by Joan Smith
She was on the last step when the phone rang, echoing eerily in the empty hall. It was on the wood-block floor behind the front door and Loretta stared at it, one hand going out to grasp the newel post. It rang and rang, and when Bridget called out from the floor above Loretta turned and exclaimed, “Shhh!”, as though the person at the other end might hear them. The phone stopped abruptly, in mid-ring, and she waited, listening to the sudden silence. There was no way of knowing whether someone—Inspector Queen or Sam Becker—had hit on the house as a possible refuge for Bridget, or whether it was merely a wrong number.
“Bridget, I’m off,” Loretta called, and eased open the front door. She slipped out, thankful for the cover of the high hedge, and hurried across the gravel to the open gate. The phone was a couple of hundred yards up Woodstock Road and she walked jerkily, preoccupied with all the questions she wanted to ask Bridget: whether she had seen anyone she recognized in the city center after leaving Stephen Kaplan or on Port Meadow, although the water meadows were such a vast tract of land that Loretta didn’t hold out much hope. There was also the matter of Sam’s alibi, which still looked unbreakable—
Loretta caught her breath as she reached the phone, remembering that she had started to question Christopher Cisar about computer logs on Friday evening. The conversation was almost immediately interrupted by the appearance of John Tracey, but she now realized what had prompted her inquiry: months before, in the spring, she had been sitting in another restaurant in Oxford, bored to tears, as Bridget encouraged Sam to give a step-by-step description of an attempt to steal information from the main computer at CES and the brilliant strategy he had devised to block it. His account was far too technical for Loretta to follow but it was obvious he knew the system inside out; if there was a way of tampering with the log, he would know how to do it. Loretta opened her purse, snatched a twenty-pence piece and punched Christopher’s number into the phone, bursting with questions. She listened anxiously to the ringing tone, willing him to be in, and it wasn’t until she heard his voice that she remembered the much more urgent problem which had brought her out to the phone in the first place.
“Christopher,” she gasped as he recited his telephone number, “it’s me, Loretta.”
“Hi, I’ve just talked to your answering machine. Where are you speaking from?”
“Woodstock Road. Christopher, I need your help.”
“You haven’t been home?”
“Yes, but I can’t talk now. I need to borrow your car.”
“My car?”
“I wouldn’t ask if there was any other way. Please, Christopher.”
“Hold on, Loretta. You know Sam’s been arrested?”
“Yes. Can you bring it now?” She gave him the address of Bridget’s house and added: “Park it in the drive and leave the keys in the ignition. Don’t come to the door. I don’t want to involve you, not more than I can help. I’ll get it back to you somehow, it might take a couple of days—”
“Loretta, what in hell’s going on?”
“Trust me, Christopher.”
“We have to talk.”
“No, the less you know the better.”
“I don’t like the sound of this, Loretta, but you win. I’m on my way.”
Loretta replaced the receiver and began to walk back down Woodstock Road, trying to work out a route to Northumbria in her head. A new stretch of the M40 had opened earlier in the year, joining Oxford and Birmingham, but she couldn’t remember whether it intersected with the Ml. She hoped there would be an up-to-date map in Christopher’s car; there weren’t any services on the M40 so she would not be able to stop and buy one. Panting, slightly out of breath from anxiety and the unfamiliar exertion, she turned into Bridget’s drive and slipped into the dark passage between the house and garage. The conservatory door was unlocked and she let herself into the house, calling to Bridget that she was back. There was no reply but when she went upstairs Bridget was there on the bed, fast asleep. Loretta tiptoed out of the bedroom, thinking she might as well sleep until Christopher arrived with the car. He lived in Boar’s Hill, the other side of Oxford, and she wasn’t sure how long it would take him to drive round the ring road. She tried to remember what sort of car he had, something big and quiet but she was hopeless at makes; in any case, one car was pretty much the same as another unless he drove an automatic.
She used the loo, flushed it and ran her hands under the cold tap. A sliver of soap, dry and cracked, lay in a pretty Victorian soap dish, presumably left behind by mistake, and she managed to work up a little lather. There was no towel and she fished in the pocket of her jeans for a tissue, the last of the handful she had removed from the hotel bathroom in Paris that morning. As she dried her hands she heard the crunch of tires on the gravel, dropped the tissue into the loo and ran to the top of the stairs. Relief flooded through her, wiping out her earlier resolve not to speak to Christopher, and she took the stairs two at a time, muttering under her breath.
Much later, obsessively replaying the evening’s events in her mind, Loretta tortured herself with the charge that she had known, a split second before flinging open the front door, that it was not Christopher’s car which had sounded on the gravel. It had arrived too quickly and she thought—although she was not absolutely convinced of this—that she had heard two car doors slamming rather than one as she reached the bottom step. But the realization came too late and she could only stare in horror as the two detectives, Blady and an older man, approached the house.
Blady said: “In there, is she?” and waited for Loretta to move out of his way. She fell back, saying nothing, and he pushed open the door to the drawing room. “There any lights in this place?” She heard him feel for the switch, try it and swear under his breath. He turned to her and said roughly, “Come on, Dr. Lawson, you’re only making it worse for yourself.”
Still Loretta said nothing. She could not see his face but she could feel his irritation as he moved round the dark hall, trying one door after another—the downstairs lavatory, a walk-in cupboard, the kitchen. She wondered, briefly, where the other man had gone, then heard him call to Blady from the back of the house.
“Stay with her,” Blady ordered as the older man emerged from the drawing room. He ran lightly upstairs and gave a shout of triumph, and almost immediately there was an answering shriek from Bridget.
“Leave her alone,” Loretta cried, dodging round her captor and pounding up the stairs. “For God’s sake, she’s ill.” She arrived in the small room as Blady identified himself and began to caution Bridget, pushing past him and kneeling beside her terrified friend.
“I’m sorry,” she exclaimed, cradling Bridget in her arms, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” To her alarm Bridget began to shake, gasping for breath and uttering words which made no sense.
“Get a doctor,” Loretta ordered, rounding on Blady. “Next door, Dr. Summers—go on.” He hesitated and Loretta struggled to her feet, holding Bridget’s hands tightly to prevent her from falling sideways. “If she goes into labor—”
Blady shot out of the room, calling downstairs to his colleague: “Bill, can you go next door and get the doctor?” He reappeared, demanding to know which side Dr. Summers lived.
“There,” snapped Loretta, pointing at the party wall—a useless gesture in the darkness. She heard voices in the hall, what sounded like the beginning of an argument, then Christopher called: “Loretta? Loretta?”
“Up here.”
She heard him coming up the stairs. Blady went to meet him and demanded: “Who are you?”
“Christopher,” she cried as he ignored Blady and came into the room. “Oh, thank God! Bridget’s collapsed and these cretins don’t seem to understand. I’m scared she’s going into labor.”
“Shit. Why are there no lights in this place?”
“The electricity’s turned off.”
“Lay her down on the bed. That’s it. Can you support her head?”
Between them Loretta and Christopher got B
ridget into a more comfortable position, her head in Loretta’s lap. She moaned and thrashed about, not seeming to know where she was, and Loretta peered up at Christopher, unable to distinguish his features. “What’s keeping them?” she asked anxiously and Christopher went to find out.
“Apparently the doctor isn’t home,” he said a moment later. “Don’t panic, they’ve called an ambulance. Loretta, what is going on here? You didn’t tell me those guys were police.”
“Please—not in front of Bridget.”
Christopher sat down in the low chair which Loretta had occupied before she went to the phone. “How’s she doing?”
“I don’t know, I hope it’s just shock . . . Have you got a handkerchief?”
Christopher passed it across. Loretta pushed Bridget’s hair back from her brow and wiped sweat from her forehead. Her mouth was open and she was dribbling, making a damp patch on Loretta’s jeans. “She’s so hot,” Loretta murmured, dabbing at Bridget’s mouth. “I don’t know why she’s breathing like this.”
Christopher leaned forward and felt for Loretta’s other hand. She clutched his, holding it tightly while her ears strained for the distant wail of a siren. “God,” she muttered, “when will they come?”
They sat in silence in the small bedroom, the only sounds Bridget’s uneven breathing and the voices of the detectives, talking quietly in the hall below. Suddenly Christopher released Loretta’s hand.
“Did you hear that?” He moved to the door and said with obvious relief: “It’s OK, I can hear the ambulance.”
A moment later the house was full of noise, doors slamming and people talking downstairs. A torch beam shone into the room, illuminating the unhappy tableau on the bed, and a female voice asked redundantly: “Is this where she is?”
Christopher moved to the window so the ambulance-woman could reach the bed, where she knelt to take Bridget’s pulse.
“She’s six months pregnant,” Loretta explained. “Her blood pressure’s too high and she just seemed to collapse. Is she going to be all right?”
“Where was she when this happened?” The ambulancewoman gently lifted Bridget’s arms, checking for broken bones. “Did she fall?”
“No, she was already on the bed. She hasn’t had anything to eat all day and she’s been taking tablets—I don’t know what sort.”
“All right” The ambulancewoman stood up, went to the top of the stairs and shouted: “Ted! Can you bring the stretcher?”
“Bridget,” Loretta whispered, bending over her, “they’re going to take you to hospital but don’t worry, I’ll come. I’ll be with you.” Bridget grunted and Loretta had no idea whether she had understood.
The ambulancewoman reappeared, followed by her male colleague, and they began the painstaking task of maneuvering Bridget onto the stretcher, out of the room and down the stairs. Loretta went with them, hovering nervously and earning a mild rebuke from Ted for getting in their way. At the bottom of the stairs she waited to follow them to the ambulance but a hand gripped her arm and a woman’s voice said: “Dr. Lawson, I’m afraid you’ll have to accompany us to the station.”
Loretta shook herself free, feeling no surprise at the presence of Inspector Queen. “Leave me alone” she snapped. “I’m going with Bridget.”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Lawson.” The Inspector sounded genuinely regretful but it did not stop her beckoning to a burly male detective.
Christopher stepped forward into the patch of light shining into the hall from a street lamp. “Would some-body tell me what s going on here?”
“Who are you?”
“Christopher Cisar.”
“Inspector Stella Queen, Thames Valley CID. I interviewed you at the party.”
Christopher shrugged this aside. “What are you guys doing here?”
“I’m here to arrest Dr. Bridget Bennett on suspicion of murder—”
Loretta cried out, stepping back and colliding with Christopher, who put his arms around her.
“—of the murder of Paula Wolf, but in view of her medical condition I’m going to allow her to be taken to the John Radcliffe Hospital.” She nodded to Blady. “You go with her. I’ll come up as soon as I’ve sorted this lot out.”
Blady climbed into the back of the ambulance and the woman closed the doors from the inside, calling in a businesslike voice: “Right you are, Ted.” The engine rumbled and the reversing lights came on, signaling that the driver was about to edge backwards in an arc towards the garage.
“Dr. Lawson.” In an expressionless voice Inspector Queen began to recite the formal words of the caution, familiar to Loretta only from films. Halfway through, the ambulance trundled forward to the gate, paused to turn into Woodstock Road and switched on its siren. Inspector Queen went on speaking, mouthing inaudible words like a TV with the sound turned off. Loretta gasped, covered her face with her hands and started to sob.
Postscript
Southmoor Road
Oxford
25 November 1991
Dear John,
A courier has just arrived with your package and I’m so grateful. I tried ringing you at the Herald but they said you’re on your way to Zagreb. Call me as soon as you get back, I’ve got so much to tell you. First thing is Bridget’s had her baby, a girl. Six pounds two ounces and she’s called Jessica Elizabeth Bennett. They let me into the prison hospital on Friday to see them both; Bridget was exhausted but quite well.
I can’t thank you enough for the stuff from Boston. You do realize this nurse you interviewed, the one who used to work at the Mount Minos clinic, has given Sam a motive? No wonder he didn’t want anyone turning up in Oxford who knew the real reason he was there, especially someone as upset and unstable as Paula Wolf. Is there any chance of us getting to see the clinic records? I’m not clear from your notes whether he agreed to go there specifically to avoid prosecution or whether the police decided not to charge him anyway. It’s a pity the doctor who runs the place isn’t more cooperative, I don’t see what he’s got to hide. On the other hand America’s such an open country, the Freedom of Information Act and all that, and I wonder if there isn’t a legal device for getting hold of them?
I know you didn’t have time to track down the exgirlfriend, the one he put in hospital, but if you’ve got her name I could have a go on the phone. Of course, as you say, if she didn’t want to give evidence against him in spite of what he did she may not be willing to talk to us either, but it’s worth a try. I’m having a similar problem with Bridget, she’s extremely reluctant to mention the S & M thing in court, even though it does indicate a history of violence. Obviously that’s why Sam thought he could get away with it, the women he beat up are too embarrassed to talk about it. Did he really use a whip? Fortunately we’ve got photos of Bridget’s face immediately after she was arrested (and a doctor’s report), and when she hears what you’ve found out she may change her mind.
You say Paula helped him escape from Mount Minos, which certainly doesn’t sound as though he was a voluntary patient. Is there any way of finding out what happened after they got away, i.e., between mid-September and him arriving in Oxford in November? I suppose he dumped her soon after but I do wonder how he got a job in England so quickly.
Bridget’s solicitor is still trying to find a computer expert who’ll say Sam could have altered the log; a friend put me on to a couple of people who’ve explained how it could have been done, but Sam’s clever and there isn’t any actual proof. All we need is someone who’s able to stand up to cross-examination and cast doubt on Sam’s alibi in the jury’s mind, because I’ve saved the best news till last. I was in the building society two weeks ago, paying my mortgage, and I happened to look up and see a video camera—that thing they have in case of armed robberies. I suddenly thought, lots of shops have them these days, and I came back to Southmoor Road and had a look at the list Bridget gave me (the first time I saw her after she was remanded, I got her to write down every shop she went in that Thursday afternoon). It took me thr
ee mornings to go round them all and I got quite demoralized—some of them reuse their videos almost immediately. But I kept at it and I’ve found two that don’t—a bank in the center and a shop in Little Clarendon Street. The first sighting is at two twenty-eight, about half an hour after she left Stephen Kaplan, and the second is three seventeen, when she was on her way to Southmoor Road. She only went into one shop on the way back to college to pick up her car, no luck there, but she remembered seeing a film crew in the High Street. I racked my brains to think who it might be, I called all the obvious places like the local BBC newsroom and drew a complete blank.
Then I went into the English department at Fitzroy last week and someone happened to mention Inspector Morse. I rang up the TV company who make it, found a really helpful woman and asked if they had been filming in Oxford that day. They had, and they let me go up on Thursday and look at what they shot. Bridget’s actually in the film, thank God she wasn’t the face on the cutting-room floor, and you can quite clearly see her crossing the road. The scene was filmed between four and four thirty, the producer thinks four fifteen is the likeliest time. Of course we can’t prove she didn’t rush back to college from Little Clarendon Street, pick up her car, drive home, take Paula’s call, go and pick her up from the A34 (the police have found Paula’s prints on a phone four or five miles south of the ring road), take her home and bash her on the head—but I did the round trip with Bridget’s solicitor and it took us an hour and three-quarters.
We’ve just been notified of the trial date, it’s been set down for mid-February. I know you can’t write anything before then, but do you think the paper will let you cover it, just in case anything goes wrong? Bridget’s solicitor will be delighted with this stuff you’ve dug up, I’m so grateful, but you never know with a jury. I hardly dare think of it, Bridget and I haven’t talked about it at all, but a murder conviction does still carry a mandatory life sentence. One other piece of news, by the way—they’ve finally agreed to drop the charges against me, aiding and abetting a fugitive or whatever it was. Bridget told them I was about to take her to hospital when they arrived, and of course she very nearly did lose the baby.