by Frank Smith
The police had picked Moira up and brought her back in an unmarked car. Trevor had offered to come with her, but she’d said no, she’d be fine on her own. But she’d looked anything but fine when she returned, accompanied by two plain-clothes officers. A second car arrived moments later, and he’d been handed a search warrant when he opened the door.
There were four of them – three men and a woman. They’d spent more than three hours in the house and garden. They’d examined every piece of clothing, including everything in the hamper waiting to be washed, and they taken away her coat, her shoes, even the underclothes she said she was wearing that night, and he’d felt so damned helpless, because there was nothing he or anyone else could do to stop them.
Moira had rushed to the door and locked it the moment they’d gone, then stood there with her back to it as if barring the way should they decide to return.
‘It’s all right,’ he’d said soothingly. ‘Everything is going to be all right, Moira. Believe me.’
But she’d shaken her head. ‘They’ll be back,’ she’d whispered. ‘They don’t believe me, Trevor. They think I did it. They think I killed Laura. They’re going to arrest me. They . . . Oh, God! What am I going to do?’
She’d pulled away from him when he’d tried to comfort her, and they’d said little to each other throughout the rest of the evening. He’d called their solicitor; explained the situation to him, only to be told there was nothing to be done unless or until Moira was actually arrested and charged.
Now, staring into the darkness, he couldn’t help wondering. The police weren’t in the habit of arresting people without good reason, and Moira had admitted to being in the house about the time Laura was killed; they had her fingerprints, and there was that bloodstain on her coat. So why hadn’t she called the police? And why hadn’t she told him that night if she had nothing to hide?
He’d heard about what had happened at the club. One member in particular had made sure that he knew his wife was being accused of having an affair with Simon, but he’d dismissed it as malicious gossip. But now . . .?
Was there some truth to it? Had it started up again? He’d never told Moira that he knew of her affair with Simon. He’d agonized about it; waited for her to say something . . . Waited in vain.
He hadn’t spoken of it himself, not to Moira, not to anyone. He’d convinced himself that she was too ashamed of what she’d done to speak of it, and perhaps that was punishment enough. He’d pushed it to the back of his mind. But it was there, always there, a shadow of suspicion, lurking in darkness like some silent creature, dormant now, but waiting, waiting for a chance to raise it’s ugly head.
And now it had.
The sudden, sharp sound as he sucked in his breath caught him by surprise. Too late he buried his face in the pillow to stifle the sound. He felt Moira stiffen beside him; held his breath, waiting as he stared blindly into the darkness, waiting and wondering how long it would be before the police discovered that the statement he had made was false.
Sixteen
Wednesday, March 11
The search of the Ballantyne house had turned up nothing more than the bloodstained coat and a long-sleeved blouse with stains on the cuffs that Moira herself had produced for them. Neither had a search of the garden, as well as the gardens between the two houses, produced anything in the way of a weapon.
Even so, both Ormside and Tregalles felt there was enough evidence, both physical and circumstantial, to arrest Moira Ballantyne. As did Superintendent Alcott. He wanted Moira brought in and charged.
‘Good God, man, what more do you want?’ he demanded when Paget demurred. ‘Next to an outright confession, you have all you need. She admits to being there at or about the time Starkie says the Holbrook woman was killed; she admits she had a key to the house; she admits that Mrs Holbrook had accused her of having an affair with Simon Holbrook, and she admits that she had an affair with him at the same time that he was involved with Laura whatever-her-name-was-then. And I wouldn’t be too surprised to find that the two of them planned it together.
‘You have motive, means – we may not have found the weapon, but it will probably turn up if you look hard enough – and opportunity,’ he continued, ‘and you don’t get a better package than that! So what are you waiting for?’
‘I can’t help but agree,’ said Paget, ‘but if Moira Ballantyne did kill Laura Holbrook, she made a hell of a hash of it. This woman and her husband design security systems; she is the one who does on-site inspections; she has to take in every detail in order to design an effective system, because they wouldn’t be in business long if they didn’t get it right. It’s an exacting job, and I can’t see her planning all this and leaving fingerprints all over the crime scene, and not getting rid of the bloodstained coat and blouse if she was the killer. She’s a lot cleverer than that, in my estimation.’
‘Even clever people panic and make mistakes,’ Alcott countered.
‘I don’t think Moira Ballantyne is the type to panic easily,’ Paget said. ‘If she wanted to kill someone, I think she would put her skills to work and make damned sure that she didn’t leave any evidence behind. Besides, let’s look at her so-called motive. Unless we can demonstrate unequivocally that she and Holbrook are having, not just an affair, but a strong relationship, I think the motive is weak. Even assuming she did commit the crime, what did she hope to gain? Simon Holbrook? What about her husband? There is nothing to indicate that they don’t get along. They live very comfortably in a nice house in a good neighbourhood, and they have a successful business. I had Ormside check that out, and they’re doing very well. I can see her having a brief fling with Holbrook; as she herself said he’s an attractive man, but I can’t see her killing to get him. She has more to lose than she has to gain. It just doesn’t make sense to me, whereas what she told us is consistent with the evidence, and Henderson agrees.’
He knew the minute he’d said it that he shouldn’t have mentioned Henderson. Alcott’s eyes narrowed, and the muscles around the superintendent’s jaw tightened as he said, ‘You’re telling me that you’ve already spoken to the CPS about this?’ He remained silent for a long moment, then rose from his chair and said, ‘Shut the door.’
Paget pushed the door shut. He knew what was coming, so he wasn’t surprised when Alcott opened the window, took out a cigarette and lit it. The superintendent had been struggling for a long time to curb his addiction, but to no avail, and every now and then he simply had to have a cigarette, regardless of the no smoking rules. He sucked the smoke deep into his lungs, then leaned back and blew it out again in a long thin stream toward the ceiling before returning to his seat.
Clearly, this was one of those times.
‘So,’ he said, ‘you discussed this personally with Henderson, did you, Chief Inspector? Correct me if I’m wrong,’ he continued ominously, ‘but I was under the impression that presenting a case to the Crown Prosecution Service was my prerogative, or has that changed?’
‘There was never any suggestion that I was presenting an actual case to them,’ said Paget, choosing his words carefully. ‘What I was trying to do was put the case against Moira Ballantyne into perspective in my own mind, and I wanted to find out how the evidence would look from the standpoint of someone trying to convince a jury. So I had an off-the-record chat with Henderson and gave him a hypothetical case. His opinion was that a much better case could be made against the burglary artists who had demonstrated a growing taste for violence, despite the evidence of the blood on the door jamb, and we would be well advised to dig deeper before we tried to hang this murder on a particular suspect.’
Alcott snorted derisively. ‘That’s a load of bollocks, and you know it,’ he snapped. ‘Henderson would know exactly who you were talking about.’
‘But he does have the ability to make a distinction between what he is told and whatever he might think, and treat it as a hypothetical case. And as I said, sir, it was off the record.’
Alcott
dismissed the explanation with a wave of the hand. ‘You know damned well what I’m getting at,’ he said irritably. ‘No doubt you presented the case with your own spin on it in order to get the answer you wanted, and Henderson obliged. Which means he’s not likely to change his mind if I present him with the case against Moira Ballantyne for prosecution.’
The superintendent drew deeply on his cigarette. ‘I believe you knew exactly what you were doing when you spoke to Henderson,’ he went on, ‘and I’m warning you, Paget. One of these days you’re going to push me too far, and I won’t stand for it. If you want to talk to the chief prosecutor about anything in future, you talk to me first, understand?’
‘Understood, sir.’
‘Good! Now, get back out there and bring me something that will stand up in court! And make sure you close the door behind you.’
‘We’re losing it,’ said Ormside flatly. ‘It’s been a week, now, and we’ve still got sod all!’
‘I still think Simon Holbrook and Moira Ballantyne were in it together,’ Tregalles said stubbornly. Paget, Ormside, Tregalles and Molly were in one of the interview rooms, where they had been going over everything again from the very first burglary to the cold-blooded murder of Laura Holbrook without coming up with anything new.
Tregalles elaborated. ‘Holbrook goes off to the cinema, using good old Trevor Ballantyne to give himself an alibi, while Moira nips along and does the deed, then uses the bar on the back door and turns the place over to make it look as if it was done by our burglars. Simon gets what he wants, and presumably she gets what she wants.’
‘I’ll admit it could have happened that way,’ Paget conceded, ‘but I still think that if they went to that much trouble to plan the killing, why did Moira make such a hash of it? Prints all over the place, and keeping a coat and blouse covered with Laura’s blood? I simply do not believe that she would be that clumsy or that stupid.’
‘On the other hand,’ Tregalles persisted, ‘she could have been great on the planning, but went to pieces once she saw the results of what she’d done. We know she had an affair with Holbrook a year or so ago; maybe it never stopped – and she told us herself that the Holbrook marriage was a bit rocky. Anyway, if she didn’t do it, who did? Bryce had motive, but I haven’t seen any evidence that puts him at the house.’
‘But I don’t think we should rule him out,’ said Molly, ‘because his alibi for the night of the murder doesn’t hold up. As I said in my report, Hilde DeGraff says he arrived at her place around seven, but it wasn’t just a drop-in for a chat, because he brought wine – as he does quite regularly – and they spent much of their time together in bed. But she says she doesn’t know what time he left because she fell asleep. She says wine always makes her sleepy, and Bryce knew that, so he may have counted on it. She claims she didn’t wake up until just before midnight, and Tim Bryce was gone by then. I tried to pin her down about when she fell asleep, but she said it could have been anywhere from eight o’clock on. She told me they drank wine when Tim first arrived, then they went to bed and made love, and she fell asleep shortly after that.
‘Her story was straightforward enough, and she certainly didn’t go out of her way to protect him. In fact she as much as told me that her only interest in Tim Bryce was because he was good in bed, and I didn’t detect any depth of feeling for him at all. And someone was seen jogging not far from the Holbrook house around the time of the murder.’
Tregalles grunted. ‘I suppose we could have him in and have another go at him,’ he said, ‘but my impression of Bryce is that he’s a lightweight. I don’t see him as a cold-blooded killer.’
‘I agree,’ said Paget, ‘and it would be his word against DeGraff’s. He couldn’t prove that he stayed there until ten, and she couldn’t swear that he didn’t, so let’s leave him alone for the time being.’
‘So where does that leave us?’ Ormside said. ‘Virtually everything in Laura Holbrook’s files at work and at home were work-related. There was almost nothing in the way of private correspondence; nothing of a personal nature, nor could they find anything that could be considered threatening. Same thing on her computer and her BlackBerry, nothing out of the ordinary. Forsythe and DC Carter talked to most of the staff out there, as you suggested, but they didn’t learn anything we didn’t know before.’
Paget looked enquiringly at Molly, who shook her head. ‘They more or less confirmed everything that Peggy Goodwin told us,’ she said. ‘On the one hand they were grateful to Laura for saving their jobs, but they didn’t like her. Cold and stand-offish were words we heard several times, but we didn’t get the feeling that anyone had a major grievance – with the exception of Holbrook’s nephew, of course, and they were happy to see him go – at least the men were, but I’m not so sure about some of the girls.’
‘Anyone in particular?’ Paget asked.
Molly smiled. ‘No, but the feeling was most prevalent among the younger girls.’
‘So where does that leave us?’ Tregalles asked.
‘With either a psycho or someone who really hated Laura Holbrook,’ said Molly quietly.
All eyes turned to her. Paget gave an encouraging nod and said, ‘Go on.’
‘Well,’ she said hesitantly, ‘I wasn’t at the scene, and I didn’t see the body, but I have studied the pictures and read the results of the autopsy, and it seems to me that whoever killed Laura Holbrook went right over the top doing it. I mean just look at the damage to her face. She was struck repeatedly, vicious blows after she was dead, which suggests to me that there was a lot of rage and pent up feelings behind those blows.’
‘You have someone in mind, do you, Molly?’ Tregalles asked quietly.
‘I don’t have a name, if that’s what you mean,’ she said. ‘Simon Holbrook seems to attract a lot of women, and we haven’t explored that angle to any extent as yet, but it could be someone who has been harbouring a grudge for a long time. Peggy Goodwin was more or less elbowed aside when Laura came in, and she admits she wasn’t happy about that.’
‘But if it was a case of jealousy,’ said Paget, ‘why now? Why didn’t she do it long before this? And using your criteria, we do have another suspect. You haven’t met Susan Chase, but according to what we’ve been told, everyone thought that she would be the one to settle down with Simon, but then her sister Laura came along and cut her out. But did Susan get upset about it? Apparently not. In fact, we’re told that she took it all in her stride and remained friends with everyone. But as Tregalles and I saw last Saturday, she was right there with Holbrook helping clean up the house, and the two of them looked pretty cosy together. And she was the one who pointed the finger Tim Bryce’s way as a possible suspect.
‘And there’s something else. Laura believed her husband was having an affair with someone, and she thought that Moira was the other woman. But what if she was right about him having an affair, but wrong about who the woman was? Holbrook has a reputation for playing the field in the past, so why should he change just because he’s married? It may be that he had started to look round again, and there, ready and waiting in the wings, is Susan.’
‘But the same argument applies to her,’ Tregalles objected. ‘That all took place a year or so back. Why would she wait till now?’
‘No idea,’ said Paget. ‘Opportunity, perhaps? But I agree with Forsythe: whoever killed Laura Holbrook, really hated her, and I think we should make every effort to make sure that everyone was where they say they were last Wednesday evening, and I do mean everyone.’
‘And find out if the Chase woman has a dog,’ Ormside put in. All eyes turned to him as he continued. ‘See, I’ve been thinking about that,’ he said, ‘and something’s not right about those dog hairs. It doesn’t make sense, because what I don’t understand is how the killer knew about the dog hair in the earlier burglaries? We’ve never made that information public.’
‘It would make sense if it was the same person in both cases,’ Molly said quietly. ‘I mean we’ve been worki
ng on the assumption that the person who killed Laura Holbrook copied the MO used in the previous burglaries. But what if the killer is the same person responsible for all the other burglaries, and he or she or they set out to lay a false trail? Except in the Holbrook case they had a key, so they could enter the house without alerting Laura. And they did the back door and the rest of the damage after they killed her.’
‘They’d be taking a hell of a risk,’ Tregalles said doubtfully. ‘All those burglaries just to set the scene, so to speak.’
‘Not if they knew for certain when the occupants would be away and for how long.’
‘Even so, Molly, you must admit it’s a bit of a stretch. We know there were two people involved in the other burglaries, so are you saying there were two people involved in Laura Holbrook’s murder?’
‘Not necessarily,’ Molly said. ‘One of them could have done it while the other made sure that he or she had an alibi for that time.’
‘If you’re right,’ said Ormside, ‘then I come back to Simon Holbrook and Moira Ballantyne. They did the burglaries together, but she did the killing while her husband gave her lover an alibi.’
‘And botched it completely,’ Paget said. ‘Sorry, Len, but I still don’t buy it. Besides, the same could be said about Simon and Susan Chase or some other combination we haven’t even thought of. But I’ll say one thing: it’s a theory worth pursuing, because we’ve got little else to go on. And the first thing we need to do is find out where all our suspects were on the nights the houses were broken into.’
Seventeen
