by Jill McGown
Tony frowned. “The path I should take?”
“The tennis courts will be turned into a VIP car park for the day.” He saw Tony’s horrified expression, and laughed. “They’re hard courts.”
“I was going to say that there was a limit to how much you should sacrifice,” said Tony.
“You can get in from the back road, drive up and park. The public car park will be packed before we know it, and anyway if it’s raining, it’ll be a sea of mud. So people like yourself, who are helping out, can avoid all that. You see? There are perks.” He led Tony down the pathway, lined with trees still bare, but which by May Day would be in blossom. He hadn’t walked around his own grounds for years, he realized. It was good exercise, as Tony had said.
“Which way?” asked Tony, as the path forked.
“That’s a shortcut to the summerhouse on the right. If we carry on down here, you can see it from the lake.” He was very proud of the Grange, but it had never really occurred to him to take visitors round the grounds. He should do that more often.
“Did I hear someone say that you used to have shoots here?”
“We did, when my wife was alive, but I didn’t keep it up.” Michael smiled, a little sadly. The gamekeeper had been the only member of his staff who he had ever made redundant. “Josephine was the real enthusiast. She was born here—I think everyone shoots in Stoke Weston. It seems to be a sort of local tradition. Come spring, you hear them at it all the time.”
“I saw that Winchester you gave Stephen.”
That had been Josephine's. Michael had given it to him on the pretext of having bought a new rifle, but it was really because he thought Stephen would appreciate it. He wished he hadn’t given it to him now. “Are you a shooting man?” he asked.
“Oh, yes. I’ve tried my hand at most country pursuits in my time.”
“Isn’t that a bit difficult? With the diabetes?”
“Not if you don’t let it be. Lots of very successful sportsmen are diabetic. But I was more enthusiastic than talented. I’m not a bad shot, though.”
The path widened out and the little lake came into view, with ducks bobbing gently on its surface, and Tony stood beside it, shaking his head slightly. “I had no idea there was so much land,” he said, and looked across the water. “Is that the summerhouse? It looks more like a bungalow.”
“It is. If you want to have a look at it, we can pop along there on the way back. Otherwise you have to take the dinghy, and I don’t recommend it—no one’s used it for about five years.”
They walked back along the pathway, and took the fork to the summerhouse. Michael opened the door, and Tony looked at it the way Michael had when he had seen it for the first time.
“A family of four could live here,” he said.
“When he was little, Ben and his friends did live here, practically.” Michael closed the door again, too many memories fighting for supremacy. That was why he never used it. Tony made to go back the way they had come, but Michael stopped him. “This way,” he said, pointing to the other path that ran into the wood from the side of the summerhouse.
He’d like Ben to meet Tony Baker. He was the sort of man that Ben could be: clever, good-looking, taking on his condition and beating it into submission. Not that Ben had a medical problem, but it was much the same thing. He didn’t have to give in to it. And Ben would enjoy Tony Baker’s company—he had a fund of stories to tell about his travels, about the hard men he’d faced down when he wanted them to talk to him and they didn’t want him around, about the high rollers in Las Vegas, who thought nothing of losing half a million dollars on the turn of a card. Of his days as a newspaper reporter, when he would risk life and limb if it meant getting a story before the next guy. About the women he’d met, some of whom he’d seduced, some of whom had seduced him.
Michael had told him he should write his life story; it would be worth reading. Of course the stories were exaggerated—maybe even invented—but that didn’t matter. They were funny, and exciting, and Tony Baker knew how to tell them. He would really like Ben to meet him, but even if Tony was going to be here that long, Ben wouldn’t be home for Easter. He was going away somewhere.
They arrived back almost where they had started, beside the house, where the maypole would be erected, and the Morris dancers would do their thing. “That’s it,” said Michael. “That’s the complete circular tour.”
They walked back up to the house, and finished off the second bottle of Chablis. Well, Michael did. Tony didn’t ever drink very much.
Every paper in the country was on murder watch in Malworth, but there were still no new leads on Mrs. Fenton, and it seemed to Judy that every time she stepped outside the station, a microphone was shoved under her nose, and she was asked how the inquiry was progressing. Unlike Tony Baker, however, she was unable to make any comment.
In the hope that the publicity would persuade a witness to come forward, Judy had delayed her visit to him, but now she was on her way to see him, having once again run the gauntlet of reporters. She had decided against trying to make him feel guilty, however self-obsessed he was, and however much she felt he probably deserved to feel guilty. He was lapping up all the attention, pontificating on murder in general and serial murders in particular, for anyone who cared to listen, and a lot of people apparently did.
But making him feel guilty wasn’t going to get her anywhere. For one thing, making Lloyd feel guilty wasn’t something that she could do to order though he seemed to think it was, and for another, she believed that Tony Baker had told them all he could about what he had seen. Or at least—all that he remembered. She was hoping to take him through it one more time, asking specific questions that might fill in some of the blanks.
Grace Halliday, blonde, attractive, but slightly drawn and tired-looking, showed her into the small, comfortably furnished, old-fashioned private dining room of the Tulliver Inn, where Tony Baker came to meet her, hand outstretched.
“Chief Inspector Hill, how nice to see you. Do sit down.”
She sat down at the table, as indicated by the wave of his hand. He sat opposite her, where a shaft of bright, cold March sunshine caught him as if in a spotlight, picking out the honey-colored highlights in his hair. She didn’t suppose his choice of seat had been accidental.
“How can I help you?”
“I wondered if you would mind telling me again what you saw when you went into the alleyway.”
“I’d be delighted, if you think it might help.” He twisted round as Grace Halliday came in, this time bearing a tray of coffee. “Ah, Grace, thank you very much. I took the liberty of ordering us some coffee when I knew you were coming.”
“Is it you who keeps questioning Stephen?” Grace Halliday put the tray down on the table, and poured coffee as she spoke.
“I’ve spoken to him once, but DI Finch has seen him twice. We’re questioning everyone who was in the vicinity, Mrs. Halliday.” Judy waved a hand toward Tony Baker. “I’m here to question Mr. Baker right now.”
“But you took Stephen away. Last time you taped the interview.”
“It’s fairly standard procedure. He was the last person seen with Mrs. Fenton—he could have vital information. He might not even know that he has it—that’s one reason we question people more than once. To try to jog their memories. That’s why I’m here now, as I said.”
“All he did was see that woman safely home.”
There was a rather large flaw in that argument, but Judy didn’t point it out.
Jack was just finishing his routine maintenance at the casino when Mike Waterman came out of the office.
“Oh, good, Jack, I’m glad I’ve caught you. I just wanted to talk to you about the boxing evening.”
Jack frowned. “I put the confirmations on your desk. Didn’t you find them?”
Mike smiled. “Yes—thanks very much. It looks like a great program. You’ve surpassed yourself. But I need another favor. You produce the village newspaper on your comput
er, don’t you?”
Yes. Jack had had a computer ever since the first home model had come on the market. “I do,” he said. “Why?”
“I know you’ve already done a great job getting these bouts lined up for us,” Mike said. “I just wanted to ask one more favor. Do you think you could design a poster for it—you know, with the bouts listed? Only, I don’t want to spend any more money than we have to, so that as much as possible goes to the charity, and I know you can do as good a job as any printer.”
Jack was delighted to be asked, so the flattery wasn’t necessary. He’d enjoy doing that. He already had a thought about how it might look. Like an old-fashioned bare-knuckle fight bill. Or maybe like a cinema poster for one of these martial arts films. “Sure,” he said. “No problem.”
“Oh, good. Just the design, of course—I can get them printed off. I don’t want you going to any expense. But is it possible to do some big ones to go up in sports halls and places like that, and some smaller ones to put up in shop windows and through people’s letter boxes?”
“Oh, yes—leave it with me. I’ll even give you a choice of design.”
Mike beamed. “Thanks a lot, Jack. I hope you’ve got your DJ dusted off for the night.”
Jack smiled. Mike Waterman really did think that everyone had a dinner jacket, even if they didn’t get much occasion to use it. He really did. He’d been too long away from the East End, if you asked Jack.
Tony shrugged slightly as the door closed behind Grace. “Sorry about that,” he said. “She’s being particularly irritating at the moment, but I suppose she is worried about Stephen.” He picked up his coffee. “And I know you think I saw more than I’m saying, but I really didn’t.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Because you suspect Stephen, and because I didn’t tell DI Finch that I saw him with Mrs. Fenton, you think that perhaps I recognized him in the alleyway. But I didn’t. I don’t necessarily think I would have, so I’m not saying it wasn’t him—I’m just saying that I don’t know who it was. And I swear to you, I can’t possibly describe him any better than I have. Dark clothes. I don’t even know how old he was, except that he could run very fast, so I think he was quite young.”
“Well,” she said, “I’m hoping I can coax a few more memories from you than that.”
Tony smiled. “I think every memory I possess is now a matter of public record.”
He was much in demand for interviews with the press and TV since the news of the letter had broken. The interest wasn’t quite of the intensity achieved after the Challenger business, but it was getting that way, proving his contention that the public enjoyed following the exploits of serial killers, and this time they were in on it right from the start, which merely added to that enjoyment. And he didn’t think enjoyment was too strong a word; when a serial murderer was doing his thing, newspaper sales rose, TV programs netted big audiences, and publishers began looking through the backlists for titles that might benefit from a paperback run. It was murder as entertainment.
Everyone was waiting for this murder to be committed; even in Bartonshire, where the threat was real, there was a sense of anticipation rather than alarm, everyone secure in the knowledge that murder only ever happened to other people. The panic that had so worried the police was strictly confined to the media, where “climate of fear” had become the most overworked cliché in a welter of clichés.
“You might not know you possess these memories,” she said.
“How intriguing. Are you a hypnotherapist on the side?”
“No, nothing like that,” she laughed. “It’s just a technique that sometimes works. What you saw was over in a matter of seconds—you took in images and sounds and impressions all in the blink of an eye. You came to the conclusion in those seconds that the people you saw were drunk, but they weren’t, and I’d like to find out, if I can, what made you think that.”
Tony really was intrigued. “How does it work?”
“The idea is that you visualize the scene, and then I ask very specific questions about what happened in those few seconds. It doesn’t matter whether you have an answer to them or not. If you don’t know the answer, just say so. But it might make you remember details.”
“All right. Do I have to close my eyes?”
She laughed again, shaking her head. “Open or closed—it’s up to you. Whatever helps you visualize the scene.”
He closed his eyes, and saw again the entrance to the alleyway. What was his first impression? Just that there were two people in the alleyway ahead of him. “Okay. I entered the alleyway, and I could see two people about halfway along.”
“Which way were they walking?”
“They weren’t walking. They were just standing there.” He opened his eyes. “I didn’t tell you that before, did I?”
“No. I realized your statement didn’t make it clear. I thought you would remember that easily enough.”
He closed his eyes. “Go on. They were standing there.”
“Did you think they were drunk straight away?”
No. He had just noticed two people. He told her that.
“Were they standing apart or close together?”
He could see them, as a sort of silhouette, with no discernible space between them. “Close together.”
“Was one taller than the other?”
“Not noticeably.”
“Were they facing each other?”
No, he thought, they weren’t. “No. She was facing the door to the flats. He was behind her.”
“Were they touching?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was he embracing her?”
“No.”
“Were their heads touching?”
He thought. They couldn’t have been, because he had seen two distinct profiles; that was how he knew it was two people. “No.”
“Their bodies?”
“Possibly. I don’t know.”
“Where were his hands?”
His hands . . . his hands were holding on to her. “On her. On her arm.” He smiled, his eyes still closed. He didn’t realize he’d seen that, but he had. “This is fun.”
“What did you think they were doing?”
That was when he’d thought they’d been drinking. No—he thought she’d been drinking. Drunk, he’d thought. The woman’s drunk. “I thought she was drunk, and he was trying to get her into the flats.”
“Why did you think she was drunk?”
Good question. Because she almost fell. “She stumbled.”
“Is that why he caught her arm?”
“No. He was holding on to her all the time.”
“Did you think he was drunk?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“He was impatient with her.”
“How did you know that?”
Because he was calling her a stupid bitch, Tony remembered. “He was swearing at her,” he said, and opened his eyes again, smiling broadly. “I’d forgotten that. Are you sure you’re not using hypnotism?”
“I promise I wouldn’t know how to hypnotize you. Did you see him hit her?”
Tony closed his eyes again. He turned into the alley, they were there, there was a sort of scuffle, he was calling her names. “I don’t know. There was a lot of movement.”
“Did he let go of her arm?”
“He must have.”
“Before she fell?”
He had seen them both upright, then she was on the ground. “I don’t know.”
“Did he raise his arm?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he kick her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you see his face?”
Yes, side-on, but in shadow. “No features,” he said.
“Was he wearing anything on his head?”
He had just seen a shape. “I don’t know.”
“What color was his hair?�
�
“I don’t know.”
“Did you see her fall?”
“Yes.”
“How far away were you when she fell?”
He opened his eyes. “Still just inside the alleyway—as you said, it all happened in seconds.” He smiled. “After that, I really didn’t see anything. He crouched down beside her, but I couldn’t see what he was doing, because he was in shadow then.”
She picked up her coffee, and sipped it. “Was that when you went to her assistance?”
“No.” He felt slightly embarrassed, but he had to tell the truth. He felt a little as though he was on the psychiatrist’s couch. “I have to confess that I didn’t have any intention of going to her assistance. If it hadn’t been snowing, I would probably have taken the long way round rather than carrying on through the alley. But I didn’t fancy being snowed on, so I was just hoping to get past them without being spotted. And I took my time getting there. But he heard me coming, and ran. That’s when I realized that I’d got it all wrong.”
“Do you mind if we carry on?” she asked. “I’d like to see if we can get anything more on what you saw when he ran away.”
“Not at all.” He closed his eyes. He was enjoying this. “Fire away.”
As March wore on with no new murder, the papers and TV began to lose interest altogether, and turn their attention to other, more pressing matters, having decided that it was after all just a very expensive hoax.
But Mrs. Fenton’s murder wasn’t a hoax, and as the sixth week of the inquiry drew to a close, they were still getting nowhere. The lost half hour remained lost; the reason for the attack remained as obscure as it had the day it happened. So despite the lateness of the hour, Tom was still at work, still trying to think of some angle that had eluded him up till now.
The problem with twins, he had discovered, was that you had no sooner got Becky pacified and relaxed and ready to go back to sleep when David would start, and that would set Becky off again. Or the other way round. He and Liz had been up for what seemed like almost all night. It was, these days, unusual for them not to sleep through, but Liz thought they might have caught a bit of a cold. She could just go back to sleep herself afterward, however many times she was disturbed, but he always found himself wide awake, trying to sleep, listening to the clock ticking, knowing he had to be up at seven.
