A Shred of Evidence

by Jill McGown

  “Tell her that,” Patrick said. “Tell Erica that.” He got up. “But not until you’ve got your proof that you weren’t with Natalie last night.” He smiled. “Until then, I should just lie low, if I were you. Take it from one who’s played away more than a few times. A couple of days to let everything cool down is just what you need—and proving that she was wrong about Natalie gives you a head start in the moral indignation stakes. But if you’ll take my advice, you’ll be straight with her about this one. Believe me—it works.”

  It was genuine advice. This was Patrick trying to help. Colin looked up at him and smiled. “Thanks, Patrick,” he said. “Thanks for coming.”

  “See you, Col,” said Patrick, patting his shoulder as he went.

  Colin finished his whisky and called to the barman for another. Drinking was a rare pursuit; he was no fitness freak, but you couldn’t run at his level and knock back too much of the hard stuff. Tonight he could, because it was over.

  Trust Patrick only to be able to think in terms of another woman. The effect on his marriage had been the same, though, as Patrick had pointed out.

  He had been deluding himself, making himself ill, trying to prove everyone wrong. He was over the hill, but there were much worse hills. A very lucrative career awaited him in show business. Someone had even asked him if he would play himself in an episode of some sitcom. And he’d been offered a part in a pantomime, of all things.

  All right, his fame might last the fabled fifteen minutes, but the advertising people paid very silly money to so-called celebrities during those fifteen minutes, and he was one. He could make certain of a secure financial future if it only lasted a couple of years.

  Or he could carry on teaching. Or he could go back to teaching, once the public had tired of him and moved on to someone else. His career problems would be other people’s dreams.

  So if everything was so rosy, why was he sitting here getting drunk? He knew why. Because a man’s wife ought to take his side.

  Because he wasn’t jumping on her every night in life, because she had seen one letter from a besotted teenager, because she had listened to one over-zealous cop, Erica had leapt to the conclusion that he had been with Natalie. That wasn’t right. It was all wrong.

  So he would just have another drink instead of thinking about it. He drained his glass and went to the bar.

  “Another,” he said. “Make this one a double.”

  “They’re all doubles,” said the barman.

  “Have that on me,” said a voice. “And I’ll have the same, whatever it is.”

  Colin looked up to see a bearded man whom he had never seen before in his life.

  “You will have a drink with me, won’t you, Mr. Cochrane?” he said. “Will Marlow, Stansfield Courier.”

  “Yes, all right,” said Colin. He had had twice as much to drink as he had thought he’d had, but it hadn’t really affected him. He could handle a local reporter, and he wanted company. “Why not?”

  Marlow was a very big tipper, he noticed, as the barman pocketed a note of substantial denomination. But it was none of his business what Mr. Marlow did with his money.

  “You again.”

  Patrick shrugged. “I wanted to see how you were,” he said.

  “You saw how I was at lunchtime,” said Erica.

  “Your husband hadn’t been taken in for questioning at lunchtime. I was worried about you.”

  Erica stiffened. “You know about that?”

  Patrick smiled a little. “Everyone knows about that,” he said. “It was Victoria who told me. It’s all over the town. Colin’s famous, remember.”

  Didn’t she know it? If he wasn’t on television, silly little girls wouldn’t throw themselves at him, and they wouldn’t be in this mess.

  “Do I get to come in?”

  She sighed. “Not if you’re going to make a pass at me,” she said. “I don’t need that on top of everything else.” It was a lie; she felt she probably needed that more than she ever had. The warmth and protection of someone’s arms would be very welcome indeed.

  But not Patrick’s, however attractive he could be. Colin was a friend of Patrick’s; that was what had stopped her in the past, and to let it happen now would be extreme folly, whatever Colin had done.

  “No passes,” he said. “You will remain a nut I failed to crack.” He smiled.

  “Very romantic. Come in, then. Give the neighbours something else to talk about.”

  “I’m here on Victoria’s orders,” he said. “She wanted to let you know that we’re here if you need us.” He walked in, and Sherry, as ever, trotted over to him, tail wagging.

  “Hello, boy,” he said. “Are you looking after your mistress?”

  Erica closed the door. “Are you looking after yours?” she asked.

  Patrick looked up quickly. “What does that mean?” he asked.

  “You told me not to land you in it with Victoria,” she said. “I presume you were somewhere you shouldn’t have been last night.”

  He smiled and sat down, complete with adoring dog, who leant against his legs. “Ah, well,” he said. “You know me. Nothing heavy, though—not a mistress. Just a friend.”

  Erica shook her head. “Do you want a drink?” she asked.

  “No, thanks. And I honestly did come to see how you are,” he said. “And Colin. What did the police want with him?”

  Erica poured herself a gin and tonic. “I really don’t know,” she said.

  “He’s not still at the police station, is he?” asked Patrick, horrified.

  “I don’t know that either.” She looked at Patrick’s worried face and relented. He did seem to have come to offer moral support. “Colin won’t be coming back tonight, whether they let him go or not,” she said. “I don’t know if he’s ever coming back.”

  Patrick obviously didn’t know which piece of information to deal with first. “What do you mean, whether they let him go or not?” he said. “And why isn’t he coming back? Have you two had some sort of row? Surely they don’t think he had anything to do with it?”

  The poor man didn’t know where to start with the questions. But she could give him some answers. She wanted to; she needed someone to talk to. Patrick, incorrigible womanizer that he was, was easy to talk to; she had spent all summer unburdening herself to him.

  “He’s gone to a hotel,” she said. “I think they will have let him go. They have to, surely? He didn’t kill Natalie.”

  Patrick frowned. “Do they think he did?” he asked.

  She sat down and took a sip of her drink before she spoke. “I think,” she said slowly, “that Colin was having an affair with Natalie. I don’t know what the police wanted with him, but I expect they’ve found out. It was nothing I said,” she added quickly, in case Patrick thought that.

  “No, of course not,” he said, absently playing with Sherry’s ear. “I know you thought he’d been seeing someone, but …” He shook his head. “Is that what the row was about?” he asked gently.

  She shrugged. “I don’t even know if you’d call it a row,” she said. “I know what he’s been doing, and he won’t admit it. He insists he’s been training. His coach knows nothing about it.”

  Patrick smiled suddenly. “Thank God you’re not my wife,” he said.

  “And if he really was running the way he says he is, it would be wrong. It isn’t what you’re supposed to do,” said Erica. “I told you there was someone else. You kept saying I was wrong.”

  “Sure, you only got married in March,” said Patrick, and tickled the dog, who rolled over. “Even I took a bit longer than that to start looking round. And I wasn’t married to you.”

  “Patrick,” she warned.

  He smiled. “Ah, you can’t blame a man for trying,” he said. “Especially when you’ve just told him your old man’s away for the night.”

  She had, hadn’t she? She looked at him. “You promised,” she said.

  “All right, let’s talk about you. How did you find o
ut it was Natalie?” he asked.

  Erica shook her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I just know it was. But Colin didn’t kill her, Patrick,” she said.

  “No, of course not,” said Patrick. “Colin couldn’t hurt a fly, I know that.” He stopped tickling the dog, who whimpered. “You don’t think the police really believe he did, do you?” he asked.

  Erica shrugged. “They might,” she said. “They took his running things away.” She took another drink. “But even if they do, I don’t see how they can prove it, because he didn’t.”

  Patrick sat back. “I’ll do anything I can to help,” he said. “I don’t know if there is anything, but if you think of something, just say the word.”

  He meant it. He would probably say that Colin was with him, and get his lady friend to agree, if she asked him to. But she couldn’t ask him to do anything like that. She smiled. “Thank you,” she said.

  “I could give you a cuddle, which you look as though you need,” he said. He got up with some difficulty, as Sherry was extremely reluctant to get off his feet, and almost fell, landing beside her on the sofa. “That was supposed to be smooth,” he said, laughing. “Come here and have a hug.”

  She allowed herself to be cradled in his arms.

  “You know,” he said, “if that husband of yours doesn’t want you, then he’s a fool.”

  He kissed her then, like he had at lunchtime, and she didn’t try to stop him this time either. Little kisses, on her eyes, on her cheekbones, on the corner of her mouth. But this time no one came to interrupt them, and affection turned to arousal, the kisses from friendly to frantic.

  She couldn’t, she mustn’t, let it happen. She broke away. “You said you wouldn’t do this,” she said.

  He moved away from her immediately, holding up his hands in surrender. “Sorry,” he said.

  It had been a long time since anyone had wanted her so much; it hadn’t been easy to call a halt. Erica stood up and got her clothes back into a semblance of order, then looked at him. “I think you should go,” she said.

  “Ah, you’re not offended, are you?” he asked, looking up at her.

  She shook her head. She wasn’t offended.

  “I could stay if you like,” he said. “Just for the crack. No funny business, hanky-panky, jiggery-pokery, not if you don’t want it.” He grinned. “Mind, I’m a chronic liar,” he added.

  She laughed, and the tension was broken. She was glad. She hadn’t meant to hurt his feelings.

  “Go home to Victoria,” she said.

  As soon as he had gone, she wished she had let him stay.

  Patrick went home to Victoria, as advised, to find her already in bed.

  “Where have you been?” she asked when he went up. “And don’t lie to me, Patrick.”

  “With Colin,” he said. “He’s in a bad way. The police think he had something to do with that little girl, and so it seems, does Erica.”

  “Was she there?”

  “No,” said Patrick, getting undressed. “Colin’s staying at the Derbyshire.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “So Erica was on her own, was she? And you didn’t pop round to see how she was?”

  “No,” he said. “I was with Colin. I left him getting drunk.”

  He told her enough of what Colin had said to remove some of the doubt about where he had been, but distrust still hung in the air. He reached for her as soon as she put out the bedside lamp; he needed the release after his aborted seduction of Erica, and, besides, it helped to allay suspicion still further. But his mind was on other things.

  He had about four days, according to Colin. Four days in which it was essential to get Erica on his side. She hadn’t told Colin what she had seen, that much was obvious. Colin had no idea why she thought he’d been with Natalie last night—he was blaming the police for putting the idea into her head.

  Thank God for the Cochranes’ crumbling relationship, their chronic lack of communication; that was all he could say. It had bought him time, and he desperately needed that. Erica wouldn’t be a problem—it was just a question of how best to achieve his ends, how to make certain of her.

  Not like this, he thought, even if she was panting for it. She would feel guilty afterwards, and she would blame him. That was the last thing he needed; she had to want to help him, and that meant making a clean breast of everything before Colin came waving his proof at her.

  So, friendship had to be the key; she needed a friend right now, even a flawed friend. She was on her own, with rumours and accusations flying round about her husband. And they were friends; hadn’t he respected her wishes and behaved like a perfect gentleman once she had said a final no?

  He could have pushed it; this could just as easily be Erica. But that would have been a mistake. Her rejection of him had been a good thing, in a way.

  Natalie’s letters. Were they a good or a bad thing? She hadn’t written to him, he was glad to say, but maybe the compromising letters started once you’d finished with her. He could imagine her doing something like that to get her own back. They had to be a good thing as far as he was concerned, really, because the police would think that they had crossed this married teacher that they knew about off their list.

  That girl who saw him on the Green obviously hadn’t said anything yet. It looked as though she intended keeping quiet, or she would have told the police, surely. She must just be keeping well out of it, sensible girl.

  It was the luck of the Irish, it had to be, because not one potential witness had come forward, despite all the appeals on the local radio.

  His body worked vigorously, his mind on all the pitfalls he’d avoided, all the close shaves. It was stimulating, living this close to the edge. Because he was going to be all right. He was. His enjoyable life wasn’t going to be ruined by any promiscuous … little … slut like Natalie.

  He rolled away from Victoria, breathing hard. He was going to be all right.

  “In answer to your earlier question,” Lloyd said, breaking the long, golden silence. “No. You’re not boring me.”

  Judy sat up and smiled. “I needed you,” she said simply, and kissed him.

  It was patently true, but he chose to affect disbelief. “Oh, sure,” he said. “That’s why you’re so desperate to move in with me. Because you need me so much.”

  “You know I do,” she said, lying back beside him.

  “That’s what you said before. But I don’t know you do, do I?” He sat up then, and looked down at her. “If I said that either we live together or we call it a day, what would you do?” he asked.

  “I’d move in with you,” she said promptly. “But you wouldn’t issue an ultimatum like that,” she added.

  “Wouldn’t I? What makes you so sure about that?”

  She clasped her hands behind his neck. “Because you’re too unselfish.”

  He took her hands away, held them. “And you’re too selfish,” he said.

  “I know.” She looked penitent.

  “One day,” he said, “I might have had enough of being unselfish, and then where will you be?” He pulled her up to him, and held her close to him, triumphantly glad that she wasn’t some WCI from Northumbria.

  But he wanted it to be like this all the time, and he never lost an opportunity to remind her of his ultimate objective. Her answer was that it wouldn’t be like this all the time, as if he didn’t know that. But he wanted that; he wanted to go to bed with her simply in order to sleep, he wanted them to grow used to one another.

  “What would you do then?” he whispered mischievously in her ear. “If one day you discovered that I had had enough, and had just upped and gone?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “You take me for granted,” he said. “And you’ll miss me when I’ve gone—you see if you don’t.”

  “Don’t even say it,” she said, her voice indistinct.

  Startled, he pulled back to look at her. “Judy?” he said. “I wasn’t being—” He broke off. There wer
e tears in her eyes. Tears.

  “Please,” she said as they fell. “Please, don’t even say it.”

  He had never even seen Judy cry, and now he had made her cry, when that was the very last thing he had meant to do.

  “I couldn’t bear it if you left me,” she said.

  He stared at her, at cool, capable, together Judy, truly distressed by a throwaway remark that had meant nothing, and he didn’t know what to do, except put his arms round her and hug her to him.

  “We’ll do anything you like,” she said, through the tears. “Get married, live together, whatever you want.”

  He had waited years to hear her say that. But not like this. Not because of a threat he hadn’t meant, and would never dream of carrying out. Not under some sort of duress.

  “No,” he said. “No. I don’t want you to do that. I want you to feel right about it. I’m not going to leave you, you daft bat.”

  She drew back. “Is that the truth?” she asked, still tearful.

  “I’d never leave you,” he said. “Never.”

  At last she relaxed a little, and he wiped her tears with his hand. “I’ve no intention of leaving you,” he said. “I wasn’t being serious, Judy—I wasn’t even pretending to be serious.”

  “Sorry,” she whispered.

  “I should think you are,” said Lloyd. “Have some flat champagne.”

  How like Judy to offer him what he most wanted in circumstances which made it impossible to accept. But he had really shaken her, and he had never meant to do that. He didn’t partake of the flat champagne, but he made Judy drink hers for its medicinal value, which she did, slowly, not speaking, lost in thought.

  He watched her until she put the glass down. “Tell me what you’re thinking,” he said, not expecting to be told.

  She looked at him as if she was only now becoming aware of his presence again. “I was just wondering how I ever got this lucky,” she said, the tears still not far away.

  “Luck had nothing to do with it,” he said, lying back and drawing her down to him. “It was your cleverly worded ad that did it.”

  She smiled at last. “Go on,” she said. “I’ll buy it.”