Nick’s attempt to deflect the discussion from Rosie had only limited success. The inspector assured us that Sue’s body would be released “soon”.
‘Soon?’ Nick repeated, sounding irritated, ‘that’s vague.’
The inspector greeted the implied criticism with a shrug before returning to his own enquiry.
‘Have either of you seen Rosie since she interviewed you here?’
It was impossible to deny that I had spoken to her, so I answered as boldly as I could, hoping no one would pick up on my nerves.
‘Actually,’ I said, in an unnaturally high voice, ‘yes, I saw her.’ I cleared my throat and continued, forcing my voice to go lower. ‘We had a drink in the pub near her office in Watford the other day. She said she had something to ask me.’
For a second, no one spoke and I realised they were all waiting for me to continue.
Nick was looking at me with an expression of faint surprise. ‘You never mentioned it.’
‘It wasn’t that important. She has a cousin, or a friend.’
I amended my statement quickly in case the police checked with Rosie’s cousins. Perhaps she had no cousins.
‘And this other woman, I don’t know who she is, anyway, she was asking about Edleybury because she was thinking of sending her son here and she wanted Rosie to ask me about the school, unofficially. Of course I gave her the usual response,’ I added, with a quick smile at Nick before turning back to the inspector. ‘Edleybury offers an all round education catering for pupils with a variety of talents. Naturally we strive for, and attain, excellent academic results, but we don’t focus exclusively on academic studies. Our sports and arts facilities are–’
‘Thank you, I’ve read the prospectus,’ the inspector cut in abruptly.
I made no reference to my night-time visit to Rosie’s flat, and breathed more freely when the discussion moved on. During the police visit, I made several unsuccessful attempts to catch the sergeant’s eye, but she either didn’t notice, or else deliberately declined to exchange any significant glance with me, and eventually the inspector left, with her trailing behind him. I hoped she would look over her shoulder in the doorway and give me a smile, or a nod, to reassure me of her discretion, but she didn’t look round.
Chapter 37
That weekend Nick was away attending a conference of headmasters, which sounded like a pretty dull affair. None of the other spouses would be there, and he told me I would be kicking my heels in the hotel on my own all weekend if I went with him. It wasn’t even a particularly nice hotel, with no spa facilities or cultivated gardens, so it made little sense for me to accompany him.
When Nick had originally planned his trip, it hadn’t occurred to me that I would want to do anything in his absence other than sit in the garden, walk in the school grounds, and generally make the most of the lovely weather, or perhaps use my sewing machine if it rained while he was away. For months I had been intending to make some new curtains for the guest bedroom but had not yet got around to it, although we had purchased the fabric a few months after we moved in. Those plans had been made long before our interview with Rosie and everything that had followed. But there was another way to take advantage of Nick’s absence to follow up my suspicions.
More than mere curiosity compelled me to set off on Saturday morning. There was still a real danger the police would discover I had been to Rosie’s flat. I might have got away with it by claiming to have paid her a social call. After all, she was in no position to deny it. However, since I had said nothing about any such visit when the inspector had last questioned Nick and me, that was going to be tricky to carry off. The fact that the police had not yet come knocking at my door to quiz me about it led me to hope they might not discover any trace of my presence in her flat.
I had been careful to wear rubber gloves while I was there, and had kept my hood up in the street. Only when crawling across the carpet had I had much direct contact with any of the surfaces there, and that had been unavoidable. Looking back on that evening, it was hard to believe what had happened, with my breaking and entering, and then hiding in the living room while Rosie was having sex on the other side of an open door. Just thinking about it made me cringe.
It sounded as though she had been killed the night I broke into her flat, in which case the man who had visited her that night might have murdered her, given that she had been smothered with a pillow. With a cold shiver, I realised that I was possibly in possession of information that could help the police to find her killer, but I was powerless to share what I knew. In any case, I told myself that I had seen nothing of the man who had been in bed with her, so my account could add nothing to what the police already knew.
Without much idea of what I was doing, or why I was going there, I drove to the street where Rosie had worked and found myself pulling into a parking space, my hands and feet seeming to move without my control. Feeling as if this was all a dream, I walked back to the pub where I had met Rosie only five days earlier.
Although it was not yet midday, I sat down at a corner table with a glass of red wine, and tried to remember my last conversation with Rosie. We had been sitting, face to face, at that same table. As I recalled, she had not been very forthcoming, but had insisted she knew nothing about the photographs she had shown me. After that, she had said she never wanted to see me again. Her wish had been granted, although not in the way either of us had expected or wanted. I sipped my wine, which wasn’t particularly nice, and thought about my marriage. As I sat quietly musing, a familiar figure entered the bar. Detective Sergeant Woods looked around and, as soon as her gaze lighted on me, she came straight over to the corner where I was sitting.
‘I thought I spotted you coming in here,’ she said, shuffling into a seat beside me. ‘What on earth are you doing? You must know Rosie worked just up the road.’
I cursed myself for my stupidity. What was I doing there, running the risk of being seen by the police? There was no reason why I shouldn’t be in the pub having a drink, but perhaps I had come there subconsciously hoping to come across the sergeant. Everything was so confusing.
‘You should have come to the police station,’ she said. ‘I’ve been wanting to talk to you. Listen, my DI has asked me to warn you to stay away from the case, and to have nothing more to do with our investigations into the deaths of Sue or Rosie. Otherwise you’re only going to attract attention and cause a distraction. If you interfere again and force us to look into your connection with Rosie before we’re ready to do so, we’ll be down on you again like a ton of bricks, and next time we’re not going to let you walk away from us so quickly. You might get away from the DI once, but…’ She shook her head. ‘He doesn’t forget anything. If you were in any way involved with what happened to either of these victims we’re investigating, we’ll find out. But in the meantime, you need to keep out of the way.’
For a moment we sat, each lost in our own thoughts. A couple of young men came in. Hunched in her chair, facing the wall, the sergeant took a hand mirror from her bag and glanced in it. Guessing she was checking whether any of her colleagues had entered the pub, I realised we did not have much time.
‘You told me Rosie bought a phone in her brother’s name,’ I said, leaning forward and speaking in an urgent whisper.
‘We don’t know she bought it herself, only that she paid for it.’
‘Which means she bought it.’
‘In my job you learn never to believe anything that hasn’t been proved beyond doubt.’
‘If you ask me, only a fool would question whether she bought that phone herself.’
‘Listen,’ the sergeant glanced around, ‘I’m not comfortable talking to you about this.’
‘In case someone sees us?’
She shrugged. ‘Feel free to tell whoever you like that I’ve been talking to you but, now Rosie’s been murdered, my boss might start to wonder why you’re asking so many questions about her. So unless you have an undeclared reason for this c
uriosity of yours, take my advice and drop your interest in her. If you had nothing to do with Rosie’s death, then I don’t understand your obsession with her,’ she added, turning to stare at me and study my response.
‘I want you to help me to prove my innocence, and I want to know whether those photos of my husband that Rosie showed me were genuine.’
‘It’s my job to find out who’s guilty of murdering these women, both of them known to you. I’m not interested in whether or not your husband was unfaithful to you.’
With that, she stood up and hurried away.
Chapter 38
Even though she had warned me to stay away from the investigation, I called the sergeant the next morning. Nick wasn’t due back until the evening and, after refusing to come to my home again, she finally agreed to meet at five o’clock in a small room upstairs in a country pub. It was not far from the school, and I thought it would be a suitable location for a discreet rendezvous.
Feeling like a spy, I made my way to our clandestine tryst. As I glanced furtively around the downstairs bar, I was dismayed to see the head of maths sitting at a table with another member of staff, deep in conversation. In their late fifties or early sixties, they were members of the group Nick referred to as the “dead wood”. It was hardly surprising to see them there since we were only a few miles from Edleybury. Regretting having agreed to meet the sergeant in a pub so close to the school, I stole past them, hoping they wouldn’t look up and notice me hurrying up the stairs. The sergeant was already there, waiting for me at a table in the corner.
‘Have they– have you– has anyone found the phone yet?’ I asked as I sat down. ‘You have to tell me what’s happened. You can’t just leave me in the dark like this.’
She shook her head. ‘I only came here to tell you that it’s time you let this go, Louise. You need to leave us to get on with our job. There’s nothing more to say. I’ll contact you if we find anything. And now if you want to speak to us again, you need to call the police station and go through the usual channels.’
She stirred in her seat, and was about to rise to her feet; only the desperation in my voice detained her.
‘No, wait, wait!’ I cried out.
I glanced around the room. It was empty apart from us but, even so, I lowered my voice and pressed on. ‘That phone must be somewhere. It can’t have just disappeared. You said she bought a phone in another name. Why would she have done that if she wasn’t planning to do something she wanted to keep hidden? It stands to reason, doesn’t it. That’s the evidence you needed to prove to you that I’m telling the truth about those photos, and Rosie was lying about it. And now we have to find that phone, or we’ll never know if the photos were genuine or not.’
I paused for breath, aware that my voice had risen in agitation. The sergeant took the opportunity to try to scotch my interest in the missing phone, but I remained adamant that the police had to search Rosie’s flat, her car, her office, anywhere she might have hidden the phone.
‘Did she have a boyfriend?’ I asked, ‘or a sister, or parents? What about her brother? We know she had a brother. She might have hidden a phone in someone else’s house. It has to be somewhere,’ I insisted, although we both knew Rosie might have destroyed it any time after she had shown me the photos. ‘The longer we leave it, the more chance there is that it’ll be thrown away by someone who doesn’t realise its significance. That’s why you have to search for it now. Surely you understand, I need to know if I can trust Nick and this is the only way to find out. Rosie was the one person who could have told me the truth, and now she’s dead. Please, you have to help me.’
‘There was nothing in her flat, we’ve already looked,’ the sergeant said coldly. ‘The search teams are thorough. Believe me, if there was a phone hidden there, they would have found it.’
‘It must be somewhere. They were searching the flat for evidence of her killer, weren’t they. But they weren’t looking for a missing phone. And it could be in her car, or in her office, or–’
‘Or she could have disposed of it at any time during the period between her showing it to you and her death.’
That certainly seemed likely. After Rosie had shown me the photos of Nick and Sue, over a month had elapsed before she was killed. In the meantime, she had succeeded in convincing me Nick was unfaithful. What I still didn’t understand was why she would want to do that, unless it were true.
‘There must be another explanation,’ I said. ‘What was Rosie’s relationship with my husband?’
‘I’ve been looking into her background,’ the sergeant replied. ‘There’s nothing to suggest she ever came across your husband before she visited the school to interview you both. But in any case,’ she added impatiently, ‘what difference does it make? We still don’t know who killed Sue, or Rosie, and that’s what matters. Finding Rosie’s phone isn’t going to help further our investigation.’
‘Finding out whether those photos were fake might help you to solve the murder case,’ I suggested hopefully.
‘That’s hardly likely. And anyway, I told you Rosie never met your husband before your interview, so there was no obvious reason for her to fabricate those images.’
‘But you don’t know she didn’t fabricate them. Rosie could have had a grudge against Sue and wanted her to lose her job–’
‘You really need to get over your obsession with Rosie White,’ the sergeant said firmly.
‘The truth is, I need to know whether my husband was having an affair.’
‘Perhaps you should ask him.’
I did not tell her that I had already asked him, but was not sure whether to believe his reply.
The sergeant lowered her voice and leaned forward. ‘Listen to me, Rosie’s dead, and you’re going to get yourself in trouble if you keep poking around in a murder investigation. All that will happen is that you’ll attract attention, and unwanted police attention is never a good idea. It tends to lead to questions. My colleagues will want to know why you’re so interested in this murder victim. They’ll want to know why you won’t leave it alone. And then they might start investigating you, and who knows what dirt they’ll dig up from the past, things you probably don’t even know about. And don’t think for one moment that they’ll be content with looking into your circumstances. They’ll investigate your husband as well. Is that what you want?’
‘No, of course not. That’s why I’m asking you, in confidence. You have to tell me–’
‘No, Louise, I don’t have to tell you anything. I’m not working for you. And we’re not talking again, we’re not meeting again. I’ve told you we haven’t found Rosie’s phone, which is more than I should have said, and now this relationship is over. Nothing that passes between the two of us is in confidence. I work as part of a team. If you want to know whether your husband was having an affair, you’ll have to ask him.’
‘I’ll tell the inspector you met with me in secret,’ I said, aware it was a forlorn threat.
‘Go ahead. Be my guest. Tell him whatever you like. Just don’t contact me again.’
She left me sitting there alone. I had gone to meet her with high hopes that she would help me to get to the truth, but once again I was left in ignorance of Nick’s relationship with Sue. The sergeant had not been exaggerating when she described my interest as an obsession. I couldn’t stay there much longer if I was going to be home before Nick arrived back from his weekend away, so I finished my drink and stood up.
The head of maths and his companion had left by the time I went back downstairs. My relief at not being spotted only served to highlight my unease, and I realised the sergeant was right about something else as well: the need to change my approach. It was no good hounding her for confirmation that the photos were fake. I would have to confront Nick and discover the truth from him. Admittedly, if he had been unfaithful, I would have preferred to learn about it from someone else, so that I would have time to think about what to do. In addition to that, if the allegations wer
en’t true, it would be far better if he never found out I still suspected him of having an affair. While I longed to believe his denials, I had to be sure. There was no way of learning the truth, other than from Nick himself. I steeled myself to tackle him as soon as he stepped through the door.
When Nick arrived home, tired and disgruntled after a difficult journey, I realised it was not the time to challenge him about his relationship with his secretary. He told me his first train had been delayed, meaning he had missed his connection, and then when he had finally reached his car, he had been stuck behind a slow-moving tractor for miles. So I decided to wait until the next day to ask him, straight out, whether he had been unfaithful to me. There would be no more procrastination. One way or another, I was going to put an end to the uncertainty that was plaguing my waking hours and stalking my dreams.
Chapter 39
Nick went out early the following morning before I had a chance to speak to him. It didn’t matter. We could talk later, over supper. After breakfast, I worked on some more data entry for Julie until lunchtime. Once again she was pleased with my help. Nick had interviewed several shortlisted candidates with a view to replacing Sue as soon as possible, but had not yet offered the post to anyone. He needed to make an appointment soon, if his new secretary was to be settled in before the beginning of the next school year. Although Nick insisted that he would rather wait and appoint the right person, a suitable candidate was proving difficult to find.
Julie and I went into lunch with David’s secretary, Mandy. Just as I was finishing my dessert, my phone rang. I answered, and recognised the sergeant’s voice.
Suspicion Page 19