by Jill McGown
Helen could hardly believe he would take the game to these lengths. She stared at him. ‘Not Chris! Nobody would expect you to care about Chris, not now!’
‘But I do.’
‘You do, don’t you?’ Helen stood up, and walked to the edge of the pool. Donald was by her side in seconds.
‘Helen, I’m trying to understand.’ He wiped the rain from his face. ‘Can’t we discuss this inside?’
‘Discuss what?’
‘Whatever it is we’re discussing!’ he shouted, turning away in exasperation. She watched as he squared his shoulders, and turned back. ‘I know what I’m like – you owe me nothing. I’m sorry if you want me to be insanely jealous about Chris, because I’m not. I’m glad you found him. I’m desperately sorry that he’s in this mess – but I’ve done all I can!’
‘This mess?’ Helen shook her head, bewildered. ‘This mess? Is that how you see it? You’ve got money now, so it’s an ill wind that blows no one good? I didn’t like Julia, but surely she’s entitled to more than that from you?’
‘You’re losing sleep over Julia?’ he asked. ‘I don’t see you in mourning!’
‘I wasn’t having an affair with her!’ Helen cried, as the rain slackened off.
Donald opened his eyes wide. ‘And you think I was?’ he asked, with total, unmistakable sincerity.
Helen walked slowly back to the wet bench, and sat down, regardless. Donald waited by the water, not looking at her. Her mind was full of all the little proofs of infidelity which had brought her to what had been a jumped-to conclusion. All the visits to London over the last twelve months to see Charles about something, only to find out that Charles was abroad on business on at least two of these occasions. Without Julia, because Julia hated flying. A bitchy little hint from Julia herself, during the duty visit to them last Christmas, when she’d told Maria to remember that Mrs Mitchell was here this time, and that the guest room should be aired. She had allowed the remark to hang in the air, for Helen to draw the inference that Donald on his own didn’t need the guest room.
When Helen remembered the pay-off line, she didn’t know how she could have missed what Julia was really trying to tell her. She had laughed as though realising what she had said, and added that Donald didn’t mind roughing it in the servants’ quarters. It would have infuriated Julia to know that her hint was lost on Helen, already firmly convinced that she was Donald’s away fixture, as he had once himself disparagingly called his infidelities. That was when he was still promising to reform, a long time ago now. It was Maria, then. Attractive, quietly efficient, slightly withdrawn Maria who had taken his fancy, rather than the blonde and beautiful Julia. That must have peeved Julia, even if she had never given Donald a second glance.
‘It’s Maria, isn’t it?’ she said, almost apologetically.
‘Well it certainly wasn’t Julia,’ Donald said. ‘Give me credit for more taste than that.’
It was hard to know what she felt about Maria – she had never taken much notice of her. She had gone to work for Charles in the hope, Helen had assumed, of catching him herself. But Julia had come along, and tricked poor, gullible bachelor Charles into marriage by pretending she was expecting his child. Charles, who had never wanted a wife, did want children, so that he could pass on all that he had worked for. But Julia wasn’t pregnant, and had no intention of ever being, if she could help it. Charles had ended up with a wife and no children.
When Charles died, Maria was out of a job, and a home. It had never occurred to Helen to wonder why Donald, of all people, cared, or why he had told her. But now she knew that it was all part of the game. And she had been too dense to work it out. Not Julia. Maria.
‘Maria,’ she said aloud.
‘I’m going home to change, and then I’m going back to work,’ Donald said. ‘Are you coming?’
She looked up at him, trying to come to terms with her new knowledge. He was looking holier-than-thou because he’d been wronged; slowly, she rose, and followed him home.
*
‘Could someone have received a call at the boathouse?’ Lloyd asked, having gone through every wild scenario he could to explain the wiping of the telephone. Even if someone had, it didn’t get him anywhere, but it might stop him going round in circles.
‘No,’ Judy said. ‘It’s just an extension.’
‘Oh.’ Lloyd tapped his blotter with the top of his pen. ‘So she couldn’t have called the police anyway?’
‘Yes, she could.’ Judy smiled. ‘You get an outside line by dialling 9 first – she’d probably not know that, but I don’t suppose she cared how it worked, so long as it got rid of Wade.’
‘Assuming it ever happened.’ Lloyd dropped his pen on to the blotter. ‘How come you know all that?’
‘How do you think? Bob Sandwell, who knows everything. It used, he tells me, to be an ordinary phone, but whoever happened to be on duty would always find some friend in Australia to ring up. They couldn’t leave it without a phone, in case of accidents in the boating lake. So they made it an extension when they got their new system in – now you can still dial out, but it’s restricted to local calls.’
‘I’d better ring Mitchells – tell them we might need some fingerprints.’ He picked up the phone. ‘Why do I feel as if Wade’s running this enquiry?’
Mitchells’ Administration Manager agreed in principle to the fingerprints, but only if the men didn’t mind.
‘They might not have much choice,’ Lloyd said cheerfully. ‘But we might not need them, so don’t spread any gloom and despondency.’
‘Do you think the phone was used when it happened?’
‘It could have been, but there’s nothing concrete.’
‘Because we can help you there,’ the voice said. ‘The phones are monitored now – we get a print-out with all the calls made.’
Lloyd smiled. That was the first helpful thing anyone had said to him since this whole business started.
‘When can I see it?’ he asked.
‘Let’s see – Saturday. Picked up Monday. This is – oh any time now. This afternoon, certainly.’
Lloyd became slightly dispirited again. ‘It’s possible that the phone was only picked up,’ he said. ‘It wouldn’t show that, would it?’
‘No. But if whoever it was started dialling at all, it’ll show that. Time, date, the lot.’
‘Now, that could be just what we need. It would be at about nine o’clock, we think. You’ll let me know when it’s ready?’
‘Certainly.’
‘Oh – by the way. Is it likely that someone would clean that phone at night? Cleaners, caretakers, someone like that?’
‘Not very.’ He laughed. ‘We’ll be only too pleased to get rid of the boating lake,’ he said. ‘As it stands, we man it, but it doesn’t actually belong to us. We do the bare minimum – they sweep it out from time to time, but that’s all. We did send out little packets of telephone cleaning pads when they all got their shiny new extensions, but in all that time only one extension’s asked for a new supply.’ He laughed again. ‘And that wasn’t the boating lake, so I doubt it.’
‘Thank you very much – I’ll be round to collect your printout as soon as you’ve got it.’
Lloyd’s subsequent enquiries revealed that no packet of telephone cleaning pads had been found.
‘So,’ Judy said. ‘Either someone goes round with them in their pocket, or they used the ones that were there and took them away. Why would you do that?’ She thought for a moment. ‘If it had never been opened – you’d notice if one had been used. But you might not notice if it was gone altogether.’
Someone picked up the phone, used a pad to wipe the part that they’d held, and removed the packet. Lloyd picked up his pen to help him think. Wade? Why go to all that trouble if your prints were everywhere else? The same went for Julia, even if he could think of a reason for her cleaning her prints off anything.
He drummed his pen on his blotter, then let it roll away. ‘If Wade’s t
elling the truth,’ he said, ‘he’d better pray that Julia starting dialling something.’
In the meantime, he had to tell Donald Mitchell that his sister-in-law’s body would be released tomorrow, and he could go ahead with the funeral arrangements. They had traced Julia’s father through the travel agent, and he was on his way home. He got a cool, unfriendly Helen Mitchell telling him that her husband was at work; he took the opportunity of telling her that they’d spoken to the driver of her open-topped car.
He got an earful from Mitchell himself, and put down the phone with some force when the call was terminated. They lied to him, and somehow it was his fault. He ought to do them both for attempting to pervert the course of justice. ‘This bloody job!’ he said. ‘I’m going to fetch my car.’
The phone rang again before he had even risen from the seat.
‘Lloyd!’ he barked into it, unfairly.
‘Inspector? Sergeant Hill was asking about the prints on the boatshed phone?’
‘Yes, that’s right. What have you got?’
‘We’ve got a match – well, it might not be good enough to put into court – but it’s good enough for me. A partial print on the phone matches the prints in Wade’s car.’
‘His prints?’
‘No – not his. The other ones. The unidentified ones.’
Lloyd blinked. ‘But they’re supposed to belong to some – right! Thank you. Mr Wade’s got a bit of explaining to do.’ He replaced the receiver. ‘So much for the lady who ran out of petrol,’ he said. ‘Someone helped him out, and he’s not saying who.’
‘He could have known her before,’ Judy said. ‘She was scared – Diane MacPherson says so, Girvan says so. Even Wade says so, though I can’t see how that helps him.’
Lloyd tapped his blotter with his pen. ‘Perhaps we should let a doctor see him,’ he said. Wade could believe what he’s telling us. Believe that he really did leave her alive and kicking. But the fact is that the minute Julia Mitchell saw him, she wanted to leave. And she didn’t want him to give her a lift, and she looked scared before anything had happened.’
Judy scratched her head. ‘Which do you want?’ she asked. ‘Does he just go mad and kill someone and then not know he’s done it, or did he know Julia and go after her, like she knew he would?’
‘If someone helped him, and I’m sure someone did, then I think he just went bananas – that’s why he says she looked scared. Because he doesn’t know it was him she was scared of.’
‘Then how did Julia know to be scared of him in the first place?’
‘Stop asking difficult questions. I don’t know, but we don’t have to prove any motive at all. What we want now is the owner of the fingerprints.’ He stopped talking, as yet another scenario presented itself. ‘Supposing Helen Mitchell did what you said in the first place? Hurried back from the station, went up to the café on foot – and found that Wade had just killed Julia. Her immediate reaction is to phone the police, but then she thinks better of it – wipes the phone, and they just run out to Wade’s car. She ducks down so as no one sees her, then gets out and gets into her own car. That way she would see the kids leave, and Muller would see her. After she’s had time to think, she goes back up there and tries to make it look like a sex crime.’
Judy was giving him one of her looks.
‘It’s not impossible!’
‘Why go back up there at all?’
‘Because if she could make it look –’ he stopped, because he didn’t really know what he was going to say. ‘Maybe she didn’t.’ She might have found him there with Julia exactly the way we found her. She got him out of there, then went home. But he turned up again at six in the morning.’
The look was fading slightly. ‘It could have been like that,’ she conceded. ‘Rather than your first version – do you give your imagination full rein in front of anyone, or is it just me?’
Just you, he thought, but he didn’t answer her.
‘Her fingerprints,’ Judy said, ‘are on my ashtray.’
Chris lay on his bunk, racking his brains, trying to think of anything that might make the police believe him. Had he been set up? But why? And anyway, he told himself sternly, that was nonsense. She was practically begging him to go away, and he could have, at any time. He needn’t even have given her a lift in the first place. She hadn’t asked him to. Had he walked into something, then? Someone else’s murder? Could she have been meeting someone there, or what?
He sat up. That must be it, had to be it. She was meeting someone there – that’s why she didn’t want him along in the first place. And all that stuff about Helen – it was to make him angry, so that he would leave. What she didn’t know was that whoever she was meeting intended killing her. Or ended up killing her, anyway.
He grabbed his crutch, and swung his way over to the door, using the crutch to hammer on it for attention.
‘Hey! Can someone hear me? I want to see the inspector!’
He could hear footsteps, and the door was unlocked by a stout, balding policeman, who stood aside to let the inspector through.
‘Your wish is my command, Mr Wade,’ he said, smiling. ‘Have you decided to tell us at last?’
‘No – no, I thought of something.’ In the presence of the inspector, waiting sceptically to hear what he’d thought, his solution seemed less and less probable.
‘Go on, Mr Wade,’ he said pleasantly, and sat on the bunk. ‘I’m listening.’
Chris told him what he believed might have happened, as calmly as he could, and the inspector listened gravely.
‘Now shall I tell you what we know?’ he asked.
Chris looked suspiciously at him. ‘Something more?’ he asked. ‘More than you knew before? I’m not going over the same ground again.’
‘Something new,’ the inspector assured him. ‘We know that whoever picked up the phone left their fingerprints in your car.’
‘I didn’t touch the phone!’
The inspector was shaking his head. ‘No, I don’t think you did.’
Chris made an impatient noise. ‘Julia. I keep telling you. You know she was in my car.’
‘Not Julia. She didn’t leave any fingerprints in the car.’
Chris frowned. ‘Why not? She was in there.’
The inspector shrugged. ‘She probably didn’t touch anything. You opened the door for her to get in and out.’
So he had. And she’d sat like a statue, with her bloody arms folded. He half laughed. ‘So I could have denied she was ever in the car?’
‘Not really, Mr Wade. There are other things. Her jacket, for instance – it was fringed. There were small strands of thread from it – that sort of thing.’
Chris flopped down beside him. ‘What’s the difference?’ he said. ‘She was in the car.’
‘Quite.’
‘But no one else was.’
‘The prints say otherwise.’
‘I’ve told you about that!’ Dear God, did he have to tell them everything eight times? ‘I gave a girl a lift!’
‘And how do you account for this girl – whose name you don’t even know – picking up the phone in the boathouse?’
‘I can’t.’ He hung his head, then lifted it again. ‘It doesn’t make any sense,’ he said. ‘Unless she happened to use that phone earlier.’
‘It’s a private phone – the public don’t use it.’
‘Then I don’t believe you!’ Chris said. ‘Are you certain they’re the same?’
‘Yes.’ The inspector stood up. ‘I thought you might give up this nonsense.’
‘If they’re the same,’ Chris said, ‘then they’re Julia Mitchell’s. What makes you so sure they’re not?’
‘Oh come on, Mr Wade!’ The inspector turned towards the door. ‘Even you must know about fingerprints!’
‘Then are you sure it’s Julia Mitchell you found?’
If his words had an effect, then he wasn’t allowed to see it. The inspector left without turning back. The door banged shut
, and Chris knew that he would go mad in prison.
It wasn’t her. They had to check – they had to realise. She was running about somewhere – maybe she didn’t know this was happening. Maybe she killed whoever that was that they found.
And maybe, he thought, as he looked round the cell, maybe he was going mad now. How many days could he stand, cooped up in a place like this? How many years would he be expected to survive?
Donald put the receiver back on the rest, and smiled grimly. Randall might not have said much, but at least he knew how Helen had been treated. Was it his imagination, or had he detected a subtle change in attitude? Was Randall ever-so-slightly deferential, now that circumstances had altered?
Funeral arrangements. He wondered if he ought to be doing something, but decided against it. Her father was on his way back, after all.
He picked up the particulars of a rather nice office suite, and settled down for a good read.
Judy got to her feet as Superintendent Randall came in, and was waved down regally.
‘Is the inspector here?’
‘Yes, sir – he should be back any minute.’ As she spoke, Lloyd came in.
‘Good afternoon, sir,’ he said, smiling in the brittle way he did with people he didn’t like.
‘I believe you spoke to Mrs Mitchell this morning,’ Randall said.
‘That’s right.’ Judy could hear the danger signals in Lloyd’s voice. ‘She had been withholding information, as we suspected.’
‘But you don’t suspect her of any serious involvement in this business, do you, Inspector?’ Randall hadn’t sat down, and neither had Lloyd.
‘It’s a possibility, sir.’
Randall cleared his throat. ‘Look, I know there’s been a bit of talk about her and Wade, but I don’t think you should take gossip all that seriously.’
Lloyd sat down. ‘We wouldn’t get anything done at all if we didn’t take gossip seriously,’ he said.
Randall looked for just a moment as though he might insist on due deference to his seniority, but if he was going to, he changed, his mind. ‘True,’ he said. ‘But the Mitchells are acquaintances of mine,’ he added. ‘And I wouldn’t like them to be dragged into this any more than necessary. In what way do you think Mrs Mitchell could be involved? Just the fact that she didn’t tell us Wade had been there?’
