‘Hold the light still, Tim. No better yet, let’s go back to the car and read the rest in comfort.’
But even in the car, with the interior light on, Heather’s confession wasn’t easy to read. Her handwriting grew less decipherable, the style more rambling. It had all been Barry’s idea, she repeated. Vince hadn’t known a thing about it, she kept insisting on that.
I didn’t hate Alec or anything. He wasn’t a bad old stick really, except about Vince, but his health was cracking up and life with him was becoming rather a drag. The idea of getting all Alec’s money and being able to do things for Vince was just too bloody tempting, and I shut my eyes to any problems.
Kate had been very much on track in her reasoning of how Major Bletchley’s murder had been carried out in Lisbon. Slater had entered the hotel room via the balcony and simply bashed Alec over the head. The theft of his watch and ring and wallet, and the jewellery from the next door room had simply been a blind. And again, Heather insisted, Vince had known nothing about all this, and she hadn’t wanted him to know ever. And he would never have needed to know, if it hadn’t been for Barry causing problems.
He came and stayed in a hotel nearby, and spent my money like water. He kept on demanding more. And all the time he pretended to think that I’d promised to marry him once Alec was out of the way. Which was ridiculous, I’d never said anything of the kind. As if I would.
‘It sounds to me,’ said Boulter, ‘as if she led him up the garden path to do her dirty work for her, and then tried to wriggle out of it.’
‘That’s something we probably won’t ever know,’ said Kate, and continued reading.
In the end, Heather had decided there was nothing for it but to get rid of Barry Slater. So she arranged a meeting with him at the old airfield at East Hadleigh, and took a gun of Alec’s with her - one that she hadn’t handed in after his death.
The moment Barry walked into that Nissen hut, I shot him. He deserved it! But if only I’d realised that the stupid bastard had kept Alec’s watch, instead of getting rid of it as we agreed, of course I’d have taken it off his wrist. My God, Kate, that was a terrible shock when you produced that watch later, and said it had been identified as Alec’s. All I could think of was to make out that Alec had had two watches, but I knew at the time you weren’t really convinced. I should have given up then and confessed everything to you. I wish to God I had, before things went any further. When Sebastian Knox was accidentally killed Vince got dragged into the whole terrible business. But you have to believe that Vince wasn’t in any way involved with the really bad things. He only came into it through trying to save me when Sebastian Knox turned up that day and started making trouble and threatening me.
‘Every single thing she says is trying to take the heat off Vince,’ Kate said thoughtfully. ‘The whole object of this letter is to protect him. To make us believe that her son is innocent.’
‘But you don’t believe her, guv?’
‘No, I don’t think I do. I’m very doubtful about it being Heather who killed Barry. At least, not without help. I somehow can’t see her blasting off that shotgun at him. And then there was his car to dispose of afterwards. No, I’m convinced that Vince was in it with her.’ Kate refolded the road map. ‘Okay, then, let’s head back to base.’
On the way, Boulter asked, ‘You think that Vince was in it right from the start, do you? Beginning with the plan to kill Alec Bletchley in Lisbon?’
‘Possibly. But I’m inclined to think he wasn’t involved that far back.’
Boulter nodded thoughtfully. ‘There was no suicide pact, if we’re to believe Heather.’
‘If Vince’s warning to his mother was to enable her to get away from us, it’s my guess he wanted her to join forces with him. In which case he may still be waiting for her to turn up, or maybe she was going to phone him.’ Kate paused, ‘My God, Tim, that’s a thought!’
‘You mean, we could try ringing him on his car phone?’
‘What have we got to lose?’
Back at DHQ, while waiting for Boulter to obtain Vince’s car phone number, Kate sat at her desk taking deep, slow breaths to quieten the excitement that was sizzling within her. She envisaged Vince either parked at a prearranged rendezvous, or driving around waiting for a phone call from his mother. A lot of time had passed since his panic warning to Heather, but he’d hang around for her until every last vestige of hope had gone, Kate felt certain of that.
Boulter came in and handed her a slip of paper. Kate dialled the number he’d jotted down, and nodded to the sergeant to listen in. After a single ring, the receiver at the other end was snatched up.
‘Mum?’
‘No, Vince. This is Kate Maddox. Don’t hang up. We’ve got your mother.’
‘Oh, no!’ There was anguish in his voice. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘I’m not lying to you, Vince. She’s in the Peace Memorial Hospital in Marlingford.’
‘Hospital? Was there an accident? Is she badly hurt?’
‘It wasn’t an accident, Vince. Your mother attempted to take her own life.’
‘Oh, God. Is she going to be okay?’
‘It’s touch and go, so I understand. She was found in her car about an hour and a half ago. She’d written a note to you, and a long letter to me, then she swallowed a large number of pills. One of our patrol cars happened to find her in time. She was already unconscious, but just breathing. They’re doing their utmost to save her, of course, but she’s critically ill.’
Vince made no response for several moments. It sounded to Kate as if he was sobbing. Finally, he muttered, ‘What did Mum say in her letter to you?’
‘A great deal. She admitted plotting with Barry Slater to kill Alec. And she claims that she killed Slater, and that she was responsible for Sebastian Knox’s death, too.’
‘It’s not true. None of it’s true. She’s just saying that to – to’
‘Yes, Vince? To what?’
‘She . . . she didn’t know what she was saying, she was so upset. You can’t hold her to anything she said in that letter. She just wasn’t thinking straight.’
‘If your mother didn’t do these things, Vince, who did?’
‘You’re so bloody clever,’ he retorted, ‘you find out.’
‘I think I already know.’
‘I don’t know why the hell I’m wasting time talking to you, when I could be with Mum. Or are you going to stop me from seeing her?’
‘Nobody will stop you seeing your mother, Vince, unless the doctors do. But she will probably still be unconscious.’
‘I’m coming, then, right away. I must be there when she wakes up.’
If she wakes up, thought Kate. She said, ‘I shall be there too, Vince, of course.’
It sounded almost as if she was warning him off. From Boulter’s surprised glance, it was clear that he thought so too. But something had impelled her to be honest, to have it plainly understood by Vince that the police would be waiting to arrest him. Kate spared a moment to wonder why. Vince Norden had precious little that was good in his make-up, and a very great deal that was bad. His one saving grace was his sheer devotion to his mother. To use that devotion as an enticement to get Vince walking blindly into police hands was something she couldn’t bring herself to do.
The phone at the other end had been slammed down.
‘Come on, Tim,’ she said. ‘I don’t suppose he’s all that far away. I want to be at the hospital when he arrives.’
‘Do you really think he’s going to come, guv, after what you just said?’
‘Oh, yes, he’ll come.’
The sergeant couldn’t believe it. ‘Why should a bloke give himself up when he stands a chance of getting clean away? He’d be crazy;’
‘Trust me, Tim. You’ll see I’m proved right.’
Chapter Twenty
Heather Bletchley clung to life until just after one-fifteen in the morning, though she never regained consciousness. Vince was at his mother’s beds
ide from the moment he arrived at the hospital at around midnight, tenderly holding her hand right through to the very end.
When Heather was pronounced dead, Kate permitted him to remain alone with her for a few minutes. Then he meekly allowed himself to be led away, his eyes brimming with tears. Sitting slumped in the back of the police car, he scarcely uttered a single word.
In an interview room at DHQ, Vince refused even a cup of coffee. He stared at Kate bleakly across the small table.
‘Mum thought of you as her friend,’ he said, and he made it sound like an accusation.
‘No, Vince, she thought of me as her dupe. She made use of the fact that I happened to be in Lisbon to provide her with a cast iron alibi.’
Vince gestured impatiently, waving that away as a trifling deceit. ‘She often said that she really liked you, Kate, because you were never snotty-nosed with her like so many of the people around her. They never treated Mum right, and after Alec was dead those bitches gave her the cold shoulder. And then the one person she thought was really decent goes and hounds her to her death.’
‘That’s a gross distortion of the truth, Vince. Your mother plotted to murder her husband, from motives of greed, and was subsequently involved in the killing of two other men. She wasn’t hounded to her death. She chose to escape justice by taking her own life.’
Vince raised his head and stared at Kate with haggard eyes.
‘People like you, what do you know about the sort of life Mum had? Getting knocked around by my bastard of a father, then being left in the lurch by him when I was just a small kid. She had a terrible struggle, making ends meet. I used to get ill a lot, which meant Mum was always having to take time off work, and then she’d get the sack. She had to do all kinds of part-time jobs as a barmaid and in cafes and things when I was little, whenever she could get someone to look after me. Mum hadn’t any relatives or friends at all, no one who could help her. It was just the two of us. I owe everything to Mum. Everything. She’s always stood by me. And now she’s dead. Oh, God.’
He gulped a quick breath and covered his face with his hands for a minute before continuing. ‘All her life Mum had a hard time of it, and when she met Alec Bletchley - through the turf accountants where she worked - and he wanted her to marry him, it seemed like she was suddenly on Easy Street. The men in her life up to then had all treated her rottenly, but Alec was crazy about Mum and he wanted to give her everything at first. But she soon found out what an old bore he was. He never seemed to want to have any fun. Then when his health packed up, it was the last straw. Topping him wasn’t such a terrible thing, when you think about it. He was almost decrepit, past enjoying anything. Mum did him a favour, really, putting him out of his misery.’
Kate could hardly believe she was hearing this. His devotion to his mother, and hers to him, was so overwhelming that in Vince’s mind their joint interests justified any kind of criminal deception and violence.
It seemed aeons ago, not merely hours, since this long day had started. Waking early, Kate had watched the sun rise from her bedroom at the Palacio Palmela in Lisbon. Event had followed event at an ever faster pace until she had finally nailed the killer. The murderer of a murderer. There now remained the task of getting Vince’s confession down on record and building up the case against him until charges could be brought.
Boulter, too, was obviously very tired. Usually neatly dressed, he looked rumpled now. Several times Kate had seen him suppress a yawn, and there was a dullness to his eyes. She wished, desperately, that she could let all the rest wait until morning. Sleep, just a couple of hours’ sleep, would be blissful. But any delay might give Vince a chance to think up a good defence. Somehow, she and Boulter had to keep going. The several cups of black coffee they’d swallowed this evening seemed to have had little effect. It was all she could do to keep her eyes propped open.
‘I’m sure you want to get this over, Vince, as much as I do. It was you who killed Barry Slater, right, not your mother?’
‘Yes,’ he said tonelessly.
‘Tell us about it.’
‘It was all his idea to kill Alec, and he talked Mum into it. He said it just wasn’t fair for a rich guy like him to deny his wife the right to spend money how she wanted to.’
‘Which meant handing some of it over to you?’ Kate asked. ‘That was what angered your stepfather, wasn’t it?’
Vince said forcefully, ‘Alec was totally unreasonable about me all along. I reckon he was jealous of me, that’s what. He hated it whenever Mum helped me out with a bit of cash. But what finally turned him really nasty was after I’d started up in a franchise business - selling personalised table settings. I expanded a bit too fast and got into trouble with my suppliers. Mum came to the rescue, bless her, by selling her sable coat and making out to Alec that it had been stolen. He could easily have claimed on the insurance and nobody would have been any the wiser. But when he accidentally found out what she’d done, he was livid. It was a laugh, really, him going all moral about not claiming the insurance, considering the tricks he was up to himself smuggling all that stolen jewellery stuff into the country. You know about that, do you?’
‘Yes, Vince, I know all about it.’
‘I suppose the truth is that he didn’t want to risk doing anything that might bring the coppers sniffing around. Anyhow, he wouldn’t put in a claim, but he bought Mum a new sable and said she was to keep her mouth shut. And he said that she was never, ever, to give me any money again.’
‘Are you telling me, then, that Barry Slater came up with the suggestion of killing Major Bletchley so that your mother would have the funds to help you whenever she wanted?’
‘Well, basically, he saw it as a chance to line his own pockets. Mum didn’t mind that. She paid him well for the job, and she’d have gone on paying him, she wasn’t mean about it. But Barry got greedy. He wanted Mum to marry him, as soon as possible, so he could get hands on all Alec’s loot. He told her he’d hang around the neighbourhood and make a nuisance of himself until she agreed and starting dating him openly. He was staying almost on our doorstep, at the Lythgate Arms in Wynchford. He’d gone to the Market Inn at Marlingford at first, but then he moved even nearer. He meant it as a threat, and he kept phoning her up and demanding more money. Mum was getting worried sick, especially when he did stupid things like having it off with that girl Jillian Murdoch, even though he must have known she was the daughter of Alec’s partner, and about her being engaged to Sebastian Knox. It was totally irresponsible, and Mum was scared to death about what Barry was going to do next. When she finally told me what was worrying her, I thought about it for a bit, then decided the only way out was to get rid of him. Then we’d have nothing more to worry us.’
‘You hadn’t known about the plot to kill your stepfather before that, Vince?’
He shook his head. Sergeant Boulter gestured towards the tape recorder, and Vince said aloud, ‘No, I didn’t know.’
Tell us about killing Slater,’ said Kate.
‘Well, Mum phoned him at the hotel and arranged for them to meet, at the old airfield at midnight. I went along in her car, and when Slater arrived ... I just shot him right off. I wanted to get it over with. I emptied his pockets, so you wouldn’t be able to identify him too quickly, then I drove his car to where you found it on that housing estate. Mum followed in her car, so she could drive me home.’
‘What gun did you use?’
‘One of Alec’s. Mum had hung on to it because she thought it might come in useful - in case she got burgled or something.’
‘Okay. Now what about Sebastian Knox?’
‘I didn’t mean to kill him. It was an accident. We got into a punch-up.’
‘You were quarrelling, I believe, because you’d discovered about the smuggling racket that Knox and Murdoch and your stepfather had been engaged in, and you wanted a share in it?’
‘That was only fair, wasn’t it, with Alec out of the picture? It took quite a bit of figuring out to get to th
e bottom of what was going on. Alec had scribbled down odd notes, here and there, and there was a list of payments he’d received without any mention of where they’d come from. At first Mum and I thought it was just Clive Murdoch who was involved in the scam with Alec, but when I started putting the heat on Clive, he let drop that Sebastian was in it too.’
Vince snorted with contempt. ‘That snotty bastard thought he could scare me off with a lot of lawyer’s guff about being able to have me put away for years if I didn’t watch my step. But he said there was no way that anything could ever be proved against them, and that Mum and I would only make a lot of trouble for ourselves if we ever tried to drop them in it. They’d give us a piddling few quid as a pay-off, but that was all. He must have thought I was a cretin or something. When Knox turned up that Saturday afternoon prepared for a showdown, I told him straight that Mum and I were in it with him and Murdoch, a three-way split. Knox was like a mad bull. He completely lost his rag and started punching me. I’ve learned how to look after myself, though, and I whacked him one on the jaw that sent him flying. He fell backwards and hit his head on the corner of Alec’s desk. I could see he was dead, right away. Killed outright.’
‘You then telephoned Clive Murdoch and demanded his help in disposing of the body?’
‘Well, I thought the bastard deserved to be involved, and I needed some help. Poor Mum was in a terrible state with one thing going wrong after another. It was just all too much for her, so it was down to me to get things organised. I had to think of a place where the body would never be found. Then, with a bit of luck, I thought you’d reckon Knox had done a bunk because he was the one who’d killed Barry Slater, and that would take the heat off us.’
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