by Amy Myers
‘No, I see that.’ She did. She liked Janie, but there was no real rapport between them, probably, she thought fairly, because they’d not yet been close enough to develop one. But it was Rick who was important today, not Janie. ‘What about the festival?’ she asked.
‘In 1994 it took place in July.’
The month Rick disappeared. Hope flared immediately. Could this really be a lead? Could they have hit gold so soon?
‘And it’s remarkably near Carnac,’ Peter continued.
So why wasn’t Peter cock-a-hoop at this discovery? Surely it must mean a positive line of investigation at the very least? Georgia’s head began to spin with ideas and ‘what ifs’.
Peter was watching her. ‘Darling,’ he said gently, ‘think.’
She couldn’t, and Peter had to do it for her. ‘Why, if Guidel was their destination, did Miss Blondie go there so much earlier than Rick?’
‘Maybe the festival went on for quite a time. Maybe he just went only on the day she was singing or just for one particular concert.’
‘It did go on for some time. Two weeks I think.’ He was still avoiding her eye, not sharing her flame of hope. ‘There’s a big hitch, Georgia,’ he said at last.
Too late she realized what it was, and the let-down was all the harder to bear. If Guidel was near Carnac, the French police would have tracked down any accidents or deaths there. There had been a thorough search for Rick after his disappearance had become apparent. As far as she could recall, he had given no fixed time when he expected to be back; she remembered only the uneasy two or three weeks as her parents and she had increasingly tried to believe that Rick was simply somewhere so fascinating or remote that he had no access to a phone or even postbox. No universal mobiles or email then.
‘The police,’ she said miserably. ‘Perhaps they overlooked something?’
She thought back to that terrible time when she and Peter had travelled to Brittany; he had not yet been confined to a wheelchair by that botched raid and was still in the Kent police force. The French police had pulled out all the stops, as for one of their own. Every line that Peter could suggest had been followed. Nevertheless, by the time the family had realized he was missing, the trail was cooling. She remembered that nice young inspector, François Décourt, who’d looked after her on the one occasion she had broken down, and had treated them so sympathetically when he told them the search had to be called off.
‘Perhaps Rick went to this festival and then on to somewhere else,’ she said desperately, making an effort to recapture lost hope.
‘A blonde girl and an Englishman in the audience of a music festival nearly fifteen years ago, or even singing in it? It’s not much to go on, is it?’
‘It’s something,’ she forced herself to say. ‘If she sang, there would be a programme, a name. Just something to take us forward.’
At least with Tom Watson there was a certain path ahead, she thought. With Rick, there was no known way. She thought of Minnie Haskins’ poem made famous by the king’s Christmas broadcast in 1939 about the man who stood at the gate of the year: faith was needed to face the darkness to come. Did she have faith now? Cherry Harding still did.
The drive to Tenterden, once Ashford’s ring roads had been negotiated, was a pleasant one, despite the rain. Georgia had always liked the town, whose wide streets spoke of another more elegant and prosperous age, despite the infiltration of supermarkets and other modern necessities. Brian James lived on the road to Appledore on the ground floor of an old Edwardian house.
To Georgia, ex-Chief Inspector James still appeared the energetic and energizing leader he must have been during his working life. Upright, tall and with a mop of grey hair, he did a fine impression of a jolly uncle – until one saw the way his sharp eyes were summing you up.
‘Are you still involved with police work?’ she asked as he ushered them into a conservatory despite some difficulty with the wheelchair.
‘I tried not to be,’ he said ruefully, bustling around with cups, saucers and a teapot. ‘Couldn’t resist, of course. Promised them not to dabble in matters no longer my concern, so I’m involved with a police charity. Keeps my hand in together with the odd lunch and reunion. I’m still part of the machine, even if I’m winding down. Amazing the way that work expands to fill the time available. Parkinson’s law, isn’t it?’
Peter laughed. ‘We’ve met before, haven’t we?’
James looked pleased. ‘Good memory. Yes, I remember you. The curse of the force, I recall. Just as they’d got a case all straight and tidied up you’d throw a spanner in the works.’
‘Only if it tightened the right nuts and bolts.’
‘It didn’t always, if I recall rightly. Remember the case of the woman who—’
‘Water under the bridge,’ Peter said firmly. ‘Now, about Tom Watson . . .’
‘Ah, yes, my first murder case. I was sick on the way out. Made to clear it up.’
‘Always tough, the first,’ Peter sympathized. ‘Mine was an easier run. A disputed suicide out of the river. About Tom Watson: he was acquitted, but general opinion seems to be that he was guilty. Where do you stand?’
‘Speaking as a policeman in the force or as an individual? In fact, the answer’s guilty in both cases. It worried me when he was arrested, but when he was acquitted, I was still worried – only the other way round. I put it down to first-murder-case nerves, but doubt seemed to go on past that stage.’
‘You didn’t think he was guilty?’
He hesitated. ‘I wouldn’t go as far as that. It was just that his reactions were odd when we took him in.’
‘How could you tell if it was your first murder case?’ Georgia asked.
He looked startled, as if surprised that she too was questioning him, not merely the note taker. In his day even women PCs were probably seen and not heard, she thought.
‘That’s why I didn’t push it. But maybe it’s also why it’s stayed in my mind so clearly. Not all the whys and wherefores afterwards, but that first scene. It was he who made the call, you see. A flat “My wife’s been murdered.” I didn’t hear it myself, but that’s what the record said. Straightforward enough, if a bit cool. Two of us went along, me and the sergeant, in case it was just a nutter anxious to shoot a policeman. That didn’t happen too much in the nineteen fifties but it was always on the cards. That was still the world of The Blue Lamp, the Dirk Bogarde and Jack Warner film, which shockingly suggested for the first time that out in the real world nice policemen could be shot by nasty villains. Relatively speaking, the murder rate was low, but petty crime was soaring after the war. They were hard times, and once you got past the image of brave citizens struggling with shortages and rationing – some was still in force in 1952 – there was a lot of petty theft, black-market spivs and so on. Anyway, back to Tom Watson. He was living in a flat above a dress shop.’
‘We saw it,’ Peter told him. ‘Flight of steps at the rear. Entry at the side of the shop.’
‘Right. We both went up, the sergeant first, then me. Watson opened the door to us, blood on his clothes and hands. “My wife’s been murdered,” he said again. Very flat, very conversational, as if he’d told us he’d had a bad day at the office. That struck me as strange, and still does.’
‘Because he was so calm?’ Georgia asked.
‘No. You often get that. The shock hasn’t struck home yet, and they go on automatic pilot. I suppose it was the choice of words, exactly the same as on the phone. Don’t know why that struck me as odd, but it did.’
‘Did he continue in that way?’ Peter took over.
‘He didn’t lose his cool, if that’s what you mean.’
‘Was it cool?’
James shot a look of respect at Peter. ‘I heard you were sharp. No, in fact, cool isn’t the right word. It was as though he didn’t care.’
‘About his wife or his situation?’
‘Can’t tell you. The latter probably. We went into the living room – parlour, I suppose you’d have call
ed it then – and there she was. Sprawled on the floor on her back, surprisingly little blood, but the knife lying at her side was covered in it.’
That confirmed what Ken had told them, Georgia remembered.
‘We asked him if he’d done it,’ Brian James continued, ‘but he didn’t reply. Not a word. Not even a shake of the head. He just stayed sitting on the sofa watching us while we called the station to get the inspector over there. We didn’t have all this crime-scene stuff in those days, but the principles were the same: the doc, the photographer and so on. What we didn’t realize at first was that there was a kiddie on the next floor. I was sent upstairs to see if anyone was up there and found this toddler. She was still sound asleep. She woke up then, of course. There weren’t many women PCs in those days, and one of the neighbours took her in. She told us her daughter had been in there babysitting earlier that evening, so the kid was well used to them. The daughter had gone home after Joan came back – alone, incidentally,’ he added.
‘And the corpse – Joan. Anything odd about that?’
‘Not particularly. She was all dressed up, I remember. Buxom figure, I suppose we’d have called it then. Too old for me, but I could see she was a looker. Long dark hair, English-rose complexion. Blouse, skirt and great platform soles and heels on her shoes.’
‘She’d been dancing in the show earlier,’ Georgia commented. ‘She’d come straight home, so why dress up?’
‘You ladies always come back to clothes,’ he joked.
Georgia cringed.
‘She has a point,’ Peter said fairly, leaping in before Georgia could get her retort out.
‘But it could be that what was “dressed up” for you was her everyday garb. Or that she’d intended to go to the pub and changed her mind. Or—’
‘Don’t tell me. She was expecting her lover for a quick one.’ James laughed again, but Georgia controlled herself. ‘Risky with husband Tom expected home at any moment, don’t you think?’ he added.
‘The prosecution case,’ Georgia said icily, ‘was that Tom had discovered she was having at least one affair.’
‘Maybe. But that doesn’t mean the lover popped in that night, does it? Nor was there any evidence to that effect at the trial, from what I heard.’
‘He would hardly be likely to step forward voluntarily,’ Georgia whipped back.
The jolly glare was turned on her. ‘Miss Marsh, if you knew my old governor, DI Tim Wilson, any such assignation would have been winkled out quicker than a rabbit by a ferret.’
‘Were there any signs of sex?’
‘Not that I heard of. Never saw the PM report, of course, but I don’t remember it coming out at the trial. She was fully clothed anyway. No. Tom Watson had a row with his wife and killed her. That’s what it looked like, and that’s what must have happened. When the inspector came, we marched Watson out into the other room and grilled him. He wouldn’t say anything. Nothing, except a shake of the head. Later at the station after he was charged, he had his story ready though. He was at the pub until closing time and when he got home, he found her dead.’
‘Did Tom have any previous history of violence?’
‘We didn’t do official domestics in those days. A bit of wife-beating was OK.’ He looked sideways at Georgia. ‘The neighbours said it wasn’t exactly a happy marriage. Joan Watson was a forceful sort of woman, always shouting the odds – he was much quieter.’
‘Did you follow up other suspects?’ Georgia asked. This had hardly been Micky Winton’s view of Joan Watson.
‘Well, now, I can’t answer that, for the simple reason that I was only a copper on the beat and not privy to my lords’ and masters’ deliberations.’
‘The press reports mentioned a few witnesses,’ Peter pointed out hastily, perhaps having sensed her reaction to his patronage. ‘David Maclyn was one, the singer. Was there any suggestion he or any other witnesses were her lovers?’
‘No idea. Joan Watson put herself around a bit, but as I said, I was only a PC – politically correct that stands for.’ Another smirk at Georgia. ‘What happened that night never fully emerged. The prosecution went for a row over her having lovers, but it could equally well have been that Tom was having it off with someone else.’
‘Cherry Harding?’ Peter asked.
‘Who? Thing is, Watson didn’t deny he was guilty. We followed up his story, talked to the folk in the show he was in and found his alibi didn’t hold up, so that was that. He was right there with his fingerprints on the knife.’
‘Anyone else’s?’
A glare. ‘Can’t remember everything.’
‘Cherry Harding was Tom’s sweetheart. Did she give evidence in Tom’s defence? I couldn’t find any reference to her in the press reports,’ Peter said.
James thought for a moment. ‘Don’t know about giving evidence. I think I remember her though. She was down the station the next day. There was some girl sitting there on a bench, scared out her wits, hanging on to her handbag like grim death and asking what was happening. Looking back, I guess she had a crush – or pash as we used to call it, didn’t we, Peter? – on him. Big eyes, I recall. Too young for Tom Watson. She was out of her depth, she was. Burbling on about Tom being with her at the pub. The gov said she’d be a liability as a witness, as so many others could testify he wasn’t.’
‘After he was acquitted, was there an investigation as to who else might have done it?’ Peter asked, nobly not objecting to being lumped in the same age group as James.
‘No idea. I wasn’t involved if so, but I don’t recall talk of it. There would have been an hour before Joan Watson could expect Tom home from the pub, and I suppose someone else could in theory have nipped in, but pretty unlikely, eh?’
‘Why do you think he was acquitted?’
‘Hell knows. The gov was hopping mad. The judge looked flabbergasted, so the gov said, when the verdict was given.’
‘It seems it didn’t do Tom Watson any good.’
James shrugged. ‘So what? We all knew he did it.’
‘I do not love thee, Dr Fell, The reason why I know full well,’ Georgia misquoted savagely as they left Tenterden.
‘You don’t have to love him to take note of what he says,’ Peter pointed out.
‘I noticed no signs of a wife around.’
‘He could be a widower.’
‘It was worthwhile going to see him,’ she conceded. ‘Does that satisfy you?’
‘Cherry clutching her handbag on the seat waiting? It does,’ Peter replied. ‘And on Tuesday you too can be satisfied. We’ll go to Broadstairs to see the little sweetheart. Happy? Or would you rather go alone?’
Georgia was torn. Usually she did most of the interviewing while Peter did the Internet work. Although she would dearly love to meet Cherry Harding in a one-to-one interview, perhaps this early in the case, Peter should be there too. Cherry was a key witness. And, Georgia admitted with a struggle, it was just possible that she might be prejudiced in Cherry’s favour. Peter’s presence would keep her within limits.
When they reached Broadstairs on the following Tuesday, the public gardens on the seafront were crowded. The town seemed to have launched itself into the new summer season, and there was a general air of expectation. Cherry lived in a flat set back from the seafront at the western end of the town, and as they approached the apartment block, there were many elderly residents to be seen. Not that the town had the atmosphere of a retirement resort; far from it. The generational range seemed much broader judging by the mothers out with children and groups of schoolchildren gathering in the gardens.
Cherry lived in a first-floor apartment, but there was a lift to accommodate the wheelchair. She was almost the frail, white-haired, rosy-cheeked lady Georgia had pictured in her imagination. She was of medium height, perhaps five foot five, with silver grey curly hair framing her face, and she did indeed have rosy cheeks. She looked rather more robust than the stereotype Georgia had conjured up, however – perhaps the result of the
sea air. She clearly lived an independent life of her own choosing – if the beaming smile and general air of serene confidence were anything to go by. An obviously home-made iced walnut cream cake made its appearance on the tea table, set amidst a bone-china tea set. Georgia thanked her for going to so much trouble, and Peter joined in enthusiastically. Excellent carer Margaret might be, but she believed in healthy apples, not cakes.
‘Nothing’s too much trouble for anyone interested in my Tom,’ Cherry answered matter-of-factly.
‘Will it be painful for you to talk about him?’ Georgia asked gently, the girl at the police station still fixed in her mind.
‘Not a bit, if it helps.’ Cherry sat to attention in her chair, almost as if she too remembered her younger self’s long, anxious wait.
‘You always believed him innocent of killing his wife, didn’t you?’ Georgia asked.
‘Of course,’ came the surprised reply. ‘My Tom couldn’t have murdered anyone.’
‘But someone did. Do you know who that might have been or why?’
‘No, my dear. I’ve been asking myself that for over fifty years. I told the police Tom couldn’t have done it, but it didn’t make any difference. I told them he was at the Black Lion with me until closing time, but they didn’t call me as a witness. They must have thought I would be lying to protect him. But I wasn’t. He was there all right. He was with me in a small bar at the back, not in the public where the rest of them were. Tom wouldn’t have got home until about eleven thirty, and the police said he called them at eleven forty. Not much time to have a fight, kill her and then straight away ring the police. It isn’t a natural way of going on, is it?’ She began to look distressed, and Georgia hastened to calm her down.
‘He was acquitted,’ Georgia said soothingly. ‘Did the police come to see you after that?’
‘No. No one did. Only Harold, and Micky and Sandy, of course. Everyone still seemed to think he was guilty.’
‘What did you think of Joan? Did you like her?’
Cherry giggled – like a schoolgirl, Georgia thought, caught out saying something naughty. ‘No, I didn’t. I was eighteen, my dear. I was in love with this older man, so of course I didn’t like his wife. I thought Tom was the cat’s whiskers. So funny, so gentle, and I had not had much fun and gentleness in my life up till then. I thought Joan was all right too, till she found out about me and Tom. She was a stunner and a lovely dancer. All the men fell for her, but she was a holy terror to Tom and to me when she found out.’