Exposure

by Avril Osborne

  “No. What accident?”

  “Susan Blakely was struck by a hit and run car, late last evening. Reverend Ramsey, where were you last evening?”

  He looked at them, taking in the news and the police officer’s question.

  “I was here. What happened to Susan? Is she injured?”

  His reaction was a mix of shock and concern. The Inspector continued to watch him.

  “Can you prove where you were? Did you go out?”

  No, he could not prove where he was and said so to the Inspector. He had been alone. He plucked up the courage to ask whether he was a suspect. Did the police think he had done it?

  They gave him a thorough grilling. They knew his car and registration number and had already checked the vehicle. There were no marks on it. Did he have access to another vehicle?

  No. They knew about his taped suicide message to Susan Blakely, the one he made in the Spring. They played the tape to him. He confirmed that it was his voice. They had his anonymous letter, the one he had written to Bill Nicholson. Dave confirmed that he wrote the letter. How well did Reverend Ramsey know Miss Blakely? Did he know Linda Pilar? They still did not tell him how Susan was.

  He knew he had committed no crime. He said so. He simply told the truth. He had a sexual encounter with Susan on Mull. He was guilty and depressed afterwards. He attempted suicide and ended up in hospital. Yes, psychiatric hospital. But he was well now. His wife knew everything. The church was backing him. They were helping him to put his life and career back in order. Doctor Robertson was the psychiatrist and no, he was not seeing him at the moment as he was virtually discharged. Yes, they could speak to the doctor if they chose.

  He had put the liaison with Susan well behind him. The suicide attempt was over. He had no interest in seeing Susan Blakely again and certainly no intention of harming her. Any harm, he had done to himself.

  The Inspector listened and challenged. But Dave had chosen to tell the truth, he said, and to cooperate fully. He knew that he had nothing to do with this attack and that he had nothing to hide. He asked again how Susan and her friend were and this time the Inspector gave him the facts. Dave listened, looking sad and compassionate for both women.

  The interview lasted for about an hour. He had no objection to them looking through his things and he sat quietly while they looked in his wardrobe and in his study. The police made it clear without saying much that he remained a suspect but they left, saying simply that they might want to speak to him again. They would also want to speak to Mrs Ramsey.

  Susan listens to this account from a remarkably open Inspector Philips. They are sitting in the police station, Susan having taken the bull by the horns, so to speak. She went in after talking with Linda to see what she could find out. Now she is listening to the account of the policeman’s first interview with Ramsey.

  “And you believed him?” she asks, taking a sip of canteen coffee from the polystyrene cup.

  “Not at the time, no. I thought that he was acting and acting well. But we had nothing to go on. Then it looked like a gift when he walked into the police station and confessed. He seemed to have all the facts at his fingertips about the attack, more than had been put out over the TV, and at that stage we thought that it was pretty well stitched up.”

  Inspector Philips seems to switch focus. “We learned more about his anonymous letters, by the way. He wrote to the City Tribune as well as to Mr Nicholson, your fiancée.”

  “Yes. I suspected as much. He also wrote to Jonathon, my boss at the Company.”

  “Anyway,” The Inspector continues, “He told us when he confessed that Brenda had come in from her parents on the Saturday and he told her about the police visit and the accident. She knew already about Susan Blakely’s accident, she said, from the evening news at her parents’ home. He told her that we thought Dave might well be responsible. “Nonsense”, was apparently her response, before going off to the kitchen. That was virtually all that was said and they watched the television updates together in silence.

  “What’s the significance of all this, Inspector Philips?”

  “Wait, Miss Blakely. You’ll see in a moment. Apparently, Brenda Ramsey then went for the sherry bottle, something she never does, and got tanked up in the kitchen. The next thing Dave Ramsey knew was that she confessed to him that she was the one who drove at you.”

  “What?” Susan can hardly credit this. Women do not do things like that.

  “Brenda told Dave, apparently, that she had been approached by this detective, Shand. I believe you know him, Miss Blakely? He showed her a copy of the anonymous letter that we now know Mr Nicholson received and passed on to Shand.”

  Susan groans inwardly. How could Shand have been so, so unethical? So Shand tipped the balance and showing Brenda the letter with the stick people had led her to believing Dave’s confession about their affair.

  But the Inspector is ploughing relentlessly on.

  “She did not blame Dave. She blamed you for the affair. She did not want to hurt Dave. She told Dave that she had borrowed her father’s car on the Friday night and then told her father she needed it to transport some older people to a coffee evening. She watched you, apparently, on and off for days and went to restaurants where you went, you and Mrs Pilar. The restaurant you chose on Friday was too small for Brenda to walk in and just get a table so she sat in the car. She says that she had no intention of doing it. She only had her father’s car so that Dave would not know what she was up to on this evening. It was impulse, rage and certainly not premeditated. When you came out of the restaurant - two women living the high life whilst she and Dave were living out a wrecked sham of a marriage - Brenda snapped. That was all there was to it.”

  “So Brenda really did drive the car at us?”

  “Maybe. I’ll get to that. Anyway, that was the reason Dave walked into the police station and confessed. It transpires that Brenda also told him she was pregnant and he decided to take the wrap for her. He could not face his pregnant wife going to court and probably to jail.”

  “This is incredible,” Susan mutters, more to herself than to Inspector Philips. The words ‘Hell hath no fury …’ are going through her mind.

  “How did you get Ramsey to tell you the truth?”

  “A little help from his mentor, the Reverend Graham, did the trick. We knew there was no possibility that he’d done it as soon as his car was checked. At first we thought that he was confessing to link his name with yours in public – a sort of revenge for the failed suicide. He still believed by the way, right up till Reverend Graham was here, that you told the church authorities about your affair with him.”

  Susan does not rise to the Inspector’s bait by acknowledging the truth of the affair. Instead, she asks,

  “Have you got Brenda in custody now?”

  “She’s being questioned at the moment. And we have gone over to look at this car of her father’s. If there is forensic evidence, that should be it.”

  “And what happens to Dave?”

  “Well, he’s been charged with wasting police time and perverting the course of justice. But for now he has agreed to go back into hospital under his psychiatrist – just till the heat goes off the domestic situation.”

  “What a mess,” is all that Susan can think of to say. Then, “Will you keep me informed?”

  “Of course. For now, though, I think that you should stick to my advice to be careful. This may not be over yet.”

  She stands to leave and, as if thinking of something as a by-the-way, turns back to the Inspector and asks,

  “Who did tell the church authorities about this alleged affair between Ramsey and me? Do you know?”

  “I do, yes.” The Inspector hesitated a moment. “It was one of your colleagues – a Mike Moss. The Reverend Graham was able to confirm that.” The policeman watches her face carefully. It dawns on Susan moment that she is not being told all this for nothing. The police are now putting Moss in the frame. Will all this never end?


  In the street, Susan takes a moment to get her mind around all of this. Mike Moss? Why? That is something that she needs to know as soon as she has the energy. And could mousy little Brenda really have done this? Does she have it in her to attack Susan out of rage and a need for revenge? Susan does not like the idea of this Police Inspector having so much information? Whatever the situation might be, she is feeling more than a little stripped bare. The only good news is that Ramsey is away in hospital for the moment. And Brenda is in custody. This makes her feel safer, somehow. Brenda has changed from being just mousy Brenda to being someone who is a force in her own right – a dangerous, unbalanced woman to be reckoned with.

  Shand, Susan now realizes, must have gone to see Brenda again after Susan last had coffee with her and after her last phone call with her. If Susan is going to hold on to any sanity in all this, she has to go with her instincts. And her instincts still tell her that Brenda originally believed Susan’s version of events on Mull and that her husband made the story up about them in his delusional state. Shand going to see her and showing her one of the stick people letters probably tipped a pretty dodgy balance. It occurs to her now that it is no wonder that Brenda made no attempt to contact Susan in hospital. At the time she was too ill to notice but it now occurs to her that Brenda is just the type to at least send a sentimental get well soon card. Still, Susan can hardly credit that Brenda has it in her to attack Linda and her with the full force of a car, sudden rage or no sudden rage. And what about this pregnancy? Is it true? Did Brenda conceive on the night when Dave took her without her consent?

  “Christ, she blasphemes aloud, with no thought to the religious significance of what she is saying, “will this couple never get out of my life?”

  It is going to be a long wait to hear from Inspector Philips. She has no idea how to fill the time. She is still off sick, hardly presentable in public with her face the way it is - more discoloured, it seems, as the days go on. Linda has her own preoccupations. Bill is out of her frame, she assumes for good. She could go and find Mike Moss and see what he has to say for himself about going to the church authorities. But she knows that she cannot do so without the humiliation of being told what she can already guess – that he simply set a hair running after she declined his advances and out of spite. It was clever of him not to go to her bosses - they would have done nothing. Yes, it was very clever indeed to go Ramsey’s bosses. Perhaps he even did go to her bosses. Who cares at this stage? No. Going to the church was a stroke of mischievous genius on his part.

  “Typical of a man with a ponytail,” she rants to herself, illogical as that thought is.

  The thought of seeing Alberto appeals but she remembers the private detective. She does not want to be under any scrutiny just now, whether from Shand, or Sarah King or God knows who else. She will have to content herself with waiting for her face to repair and somehow try to relax.

  She knows what she could do, though. She could go and see Jane. Linda might not be in a position to find out how the poor girl is doing and whether the press have been on to her but she is.

  “And that would be one in the eye for Ken,” she thinks with delight. Yes, that is just what she can do – she will go and see Jane.

  It is no problem to find Jane’s flat. They ate near it, the three of them, on the evening Linda brought Jane with her to the fish restaurant on the harbour front. Jane’s name is in the phone directory but instead of ringing her first, Susan goes round on impulse and Jane’s voice tells her immediately that she is delighted to hear her.

  The flat impresses Susan. It is bright, tidy and minimalist in a sophisticated way. This is a woman with taste. Jane herself looks wan - that is the best way to describe her. It does not take more than a glance to see that under the smile is a strained and weary face.

  Jane is happy to talk. As she makes a pot of coffee at the breakfast bar and brings it over to the sofas, she tells Susan that she has been finding the days impossible. Daily, she wants to be in touch with Linda and the only thing holding her back is the threat that that could pose to Linda over the children. If anything, she is holding on to the time when they will both be back at the University and she can at least see Linda.

  “Won’t that be hard, though?” Susan asks, sipping the Columbian coffee as she does so.

  “Well, sure, but I’d rather try to go on working with her and seeing her that way than live in this vacuum,” Jane reflects.

  Susan resists the urge to persuade Jane to go and see Linda at home.

  “Do you know that a newspaper is on to Linda and me?” Jane asks now, quietly watching for Susan’s reaction.

  “Yes. Linda knows, too. She tried to contact you, but you were out and she did not want to leave a message. Then she calculated that you would know anyway. That’s partly why I came – to see how you are bearing up. What happened? Do you know how they know?”

  “No. I have not the first idea. I just know that when I was coming out of the lift at the hospital after the police interviewed me, a youngish woman - younger than me, I’d say and sort of scruffily dressed - came right up to me and asked if I’d been to see Linda. I just thought at first that she was one of Linda’s students. So I said I had just seen her and that Linda was going to be fine. Then she said that her name was Sarah something. I can’t remember her second name.”

  “King, I think,” Susan interrupts.

  “Yes. Sure. That’s right. Anyway, she shot the question at me. ‘Jane - are you and Linda Pilar lovers?’ I didn’t know what to say. At first I wanted to say that we were. It was so natural to say that we are when I’m so proud of her. Then I thought about the kids and decided to say ‘no’. It felt like a betrayal, a lie.”

  “Well, I can see that, Jane. It would feel like a dreadful thing to do. But on the other hand you have protected Linda and the kids and that is her strongest wish just now. I am sure that you did the right thing. At least the press can not quote your ‘admission’, and that is how they would interpret it, believe me.”

  Poor Jane. Here she is, all fired with the ideals of the younger person and feeling alone and a liar, a betrayer of what is most dear to her. Susan can say little to comfort her, but Jane fills the moment by saying that Susan’s presence somehow makes Linda feel closer. Will Susan tell Linda that she has visited? Susan says that, of course, she will and she will also tell Linda what has been said.

  She asks now about Jane being interviewed by the police. Jane was not fazed by her interview with Inspector Philips but she just felt that she had been categorised by the police as a potentially dangerous person, purely because she is gay. Whether that is just in her head or how it really was, she has no way of really knowing. Susan just listens. At least, she points out as Jane describes how she was with her two women friends on the night of the attack, she has a rock solid alibi and does not have that to worry about.

  Jane laughs her agreement and then, thinking of it for the first time, asks Susan if she or Linda thought that she might have done it. It is Susan’s turn to laugh.

  “Not for one second. Of course, not.”

  Susan enjoys her time with Jane. She is a refreshingly nice person, a genuine, straightforward sort and a relief from all the intrigue that is a part of her own life at the moment. They make a pact, the two of them. Linda might not be able to socialise with Jane. But Susan certainly can and there is not a thing that the mighty Ken can do about it. Not for that reason, Jane assures her, but because she really enjoys Susan’s company, Jane would love to see Susan again. They agree to meet as soon as things have quietened a bit. And if anything appears in the press about Linda and Jane, Susan will ring her.

  She is very glad that she visited Jane. And she is even more glad to be able to ring Linda later in the day to bring her up to speed about Ramsey and to tell her that Jane is all right. She is going back to the University and Linda will at least see her there.

  Susan arrives back to her flat just as Inspector Philips is getting out of his car
and approaching her door. It is only a matter of hours since they talked at the police station.

  There are few courtesies from him, just a look that tells her that there is more news. She lets him in and leads him into her lounge. He stands, taking in her home at a glance and declining her invitation to sit.

  “Well, Miss Blakely,” He says, coming straight to the point, “We can now eliminate Brenda Ramsey from our enquiries. There was no mark on her father’s car.”

  Susan is hardly surprised at this news, the only question being why Brenda confessed to her husband.

  “Go on, Inspector, tell me, “ she gives an exaggerated sigh, “The butler did it.”

  The Inspector smiles.

  “Would that it were that simple. The fact is - we are now drawing a blank. There is no forensic evidence until we do find the car. And several people had motive. Several others had opportunity. And reluctant as I am to admit it, at this point in time, I just do not know what to think.”

  “What was Brenda up to, telling Dave Ramsey that she did it?” Susan asks.

  “Winding Dave up to confessing in order to get revenge for your affair with him – that was what drove her. She admitted to that. As soon as she saw the anonymous letter, she wanted revenge. When you were attacked, she was outside the restaurant watching you and Linda. You recall that I told you that she has been spying on the pair of you? She saw the car go for you but she swears she did not see the make of the vehicle or the driver. When you were injured and Dave was the suspect, she saw her chance to get revenge on him and she calculated that his confession would expose you at the same time. It was clever and it nearly came off, but she is still not the person behind the attack.”

  “What happens to her now?”

  “Nothing too severe, unfortunately. Certainly, whatever they do with her it won’t be severe enough for me. She has been charged with wasting police time and that will go to court but I doubt whether there will be a custody sentence in this.”

  Susan sighs. Yet again, there is the likelihood of things coming out in court. Brenda’s motive for wasting police time was her husband’s adultery with Susan. Just great.