by J M Gregson
Lambert allowed himself a sour smile. ‘Some people manage to be divorced and remain friends, Mr Walker.’
He looked as if he was considering a strange idea. ‘She were a stuck-up bitch, were Clare. She seemed to think—’
‘Why were you divorced?’
‘In-com-pat-i-ble. That’s what the papers said.’ He pronounced each syllable as if it were a separate word. ‘That’s how the snobby cow wanted it. Said that was the easiest way.’
‘Knock her about, did you?’
‘Who told you—?’ He stopped quickly, though not before he had incriminated himself. Then he glared suspiciously at his questioner and said, ‘Course I didn’t. We should never have got wed, that’s what it was.’
‘Hit women a lot, do you, Mr Walker?’
‘You’ve no reason to bloody say that.’ He glanced from side to side, like a cornered animal looking for a path of escape. Then he fell back on a phrase from his youth. ‘This is victimization, this is.’
‘This is the police pursuing enquiries, Mr Walker. I doubt if you’d recognize victimization if it rode in here on a bicycle with a label round its neck.’ Lambert let his contempt flow over the man for a moment. ‘So we know you hit Clare Mills during the brief period when she was Mrs Walker. What we have to decide is whether you killed her last Saturday.’
‘I didn’t. Didn’t go near the snobby cow.’ But he wasn’t looking at them. He kicked a tussock of grass viciously in his frustration, and the sheep started away from him, gathering fifteen yards away, keeping a nervous eye upon him as they resumed their nibbling of the sparse grass around the base of a tree.
Lambert nodded to Hook, who resumed the questioning. ‘When did you last see Clare, Ian?’
‘Dunno. Months ago, must be.’ He dragged his toe across the dust of the bare patch of earth where he stood, as if seeking to draw some sort of line on the conversation.
‘But you’ve seen her since you were divorced.’
‘Dunno. Might have.’ His face set like that of a sulking child.
Hook controlled his anger, made himself pause before he said quietly, ‘It’s a murder enquiry, Ian. Be best if you cooperate, won’t it?’
‘All right, I’ve seen her since we were divorced. Can’t be expected to remember when, can I? Not just like that.’
‘You’ll need to work on that, then, force your memory into action. Why did you see her, Ian?’
‘Can’t recall, can I? Not just like that.’
But he immediately looked even more shifty, and they knew it hadn’t been a chance meeting. ‘Trying to get money out of her, were you, Ian?’
Walker looked across to his sheep, then down the valley towards the distant houses. ‘It’s not all profit, this game, you know. People think it’s easy money, sheep-badgering, but there’s expenses.’
Hook was almost drawn into asking him what they were. Instead, he said, ‘Did you get money from Clare, Ian?’
‘Did I bloody ’eckers like! She said she’d given up her job and become a student now. Another bloody parasite!’ He thrust his resentment into the insult he had heard in the pub, though he’d no real idea what a parasite was.
‘And when did this meeting take place?’
‘Dunno. Months ago. Six months, mebbe.’
He stood breathing heavily, watching the toes of his trainers, refusing still to look at the CID men, even through the pause which they let stretch beneath the warm sun. Lambert said, ‘Do you have a vehicle, Mr Walker?’
‘No.’ He turned his back upon them for a moment to look at his sheep, straggling away in groups beneath the trees of the Forest of Dean. ‘I don’t need wheels to heft sheep, do I? I borrows a van from a mate, when I needs one.’
They left him then, walking stiffly away like the townies he took them for. Their car was a hundred yards away. They sat watching him for a couple of minutes, whilst he shouted some guttural commands to his unheeding sheep and tried to look purposeful. Then they drove slowly away, with the burly sergeant watching him until they passed out of sight.
You kept the fuzz in the dark on principle, lied whenever you could. They surely couldn’t know which were the important lies.
Seven
Sara Green watched the police team working its way around the Social Studies department at the university and tried hard to keep calm.
They had said they planned to be unobtrusive, to disturb the work of the faculty as little as possible. But the dark uniforms stood out against the jeans and T-shirts of the student community at exam-time: they had as much chance of being unnoticed as Martians. Sara was surprised how many officers there were: half a dozen at least, she thought, maybe even more. And you were always being told that the police were overstretched, that there weren’t enough of them to go round. It certainly seemed like that, when you had a burglary at your house or someone went joy-riding in your car. They hadn’t done more than go through the motions when her mother’s house had been broken into last year, just told her that she could tell her insurance people that the police had been informed.
But this was a murder investigation, and that seemed to pull in the resources. A team of fifty altogether, the reporter had said on television last night. They seemed to be talking to as many of the students as they could get hold of, as well as the academic staff. Sara wondered if they were asking everyone the same questions. It was routine, she told herself. There was nothing to get worried about.
She was wearing her usual dark blue trousers and flat shoes. She had thought last night that she might wear jeans and trainers; she could still pass for a student when she wanted to. After all, Clare Mills had been a student, and Sara was only eight years older than her. But in the end, she had chosen to look her age, to blend as easily as she could into the role of tutor which sometimes felt so alien to her. She had put on her best green silk blouse, which she knew made the most of her small but definite breasts.
With its delicate tracery of embroidery around the neck, it made her look very feminine. She had already had a few compliments on her appearance, so that she wondered if she was attracting attention rather than the anonymity she craved. But it was the male staff who had been most fulsome about her attractiveness today, and men were suggestible creatures at the best of times.
Sara wondered if it would be a male police officer who came to question her, when they finally got round to her. Whoever it was would surely put the same set of queries to her which were being put to everyone else. She would give them an equally dull set of replies and send them on their way. There was no reason why they should be more interested in her than anyone else. She was just someone who lectured in psychology. Just one of the many lecturers whom Clare Mills had come across in the course of her studies. Neither more nor less important than a dozen other people.
Sara Green wondered if she would have to sign a statement. It would be important not to let them see that she was nervous.
They were ushered straight through by the PA in the outer office. It was a luxuriously carpeted room, with expensive prints of the Brecon Beacons and the Black Mountains on the walls and two deep armchairs in front of the big desk, but a room which was curiously without a distinctive character or atmosphere.
The first words of the man after the introductions had been made were equally inscrutable. ‘She was a lovely girl. I can’t think of anyone who could possibly have wished her any harm.’
It was a conventional enough thought, one they had heard voiced many times before in murder cases. And Lambert’s practised reply was equally conventional. ‘We’re sorry to have to intrude at a time like this, Mr Hudson, but I’m sure you’ll appreciate that we need to gather as much information as we can about a murder victim, as quickly as we can.’
‘I still can’t believe that Clare was murdered. Why would anyone want to do a thing like that?’
Another platitude. It was impossible to tell how genuine people were, when they spoke in grief or in shock. It was not even possible to tell which of these two emotions predo
minated. ‘We have to begin with those who were closest to the victim. We need to know as much as possible about her friends and her habits.’
‘I was her stepfather, not her father, of course. But you’ll have deduced that from the name.’
‘Indeed. Were you close to Clare?’
‘Yes, of course I was.’
‘There’s no “of course” about it, Mr Hudson. Stepdaughters often find a new man in their mother’s bed hard to accept.’
Roy Hudson looked for a moment as if he would bridle at the directness of this. He was a little older than his wife, probably around fifty, with deep-set, watchful brown eyes in a tanned face. He was a handsome man, greying at the temples but still with a good crop of dark hair. He had the slightly florid complexion which often comes from a comfortable lifestyle and a surfeit of good food and wine, but there was no sign of the corpulence which might have accompanied such indulgence. He controlled himself and asserted tersely, ‘Clare and I had a good relationship.’
‘But she chose to keep the name of her real father.’
‘That was her prerogative. I believe it is not unusual in these circumstances.’ They were fencing with each other already, two naturally combative men who had dropped into a contest. Lambert wondered how it had happened, why it was that this successful man was behaving as if he had territory to protect.
‘How old was Clare when you came upon the scene, Mr Hudson?’
‘Sixteen. She was eighteen when I married Judith. Is this relevant?’
‘It may or it may not be. We shall only know when we have a much fuller picture of the life led by a girl who cannot speak for herself.’
Lambert wasn’t averse to ruffling a man who struck him as a smooth operator; people who were angry usually revealed more of themselves than they intended. He was wondering why Hudson had chosen to see them here in his luxuriously appointed office rather than at his home. Did he for some reason not want his wife, the girl’s mother, to overhear these exchanges? Lambert said, ‘Clare must have lived under the same roof as you for a number of years.’
‘She came with her mother when I married her.’ He made her sound like a family pet which had to be accommodated as part of a deal. ‘There was plenty of room in the house for her. She wasn’t with us for very long. She chose to get married herself.’ The words tripped out without any hesitations, almost like part of a statement he had prepared in advance. But there might be nothing sinister in that: there was no reason why he should not anticipate their questions and prepare his answers.
But the nature of their work turns CID men into suspicious creatures; prepared statements suggest to them that the speaker may have something to hide. ‘So how long did you live in the same house as your stepdaughter?’
‘Six months or so. She made a hasty marriage, against our advice. Marry in haste and repent at leisure, they say. It was certainly so in Clare’s case.’ Perhaps Roy Hudson thought he sounded too satisfied that it had turned out so, for he added lamely, ‘It was a great pity for her, a great sorrow for us.’
Lambert wondered if Roy Hudson was anxious to turn the talk away from his own relationship with the dead girl to that of Ian Walker’s. ‘Would you say that Clare Mills and you had a happy relationship during those six months when you lived in the same house?’
‘Yes. Excellent.’
‘Forgive me for saying so, but that would be unusual, in our experience. There are usually problems of the kind I have suggested when teenagers have to accept a new head of the family. We need you to be quite frank with us.’
Hudson pursed his rather thin lips. ‘I wouldn’t say there were major problems. As a matter of fact, Judith had more trouble with her daughter than I had. I think Clare blamed her for the break-up of her first marriage. I never met Clare’s father. He was off the scene before I even met Judith. He’s in New Zealand now.’
Hook looked up at this point from the notes he had been making. ‘So how would you summarize your own relationship with Clare Mills, Mr Hudson?’
‘Close and friendly.’ Again there was the sense that this was an emollient phrase he had prepared for this very question.
Hook nodded. ‘We were given access this morning to Clare’s bank and building society accounts. That is quite normal in the case of a murder victim.’
‘Yes?’ The man behind the big desk could not see where this was going.
‘She had quite a large student loan. No larger perhaps than that of many students at her stage of a degree, but quite substantial.’
‘So?’
‘Nothing, really. But it’s surprising how often a murder victim’s financial situation tells us significant things about their life. I just thought that in view of the fact that you enjoyed a close and friendly relationship with her, you might have chosen to supplement her income whilst she was at university.’ He put the thought apologetically, where Lambert might have made it confrontational. Then he looked round the conventional affluence of the office rather than at the man at the centre of it. Bert Hook did rather a good line in innocent speculation.
Roy Hudson controlled himself with difficulty and said icily, ‘Clare was an independent young woman. She wouldn’t have accepted charity from me.’
‘I see. Did you offer to help her?’
Hudson paused to consider his reply. These men and their team were going to talk to many other people, to unearth much more about Clare than they knew at present, a lot more than he was going to offer them. ‘I knew her well enough to know that financial support from me would not have been welcome. I told you, we had an excellent relationship.’ His manner rather than his words told them that this was a man not used to being challenged, a man who ran a highly successful small business, whose word was law during his working day.
‘When did you last see Clare Mills?’
He took his time, suspecting now that they might be happy to irritate him, accepting the rules of the game and playing to win. ‘Three months ago, approximately. I couldn’t be precise. I didn’t expect to be quizzed about it by policemen.’ He allowed himself a small, mirthless smile on that thought.
Lambert answered this thought he had heard hundreds of times before with a wry smile of his own. ‘But we believe that Clare went home regularly to visit her mother. Does this mean that you did not see her on those visits?’
‘If she visited the house during those last three months, I didn’t see her. I assure you there is nothing sinister in that fact. Hudson Plastics is a prosperous business, but it doesn’t run itself.’
‘Did Clare communicate any sort of anxiety to you or to her mother?’
‘None whatsoever. Though as I say, it is some time since I saw her. But I’m sure Judith would have mentioned anything which was worrying her daughter to me, if she thought it serious.’
‘Was Clare in any sort of trouble?’
‘No. As far as I know, her studies were going well.’
‘Yes. The university confirms that she was an excellent student. Both her tutors and her fellow-students were expecting her to get a good degree. And yet someone chose to kill her.’
‘Couldn’t this have been something quite random, quite unconnected with her normal life?’
People, even totally innocent people, always wanted this. They found some unpredictable violence easier to take than a planned murder, involving someone who had been close to the victim. Lambert said, ‘It’s possible, of course. But even in today’s world, such deaths are rarer than the public thinks. We normally find that someone has secured some advantage from a death. For what it’s worth, the post-mortem did not reveal any sign of a sexual attack upon your stepdaughter.’
He would have expected the man to have asked about that at the beginning of the interview: people close to the victim usually wanted to be reassured that there had not been a rape before a strangling.
As if he recognized the omission, Roy Hudson said hastily, ‘That’s something at any rate, I suppose. I hope Clare suffered as little as possible.’
/>
Lambert was irked by his urbanity, by his lack of any obvious emotion about a girl he claimed he had been close to. He said abruptly, ‘So who do you think killed Clare Mills, Mr Hudson?’
‘I haven’t the faintest idea. If I did, I’d be offering you my thoughts, obviously.’
Not so obviously, thought Lambert. You’re concealing something, but until I know more about you and this strange murder victim, I can’t begin to conjecture what it might be. He said as he stood up, ‘If you think of anything at all which might be helpful, please contact me or Detective Inspector Rushton at Oldford CID immediately. We shall no doubt wish to speak to you again in due course.’
He made that sound as much like a threat as he could.
Bert Hook hoped to complete an Open University degree within the next year. But, having been a doughty Minor Counties seam bowler with Herefordshire for fifteen years, he still tended to think in cricketing metaphors. To his mind, Roy Hudson had played a straight bat to fairly standard bowling. Bert looked forward to making him hop about a bit on the back foot, when they got him on a stickier wicket.
The insurance broker gave him a price which was cheaper than anything else he’d had. It was probably from a dodgy company, but it would make him legal, which was all that mattered.
Ian Walker said, ‘I only want third party, fire and theft, mind. You sure that’s the lowest you can do?’
‘You won’t beat that price. And you’re sure the vehicle is garaged every night?’
‘Oh, yes. Locked and barred, with the keys removed.’ He remembered the lies you had to tell. Probably the man on the other end of the line didn’t even believe him, but that wouldn’t matter.
‘Once we’ve cleared your cheque, we’ll send you the certificate by the next post, Mr …?’ The broker was anxious to get on to more important things; there wasn’t much commission in third-party insurance on an old van.
‘I’m paying cash. I’ll be there in an hour. Have the certificate ready and I’ll pick it up.’
In the circles in which Ian Walker moved, cash was still king. You trusted that and very little else. He pulled the tin out from its hiding place under the stained sink and extracted the grubby notes he needed. He took a blank cheque too from the scarcely used book and put it and the money carefully into the pocket of his jeans. Then he reversed the old white van out from the grass beneath the trees and drove into Gloucester, more carefully than usual. He parked in his usual place near the cattle market and went to collect the insurance certificate. There was still a month left on the van’s MOT, so that was all right.