Fascinating, Slider thought: he doesn’t even think about his alibi. He wants to convince me that he wouldn’t do it, rather than that he couldn’t. He still wants to be a nice guy, despite all his greedy, sleazy plottings.
Still, he let him writhe a little bit longer before saying, As a matter of fact, I know you didn’t do it.’
‘You – you do?’ Cockerell was sweating now, and licked his lips, looking at Slider in a slightly dazed way as he heard these words.
‘What time did you leave for work that morning, sir?’
‘That – that morning? I don’t remember. But – wait – I was in the Northumberland Avenue office that day, wasn’t I? So I would have left at half past six. I always leave at half past six, to be in at eight.’
‘You were in the office by eight o’clock?’
‘Yes. I mean, I don’t remember exactly, but I must have been. I’d remember if I were late. My secretary—’ he began to add, with a flash of inspiration.
‘Yes, she says you were there at eight. And Chattie was killed somewhere around eight o’clock. So we know you couldn’t have done it. Actually,’ he added conversationally, ‘I believe you when you say you wouldn’t kill anyone just for money. But there is someone I think would.’ He didn’t look at Ruth. He kept his eyes on Cockerell as he said, ‘When you went home that night, the day you met Chattie up in Town, you were angry. You told your wife all about it, how that damned girl was going to ruin things for everybody.’
‘Yes, I suppose I did,’ Cockerell said, pulling out a handkerchief to wipe his face, not following where this was going.
Slider turned to Ruth. ‘You look very fit, Mrs Cockerell. Do you like to keep in trim – go jogging, go to a gym, anything like that?’
Her face was immobile. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t.’
Cockerell, the dope, said, ‘Yes, you do, darling. You’re always exercising – I’m very proud of my wife’s figure,’ the poor goop went on, evidently pleased at this less threatening line of questioning. ‘She goes out running most mornings.’
‘Is that so?’ Slider said, with interest. ‘So you’ll have jogging clothes, then. Training shoes, tracksuits, that sort of thing.’
Mrs Cockerell only glared, her face so tense he could see the muscles of her jaw writhing under the skin, but she didn’t answer him.
‘I don’t suppose,’ he said gently, ‘that you have an alibi for that morning, Mrs Cockerell?’
Cockerell stared at him in astonishment, and then gave his wife a quick, flashing glance. He opened his mouth to protest to Slider, but nothing emerged. A look of great sickness came over him, sickness and knowledge at the same time, and from the same source.
‘Mrs Cockerell?’ Slider pressed her.
‘I was out running,’ she answered, unclenching her jaws for just long enough to get the words out.
‘How long had you been planning it? That’s what I’ve been wondering,’ Slider said, as if ruminatively. ‘A long time, I would imagine. She’d been a thorn in your side for years – well, all her life, really. Your mother abandoned for her mother, and treated so badly in comparison with Stella Smart. And then the usurper’s brat turns out to be pretty and clever and everybody loves her, while you – what do you get? Nothing! Your father dotes on Chattie, but he’s got no time for you.’ Mrs Cockerell’s face was undergoing a reaction while he spoke, a look of boiling fury clenching it until he thought her teeth would shatter. And then, to crown it all, there were the rumours that she’d had an affair with your husband.’
‘No!’ Cockerell cried. ‘That’s not true. Good God, what are you saying?’ He looked at Slider, seeming genuinely appalled. ‘How can you say such a thing? There was nothing like that between us. We were friends, that’s all.’ He looked at his wife. ‘I swear it was innocent! I never – we never—!’
‘Shut up, you idiot!’ Mrs Cockerell hissed. ‘Don’t you see what he’s doing? For God’s sake, shut up!’
Slider resumed, looking from one to the other with apparent sympathy. ‘Well, in practical terms, it doesn’t really matter whether it happened or not. The fact was there were rumours. Had you brooded over it, Mrs Cockerell? Thought about murdering her, stroked and cherished the idea of it until it became a possibility, and then an inevitability? Until it was just a matter of how, and when. After all, you wanted her dead, but you didn’t want to get caught. And then the Park Killer turned up, practically on Chattie’s doorstep.’
‘No,’ Cockerell moaned. ‘Oh, no!’
‘Shut up, David!’
‘The Park Killer kills joggers,’ Slider continued to Ruth, not looking at him, ‘and you know Chattie goes running every day in the park. But Chattie’s younger than you, and she’s strong. You don’t think you’ll be able just to stab her to death, the way the Park Killer does. You need some way to render her helpless first.’
Now the first chink appeared in Ruth’s armour. She hadn’t known he knew that, that the false stabbing had been detected. Her eyes widened and her nostrils flared, but she closed her lips tightly, as if to prevent anything escaping.
‘You’d worked in a hospital pharmacy, so you knew what you needed. And you knew you’d have the chance to get hold of it at the opening of the new building at Bedford, which you were going to attend with your husband. They made the right sort of drugs there, and you knew your way around. No-one would ever wonder at your presence. You took what you needed, and then it was just a matter of waiting for the right opportunity. But when David came home and told you he had met Chattie that day, and what she had said, you knew you couldn’t wait any longer. It would have to be done right away. You couldn’t let her rob you again of what was your due. Kill her, be revenged for everything, and, as a bonus, break your father’s heart, the way he had broken yours and your mother’s. She deserved to die, she had to die.’
‘Stop it!’ Cockerell said. ‘I order you to stop it! Get out of my house! I won’t have you say those things to my wife!’ He jumped to his feet, but Atherton was up too, and stood between him and Slider.
‘Sit down, sir,’ Atherton said. He could be amazingly menacing when he wanted to, Slider thought absently. ‘Just sit. It has to be done. Sit down.’
Suddenly Ruth spoke, quite calmly. ‘Yes, sit down, David. Don’t make a fuss. This is all nonsense anyway. I didn’t do it and they can’t prove I did.’
‘I’m afraid we can,’ Slider said, with infinite, deadly kindness. He flickered a glance at Atherton, a signal between them. Somewhere upstairs, but just audibly, a telephone started to ring. Again Cockerell, the businessman, made the automatic gesture of looking for his mobile, but neither Slider nor Atherton moved. They were looking at Ruth. She looked faintly puzzled at first, and then her jaw dropped a little as understanding came to her.
‘You know what that is, don’t you?’ Slider said. ‘That’s Chattie’s mobile ringing. She had the same sort of mobile as you, the new, very dinky, pocket-sized Motorola. She dropped it while you were killing her, and you picked it up automatically, assuming it was yours. Perfectly understandable, one of those things one does without thinking – like stubbing out a cigarette. How long was it after you got home that you realised you had two mobiles in your pocket, yours and Chattie’s?’
Ruth Cockerell gave an inarticulate cry of rage, leaped out of her chair and flung herself at Slider. ‘I’ll kill you!’ she screamed, as she tried to claw his face.
Atherton jumped, and between them, though with difficulty, they managed to subdue her, until she fell back into an armchair, hunched and panting. Cockerell remained motionless all through, his hands clasped together in his lap, his head turned away and his fixed eyes staring at nothing, at disaster and ruin.
‘I’m glad I killed her,’ Mrs Cockerell shrieked. She punched the upholstered arm of the chair repeatedly. ‘She deserved it, the greedy, evil, man-grabbing little bitch. She deserved to die. She had everything, everything she ever wanted, she stole my father and my home, and still she had to have my
husband and my money as well. I killed her and I’d kill her again if I could. Do what you like! You can’t touch me for it. I hate you all!’
Cockerell moaned softly, closing his eyes, as if that would make it all go away. Slider stood over her, in case she tried to make a run for it, and said, ‘Ruth Cockerell, I arrest you for the murder of Charlotte Cornfeld. You do not have to say anything . . .’
The firm’s celebratory drink had to wait until Wednesday evening. They went to the Boscombe Arms, having had to abandon the Crown since it modernised itself, and Joanna joined them there. Everybody was hungry, and once they had settled themselves comfortably in the snug, Swilley was sent to operate her charm on Andy Barrett, the landlord, for the provision of snacks, which came in the end in the form of packets of crisps, pork pies and some hastily knocked together cheese and pickle sandwiches.
‘A feast fit for a king,’ Joanna said, observing McLaren savaging a sandwich with faint wonder. The sandwich didn’t have a chance.
Swilley swung the plate her way. ‘Have something,’ she said, ‘before Maurice scoffs the lot.’
It was the first time Joanna had been to one of these dos. She sat on the banquette beside Slider, and felt all the pleasure of being his woman, accepted, not exactly one of the group but a welcome honorary member. Pints were sunk, conversation blossomed, the noise level grew. She answered friendly questions from Swilley about her pregnancy and from Hollis about their plans for finding somewhere else to live. At one point Slider put his arm round her casually to balance himself as he leaned over for a piece of pork pie, and then left it there, warm and heavy and comfortable. She tried not to be aware of Hart watching the action, but noted in spite of herself that Hart looked at Slider a great deal more than she ever looked at Atherton. She saw Atherton watching her and Slider together, too, when he wasn’t swapping barbed badinage with Swilley. She wondered whether he wished he had Sue there, as Bill had her.
‘And there’s something else to celebrate,’ Hart said loudly, to catch attention. The noise level fell a notch as everyone looked at her. ‘Least, I think it’s good news,’ Hart went on, looking round the group, but allowing her eyes to come to rest at last on Slider. Well, Joanna told herself, that’s natural. He is the boss, and the heart of the group: she appreciated so much more, now, for having witnessed the drink-up, how that was true.
‘Go on, then, Tone,’ McLaren invited, gathering the crumbs from the otherwise empty sandwich plate with a wetted forefinger. ‘Tell us.’
‘Mr Porson’s had a word wiv Mr Wevverspoon, and I’m not going back to the DAFT squad. I’m wiv you permanently. How about that?’
She beamed, and so did everyone else, and there were thumps of congratulation on her back and a tickly kiss on her cheek from Hollis’s appalling moustache. Atherton took advantage of the precedent and said, ‘Jolly good,’ and kissed her too, only on the mouth. She let him, to a chorus of oy-oys, and even gave a show of wriggling her shoulders and lifting one foot behind in a Hollywood manner, but as soon as they broke apart she looked inevitably at Slider for his reaction. Joanna glanced up at him and saw he was smiling indulgently, and laughed at herself for a fool. There was nothing in that smile but fatherliness.
All the same, she thought, there’s too much attention being paid to that girl, and she said, loudly enough to attract attention, ‘I still don’t know the end of the story. Who’s going to tell it?’
‘Go on, boss,’ Hart urged, giving him her full attention. ‘I think there’s different bits all of us’re wondering about.’
So Slider told the tale.
‘The effect of theatricals on a weak mind,’ he concluded, when he got to the bit about Chattie’s mobile. ‘I had the feeling that a parade of scientific evidence wouldn’t move her – especially as we hadn’t actually matched her DNA at that point to the stuff found on the clothes – but the entirely superficial ringing of the mobile got through her guard.’
‘How did you know she had it?’ Joanna asked.
‘I didn’t,’ said Slider. ‘But we couldn’t find it anywhere, so it seemed likely that the murderer had taken it away, and when we checked and found Ruth’s mobile was the same model, it seemed even more likely.’
‘She might have thrown it away.’
‘She might have, but if she had, I felt it was likely someone else would have found it, and either they’d have handed it in, if they were honest, or turned it on, if they weren’t. As soon as it was turned on, we’d be able to trace the signal. It never was, so it was a matter of Atherton slipping upstairs while I talked to them and seeing if he could find it.’
‘It was in the drawer of her bedside table,’ Atherton said, ‘along with her pearls and her pills. Very traditional.’
‘As to the actual murder,’ Slider went on, ‘Ruth had the perfect excuse to accost Chattie in the park, and persuade her to go into the shrubbery to talk. Chattie would believe it was about the suppression of the Codermatol again, and the secrecy, and Ruth wearing the hood of her top up would make sense and not make her suspicious.’
‘You guessed from the beginning it was someone she knew, didn’t you, boss,’ Swilley said, ‘because the CD Walkman had been turned off and she’d taken the earphones off. They were hanging round her neck. She wouldn’t go to that trouble to talk to a stranger stopping to ask her for a light, or something.’
‘The knife was an ordinary kitchen knife,’ Slider went on, ‘of the sort of which Ruth has a set in her kitchen. We’ll test them all for blood, of course. It’s surprising how often you can get enough even from a knife that’s been washed several times. She’d have done better – from the Murderer’s Manual point of view – to discard it with the clothes and replace it with a new one, but I suppose she didn’t like the waste of the idea. She’d been brought up frugally. She wiped it on the grey top before she chucked it. Her biggest mistake, of course, was discarding the jacket and gloves so close to the scene. Otherwise we might never have found them.’
‘Yes, why did she?’ Joanna asked.
Atherton answered. ‘Because she wanted to have a look at the scene of her crime, and admire the way she’d misdirected us.’
‘I guessed it when I saw the map in my mind’s eye. Ashchurch Grove makes a sort of D shape with Askew Road, Askew Road being the curved bit. When she left the park she went off up Askew Road, presumably heading back for her car; but then she passed the end of Ashchurch Grove and I suppose its direction tempted her and curiosity overcame her. There was no hue and cry after her, so she felt safe and thought she’d stroll back from a different direction and have a good laugh at how she’d fooled us. But she didn’t quite like to bring the bloodstained clothes back, so she dropped them, in their carrier bag, over the fence of one of the gardens. There were bags of rubbish everywhere, so why should one more be noticed?’
‘And in any case, she’d worn gloves, so no-one could bring it back to her – so she thought,’ said Atherton.
‘How do you know that’s what she did? Did she tell you?’ Joanna asked.
‘No, I told her,’ Slider said. At the very beginning, when I still thought it was the Park Killer, I had the faces in the crowd round the scene photographed, because it’s amazing how often they will come back to see. Curiosity, I suppose. A very basic human instinct.’
‘And she was there?’
‘She was there,’ Slider said. ‘When I saw her photo in her husband’s office, I thought she looked familiar. I’d spent so long staring at those damned crowd photos, her face had lodged in my brain.’
‘One thing I don’t understand,’ Joanna said. ‘How did she get Chattie to take the poison?’
‘I worked that out,’ Slider said, ‘when I remembered something Bicycle Man, Phil Yerbury, did when he came in to be interviewed. Ruth was a runner too, so she knew the pattern.What’s the first thing a runner or a jogger or whatever does when they stop for any reason?’
Joanna had followed him. ‘Take a drink of water?’
‘Ri
ght. And they don’t just sip, they chuck it back in a couple of huge gulps. All Ruth had to do, as Chattie was feeling for her bottle, was to say, “Here, have some of mine.” A little Lucozade or something in it to disguise any bitterness and – wallop.’
‘Clever,’ said Joanna.
‘If she’d refused, Ruth would just have had to stab her cold, but it was worth a try. And evidently it worked. Chattie was so kind-hearted she probably wouldn’t have refused what seemed like a friendly gesture, especially as I imagine Ruth had not been particularly friendly before. Maybe Ruth said it was a special energy drink or something. Anyway, she swallowed enough to put her into a coma within minutes.’
‘And you still don’t know what it was?’
‘It doesn’t matter, really. The tox lab will come back to us in its own good time, but we’ve got enough evidence to be going on with.’ Even as he said it, a slight doubt was niggling the back of his mind. They could link Ruth to the stabbing, but in Freddie Cameron’s opinion it wasn’t the stabbing that killed Chattie. Unless they could link the drug to Ruth as well, a clever brief might still get her off. His brain began to worry over the possibility, and he pulled it back. Not here, not now.
‘Anyone want another pint?’ Hollis asked.
The order was taken, and under cover of the conversation that broke out around it, Slider said to Joanna, ‘Well, we’ve got her, anyway, and a better example of where greed and self-pity can lead you, you wouldn’t need to find. Her husband’s a broken man. Poor Bill Simpson has been scared out of his wits, and still feels guilty about Chattie’s death—’
Dear Departed Page 31