Thread of Evidence

by Frank Smith

  She hadn’t shown the picture to Bunny; nor had she mentioned it to Vikki when she got home, and she still wasn’t quite sure why. Neither was she sure why she had taken the page from the paper and torn it into strips before stuffing it in the bin.

  But there was no getting away from the fact that Vikki had lied to them about how she had come by her injuries. And there could be little doubt that the girl was up to something, otherwise why had she sneaked off the boat in the early hours of yesterday morning?

  Joanna hadn’t seen Vikki leave, but she’d woken to the gentle movement of the boat, and she’d been instantly alert. She thought at first that someone had come aboard, but when she poked her head through the curtain, she could see that Vikki’s bunk was empty. She slipped out of bed and went outside, thinking that the girl might have been unable to sleep, but Vikki had disappeared.

  Joanna’s first reaction was one of disappointment. She liked the girl, and she’d felt sorry for her, but now she felt as if Vikki had been using her until she was well enough to move on. Another lesson learned, she told herself sadly as she made her way back to bed.

  She’d been surprised when she heard Vikki come back and creep into her bunk. Perhaps, Joanna thought, she’d misjudged her. Cooped up on the boat all day, it might be that the girl had simply gone for a walk when she thought she would be safe from prying eyes. She decided to say nothing unless Vikki mentioned it herself.

  But there was still the matter of the picture in the newspaper.

  Joanna sighed. She supposed she should notify the police that Vikki was here, but she couldn’t bring herself to do that. At least, not until she had heard Vikki’s side of the story.

  “Have a good sleep then, did you, luv?” Joanna asked as Vikki stuck her head through the door and shaded her eyes against the morning sun. “Like some breakfast? Bunny and I have had ours, and she’s just gone off to work. How about a fry-up for a change? I’ve got a lovely bit of bacon, and the eggs are fresh from the farm, and there’s a tomato, and a bit of …”

  But Vikki was shaking her head violently from side to side. “No, thanks, Joanna,” she said, and gulped as if for air. She looked pale and hollow-eyed. “But if you’ve got some tea … ?”

  “Of course.” Joanna felt the pot. “I’ll just make some fresh,” she said. “It will only take a tick.” She busied herself with the kettle. “But you should eat something, luv. You need a bit of meat on those bones.”

  Vikki left the shelter of the doorway and slid onto a narrow wooden seat. She was wearing the heavy pullover Joanna had loaned her, and sat hunched over, arms wrapped around herself.

  “Just tea, please, Joanna,” she said tightly. “I’m not hungry.”

  Joanna eyed her narrowly. “Not such a good night, then,” she said.

  Vikki nodded miserably. “Couldn’t get to sleep, then when I did I had horrible nightmares.”

  “Is that why you went for a walk the other night? Couldn’t sleep?”

  “You were awake? I thought …” Vikki avoided Joanna’s eyes.

  “I’m glad you decided to come back. Do you want to tell me about it?”

  Vikki began to speak, but the words stuck in her throat. Tears trickled down her face, and a deep sob escaped her lips. “Oh, Joanna,” she wailed, “I didn’t want to lie to you, but I was afraid you wouldn’t believe me and you’d throw me out. I thought I’d be safe here, but I keep seeing this horrible face in my dreams … It’s … Oh, God, Joanna, I’m so scared, I don’t know what to do!”

  Joanna sat down beside the girl and put her arm around her shoulders. “Perhaps, then, Julia,” she said, with emphasis on Vikki’s real name, “if you really are sorry and want my help, the best way to start is by telling me the truth about what happened last Saturday night, and why you’re running away.”

  Vikki was hesitant at first, but once she realized that Joanna was taking her story seriously, the words poured out so fast that Joanna was forced to slow her down. “Easy, girl,” she chided gently. “Take your time. You’re safe here with me.”

  “You’ve got to believe me, Joanna,” Vikki ended tearfully. “I know it sounds as if I’m making it up, but I’m not. That’s what happened, but I daren’t go to the police because I know they won’t believe me.”

  She was right about that, Joanna thought. They wouldn’t believe her. The girl’s story was so bizarre that Joanna had trouble believing it herself. “But surely,” she said with a frown, “you can’t have gone through all that without remembering something, Vikki?”

  “But that’s just it, Joanna, I don’t!” said Vikki. “I’ve tried and tried, but all I get is this sort of dream where this man is bending over me, holding my face. I know it has something to do with what happened that night, but it won’t come clear.”

  “What man? You didn’t say anything about a man holding your face.”

  “I told you, I don’t know!” Vikki said desperately. “I … Look, I’ll show you.” Abruptly, the girl took Joanna by the arm and almost dragged her into the cabin. She went straight to her bunk and tossed the pillow aside to reveal several loose pages torn from Joanna’s writing pad.

  Pencil sketches.

  Vikki sorted through them swiftly and handed several to Joanna. “There! You see? That’s the man I’m talking about. I keep seeing him in my dreams, and even sometimes when I’m awake. They’re like flashes inside my head, only they never stay long enough for me to see them properly. I’m sure the shape of the head is right, and I think the hair is right, and the mouth, but I can’t get the nose and eyes. I’m sorry I used up so much paper, Joanna, but I have to keep on trying until I get it right.”

  As Vikki had said, the outline of the head was there, the hair and a partial mouth, but the rest of the face was blank. Joanna studied the sketches for a long moment, then handed them back to Vikki. “May I see those?” she asked, and without waiting for a reply, reached over and plucked the remaining drawings from Vikki’s hands. She fanned them out. “Did you do all these?” she asked sharply.

  Vikki nodded wordlessly. She knew she should have asked Joanna for the paper, but she hadn’t wanted her to know what she was doing. She said, “I’m sorry I used so many pages,” and wondered miserably if there would ever be a time when she wouldn’t have to apologize for living.

  But Joanna waved the apology aside. “I think they’re terrific!” she said softly. “Where on earth did you learn to draw like that? This one of Bunny, and this one of the swan landing on the water. They’re beautiful!”

  Vikki shrugged. “It’s just something I like to do,” she said.

  “You mean you’ve never had lessons?”

  “Lessons?” Vikki gave a bitter laugh. “As far as my mother was concerned, drawing was a waste of time, so I had to hide anything I did. If I hadn’t, she’d have torn them up and thrown them away.”

  “And that’s why you hid them here? You thought I might tear them up? Good God, girl, they’re wonderful! You could sell some of these.”

  Vikki blushed. “They’re not that good,” she said.

  Joanna brushed her words aside. “Don’t put yourself down, my girl,” she said sternly. “These are very, very good. As for those others of the face you keep seeing, all I can suggest is that you relax and stop trying so hard. You can’t force something like that. But it will come; you’ll see, Julia.”

  “Just one thing, Joanna, if you don’t mind. Please don’t call me Julia. I know it’s my real name, but I hate it. Please call me Vikki.”

  The wooden chair was hard, and there were three others exactly like it around the wooden table. But it was the tape recorder and microphone at the end of the table that made Douglas Underwood feel most ill at ease. He’d been asked by Paget—more like ordered, he thought resentfully—to come down to Charter Lane this morning to “clarify one or two small points,” as Paget had put it, and he hadn’t dared refuse.

  He’d seen rooms almost identical to this on television and recalled that things rarely turn
ed out well for suspects on those shows. It reminded him that he would have to be very careful and stick to his story about Bolen offering him a job. After all, Bolen wasn’t in any position to deny it, was he?

  The door opened and Paget entered, followed closely by another man whom Paget introduced as Sergeant Tregalles. Both men were businesslike, but affable. Paget thanked him for coming in, and when he apologized for keeping him waiting, Underwood took heart and began to relax. But when the sergeant sat down beside the tape recorder, pressed a button and began entering the date and time and names of everyone in the room, the feeling of unease returned.

  “You have no objection to having this interview recorded, I take it, Mr. Underwood?” inquired Paget pleasantly as he moved the mike to the centre of the table.

  “No. No, of course not.” Underwood forced a smile and waved a hand around the room. “It’s rather like a scene on TV, isn’t it?” he said.

  “Except that everyone gets to go home after the take on TV,” Tregalles said drily.

  Underwood laughed, a bit nervous. “Yes, I suppose that’s true,” he agreed, and wondered what the sergeant had meant by that.

  Paget laid a folder on the table in front of him. “What I would like you to do, sir, is run through what you told me last Sunday, for the benefit of my sergeant, and as a record of your statement. All right, Mr. Underwood?”

  Underwood nodded and sat forward in his chair. This was going to be easier than he’d thought. “Oh … sorry, yes,” he said as Paget pointed to the tape recorder. He settled back in the chair, thought for a few moments, then repeated what he had told Paget on Sunday morning.

  “Mr. Bolen must have been getting a bit desperate by the time he rang you,” Tregalles observed when Underwood had finished. “I mean, the deadline for the presentation on Monday was approaching fast.”

  “Oh, he was. Quite desperate,” Underwood agreed. “He practically pleaded with me in the end.”

  “But you wouldn’t budge?”

  “Absolutely not!”

  “So, if you had no intention of accepting Bolen’s offer, why didn’t you simply hang up?”

  Underwood shifted in his seat. “I was curious,” he said. “About how far he was prepared to go.”

  “So you were on the phone for how long? Five minutes? Ten?”

  Underwood shrugged and spread his hands. “I don’t know exactly. Perhaps close to ten.”

  Tregalles looked at Paget, then sat back in his chair. The chief inspector opened the folder in front of him. “Do you recognize these?” he asked. He took out a sheaf of papers protected by a clear plastic cover, and turned them for Underwood to see.

  Underwood’s heart sank as he recognized the papers he had given Bolen. But there was still a chance he could brazen it out. “That looks like a copy of the Ockrington bid,” he said.

  “That’s right,” said Paget. “Except there are a couple of pages that are different in this document, aren’t there, Mr. Underwood? And please don’t try to argue the point because I took the trouble to compare them with the original supplied to me last night by Keith Lambert.”

  Paget leaned back in his chair. “Do you know what I think, Mr. Underwood? I think you gave these figures to Bolen as you’ve been doing in the past, but for some reason best known to yourself, you gave him the wrong figures. When Bolen realized that, he rang you. That’s why the phone call you say took ten minutes took less than two, because it didn’t take long for Bolen to tell you to get over there with the correct figures, did it?”

  Paget eyed the man coldly. “And I think he threatened to expose you if you didn’t. But you didn’t have the figures at home, and you couldn’t get into the office that late at night without having to explain yourself to the night security man, could you? So you went over to the hotel, and when Bolen answered the door—”

  “No!” All colour had drained from Underwood’s face as he listened with growing alarm to the chief inspector’s words. “No! It wasn’t like that. I had nothing to do with Bolen’s death. I didn’t even see him that night, let alone kill him.”

  “But you did go over there,” Paget insisted. “As you have been doing on Sunday mornings for quite some time now.”

  Oh, God! Underwood felt as if he were shrinking beneath Paget’s accusing gaze. He passed a shaking hand across his face, then let out a long breath, and nodded slowly. “I did go over there,” he admitted, “but I didn’t see him. I’m telling you the truth. Honest to God, he wasn’t there!”

  “The same as you told us the truth about Bolen offering you a job?” Tregalles scoffed.

  “No!” Underwood looked at Paget and spread his hands. “Look,” he said earnestly, “I admit I lied about the reason for the telephone call, but I didn’t know what else to say. You caught me by surprise and that was the only thing I could think of at the time. And you’re right about the figures being wrong, and about my not being able to go back to the office. But I had nothing to do with Bolen’s death. Honest to God. You have to believe me.”

  “Why should we?” said Paget. “You’ve done nothing but lie to us up till now.”

  “Well, I’m not lying now. I swear!” Underwood leaned forward across the table to emphasize his words. “Jim Bolen was in a rage when he phoned. He wanted the figures immediately, but I’d just come out of the shower, so time was getting on by the time I got dressed and sorted through the papers I had at home. So I drove to the hotel. I went up the back stairs and knocked, but Bolen didn’t answer the door. I couldn’t understand it; the man had insisted on my coming over immediately, and then he’d gone out. I kept knocking on the door, but it was obvious he wasn’t there. So, rather than hang about in the corridor, I went back downstairs and waited in the car.”

  “What time was this?”

  Underwood ran his fingers through his thinning hair. “Ten o’clock or just after; something like that; I’m not sure.”

  “And how long did you wait?”

  “I waited about fifteen minutes, then went back up and tried again, but he still didn’t answer when I knocked. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t dare go home without talking to him, so I went down again and waited. His car was there, so I knew he couldn’t have gone far.”

  “And … ?”

  “Bolen never did come back. Or if he did, it was too late for me to go back up and see him, because Harry had arrived by that time.”

  “Harry Bolen?”

  “That’s right. He and Mrs. Bolen parked a few cars away from me. Harry got out and went into the hotel, and I—”

  “By which door?” Paget demanded. “Front or back?”

  “The front door. At least he went round the front, so I assumed he was going in the front door.”

  “How long did you stay after you saw him leave the car?”

  “Ten minutes or so. I thought I’d wait to see if Harry came back, and then try once more. But when Mrs. Bolen got out of the car and went up the back stairs, I decided there wasn’t much point in staying, so I went home.”

  “When you say ‘Mrs. Bolen,’ do you mean Laura Bolen?”

  “That’s right. Jim’s wife.”

  Paget and Tregalles exchanged glances. “Tell me,” said Paget, “why did you give Bolen that false set of figures?”

  “It was a mistake. I had to make copies in a hurry, and when I put the folder together I must have put in the preliminary figures by mistake. I didn’t mean to, but Bolen seemed to think I was trying to put one over on him. But I wasn’t. What would have been the point?”

  “How long have you been supplying Bolen with copies of Lambert’s bids?” asked Paget.

  Underwood moved uncomfortably in his seat. “Close to four years,” he said.

  Tregalles snorted. “Well, I for one, don’t believe you,” he said flatly. “I think you did see Bolen. I think you were scared shitless because you thought Bolen might expose you, and you wanted out. So you took your knife, and when Bolen opened the door, you—”

  “No! I never
saw him that night, and that’s God’s truth. I swear!”

  “Hmmph!”

  Underwood’s lips trembled as he looked from one to the other. “Does Mr. Lambert have to know?” he ventured. “I mean, it is all over now that Jim Bolen’s dead.”

  Paget scooped up the folder. “What makes you think he doesn’t?” he said softly, and nodded for Tregalles to terminate the interview.

  Tregalles had gone home for lunch, but Paget was still in his office when Ormside rang through. “Bad news, I’m afraid sir,” he said. “Simone’s flat has been turned over, and no one has seen her since last night. Uniforms are there now, and—”

  “I’ll be right down,” Paget cut in. “You can give me the details then.” Two minutes later, Paget entered the Incident Room, and Ormside carried on from where he’d left off.

  “A girl by the name of Janice Osborne found the door ajar when she went along to borrow some fresh milk from Simone. She went in and saw that the place had been turned over, but there was no sign of Simone.”

  There was a cold, hard knot in the pit of Paget’s stomach as he drove the short distance to Cresswell Street. He didn’t like the sound of it at all, and he liked it even less when he arrived and surveyed the scene. Whatever the intruder had been looking for, he or she had certainly done a thorough job.

  There was no sign of a forced entry, so either Simone had opened the door herself—which seemed unlikely—or the intruder had let himself in. Simone wasn’t the sort who would leave a spare key under the mat, so where had the intruder found a key? Unless it was Simone’s.

  “She always locked her door when she went out, even if it was just to the shops on the corner,” Janice told him, “so when I saw it open like that, I thought she must be in, but she wasn’t.”

  “When did you last see her?”

  “About half past nine last night. Down by the old bookshop just up the road. See, some of us decided to go down to the Green Man, you know, for … well, for a drink, like, but Simone didn’t want to go.”