Connolly thought of telling her that he hit his daughters, but didn’t. Sure, the whole thing was blown now and she’d probably never see him again, so what harm? ‘So how long did you stay there, makin’ love and gazin’ at the stars?’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Are you making fun of me?’
‘Far from it. I see no fun in the whole caper. Did you not think he was spinning you a line? You’d want to cop on to yourself, a nice bright girl like you. Men like him don’t leave their wives.’
‘They do! All the time!’ she cried passionately, but in her eyes was the bitter knowledge that Connolly was right.
‘Listen, willya – men that are going to leave do it right away. The ones that talk about waiting for the “right time” never do it. Ah, c’mon, I’m not givin’ out to ya. We’ve all gone through it, fallen for the wrong geezer and made a holy show of ourselves. You’re not the first and you won’t be the last. But this time it’s important, because other things hang on it. So I need you to tell me how long you were up this hill, wherever it was, and what time you came home.’
‘I don’t know how long we were there,’ she said, half sulky, half passionate. Sure if she tells me love knows no time I’ll be forced to clatter her, Connolly thought. ‘It was hours, anyway. We didn’t want to leave each other. But my dad goes mad if I’m out after midnight – honestly, he’s such a dinosaur! – so we had to go. Ian drove me home and dropped me at the end of my road, like usual, and when I got in it was a quarter to twelve.’
Ah, thought Connolly. Another grand theory down the Swanee. ‘You’re sure about that?’
‘Yeah. Course. I looked at the clock to make sure I was all right.’
‘So you’d been with Ian the whole time, every minute, from around four o’clock until a quarter to midnight? Every moment?’
‘Yeah,’ said Stephanie, looking vaguely proud of her prowess as Ian-time-consumer; until something else occurred to her, her eyes widened and her jaw dropped like the temperature on a Bank Holiday. ‘Is that – does that mean – is it his alibi? Am I his alibi? Does it mean he didn’t kill her after all?’
‘If you’re telling me the truth,’ Connolly said.
‘I am! I am! I swear it! Oh, I knew he didn’t do it! He couldn’t!’ For a moment euphoria reigned, and then drained slowly from her young little face. ‘But – it’ll all come out now, won’t it? I’ll have to go in court and swear it, and my parents’ll know, and everyone at school. Will he get into trouble? I mean for – for me? I’m over age, but . . .’ Her face had sunk to misery level again. ‘But he’s married, and he’ll have to take care of his wife and kid. He’ll go away and I’ll never see him again. It’s all over,’ she concluded with absolute certainty.
‘Yeah,’ said Connolly. She could say no less; but she said it with sympathy. The poor kid had got it bad, and she wasn’t one to dance on the body, even though this was one wake that should be welcomed by all. Stephanie’d had a lucky escape, though she was too dumb to see it. But she’d only want a run-in with Mr ClearBlue to put sense on her.
‘So when someone was killing Melanie, Wiseman and Stephanie Bentham were in a car park somewhere wearing the head off each other,’ Connolly told Slider on the phone. ‘She says he left her home at a quarter to twelve.’
‘That’s too late for him to have got over there and murdered Melanie before the food left her stomach,’ Slider said. ‘Which means he’s in the clear. Unless she’s lying?’ he added.
‘She’s knickers mad about him, and she’d tell a lie at the drop of a hat to save him, but I don’t think she is. She told me all that before she realized she was givin’ him an alibi. I think it’s gospel, all right.’
So Slider went back to Wiseman, who was looking worn now, more than angry: worn and depressed. Probably the realization of the complete destruction of his life either way had arrived in his brain.
‘Do you want to tell me where you really were on Friday night?’ Slider asked.
‘I’ve told you,’ he said, with an effort at a snap. ‘I have nothing more to say.’
‘Even if I tell you I know where you were, and with whom?’
Wiseman flinched.
‘And it was nothing to do with coaching – or not coaching of any sport known to the Olympics board, anyway.’
‘How dare you make jokes—’ Wiseman began, mottling.
‘I truly don’t think it was very funny,’ Slider said seriously. ‘You’re lucky the girl was of age, or you could be facing very serious charges.
‘I never—’ He swallowed. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Oh, must I spell it out for you?’ Slider said wearily. ‘The girl has told us everything, voluntarily. You’ve been having an affair with one of your pupils, a seventeen year old called Stephanie Bentham, and at the time of Melanie’s death you were with her, having sex in your car in a car park. A very shabby figure you will cut if that comes out.’
‘She – I never taught her. She wasn’t my student,’ Wiseman said feebly.
‘I don’t think that is going to make any difference, do you? So here’s the thing – this brave girl is willing to risk her reputation and face angry parents and the ruination of her hopes and future to give you an alibi. Unless, of course, you want to confess to murdering Melanie, and tell us where you really were and exactly what you did that night.’
‘But I didn’t! I didn’t kill her! I was with Stephanie. Now you know I’m innocent, you’ll have to let me go.’
‘You’re going to rely on Stephanie, are you? Let her sacrifice herself for you? Hasn’t she sacrificed enough already?’
‘What do you want me to say? I was with her. She’s telling the truth. I was with her all evening. I can’t tell a lie, can I?’
‘It hasn’t bothered you before,’ Slider said.
Drobcek objected, but his heart was no longer in it. There was going to be no brilliant defence of a murder charge to make his name after all. He was back to juvenile shoplifters on Monday.
‘But I couldn’t contradict Stephanie and call her a liar when she’s telling the truth,’ Wiseman said. ‘You have to let me go now, don’t you? Doesn’t he?’ he appealed to Drobcek.
‘Do you have any other evidence against my client?’ Drobcek asked.
‘Hold your horses,’ Slider said, though it was mere endgame flourishing. ‘We have to check the alibi first.’
‘It sounds as though he’s covered, then,’ Porson said with disappointment. He had wanted Wiseman ever since he heard about him hitting Melanie. He didn’t like hitters. And the nature of this new evidence made him unhappy. He doodled a series of ducks on his phone pad. He liked ducks. They always sounded as if they were laughing. They took your mind off things. When he retired, he was going to find a house with enough room for a pond and get some. ‘What about this girl? Is she pukka?’
‘Connolly believes so. We can check the early parts of the alibi, but the important part, covering the murder time, is down to her alone.’
‘What do you think?’ Porson asked sharply, looking up.
‘My gut instinct is that she’s telling the truth, and therefore that it wasn’t him.’
‘Hmm,’ said Porson.
‘And we don’t have any other evidence against him. If we let him go, and it was him, it might put him off his guard. Then if anything turned up, we could catch him unawares with it.’
‘Suppose he scarpers?’
‘I don’t see him as the type, sir. He sets a lot of store by respectability. Once he’s free, he’ll want to re-establish his reputation.’
‘And what about the girl? She’ll be in a shedload of trouble.’
‘Unless we charge him, her evidence need never become public. If she keeps her mouth shut, and Wiseman does, it may all blow over for her.’
It was the best they could hope for. Porson nodded. A big pond. With a little island in the middle, so they can sleep safe from foxes. ‘He’s ruined anyway. He wasn’t wrong about that. The
school won’t want him back.’
‘But he’s been vindicated. They’ll have to take him, or disparage the rule of law. And that will be good reason for him to keep his mouth shut about the girl, because he’d certainly lose his job over that.’
‘Why should he get away with it?’
‘He shouldn’t. But if he doesn’t, she doesn’t.’
Maybe a duck house – just a plain one. A little wooden cabin. He sketched straight walls and a sloping roof. ‘I suppose you’re right,’ he said. He thought of the girl infatuated, and Wiseman debauching her, and Melanie still dead, and sometimes he felt the whole weight of human nature on his neck, crushing him down. He needed ducks. The simplicity of them. And the quacking.
‘Let him go,’ he said. ‘Warn him to keep his mouth shut about the girl. And get after Hibbert. Half a confession’s better than no bread.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Slider was at the door when Porson said, ‘What’s that poem? Learnt it in school. About bees, or beans, or something, and living on an island, and a cabin, or some such?’
Slider, who had long ago given up being surprised by anything Porson said, dug through his brain. ‘Do you mean “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”, sir?’ He quoted, ‘“Nine bean rows will I have there, and a hive for the honey bee.”’
‘Sounds like it. Mention a cabin?’
‘Yes, sir. “And a small cabin build there” – that’s the second line.’ He waited for enlightenment.
Porson grunted. ‘Any ducks?’
‘Ducks? I don’t think so. But to be honest, I only know the first verse. I suppose there might be ducks later.’
‘Have to be later,’ Porson said. ‘Retirement plan.’ Slider was looking at him, just faintly puzzled. ‘Well, what are you standing there for? Get on with it!’ he barked.
Slider got.
As he reached the office on his way to his room, Norma was on the phone saying, ‘He’s in with Mr – oh, no, here he is, just walked in.’ She held out the receiver to Slider. ‘Atherton, boss.’
‘I’ll take it in my room,’ he said.
Swilley looked at him with motherly affection as he trudged past thinking vaguely, though she knew it not, of ducks and beans and sex in cars. ‘You look cream crackered, boss. Shall I get you a cuppa?’
‘Would you? I need one before I go and tackle Hibbert again. He’s all we’ve got now.’
‘Bad news on Wiseman?’
‘I’ll tell you when I’ve taken this call. Maybe it’ll cheer me up.’
But Atherton, always cheery, said, ‘It’s bad news. It looks as though Hibbert’s a washout.’
Slider whimpered. ‘But he’s confessed.’
‘Really?’
‘Sort of.’ Of course when a man was in the emotional state Hibbert was – and particularly if he’s a self-obsessed, grandstanding sort of bloke with a taste for fantasizing – there was always the danger of false confessions. But hey, when you got nuthin you got nuthin to lose. A man can dream, can’t he? ‘And Wiseman’s no good. We found his alibi.’
‘You had to go looking! So – what? He was doing private coaching?’
‘Of the carnal sort. Nice young sixth-former says he was with her all evening, and at the crucial time they were testing his car’s suspension in a deserted car-park, somewhere, we guess, in the Chilterns.’
‘No wonder he lied about it. And didn’t tell his wife,’ said Atherton. ‘Instant dismissal for that. But it lets him out?’
‘Unless she’s lying, but we don’t think she is. And now you’re telling me Hibbert’s no good?’
‘I’ve been running the marathon with Valerie Proctor,’ Atherton said wearily. ‘It seems—’
‘I’ve heard all about the scams and the doinking from Hibbert,’ Slider forestalled him. ‘He was only servicing her to keep her on side, according to him.’
‘She didn’t know about Melanie, according to her. What a prize pair!’
‘We can compare notes later. But what’s this about an alibi?’
‘On Friday evening, when he wasn’t at the stag, Valerie says they took a developer out to dinner at a posh restaurant in Christchurch, to discuss Hibbert’s idea for a big scoop. There were delicate negotiations to be made, feelers to put out to see if the developer was crooked enough to go along with it, so oiling the wheels was considered a good idea.’
‘You keep saying “the developer”. Doesn’t he have a name?’
‘She didn’t want to tell me that, and I didn’t press, because she says they’ll certainly remember them in the restaurant. Apparently merry was made and the festive board groaned. The bill came to over six hundred quid, and restaurant staff tend to remember that, especially in Bournemouth – on the subject of which—’
‘Which?’
‘Bournemouth – can I come home now? I promise to be good.’
‘Don’t you like it? Jewel of the south coast, I’ve always heard.’
‘Valerie’s interior decor’s given me a migraine. And it’s not good for me to mix with people who think dishonesty is just fine, as long as they’re the ones doing it.’
‘You’re too delicate to be a policeman. Remind me again how you got into the Job.’ It was a famous mystery, long disputed in the canteen, but Atherton had always liked to be enigmatic and had never told, not even Slider.
‘Nice try, guv,’ came the reply, ‘but no banana.’
‘So what time did the party leave the restaurant?’ Slider asked, going back to work. Not that there was any urgency about it, if Hibbert was blown and his confession just self-indulgent hysteria.
‘Close to midnight, she says. A fine cognac was going round – and round – and round. Then Valerie and Hibbert went home for a celebratory two-step – I don’t even want to think about that – after which he passed into a heavy sleep. She slept too, but she said when she woke at eight on Saturday morning, he hadn’t even changed position, and he didn’t surface until after ten.’
Slider sighed. He’d sighed so much lately he was going to have to replace his battery. ‘I suppose she could be lying to cover him.’
‘Two chances – fat, and slim. Now she knows about Melanie and thinks he killed her, she’s desperate to be rid of him. She turned him in, remember.’
‘She could just be trying to save her own skin.’
‘But she doesn’t know how the murder was done, or when, so she didn’t even know she was giving him an alibi until I showed an interest in the detail. She seems to think ’e done ’er in on Saturday, when he left her ostensibly to go to the wedding. Now she knows Saturday night was important I think she’d like to take it back, but she can’t.’
‘Always the problem,’ Slider said. ‘You can’t ask people questions without warning them about what you want to know.’
‘Fine, fine, but can I come home now?’ Atherton asked impatiently.
‘You have to visit the restaurant first,’ said Slider sternly. ‘We’ve had enough of people giving us alibis they think we won’t check up on. Go and be diligent. And quick, because if he didn’t do it, I want to get rid of him. I don’t like the bugger, not one little bit.’
‘Valerie’s a hero, really,’ Atherton remarked.
‘All women are heroes. There’s not one man I know that I’d want to put up with on a domestic basis.’
‘Except your dad.’
‘Well, of course. Now stop stalling, and go.’
‘So why did you run, you dipstick?’ Slider asked Hibbert, who looked so unappealingly crusty a public health inspector would have closed him down.
The restaurant had amply confirmed the alibi – one of the waiters even knew the developer and was eager to tell them his name, address in a glamour-pad in Poole, mobile phone number and the identity of his mistress, a former beauty queen who had been Miss South Coast Resort two years earlier and was installed in a glass-and-chrome ‘luxury’ flat overlooking the sea on Overcliff Drive. And the ANPR had not found any movements of Valerie’s car between Bourn
emouth and London, so even if everyone was mistaken about the time, he’d have had to go and murder Melanie by train. He was as clear as it was possible to be in this naughty world.
Hibbert was massively deflated. Out from under his latest trank, he had got a severe lungful of cold reality. He was not Cap’n Jack Sparrow, swooping up doubloons from under the noses of his fat corporate bosses. He was not Heathcliff, driven to noble madness and murder by overmastering love. He was a bloke with a job at an estate agent’s (which he might well lose, if his scams came to light) and nothing to show for his life but a few flashy suits and a motor he still owed payments on. And no girlfriend. When he went home, Melanie was not going to be there. The house would be cold and smell funny and the washing wouldn’t have been done. And he really had loved Mel. She had been part of his grand design, the top wife enhancing his status as he climbed to higher things. And she had adored him. Now she was dead. He stared at Slider in abject misery.
‘I knew you lot were after me,’ he said. His voice was hoarse from all his recent troubles. ‘I thought you were going to frame me for Mel’s murder.’ His lower lip trembled. ‘I didn’t want to go to prison. I was scared. Terrible things happen in there. Ronnie told me once. About these big boss cons who run everything, all muscles and tattoos, and when someone like me comes in they—’ He gulped and squeezed his eyes shut. ‘I don’t even want to think about it.’
Slider could imagine Fitton, who didn’t like Hibbert and thought him a big soft ponce, indulging in a little light blood-curdling as they passed in the dustbin area of a Monday night.
‘Then why did you say you killed her?’
Hibbert’s frightened eyes were those of a small boy who had been egged on to something too serious for him by bigger boys. ‘I – I s’pose I sort of got carried away,’ he confessed abjectly.
Slider almost felt sorry for him. ‘It happens a lot,’ he said.
‘And then there were none,’ Porson said disgustedly. ‘A week on, and we’ve got nothing. Unless Ronnie Fitton still comes up trumps.’ He brightened slightly. ‘He’s got no alibi, anyway, good or bad.’
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