I met blank and stolid lack of enthusiasm from all of them. It was Durrell I was trying to convince, but he didn’t want to arrest anybody for Bryan’s murder, least of all one of his parents. So deep was the silence that I could clearly hear, from behind my shoulder, the gentle but impatient tapping of Amelia’s foot. Then she was no longer capable of remaining silent.
‘You men!’ she burst out. ‘You sit here and argue your heads off, and it’s all based on rape. Rape! You think you own it, you men. But it’s the woman who possesses it, and she knows. Get one of your young WPCs in here, and she’d put you to rights. Who’re you to make these mighty decisions—that whoever killed that young man Bryan Dettinger deserves to go free. You’ve got no right...’ She stopped abruptly.
We had all turned to face her. Her cheeks were flaming, her eyes hot. She caught my eye and whispered, ‘Sorry, Richard. I’m sorry.’ Then her lower lip was caught between her teeth.
‘It’s all right, love,’ I said gently. ‘Who better to know?’
She lifted her chin. ‘Then just let me say this. I’ve seen and spoken to all three of those girls Bryan raped. It wasn’t a pleasant thing to face. But for that—for those incidents—he didn’t deserve to die. One of them...’ Her voice fell to a whisper, ‘...actually offered to give him lessons. She...she...’
Then she could no longer continue, but looked down at her fingers in her lap. Only Rawston, possibly, could not have understood what it had cost her. He, too, if he noticed how her fingers were shaking.
We stared at each other. Ken cleared his throat. ‘Well Inspector? Anything to add?’
Durrell raised his eyes, but he wasn’t looking at me, he was intent on Amelia, on her bent head, until she seemed to feel the force of his concentration and raised her face. It was to her he spoke.
‘Well, Mrs Patton, I’m not going to argue with you. If you say it, that’s so. Interesting. But it doesn’t get us anywhere does it? We’re right where we were. He didn’t deserve to die for those three. Okay. Fine. But, the Ruby Carter murder...well, I’ll say nothing about that for now.’ He stopped, clearing his throat.
I could see a sudden bright light enter Amelia’s eyes. She saw it as a challenge. ‘But I will,’ she said quietly. ‘That’s the rape I’m closest...that I feel closest to.’ She touched her lips, lowered her hand. ‘That one—she died. Of all things...oh yes, you can believe me here...of all things, I’d want that rapist to be caught and tried. But I know it wasn’t Bryan. It just was not, he couldn’t have done it. Because I know him. You’re not understanding, I can see that. Not one of you here—and I’m including you, Richard—can possibly know as well as I know exactly what the man who raped and killed Ruby Carter has to be like. And that man was definitely not Bryan Dettinger. You can throw in all your arguments about the effect on him of his prison sentence and I’ll not budge from that. Nothing, after what Bryan went through—between his father and his mother—could warp him that much. I know it.’ She tossed her head. ‘I know it—know it!’
‘Easy, love,’ I whispered.
‘And don’t tell me to be easy, Richard,’ she instructed me severely. ‘I don’t want or ask for it to be easy. Easy, indeed!’
‘I think we all understand, Amelia,’ said Ken, clearly embarrassed, not looking at the others.
‘But you don’t, Ken,’ she cried. ‘Mr Durrell doesn’t, either. Do you?’ she threw at him. But she didn’t give him a chance to reply. ‘Do you understand enough to admit you bolted that back door? Or are you going to insist you didn’t, so that Bryan Dettinger can rest quietly as a suicide and a rapist and a murderer...and your neat little case can die with him? Is that what you want, Mr Durrell? Really want?’
At the end it was no more than a whisper. Durrell would understand why. He stared at her and moistened his lips. One corner of his mouth twitched with a smile of admiration.
‘What I want!’ he said. ‘Ha! You’re very convincing, Mrs Patton, but it’s all what you feel. You say he couldn’t have killed Ruby—but I know he did. A different sort of knowledge from yours, because I interviewed him. At that time, he wasn’t tied to the house. He’d been out of prison for a month, and he was out and about in his car. And d’you think he could say where he was the evening Ruby died? No, he could not. In town. That was all he could say. In town. In the park behind St Leonard’s Church, that was where he’d been, and he didn’t dare admit it. Guilty. Guilty as hell. So I knew he’d got every reason for suicide. The whole town was waiting for his arrest for murder. I did. I admit it. It was only a matter of tying it down, the bits and pieces, the report. Then we’d have been out and arrested him. All right, so I admit I shot those bolts. What the hell does it matter? I didn’t want anybody even questioned about his possible murder...and Mr Patton, if you want to pick pieces out of that, I’ll push your face in for being a hypocrite. Bryan took his own life because he’d killed Ruby Carter, and he knew we had a solid case against him. And that’s that.’
‘Solid, Mr Durrell?’ I demanded. ‘You didn’t even know—’
Amelia interrupted me quickly. I’d wanted to spare her any more distress, but she said sharply, ‘I’m telling you again. Bryan would not have killed her.’
Ken had been allowing it to go ahead, but he’d now become loaded with too many problems. This one he didn’t like.
‘There was the forensic report, Amelia. We’d asked for a DNA scan.’
‘Ah yes,’ I said, remembering. ‘And was that positive, Ken? There was something you said—did you see it?’
His head jerked up, and a sudden shadow crossed his eyes. ‘Well...no. No, I don’t think I did. When it came, Bryan was dead. It was filed.’
‘In which file?’ I asked quietly. ‘Ruby Carter’s or Bryan Dettinger’s?’
‘Ruby Carter’s, of course,’ said Durrell sharply, his defences again rising. His moustache bristled.
‘Don’t you think, Ken,’ I asked, ‘that you ought to check? I mean, if Amelia says it couldn’t have been Bryan who killed Ruby, then I’m going to go along with that.’
Ken stared at me, horrified, appalled at what he would consider to be his own error of omission. He glanced at Durrell, whose fists were opening and closing as he stared down at them. Eventually he raised his eyes to mine.
Then I saw he was reluctant. He didn’t want even to look at Amelia, because he couldn’t face this final, miserable proof. Yet in failing to do so, he was failing Amelia. I saw the uncertainty, and it frightened me. Durrell knew what that DNA printout had said.
‘For God’s sake!’ I shouted. ‘Get the file in here.’
Slowly, Ken reached across his desk and lifted the phone. He requested the file on the Ruby Carter case.
It might have been three minutes. They were the most extended and painful minutes I could recall. There seemed nowhere I could look without meeting eyes, haunted eyes, incredulous eyes, and worst of all, from Amelia, soft, appealing and sad eyes.
Somebody entered the office—man or woman I couldn’t say—and a file was placed on Ken’s desk. As the door closed, he began to sort through it. He produced a slim, separate folder and flicked it open, then his head was lowered for a long while. It seemed in the end to sink even lower. Eventually he looked up and said, his voice very low, ‘The DNA printout is negative. It wasn’t Bryan Dettinger.’
I got to my feet, almost fumbling. Amelia took my arm, looking up anxiously into my face. Nothing was said as we moved to the door and I opened it. In the final second I heard Ken say, ‘Can you explain this, Mr Durrell?’
‘He was already dead when it came through.’
‘So you didn’t check?’
I knew the answer. He had, but he’d buried it. He hadn’t been able to face the fact that he’d literally shot his bolt with that rear door, and didn’t want to have to look for a murderer when he’d ruined the evidence.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I didn’t speak until I had the car moving. Amelia had decided to sit in the back. I couldn�
��t protest, because I knew she was blaming herself for having forced me into a confrontation with Ken. I couldn’t protest that I didn’t in any way blame her, without implying there was something to blame. So she sat in the back with the dogs, who were uncritical in their affection.
I suggested a cup of tea and she agreed.
‘Martha’s Tearoom?’ I asked.
‘Why not?’ But there was no enthusiasm. We left the car in a multi-storey park, taking the stairs down. In the street, she slipped her hand under my arm.
‘I did say you shouldn’t have come,’ I said at last. ‘But I’m damned glad you did. I’d never have budged Durrell.’
Her hand tightened on my arm. ‘I want to get it over, Richard. Done with. Finished. I hope you can drop it now. Ken’s sure to take care of everything.’
‘Hmm!’ I said.
‘Surely there’s nothing more?’ She jerked at my arm. ‘You’re thinking about Ruby Carter?’
I considered that. ‘No,’ I decided. ‘I think I know the answer to that one. I’ve got an idea I can prove it, too. It’s Bryan’s death—the father or the mother...and I hate the very thought of it.’
There was just a chance, I thought, that Cath would be at Martha’s. A million to one chance it would be, but just at that time we needed that sort of luck.
We stood inside the swing doors and looked around. ‘Oh look!’ cried Amelia. ‘There’s Cath.’
I beamed at her. The luck had turned. Cath waved and we joined her.
I sat with them quietly while they batted it backwards and forwards. Did Ken want a son? That kind of thing. The despondent mood flowed from Amelia. She’d had enough of death, and new life was on the agenda. I sat and sipped tea, and immersed myself in my own thoughts.
Ken, who was at this time not so friendly with me as his wife was with mine, would be absolutely furious if I now visited Milo. They would have to take both him and Francine in for some very deep cross-examination, and Ken would assume I was interfering in a fresh investigation into Bryan’s death. He might even be so annoyed as to charge me with obstructing the course of justice, if only to land me with an official reprimand.
But it was not in relation to his son’s death that I wished to see Milo. No. It was in relation to Ruby Carter’s.
‘Richard,’ said Amelia, ‘you’ve let your tea go cold.’
‘So I have. Never mind.’
They wanted to order fresh tea. I rejected the idea, so we left, stood in the square gossiping a little longer, then said cheerio and good luck, and I privately hoped Cath would find Ken in a good mood when he eventually returned home. But neither Amelia nor I mentioned him.
‘I just want to make a short stop on the way,’ I said, as I whipped the Granada round the bends down to street level.
‘Where?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘Milo Dettinger’s place, Aces High.’
‘Now? Richard!’
‘It’s all right. Just a few words.’
‘Humph!’ she commented. She had now relaxed sufficiently to sit beside me.
I parked the Granada out on the street. Hawksmoor Drive was busier than I’d seen it before, this being homecoming time for the top executive crowd who would live around there.
‘Shan’t be more than five minutes,’ I said.
‘I’ll believe that when it happens.’
I walked up the gentle slope to the house. It seemed silent and deserted, but Milo’s Jaguar was parked up by the garage. The light was now failing fast, and I had difficulty locating his bell push inside the dark porch. The answering buzz seemed to come from a long way away. Then the hall lights snapped on.
He opened the door, already splendid in his dinner jacket. The trousers, I noticed, he kept sharply pressed. They were part of his image. But at this time he was wearing brown leather slippers.
‘What the hell d’you want?’ he demanded.
‘Just a word, Milo. May I come in? You asked me to do something for you, and I’ve come to report.’
He hesitated, but backed off. I stepped inside and closed the door behind me.
‘I’ve been with the police this afternoon,’ I told him, ‘and I think I’ve persuaded them the way you wanted it to go. Remember? You wanted me to prove your son had been murdered. I’ve given them proof, and I expect they’ll now reopen the case.’
‘I’ve heard enough of your fancy ideas,’ he grumbled. He seemed bleary, either with too much drink or too little sleep. ‘Who?’
‘What? Oh—who did it, you mean? I don’t know. That’s up to them, and they’ll slap me in irons if I poke my nose in.’
‘If! It strikes me you’ve poked it in enough.’
‘Yes...’ I said. ‘I suppose.’
We weren’t, obviously, going to move away from the hall. I looked round as though I’d never seen it. ‘Nice place, Milo.’
‘Say what you’ve got to say,’ he said impatiently. ‘Then bugger off.’
‘Of course, Milo. Of course. Anything you say. One thing—if Bryan was killed...even if he committed suicide...it’d need some rope. Rope, Milo. Could Bryan have put his hand on some? Or did somebody bring it, or know where to find it?’ I raised my eyebrows at him.
‘Christ, Patton! You’re the bleedin’ limit. Rope, rope. A nice thing to ask.’
‘Well?’
‘In the cupboard, I reckon.’ He jerked a hand in its direction. ‘In there. What’d it prove, anyway? You’re off your head. I swear you’re crazy.’
I ignored that, but crouched down to the cupboard. I opened the door and peered inside, as though I was really interested. I turned my head and looked up at him. ‘I almost forgot to ask you—did Bryan ever say anything about the death of Ruby Carter, Milo?’
‘Now look here...’
‘Only asking.’ I closed the door and straightened. ‘Did he, for instance, deny it? To you, I mean.’
‘Of course he bloody did.’
‘You asked him then?’
There was now a dangerous growl in his voice. ‘I asked him. Now clear off.’
‘Politely? Did you ask him without pressure?’
‘I got him down on his bed by the throat and threatened to smash his face in if he didn’t tell me the truth.’
‘And he still denied it?’
‘He damn well did.’
‘All right. I’m on my way, then. Oh...I was forgetting. Why didn’t he go and stay with his mother? It would’ve been safer.’
‘He wouldn’t go.’
‘Oh? Funny, that.’
‘Not so damn funny. He said he couldn’t stand her. She bullied him something rotten.’
‘Bullied?’
‘The way she spoke to him. I can tell you, if she’d spoken to me the way she did to him I’d have belted her one.’
I paused with my hand on the front door latch. ‘How did she speak?’
‘Contempt. Called him a weed. Weed! Tcha! It was all in his mind. She’d addled his brain with her fancy talk. Didn’t know if he was comin’ or goin’. He didn’t know...and Christ, it’s got to be said...didn’t know if she wanted him to be a boy or a girl.’
I couldn’t think of anything to say.
‘It’s right,’ he declared, as though I’d queried it. ‘An’ that just about describes her. Didn’t know which she wanted to be herself. One minute the sweet, flutterin’ bloody female, and the next the sodding straight-backed and cussin’ man. Her with her bows and arrows. Robin Hood, that was pretty little Francine. And next day, Maid Marian.’
Then, strangely, he threw back his head and laughed hugely. It was so very funny. Milo had never been uncertain about what he wanted to be. The very best, that was it. In other words, Milo.
I opened the front door and stood out in the porch. The light from a streetlight flickered through naked branches and caught my eye. Milo clicked a switch and the porch light came on. ‘I’ll see you again, perhaps,’ I said, and stepped down on to his drive. He followed me. Amelia was standing halfway up the drive,
a shadow, no more. I waved a hand backwards to Milo, and heard his foot crunch down on the gravel. He was making sure I kept going.
And now, the streetlight no longer in my eyes, I saw that the shadow was not Amelia. This person was too tall, the stance upright, the stance, I recalled, of a bowman drawing a bow. Or a bowwoman?
I began to run, shouting as a distraction. Amelia screamed from down by the entrance. It had to be Amelia. I saw her then, a shape moving from the shadows of the drive entrance, running and crying out as the elbow came back, as the left arm held firm, straight and rigid.
‘Richard!’ Amelia screamed as I ran. I was in the direct line of fire.
The only unmoving object was that poised and tensed figure, who now released the arrow. I saw it. I actually saw it as a line of light along the metal shaft. In the small portion of a second, after it left the bow, I was also, again, able to observe what Francine had called the archer’s paradox. It swerved away from my direct sight-line, back again, and on the third and steadying swerve it flicked past my ear. I heard it as a fluttering whine.
I stopped, skidding to a halt, and whirled round. But my shout of alarm—‘Milo!’—was beaten by the arrow. I saw it strike home in his throat. He clawed for it, took a staggering step forward, and fell on his face. I ran to him. He was writhing and choking, his hands scrabbling, his eyes choked with blood and horror, and still the breath bubbled from him.
On my knees, I turned my head. The two shadows were now one, like an entwined sculpture, the taller woman and the shorter, holding each other together. As I watched, the bow fell as a fluttering shadow. I heard it clatter. I got to my feet, clumsily. ‘Phone!’ I shouted for Amelia’s benefit, then I dashed into the hall and dialled 999 for an ambulance. ‘Urgent. It may be too late already.’ Then, miraculously retrieving it from my memory, I dialled the police station’s number and asked for Chief Inspector Latchett.
‘I’m at Milo’s,’ I told him. ‘He’s been shot. An arrow through the throat. I’ve called an ambulance, but get here, Ken, and fast. I’ll wait.’
The Key to the Case Page 21
