‘However, this morning police officers visited the couple’s home above Derwent Water and commenced a search of the property. Miss Kidd, who has been a familiar voice on Lake District FM since she joined the station in 1973, was driven to Cumbria Police headquarters in Penrith for questioning, although it is understood she went voluntarily and has not been arrested. More from reporter Colin White.’
Seb bit his lip. Merryman had been quick to hand the story over to someone else. He couldn’t blame him: as a police witness he himself had become hopelessly compromised.
White spoke in a soft, Scottish burr and Seb upped the volume.
‘The couple had gone out alone on their motorboat on the day Mr Bruton died. At the subsequent inquest, his widow told Kendal coroner Dr Timothy Young that her husband had got into difficulties while swimming in the lake and, as a non-swimmer herself, she had been unable to go to his assistance. She said she managed to throw him a lifebelt but he was in no condition to use it. By the time help arrived, Mr Bruton was unconscious and later he was declared dead at the scene by police.
‘Sources close to this investigation (that’ll be me, Seb thought) indicate that new evidence has emerged which may cast a different light on events. As well as searching Miss Kidd’s home, a former rectory overlooking Derwent Water, the motorboat is to be examined later today.
‘In a short statement Miss Kidd’s legal representative emphasised that his client has not been arrested and is expected to return home later today after fully co-operating with police during questioning.
‘Colin White, Lake District FM News.’
Seb turned the radio off and looked over his shoulder at the brick building behind him. DI Thompson had probably started on Meriel by now. Thompson had struck Seb as an extremely intelligent man. Whatever it was Meriel was concealing from everyone, Seb’s instincts told him the detective was likely to get to the bottom of it.
He started the car and drove slowly towards the main entrance. Yup, it was swarming with press and TV, both channels. The ITN reporter, an instantly recognisable thirty-something blonde in a turquoise top and matching flares, was recording a piece to camera. Seb caught the words ‘suspicious’ and ‘completely unexpected’.
Merryman had kept Seb’s name out of the report but the pack wouldn’t be surprised to see him driving out of the police station car park; after all, he’d got the exclusive interview with Meriel the day after Cameron drowned. This was very much ‘his’ story.
If he’d hoped to drive away without being stopped, he was wrong. As soon as the reporters saw who it was behind the wheel of the car, they surrounded it and he was forced to pull up.
‘Seb! Seb!’ Flashbulbs popped and the TV cameramen hefted their equipment onto their shoulders and began filming.
‘Seb!’ It was the ITN girl. ‘Have you seen her? Have you seen Meriel? How is she? What’s she saying?’
‘Come on, Seb!’ He recognised the redhead who’d been so rude to him on the morning of the postmortem. ‘Give us a break! We’re all in this together, right?’
He cleared his throat and began to lie. ‘Guys, I know as much as you do, no more. Of course I haven’t spoken to Miss Kidd; she’s under interview. I just wanted to find out when she’s being released, but no one in there’s saying.’
‘Oh piss off, Seb.’ It was the Sun reporter. ‘You know more than you’re telling us. How come the police let you in there but are keeping us outside?’
‘Favour from a friend, a contact, that’s all. Much good it did me.’
‘Bollocks. Is it true you and Meriel are having an affair?’
Shit. Shit. Someone at the station had leaked.
Seb managed to keep his voice steady.
‘We’re just good friends,’ he said. ‘Colleagues, too. You shouldn’t listen to rumours.’
The Sun man sneered. ‘From what I’ve heard it’s a lot more than a rumour and the two of you are a lot more than friends. It’s all over Lake District FM, for Christ’s sake. Come on, Seb, give it up. What’s going on here? What’s this new evidence they’ve found?’
Seb shook his head. ‘Sorry, mate, but you’re barking up completely the wrong tree. I can’t help you.’
‘You’re not kidding anyone, Richmond.’ Now it was the Daily Mail. The woman, a veteran hack who’d been on the paper for decades, had elbowed her way to the front of the throng. ‘How long have you been screwing her? Did it start before her husband drowned? Did he find out? Is that what’s at the bottom of all this? Are we looking at a crime of passion here?’
Seb decided the time for politeness was over.
‘Fuck off, Barbara. You’re talking through your arse, as usual. Now piss off out of the way, all of you. I’ve got to get back to work.’
He didn’t think they were going to let him through but at that point a police car pulled up behind him and briefly sounded its klaxon. The pack reluctantly parted and Seb drove onto the main road and left them all behind, heading for the motorway and Carlisle. He had a lot to discuss with Bob Merryman.
Seb had two principal concerns: the first was whether the station was going to suspend him until all this was over.
The second was where to get himself a good lawyer.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
The interview room was stifling. There was no air-conditioning and the single ceiling fan hadn’t worked for weeks after someone left it spinning at full speed overnight.
Great damp patches darkened Probus’s suit under the armpits and in a broad band across his shoulders. He mopped his forehead with a white handkerchief, as with his other hand he picked up a sheet of paper the detective had just handed to Meriel.
‘I’m sorry, Inspector, but this is completely out of the question. My client is under no obligation whatsoever to read aloud from these pages.’
Probus pushed the document firmly back across the table.
This interview, DI Thompson decided, was not going well. Meriel Kidd was immovable in her account of what had happened out there on the lake. She was calm and unruffled when he’d questioned her about the missing Rolex, too.
‘I can only repeat what I told the inquest, Inspector: I’ve lost it,’ she had told him in a quiet, steady voice. ‘I placed it in my handbag but it subsequently vanished. Obviously I have mislaid it. Perhaps your men will find it during their search of my home. I certainly hope so. It is worth a great deal of money.’
‘But presumably not a lot in sentimental value, Miss Kidd?’ It was a low blow, but it hadn’t appeared to trouble her.
‘None at all, since you ask. It is obvious from these pages you have been given – private items that I should like returned to me at the earliest opportunity, by the way – that I deeply disliked and resented my husband. But I was under no requirement to share that information with anyone, including the coroner. Why should I? It had absolutely nothing to do with his death.’
This woman doesn’t need a solicitor, Thompson thought wryly to himself. She’s doing very well on her own.
‘I should like to hear you read an extract from these diaries, Miss Kidd. Any page will suffice. Perhaps this one.’ He handed her a sheet from the top of the pile between them.
It was at this point Probus had intervened, but the policeman pushed the paper for a second time back towards the lawyer and his client.
‘I see no grounds for your objection, Mr Probus. I am merely trying to establish—’
‘You are merely trying to discomfit my client, Inspector, and I won’t allow it. She has not denied writing these chapters. She has no reason to. They are patently fantasy, flights of fancy that bear no relation to reality whatsoever. It is only her wish to co-operate with the police that has brought her here this afternoon. In my opinion she can leave this room at any moment she chooses.’
You’re probably right there, you fat bastard, Mark Thompson reflected.
‘Very well. We’ll come back to this later.’
‘We will not. If you ask my client again to read aloud
so much as a single word, I shall advise her to leave the police station immediately. This is undue coercion.’
The DI decided to let the point drop.
‘Miss Kidd. Why did you fail to tell the police about your final conversation with your husband?’
‘I thought I had done so. I was very surprised to learn otherwise. But, as I explained to the coroner, I was in deep shock the afternoon I made my statement. It’s hardly surprising I omitted something as trivial as him asking me the time.’
All right, Thompson thought. Let’s try this for size.
‘You had a very serious argument with your husband out there on the boat that day, didn’t you, Meriel? We have a witness prepared to swear that you told him of this. You informed your husband you were leaving him, didn’t you? He became very angry with you, didn’t he?’
Meriel appeared entirely unperturbed.
‘No, and no. No such conversation took place. By “witness” I assume you are referring to Sebastian Richmond, with whom I have just ended a relationship. For reasons best known to himself, he is making this up.’
‘Why would he do that?’
Probus leaned forward again. ‘I’m sorry, Inspector, but I am going to have to halt this line of questioning. My client bears no responsibility for what this gentleman may have told you. She cannot speculate on the matter.’
Ignoring him, Mark Thompson continued: ‘You argued about this book, Meriel, didn’t you? Your husband had found it and made copies of it. He threatened you with exposure in any divorce hearing. If your listeners knew you were capable of writing utterly sick, sadistic fantasies such as this, your career would come to an end, wouldn’t it?’
Meriel adjusted the dank, clammy collar of her silk blouse before replying. She was drenched in perspiration but when she spoke, she sounded calmer than ever.
‘Inspector Thompson. You talk of witnesses. There were none – apart from me. My husband and I were alone on our boat. And I am telling you, as the sole witness, two facts. Facts, Inspector.
‘One. My husband and I did not argue that afternoon. Not about this book and not about anything else.
‘Two. I was entirely unaware that my husband had found my manuscript until last night, when Mr Richmond informed me he had discovered a copy hidden in my cellar. I destroyed the original shortly before Cameron died, when I decided that writing it was a silly and unpleasant habit I had to put a stop to. I had no idea my husband had read it and secretly made copies. That has come as a tremendous shock to me, I can tell you.’
The detective looked coolly at the woman opposite.
‘I believe Mr Richmond is telling us the truth, Miss Kidd. Which means I believe you’re lying to me now. And here’s what else I happen to believe. You wanted to kill your husband, didn’t you? You wanted to murder him.’
Meriel didn’t miss a beat.
‘I certainly did. But only in my imagination. I’m sure I’m not the only wife who is guilty of that, Inspector. I see you wear a wedding ring. Perhaps your own wife occasionally harbours similar fantasies to my own.’
You’re bloody right there, Mark thought. Clemmie hadn’t spoken a word to him since he’d told her they had to cancel yet another holiday. A freelance writer, she had locked herself in her study and the only response when he tried knocking on her door was the steady clacking of her typewriter.
He stood up. ‘All right, Miss Kidd. Please remain here with Mr Probus. I’ll be back in a few minutes.’
He needed to consult Tremayne. And probably the AC. For the next twenty-four hours, he didn’t want Meriel Kidd going anywhere, still less having access to newspapers, a television or radio.
If he found what he was profoundly hoping he would, he expected it to be the bombshell that would blow the widow’s defence into a million pieces – provided she didn’t see it coming.
And, of course, providing he found it.
‘You can’t hold her overnight, Mark. You simply don’t have cause. What do you think, sir?’ Superintendent Tremayne turned to the AC.
‘I agree, Gil,’ the senior man said. ‘Why is this so important, Mark? She’s co-operating, isn’t she? I’m sure she’ll come back in the morning if you ask nicely.’
The DI shook his head. ‘I don’t want her to find out that we’re sending divers down at first light tomorrow.’
‘Why?’
‘Because if something incriminating is down there and we find it, I want to hit her with it stone-cold. The problem I’m having with her is that she’s had time to think through all the angles on this. I wish to hell Richmond hadn’t gone and told her what he’d done. She’s got all her ducks lined up in a row.’
The AC looked pensive.
‘Does she know we’re searching the boat as well as the house?’
‘Yes, and she doesn’t seem bothered about it. I don’t think we’ll find anything incriminating there. But she doesn’t know we’re sending divers down because obviously we don’t need a warrant to do that.’
The superintendent frowned. ‘But why are you giving her the impression that we need to tell her about warrants? Did you tell her we’d got a warrant to search the boat? You were under no obligation to do that, Mark.’
‘Yes, I did, because I want her to feel I’m being completely straight and open with her about the scope of our investigation. I didn’t have to tell her about the warrant for the house, either, but I did. I’m deliberately misdirecting her away from the lake itself. As far as she’s concerned we’re only interested in the house and boat – and the diary, of course. If we find what I think we’ll find in the water, I don’t want her to have had even a second to cook up a story about it.’
The AC stared at him. ‘What do you expect to find down there, Mark?’
Thompson looked surprised.
‘That’s obvious, isn’t it? Cameron Bruton’s Rolex. It’s the key to everything.’
On the AC’s advice, Mark Thompson managed to get hold of one of the best prosecution lawyers in the country, a barrister with chambers in Lincoln’s Inn. Once the man had been apprised of the situation his advice, delivered over a bad telephone line from the Old Bailey, was unhesitating.
‘S’easy, old boy. Tell her you’ve found something suspicious on the boat. Make something up, you can always withdraw it tomorrow. Say you’re arresting her on suspicion of withholding evidence. You think she’s doing that anyway, don’t you? That means you can keep her in overnight and her lawyer won’t be able to apply for a writ of habeas corpus for unlawful imprisonment until tomorrow. By the time he’s got that sorted, your divers will have popped back up to the surface waving the watch. Easy-peasy.’
The DI frowned. ‘Not if I’m wrong and there’s nothing there. I’ll be the one hauled before a judge, for false imprisonment.’
‘Then you’d better keep your fingers crossed, old boy.’
Mark rang off and made his way back to the interview room, collecting a uniformed sergeant along the way.
When they went inside, Probus was up on his feet at once.
‘This is unacceptable, Inspector. You have kept my client waiting here for almost forty-five minutes. We are leaving.’
‘Be quiet please, Mr Probus.’
Mark faced Meriel.
‘Meriel Kidd, I am arresting you on suspicion of withholding evidence. You are not obliged to say anything unless you wish to do so but what you say may be written down and given in evidence.’
He turned to his colleague.
‘Take her to the cells, please, Sergeant.’
Probus looked as if he was going to explode.
‘This is outrageous. OUTRAGEOUS! You have no basis whatsoever to make this arrest. I am taking this matter directly before the nearest High Court judge. How dare you abuse your powers in this way? This is one of the most serious—’
Meanwhile the sergeant had quietly slipped a pair of handcuffs on Meriel and was leading her from the room. She hadn’t said a word, and looked unperturbed as ever. Thompson marvel
led at her extraordinary composure, even in this insufferable heat. He’d never seen anything like it in his entire career.
He turned to the lawyer.
‘Mr Probus. My officers have made a discovery during their search of the boat.’
‘Really? What of?’
‘I’m not prepared to say for the moment.’
Probus called out after his departing client.
‘Miss Kidd, this will not be allowed to stand. I will have you out of this place by lunchtime tomorrow, I guarantee.’
She made no reply, and the door closed quietly behind her.
Thompson ignored the blustering lawyer, who was, as the London barrister had predicted, now promising to bring a writ of habeas corpus.
The policeman made a mental calculation. Twenty hours, he decided. He had twenty hours to pull this thing off.
And if he failed?
A long spell of gardening leave awaited. It might even turn out to be permanent.
He certainly wouldn’t be short of spare time then to take Clemmie on holiday, would he?
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Meriel sat on the edge of the bunk in her cell, thinking. Why had she been arrested? She’d overheard the detective telling her lawyer something about finding evidence on the boat, but that was nonsense. There was nothing incriminating aboard, and nothing back at the house, either, other than more copies, possibly, of The Night Book; she had no idea how many Cameron had made.
No, she decided, this had to be some sort of bluff. DI Thompson had tried his best to unnerve her, first by asking her to read extracts from the diary aloud, and then directly accusing her of lying about that final row with Cameron. Only Seb could have told him that – he was bound to have been questioned himself this morning – but all she had to do was continue to deny it. As she’d said to Seb last night (how long ago that seemed now) it was his word against hers; they could prove nothing. Probus had confirmed that to her while Thompson was out of the room.
The Night Book Page 23