The Dog Walker

by Lesley Thomson

  Hammersmith Library on bus. Bette to Charing + Hosp. Requested book on plumbing. Read by librarian’s desk.

  9.55 – 10 a.m.

  Went to toilet. Told librarian.

  10 a.m. – 12 noon

  More reading, asked librarian for another book.

  12 – 12.45 p.m.

  Bette came. We had sandwich.

  12.45 – 2.34 p.m.

  Asked for book on history of Hammersmith. New librarian. Impatient at me for asking q’s.

  2.34 – 2.36 p.m.

  Asked new librarian where toilets were. Man there. I dropped change on floor. ‘Throwing your money around.’ Didn’t know me. Just friendly.

  2.36 – 5 p.m.

  Read at front table. Librarian knew who I was. Didn’t smile.

  5 – 5.07 p.m. (7 min. walk)

  Left library. Asked time outside. Bought RSPCA sticker off lady on Fulham Palace Rd. Grey bun and blue eyes. Crossed road in front of car. Man shouted. White mini, D323 LPC.

  5.07 – 5.30 p.m.

  Told hosp. receptionist waiting for wife. Think he knew me. Waited.

  5.30 – 6.20 p.m.

  Walked to Hamm Bdy with Bette, train home. Helped G with birds.

  6.20 – 6.23 p.m.

  Lucie at Thames Cotts: ‘How do you live with yourself’. No answer as police instructed. Bette lost it and said. Still no other suspects.

  6.23 – 6.28 p.m.

  Asked M and G to walk Smudge with me. Garry won’t if M there. M stayed with Bette.

  6.28 – 7.36 p.m.

  Towpath with G. Saw Mrs Merry coming back from Chis Bridge – usual route. G called her evil. Told him off. I said good evening. She didn’t hear. Saw Nev R. He greeted me politely like he didn’t know me. Sybil Lofthouse acted like hadn’t seen me.

  7.36 – 9 p.m.

  Tea. TV News.

  10 – 10.17 p.m.

  Walked Smudge with Bette. Saw B Judd. He didn’t speak, but did see us.

  10.17 p.m.

  Bed. Bette there.

  11.03 p.m.

  Light out. In bed all night.

  The diary continued with little variation in activity for twenty-eight days. At the top of each page, fastened with a paper clip, was a newspaper schedule for that evening’s TV, some pro­grammes circled in red, Underground and bus tickets, receipts for sandwiches and charity stickers.

  ‘Lawson provided proof for everything he did.’ Jack felt for the dead man: desperation emanated from every entry. ‘He’s made sure he had witnesses, even when he went to the lavatory.’ Stanley shook himself and, jumping down, padded off down the basement. The panel slid aside for him. He jumped into the sandbox and started digging. Clouds of sand flurried up behind him.

  Stella said, ‘Lucie May has a point. This could be proof of guilt as much as of innocence.’

  ‘Lawson couldn’t know when he’d need an alibi.’ Jack was sombre. He called to Stanley and pat-patted his knee to encourage him back. The poodle had nestled within his hollow in the sand.

  ‘He bought badges and stickers from charity sellers so that they might remember him.’ Stella flipped back to the first page. ‘Looks like he tried to kill himself by stepping out into traffic.’ Stella glanced over at Stanley. ‘He won’t come if you ask. Show you don’t care.’

  ‘I do care.’

  ‘That’s why he won’t come.’ The glass panel slid closed and Jack couldn’t see Stanley.

  ‘I’m not sure it was a suicide attempt, it was another way of being remembered,’ he said.

  Stella flipped through the exercise book. ‘He doesn’t walk out in front of a car any other day.’

  ‘Risky if the driver didn’t see. Lawson couldn’t hide at home and avoid abuse from the likes of Lucie or the public. He couldn’t be alone, he needed an alibi.’ Jack scratched his stubbly chin. He had forgotten to shave that morning. Living in Latimer’s basement, his own routine had been disrupted. ‘These days CCTV would have been his friend.’

  ‘Perhaps Lucie’s right. His plumbing business had dried up, and if he’d got jobs, he couldn’t be alone with anyone, especially women.’ The glass swished aside. Stanley emerged from the playroom and this time went to Stella’s lap. She lifted her laptop out of the way and he jumped up on to her. ‘“Nev R” must be Rowlands. He seems to have been nice to him. Lawson had hate mail and from this it looks like his neighbours thought him guilty.’

  ‘That could suggest Rowlands was guilty.’ Jack patted his lap surreptitiously, but Stanley gazed at him implacably. ‘He could afford to be nice to Lawson if the poor guy had taken the rap for what Rowlands had done.’

  Stella ran her finger down the entries, turning the pages slowly. ‘He sees him more than once. If he was guilty, wouldn’t it be more convincing to put the blame on the man suspected of the crime, like everyone else?’ Stella balanced the laptop pre­cariously above Stanley. ‘Bev’s not found Rowlands yet.’

  Jack didn’t dare think what Lucie would do when she found out Stella had taken the diary.

  ‘“Who am I and what have I done?”’ Stella read out Lawson’s last words. Unlike the other entries, this final one was scrawled in large letters across the ruled lines. ‘He left the library at four thirty, half an hour earlier than usual. Did he write this at the same time or when he got home? There’s no mention of buying badges off charity workers or asking the time. He left half an hour early.’

  ‘He planned to commit suicide, he didn’t need an alibi,’ Jack said. ‘This entry is the twenty-seventh of February, on the day he died. A Friday.’

  ‘Is that key?’

  ‘Wednesday used to be the classic day for suicide. I suppose it’s a bit like an island with a sea between the weekends. But Lawson might have lost all sense of the days. It was one long night­mare for him.’ Jack sucked on the arm of his glasses.

  ‘Latimer can’t have seen Lawson’s diary – how come this question was on her computer?’ Stella brought up a colourful spreadsheet. Jack put on his glasses and read details of the Thames Cottage residents. She’d done a map of the area. ‘Bette Lawson would have known about it, and Megan, since she stole the diary. Garry Lawson may have read it.’ She became animated. ‘He’s only next door, he might be Latimer’s intruder! He could have got hold of a key when the builders were here, let himself in, changed her screensaver and manoeuvred the digger. Latimer said he was “strange”.’

  ‘Natasha Latimer would consider anyone not motivated by wealth and property strange. Garry’s father was dubbed a murderer and killed himself. Enough to make anyone strange,’ Jack said. ‘For whatever reason, he doesn’t have a job, he’s in his forties and he lives with his mother and breeds budgerigars – none of that a crime. But it could be that his father’s parting question haunts him and it leads him to haunt others.’ He had to meet Garry Lawson.

  ‘Garry Lawson is alive.’ Stella was firm. ‘He can’t haunt anyone.’ She sat forward on the sofa. ‘He could be the murderer!’

  ‘He was twelve at the time.’

  ‘Twelve-year-olds are capable of murder. If Garry Lawson suspected Helen Honeysett and his dad were involved, he had the motive to kill her. He told the police he didn’t see his father on the towpath, but Megan Lawson is sure he lied.’

  ‘If he did see them it means he had an alibi,’ Jack reminded her.

  ‘Megan sneaked out to the towpath. Perhaps Garry did too. Steven Lawson could have guessed what his son had done and that’s why he killed himself.’

  ‘It’s possible.’ Jack picked up the diary. It was the nature of tabloids to persecute, but he had set Lucie apart from the gutter press. Tonight they’d seen a hard-nosed reporter who made allowances for no one. Jack had made the mistake of believing she was on his side. Lucie May was on nobody’s side, not even her sister’s. She had been part of a pack that had hounded Steven Lawson to his death.

  ‘Lawson didn’t leave a suicide note. The diary is evidence – flimsy though it is – that he killed himself.’

  ‘
I wonder if Bette Lawson knows Megan passed it to her sister. She certainly doesn’t know we have it.’ Having recovered from initial shock, Jack was excited that Stella had taken the diary. Lawson’s blow-by-blow account of his last days gave a heart-rending insight to the prime suspect.

  ‘Maybe Lucie May hasn’t published the diary to protect her sister.’ Stella was good at seeing the best in people.

  Jack found this unlikely. ‘Protect her how?’

  ‘The verdict on Lawson’s death was “Accident or Misadventure”. He left no suicide note. If the coroner had seen this, it would probably have been ruled suicide and Lawson’s life insurance would have been void.’ Stella opened a fresh worksheet. She titled it Suspects. ‘We must return it to Bette Lawson.’

  But Jack objected. ‘It will stir up more ill will between the sisters. Let’s keep out of it.’

  ‘From how Lucie was talking, it can’t get worse.’ Stella set up columns and coloured cells. ‘I’ll ask Natasha Latimer about Lawson’s question: it might be coincidence and there’s no link.’

  ‘If you do, she’ll know I opened her computer,’ Jack said.

  Stella looked at him. ‘You said it came up on the screen when you were dusting.’

  ‘It did.’ Although this was the truth, Jack felt himself flush. Guilt was tingeing the few honest bits of his life. As if he sensed his shame, Stanley got up and, languidly, transferred from Stella over to his lap. Jack nearly crowed with joy.

  ‘We do agree with Lucie May that Helen Honeysett’s killer knew her routine and it wasn’t a random attack by a stranger. That gives us five suspects.’ Deftly Stella created a grid on the screen, titled columns and typed Sybil Lofthouse. ‘She lives at number five and is the only resident of Thames Cottages Natasha Latimer likes. She worked at the Stock Exchange.’ Stella tapped the keyboard. ‘She told me she went to bed early then. She lived on her own then too; we have only her word that’s what she did. She had a dog and went to the towpath.’

  ‘She was fifty at the time. It’s unlikely she overpowered a fit young woman and then got rid of her body. From your description she doesn’t look like she could overpower a mouse.’

  ‘She could have pushed her in the river. I’m nearly fifty, I could do it,’ Stella said stoutly. ‘Lofthouse could have caught Honeysett by surprise.’

  ‘What was her motive?’ Jack shuddered at the possibility of Stella killing anyone. Or being killed. ‘Has Lofthouse benefited from her death?’

  Stella played Devil’s advocate. ‘It may not have been about money, maybe she wanted her gone. Sybil Lofthouse seems harmless and daffy, but it could be a front. She might have had a grudge against her.’

  As a guest of True Hosts, Jack knew that desiring the absence of a hated person was motive enough. Those who would never commit murder dreamt that someone who had made them unhappy would die. ‘Daphne Merry was on the towpath. She found Honeysett’s dog Baxter by the crematorium.’

  Nodding, Stella added this to the section for Merry. ‘Why attract attention by returning the dog?’

  ‘So we wouldn’t think her guilty?’ Now Jack was the Devil’s advocate. The only person he suspected Daphne of wanting dead was the man who killed her daughter and he was already dead.

  ‘This is by the by. Merry had an alibi. Suspect number three: Neville Rowlands who lived in this cottage. Adam told me at our first meeting that Rowlands saw Merry. Unwittingly he gave her an alibi. It wasn’t mutual because she said she didn’t see him. He did say she’d two dogs with her, her own – Woof – and the Honeysetts’ dog. When he was interviewed Rowlands couldn’t have known Merry had found Baxter unless he’d seen her. His alibi was his mother, who claimed he was outside for no more than five minutes. But mothers can lie.’ This idea seemed to silence Stella.

  ‘One of the pet graves is dated 1987. It’s for Hercules. The same year as Helen Honeysett.’

  ‘His dog dying could have upset Rowlands and made him jealous of others who had a dog. Some people get attached to their dogs.’ Stella spoke as if she didn’t have a dog she was attached to.

  ‘Rowlands is a stronger suspect than Lawson,’ Jack said. ‘Surely Lucie – or the police – saw that? There’s something we don’t know.’

  ‘There’s a lot we don’t know. We have to take it stain by stain.’ Stella jotted Hercules’s grave in Rowlands’ note section. ‘He’s on a par with Adam at the moment.’

  ‘Who’s next?’ Jack was enjoying himself.

  ‘Bette Lawson. If she suspected her husband of having an affair with Honeysett, she had a powerful motive. When she returned from the towpath, Megan said her mother was in the kitchen trying not to let her see she was crying. What if Bette had just got there and her agitation was because she had committed murder? Helen Honeysett saying “Oh it’s you!” implied she knew the person she met on the towpath. She knew Bette Lawson.’

  ‘She knew all the suspects,’ Jack reminded her. ‘Did Bette have time to kill Honeysett and throw her in the river before Megan returned to the house?’ He was dubious. ‘Megan was hiding on the riverbank, she would have heard a splash.’

  ‘She might have dragged Honeysett into bushes, returned later and disposed of the body, probably in the river,’ Stella mused. ‘Even at night it would have been hard to move a body. You’d need a car and that would draw attention. Lawson had a van, but they checked it for DNA and found none.’

  ‘Lawson’s a nurse. Didn’t they have to do lifting and manual handling in those days? She was probably strong,’ Jack said. ‘With knowledge of anatomy she could kill efficiently too.’

  Stella tapped ‘Strong’ and ‘Time-lapse’ in Bette’s section. Perhaps because she didn’t rate his last suggestion, she left out ‘Anatomy’.

  ‘Next is Honeysett and the woman he was having an affair with, Jane Drake.’ Jack didn’t disguise his dislike of the man. He did disguise that he wanted it to be Honeysett. ‘They alibied each other so discount that. They gained by Honeysett’s death and we only have his testimony that she vanished that night. Helen might have found out about his affair and wanted a divorce. He had much to lose. He could have murdered her when he got back from Jane Drake’s in the morning and gone to his meeting in Northampton. When his wife was declared dead, he got the house and her life insurance.’

  ‘She wasn’t declared dead until 2007. And don’t forget Adam asked us to solve the case. OK, so you think that was to divert us from discovering his guilt, but it could be that he isn’t guilty. He’d have been better to lie low and not hire private detectives or whatever we are. I wonder if Adam is still in touch with Jane Drake?’

  ‘If he dissuades us from finding her, I for one will be sus­picious.’ Honeysett had withheld vital information: he was playing them.

  ‘Good idea. Lastly, there’s the “Person or Persons Unknown”, the one we don’t know about.’ Stella filled in the last row of the grid.

  Sybil Lofthouse (No. 5)

  50 in 1987. No alibi for evening. No obvious motive. Means & opportunity: yes.

  Adam Honeysett (No. 4)

  28 in 1987. Alibi Jane Drake. Motive: Jane D and ££. Means & opportunity: yes.

  Jane Drake (flat on Kew Road)

  19 in 1987. Motive: Adam H and ££. Means & opportunity: accomplice to Adam H.

  Daphne Merry (No. 3)

  38 in 1987. Alibi from Nev R. No obvious motive. Means & opportunity: yes. Brought back dog (cover?).

  Bette Lawson (No. 2)

  29 in 1987. Alibi from Megan and Garry Lawson. Motive, means & opportunity: yes. (Contract killer?) Strong. Time-lapse.

  Garry Lawson (No. 2)

  12 in 1987. Alibi from sister which denied. Motive, means and opportunity: yes.

  Neville Rowlands (No. 1) Deceased? Address?

  Age unknown. Alibi Mother /saw Daphne Merry. Motive, means & opportunity: unknown. Hercules’s grave

  Unknown person(s)

  Motive, means & opportunity: ?

  ‘It’s late. I must go.’ She shut her lap
top and motioned to Stanley.

  *

  ‘I’ll take Stanley to the towpath for a pee,’ Stella announced outside Latimer’s gate.

  ‘I’ll come too.’ This time Jack wouldn’t let her go alone.

  Stella and Jack went up the steps to the towpath and set off towards Kew Railway Bridge.

  ‘Heel, Stanley,’ Stella commanded as the poodle strained forward. ‘He wants to go to that house again. I wonder who lives there?’

  ‘Brian Judd,’ Jack said promptly. Then he heard himself.

  ‘If he was there in 1987, they are suspect number six.’ Stella hadn’t asked him how he knew. Jack let himself breathe.

  They had gone beyond the lamp-post at the Thames Cottages steps and the dark closed in around them. Below was the wash of the river.

  Stella put on her phone app torch. The pale light created baffling shadows that jerked and jumped with each step.

  They emerged from the canopy of trees. Above, the sodium-stained sky sent an insidious pall across the path. They were outside the dilapidated house.

  Stanley pulled harder. Jack let him lead him forward.

  Someone was watching them through the lattice of cobwebs behind the grimy panes. He was sure it was the same face as he’d seen last time. Before he could stop himself, Jack gasped, ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Who?’ Stella asked, looking behind her to the towpath. She turned to the house. There were only cobwebs. ‘It must be that Brian… What did you say his name was?’

  ‘Judd.’ Jack was caught in a dust-laden cobweb of his own.

  Before he could stop her, Stella plunged across the grass and gave the iron claw on the door three thunderous knocks. It triggered a tirade of shrill barks from Stanley.

  No one came.

  Then it happened. The question that he was waiting for. Stella asked him, ‘Actually, how do you know he’s called Brian Judd?’