by Jill McGown
“Natalie?” said Kim, incredulously.
“You don’t think that’s likely?” asked Patrick.
“No,” she said.
No. She obviously had known Natalie quite well, then. He smiled. “They’re probably wrong,” he said. “But anyway, I think that’s all it is. They’re hoping he can—”
“It isn’t all there is,” said Kim, the words coming out in a rush. “They suspect him because of something I told them. That’s what I want your advice about.” She looked down at her feet, and took another moment before speaking. “At the beginning of the holidays, she told me she was going with a married man,” she said. “A teacher.”
So that was how they had got hold of that. Patrick stood up and went to the window, opening the blinds a little to the evening sun.
“That’s what I told the police,” she said. “And there was that rumour about Mr. Cochrane. That’s why they keep questioning him, because they think it was him she was seeing, but it wasn’t—I know it wasn’t. Because now I’ve remembered something else Natalie said.”
Had she, now.
“She said that he didn’t know she was still at school,” said Kim. “He didn’t know how young she was. So it can’t have been Mr. Cochrane, can it?” she said.
He turned and looked at her. The afternoon light streamed in through the half-closed venetian blinds, casting dusty strips of sunshine over her, neat and demure in her school uniform. He should have guessed that Kim would know all about him—he had heard all about Kim, hadn’t he?
She didn’t look like a blackmailer, but she was, and a very accomplished one at that, telling the police just enough to take the heat off him, then letting him know, oh-so-shyly and hesitantly, that she could just as easily switch it on again.
My God, butter wouldn’t melt, he thought, as she looked earnestly back at him, her eyebrows drawn together as she considered this weighty problem. “I think I ought to tell the police,” she said.
He turned back to the window. He liked schools. He liked them when they were full of teachers and pupils and comings and goings; he liked them when they were quiet, and he was alone in their chalky, echoing rooms. Oakland didn’t use chalk any more, but somehow its dust still seemed to be suspended in the air.
Oakland School suited him admirably; the ancillary staff had been reduced to Erica and the caretaker now that all that came out of the budget. The contract cleaners came in the morning, and the building was always quiet at night.
Tonight it was quieter than ever; all the extra-curricular activities had been suspended, so that the children—my God, no, not children, not if his experience of them was anything to go by—so that the students didn’t have to go home at dusk.
“It could be stopping them finding out what really happened,” she said.
“What is it you want?” he asked, still not looking at her.
“Advice,” she said, still shy, still hesitant.
He smiled. “On whether or not you should go to the police?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He liked schools, he liked Oakland, and he loved teaching. He wanted to have his life the way it was right now, and he had fought hard to keep it. But all that hard work with Erica could go slipping down the drain, with just one word from modest, unassuming Kim.
“No,” he said. “I don’t think you should go to the police.”
He had never been blackmailed before; he knew you were supposed never to give in to it, that it was regarded as the worst crime next to murder, but … well, that rather depended on where you were standing.
Hannah was riding as fast as she knew how towards the school, and Kim, and Mr. Murray, hoping against hope that she could catch Kim before she saw him, but knowing that too much time had elapsed if she really had just been on her way.
Kim had rung while Hannah had been at the doctor’s. She had been wrong, she had said, and that had to be about Colin—it was the only thing they had discussed. Without giving her mother time to object, Hannah had jumped on her bike and headed for the school.
She pedalled furiously; she had to stop Kim telling Murray that she knew it wasn’t Colin who had been with Natalie. Why did she have to go to him, of all people? Because Kim never did anything without checking with someone else first, that was why. And she didn’t know that she was checking with the man who really had been with Natalie.
Breathlessly, desperately, she propelled her bike up Larch Avenue to the rear entrance of the school, cycling illegally round to the front door, the only one open after four-thirty, where she threw down the bike and ran along the corridor to the office.
“Is Kim Walters here?” she asked, skidding to a halt at the open office door.
Erica Cochrane was over by the printer; she jumped at the sound of Hannah’s voice. She had been crying; it was obvious. Good, thought Hannah, her loathing for Mrs. Cochrane transcending even this crisis.
“Has she got short brown hair?” Mrs. Cochrane asked, blinking away tears, trying to sound normal.
“Yes,” said Hannah, still trying to catch her breath, wondering what had happened now that Mrs. Cochrane was in such a state.
“She’s up in the staff room, seeing Mr. Murray.” The last word was lost in a sob.
Hannah wasn’t going up there. She had no wish to meet Mr. Murray. And she needed to know what the matter was with Mrs. Cochrane. “Is there something wrong?” she asked urgently. “Is it Colin?” She felt a little uncomfortable as Mrs. Cochrane looked at her strangely.
“You’re one of those girls that used to hang round the house,” she said, walking towards Hannah as she spoke. “And it’s thanks to people like you that he’s been arrested! Get out. Get out of here.”
Arrested? Hannah stared at her, horrified. But her letter was supposed to stop them thinking that Colin … The paper had said that Colin was in a hotel, of course. The bitch hadn’t given him the letter.
“Just get out!” shouted Mrs. Cochrane. “Just leave me alone! Leave Colin alone! Get out!”
Hannah got out.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Mr. Murray didn’t seem to think it was a good idea to tell the police, but Kim didn’t honestly feel that she could keep what she knew to herself. He had said that perhaps her information wasn’t as valuable as she thought it was, that the police could prove whether or not Mr. Cochrane had been with Natalie on Tuesday night.
She had pointed out that it wasn’t just Tuesday night, or just the police. His wife ought to know that it really couldn’t have been Colin. He had said that Mrs. Cochrane was still in the building—why didn’t she go down with him and tell her what she had just told him?
But she couldn’t. Not straight to her face. He had smiled and said he had thought not. Her information was only valuable when it came to the police.
He had really been very strange; half the time she had no idea what he was talking about. He had asked her what she wanted; she had said that she had just wanted to know if she would be doing the right thing by going to the police with what she knew, because she didn’t want to get anyone else into trouble, not after all the trouble she’d caused Mr. Cochrane.
Natalie would have laughed at her, but she would have helped. Mr. Murray wasn’t laughing, but he wasn’t helping either, not really.
He’d gone back to looking out of the window. Perhaps he thought she might get into trouble for not telling the police in the first place. That hadn’t really occurred to her.
“Do you think I’ll get into trouble?” she asked.
He didn’t turn round, just kept looking out of the window. “Now why would you get into trouble?” he asked.
“Because they’ve spent all this time thinking it was Mr. Cochrane she was seeing, and that’s all my fault. They could have been looking for who it really was.”
“Oh, but you’ve only just remembered, haven’t you?” he said. “So that’s not your fault, is it?” He sighed. “Let’s stop this nonsense. How much do you—?” He broke off. “Kim,” he s
aid urgently, beckoning her over to the window.
She got up and walked over a little nervously.
“Do you know that girl?” he asked.
Hannah stood with her bike by one of the trees lining the driveway round to the rear of the school.
“Oh, yes,” Kim said. “That’s Hannah.”
He opened the window, and called Hannah’s name. She looked up.
“Wait there!” he shouted. “Wait there!” He turned to Kim. “Will you do me a favour?” he asked. “Will you wait here? I’ve just got to—” He broke off. “Will you? I won’t mess you around anymore. Just trust me. I’ll be back.”
“All right,” she said, bemused, and he was off.
She frowned and looked out of the window to where Hannah had been, but she was gone, cycling as fast as she could up the incline to the rear exit, past the virtually empty car park. She obviously had no intention of waiting for Mr. Murray, whose feet Kim could hear rattling down the stairs.
She saw the car back out just as Hannah passed; she shouted uselessly, saw Hannah swerve and tumble off the bike just as the car hit it. Mrs. Cochrane got out and rushed to where Hannah was getting up. She was all right; she was standing, Mrs. Cochrane’s arm round her shoulders as she helped her into the car. After a moment it moved off up the drive, and Kim saw Mr. Murray rounding the corner of the building just as the car disappeared. She had no desire to continue her strange conversation with him; Hannah was obviously frightened of him for some reason, and it was very odd, him not wanting her to go to the police. Kim followed Hannah’s example, running down as fast as she could to beat him to the front door, then carrying on towards home.
“Why didn’t you take your latest theory out for a test drive first?” Judy asked Lloyd, when they were alone in his office.
Lloyd smiled. “I must have got out of the habit,” he said. “But it was possible. There’s always been some doubt about the sex and the violence being perpetrated by the same man.”
Judy frowned. “Do you ‘perpetrate’ sex?” she asked.
“Not very often,” said Lloyd.
He was too far away to be hit. And his theory still presupposed that Natalie had written those letters. Today’s letter rather bore out Judy’s contention that Natalie had not, Judy would have thought, since poor little Natalie was dead by the time it was perpetrated.
“Mrs. Cochrane could have produced that letter herself, as Finch pointed out,” said Lloyd.
Judy sighed. “Let me ask the question before you answer it,” she said.
“The fact is,” said Lloyd, “that Erica Cochrane must at the very least have seen her husband’s car leaving, which she didn’t tell us, so she’s obviously protecting him—what we have to find out is to what extent.”
True. “But the letter just got him into worse trouble,” Judy said.
“But she didn’t know that it would,” argued Lloyd. “It distanced Cochrane from Natalia, and gave him an alibi—that’s all she was thinking about, if she did do it.”
“But he clearly didn’t want an alibi,” said Judy.
“No. And I think that that’s because he really wasn’t there,” said Lloyd. “That Murray was driving his car, and that Murray killed her, just like Freddie said.”
Judy had found Murray rather attractive; she had difficulty casting him in the role of murderer. “I like him,” she said. “He doesn’t behave like a psychopath.”
“Neither did Christie.”
No.
“This woman who says she saw Natalie get into Colin Cochrane’s car,” Judy said. “I’ll tell Bob we want a description of the driver, if it’s a genuine sighting.”
“With any luck she’ll know whether or not it was Colin Cochrane, at least,” said Lloyd.
“So she will,” said Judy. “I keep forgetting he’s famous.”
“I don’t,” said Lloyd, with an enigmatic smile.
Lloyd was being mysterious again and, when Murray was brought in, declined Judy’s invitation to come and talk to him on the grounds that he had to wait for Tom coming back.
Judy walked along to the interview room, unsure of the line she intended taking with Murray; it was this indecision that had prompted the invitation. “Mr. Murray,” she said. “Thank you for coming in—and for letting us take your fingerprints.”
Murray smiled. “I wasn’t too sure if I had a choice,” he said.
“We all have choices,” said Judy, sitting down, trying to remember that she might be talking to Natalie’s killer.
“Oh, we do,” agreed Murray. “And invariably make the wrong ones.”
“Interview with Patrick Joseph Murray,” she said, glancing at the clock. “Commencing nineteen hours fifteen. Present are DI Hill, DC Marshall. Could you say your name for the tape, please?” she asked.
“Patrick Murray,” he said, and listened gravely to his rights.
“Now,” said Judy. “Mr. Cochrane has told us that he couldn’t start his car on Tuesday evening, and that you agreed to look at it for him.”
“That’s correct—as I told this gentleman here.”
“Yes. Did you return the keys to Mr. Cochrane?”
“In a manner of speaking. I left them under a sort of plant pot thing at the back gate. Because the caretaker would have gone by the time Colin came back, you see—in fact, he’d gone by the time I’d finished.” He smiled as DI Hill wrote that down. “I thought you had the tape for all that now?” he said, pointing to her notebook.
“Bad memory,” she said. “I got into the habit.” Then she glanced down at it. “Mr. Cochrane’s car was seen at a time when he claims not to have been driving it,” she said. “Did you drive it that evening, Mr. Murray?”
Murray shook his head. “I got in and started the engine,” he said. “Made sure I’d fixed it. That’s all. I drove it along the drive at the school, and reversed back into his parking space.”
“You didn’t drive it on the road?”
“No,” said Murray.
“Perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling us where you were at five minutes to ten on Tuesday evening?” Judy asked.
Murray appeared to be trying to dredge up the details of Tuesday evening; Judy was much too used to Lloyd to be taken in by that.
“Five to ten?” he repeated. “I’d be at home, I expect.”
Judy looked at Marshall.
“The thing is,” Marshall said slowly, like he said everything, “when I went to ask you to come here, I went to your house first. Your wife said you’d still be at the school—that’s how we knew where to find you.”
Patrick Murray smiled. “Yes,” he said, encouragingly.
“And I asked your wife what time you got home on Tuesday evening,” he said. “I said you might be a witness to something I was investigating. She thought it was nearer half past ten when you got in.”
“Ah, then, she’ll be right,” said Murray, not a bit put out.
“So—perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling us where you were?” repeated Judy.
Murray looked like a small boy who had been caught trying to steal sweets. “That’s just it,” he said. “I would. I really would mind. You see … I was with a friend.”
“Does she have a name, this friend?” asked Marshall.
“Oh, she does indeed. But I don’t want to tell you her name.” He lifted his head helplessly. “So where does that leave us?” he asked.
Judy wasn’t entirely sure where it left them. Hang on to him, she had been told by Lloyd. Don’t let him go. She had pointed out that she could hardly arrest him on what they had, but Lloyd had put touching faith in her ability to persuade the man to stay.
Victoria Murray had indeed told Marshall that her husband had come home at ten-thirty; she had added that he had almost certainly been with another woman. She had confirmed that he had told her that he had been mending Cochrane’s car. “The idiot’s got himself involved in something because he can’t stop lying,” she had said. “Not because he was murdering anyone.”
Murray shook his head. “Doubt it,” he said. “Even the caretaker had gone, as I said.”
“Larch Avenue is quite a long street,” she said.
Murray looked slightly puzzled. “Yes,” he agreed. “And steep. I pity the kids puffing their way up there on their bikes. Mind, they shouldn’t smoke so much.”
“It could take us quite a while to organize a door-to-door, to see if anyone saw the car being driven out of the school, and by whom.”
He nodded. “And you’d probably not find anyone who did,” he said. “They’d all be watching the telly between eight and ten. There was a good film on.”
“So I believe,” said Judy, and looked him in the eye. “Who were you with, Mr. Murray?”
“I don’t know if you have ever indulged in an extra-marital relationship,” Murray said. “But secrecy is … well, paramount. And since I know that telling you the lady’s name will not advance your investigation one iota—if you can advance an iota—I would really much rather not say.”
“Who were you with?” asked Judy.
Murray nodded over to the tape. “At the beginning of this interview, you said I didn’t have to answer any questions,” he said. “I’m choosing not to answer that one—all right?”
“Then perhaps you won’t mind answering some questions about Mr. Cochrane’s car,” she said. “We’d like to know exactly what was wrong with it, and exactly what you did with it.”
It was, she discovered, an inspired choice of question, even if it had been asked out of sheer desperation. The answer was, to her, incomprehensible, but Marshall was interested, and it was going on for ever.
Lloyd waited impatiently for Tom. Judy couldn’t hang on to Murray for much longer, not unless he’d confessed to the whole thing, and that seemed less than likely.
