‘Got him?’ Abbott asked Paddy, who grinned.
‘With the ink still wet, you could say. I think he’ll break in about an hour, maybe two. Want to have a go?’
‘Don’t mind if I do, thanks very much,’ Abbott smiled. ‘I’m not getting anywhere with Dr Kildare in there. Make a change.’ He glanced up at the clock on the wall. ‘Looks like it’s going to be a long night. How about some coffee? Bennett?’
‘I’ll organise it,’ Bennett said.
They watched the young officer move quickly down the hall, looking for a victim to make the drinks. ‘Going to ask for him when you get promotion?’ Abbott asked Paddy.
‘I think so.’
‘I saw him first,’ Abbott pointed out.
‘Yes, but my need is greater,’ Paddy smiled. ‘You can work with anyone. I’m a sensitive creature.’
‘Balls,’ Abbott said, chuckling. He glanced down the hall at the farther interrogation room where Grimes sat waiting, and the smile faded. ‘Let’s go get this one settled – then we can concentrate on Number Two.’
Chapter Thirty-three
Grimes broke at just after 4 a.m.
Tougher than either Paddy or Luke had suspected – another leftover from his military training, perhaps – their steady cross-questioning had finally brought him to the end.
‘Yes,’ he said, his head in his hands. ‘Yes, I killed her. She was going to tell. I would have lost my job, my wife . . . ’
All of which he had certainly lost now.
And a blameless woman dead into the bargain. Neither officer wasted much time feeling sorry for him. He was fed into the legal machinery and left to his fate. They felt no real relief, for they were still left with the other two murders unsolved.
‘At least we can stop trying to find the common denominators between all three,’ Luke said, rubbing his eyes and trying to bring some semblance of alertness back to his brain. The questioning of a suspect can be as hard on the officers involved as it is on their victim. They not only have to watch and listen to him with full attention, they also have to keep up a rhythm of exchange between themselves and read one another’s intent as they go on. They had worked together a long time, which made it easier.
But never easy.
In the end, they opted for a few hours’ sleep before starting up again with Gregson in the morning.
‘This is driving me crazy!’ Jennifer moaned, looking down from Frances’ window seat over the path that led to the surgery. ‘That was Mrs Bennett who just went in. I wanted to tell her the final pregnancy test was positive. Now Uncle Wally will get to do it. Damn!’ She turned away from the window. ‘She looked awfully pale – I hope she hasn’t had any trouble. They’ve been trying for years, she told me, without luck. I was just about to send them to a fertility clinic. I was nearly as excited as she was when she skipped a period.’
‘Sit down, for goodness’ sake,’ Frances said, with some difficulty. Her face had stiffened up over the past twenty-four hours, and the stitches were pulling. ‘If this is the way you behave when you’re away for a day, Lord knows what you’re like when you take a holiday.’
‘Oh, that’s different,’ Jennifer said, morosely. ‘You can organise for holidays, get loose ends tied up, follow through on lab reports, all that. But to be taken out with no notice – and there’s nothing wrong with me. Poor Uncle Wally down there, wearing himself out all morning again . . . and just because Luke Abbott has taken it into his head that I’m in danger, even when they have David in custody. If I am in danger then it’s because he didn’t do it. In which case, why are they still holding him? I’ve called the station several times this morning, but they keep saying Luke’s busy. Paddy, too. I didn’t want to talk to any of the others.’ She sighed. ‘Are you sure you can’t come up with a clever solution to all this?’
‘And why should I?’
‘I don’t know. I just thought with your writing and all—’
‘I don’t write detective stories,’ Frances said, regretfully. ‘What does your aunt say? She’s read the lot.’
‘She doesn’t know either,’ Jennifer said. She walked back to the window, and slowly, watching the patients arrive and leave, her fists clenched. ‘Oh, God, why doesn’t Luke call? I left a message for him to call,’ she wailed, in sudden despair. ‘You’d think he could take a minute, wouldn’t you? Just a minute?’
‘Twenty thousand!!’ Gordon Sinclair was incensed. ‘A measly twenty thousand? You must be mad.’ He glared at Graham Moyle.
Moyle shrugged. ‘I talked to the insurance company about it. They said you also have partnership insurance which will give you another fifty thousand. I don’t have to give you anything, according to them. In fact, they advised against my giving you anything. So did my solicitor. But I want to be fair.’
‘What partnership insurance?’ Barry Treat asked, in a thin voice.
‘I still don’t believe you were married to Win,’ Sinclair expostulated, stalking around the shop. ‘I simply cannot believe it.’
‘The police have the marriage certificate,’ Graham said, calmly. ‘You can always get another copy from Somerset House or whatever the place is called now. We never divorced.’
‘Ah, but how do you know?’ Sinclair whirled around. ‘She might have divorced you for desertion in the meantime.’
‘The police have made enquiries. They said there has been no divorce. Win was still my legal wife when she was killed.’
‘What partnership insurance, Gordon?’ Barry asked again, more loudly.
‘What about abroad? Win lived in America for a year – what about that?’ Sinclair stormed on, ignoring the rising voice beside him. ‘You can’t know but that she might have got a divorce over there.’
‘My address was never a secret, she always knew where I was, even if she didn’t do me the same courtesy,’ Graham said, refusing to be drawn by Sinclair’s rage. ‘They would have had to send me papers to sign – my solicitor was very clear about that, too.’
‘But why? Why? She wasn’t the marrying kind!’
‘She thought she was pregnant – and I thought she loved me,’ Graham said, with thin dignity. ‘She wasn’t, and she didn’t.’
‘Then why didn’t you divorce her?’ Sinclair demanded, striking out where he could.
‘I had no one else, and I had no money. What would have been the point? I’ve never had enough money – until now. No matter what she was, I’ll bless her every day of my life,’ Graham Moyle said. ‘And since you don’t want the money . . . ’
‘I didn’t say that!’ Gordon shrieked. Graham looked at him for a long time.
‘Yes, you did,’ he said quietly, and went out of the door without looking back.
‘What partnership insurance, Gordon?’ Barry asked, again. There was a steely edge to his voice now. He wanted an answer.
‘Oh, it’s nothing at all, really,’ Sinclair said, negligently. ‘One has insurance in case a partner dies, that’s all. For the good of the business. Just a formality.’
‘I don’t remember signing anything about that.’
‘Well, you did,’ Sinclair said, turning away and trying to look busy. ‘What about these orders . . . ’
‘If I die would you get money, too?’ Barry asked. ‘And if I had got Win’s insurance money, and then died, would you have got both lots, Gordon? All of it?’
‘You don’t understand, Barry, love – it’s just business, that’s all.’ He approached and put an arm around the stiff, narrow shoulders of his partner. ‘Let’s not go on about death and money and all that any more, shall we? An artist like yourself shouldn’t concern himself with sordid matters . . . ’
Barry shrugged off the encircling grasp. ‘I want to see all the papers I’ve signed, Gordon. And I want to see them now.’
Sinclair stared at him. Barry Treat’s face was pale and determi
ned. Sinclair tried a smile.
It was not returned.
‘She was overjoyed,’ Uncle Wally was saying, over lunch. ‘I gave her a prescription for iron tablets and put her down for our ante-natal clinic. Her husband is a policeman – working with Luke Abbott and your Paddy, Frances.’
‘But she’s all right?’ Jennifer demanded.
Her uncle put his knife down and looked at her over his glasses. ‘She’s fine,’ he said. ‘Don’t fuss.’
‘I told them what to do,’ Jennifer said. ‘I told them about the ice-water treatment, and it worked. That’s my baby, too, dammit!’
This time he put down knife and fork, and smiled. ‘Well, well. So you’ve become a family doctor at last, Jennifer. I was beginning to wonder when it would happen, you and your textbook theories and your quick referrals to the consultants.’
Jennifer looked confused. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘She was mazed as a sheep this morning, watching the patients arrive,’ Frances commented, understanding him perfectly. ‘Nearly fell out of the window.’
‘Difference between hospitals and us is simple,’ Uncle Wally said, leaning back. ‘Hospitals treat cases, we treat people. Some might say that’s obvious, but it isn’t so obvious to a new doctor coming along from the wards. I know you’ve been scared, Jennifer, thrown in at the deep end with my illness, not getting along with David so well as you might – but in the last couple of days I’ve been getting a pretty good chance to see how you’ve been doing from the patients themselves. And from Kay, who does not give her approval easily. Those were your patients, weren’t they? You wanted to see them yourself. You’ve got family doctoring in your bones now, girl. Never get it out. Marked for life, you are, thank God. I can rest back easy, at last. Still help out in the rush hour, of course . . . when you want me.’
‘Were you worried?’ Jennifer asked, still feeling ’mazed as a sheep’ at these minor but all-important revelations.
‘Yes, he was,’ Aunt Clodie said, smiling. She looked at her husband affectionately, then the smile thinned. ‘He still is.’
‘Not about you, Jennifer,’ Uncle Wally said. ‘But about tonight and tomorrow and all the rest. About David. If we haven’t heard by the end of lunch, we’ll have to call up the Family Practitioner Committee and see if they can fetch us out a locum, fast. We can’t trade on the good will of our various colleagues much longer, when we’re not in the position to return the favour. God knows who the FPC will come up with – last one was older than I am, one before him hardly wet behind the ears. If David is charged with murder, we’ll have all kinds of problems. I hate to think about it, but think about it we must. They’ll want to know why we didn’t spot it before . . . ’
‘Because it wasn’t there to spot,’ came David’s exhausted voice from the dining-room doorway. He leaned against the doorpost, white-faced and dishevelled, his eyes on Jennifer’s, holding her immobile. I’m sorry to disappoint you, Jennifer, but the police have come to the conclusion that I am not a psychopathic murderer after all. The laboratory said that the chip from Frances’ wound didn’t match the missing chip from my bistoury, which, by the way, Luke Abbott then found in the bottom of my bag, with the help of a tenpenny children’s magnet. They checked back over the people I saw the night before last, and timed my journeys. They’re very thorough, very careful. At the time Frances was attacked, I was bandaging Mrs Carey’s phlebitic lesion. She told them I was as gentle as a butterfly with her poor leg, which, as you know, had burst that evening. Again. I had arranged for her to be admitted to hospital this morning. I hope she went in all right.’ His voice was a hoarse monotone. He’d clearly been awake and talking most of the night, and his needle had worn.
Nobody at the dining table moved or spoke.
He took a long ragged breath and let it out. ‘I now propose to go to bed and sleep for several weeks. If Calgary can take emergency calls again this evening, it would be a help. No, Clodie, I don’t want anything to eat or drink, thank you.’ He turned and they heard his slow step cross the hall and start up the stairs.
‘Well, Jennifer?’ asked Uncle Wally, but she was already up and running.
‘David?’ He turned and looked down as she climbed up the stairs to him. ‘Dear God, I’m so sorry. So very sorry. I was really afraid . . . ’ She paused. His face was unreadable. ‘I had to tell him. Do you understand that? I had to tell him.’
‘Oh, I understand that very well,’ David said, softly.
‘Please . . . please don’t hate me for it,’ she whispered, aghast at what her precipitate conclusions and action had done.
‘I don’t,’ he said, bleakly. ‘I might have done the same, in your position. Of course, I can’t say for certain, never having been in your position. I had to earn my place here.’ He turned away and finished climbing the stairs, leaving her to stand there, staring after him.
‘Did you get to see Jennifer this morning?’ Basil asked, as he stood with Mark on the terrace overlooking the sweep of lawn and the twinkle of the river between the willows. The once-smooth turf was criss-crossed with trenches and heaps of dirt, and workmen were everywhere, like ants.
‘No. They told me she was “resting” and couldn’t see anyone,’ Mark said. He turned away and began to walk around in agitated circles, waving his arms. ‘You’d think they’d let her see her own fiancé, give her a bit of comfort and so on, but oh, no. And when I demanded to see Gregson they said he was “out on calls”. Offered me some damned locum or other. Stupid receptionist – I told her what she could do with her locum, by God I did.’ Mark laughed, with some triumph.
‘What I can’t understand is why they didn’t send her to the hospital,’ Basil said, finishing off his gin and tonic. ‘She must have lost a lot of blood. Still, I suppose, with all those doctors in the house, they figured they could look after her themselves.’
‘I don’t know.’ Mark didn’t seem to care now. His mind was back on himself. ‘I could have seen Dr Wally, but I wasn’t about to, no thank you. Don’t get on, we don’t. Never did. Never did.’ Mark rubbed his temples. ‘Wish I had, now. Got another of those ghastly headaches.’
‘Grief, dear boy. It’s simply the tension of grief and overwork. Perfectly natural, under the circumstances,’ Basil said, gruffly. He rested a hand on Mark’s arm. ‘You’ll have a good night’s sleep tonight, I promise. You can have a couple of my own sleeping pills. The hell with the quacks. Don’t worry yourself. Tomorrow everything will look much better.’
‘I don’t know how I would have managed to get things organised without you, Basil.’ Mark was grateful. ‘It’s been very good of you to drop everything in London and pitch in so much.’ He turned away again and paced the length of the patio, gesturing around at the scaffolding and the men working, the hum of the cement mixers and the thudding pound of a hammer. ‘There’s so much to do, God, so much – and yet, I know I can do it. I do. I feel as if I were in some kind of dream, able to do what I want at last. It’s almost like being drunk,’ Mark said.
‘You have to let me do more, take more off your shoulders,’ Basil said. ‘I mean to say, this is all a big project – one of England’s most glorious houses, brought back to the state it deserves, made a showplace and a byword. Exciting stuff. But it’s too much for one man. We’re family, Mark, family and partners. We’ll go on well together. You’ll see. We make a marvellous team.’
‘And Jennifer, too,’ Mark said, eagerly, and then scowled, suddenly. ‘If only I could get to her. How dare they keep me from her side? All this terrible murder business, this man walking about attacking women the way he does, and those damned policemen everywhere you look. Everywhere you look.’
‘Now, now,’ Basil said, reassuringly. ‘Just be glad Jennifer is still alive. I’m sure she’ll be up to seeing you, soon.’
‘Yes, I suppose so. I want to talk to her. I must talk to her and get everything settled.�
�� His voice was fretful. ‘I hate it when things aren’t settled!’
‘Speaking of which, have you finished with all those papers you asked the solicitor to bring over this morning?’ Basil asked, turning towards the French windows. ‘Must get the financial side shored up, dear boy, or the bank won’t play.’
‘I’ll do it now,’ Mark said. ‘Would you get me a couple of aspirin and ask Jeffers and one of the others to come along in to witness my signature?’
‘As good as done, dear boy. As good as done.’ Basil strolled off to perform his good deeds.
Mark stood on the terrace for a minute more, looking down the torn-up lawn to the place where his mother had died, where her life had drained into the land of Peacock Manor. Her blood was all that she had ever given to the estate. For the whole of her time here it had been take, take, take. She had killed his father, in the end, with her demands and petty tyrannies. Now she was gone. One by one, all the problems were going. One by one he was dealing with them. One by one was the best way to do it. He was in charge, at last. Everything, everything was his.
A smile touched his mouth, a smile that twisted into a grimace as pain shot through his head like a javelin. Where the hell was that stupid Basil with his aspirin?
Chapter Thirty-four
‘I can make a case for each one, but not for both, no matter who you put up,’ Luke complained to Paddy. He pointed his pencil at the list. ‘This one had both motive and opportunity to kill Frenholm, but no reason in the world to kill Mrs Taubman.’ He moved the pencil down to another name on the list. ‘He would benefit from Mrs Taubman’s death, but had no connection with the Frenholm woman.’
‘And yet Cyril says the forensic evidence puts them together, that they were copycat killings by the same person. This person imitated Grimes’ murder of Beryl Tompkins which the local crime reporter covered only too well in the local paper,’ Paddy said.
The Wychford Murders Page 26