‘If he comes down here.’ Quantrill, having a longer acquaintance with human nature than his sergeant, was even more practical. ‘It’s a long way to come, and I reckon a lot of the people on the stalls are making use of the rectory shrubbery, up at the back there. Smith could just dodge through the stalls and nip over the fence – that’s what most of the others seem to be doing.’
‘Dirty pigs,’ said PC Timms, overhearing them. ‘I went along by that fence an hour ago, and it was starting to niff even then.’
‘That’ll make it authentically medieval, anyway,’ muttered Tait. ‘All right, I’ll put someone on obbo up by the fence—’
‘Not me,’ said Timms promptly, ‘I’ve got my work cut out watching this beer tent.’ He turned to the Chief Inspector. ‘Is Mrs Quantrill here, at the fair, sir?’
‘Good grief no!’
‘Oh.’ Timms looked slightly offended. ‘Well, I only asked on account of seeing your daughter.’
‘My daughter? Alison? Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure. I wasn’t near enough to speak to her, but it was definitely Alison. I ought to know her, she and my Paula were at school together—’
‘When was this? When did you see her?’
‘Oh … half an hour ago … three-quarters …’
Quantrill seized him by the shoulder. ‘My God, man, why didn’t you say so! You know we’re looking for her – she’s our key witness in this case.’
‘But you’d found her, sir,’ objected PC Timms. ‘I know she disappeared, but then she rang you and you called off the search. I didn’t know you were still looking for her—’
He protested himself into silence. The DCI’s face was grim and his grip was so tight as to be painful. ‘Where exactly did you see her?’ he was saying. ‘Come on, man. Who was she with? What was she wearing?’
Alison saw Gilbert Smith a few moments before he saw her. He was walking slowly between the stalls, his shoulders hunched, his hands crammed into the pockets of his ragged jeans, his bearded head held down. She ran to him immediately, stopping to block his path.
‘Gilbert!’ she said. ‘Gil, dear—’
She had intended to show that she was fond of him. She had intended to hug him – or at least to touch his arm or his hand, as a way of acknowledging their mutual bereavement and her gratitude for the way he had coped with all the practicalities on that dreadful Monday morning. But as soon as he raised his head she realized that he was not the vague, kind, amiable man she had known. His face was white and set and his eyes seemed to be staring at some horrifying inner vision. It was Gilbert Smith, but he had become a stranger.
She stepped back, suddenly afraid. ‘Gil?’ she faltered.
He blinked. ‘What—?’ He shook the long hair out of his eyes and made an effort to focus on her face. ‘Alison … Oh God, and I thought no one would find me here! What are you doing? This isn’t your scene. I thought this was one place where I could be among people of my own kind. No one asks questions at Oxlip, no one hassles us, we can just blow our minds in peace – and that’s what I’ve got to do. I’ve got to forget, don’t you see? I can’t live with it, I’ve got to shut it out. But now you’ve found me, and your father’s the fuzz. There’ll be questions, and more questions, and I can’t bear it – I can’t bear to think of it—’
His long legs folded, almost in slow motion, until he was crouching close to the earth, shivering as though he had a fever.
Alison forgot her fear. She couldn’t bring herself to touch him, but she felt a strengthening of their friendship. She crouched beside him on the grass underneath a black-budded ash tree, regardless of and unregarded by the stallholders shouting their wares above her head, and the passers-by.
‘But my father’s not here, Gil! I haven’t seen him for days – I can’t bear to see him, because I can’t face any questions either. I’ve left home and I’m here with some friends from a commune. I’m trying to forget, too. You can trust me, Gil, you know you can. I wouldn’t tell my father about my friends – I’ve always known that you smoke pot, but I’ve never told Dad about it.’
He nodded a vague acknowledgement. ‘I had to have them,’ he said, more to himself than to her. ‘They were so beautiful. And I could appreciate their beauty so much more than Jasmine could. Oh, she thought she could, but she’d never smoked, she’d never had windows opened in her mind … We used to argue about it sometimes.’ He looked up, his eyes dark with horror. ‘But I wouldn’t have harmed her. It was just that I had to have them. I can’t show them to you because I’ve buried them. I’m staying with some friends, acid heads, they’ve rented a cottage out in the country. They’re good friends, but if they knew I’d got the netsuke they’d want to sell them to buy acid. Then there’d be more violence, and I couldn’t bear that, I couldn’t bear any more blood …’
He rose to his feet, stiffly, like an elderly man. ‘I came out to get a pizza for us—’ He gestured towards the huddle of stalls that climbed the side of the hill. ‘But I’ll come back to talk to you. It’s a relief to be able to talk. Don’t go away, Alison, please.’
She got up slowly, using the grey trunk of the tree as a support, and watched him shambling away. She was appalled at what he had done. She felt white and she knew that she was trembling. But she thought that she could understand him; sickened as she was, she believed that she could follow the fuddled reasoning that made him take the netsuke when he went up to Yeoman’s on Monday morning and found Jasmine dead.
She knew that she couldn’t stay and talk to Gilbert, not after what he had done. She couldn’t remain the friend of a man whose sense of beauty was stronger than his sense of compassion, of decency. How could he see Jasmine’s mutilated body and think only in terms of picking the scattered netsuke off the bloodstained carpet …
But what was she to do? Go and talk to one of the uniformed policemen by the gate? But she’d told Gilbert he could trust her, and she couldn’t betray that trust. Besides, if she made herself known to the police, that would be the end of her peace. There would be questions, and more questions.
The only thing for her to do was to rejoin Polly and the children, to run back to the sanctuary of the Mill Farm family. She turned, poised for flight, and found herself face to face with Martin Tait.
Tait had decided on a soft approach. Obviously the girl’s parents had dealt with her tactlessly after her discovery of the murder; that was why she had run, and why she had stayed away for so long. She wouldn’t want to be badgered or questioned, or told that her father was looking for her. He’d have to treat her gently, and gain her trust.
‘Hallo, Alison – amusing here, isn’t it? Like Breughel come to life.’
She took a step backwards, ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded, alarmed. ‘Are you on duty?’
He grinned reassuringly. ‘Even detectives are human, you know. We do have days off occasionally. Are you enjoying yourself?’
She looked strained and unhappy and worried to death, poor kid. Whatever she was doing, there was precious little enjoyment in it. Tait found himself feeling protective towards her. It was not a sensation he was accustomed to.
‘Is – is my father here?’ she asked anxiously.
He laughed. ‘Oh, come on – you can’t see your father getting any pleasure out of going all medieval, now can you?’
Clearly she couldn’t. Her suspicious frown relaxed a little. ‘I was afraid he might be trying to find me,’ she admitted. ‘I know he wanted to question me about … Have you discovered who did it, Martin?’
‘We’re pretty close,’ he said confidently. ‘But don’t worry about being questioned. Your father did want to ask you a few questions about Jasmine, but he went to see Anne Downing, her previous secretary, instead.’
‘Oh.’ Alison thought about her. ‘Poor Anne – she knew Jasmine so much better than I did. She must have been terribly upset by the news.’
‘She’d had a bad week. Apparently she’d just broken off her engageme
nt.’
‘Oh no!’ Alison was genuinely distressed. ‘Poor girl … she was to have been married today. I wonder why—’
‘She didn’t fancy marrying a pig-farmer, I believe. Incidentally, Alison, have you seen Gilbert Smith?’
He dropped the question casually, but it shook Alison as much as an accusation of complicity.
‘No!’ she asserted. Her cheeks reddened with the lie, but she held her back straight and tried to brazen it out. Only her eyes shifted, darting a glance along the line of the stalls in the direction Smith had gone.
‘I just wondered,’ said Tait mildly. ‘It’s his kind of place isn’t it? Well, I was in search of something to eat when I saw you. I’ll push off and leave you to enjoy yourself. You’re not on your own, are you?’
‘No – no, I’ve come with some friends.’
Tait gave her a friendly smile. ‘Good. I’ll see you again.’ He walked away, not hurrying, but immediately dodged back round the side of the next stall. Alison stood where he had left her, poised again to run but biting the knuckle of her thumb with indecision. She had lied about Smith, obviously. She must have a pretty good idea where he was. There was just a chance, Tait thought, that she might be wondering whether or not she ought to warn the man that at least one detective was at the fair. It would certainly be worth following her, before he told her father that she was found. If the old man came charging along in paternal panic, the opportunity to trap Smith would be lost.
And then he saw that there would be no need to follow her. Smith was approaching her, coming downhill between the stalls, weaving his way among the crowds with something flat held up carefully, level with his shoulder, so that it didn’t get squashed. Tait pulled his radio from his hip pocket and gave some brisk instructions. Then he stepped out of the shelter of the stall, into the lane.
Alison had just seen Gilbert Smith. She took two steps backwards away from him, turned as if to run, and then saw Tait.
She looked back over her shoulder. ‘Gil!’ she shouted. ‘Gil – I’m sorry! Run!’
But Tait was already moving, fast. Smith had heard the shouts and stopped; now, seeing Tait heading straight for him, he dropped his pizza and tried to go back the way he had come.
He hadn’t a chance. He wasn’t used to running. Tait, pushing spectators aside like rugby opponents, got him with a flying tackle.
Chief Inspector Quantrill, gasping as much with relief as with the exertion of getting there, put his arms round his daughter.
‘It’s all right, sweetheart,’ he said, using an endearment he hadn’t ventured to use since she was eight years old. ‘It’s all right, we’ve got him. You needn’t worry any more. Come on, I’ll take you home.’
Chapter Thirty One
‘But I’ve told you. I’ve told you four or five times already.’
‘We’re in no hurry. We’re not going anywhere, and neither are you. So tell us again: when did you last see Jasmine Woods?’
Gilbert Smith, looking white and sick, was sitting slumped at a table in an interview room at Breckham Market police station. He gave a long, shuddering sigh.
‘On Sunday morning,’ he repeated tonelessly. ‘I got up late – I don’t know what time – and then I went up to Jasmine’s for coffee.’
‘Had she invited you?’
‘No. She didn’t give me invitations, I just dropped in. We were good friends.’
‘Close friends?’
‘No. It was an easy, casual relationship. She always had a pot of coffee on the go, and whenever I called she told me to help myself.’
‘And what did you talk about, on Sunday morning?’
‘We didn’t. Her head was full of her book – she’d been working, and she always found it difficult to switch off. She told me that the Elliotts were coming in for drinks, and she got ready for them while I drank coffee in the kitchen. She asked me to stay, but I didn’t want to. I said hallo to them when they came, then I finished my coffee and went. That was the last time I saw her.’
‘Did you ask her for money?’
‘No! I told you – she paid me to do her garden, and I lived rent free on her property. I didn’t need money. And if I had, I certainly wouldn’t have asked her for it. She was good to me, and I wouldn’t have done anything to upset our relationship.’
‘And how did you spend the rest of the day?’
He sighed again, and began a recital. ‘I worked in the garden, then I went to my flat and made something to eat. Then it was dark, and I spent the evening reading and listening to tapes and drinking. I didn’t go out and I didn’t see anybody and I didn’t hear anything. I smoked some hash, and later on I took some dexies as well. I got stoned. The next thing I knew, somebody was hammering on my door. I didn’t do anything about it at first, but then I went to see who it was. I don’t know the time, but it was daylight so it must have been Monday. Alison was at the door, saying something about Jasmine being dead. She was incoherent, and I wasn’t feeling too good, so it took me a long time to think what to do. But then I went up to the house, and through the front door and into the sitting-room, and found Jasmine. She’d obviously been murdered.’
Quantrill and Tait sat watching him, saying nothing. Smith swallowed, and wiped his bearded mouth with the back of his hand. ‘It was horrible,’ he said in a hoarse whisper, ‘horrible …’
After a few moments he added, toneless again, ‘And there they were, you see. Two of her netsuke, lying in a pool of her blood. Whoever killed her must have dropped them in his hurry to get away. And I couldn’t just leave them there, lying in her blood. I mean, they were no good to poor Jasmine. I wasn’t doing any harm to her by taking them. They were such beautiful things, I had to have them. I don’t think Jasmine would have minded. But I knew that the fuzz wouldn’t understand. I got her blood on my hands and clothes when I picked the netsuke up, and I cut my own finger on some of the broken glass. If you saw the blood on me, you might even think that I’d killed her. So I went back to my flat and washed and changed and packed my gear. With Jasmine dead I’d have had to leave anyway, so there was no point in hanging about. But I could hear Alison crying, and I couldn’t desert her. So when I was ready I went back to the house and dialled 999 from the office. Then I left. That’s all, except that I can show you where I hid the netsuke. One of my friends in Yarchester told me that the fuzz were after me, and on Tuesday he took me to stay with some people in the country until the heat was off. I buried the netsuke in the university park before I left.’
‘And what do you know about the murder?’ Quantrill asked.
‘Nothing at all. I swear it, nothing at all!’
‘But on your own admission you were stoned on Sunday night. You smoked cannabis, you drank, you took amphetamines. You got yourself into such a state that you didn’t know which day of the week it was, or whether it was night or morning. You said you took some dexies, and the next thing you knew someone was hammering on your door. The next thing you knew … that was something like twelve hours later!’
‘And you coveted her netsuke,’ said Tait. ‘All right, perhaps you didn’t need the money. Perhaps you didn’t want them because of their value. But on your own admission, you coveted them for their beauty. I think you went up to her house on Sunday evening, not necessarily to steal them but perhaps to look at them. That would be the best time to look at them, wouldn’t it, when you were drugged to reality and your perceptions were at their height? But if you were in that condition, I doubt if Jasmine would have wanted you in her house. You had to use violence on her—’
‘And once you started,’ said Quantrill, ‘you couldn’t stop, could you? You went on beating her on the head until the bottle broke—’
Smith’s arms curled protectively over his own head, as though warding off physical blows. ‘I didn’t,’ he grieved, ‘I didn’t.’
There was a knock on the door and the station sergeant beckoned Quantrill out into the corridor. The Chief Inspector scowled and went.
&nbs
p; ‘Your daughter’s in the front office, sir. She says she wants to speak to you urgently about Smith.’
Quantrill followed him. Alison was standing in the entrance hall looking pale and resolute. Her father wanted to take her to his office, but she refused.
‘Are you trying to charge Gilbert with Jasmine’s murder?’ she demanded. ‘Because if so, you’ve got the wrong man. Gilbert stole some of her netsuke when he went up to the house on Monday morning, I know that, he told me. It was a horrible thing to do, but it doesn’t make him a murderer. He’s really very gentle. He liked Jasmine, he wouldn’t have done anything to harm her.’
The Chief Inspector suppressed a sigh. Alison had had a very rough week, poor girl. He knew that he had to go very gently with her; all the same, he couldn’t have her interfering with a murder case, and particularly not in the front office.
He put an arm round her shoulder and turned her towards the door. ‘Well, I’m glad to hear your opinion. And I’m sure you’re right to some extent – druggies aren’t by nature violent people. But drugs do frightening things. They can bring out aggressions that are usually buried too deep for anyone to suspect, least of all the user.’
Alison pulled away from his arm. ‘I can’t argue about that. I don’t want to argue about it. But I’m sure that Gilbert didn’t do the murder because I think I know the man who did.’
Her father stared at her. ‘Who?’ he demanded. ‘And where’s your evidence? Look, we can’t talk here – come to my office.’
She shook her head. ‘I haven’t really got any evidence. It’s just intuition, I suppose. Oh, but there is something I’ve remembered about Jasmine’s sitting-room, something that makes me sure I’ve got the right man. Only – the thing is, I don’t want to talk to you about it. I’m sorry Dad, but I think I’d find it easier to talk to Martin Tait.’
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