Joan woke on Tuesday morning from one of those torturing dozes just before sunrise when the body tastes the sweet balm of sleep for a few minutes, having finally succumbed to exhaustion, only to have it snatched away. She was startled awake by the terrifying thought that Gordon or Olympia might know about her relationship with Hugh. Was that possible? Nobody in her family would have told them and she certainly hadn’t. Gordon was usually busy most days of the week in the city but Olympia might have spotted them together on Macleay Street or at one of the cafes they frequented. Hopefully, Hugh had been careful to keep their friendship hidden. If not, given what had happened to her and Bernice he too could be in grave danger. She needed to warn him as soon as possible.
She stopped in at the Cairo Guesthouse on her way to the tram stop on William Street. The night manager was at the front desk, presumably at the end of his shift, talking to a gentleman with his back to her. There was something vaguely familiar about the stance of this fellow, but she thought nothing of it as she stepped into the telephone kiosk and pulled the door closed behind her. She would try the Worker’s Weekly offices first to see if Hugh was in. She dialled and then, when the call connected, said, ‘Can I speak with Billy Watts, please? It’s urgent.’
She looked back over her shoulder through the porthole window in the padded kiosk door. The night manager was now on the phone and the man who’d had his back to her had turned around. It was Frankie Goldman! He was looking straight at her with his matinee idol eyes and cruel mouth. The night manager, still holding the phone, also glanced in her direction.
A young male voice answered. ‘Sorry, we haven’t seen Billy at all this week. Can I take a message?’ Joan listened to the whining telephonic hum and wondered if she could detect another presence on the line. She looked out the porthole again. Both men were still staring in her direction. Could they see her, even overhear her?
‘Hello?’ said the man on the other end of the phone.
She realised she had not spoken for several seconds. ‘Sorry. Could you please let him know that Joan is trying to get in touch? It’s important.’
When she folded back the kiosk door, Frankie was gone. The night manager had replaced the receiver on the phone and looked up as if pleasantly surprised by Joan’s appearance. ‘Ah, Miss Linderman! Has your friend recovered from her injury yet?’
‘She’ll be back on her feet any day now. Thanks for asking.’
Joan was at a loss as to what to do next. It was important she warn Hugh—if it was not already too late. Who knew what Gordon and his heavies would do to him if his cover was blown?
‘Can I borrow your telephone directory?’ she asked.
She was going to take a big gamble. There were two places Hugh might be where she could reach him by phone. The first, of course, was the flat at Kingsmere.
She looked up the number then returned to the kiosk and placed the call. ‘Hello, I was wondering if I could speak with Hugh Evans?’
The voice on the other end of the line was not one she recognised. A maid, perhaps, or the housekeeper. She sounded a little flustered. ‘Hold on a moment, please.’
Joan waited. This was madness. What if Olympia came to the phone? She would instantly recognise her niece’s voice. ‘Hello, Amelia Fielding-Jones here. Can I help you?’
Joan was rendered mute for a moment. She and Amelia had not spoken in a couple of years. Could she get away with pretending to be someone else? ‘I was hoping to speak with Mr Evans, Hugh Evans. I believe he works for Major Fielding-Jones.’
‘He’s not here right now,’ Amelia replied. ‘Can I ask who’s calling, please?’
Joan lost her nerve then. This was too dangerous. She glanced over her shoulder; the night manager was on the phone again, this time half turned away from her. She hung up.
She had one throw of the die left: Hugh’s sister Celia. She had promised Hugh never to ring him at home as his sister was still emotionally fragile from being left at the altar. Hugh had put off the fateful day of their meeting again and again just like Joan had with her own family. In fact, she did not even have a home number for Hugh.
She began perusing the list of ‘Evans, H.’ in Balmain. There were three, so she tried to remember if Hugh had ever mentioned a nearby street or some other landmark. The London Hotel on Darling Street was his local, she knew. She cross-checked the address of The London in a copy of the 1932 Sands Directory lying inside the kiosk. Fawcett Street was walking distance from the London. She dialled.
‘Hello?’ It was an older woman’s voice, shaky and too loud.
‘I was wondering if I could speak with Celia Evans, please?’
‘No, you can’t. She’s dead. Who is this, please?’ The voice sounded upset and cranky, maybe even fearful. Joan was utterly confused. How could Celia be dead?
‘Oh, I’m so sorry. May I speak with her brother Hugh, perhaps?’
‘You must have a wrong number. Celia never had a brother. I’m her sister Harriette. Sorry, goodbye.’ The woman hung up.
What an odd coincidence: another woman called Celia Evans living in Balmain but unrelated to Hugh? What were the chances? Joan looked at her watch. She would be late for work if she didn’t go now. She would try the other numbers later. In the meantime, she had to pray that Hugh would get in touch soon. Otherwise she would send a telegram to Communist Hall or the CPA head office on Sussex Street in her mid-morning break. She ran for her tram.
Joan was sitting at her desk flicking through a sheaf of reader contributions for ‘Between Ourselves’. The latest issue of the magazine was on the newsstands and Mr Lofting was in a good mood as he always was when the editor-in-chief was happy and the working week had just begun, full of promise.
Joan, however, was struggling to adjust to the normality of a day at the office. She was reminded of that disorienting feeling she always had leaving a cinema in daytime, the sudden wrench from darkness to light, from reverie to reality. Or when, as a child in Sideshow Alley at the Royal Easter Show, she had stepped off the ghost train as it emerged from its pitch-black world of spookiness into the banal glare of the everyday world.
‘Miss Linderman?’
Joan looked up from her work. It was Sergeant Lillian Armfield, in plainclothes as usual with her pearl necklace and earrings. Even so, Joan could hear the eager whispers and feel the eyes of all her colleagues fixed on them in the conviction there was something up.
‘Sorry to bother you at work, Miss Linderman, but I have to ask that you accompany me to Central Police Station.’
‘Is there something wrong?’ Stupid question really.
‘We need your urgent assistance with our enquiries into the murder of Miss Eleanor Dawson and the suspicious death of Miss Jessie Simmons. Your cooperation is greatly appreciated.’ This diplomatic politeness was, of course, all a performance for the benefit of Joan’s colleagues.
‘Jessie is dead?’ Joan felt her face drain of colour. Of course, even this was not as great a shock as the dawning realisation that she, Joan, was now a murder suspect. ‘Are you arresting me?’ Joan asked quietly.
Armfield leaned closer to Joan and whispered: ‘I can if you wish. But I assumed you didn’t want me to escort you out of here in handcuffs in front of your boss and workmates.’
Joan rose and went to knock on her boss’s door. ‘Sorry, Mr Lofting, but this police officer has asked me to go to the station to help them with their investigation into the nasty business at our boarding house. I could be gone some time.’
Mr Lofting seemed quite taken with the flesh-and-blood reality of a female police officer, something he had evidently given little thought to in the past. ‘Of course, Miss Linderman. Take care. I’m sure Olive can step in again to help out.’
Joan walked in silence up George Street alongside Sergeant Armfield. Small talk seemed pointless, if not absurd, under the circumstances. The normal, everyday world flowed around Joan but did not touch her, isolated as she was in her own bubble of sheer terror. How strange it felt to now be in the power of the very woman she lionised: admiration blended with fear, a heady mix. Her thoughts went skittering in all directions like debris in a hurricane. How could they possibly think she was a murderer? She was a victim of crime, for heaven’s sake; someone had killed her cat! What in God’s name did the police know or think they knew? Would she have to drag Hugh and Bernice and her whole family into this?
As they entered the sandstone police station from Central Street and passed under the low stone archway into the building’s inner courtyard, Joan felt she was climbing aboard that ghost train again, entering a pitch-dark world of fear.
Armfield ushered Joan into a small office crammed with filing cabinets and gestured for her to take a seat in front of a large banged-up desk. Armfield then introduced Joan to Inspector Richards, a senior detective with the Criminal Investigation Branch, who sat down opposite Joan.
‘We have asked you here today for an interview in relation to a murder investigation, Miss Linderman,’ said the Inspector. ‘Therefore, I must inform you that you have the right to remain silent and that anything you do say can be used as evidence against you in a court of law.’
‘But I haven’t done anything wrong,’ protested Joan, unable to fully believe that she was no longer an observer but someone caught up inside the unyielding machinery of the legal system.
‘Well, then you have nothing to worry about,’ said the Inspector with a smile.
That was not true. Joan had plenty to worry about. She knew from Bill Jenkins that if the police pulled you in for an interview and informed you of your rights, then they probably had good reasons to regard you as a suspect. Even her presence at the crime scene could be sufficient grounds. But they already had her statement from the night of the murder; what more did they want to know?
She had learned a thing or two from Bill. ‘I believe I have the right to have a lawyer present,’ said Joan, surprised at her own assertiveness and presence of mind.
The Inspector leaned forward and spoke in a quiet, reassuring voice. ‘That’s right, Miss Linderman, indeed you do. Is there someone you want to ring?’
Of course there was! Joan’s mind scrambled for a name. Her father had a family solicitor, but the idea of phoning Horace was impossible to contemplate. And then she remembered her phone call with Bill Jenkins last Tuesday. Hey, Joanie, promise me something. If you do get yourself in a tight corner, give me a bell. I won’t judge.
Joan was left alone in the office to make her phone call. ‘Bill, is that you?’
‘Hiya, Joanie. Are you okay?’
‘No. No, I’m really not.’ At the sound of Bill’s voice, she began to cry. ‘I’ve been so stupid … I’m at Central Police Station—I’ve been arrested. They want to ask me more questions about Ellie …’ ‘Okay, Joan. Take it easy. This is just routine. I can be there in about half an hour. Do you have a lawyer? No? Okay, there’s a guy I know who’s good. I’ll give him a call; he owes me a favour. For God’s sake, don’t say anything and don’t sign anything until we get there.’
The police were not idle in the next thirty minutes. Lillian Armfield remained courteous, even solicitous, but Joan was under no illusion that she was being treated differently to any other suspect being questioned by the police. Procedure ground on with clockwork inevitability. Another female police officer, Constable Mitford, sat her down and filled out an index card with Joan’s name and address. She then took fingerprint impressions and recorded them on the same card. ‘These are simply by way of eliminating your prints from the crime scene,’ explained the officer almost cheerily. The problem was Joan’s fingerprints were all over the crime scene, particularly Ellie’s bedside table.
Joan was then taken to a windowless room downstairs, where she was asked to stand and look into a camera. Jesus wept! Was this bending the rules? Joan was pretty sure the police were not allowed to do this unless they intended to charge her. But if Bill Jenkins was to be believed, the rise of the razor gangs and crime bosses had encouraged a more hands-on, sometimes unorthodox approach to policing that took shortcuts when needed and focused more on getting results than observing all the protocols.
‘Better we have this on file than call you in for a police line-up, eh, miss?’ said the duty officer who escorted her to the basement. A police line-up: what did that mean? What witnesses did the police have who could identify Joan as somehow involved in these crimes? Wally, the drunk poet? One of her neighbours at Bomora? The night manager at the Cairo? Mavis Thorne?
None of it made any sense, but she was too shocked—and, to be honest, too frightened—to protest. What a nightmare! Her photograph would now be filed in among ‘the Specials’, the faces of the criminal underclass. Little by little she was being stolen away from herself, transformed into the police’s view of her.
Bill Jenkins and a solicitor named Joseph Abbott arrived shortly afterwards and were shown into the interview room where Joan, Sergeant Armfield, Inspector Richards and a police stenographer joined them. Bill gave Joan a hug and whispered, ‘It’s gonna be okay, Joanie.’
‘Thank you for joining us, gentlemen,’ said Inspector Richards, nodding at the solicitor and then addressing the journalist in a more familiar tone. ‘Bill.’ The two police officers both knew Bill Jenkins well, of course. ‘So, let’s begin.’
Armfield flipped open her notebook. ‘We took a short statement from you on the night of Saturday, the fifth of March, the night of the murder of Miss Eleanor Dawson, but we wish to confirm some of the details. Where were you that evening between the hours of six and eleven?’
Joan cleared her throat. ‘As I told you, I was working—writing—in my flat. I didn’t leave until I heard someone screaming and then I ran downstairs just after eleven.’
‘You were alone that whole time?’
‘Yes. Except for my cat.’
‘So there are no human witnesses who can confirm where you were?’
‘No.’
‘And you were writing. Writing a novel. A crime novel, I believe.’
‘How do you … ?’
‘Let the record show that myself and Constable Howard conducted a search of the suspect’s premises last Sunday afternoon under the authority of a warrant issued that morning.’
So Lillian Armfield had indeed searched Joan’s flat and maybe read parts of Joan’s manuscript—perhaps even scenes involving the fictional version of herself. Joan blushed. There was no discerning what the policewoman thought of her prose.
‘Have you always been interested in crime, Miss Linderman?’
‘As a subject for fiction, yes. For some time.’
‘So much so that you have in your possession eight crime scene photos, presumably copies, from our own police forensic files, is that right?’
A wave of panic swept over Joan. Armfield had seen these tacked to the wall on her first visit to the flat and had found them again, no doubt, shoved to the back of the locked desk drawer. Joan’s eyes darted nervously in Bill’s direction.
Bill Jenkins leaped into the gap. ‘I am responsible for those, Sergeant, not Joan. They were a gift of sorts when she and I were dating last year. I understand they are all closed cases, not currently under investigation. I can explain how I came by them …’
‘That won’t be necessary right now,’ interjected Richards, barely able to stop himself rolling his eyes and cracking a wry smile in Bill’s direction. ‘But we will have a little chat about it later.’
Armfield resumed. ‘Well, that answers one of my questions. Would you say that an interest in real crime, particularly murder, is unusual for a woman?’
‘How is this relevant to your investigation, Sergeant?’ objected the solicitor.
Armfield let the question go. ‘How long have you known your flatmate, Miss Becker?’
‘Just over four years.’
‘And how would you describe your relationship with her?’
‘We are good friends. Close friends.’
‘Is it true that Miss Becker has been a mentor to you? Introduced you to influential people—editors, and so on?’
Joan looked at the solicitor anticipating a similar objection but he did not seem concerned.
‘Were you aware that Miss Becker was involved in a romantic, probably sexual, relationship with the deceased?’
‘I …’ How could the police know that? Had Bernie written poems or candid letters to her lover that were discovered at the crime scene or even found in Joan and Bernice’s flat? That was entirely possible. ‘Yes, I became aware.’
‘Did Miss Becker tell you herself?’
‘No. I was told by someone else.’
Armfield looked inquisitively at her.
‘By Jessie.’
‘So your close friend Miss Becker did not tell you about a relationship which had been going on for at least six months with a woman who lived in the same building?’
‘No, she didn’t.’
Miss Armfield made a face to suggest this was either untrue or at least surprising. ‘Were you home on the evening of Saturday the twenty-seventh of February, a week before the murder of Miss Dawson?’
Joan had to stop and think for a moment. ‘Probably. Yes. Yes, I am pretty sure I was.’
‘Did you hear a heated argument take place between Miss Becker and Miss Dawson on that occasion in Miss Dawson’s flat—an argument so loud, in fact, it was heard by neighbours?’
‘No, I did not.’
‘Were you aware that in the course of that argument Miss Becker threatened to kill Miss Dawson if she ever left her?’
Joan tried to hide her shock. Bernie had admitted to hitting Ellie less than a week later in a fit of rage. Had Joan, out of love and loyalty, been too quick to dismiss Bernie as a suspect?
‘Who is under suspicion here?’ demanded Abbott, the solicitor. ‘This Miss Becker or my client? Maybe you are interviewing the wrong person.’
‘We interviewed Miss Becker two hours ago. My question stands.’
‘No, I heard nothing of the sort. People say stupid things in anger!’
Bill shot Joan a look, as if warning her not to lose her temper. But Joan could not help becoming agitated now she had learned that Bernie had already been interviewed. What had she told the cops? Had she been able to stay calm?
Inspector Richards now spoke. ‘Let’s talk about Jessie Simmons for a moment.’
He opened a file in front of him and began. ‘Miss Simmons’ body was found this morning washed up at Camp Cove and identified soon after at the morgue by Miss Becker. A strap-on shoe matching one found on the body was found near The Gap as well as cigarette stubs with lipstick marks. The clothes she was wearing were presumably those she’d worn to the party at Elizabeth Bay House the previous Sunday. Her right cheek was slashed.’
Poor Bernie, thought Joan. Taken in for questioning and asked to identify Jessie’s corpse. And here was an unexpected twist: was it possible that Jessie had left the hospital herself and gone to The Gap?
‘This, of course, makes it look like suicide,’ continued the police officer. ‘Are we supposed to think that Jessie murdered her friend and was then overcome by remorse? But there are a few problems with this scenario. How did she get to The Gap from St Vincent’s after spending the night on a morphine drip? There’s no evidence she had money. She had no purse with her that night, did she, Miss Linderman?’
‘No, she wasn’t carrying a purse.’
‘So, no money for a taxi or tram. On foot then, on a hot day? Why did no one see her walking in broad daylight? Maybe she hitched a ride? Unless of course she was taken there at a different time—say, under cover of night. And why did the body wash up today? If she jumped last Monday, the tides would have brought her back in on Wednesday or Thursday at the latest. Did she go into hiding for some days and then commit suicide? The autopsy will reveal more.’
Miss Armfield turned a few pages of her notebook and took up the questioning. ‘Miss Linderman, you were with Miss Simmons the night she was attacked, correct? And you took her to the hospital?’
‘Yes, you took a statement from me about that night.’
‘In that statement you told me it was too dark to identify the man who attacked her.’
‘Yes, I did.’ Joan was on thin ice again.
‘And yet the other person present, a Mr Walter Greenwald, told us that, before he was knocked out cold, he got a good look at the man and even heard Jessie call him “Frankie”. Wally’s description of the man was a very good match with the gangster Frankie Goldman.’
‘I was scared; I think my memory was faulty,’ Joan admitted.
Bill was not looking at her now and had a frown on his face. Why hadn’t she just told the truth?
‘Do you now admit that Jessie’s attacker was Frankie Goldman?’
‘I think it probably was him.’
‘I want to ask you about your movements over the next few days after the attack on Jessie, Miss Linderman. On the Monday night you were seen to meet with a prostitute, Mavis Thorne, who worked with Ellie and was possibly the last person to see her alive. You bought her a drink at a sly-grog shop near the brothel and paid her money. Why would you do that?’
Joan was in a tight spot now. It was obvious she had been shadowed. Probably Bernie had too. It seemed that they were both prime suspects from the start. Joan had been lulled into a false sense of security by Armfield’s remark about their lack of resources: We’re pretty stretched what with all the troubles with the New Guard and the Reds. Joan had no choice now but to tell the truth, no matter how embarrassing. ‘I thought … I wanted to check with Mavis what really happened that night and ask her about some of Ellie’s clients.’
‘So, you were—what?—doing some detective work of your own?’
There was a stifled laugh from Inspector Richards. Joan could feel her pulse surge, her temper rising. Bill shot her another warning look.
‘I note for the record that the plot of Miss Linderman’s novel appears to be the murder case of Eleanor Dawson. As a writer, do you feel you can do a better job than the police, is that it?’
Joan gritted her teeth. This wasn’t fair. So far, she had given all the credit for the investigation in her novel to Armfield herself.
‘Tell me, do you know how your novel ends?’
‘No, I do not.’
‘So, you can’t say who the murderer is—at least, not yet?’
‘This is an absurd line of questioning!’ The solicitor’s eyes were bulging as if he had never heard anything so preposterous. (Was it the questions he found absurd, Joan wondered, or the thought of a woman crime writer for a start?) ‘A writer has not committed a crime because he—or she, in this case—chooses to write a story about it!’ ‘Or were you actually up to something else altogether, Miss Linderman, with your visit to Mavis?’ Sergeant Armfield persisted. ‘Persuading her to change her testimony, perhaps?’
‘No, no, it was not like that at all!’
‘Did Miss Thorne tell you she saw Ellie the evening of her murder with a bruise over her left eye?’
‘Yes, she did.’
‘And did Miss Becker tell you how Ellie got that bruise?’
‘Yes, she did.’
‘Did she now? She admitted that she struck Eleanor in the course of an argument?’
‘While they were both drunk, yes.’
‘And you did not think this was worth reporting to the police?’
‘I believed Bernie … Miss Becker … when she told me that was as far as it went.’
‘I see. And then next thing we know you turn up at the Hotel Australia in a wig and a fancy frock. Would you like to tell us about that luncheon engagement?’
Joan could not, whatever the cost, involve Hugh. He had stuck his neck out to help her and her family. She could not repay him by admitting to the blackmail and getting him arrested too. Yet there was no way the cops would believe she had acted alone.
‘A gentleman who had been one of Ellie’s clients agreed to meet me. I thought he might know something useful. I was wrong, as it turned out. He has done nothing illegal so I would rather not betray his confidence. He paid for lunch. Old-fashioned type.’
Again, Abbott the solicitor spoke up. ‘Sounds harmless to me. As my client rightly points out, going to a brothel is not against the law. Nor is having lunch at the Hotel Australia.’
Armfield looked impressed by Joan’s coolness. ‘That same day you paid a visit to Ruby Dawson, Ellie’s mother, in Tempe. More detective work?’
‘Yes. And taking her some things she might need.’
‘Very charitable of you. And was she able to tell you anything useful?’
Joan hesitated for a moment. Should she drop Gordon’s name now, identify him as Ellie’s secret lover? Ruby would back her up. Joan was so angry at the cops’ contempt for her amateur sleuthing, she wanted to offer up something concrete, something that would change their view of the case. But then she remembered the threat: STOP NOW OR YOU WILL BE NEXT.
‘Not really.’
‘Frustrating, isn’t it? When people can’t remember the truth. Or choose not to tell you.’
The solicitor spoke up again. ‘My client has been very cooperative, Sergeant, answering all your questions to the best of her ability. But most of what you ask is based on speculation. Do you have any concrete evidence linking Miss Linderman to either of these deaths?’
Richards looked at Armfield, arms crossed. For a moment, Joan felt a stirring of compassion for the woman police officer she so admired. How ironic! If Armfield had been interrogating anyone else Joan may well have been cheering her on.
The sergeant addressed the solicitor. ‘I have a few more questions about the night of the murder. I assume that is alright with your client?’
Abbott looked at Joan, who nodded. She was exhausted, but she wanted this to be over.
‘Miss Linderman, can you explain why we found traces of blood on one of your brassieres?’
Joan flinched. Had she not washed that out? These were tiny flecks from the letterhead she had hidden there the night of the murder. ‘A nasty insect bite. I scratched it and it bled.’
‘Where was Miss Becker when you came downstairs on the night of the murder?’
‘She was in the corridor outside the bedsit.’
‘And her hands and blouse were covered in blood, is that right?’
‘Yes. She had tried to hug Ellie, or lift—’
‘Yes, that is what Miss Becker claims,’ interrupted Armfield. ‘You entered the room where the body was. How long were you in there for?’
Joan felt sick to her stomach. She was back in that room again, the pool of blood, the spray on the wall and the bedside table, Ellie’s throat and face …
‘I don’t really know. A minute at most?’
‘Did you remove anything from the crime scene, Miss Linderman?’
Armfield’s eyes were locked onto Joan’s, her stare unwavering. How in God’s name could this policewoman have any idea that she had taken the letterhead? She was bluffing. No one knew about the letterhead other than Bernie and Hugh. Had Bernie said something?
‘Why would I do that?’ Joan countered, her cheeks burning.
‘To protect your closest friend, perhaps? Your mentor? Or to hide your own involvement in Miss Dawson’s death? You seem to know something about crime scenes, Miss Linderman; you would be well aware how vital every clue is to solving a crime. Did you take something from the crime scene?’
It seemed that Sergeant Armfield was building a case that Joan and Bernie had conspired to kill Ellie or that Joan was going to great lengths to cover up Bernie’s crime of passion. The police no doubt already had their trail of circumstantial evidence: the fact that she and Bernie were the first people on the crime scene with plenty of time to tamper with evidence; Mavis’s testimony about Bernie’s possessiveness, witnessed in the outburst at the brothel (Take your filthy hands off her!); Bernie’s threat to kill Ellie during an argument overheard by neighbours; Ellie’s black eye, reported to the police by Mavis but covered up by Bernie; maybe even eyewitnesses who had seen Bernie arguing with and assaulting Ellie; Bernie’s possession of a spare key to Ellie’s flat; the blood on her hands and blouse on the night of the murder. It was starting to look a lot like Ellie had been killed by a psychotically jealous lover. Bernie’s unpredictable mental state was not her fault but it could easily drag Joan down with her into a morass of damning evidence.
This case needed to be refocused on the two people who had more reason to want Ellie to be dead than Bernie. It would be so simple now for Joan to confess to stealing the Ladies’ Bacchus Club letterhead from the scene of the crime. At least then the cops would have a reason to check if the prints on the cut-throat razor found at the scene matched her uncle’s (Joan presumed they would have already fingerprinted Bernie and Frankie Goldman). But with what ‘probable cause’? What could the police reasonably argue would connect Olympia and Gordon to Ellie and justify their line of investigation? Had Bernie told them about their evening at the Ladies’ Bacchus Club? While the cops were happy to pull in two helpless women for questioning, they wouldn’t dare lift a finger against a powerful man like Gordon Fielding-Jones unless they had some solid proof.
And, of course, the consequences would not be simple or pleasant. ‘So, where is this letterhead now?’ ‘Uh, well, you see, we used it to blackmail my aunt and uncle and they’ve probably destroyed it. The important thing is they paid up: that must point to a degree of guilt on their part, doesn’t it?’ But then how hard would it be for the cops to dig up Joan’s family history with her aunt and uncle, the anger she felt about them cutting off her mother and father without a penny, for abandoning her shell-shocked brother Richard while her other brother, James, went missing in battle under Gordon’s command? Excellent motives for blackmail. And even better for framing an aunt and uncle for murder. Maybe they would accuse Joan of planting the letterhead at the crime scene herself. Maybe they’d think she made the whole thing up.
And who knew what nasty consequences might follow if she started to tell the truth. With a wrench she thought of poor Rimbaud, and the death threat to her and Bernice that had been left by his lifeless body.
‘Miss Linderman, did you hear my question?’
‘I did,’ Joan replied. ‘And the answer is no. I took nothing from the crime scene.’
That seemed to have concluded this round of questioning. Joan shot a glance at Mr Abbott and Bill Jenkins to reassure them she was telling the truth. They both looked anxious, nervously folding and unfolding their hands, but Bill at least made an effort to smile back at her.
‘Are you charging my client with anything?’ asked Abbott, though he already seemed fairly confident of the answer.
Richards looked at Armfield, who gave a slight shake of the head. ‘We will probably need to speak with you again at some stage, Miss Linderman, as the investigation proceeds,’ said the police inspector. ‘We thank you for your time and cooperation today. You are now free to go.’
‘Good luck with your writing, Miss Linderman,’ said Armfield with a sardonic grin. ‘I look forward to reading the finished story.’