. And I didn’t want her walking up there alone.’
‘And that’s it, is it?’ said Lloyd. ‘That’s all you’re going to tell me? No make of car, no number, no description of the driver?’
‘My client has told you all he knows, Mr Lloyd,’ said Mervyn.
‘Yes,’ said Lloyd, getting up. ‘It was her husband, or this phantom in the car. Think about it, Mr Tasker,’ he said, indicating with a little jerk of his head that Mickey should also leave. ‘And think about Mrs Beale. My colleague will want to ask you some questions about her.’
Mickey met Judy Hill on his way out. Lloyd didn’t even acknowledge her, but went striding into his office, closing the door firmly.
Judy shrugged. ‘Is Tasker still here?’ she said.
‘In there, with his brief,’ said Mickey. ‘ But I don’t think you’d better go in until Mr Lloyd’s finished with him.’
‘I won’t,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen the mood he’s in.’
Mickey should have heeded her implicit advice, but he didn’t. He left her talking to the desk sergeant, and knocked on Lloyd’s door.
Lloyd was on the phone to an estate agent about some property he seemed fairly desperate to see. Presumably all was not well, after all. Perhaps he did stand a chance, he thought. But he was probably too young for her. Pity.
Lloyd put down the phone. ‘ I take it that it wasn’t you who saw them at the pub?’ he said.
‘No,’ said Mickey. ‘I was still on watch at the flats.’ He suspected that Tasker had invented the first incident, but Lloyd seemed to believe him.
‘So someone else was interested in them,’ he said.
Mickey frowned. ‘Maybe,’ he said.
Lloyd rubbed his eyes. ‘ Well,’ he said, ‘ did I catch sight of Mrs Hill?’
‘Yes – she’s waiting to talk to Tasker.’
‘Then she’d better get on with it,’ said Lloyd. ‘ Mervyn won’t let us keep him for ever.’
Mickey gasped. ‘You’re never letting him go, are you?’
‘Don’t have much option.’ Lloyd stood up, and reached for his jacket.
‘But he was there! His prints are all over the place – there’s a whole handprint on the phone! He isn’t even denying that he stopped her answering it.’
‘Quite.’ Lloyd banged his own hand down on his phone, making Mickey jump again. ‘So when did she answer it? While she was dodging a maniac who was trying to bash her brains out?’
Mickey sat down, and thought about what might have happened. ‘Maybe he did let her answer it,’ he said. ‘Maybe he got angry after that. Or maybe he answered it himself – afterwards.’
‘Maybe,’ said Lloyd. ‘And maybe he didn’t. The only motive anyone can come up with is sexual frustration – he’d be unlikely, I would have thought, to call her a whore in those circumstances. There are other much more apt names he could have called her. There is no evidence to suggest that there was any bad feeling between them – in fact mere is a lot of evidence to the contrary from the people in the pub.’
Mickey nodded.
‘And maybe, as Judy never tires of pointing out, Austin did it. Tasker’s suggestion is perfectly valid. Austin’s story is weak and uncorroborated, and doesn’t even hold up, because the car was at the garage. He could well have been in the house all along, with the lights out, watching them. Tasker and Mrs Austin even come in and say a passionate goodnight. It was too much for him, and as soon as Tasker left, he killed her.’
‘Do you think that’s likely?’ asked Mickey. ‘In view of his membership of the Apollo?’
‘I don’t think he would be too pleased to see his wife behaving like that in public – especially in view of his political aspirations.’ He closed and locked his desk drawer. ‘Perhaps it was Austin who saw them at the pub. You pays your money, and you takes your choice,’ he said.
‘The neighbours say that Austin’s car was there all evening,’ countered Mickey.
‘And Mrs Hill thinks he used his wife’s car. She could be right.’
Mickey nodded again. Austin’s behaviour had certainly been strange. And he could have taken his wife’s car. And he had also felt that knowingness that had bothered Judy when Austin rang her. He began to see what Lloyd meant.
‘Like I said, you pays your money. Reasonable doubt, Mickey. As long as they could both have been there, there is reasonable doubt.’
‘Isn’t that for the court to worry about, though?’
Lloyd sighed. ‘If a jury convicted someone in circumstances that I thought constituted reasonable doubt, I would not be happy. I’m not out to get a result. I’m trying to get at the truth.’
Mickey blew out his cheeks. ‘But – if it was an unsafe conviction it would get overturned. It’s not as though they hang them any more.’
‘No,’ said Lloyd. ‘Sometimes I wish they did.’
‘What?’ Mickey said, startled. ‘I’d never have had you down for a bring back hanging man.’
‘I’m not,’ said Lloyd. ‘I think it was utterly barbaric. But we’ve lost our way since we abandoned it. When a man’s life was at stake, reasonable doubt meant something. Now, juries seem to me to convict on possibilities.’
He sat on the desk as he warmed to his subject and Mickey knew that he had made a fundamental error in bringing the subject up.
‘How easy would a bent copper find it to get colleagues to alter statements and plant evidence on suspected IRA terrorists if someone was going to get hanged at the end of it?’ he asked.
‘Not very,’ agreed Mickey.
‘No. And the other side of the coin is that without the drama of death being the penalty, some judges seem to have forgotten that murder is a deadly crime. We send people to jail for not paying library fines and give wife murderers probation.’ He slid off the desk again. ‘If they don’t get to put a bit of black cloth on their heads, they can’t be bothered doing anything.’ He opened the door. ‘We abolished hanging, and I for one am heartily glad. But we failed to come up with anything to replace it. Now – I’m off out for an hour or so. If anyone wants me, too bad.’
Mickey watched him go, shaking his head. The day had started out so promisingly, too.
Call him Lloyd? He must be joking.
Steve Tasker sat opposite her, hands thrust in the pockets of his jeans, his face blank.
‘I’m investigating the death of Mrs Rosemary Beale,’ she said.
‘I had nothing to do with that!’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘And of course you don’t have to answer my questions. But you’re in trouble, Mr Tasker. I don’t think you killed Mrs Austin, but there are people here who do.’
‘My client wishes to co-operate with the police,’ said Mervyn. ‘He is as anxious to find the murderer of these ladies as you are, Chief Inspector.’
Judy liked being called Chief Inspector, but her heart felt a little heavy. Lloyd clearly didn’t want to know.
‘Are you anxious to know who killed them, Mr Tasker?’
‘Yes,’ he said simply, and Judy believed him, if only because it would let him off the hook.
‘Mrs Austin told people that you were making a nuisance of yourself,’ she said.
‘She wouldn’t have said that,’ said Tasker. ‘ I don’t believe that – who told you?’
‘Her husband.’
‘He’s lying.’
Yes, thought Judy. I know he is. But you have to help me, Stephen Arthur Tasker. ‘ Her friend said she wanted nothing to do with you.’
Tasker smiled, unexpectedly. ‘She didn’t want anything to do with me,’ he said. ‘She came to see me once when I was in prison, and that was to tell me what she thought of me. For what I’d done – for using her – she did want nothing to do with me. The trouble was, she fancied me something rotten.’
‘Fancied you? Or was in love with you?’
Tasker shook his head. ‘ I don’t go in much for that,’ he said.
‘But is it true?’
He dropped his eyes from hers. ‘I think so,’ he said.
‘Were you sleeping with her?’
‘You mean since I came out?’ He shook his head.
‘Why not?’
He smiled. ‘I know I’m a dead ringer for Tom Cruise,’ he said, ‘but I don’t always get lucky.’
‘Especially not with Mrs Austin?’
‘Chief Inspector – you did say you were investigating Mrs Beale’s murder?’ enquired the solicitor.
‘Yes,’ said Judy, not taking her eyes off Tasker. ‘She wasn’t into one-night stands, was she? Or cheating on her husband. If she had wanted to go back to you, that’s what she’d have told him. Not that she was frightened of you.’
Tasker’s eyes widened. ‘She didn’t say that! I don’t believe you.’
Judy shrugged. ‘That’s what I’ve been told,’ she said.
‘By Austin again.’
She didn’t answer, but picked up Tasker’s statement. ‘ It says here she was all for it,’ she said. ‘Arranged a clandestine meeting with you, even.’
Tasker looked desperately at Mervyn, but he seemed to have lost interest in his client. ‘She did,’ he said. ‘I’ve said why I didn’t go.’
‘You changed your mind,’ said Judy.
‘Can you think of any reason why I would want to kill her? She was great,’ he said, and his shoulders drooped a little. ‘She was great I … I can’t believe she’s dead. I can’t believe someone did that to her.’
‘But she didn’t want to have anything to do with you.’
He looked up. ‘She could have said no till the cows came home – I would never have hurt her. But she didn’t. She was going to meet me.’
‘But she had been saying no,’ said Judy.
‘Yes.’
‘So what made her finally say yes?’
He looked down at the table again.
‘Because you told her that her husband was gay? That he was just using her?’
Mervyn looked up sharply, suddenly interested.
Tasker, on the other hand, lifted his head slowly, giving her the blank stare that she knew so well. Which meant she was right.
‘But you hardly know the man,’ she said, countering his stare. ‘Just by sight. You’ve been out of circulation since before she met him. So how could you have known that?’
His face didn’t so much as flicker a response.
‘Because you worked as a driver for Rosemary Beale,’ she went on, answering her own questions. ‘ You’ve seen him. At one of her husband’s unsavoury establishments. You didn’t just tell Mrs Austin that her husband was gay – you told her that he was a regular at the Apollo.’
She stood up. Tasker’s eyes followed her movement, but he himself remained quite still.
‘How well did you know Rosemary Beale?’ she asked, using Lloyd’s trick of looking out of the window. The idea was to turn quickly, to catch a reaction that might escape the witness who was trying hard not to react.
No response.
‘Was it when you found out where Mrs Austin’s studio was that you went off the idea of meeting her?’
She turned then, and caught him as his eyes lost the blank look, for just an instant. He stiffened slightly, knowing he had given himself away; he wouldn’t do it again, so Judy sat down. He was involved with Rosemary Beale.
‘Do you know why Mrs Beale wanted to get into Austin-Pearce? Do you know why she wanted Gordon Pearce out? Do you know why she and Jonathan Austin were so interested in lorries?’
He turned to Mervyn. ‘Well?’ he said. ‘Do I still co-operate?’
Mervyn looked from Tasker to Judy, and lifted his shoulders in an elegant little shrug. ‘That’s what we are being asked to do.’ he said.
Tasker held his eyes for a moment, then looked back at Judy. ‘I haven’t done anything against the law,’ he said.
Judy picked up her notebook. ‘ Then it won’t do any harm to co-operate, will it?’ she said.
Tasker sat back. ‘I saw him go into the Apollo,’ he said. ‘I was interested, and then I found that he used a false name – and that just means one thing. So I told Rosemary who he was.’ He leant forward. ‘ That’s not against the law, right?’
‘Right.’
‘Then Rosemary comes up with this scheme.’ He smiled. ‘I don’t know if it would have worked – she thought it would. She had contacts, you see. In Europe and the near East – drug suppliers. The big fish,’ he said. ‘They ship it in from South America, and sell it to smaller fish who import it.’
‘And you are one of the scavenger fish who pick up the scraps,’ said Judy. ‘To sell on the street.’
‘I was,’ he said, not in the least offended. ‘I’m not involved in that now.’
‘No?’
‘Rosie wanted to bring it in – there’s a lot of money to be made.’
Judy’s eyebrow suggested that he should tell her something she didn’t know.
‘They search practically everything that floats – and they take lorries to pieces. But she said it was owner-drivers that they really went for. Because the owners could be bribed, or be drug-runners themselves. They didn’t pay so much attention to fleet lorries, with employee drivers. Especially not ones that had been operating for the last twenty years with a spotless record.’
Judy was writing it down, and he was speaking more slowly so as not to leave her behind.
He went on. ‘And Austin had a fleet of lorries, the nomination to stand at the next general election, and a guilty secret,’ he said.
Lloyd would love this. Judy began to see what Lennie saw in Stephen Arthur Tasker.
‘But nothing was going to happen until he got elected,’ said Steve. ‘ That was part of the deal. It suited Rosemary – she would have a couple of years to establish her credentials. If anyone was suspicious of her sudden interest in commerce, they’d have given up by the time it really got going.’
Judy looked up. ‘She was very sure he was going to be elected,’ she said.
Tasker smiled. ‘A staunch Tory, our Rosemary,’ he said. ‘But it didn’t really matter if he wasn’t. It would all have been very expensive, but she wasn’t spending her money on setting it up. It was his, or the firm’s. His own, I think. And I don’t imagine Rosie’s word was necessarily her bond. I think it would have gone ahead anyway.’
Judy nodded, ‘And what was your part in all of this?’
‘Nothing much. A few presents for tipping her the wink about Austin, the offer of a job – which I wasn’t going to take – and being in good with the Beales, which doesn’t hurt, as you’ve probably noticed.’ He looked pointedly at Mervyn as he spoke.
I’ll bet, thought Judy. She wondered how Stephen Arthur Tasker would have been if his life had taken a different turn.
‘And did you tell Mrs Austin all this, too?’
‘No. Just that he was queer.’ He sighed. ‘You won’t believe me, but it wasn’t just to change her mind. I thought she ought to know. I wish I’d kept my mouth shut now.’ He looked at Judy. ‘She told him she knew,’ he said. ‘She must have done. She must have threatened to divorce him, make it public.’
She sighed. ‘ Thank you for your co-operation,’ she said. ‘ It is very much appreciated. I’ll have your statement typed up, and once you’ve signed it, I’m told we won’t be needing you further today.’ She smiled. ‘You won’t do another disappearing act?’
‘He won’t,’ said Mervyn. ‘You can depend on it.’
In Lloyd’s office, she rang Malworth, and arranged to see the squad car crew who had answered the 999 to the Riverside Inn, complete with notes. That would worry them, she thought wickedly.
She went out to the car she had reluctantly hired that morning. It wasn’t too bad, she supposed, as it started first time, and blew refreshingly cold air at her. Perhaps she should get a new one. She drove round the town centre to the hotel, but Austin had left; he had gone home, she was told, so off she went to the Mitchell Estate.
Lennie’s car was parked by the garages at the side of the flats; Judy felt a lump in her throat as she pulled in off the road, and parked beside it.
‘He’s just gone out, dear,’ said the next-door neighbour as she prepared to knock. ‘He’s gone to see about his wife’s paintings. At the studio, you know.’
‘Ah,’ said Judy. ‘Thank you.’ She was turning to leave when she heard the voices upstairs.
‘You could move in on Monday, Mr Lloyd, if you’re that keen.’
The footsteps began to descend, and Judy illogically wanted to hide.
‘It’s much bigger than your present place – these old village flats were never really meant for two people. I’m sure you and your good lady will find the space invaluable.’
Lloyd’s good lady sprinted to her hired car, and blessed it for starting like it did as she shot off, back to Malworth, back to get on with her work and to push thoughts of leaving Lloyd’s lovely little flat right to the back of her mind.
What was he doing, looking at it without her, anyway? Was it supposed to be some sort of surprise? He had said he could afford one of them … he surely didn’t think she wanted to live there? But he did like surprising her. And he listened to things she said – if she had ever said she liked the place, or … oh, God. A new thought occurred to her.
Was he that upset? Surely not. But he had hardly spoken to her last night, and he was worse this morning. He was still in a filthy mood at the station. But she’d told him that she wouldn’t try for promotion if it bothered him that much. Of course that would just bother him even more, she knew that now. Maybe he thought the solution was to … leave her? No. No, that was just silly.
But this wasn’t the back of her mind, she told herself sternly, and walked into the station to find the two crew of the squad car sitting waiting for her, looking less than pleased at being dragged in when they were off duty.
‘My office, please,’ she said, and led the way.
She sat behind the desk, and looked up at them. ‘Have you got your notebooks with the entries on the call to the Riverside Inn on Monday night?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘What time did you arrive there?’
One of them glanced at the book, as though he hadn’t just written it all down when he knew he was being called in. ‘Ten forty-eight, ma’am,’ he said.
‘And how long were you there?’
‘About half an hour, ma’am. They took a bit of calming down. All hell was about to break loose – someone had insulted Beale’s wife, and you know what he’s like.’
‘And you prevented it,’ she said, with a smile. ‘Well done.’
They looked at one another, trusting her much less far than they could throw her, she was sure.
‘You called in to say that you were bringing Beale and the other man in at …’ She looked at her notes because she could never remember exact times and figures, not for show. ‘ Eleven seventeen,’ she said.
‘Ma’am.’
She sat back. ‘ Were the traffic lights against you?’
They frowned in unison; she liked that.
‘Were they?’ she said.
‘I don’t really remember, ma’am,’ said the driver.
‘Yes, you do,’ she said.
‘Yes, ma’am, they were.’ He sighed.
‘And did you run the red light, using your siren, even though it wasn’t an emergency?’ She tutted.
‘Am I getting done for jumping the red?’ he asked.
She smiled. ‘Just answer the question.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said crossly. ‘Everyone does it. You can get held up forever there – and there’s no traffic at that time of night.’
She sat back, her hands clasped behind her head. ‘So you used your siren at approximately eleven twenty p.m. on Monday, the 24th of June,’ she said.
‘Yes, ma’am. And if I’m on the carpet, shouldn’t I be speaking to Inspector Menlove rather than you? I don’t see why I can’t just get done for it like anyone else, anyway. Ma’am.’
‘Oh, you won’t be getting done for it,’ she said; forgiving the usual heavy emphasis on rank, the hostility, in her relief at being given the right answer. ‘Inspector Menlove doesn’t know or care. And next time we’re all in the pub, remind me to buy you a drink. Thanks for coming in – sorry to have spoiled your day off.’
They left, convinced she was off her trolley. The euphoria she had felt evaporated as she contemplated Austin. He was in Lennie’s studio, so she didn’t have far to go.
Sandwell knocked and came in, ducking under the door.
‘You really don’t have to,’ she said. ‘There’s a inch clearance, at least.’
‘You tell that to my forehead,’ he said. ‘Some builders like to fool you. I’ve just been told that one of the latents on the outside of the Beales’ front door can’t be identified.’ He sat down. ‘It’s not yours, or Drake’s, or either of the Beales’. It isn’t Tasker’s, or Austin’s – or Mrs Austin’s. They’ve spent hours trying to match it to any we’ve got and it isn’t on file, so it’s not likely to be one of Beale’s band of merry men. Anyway, they think it’s a woman’s.’
‘Yes,’ said Judy, a little grimly. At least it put her interview with Austin off for a little while. ‘I know whose print it is, Bob. And it’s time you and I went to see her.’
Pauline had expected Gordon back; he hadn’t wanted to go and look at Lennie’s paintings, and she had thought he wouldn’t stay. But he must have decided to get it over with. He didn’t want to do anything much at all, and mentioning Lennie’s name would be enough to make him go into a depression from which it seemed he would never recover. But it would lift a little, eventually, until the next time. He had been much better, until Jonathan had come to get him to pick what he wanted.
It was odd, his attitude to Lennie. It wasn’t like before, when Lennie could do no wrong, but it wasn’t mourning, either. It was as though he blamed himself for what had happened, and didn’t want to think about her. She didn’t like him hating Lennie’s memory like that. It wasn’t natural. Nothing had been natural since Monday night, and she felt as though it never would be again.
She wasn’t surprised to see Inspector Hill’s face on the security screen; she hit the button with resignation, and left the door open for her, as she would a member of her own family.
‘Mrs Pearce – I don’t know if you remember Sergeant Sandwell.’
‘Yes.’ Pauline nodded to him. ‘Please take a seat.’
The sergeant sat, but Inspector Hill didn’t, and that made Pauline a little uneasy.
‘Mrs Pearce,’ she said, ‘ can I suggest that this time we get the whole truth and nothing but?’
The courtroom terminology did nothing to make Pauline feel any better. And she wasn’t about to give guarantees.
‘You thought originally, that your husband had done some harm to Jonathan Austin,’ said the inspector. ‘You wanted to protect him, so you lied to us.’
She nodded, her head barely moving. This woman was moving in for the kill; she could see it in her face.
‘But you very soon knew that he had done nothing of the sort; Jonathan Austin was alive and well – Mrs Austin was dead. And not only would you never have suspected your husband of that in the first place, but he was actually with you when it happened.’
Right so far. Pauline sat down, opposite the sergeant, who had taken over the note-taking, she noticed. Or would have done, if she had said anything other than a asking him to take a seat.
‘So why did you continue to lie to us, Mrs Pearce? Why did you have to wait until your husband had confessed to these murders before you even began to tell us the truth?’
The word truth seemed to echo. Truth, truth, truth. She had never told lies. She had liked that about Lennie. Lennie was truthful. She hung about with people who would cut their grandmother’s throat, never mind tell lies, but Lennie herself was honest, and truthful, and Pauline had liked that. Jonathan Austin had said that she had told him she was frightened of Steve; that wasn’t true. Lennie wouldn’t have said that, wouldn’t have let him believe that. It was Jonathan she should be questioning. Who cared who killed Rosemary Beale?
Rosemary Beale had been everything Pauline hated. She lied and cheated and stole. She helped her husband run his sordid clubs and made money out of inadequates.
Truth. It still whispered in the air, as the inspector waited for an answer. Truth. What was so important about the truth? It wouldn’t bring Rosemary Beale back, and who would want to, anyway? Jonathan said Beale was cut up about it, but Pauline couldn’t believe that. He was just like Rosemary: hard as nails. She had modelled herself on Rosemary when the police had come that morning; it would seem that she wasn’t as skilful as Rosemary had been.
‘Would you be prepared to let us have your fingerprints for elimination?’ the sergeant asked mildly.
Pauline looked up. ‘Elimination?’ she said. ‘But I was just outside. The police were all there when I got there. I wasn’t in the Austins’ flat. Are you trying to prove that I was? The chief inspector says a woman couldn’t have done it anyway.’
‘No, Mrs Pearce,’ he said. ‘We are investigating Mrs Beale’s murder, not Mrs Austin’s.’
It was a trick. At least she knew not to fall for tricks. But you didn’t find any fingerprints in the Beales’ flat, that’s what they wanted her to say. ‘If you like,’ was what she did say.
‘You forgot the outside of the door, Mrs Pearce,’ said the inspector quietly. ‘Are you still as keen to let us have your fingerprints?’
Don’t panic. Stay calm. She stayed calm, but it really didn’t seem to get her anywhere. She supposed that was the thing about calm, really. It didn’t. They had found her fingerprints. That was almost funny.
‘You knew your husband had been hurt dreadfully by the Austins and Rosemary Beale,’ the inspector went on. ‘You thought he had done something to Jonathan Austin. You came home, you came up in the lift …’
‘Her door was ajar,’ said Pauline. ‘I was worried. I didn’t know what on earth was happening. And her door was open at almost midnight. I … just touched it, pushed it.’ She looked at the inspector defiantly. ‘I killed her,’ she said.
Inspector Hill closed her eyes briefly in annoyance. ‘No, you didn’t, Mrs Pearce,’ she said, her voice as patient as the gesture had been impatient. ‘But you cleaned up very thoroughly after the person who did.’
Pauline went to the window when they had gone. No police cars – presumably they wouldn’t park obediently in the side-street. But they might; they might want to be discreet, in an area like this. Gordon had been clever without knowing it. Confessing to a murder he hadn’t committed made them disbelieve the other confession. And of course he genuinely hadn’t known that all possible traces of his presence had been removed.
She sighed, and waited, watching for him being taken away. She hadn’t removed traces of her own presence. That really was almost funny.
Gordon couldn’t have picked paintings. He had caused all this; he just wanted to die, and Jonathan had wanted him to pick out paintings.
‘I really don’t know,’ he had said.
‘It’s just that I want to close up this place as soon as possible, and I want to give Beale whatever you don’t take.’
Gordon had looked away from the painting he was supposed to be considering, and stared at Jonathan instead. ‘Beale?’ he had repeated, incredulously.
‘I think they should go to someone who appreciates them.’
Gordon drove into the Austin-Pearce car park, thinking about the collection. Beale would appreciate them, all right.
‘But you must have whatever you want first,’ Jonathan had insisted. ‘However many you want. All of them, if you like. I just don’t want to have them, that’s all.’
He had let his feelings for Lennie blind him to everything; to what was happening to Pauline, to what was happening to Lennie herself. He had seen her with him. And he had known that she didn’t want to be with him. She had told him, three years ago.
‘Oh, Gordon, save my life, there’s a love. If you’re with me, he’ll just go away.’
And he had seen her, and all he had seen was perfidy and betrayal. He hadn’t made him go away. He hadn’t saved her life this time.
He had told Jonathan that he couldn’t pick out paintings, not yet.
Jonathan had looked upset ‘ Oh – of course, I’m sorry. It was thoughtless of me … grief takes people different ways, I suppose. I just want to get it all over with.’
Grief. There hadn’t been time for grief. Just lies, and more lies, and wanting to die and being afraid to die.
He had barely got into his office when the phone rang to say that Chief Inspector Lloyd was there. He sighed. ‘Ask him to come in,’ he said.
He swivelled the chair round, and looked out at the sky. Silver grey, with a high blanket of cloud.
‘It looks as though the rain will stay off,’ Lloyd’s voice said.
Weather. Was he supposed to reply? Yes, it does look as though the rain will stay off. Not like last night – eh? Where were you in the thunderstorm? Let’s have an animated conversation about how loud the thunder was. Loud enough to waken the dead. And it had. The dead had visited Gordon.
‘Save my life, Gordon, there’s a love.’
‘Just a few points we have to clear up about your statement to us,’ Lloyd said cheerfully.
Gordon turned. His nonsensical statement? What could they possibly want to clear up?
‘You told us that you went to the factory at about five past ten on Monday night,’ said Lloyd. ‘And left about half an hour later.’
Oh, that statement. The fire. He had almost forgotten that. Had he said five past ten? He couldn’t remember all the lies.
‘But we know that it isn’t true,’ he said. ‘You altered the time that you went to the factory to accommodate two murders that you didn’t commit.’
So? He had set fire to the factory. He might have made a dog’s breakfast of it, but he’d done it, all the same.
‘Isn’t it?’ he asked, no longer caring what he was supposed to have done.
‘No. You sat in your car in front of the Austins’ flat for about twenty minutes, Mr Pearce.’
How did they know that? Gordon sighed. ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘So you didn’t storm off from Austin’s and set fire to the factory.’ He got up, and walked over to the wall.
My God, they didn’t even believe he’d done what he had done. ‘I set fire to it,’ he said. ‘I did.’
Lloyd looked at the Queen’s Award for Industry certificate for a moment, then turned round. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘ We know you did. You left lots of evidence. But you didn’t do it then and there. Something else happened. What made you do it, Mr Pearce?’
Lennie. ‘Save my life, Gordon, there’s a love.’
Sorry, Lennie. I’d rather set fire to a factory.
‘Something pushed you over the edge, Mr Pearce.’
No. He pushed her over the edge. He left her there with that man. He looked away. ‘I saw her,’ he said ‘ I saw her with him.’
‘Who?’ asked Lloyd.
‘Lennie. With that man.’
‘Steve Tasker?’
‘I don’t know. I never knew his name. She didn’t tell me about her boyfriends. But he lived with her for a little while. About three years ago.’
‘Where was she when you saw her with him?’
‘At the Red Lion – oh, that’s not what it’s called now. You know where I mean.’
He had had her pinned against the wall. Why couldn’t he have seen what was going on? Why did he assume that she was a willing participant?
‘He’d pestered her before,’ said Gordon.
‘When was that?’
The question was sharp; he looked at Lloyd for the first time since he’d started asking about Lennie.
‘Then,’ he said. ‘Three years ago. He left her – or was kicked out, I don’t know which. Anyway, he’d gone. But he must have come back, because she kept trying to avoid him. She’d ring me up, ask me to go round there. If he saw my car he wouldn’t come in, she said. She was frightened of him. I knew that at the time. But on Monday night, I thought … I thought I had been used. I thought she had just … I could have stopped. I didn’t stop. I saw them, and I drove away. She was frightened of him, and I just left her there with him.’
He could see them again in the headlights. She must have been trying to get away from him, but he had just seen a courting couple, and then seen that it was Lennie. And he hadn’t saved her life.
‘I … I thought she was enjoying it,’ he said. ‘ I got angry. And I came to the factory, and tried to burn it down.’ He looked round. ‘See how successful I was,’ he said.
‘What time did you see them?’
‘It must have been about half past ten,’ he said miserably.
‘Thank you, Mr Pearce,’ said Lloyd, standing up. ‘You should know something, though; Tasker didn’t leave Mrs Austin. He wasn’t thrown out, either. He was arrested at dawn one morning.’
‘Oh. Might have known.’
‘He was taken into custody, held on remand, and served a prison sentence. He was released two months ago, Mr Pearce.’
At first, Gordon didn’t see the significance, then his eyes widened. ‘He was in prison?’
‘All the time. Tasker wasn’t pestering her. She wasn’t scared of him, Mr Pearce.’
‘Perhaps she should have been,’ Gordon said.
‘Perhaps. But she wouldn’t have thanked you for intervening. She probably was enjoying it, and you couldn’t have prevented what happened.’
Gordon could have kissed him. He contented himself with standing up, and grasping warmly the hand that was being offered to him. ‘Thank you, Mr Lloyd,’ he said.
‘And Mr Pearce,’ Lloyd said, ‘ you and your wife could try telling one another the truth.’
Gordon waited in his office, looking down on the car park until he saw the chief inspector drive away, then he told his secretary he wouldn’t be back, and followed suit, driving back to Malworth.
He keyed in his number, and pushed open the door. Hadn’t he told Pauline the truth? He thought he had. ‘Pauline?’ he said, almost afraid, as he entered the flat. Please don’t be Barbara Stanwyck, he thought. Please. Please, just be Pauline.
She didn’t answer; he walked through to the sitting-room, and found her looking out of the window, as she had been on Monday night. A lifetime ago.
She looked round. ‘Did you miss her?’ she said.
‘Who?’
‘The inspector. She knows, Gordon.’
That’s it, Gordon, old son. That’s where telling the truth comes in. All this cryptic chat about who’s done what and what who knows. Try asking, Gordon. Try talking to the woman. She’s your wife.
‘Knows what?’ he asked.
Pauline seemed almost startled by the directness of the question. Flustered – embarrassed, even.
‘Knows what, Pauline?’ he asked.
‘She knows I cleaned up next door after you.’
‘Cleaned up after me?’ he said.
Pauline’s eyes were blank. Slowly, he could see them come back to life, realise her mistake.
They stared at one another.
‘You thought I’d killed Lennie,’ she said, in self-defence.
He flushed. My God. What had they done?
‘Oh, Gordon,’ she said, after a long, long time. ‘We’re in terrible trouble. They’ll charge us with God knows what all.’
‘Yes,’ he said, finding himself smiling for the first time in what seemed like years. ‘Arson.’
‘Whatever you call interfering with the scene of a crime,’ said Pauline.
‘Interfering with the scene of a crime, I think,’ said Gordon.
‘Making false statements.’
‘Wasting police time.’ ‘Accessories, maybe,’ she said. Gordon blinked. ‘Accessories to what?’ he asked. ‘I might be an accessory to murder.’ Gordon thought about that. ‘ Yes,’ he said. ‘You might be. I think
we should talk to a solicitor.’
Pauline smiled. ‘I think we should,’ she said, coming into his
arms.
The desperation was gone. The hurting was gone. Barbara
Stanwyck was gone. Poor Lennie was gone, but it hadn’t been his
fault. He still had his business, his wife and his baby. And he would
gladly go to prison as long as they were all there when he came
out.
She had caught him just as he was going to leave the studio. Appeared from nowhere. She had offered her sympathies, talked a little about Leonora. But a detective sergeant had come in with her, so it wasn’t a duty call by a friend; it was a duty call by a police officer.
‘You know,’ he said, ‘I’m sure Leonora would have wanted you to have a painting – if there’s one you particularly like …’
Judy shook her head. ‘Lennie knew I was a philistine,’ she said.
Jonathan put down the one he had been holding. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘So am I, I’m afraid.’
Judy was very withdrawn, very cool.
‘I was sorry to hear that you and Michael had split up,’ he said.
She smiled coldly. ‘I think we’re both better off,’ she said.
‘Probably.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Have you found this man yet?’ he asked.
‘He’s been interviewed,’ she said.
Jonathan couldn’t believe what she had said. ‘Interviewed?’ he repeated. ‘Does that mean you’ve let him go?’
She walked a little way into the room, looking at the paintings round the walls with the same slightly puzzled attitude that he did himself; Beale hadn’t been like that. His eyes had lingered, as they might over a beautiful woman.
‘Have you let him go?’ he asked angrily, walking up to her, catching her arm, making her turn towards him.
The sergeant took a step towards him, but she shook her head very slightly, and he stepped back again, close to the door.
‘We have interviewed him,’ she said. ‘And we’ll interview him again, if necessary.’
‘And meanwhile he kills someone else?’
‘We can’t prove anything,’ she said.
Jonathan felt his face grow red. ‘You could charge him anyway,’ he said. ‘At least you’d have him while you got proof!’
‘It doesn’t work like that, Mr Austin,’ said the sergeant.
Jonathan let Judy go and turned towards him.
‘If we charge someone, we can’t ask him any more questions,’ Sandwell said. ‘And asking questions is how we get answers.’
‘No! He’ll just lie to you – for God’s sake, you must know that.’
‘All the better, sir. When people start lying, that’s when they’re vulnerable.’
Jonathan knew that. ‘But he’s a maniac,’ he said. ‘Did you see my flat?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Did you?’ He turned back to Judy.
She dropped her eyes; she didn’t have to answer.
‘He’s a maniac, Judy!’
She looked up again. ‘ Whoever did it, yes,’ she agreed. ‘ But we don’t know that it was Tasker.’ She walked over to another painting, and was looking at it when she spoke again. ‘It could just as easily have been you,’ she said.
Jonathan nodded. ‘That’s what you’ve thought all along,’ he said. ‘That’s why you just walked away that night’ He took out his cigarettes. ‘ You don’t like me, do you?’ he said.
‘It’s hardly relevant, sir. Mrs Hill isn’t investigating your wife’s murder,’ said Sergeant Sandwell.
‘No?’ Jonathan lit a cigarette. ‘Then she can answer the question.’
Judy turned. ‘I’ve never thought about it one way or the other, Jonathan,’ she said. ‘I don’t know you very well.’
‘No. You don’t. And you think I didn’t care about Leonora, and you are wrong.’ He made to put the packet away, and then remembered that she smoked. ‘ Sorry,’ he said, offering her one.
She shook her head.
‘You think I did it’ he said. ‘You think I could do something like that to Leonora. Whoever did that hated her!’ he said, his voice rising.
‘Tasker didn’t hate her,’ Judy said.
‘No – but if he loved her – don’t you see?’
‘I don’t think he loved her. She loved him.’
She said it like a statement of fact. Loved him? No. No, she was wrong.
‘But I think you’re right about one thing,’ she said. ‘ I think it was someone who loved her.’ She took a step towards him. ‘Maybe loved her enough to block it all out,’ she said.
Gordon? Was that what she meant? Oh, no, surely not. No. Gordon’s love was devotion, not passion. It was passionate love that turned to passionate hate, not Gordon’s kind of love.
‘Perhaps we’re dealing with someone who simply doesn’t know he did it.’
Jonathan frowned. ‘ Who?’
‘Someone who isn’t certain what he was doing at the time. Whose story doesn’t really make much sense.’
Slowly, he realised. ‘Me?’ he said, aghast, jumping to his feet. ‘Me? You can’t believe that!’ He brushed away the sergeant, who was attempting to restrain him. ‘ I’m not going to attack the woman!’ he said. ‘But don’t you think more attention should be being paid to what Leonora was doing?’
‘You’ve been very keen on that line all along, haven’t you, Jonathan?’ said Judy. ‘There was a belief that you might even have known what she was doing. Seen her doing it. But that wasn’t it at all was it? You just didn’t want us to enquire too closely into what you were doing.’
‘Because I’d lost my reason and killed Leonora without being aware of it?’ he said. ‘ That is sheer nonsense. And I know exactly what I was doing when Leonora died.’
‘So do I, Jonathan,’ said Judy. ‘So do I.’
He froze, just for an instant.
‘You left the flat at ten thirty,’ she said, ‘and went to fetch Lennie’s car, like you said.’ She walked slowly two paces to the next picture, and looked at it as she spoke. ‘But what you didn’t say was that you did pick it up. Using the key that’s on your key-ring right now.’
His hand automatically went to the pocket with his keys in it, as though he could magic the key away; she turned just as it did so. Michael had once told him that he mustn’t be fooled by the big brown eyes. Those eyes looked frankly into his now.
‘You thought Lennie was in her studio – that’s where she went before when you’d had a row. Or perhaps visiting Pauline Pearce – you told Chief Inspector Lloyd that you thought she might have been doing that. You got a bit confused about what you thought.’
He drew on the cigarette, and sat down again.
‘You went to pick her up. You felt badly about not doing what she’d asked, and about what you’d just done to Mr Pearce. You thought if you picked her up, that might help smooth things over.’
Jonathan tried to look relaxed, being reminded idiotically of the selection interview; he’d sat back then, answering their questions about why he’d be good for Stansfield, winging it a lot of the time when it got down to local issues of which he knew very little. He could do that; he could. And he hadn’t even been able to smoke in front of the selection board, so this shouldn’t be so difficult.
‘I think you probably got stopped at the traffic lights,’ she said. ‘But I’m just guessing about that. And what I think you saw was Rosemary Beale, walking home alone. Alone. No Frank, no minders, no driver. Alone, and vulnerable, just like any other woman is when a man is determined to kill her.’
He flicked ash to the floor. ‘Kill her?’ he said. ‘ Do you still believe these ridiculous rumours?’
‘No, Jonathan. I know they’re not true. I also know about David Morris.’
At the selection interview, they had asked him if there was anything in his background that could embarrass the party. No, he had laughed. Nothing that he could recall. He laughed now.
‘Who?’ he asked.
‘I know how she forced her way on to the board, and I know why she did. I’ve got a statement from a witness, Jonathan. And I know what it did to Gordon Pearce when she forced you to kick him out of his own company, his own business – his life. And so do you. That was what was in your mind when you saw her. Gordon Pearce.’
She could be crediting him with a little more compassion than he possessed, he thought. Yes, Gordon had been in his mind. Yes, it had been the most difficult thing he had had to do. But what had been uppermost in his mind was the certainty that it would not end when he got into parliament. Then Rosemary would have an MP in her pocket, and she’d think of some good use for him. The endlessness. That was what was in his mind. More Gordon Pearces, more and more.
‘You drove to the flats, and you saw the light on in here, so you knew where Lennie was, you thought. You parked in the private car park, using one of the Beales’ spaces, since they only needed one. No danger of being moved along, or creating trouble. You got out, and waited in the shadows. I expect that’s when you worked out what you were going to do afterwards.’
He dropped the cigarette to the floor and stood on it, simultaneously reaching into his pocket for the packet.
‘And she arrived, in due course. But things started to go wrong there, really. Because she turned and walked back out again.’
His hand paused for an instant with the cigarette halfway to his lips. Had they been watching him? How had she known that?
‘You’ve only visited these flats once before, Jonathan,’ she said. ‘Gordon Pearce brought you here. They don’t like cars parked in their spaces, and Frank Beale’s Rolls needs two. Rosemary did what any right-thinking Andwell House tenant would have done. She came marching round here to tell Lennie to get her car out of Frank’s space.’ She moved again, to the next picture. ‘If I have a favourite,’ she said, ‘this is it.’
It was called Self Portrait, but it didn’t look remotely like Leonora; it was a strange, double image of a woman with wild hair. Judy could have it, if she wanted.
‘But she found that this place was empty. So then she was probably very puzzled. Lennie’s car in the car park, the light in the studio, and no Lennie. She went back, and let herself in with her card. That door takes a long time to close, and you took advantage of that to slip in behind her. No camera, no record of your presence.’
He lit the cigarette, and blew the flame of the lighter out.
‘Then she made things very easy for you. She left the door unlocked, and she went straight to the phone. She phoned Lennie, not unnaturally, to find out what had happened. An opportunist murder,’ she said. ‘That’s what it looked like to one of my colleagues. He was right.’ She smiled. ‘He always is,’ she added ‘He was right about a lot of things.’
He had had to do it. She would never have stopped. He couldn’t have borne to be Rosemary’s performing monkey for the rest of his life. And the other option was just too dreadful to contemplate. Disgrace; prison, quite possibly. He released smoke into the room, on to the paintings. He would have to contemplate it now.
‘You left. I don’t think you bothered about fingerprints. What you were going to do was establish that you were somewhere else altogether, so it would never occur to anyone to ask for your fingerprints.’
But they had, because of Leonora, and he had thought it was all over. He hadn’t understood why it wasn’t, but he hadn’t given himself away. And he wasn’t so sure that any of this actually constituted a case against him.
‘You had my new telephone number,’ she said. ‘And I was perfect. A police officer. A reasonably senior police officer of good character. So you rang me, asking if I’d seen Lennie. She wasn’t home yet, you said. I would assume that you were at home. You knew Lennie wasn’t – she was in her studio, or so you thought. So she couldn’t mess up your alibi.’
Had she actually said anything that she could prove, that was the thing. Jonathan wasn’t convinced that she had. And she hadn’t even cautioned him.
‘While you were on the phone, a police car ran the red light, using its siren. Remember? No police car did that on the Mitchell Estate, Jonathan, or anywhere in Stansfield. No traffic lights. But one did it here. While you were in the phone-box. I heard it. Then you drove the car back, left it where you had found it, this time taking care to wipe its surfaces, and walked home. To find that Lennie hadn’t been in her studio at all. She had been murdered too.’
He brushed some fallen ash from his jacket. He didn’t want to think about that. Not any more. Thinking about it didn’t bring her back, it didn’t get that lunatic off the streets. And Judy Hill wasn’t even interested in Tasker. Too busy trying to get him.
‘I don’t know that that constitutes proof of murder,’ he said.
‘It’s enough to take you in for questioning,’ said Judy. ‘Just as my information on Rosemary Beale’s blackmail is enough to take Beale in for questioning.’ She looked over at Sandwell. ‘I think you should make arrangements to take Mr Beale in, sergeant’ she said.
‘Yes, ma’am.’ Sandwell left.
Judy smiled at Jonathan. ‘I’ll have to let him go, of course,’ she said, with a rueful smile. ‘I’m assuming that I don’t need squad cars and uniforms to take you in, but I can soon get them if necessary.’
Jonathan rose slowly. ‘No, no,’ he said. ‘I’ll come quietly. But I think you’ll probably have to let me go too,’ he said.
‘Probably. Unless you make a statement of your own accord. We do have forensic evidence – it might place you at the scene, or it might not. But you’d be better making a statement. She was blackmailing you, which should be a quite powerful plea for mitigation. Shall we go?’
Jonathan stared at her. They couldn’t go now; Beale would see him. And they would have questioned him about the blackmail. He would know. He would know.
‘You can’t do this!’ he said.
‘Can’t do what? I’m not doing anything except taking a suspect in for questioning.’
‘You’d have to give me some sort of protection!’
‘Who from?’ She looked puzzled.
‘You know damn well who from! Beale! He’ll see me – he’ll know she was blackmailing me!’
‘But if you didn’t murder his wife, why would you need protecting from Frank Beale?’ she asked.
He sat down again, the prospect becoming clearer and clearer.
‘He’d have me killed,’ he said, his voice hardly audible. ‘You know he would.’
‘All I can guarantee, Jonathan, is that the state won’t have you killed.’
My God. Don’t be fooled by the big brows eyes. He stood up again. ‘Isn’t this duress?’
‘I didn’t say Frank Beale would kill you,’ she said. ‘ You did.’
Jonathan ground out his cigarette. ‘I just hope you’re as clever at finding Leonora’s murderer,’ he said.
‘People keep making that mistake,’ she said. ‘I’m not investigating Lennie’s murder, Jonathan. I never was.’
‘That’s all right, Mrs Sweeney, well see ourselves in.’
Steve heard Beale’s voice, and wondered a little about the plural. He didn’t have to wonder long, as the door opened with a rush, and Frank plus two heavies stood in the doorway.
‘Stevie,’ he said, walking in.
Stevie was bad. The other two came in behind him, one of them closing the door quietly.
‘Frank,’ said Steve. ‘Mervyn said to tell her. She knew it all anyway – she just had to have it in writing, that’s all. I knew you’d be well out of it. They wouldn’t have anything on you.’
‘They didn’t, Stevie. As you see, I’m here. Free as a bird.’
‘So why the visit?’
‘I owe you money, Stevie. A fat bonus I said, and a fat bonus it is. You co-operated, and she got him. I told you I had faith in her.’ He reached into his pocket, and drew out a bulky envelope, tossing it on to the bed.
Steve picked it up gingerly, as though it might contain explosives. But it didn’t. Just at least a hundred used twenty pound notes.
‘That counts as small denomination these days, Stevie,’ he said. ‘I thought it would be more useful than larger notes.’
Steve put it back down on the bed, still moving carefully, still unhappy with the tone of the proceedings.
‘She had me taken in for questioning,’ Beale said, with a smile. ‘I knew she was good. Keeping me out of circulation until she had Austin safely tucked away where I couldn’t get at him.’ He took a huge cigar from his breast pocket, and bit the end off. Then he spent some moments lighting it. ‘ Can’t smoke them too often,’ he said. ‘Heart, you know.’
The expensive smell filled the room.
‘But I’m having one now because that young woman got him, even if I didn’t. Rosemary would have liked her,’ he said. ‘She’s got it up here.’ He tapped his temple. ‘But pulling a stroke like that left my boys here at a loose end,’ he said. ‘So we thought we’d visit you.’
Steve’s heart began to beat faster. Outside, there was just a chance of running. Here he stood no chance. But there was Mrs Sweeney, he thought, relieved. She’d call the police as soon as she heard anything going on.
‘Very nice woman, your landlady,’ said Beale.
Dear God, he could read minds.
‘Said to tell you that she was on her way over to her friend’s, but she’d be back at teatime. A young lady friend of mine is giving her a lift over there in the Rolls, as it happens.’
Steve didn’t speak, didn’t look at him. He breathed in cigar smoke, and waited.
‘See, Stevie, there was a good reason why they couldn’t tie me in with this crazy blackmail and drug-smuggling business. I didn’t know anything about it.’
Steve looked up then. ‘What?’
Beale shook his head ‘No,’ he said. ‘Nothing. Or I wouldn’t have made a fool of myself accusing Austin of having it off with Rosemary, would I?’
Steve hadn’t thought of that.
‘The brain, Stevie. You should use it now and then. I didn’t know about Rosemary’s plan – I’d have talked her out of it. She knew that, so she didn’t mention it. Thought she’d just show me how clever she’d been. Or maybe she wanted to be financially independent. Crazy. It would never have worked. But you knew, Stevie. She told you. Pillow talk, Stevie.’
Cigar smoke was puffed into his face as Beale bent down towards him. ‘Clever girl, Rosemary,’ he said. ‘ But she always wanted more than I could give her. Funny – a lot of women from her background get turned off, but I think with Rosemary it was a labour of love, if you see what I mean. She did stray, too often. So, when I take someone on to keep an eye on her, and she can’t stray without my knowing about it, she just has it off with him. I should have guessed. I really should.’
Steve didn’t dare breathe as Beale straightened up. A horn sounded, and he smiled. ‘ That’s my friend back with the Rolls,’ he said. ‘ I’m sorry, Stevie, but I really must be going now. I’d love to stay and chat, but you know how it is. My friends will be pleased to keep you company, though.’
Beale was gone; all that remained of his presence in the room was a pall of heavy, sweet smoke, two men whose combined ages didn’t reach his, and an envelope containing payment for their services.
‘Are you still worried about the reasonable doubt?’ Drake asked, as they turned into Queens Estate.
‘No,’ said Lloyd, slowing down at the turn into Lady Jane Avenue, glancing at the numbers of the houses.
‘Well, he is the only one left in the frame now,’ said Drake. ‘ It may be circumstantial, but Allison’s quite happy about it.’
‘He’s very strong on not having to prove motive,’ said Lloyd. ‘I’m happier when I understand why someone has done something.’ It had its number on the gate, nice and clear. He indicated to the following car.
‘She led him on, then didn’t want to know.’
Lloyd pulled up outside the little semi with its neat garden, and released his seat-belt. ‘No,’ he said. ‘ That wasn’t the motive.’
Drake frowned. ‘You’ve got some new information?’ he asked.
‘No,’ Lloyd said. He looked back to see the squad car pulling in behind him, and two constables get out. ‘ Old information. Information we’ve had all along. Let’s go,’ he said, looking at the young man’s puzzled face.
They trooped up the narrow path; his finger was just about to push the bell when he heard sounds coming from the curtained room. He tried the door, but it was locked.
‘Round the back!’ Drake shouted to the other two, and then applied his shoulder to the door. It took several heaves, but the lock broke just in time to see one disappear down the corridor. The other, not as quick off his mark, was within grabbing distance.
‘Stop,’ said Lloyd, catching hold of him. ‘We’re—’
A fist smashed into his face, and sent him reeling backwards. He saw a boot, and closed his eyes, but the blow never landed. He got to his feet as Drake overpowered the youth, and bundled him towards the squad car, while the other two caught up with the one who had at least had the sense to give in gracefully rather than assault a police officer.
Drake was supervising their arrest; Lloyd rather shakily made his way into Tasker’s room, aware that Judy wouldn’t have been just as useful as Sergeant Drake had been on this occasion.
Tasker was kneeling on the floor, his hands on the bed, as he pushed himself into a standing position.
‘Do you need a doctor?’ Lloyd asked.
‘No,’ he said, checking his rib cage. ‘Where did the cavalry come from? They’d hardly got started.’ He was breathless, bleeding, and smiling. ‘ I never thought I’d be glad to hear the police smashing down my door,’ he said.
Drake came running back up the path, and into the room. ‘ Lloyd? Are you all right?’
‘Yes,’ said Lloyd. Thanks to you.’
‘You’ll have a black eye,’ said Tasker, then smiled at Drake. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said. ‘You’ve had a lot of experience of smashing doors down, of course.’
‘Do you want to be seen by a doctor?’ Drake asked.
Tasker frowned. ‘Now that sounds official,’ he said. ‘No, I don’t, thank you.’
‘What’s this?’ Drake picked up the envelope.
‘A present from Mr Beale,’ said Tasker. ‘ For helping the lady chief inspector to get Austin.’
‘He gives you money and then has you beaten up?’
Tasker shook his head. ‘ This had nothing to do with Mr Beale,’ he said, indicating his battered face.
Lloyd sighed. Beale was protected by some sort of guardian devil. ‘We could take you to the out patients,’ he said. ‘Have your ribs checked over.’
‘No thanks, Mr Lloyd.’ He took his money from Drake, and pulled a bag out from under the bed, wincing as he bent down. ‘I’m grateful for the rescue, but I’ll be on my way.’ He frowned. ‘Why are you here anyway? Did the old girl get suspicious and call you?’
‘Something like that,’ said Lloyd, ignoring the look that he knew he was getting from Drake. ‘Thank you for your help, Mr Tasker. Might I suggest that you look for less hazardous employment wherever you do go? And you will of course let the police and your probation officer know? It is a condition of your parole, and you may be required to give evidence.’
‘Already done, Mr Lloyd,’ he said. ‘ Just didn’t get on my way soon enough, that’s all.’
‘You’d have missed out on Mr Beale’s present,’ said Lloyd.
Tasker smiled.
Lloyd went out into the grey afternoon, and his face began to throb now that it understood that someone had punched it. No one had punched it since he had been on the beat, and it didn’t care for it at all.
Drake got into the car beside him, and Lloyd pulled away, on his way back to the station.
‘Lloyd,’ said Drake. ‘Don’t you think Mr Allison was expecting you to make an arrest?’
‘That’s all right, Mickey,’ said Lloyd. ‘I am making an arrest.
‘You’re not obliged to say anything, but anything you do say will be written down, and may be given in evidence.’
He was concentrating on the road. He couldn’t see the young man’s face.
‘I couldn’t understand,’ he went on, ‘how you had ever got on to the special course, never mind succeeded. Trying to revive a woman whom a child of two would have known was dead, touching things at the scene of the crime, being knocked for six because you’d seen a dead body. But you were knocked for six because you’d killed her, Mickey.’
‘Is this a joke?’
‘The last time your work went off it was a woman. A woman who made you give up smoking. Mrs Austin didn’t like her husband smoking.’
‘Lots of people don’t like smoking!’
‘True. But you know what was odd, Mickey? Pauline Pearce stopped seeing Mrs Austin – or Miss Hovak, as she then was – after Tasker was arrested. Because every time she went there, there was a police car outside the house. But we weren’t interested in Miss Hovak, were we? We didn’t charge her, we didn’t question her – Jack Woodford said if she hadn’t been in bed with the man when we went in, she would never have figured on the paperwork. So why was there always a police car outside, just when you started giving cause for concern? Just when you got involved with another woman?’
‘Coincidence.’
Lloyd prayed there would be no traffic hold-ups. He could feel the tension in the car; Drake would make a run for it if he had to stop, for all his bravado.
‘And the crack factory,’ said Lloyd. ‘Everyone told me it was impossible. There wasn’t any crack in Stansfield. And if there ever was, it wouldn’t be being made in an area like that. Oh, but I said, he’s been with the force drugs squad – he’s got good contacts. Let him try. If he spots anyone, then we’ll set up surveillance and all the rest.’
He was coming to the roundabout. One car, approaching from the right, but a reasonable distance away. He pressed down on the accelerator in a way that was foreign to his nature, approaching a junction, but he got on to it without having to stop.
‘I saw that flat today, Mickey,’ he said. ‘No crack factory.’
‘No – they’ll have moved out. I was spotted, that night. I was going to tell you, but all this … in fact,’ he said, ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t Tasker who spotted me.’
‘It very probably was, Mickey,’ said Lloyd. Two more roundabouts, and two pedestrian crossings, as he recalled. He’d just have to keep his fingers crossed, ‘He recognised you straight away today, didn’t he? As soon as you walked into the interview room. He has a better memory than you, it would seem.’
Drake didn’t speak, and the pedestrian crossing was winking in the distance.
‘You go to Crown Court to give evidence that’s going to send a man to prison for five years, and you don’t remember what he looks like?’
This time he slowed as he saw someone approach the crossing, and moved slowly towards it. Get on to it if you’re going to, for God’s sake, he thought. The pedestrian crossed, and Lloyd’s foot went back on the accelerator.
‘I found that very hard to believe, Mickey. So maybe Tasker did spot you – he was in the area. But that flat has never even had squatters in it. Developers these days look after their properties – they want to sell them, and it’s a buyer’s market. They can’t run the risk of squatters, and they don’t.’
Roundabout. Cars. If he could just edge his way on, just push out enough to inhibit the one with the right of way. A horn sounded angrily, but he’d made it.
One more roundabout, one more crossing, and he’d be at the station. He wasn’t convinced he’d hang on to him there, but he could park with the nearside tight against a wall.
‘No, you made it all up, so that you could spend time up there watching Mrs Austin. Talking to her. Calling on her. Alarming her enough for her to tell her husband. And to tell you that she knew your boss, and she could get you into trouble. Mrs Hill was your boss at the time, Mickey.’
Roundabout, empty. Almost there.
‘You wanted to be there in the evening. Three nights, you said. And the third night would be Wednesday, when she would be alone in the house, because her husband went to Barton on Wednesday evenings. But you didn’t make it to Wednesday.’
Silence, now. Just silence.
‘Tasker’s almost fifty – it wasn’t him she was afraid of. The one she was afraid of was young. She told Austin that she would have thought he would have grown out of it by now.’ He sighed. ‘But you hadn’t, because you’re an obsessive, aren’t you, Mickey? Sixty cigarettes a day, then you give them up because she asks you to, and become obsessed with her instead. When that gets too much for her, she starts avoiding you, and you throw your obsessive soul into your work, apply for the special course, come through it with flying colours. But then you came back here, and the old obsession took over again.’
Pedestrian crossing, people. He had no option. With great reluctance, he stopped the car.
Drake didn’t run. Lloyd didn’t look at him.
‘If there’s reasonable doubt about Tasker,’ Drake said, ‘then there’s reasonable doubt about me.’
‘No,’ said Lloyd, moving off again, the station in sight. ‘ Because in your case, we have a witness.’
‘Witness? Where did a witness come from all of a sudden? There’s only the next-door neighbour, and she saw nothing at all.’
‘Quite,’ said Lloyd, almost scraping the car against a wall as he brought it to a halt. ‘She saw nothing at all until the police car came.’
There was a silence.
‘But she should have done, Mickey. She should have seen you.’ He looked at him now; his face was deathly pale under the red hair, and he wasn’t looking at Lloyd.
‘She was at the window while the noises were going on, and she stayed there after they had stopped. According to you, you were walking towards the flats, getting the radio message. And you told them you were right outside, and ran into the flats. She couldn’t not have seen you, Mickey.’
He didn’t speak.
‘You were inside before the message ever came. It probably stopped you hitting her again. You answered the radio, then opened the balcony windows with the tissues you used to get your prints off the murder weapon. Then you scattered the others round. You had to say you had tried to revive her to account for the blood on your clothes. You had to say you’d pulled the furniture away, because you had. So that you could get at her.’
Drake wouldn’t look at Lloyd as he continued. ‘ It’s your story that doesn’t bear examination, Mickey. You left the flats at a few minutes after eleven, and you saw them at ten past. You were worried, turned round and came back. So how come a five-minute journey took you twenty minutes? If it had been Tasker – why would he wipe the murder weapon and not the phone? Whoever cleaned the murder weapon wanted Tasker’s prints found. We’ll ask the right questions this time, Mickey.’
He lifted his head slowly. ‘It wasn’t my fault,’ he said slowly.
Lloyd switched off the engine.
‘She wouldn’t have anything to do with me,’ Drake went on. ‘She was married, she said. I had to go away. She would tell her husband, she would tell Judy Hill – she couldn’t have anything to do with me, she was married now!’
His eyes blazed again, as his voice grew louder. ‘And then I see her with that … that scum. Someone who sells poison to school-kids, someone she said she would never have anything to do with again!’
His head dropped down.
‘I wasn’t sure, I wasn’t sure,’ he said. ‘ That’s why I went back. The door was open. I could hear her.’ He was shaking. ‘I picked up the ashtray, and went in. I saw them. I saw her. She was in there with him – I could hear her. Promising to meet him, saying she couldn’t wait! And the phone ringing all the time – she just let it ring while she let him—’ He shook his head. ‘It rang and rang … then he went, and she answered it, but there was no one there. I watched her. Looking at herself. Looking in the mirror at herself. Undoing her blouse, looking at herself. Pleased with herself. It wasn’t my fault. It was her own – it was …’
He broke down, and Lloyd waited for a moment before getting out of the car, and beckoning to two sergeants who were leaving the station.
‘Mr Drake is under arrest,’ he said, and went to report back to Allison, who would be less than pleased with his methods. A short wait, and a long, long interview. Partly on the carpet, partly being told he’d done a good job. A lot of stuff about the image of the force, a lot of mutual sympathy and regret.
At last, it was all over, and he could go home. His eye ached, and he felt weary and stiff, but he refused the offer of a car, and drove himself.
Judy met him at the door, examining his eye, making him sit down. She handed him a very large whisky.
‘I’ve got steak,’ she said.
‘I don’t think it does any good.’ He sipped the whisky.
‘It does if it’s rare, and served with onion, chips and peas,’ she said. ‘My speciality.’
He smiled.
‘Lloyd, why didn’t you tell me?’
He shook his head. ‘I couldn’t, I couldn’t tell anyone. I kept hoping I was wrong, though I knew I wasn’t. But I couldn’t accuse him of something like that, not even to you. I thought if we went out to Tasker’s, if he really thought someone else was going to get the blame, he might …’ He shrugged. ‘But he didn’t. Wishful thinking.’
‘When did you realise?’
‘Almost straight away.’ He took a much larger gulp of the whisky. ‘But it was just last night that I knew for certain.’ He smiled at her, a little sadly. ‘That’s why I was in a bad mood,’ he said. ‘He called her Lennie. Pauline Pearce called her Lennie – that was the first time I’d heard anyone call her that. But Drake wasn’t there, and he had never heard anyone call her that. He’d only ever spoken to Austin, and he always called her Leonora.’
Judy nodded. ‘ I always wondered why,’ she said. ‘Lennie hated it. But then Lennie’s a boy’s name – maybe he …’ She smiled. ‘ I’m getting as bad as you,’ she said.
‘I used your method. I looked at the facts we already knew in a different light. I stopped wishing the next-door neighbour had seen something, and realised what she hadn’t seen.’
‘Lennie took risks,’ Judy said, after a moment. ‘ She liked people who weren’t all that safe.’ She looked at him. ‘ I’m glad, in a way, that it was that risk that killed her. Not just because she happened to pick up a telephone.’
He knew what she meant.
Two hours later, they had finished their leisurely meal; Judy’s speciality had done the trick, as she had said it would, and Lloyd felt much better, as he tipped the last of the brandy into Judy’s glass.
‘I’ve lost my temporary promotion,’ she said.
‘I thought we didn’t discuss that at home?’
She smiled.
‘Still, it was a good way to lose it, from the career point of view,’ he said. ‘I owe you an apology. I really thought you’d lost your way.’
‘I owe you one. I really thought you were going to buy one of those flats.’
‘It was you, was it, speeding? I nearly took your number, but you were moving too fast.’ He took her hand. ‘I suggest we leave the washing up and go to bed.’
‘What a good idea.’ She got up from the table. ‘You can talk to me in French,’ she said.
‘No I can’t.’
‘Your mother was half French, and you don’t speak the language?’
‘My father’s wholly Welsh, and I don’t speak that either. I speak the most wonderful language in the world. English.’
Judy laughed. ‘Isn’t that treason, or something?’
‘Oh, yes. They’d probably blow me up. But English doesn’t need an Academy to make people remember to speak it, like French does. As for Welsh roadsigns – if you have to plug a language into a life support system, forget it.’
He put his arm round her as they walked into the bedroom.
‘A language should live,’ he said, kissing her ear. ‘It should breathe …’
‘Why did you never tell me?’ she said.
‘It should be pliant and responsive.’ He pushed her down on to the bed, his lips touching her temple, her eyes. ‘But complex, and not too easy to master.’
‘You talk about everything. All the time. Nineteen to the dozen. And you never told me you had French blood in your veins.’
‘You should want to explore it.’ He kissed her hair. ‘The deeper you delve into its mystery …’
‘You, the romantic, keep quiet about being one-quarter French, as though it was something to be ashamed—’ She broke off, and stared at him.
‘What?’ he said, sitting back. ‘You look so like a gun-dog that I want to give you a biscuit. What?’
‘It’s French.’
‘Forget it,’ he said, I told you there would be no supplementary information given. You produce names, and I will tell you if you are right, promise. But no—’
‘How did you know I was talking about your name?’ she asked, interrupting him in full flow.
He couldn’t believe he had fallen into so simple a trap. It was the blow on the head that had done it.
‘It’s French,’ she said smugly, then frowned. ‘But I’d have thought you would have liked a romantic French name. Michel, Jean-Claude, Pierre … so, it must be a dreadful French name.’
He started to undress.
‘But how would we know what sort of name qualifies as dreadful in France?’ she said. ‘It must be a name that means something in English. Or a name that we use in a quite different context from—’
‘I do the talking,’ he said, turning to her, kissing her before she could get any further with her exploration of language. It occurred to him, later on, that he had never made love to a chief constable either.
Perhaps he had that to look forward to.