A Shred of Evidence

by Jill McGown

  She opened her eyes and slowly lifted her head to look at the inspector, and Chief Inspector Lloyd, then at her mother, shocked into total, blank, horrified silence.

  She hadn’t thought up an answer to that, and she wasn’t going to. The game that she had seemed to be winning so easily had slipped from her grasp; it was over. The inspector had won, after all.

  Inspector Hill sat impassively, pen poised over her notebook. “The truth this time, Hannah,” she warned.

  The truth …

  She had been watching Natalie and Murray, when suddenly Murray got into Colin’s car and sped out backwards. She had seen Natalie walking towards her, doing up her blouse. She hadn’t seen Mrs. Cochrane—Natalie had told her about that. Natalie had told her that Mrs. Cochrane must have thought it was Colin she had been with. She had laughed about that.

  “The sod’s gone off with my shoes—look!” She had laughed about that, too.

  And Hannah had been so relieved that Natalie hadn’t been with Colin that she had laughed with her. They had reached the adventure playground by that time, and Natalie had asked her why she was there.

  She had told her that she was waiting for Colin.

  “What for?” she’d asked.

  “What do you think for? The same as you and Mr. Murray,” Hannah had said.

  Natalie hadn’t believed her, so Hannah had told her the things that she and Colin did together, all those things she had put in the letters, all the things she had imagined doing with Colin.

  But Natalie hadn’t been impressed at all; she had just laughed again. And this time, she had laughed at her. So Hannah had stopped Natalie laughing. Then she had made a proper job of it. After that, she had unbuttoned her blouse again, so everyone would know what sort of girl she was.

  And then last night, she had sat in the almost-empty flat and listened as Erica Cochrane had told her what she had done to Colin, what she had done to her, shaking with anger as she spoke, and stirring her tea all the time.

  Her voice had echoed; the room had a coffee table and a couple of chairs in it, and nothing else. It wasn’t somewhere Hannah would have chosen to get away from it all.

  “Do you understand what you’ve done?” she had finished.

  “I split you up,” Hannah had said. “You’re here, and he’s in a hotel.”

  “The police,” she had said, suddenly, and had stopped stirring her tea at last, leaving the spoon in the cup as she had stood up. “We have to go to the police.”

  Hannah had felt in her pocket, felt the handle of the knife. “The police?” she had said.

  “Yes. You were there. You might have seen something that can help them.”

  “So were you,” Hannah had said. She had taken out the knife, and held it against Erica Cochrane. “I’ll go to the police by myself,” she had said. “Afterwards.”

  Mrs. Cochrane had frozen like a statue, her eyes on the blade of the knife. “Afterwards?” she had said, still not moving. “After what?”

  “After I’ve killed you. Then I’ll tell them what I saw. I’ll tell them you killed her, that you brought me up here and tried to kill me, because you found out that I had written those letters.”

  Mrs. Cochrane’s eyes had never left the knife-blade; she hadn’t moved a muscle. “They … they won’t believe you,” she had said.

  Hannah had pushed the point of the knife against her. “They will,” she had said. “When I’ve finished.” Then she’d pulled her hand back and thrust the knife in.

  But it hadn’t killed her. Mrs. Cochrane’s hands had clamped round her wrist, and they had fought for the knife. Hannah hadn’t minded at first, because there would be cuts and bruises as well, and signs of a struggle, which would all help. Sooner or later, the knife would find its target, she had thought.

  The fight had been silent and fierce; over and over again Hannah had got the blade within a millimetre of Mrs. Cochrane’s throat, her eye, her face, but she would push her away again, despite her injury, fighting for her life.

  Natalie had been much easier, because she had been half unconscious when Hannah had actually killed her. This might really be quite difficult, she had realized, just as her arm had been pushed hard against the wall, jarring her elbow, and she had dropped the knife.

  She had bent down to retrieve it, and Erica Cochrane had pushed her over, sat on her, tried to pin her arms to the floor. But Hannah had reached the knife before she could do that, and with the second thrust Mrs. Cochrane had slumped over.

  Then she had removed Mrs. Cochrane’s tights, and knelt underneath the corner of the shelving, standing up quickly, delivering herself a literally sickening blow to the head. Its effects had delayed her; the police had been breaking down the door before she had been quite ready for them.

  Hannah had barely been aware of the urgent knocking at the door at first; then, it had filled her head as she had prayed for oblivion, when her own grip would of necessity relax, and she would be able to breathe once more, her fiction complete.

  It had very nearly worked, better than she could ever have hoped. The fight had given her details that she would never have been able to invent, and injuries that she could never have inflicted upon herself.

  There was silence when she had finished, broken eventually by the inspector.

  “But why, Hannah?” she asked. “Why did you kill Mrs. Cochrane? She hadn’t guessed that it was you. Why?”

  “I had to,” said Hannah. “You had arrested Colin. I couldn’t let Colin take the blame for what happened to Natalie. It was much better if she got blamed. She wasn’t good enough for him anyway.”

  She felt better, in an odd sort of way. And she had wanted to tell someone. After all, it had really been very clever.

  Patrick prepared Monday’s lessons. It always calmed him, sitting quietly in an empty staff room, doing what he liked best.

  Second best? No, he thought, after some thought. Best. He’d sooner give up women than teaching. And he still might have to give up both for a while.

  Hannah Lewis had been charged with the murders; the police had come to tell him, just after four. Someone alive and kicking, someone who would have to stand trial. And he would be called as a witness, he had been told. He’d rung to tell Victoria the first part, but not the second.

  He would have to tell her, though. The luck of the Irish had finally run out, he thought, as he packed up and headed for home, where he had a wife who put up with him, tolerated his shenanigans. Loved him, he supposed. But perhaps not for much longer.

  He opened the front door and mentally squared his shoulders. It had to be faced.

  “Are you all right?” Victoria asked him as he went in.

  He smiled. “Yes, sure,” he said. “I hope Colin’s OK, though.”

  “Haven’t you been to see him?” she asked.

  “No,” said Patrick. “I didn’t think I should intrude, really.”

  She nodded. “I know,” she said. “It’s difficult to know what to do for the best.”

  It was. But sometimes you had no choice, whatever the inspector said. “Victoria,” he said. “There’s something you should know.”

  “Yes?” she said, her voice dubious.

  He smiled. “I love you,” he said.

  These things took a while coming to court, after all. He might not be charged—and you never knew—Hannah might not be charged, come to that. Anything could happen between here and Armageddon. Look what had happened to Erica. He might not have to give evidence at all, and baring his soul might be premature.

  Sufficient unto the day, he thought, as he kissed his long-suffering, accommodating, forgiving wife, was the evil thereof.

  And that was in the Bible, so it must be right.

  Colin sat in the armchair where he had been sitting since Chief Inspector Lloyd’s second visit of the day.

  Sherlock had been sleeping; he was hungry now. He woke up and came stumping over to where Colin sat, and placed a large, trusting head in his lap.

&nb
sp; Colin mustered a smile, and spread the dog’s ears out over his knees, stroking them. The silly creature liked that. “It’s you and me now, Sherlock,” he said.

  Sherlock lifted his eyes at the sound of his name, and his tail wagged.

  Colin was glad that Sherlock was just as happy to be with him as he had been with Erica. He couldn’t have borne it if the dog had been looking for her. But Sherlock’s love was given to anyone and everyone, even someone who had never previously had much rapport with him, and somehow that was helping Colin.

  Hannah Lewis had been charged with both Natalie’s and Erica’s murder, Lloyd had said. Erica had been an innocent victim. Lloyd had been relieved to be able to bring that news, but it wasn’t news to Colin. He had never thought anything else, not from the moment the police had told him she had been taken to the hospital. It didn’t make Erica any less dead.

  But life went on. “Dinner,” he said, and Sherlock jumped up.

  Colin was feeding him when someone came to the door. Another test. Try and pay the milkman, or whoever it was that came on Fridays, without breaking down. You can do it. You can.

  It was Trudy Kane.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “I didn’t think you should be on your own,” she said, almost argumentatively, as though he had already told her to leave. “If you don’t think it’s seemly, I’ll go. But I think you should have company, so you should be with someone, and people are funny after something like this. It doesn’t have to be me. Just don’t stay here on your own, that’s all.”

  He smiled, and stood aside to let her in. “I’m not alone,” he said as the dog came through to fall in love with whoever had arrived. “This is Sherlock,” he said. “He’s been a great help. But his conversation is limited.”

  His voice broke on the last word, and he did break down. He was aware that he was being—with the very best of motives—earmarked before he’d even buried Erica, but he did need company. And at least it wasn’t the milkman.

  * * *

  Kim’s mum had made her pack a case, ready for tomorrow.

  “No arguments,” she had said. “We’re going.”

  A seaside hotel, for a week. She couldn’t really afford it, Kim knew that.

  But she did want to get away from all of this horror. From questions. The police said it would be all right. They said that someone was being charged with both the murders. They hadn’t said who, but Kim knew, just as she had known when her mother had told her what Hannah was saying about Mrs. Cochrane.

  Then she had realized how insistent Hannah had been about her not telling the police anything. How ill she had looked. How certain that it hadn’t been Colin Cochrane who had killed Natalie. Why she had felt that by talking to the police it wasn’t Natalie or Mr. Cochrane that she was betraying, but Hannah.

  Everyone had been behaving as though it was Hannah who had died in that flat, but it hadn’t been. It had been Mrs. Cochrane. And that, for Kim, had been the final straw. The terrible suspicion that had lurked at the back of her mind had forced its way into her conscious thoughts.

  But if that policewoman hadn’t come to see her … would she have said anything?

  Probably not.

  Tom watched Hannah being taken away to a youth detention centre, feeling as shell-shocked as Judy looked now that he had heard the whole story.

  They walked in silence back to the empty CID room, and Tom sat down at his desk, looking with something approaching fondness at his paperwork.

  “You were right, guv,” he said as Judy went towards her office.

  “So were you,” she said. “About a lot of things.”

  Tom didn’t exactly feel flushed with success. He had had the wrong people down for it all along. “Name one,” he said.

  “Cochrane’s deodorant,” she said. “And that Mrs. Cochrane hadn’t told us the whole story. That Sherlock had smelt someone he knew. That Hannah knew exactly who Natalie had been with,” said Judy. “Jealousy wasn’t her motive at all—I was wrong about that.”

  Tom shook his head. “Who could have guessed what it really was?” he asked as Lloyd came in, and Judy slipped into her office and closed the door.

  “Guessed what what really was?” asked Lloyd.

  “Hannah’s motive,” said Tom. “That she killed Natalie because she laughed at her.”

  Lloyd smiled. “I’ve heard of flimsier motives,” he said. “And I can see that you were never laughed at when you were at school.”

  “No, I wasn’t,” said Tom. “But even if I had been, you don’t kill people for it.”

  “Not unless you’re psychotic,” agreed Lloyd. “But you want to. Believe me, you want to.”

  Tom frowned. “You weren’t laughed at as a kid, were you, sir?” he asked.

  “I was. And if I’d been unbalanced, I could have killed.”

  “But why were you laughed at?”

  “Because,” said Lloyd slowly, “I wasn’t called Tom.”

  Ah. The ultra-secret name. Lloyd had to be the worst keeper of a secret in the world. There couldn’t be a single person at Stansfield nick that didn’t know about him and Judy, and it wasn’t from her. But no one at all knew his first name; he kept it strictly to himself, and Tom had failed, despite several attempts, to get the tiniest of clues from Judy.

  “I still could kill,” warned Lloyd. “Remember that. I might not always be the well-adjusted chap you see before you now.” He knocked on Judy’s door.

  Tom smiled.

  Judy was sitting at her desk, smoking, her hand shaking slightly. She looked up as Lloyd came in, closing the door behind him. She wasn’t sure she had forgiven him for his “women notice things like that” when she was in no position to thump him.

  “Well done,” he said quietly.

  Maybe. It had been Lloyd’s idea, of course, the build-up with slightly awkward questions for which Hannah would have ready answers, to lull her into a false sense of security.

  “An uncorroborated confession,” she said, releasing smoke. “That’s all it is.”

  He smiled, and sat on the edge of her desk. “And a shred of evidence,” he said.

  “They might not even prosecute,” she said. “If they do, she could retract the confession. The courts are paranoid about that now. She could get off.”

  Lloyd looked at her seriously. “It’s out of our hands, Judy,” he said. “We’ve done our bit. And Freddie might find something in the postmortem on Mrs. Cochrane that backs up the confession, now that he knows what he’s looking for. How much blood she’d lost, for instance—he’s not convinced it’s consistent with Hannah’s original story. And they’re going to try to get prints from Natalia’s skin—the thumb and little finger, remember?”

  Judy nodded. It wasn’t something that worked very often.

  “Forensic are going over that flat with a fine-tooth comb right now. They could turn up some more evidence. And they think the button thread found on Natalia’s body could be from a school blazer.”

  “Natalie had a school blazer—that could have been picked up in her own wardrobe.”

  Lloyd smiled. “It all helps,” he said. “Anyway, I don’t think she will retract the confession. She’s proud of it.”

  Judy shivered. But he was probably right. He usually was. Even about Mrs. Cochrane unwittingly protecting the psychopath. Like he said, they had done their job, and Freddie would do his, conscientiously as ever. She felt a little more confident of success.

  Someone knocked, and waited to be told to come in. Judy was surprised to see Tom, who never stood on ceremony. Presumably he had thought he might catch them in a passionate embrace if he didn’t announce his presence.

  “I ought to be going, guv, if that’s all right,” he said. “I’ve got a dinner date tonight. It’s our wedding anniversary.”

  “How many years?” asked Judy.

  “Seven,” said Tom.

  She glanced at Lloyd. “Congratulations,” she said to Tom. “Give Liz my love.”

 
; “I will. Thanks.”

  “Where are you taking her, Tom?” asked Lloyd.

  “That new place in Barton—everyone says it’s worth the money. What’s it called? It’s in Grainger Street.”

  “Pennyman’s,” said Judy. She and Lloyd had been there a couple of times since it had opened. The manager was a friend of Lloyd’s, but that didn’t get him a discount. It was worth the money, but no wonder Tom had been so anxious about his expenses. He was going to need them.

  “That’s it,” said Tom. “Pennyman’s. I think Liz deserves the best for putting up with me for seven years.”

  “What time are you supposed to be there?” asked Lloyd.

  “Eight o’clock, so I’d better get a move on.” Tom went to the door. “She’ll be amazed that we’re actually going to get where we’re going for once,” he said, then stopped and turned, and snapped his fingers. “All About Eve,” he said, triumphantly.

  Lloyd immediately looked interested, as if Tom could possibly be going to say anything about it that he didn’t already know. Judy practically knew the dialogue backwards.

  “What about it?” he said. “Is it on somewhere? Are you going to see it?”

  “No,” said Tom. “It just suddenly popped into my head. I’ve been trying to remember for days which film that quote came from—you know. ‘Fasten your seat-belts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.’ ”

  Lloyd shook his head. “ ‘Night,’ Tom,” he corrected.

  “Night, guvs,” said Tom cheerily, and left, carefully closing the door again.

  “Oh, well,” said Lloyd. “Never mind.”

  Judy frowned as he reached across her for her phone, and got out his address book.

  She squinted at it as he dialled the number. It was open at P. She sighed. Tom had put ideas into his head, obviously.

  Candlelit dinners for two were all very nice, but she did like to be asked first, and the last thing she wanted to do was get dressed up to go out. Anyway, they probably wouldn’t have a table available, and even if they did, it would hardly be fair on Tom and Liz to have them sitting there all evening, so, all in all, she didn’t think that this was one of Lloyd’s better ideas.