by CA Sole
‘Mind if we look around, sir?’ asked Vale, but he was already nosing about the lounge and was moving towards my office.
‘Feel free,’ I said, ‘but the place is still disorganised after the burglary. I reported it and your people came out straight away. It was just over a week ago, on the eighth.’
Janet took one look at me and went white at the sight of all the blood. I calmed her down and, without saying what it was all about, asked her to make some coffee for everyone. A shower never felt better. Teeth cleaned and body refreshed, I bundled up my stained clothes and shoes and handed them over to Vale who checked that everything was there and put it in a large plastic bag. Janet hovered around in the kitchen, pottering about and doing nothing. Her curiosity was so obvious, it was almost amusing. ‘Am I going to have to leave here?’ I asked Carter.
‘That depends, Mr Forbes. Did you assault Mr Collins?’
He had to ask that; if I had admitted it, he would have had to arrest me and my own question would be answered. ‘No, I didn’t. It’s just that I’d like to ask Janet there if she could finish for the day and go home.’
When she had left, probably to tell the entire village that I was in some kind of trouble with the police, we sat down and I told the detectives an abbreviated version of the whole story from the very start. Vale was taking notes furiously. Carter said, ‘This is developing into a long and complicated story. We’ll have to do this more formally down at the station, Mr Forbes. It incriminates other people in a conspiracy - we need to get it on tape and get a written statement from you.’
‘I understand, but do we have to do that now? Quite frankly, I don’t feel up to it. I’m dog tired and am worried sick about my friend.’
He looked at me for a long moment, sizing me up, then said, ‘Time is of the essence in solving crimes, Mr Forbes. I’d really appreciate it if you could come to the station within the next two hours?’ He put it as a request, but it felt more like an order. ‘We’ll treat you to a late lunch in the canteen,’ he added with a slight smile.
‘Two hours, I’ll be there.’
As soon as they left, I sat down and phoned the hospital in Oxford, but they could only tell me that Giles was in surgery and there was no news. Then I called Juliet again, but still got the answering service. It was difficult to get to sleep, but eventually I went down into some abyss for forty minutes, disturbed by images of broken skulls and blood and sticky hair.
I was about to get into the Land Rover when the house phone rang. Juliet had the no-nonsense voice of a strict teacher, ‘Alastair, it’s me. What’s the matter?’
‘Jules! I’m sorry to call you when you asked me not to, but you’ll want to know this. Someone’s tried to kill Giles!’
‘Oh God! Is he all right? What happened?’
I told her briefly and was adding that it was certainly Tony Wiggins that had done it when she interrupted, ‘Oh God, this is awful! Poor Giles.’ She sounded angry, and I thought I could hear her controlling her tears. ‘I’m coming down,’ she added decisively, ‘Two of us will be better than one,’ and put the phone down. That was a surprise. I was delighted but worried, she had not given me a chance to explain the situation I was in, nor that I was bound to be the prime suspect for a while at least.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I asked the policeman at the front desk for DCI Carter and gave my name. Vale appeared a few minutes later, said good afternoon rather curtly and led the way to an interview room. He asked if I wanted tea. ‘Black please, no sugar - thanks.’ I was left alone. The room was Spartan, about ten foot square with a Formica topped table and four chairs, which weren’t comfortable. There was a tape recorder at the end next to the wall which had a No Smoking sign on it and a window higher up, which was closed. It didn’t look as if it had been opened in years. It was hot and airless. There was a fan in the corner which spluttered still after a weak attempt to turn when I switched it on. A large clock on the wall ticked every second off loudly. About ten minutes later the door opened and Carter came in followed by Vale with my tea and a paper cup of his own.
‘Rested?’ asked Carter without any noticeable interest. He had a glass of water in his hand and I wished I’d taken that option. ‘I’m sorry about the temperature in this room,’ he said taking off his jacket, ‘but the other one is occupied.’
‘I tried the fan,’ I said.
He smiled thinly, ‘Budget cuts.’ He sat down opposite me, and Vale took the chair next to him and closest to the tape recorder.
‘Have you heard from the hospital? I tried to get an answer before I left home, but they said he was still in surgery.’
‘Mr Collins is suffering from a serious head injury,’ Carter answered, ‘He’s now in an induced coma. It could be months before they can bring him out of it.’ His eyes were steady on mine as they searched my reactions - or was I being paranoid? I glanced at Vale. He too was observing me closely - well that’s what they did, wasn’t it? Nevertheless, they made me feel guilty, even if I wasn’t. ‘What condition he’ll be in when they bring him out of the coma is uncertain, I understand,’ Carter finished.
Vale switched on the tape recorder, checked it was running and said, ‘Interview of Alastair Andrew Forbes started at 1412 hours on the seventeenth of September. Detective Chief Inspector James Carter and Detective Sergeant Harry Vale.’ He looked at me dispassionately, ‘For the tape. State your name and address, please.’
I started my story from the beginning, following the chronological order and leaving nothing out except for the details of my time in Chile. I explained my relationship with Giles and tried to make them understand the depth of my feelings for him as a friend. Then I went back to the first meeting with Sandra as Angela Parsons and gave my suspicions of how she knew I would be there, drawing attention to Tony Wiggins for following me. When it came to the second escapade with her, I told them how I felt her attitude had changed, that there was a hidden and vindictive side to her that was certainly not there on the first occasion, although she had showed it at dinner. Then I pointed out my torn ear and showed them the now yellowing bruise on my shoulder.
There was a subtle change in the attitude of these two detectives that afternoon compared with the morning at the scene and in my house, when they had been businesslike but still displayed a touch of sympathy. Now, there was an element of suspicion in their questions. Carter smiled occasionally and inclined his head as if in understanding, but Vale was almost antagonistic and I had the feeling he would like to bully me if he had the chance. I instinctively liked Carter and it was important to me that he felt the same way, even though he would certainly be far too professional to let such a factor influence his conclusions. I wiped the sweat off my forehead with a handkerchief and wondered if the hot and stuffy conditions were a deliberate part of their interrogation technique. I could not understand why I was being treated as more of a suspect than in the morning; something had changed while I’d been asleep. I told myself to retain the confidence that I was innocent, and the truth would inevitably win.
‘Let’s go back over a number of points, if you don’t mind.’ Always polite, Carter, appearing to ask for my approval. ‘You say that Mr Collins sent you a text for the meeting in the lane?’
‘Yes, but I tend to take unnecessary stuff off my phone. I deleted it.’
‘That’s unfortunate, because there’s no record on Mr Collins’ phone of his message to you or your reply.’
‘I had to have some arrangement in order to meet him, so I suspect Sandra sent that text on Giles’ phone and then deleted it.’ I was tired and not thinking properly, but then a solution came to me, ‘Hang on a minute; Giles would not have sent that message on his usual phone. I told you we agreed to use the pay-as-you-go ones between us, but Sandra couldn’t have known that, and she would use the one she knows about. Can’t you check with the mobile operator?’
He nodded, ‘We will.’ They both began asking questions to which I had already supplied answers, “just to
be sure”. I felt that they were trying to have me contradict myself, which wasn’t going to happen because I was telling them the truth. There was a cobweb in the corner of the shelf above the tape recorder. A fly struggled vainly to extricate itself, rested and tried again, but the web held fast. Hopefully, that wasn’t symbolic.
‘You claim that Mr Collins told you he had an argument with his wife the night before, in which he told her he was thinking of taking her out of his will, but that he already had and left everything to you and Miss Meredith.’
‘Yes,’ It was obvious where this was going. ‘If Sandra thought he would take her out of the will, then she had a strong motive to kill him before he did so, but she would have to be quick about it.’
‘Well, because we can’t waste time in an investigation of this nature, while you were resting we interviewed Mrs Collins. She claims that her husband told her that he had already left his entire estate to you. If that was the case, then she had no motive for his assault. She is devastated, by the way.’
I shrugged, ‘Well, that’s not what he told me on two counts. First, it was that the estate was left to both Miss Meredith and myself, not me alone, so she’s mistaken there. Second is that he definitely told her that he had not yet changed the will. I’m sorry, I can only tell you what I know is correct and what I believe to be true. If she contradicts some things then it’s in your hands to determine who is telling the truth. And, Chief Inspector, if Giles took her out of his will, that is surely evidence of the bad feelings between them that would hardly have left her ‘devastated’, as you put it. That woman is more likely to be devastated over being deprived of his estate.’
Irritatingly, Vale was lightly and rapidly drumming his fingers on the desk. ‘Just what is your relationship with Ms Meredith, how strong is it?’ he asked, using the neutral title rather than the older man’s more defining, “Miss”.
‘Up until a week ago it was about as strong as it could possibly be. That was until I told her about Sandra Collins. What’s that got to do with it?’ I knew the reason the moment I asked the question.
‘It means that Ms Meredith could be part of a scheme between you, of course.’
‘You can leave her out of this, she has nothing to do with it.’ I was feeling increasingly hot and short of breath in the stuffy atmosphere and was conscious that my irritation at all this was beginning to show in my answers.
Carter interrupted, ‘Mrs Collins also claims that the first encounter you say you had with her never occurred, and she has an alibi for that evening.’
‘Provided, no doubt, by both Tony and Mandy Wiggins,’ I replied sourly. I needed to get a better grip of myself, I was giving adverse reactions to this line of questioning which seemed to me to favour Sandra’s view. ‘I’d like to make another point, which I forgot earlier, please.’ I paused slightly until Carter looked up expectantly and went on, ‘Giles told me that Sandra was married to another wealthy man before. Giles met him once and he told my friend that she was a vicious gold-digger who took him for almost everything he had. You can verify that if you find a man called Parsons who works in the City. You’ll recall that Sandra first introduced herself to me as Angela Parsons, which happens to be her maiden name as well. She never officially changed it to Collins.’
Carter made a note in his book then motioned to Vale who briefly left the room to returned with a long transparent bag. He placed it on the table between us, his eyes never leaving me. Closest to me was the end of a stick, but light from the window glinted off the plastic at the other end and I couldn’t see clearly what it was. I picked it up to avoid the reflection and take a closer look. It was my knobkerrie, and the head was smeared with blood.
‘You recognise this club,’ It was a statement from Vale not a question. ‘It has your initials on the shaft under the head. Is it yours?’
I set it down, making sure it was lying at precisely ninety degrees to the table, taking my time. ‘Yes, it’s mine. Where did you get it?’ Bloody hell! They had a motive and they had a weapon and both were mine. This was serious. To calm myself, I explained, ‘Technically, it’s a knobkerrie, a club used by mainly Southern African tribes, particularly Zulus, as a weapon along with a short spear and a cow hide shield. The image of a Zulu warrior dressed like that is common.’
‘It was thrown into the hedgerow not far from the scene,’ answered Carter. His words were matter of fact and lacked any emotion in contrast to Vale’s obvious dislike of me.
I took a deep breath and swallowed, ‘It must have been stolen during that robbery, but I didn’t miss it. Thinking about it later, I thought I’d seen something else in his hand before he tried to hit me the second time.’ I brightened slightly, ‘This means that the same person that broke into my house hit Giles.’
‘Possibly,’ Vale again, continuing his irritating tap on the desk. Without a word Carter touched the Sergeant’s offending arm. Vale quickly withdrew his hand to below the table and continued, ‘But you could have dropped in at home and picked it up before going to meet your friend, or had it in your car already.’
‘I could not have taken that to Chile with me because I had no reason to and there’s airport security, and I hand my car over to parking attendants. I remove all items of value, obviously, and that has some sentimental value. Also, I went straight from the airport to the field. There would not be enough time for me to go home first. You can work it out if you want,’ I was thinking out loud so my reply was scattered and confused.
‘We will, you can be assured of that,’ Vale answered. Carter was letting him continue with his accusatory nature and keeping quiet. They weren’t quite playing ‘good cop, bad cop’ but it seemed to me that Vale was less experienced and thought he had an arrest in the offing whereas Carter was a thinker with more years behind him, and was prepared to look for additional evidence before holding me.
Unwillingly, I found myself captured by the clock’s incessant clicks. It was two hours and forty three minutes slow. Only the gravity of my situation prevented me from getting up and putting it right.
‘I can see that this is not looking good for me at the moment,’ I said, talking my way through my concerns and appealing to Carter’s hopefully open mind, ‘But Giles Collins was a very close friend. We climbed together, we shared bivouacs on sheer cliff faces together, he saved my life once. We were at varsity together, sharing digs. We got drunk and, I’m ashamed to say, annoyed the police sometimes. Our lives have been more closely intertwined than most siblings. I don’t mind saying that what we feel for each other is probably more akin to love than you’ll find in most marriages.’ Vale’s expression of disgust was blatant, and it annoyed me. ‘And when I say ‘love’ Sergeant Vale, I don’t mean homosexuality, quite the opposite, so you can take that look off your face!’ He dropped the sneer and glared angrily. Carter had his head down, and I’m sure he was masking his expression.
‘Look,’ I went on, ‘why would I kill my friend for his money? I’m certainly not as wealthy as Giles, but I earn enough to live without financial restraint and provide for my eventual retirement in comfort. You can check my accounts as I’m sure you will, I’ve nothing to hide, I’ve not got myself into debt nor made any investments I can’t afford. I don’t gamble. I own my house outright; no mortgage. I tried to get Giles not to leave me anything, as I told you. And why would I hit him over the head and throw the knobkerrie away so close to the scene? I’d be stupid to do something like that - and then call 999.’
Carter watched me rant without any apparent feeling. ‘You’d be surprised at the number of double bluffs that criminals try on us,’ he replied.
They had me worried. ‘Do I need a solicitor? I don’t have one.’
‘Not yet, Mr Forbes, but I suggest you alert one. You are currently under suspicion for attempted murder. You should not leave the country and should remain available for further questioning, and I would like you to hand in your passport, please. I’ll send an officer to follow you to your house to collect
it. When is your next trip to Chile planned?’
‘About four weeks time, but I can shift it as long as I give them enough notice.’
They gathered their stuff together on the table. ‘Thank you Mr Forbes, you’ve been most helpful,’ said Carter.
‘I can’t say it was a pleasure, but nevertheless I’ll continue to give you my full cooperation.’
As I walked down the corridor ahead of them, I heard Vale say, ‘Why don’t we arrest him now, sir?’ Carter’s reply was inaudible.
Driving home with the police car never out of my rear view mirror, I tried to work out what was going on. If I was Carter with the evidence that he had against me, I would have myself arrested and charged. The fact that he didn’t meant to me that there was an element of doubt I wasn’t aware of. The trouble was that in spite of watching all sorts of crime drama on television, I really didn’t know how the police worked at all and felt well out of my depth. What I did realise was that there was limited time left to prove Wiggins’ involvement in the robbery and the attack before I was arrested. With Wiggins would follow Sandra, the composer, the conductor and the driving force. Giles had commented how she was always one step ahead, well now it was another two: a false alibi and a lie about the will.
I was even more tired after that experience, but felt I had to go and see how Giles’ servants were coping. They were both a significant part of his life, having worked on the estate for decades, and were entitled to know what was going on. I could not visit them if Sandra was there, but from the gate I could see that her garage door was open and no Porsche was inside.