[Lambert and Hook 21] - A Good Walk Spoiled

by J M Gregson

  But she laughed, throwing her head back as she did so, looking much younger than her thirty years in the relief of her release from Cullis. ‘I didn’t, no. But I might have done, if I’d had the opportunity.’

  Ben reflected as they walked through the car park that Priscilla Godwin had had the same opportunity as everyone else to kill their leader, along with a stronger, more immediate and more personal motive than anyone else at that table. But this time he had more sense than to point that out. Instead, he said, ‘The police talked to me about it this morning.’

  ‘Really? I didn’t see them come into the labs.’ Ben wanted to call her Pris, as she had invited him to do during the golf on Tuesday, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to do so. ‘No. They saw me at my flat. I thought it would be more private there.’

  ‘How exciting!’ She stood by her car, looking up into his diffident, unguarded face. ‘Look, why don’t we go for a drink. Then you can tell me all about it. ’

  It was six o’clock. Debbie Young was waiting in the deserted office at the end of the long laboratory when her CID visitors arrived. They noted the single light in the room as Hook parked the police Mondeo in a car park which had almost emptied during the previous hour. ‘We shan’t be disturbed here. I didn’t want teenagers interrupting us at home.’ She sounded nervous, making them wonder if this was her real reason. They took her through the statement she had given immediately after the murder: she answered them mostly in monosyllables, as if waiting nervously for some greater challenge.

  Lambert was prepared to offer that. ‘Richard Cullis was demonstrably a successful man. Would you say that he was also a popular one?’

  ‘No. I would say that he was anything but that. Oh, Richard had a surface charm all right. He wouldn’t have lined up a stream of women without that, I suppose. But I doubt whether anyone who knew him well liked him. That would certainly include his wife.’

  Lambert nodded. ‘We’ve already spoken to Mrs Cullis. She made no secret of her feelings.’

  ‘I can’t understand why Alison didn’t divorce him years ago. She’s a Catholic, I believe, but even so!’ Debbie threw back her head in a gesture of impatience that someone of her own sex should be so accommodating. ‘I suppose you keep hoping for better things, but that was flying in the face of the facts. I don’t know how much Alison knew about the way Richard behaved, but she isn’t stupid. If I’d been her, I’d have kicked him out years ago.’

  ‘And the others who were at your table on Tuesday night?’

  ‘It’s not my job to put the boot into anyone, is it?’ Debbie was already regretting the vehemence with which she had spoken about Alison Cullis. If she was equally forthright about the others, they might question her motives.

  Lambert looked at her for a moment before he spoke. She was blonde, blue-eyed, buxom: the little extra weight she had put on in her thirties suited her, making her look younger than her forty years. But this was no Hollywood dumb blonde: she was weighing her words and conscious of whatever impact she was making. ‘It is your duty to give us every help you can, in a murder inquiry,’ he pointed out gently.

  ‘I appreciate that. But most of these people are my colleagues. You can’t expect me to implicate them.’ She waited for some emollient phrase of understanding, but Lambert remained silent and Hook was conveniently occupied with his notebook. ‘Priscilla Godwin was accusing him of rape. I don’t know any details. I’d have thought Cullis was too cute to get caught out pushing things as far as that, but if Priscilla says it happened, it probably did. Mind you, she’s worked with him for two years and should have known all about Richard Cullis. I can’t believe she was stupid enough to get involved with the bastard. ’

  The last thought was a mistake: it told them the depth of her own hate for the dead man. Hook looked up from his notes and said mildly, ‘You didn’t like Richard Cullis very much yourself, did you, Mrs Young?’

  ‘No. For one thing, he’d just made my husband redundant.’

  ‘I thought that was a company decision, not one taken by Mr Cullis alone.’

  ‘Richard was the driving force. He enjoyed telling Paul he had to go.’ She was tight-lipped, determined, gazing not at Hook but at some point beyond him.

  Lambert saw a woman determined not to listen to other arguments, a scientist who was at this moment in the grip of emotion. ‘Your husband told us that he felt he was not cut out for a career in sales. Mr Young said he did not plan to apply for sales posts in the future.’

  Her face flashed anger for an instant, but when she spoke she was in control of herself. ‘Paul is too fair-minded for his own good. It was Richard Cullis who recruited him: he told him then that his scientific background and knowledge of our products would be an advantage in selling them. It was also Richard Cullis who took the decision to fire Paul. I’m quite sure he enjoyed taking that decision, enjoyed telling Paul he was for the chop.’

  Lambert raised his eyebrows. ‘You’re saying that he had some personal grudge against your husband?’

  She had led herself here; she couldn’t see a way out of it. ‘Cullis enjoyed humiliating people.’ She knew that wasn’t true: the man wouldn’t have been as successful in his work as he had been if he’d indulged in petty feuds. His delight in getting rid of Paul had been the humiliation it had caused to her, but she could not tell them that without drawing attention to herself. ‘Sometimes I think he only took Paul on a couple of years ago with a view to sacking him now. ’

  ‘And yet your husband thinks that his redundancy was justified by his record over those years.’

  ‘I told you: Paul is too hard on himself and too anxious to make excuses for others.’

  Now for the first time she was looking her age and more. The colour had drained beneath the fair skin and the round, pale face looked taut and apprehensive. Lambert said quietly, ‘I’m sure that’s true. But your husband also concealed certain facts from us.’

  ‘I’m sure he didn’t. Paul’s a very honest man. Too honest for his own good, sometimes.’

  ‘Which makes cynical policemen quite suspicious when this sort of thing happens. It makes us ask why such a habitually honest person would be concealing facts from us during a murder inquiry. Mrs Young, why haven’t you told us today that you were interviewed with Richard Cullis for the post of Director of Research and Development?’

  ‘It didn’t seem relevant.’ Her voice was dull with defeat: the argument didn’t seem convincing, even to her.

  ‘I’m sure you don’t believe that. We’ve been discussing why you and others didn’t like a murder victim. Are you saying that you had no resentment at all about being passed over for Mr Cullis?’

  For a moment, Debbie was tempted to take the bait and say that yes, she had accepted the appointment without rancour. But these men were skilled interrogators, who were talking to other people as well as her. Indeed, someone had already told them about the circumstances of Cullis’s appointment, and probably added that she was enduringly bitter about it. Fleetingly, she wondered who that person might be: she knew that they hadn’t got the information from Paul, who had kept to his brief and told them nothing about it. She said evenly, ‘I didn’t tell you because I thought you’d suspect me of murder. And I’ve no doubt Paul, as a protective husband, concealed the fact that I’d been passed over for exactly the same reason. That’s understandable, isn’t it?’

  Lambert wasn’t going to comment on that. ‘The way to make yourself a prime suspect is to conceal facts like this. Your resentment over the appointment must have been considerable, if you think it needed to be hidden.’

  ‘I hated Richard Cullis.’ She was suddenly weary of concealment. ‘He took the job that should have been mine and he reminded me of the fact at every opportunity. Sacking Paul was just one in a long line of moves to inflame me. He wanted me out of the place.’

  If that was true, it wasn’t unusual: it was an embarrassment to someone appointed in these circumstances to have the person who had been passed o
ver working under his command, watching his every move, possibly making critical comments about the way he was running things. Richard Cullis seemed to have been an efficient and imaginative director, judging by the way things under his control had burgeoned during his two years in charge. But that hardly mattered: whether Debbie Young’s resentment of him was justified or not, she was clearly a bitter woman, perhaps even a paranoid woman.

  ‘You had access to ricin as part of your job?’

  ‘Everyone around that table on Tuesday night had access to it, directly or indirectly. Even Cullis himself took drugs out of the labs, on occasions, when he needed to talk about their possibilities to the board and to customers. And everyone around that table hated Richard Cullis.’

  ‘As much as you did, Mrs Young?’

  For the first time in many minutes, she smiled. ‘Maybe, maybe not. I wouldn’t speculate on the degrees of antipathy they felt. I might well have hated him as much as anyone. But I didn’t kill him.’

  ‘Then who do you think did administer that ricin?’

  ‘I don’t know. I probably wouldn’t help you if I did, because I think the world will be a better place without Richard Cullis. I’m glad he’s dead.’

  Nineteen

  Chris Rushton was feeling very tired. Working up to twelve hours a day on coordinating the mass of material from a murder investigation he could take in his stride. Occupying a lively five- year-old girl for a whole day was another thing altogether. He was very glad when Anne Jackson arrived fresh and cheerful in the late afternoon.

  She took over little Kirstie, who had been getting increasingly fractious, played with her, talked to her, persuaded her to eat her tea, read her a story from the book she had brought in her car. The little girl, who had been wanting her mother during the afternoon, was actually quite sorry when the time came round for Daddy to take her home.

  ‘I don’t know how you do it. I was at my wits’ end,’ whispered Chris after he had watched her performance admiringly.

  ‘Kirstie’s a nice kid. She was getting tired and overexcited, that’s all. You should try coping with thirty of them for five days a week!’ said Anne Jackson grimly. Secretly, she was delighted to have made such a good impression with the daughter of whom her man was so fond. She thought of him rather possessively as ‘her man’ now, she noticed.

  In the early evening darkness, Chris buckled Kirstie carefully into the car seat. His daughter gave impatient instruction to his unpractised, clumsy hands whilst Anne watched from a distance. ‘I should be back in about forty minutes,’ he called as he went round to the driver’s seat.

  Anne called him back to her and spoke in a low voice so that the child would not hear her. ‘You’ll need to tell ex-Anne about me, you know. Kirstie’s enjoyed herself, so she’s going to chatter about her day when she gets home. It will be much better if you tell her yourself that you have a new woman in your life than let her hear it from Kirstie.’

  He nodded agreement. Inside, he was exultant that Anne Jackson thought of herself as the new woman in his life. Chris Rushton was a shy and diffident man, whose confidence had been dented far more than he had ever admitted by the break-up of his marriage. For weeks he had been putting off telling his former wife about this new relationship, first because he found it difficult, but secondly because he feared that it would come to nothing.

  Ex-Anne had had a new man for ages; he was sure that it wouldn’t be long before she was telling him that she planned to remarry. Of course, it was inevitable that life should move on: any civilized person should rejoice in the happiness of a former partner. But he remembered the feeling of desolation with which he had heard the news of ex-Anne’s new liaison, the raw pain which he had felt at the thought of a new man in her bed. He would tell her about Anne Jackson carefully, not with the pride and even arrogance with which he had once planned to announce that an intelligent and lively young woman thought that he was worth her time and effort.

  Anne Jackson, tidying the toys and books away in Chris’s flat, knew Chris in some respects better than he knew himself. She knew that he would keep his revelation low-key, that both Chris and his ex-wife would have a moment at least of sadness, of regret for times past and happiness spent together, for the tiny, incidental joys of intimacy which now could be no more. She even had a quickly passing moment of jealousy for those years which she could never share with her man.

  Then she collected the dishes, washed up sturdily, and rejoiced that another stage in their relationship had been successfully accomplished.

  On Saturday morning, Bert Hook was at his books by six. The gap between now and the final Open University examinations in November was narrowing with alarming speed. He had completed his coursework assignments. Now he began a belated attempt at revision and tried not to panic at the number of days left.

  At eight o’clock, he sighed, shut his books and addressed himself to the demands of his family. The boisterous breakfast chatter of his boys left him little room for reflection. He tried to present himself as the calm, paternal figure all the experts said they needed for security. ‘Dad’s quiet this morning,’ said Jack to Eleanor as he gave himself a generous second helping of cornflakes. ‘Go easy on him, Mum. He’s probably beginning to get worried about his exams.’

  ‘Mrs Fogarty says older people get much more worried about exams. It’s because they’ve more at stake, you see.’ Luke nodded sagely. Bert’s smoldering looks were wasted on subjects who were studiously avoiding eye contact.

  By half-past nine, Bert was addressing himself to the altogether more serious subject of Jason Dimmock.

  He had expected to sit on the same Chesterfield leather sofa he had occupied when they had spoken to Lucy Dimmock. Instead, Jason Dimmock chose to see them in his office at Gloucester Chemicals. He explained logically enough that they would not be disturbed there on a Saturday morning. CID men are trained to weigh every move in their suspects; they wondered if he wished to obviate any possibility of his wife listening in on their exchanges.

  It was a featureless room, overcrowded with chairs, a small desk, and four filing cabinets. A door in the comer led into a small storage area. Save for a rather dusty black-and-white photograph of Marie Curie which some earlier incumbent had installed, there was not a single picture on the walls. Perhaps Dimmock noted their examination of the room, for he explained nervously that this was a communal office, at the disposal of anyone who needed a little temporary privacy or a place to meet a visitor. ‘Only Richard Cullis had his own exclusive office,’ he explained in a carefully neutral tone.

  Lambert cut through the preliminaries with a challenging, ‘We’ve interviewed most of the people who were eating at your table since we saw you on Tuesday night, Mr Dimmock.’ Jason knew that: he’d gathered what little he could from his colleagues and his wife. Lucy had told him that she hadn’t liked this tall, intimidating figure and Jason thought he could see why. For his part, Hook thought it was curious that the man should seem more apprehensive now on his own ground than he had in the aftermath of a shocking murder at Belmont on Tuesday night.

  Dimmock said edgily, ‘I expect you’ve found that not many people liked Cullis. Frankly, I haven’t seen many of the people who worked with him shedding tears over this death.’

  ‘That includes you, Mr Dimmock.’

  It was said so quietly that Jason was not certain whether it was a question or a statement. He wondered what they had picked up from others. Lucy had assured him that she’d given nothing away, but he wasn’t sure how much others knew and what they might have said to these persistent, clever men. He said carefully, ‘Richard was all right to work with. He was fair. He knew what he wanted and he explained his decisions clearly to us. I believe he represented the interests of the research and development department ably to the rest of the board.’

  Lambert looked at him hard. ‘What you’re describing are professional qualities. You’re confirming what I said: you didn’t like the man.’

  ‘That�
��s fair. I didn’t like the way he conducted his private life. But that wasn’t my business, was it?’

  ‘I don’t know. Was it? Did his conduct offend you? Did the way he conducted his life impinge on yours? We’re here to gather information, Mr Dimmock. You seem to me very cautious. Your wife also seemed extremely careful when she spoke to us. That makes us wonder if you’re concealing something. You could say that it’s our job to think in that way.’

  ‘I kept my distance from Cullis, that’s all.’ He sought desperately for a rationalization of his conduct and thought he saw one. ‘The other staff knew I didn’t really like him. I’m a senior member of the laboratory team: they would have seen it as creeping if I’d pursued more than a professional relationship with Richard.’

  Lambert smiled. ‘Yet it seems that you were once closer to him than you were in the weeks immediately before his death. Perhaps you fell out over something.’

  Now Jason was rattled. He’d felt confident before they came that he could fend them off, but to do that he needed to know exactly where he stood. What had other people told them? Was this man Lambert leading him on, encouraging him to pile deceit on deceit, lie on lie, so that he would incriminate himself irretrievably? He said stiffly, ‘Perhaps we were more friendly, at one time. Perhaps we became less close as I saw more details of the way he lived his life.’

  ‘What sort of detail, Mr Dimmock?’

  He said priggishly, ‘I don’t wish to talk about that. I don’t wish to speak evil of the dead.’

  ‘How honourable and how unselfish!’ Lambert’s voice hardened. ‘You don’t have a choice, Mr Dimmock. You’re supposed to be assisting the pursuit and arrest of a cold-blooded murderer.’

  ‘You should ask Priscilla Godwin what she thinks of him!’

  ‘We’re asking you, Mr Dimmock.’

  ‘The talk is that Pris was raped by him. So she’d every reason to hate him, hadn’t she?’ He could hear his own voice rising, the capacity he had always had to pick his words deserting him.