by Jill McGown
‘We’ll make enquiries,’ said Lloyd. ‘And … how did you know that Rachel Bailey had spent the weekend in London?’
That was one of the questions Curtis had been waiting for; he had realized that Lloyd would jump on it as soon as he heard it. ‘Your sergeant must have told me,’ he said to Inspector Hill.
‘He didn’t know himself when he spoke to you,’ she said.
He’d thought of that, too. ‘ Someone else, then. One of Bailey’s employees, probably. I spoke to a lot of people.’
‘Thank you, Mr Law,’ said Lloyd. ‘Now we would like to see the videos.’
‘Yes, sure. Just … take a seat.’ Curtis put the video in, pressed the play button, and they watched the soundless film.
Arriving at the farm. Curtis himself getting out, using the phone. The road ahead as they drove through the opening gate, up to the farmhouse. Then a mishmash of sweeps as Gary got out, running with the camera. The open front door, the hallway, lit only by the light from the sitting room, rendering the picture non-existent until the camera made an adjustment for the light and the closed box of the alarm-control panel and Bailey’s office door came into focus; the camera swivelling round as Gary went into the sitting room. What looked like a blank screen until the camera adjusted again, then Bailey’s body in long shot, followed by an unsteady zoom in. The camera moved round to Rachel, frightened out of her wits, saying something, looking bewildered and hurt, before the picture went haywire again.
‘That’s it,’ Curtis said. And you wanted to see Gary’s shots of people going to the house on Sunday, is that right?’ He reached behind him for the video, and put that one in, watching as various people tried to effect an entry to the farm. ‘What’s he doing there?’ he asked, as he saw one visitor he recognized. ‘He’s a debt collector.’ He ran it through to the next visitor. ‘She’s a member of SOWS,’ he said. The next startled him even more than the debt collector had. ‘That one … he’s a repo man. Collects cars. I did a piece on him.’
He looked at his visitors. ‘Was Bailey in financial difficulties?’ he asked, but he hadn’t expected them to answer, and they didn’t. He was already mentally rewriting his lunchtime bulletin. ‘ If he was,’ he said, ‘ why on earth didn’t he just sell the place?’ He ran the tape further on; a couple more people came and went, but there was nothing of interest, until Mike McQueen, who spoke briefly on the gate phone, and was allowed in.
‘Can I get you anything?’ he asked. ‘We’ve got some cans of Coke in the fridge.’
‘Thank you,’ said Inspector Hill.
‘I don’t suppose I could beg a cup of tea, could I?’ said Lloyd. ‘I overslept, and I can’t function without one.’
‘Sure.’
Curtis went into the little kitchen, and put the kettle on. Why hadn’t Rachel told him that Bailey was in debt? He had to be, with these two calling on him on a Sunday. He was meeting her at the flat at lunch-time; they had decided that would be best, rather than his going to the farm, because the police wouldn’t be crawling all over it. He’d ask her. Maybe she hadn’t known about it. He threw a tea bag into a mug, and drummed his fingers on the worktop, waiting for the kettle to boil.
‘Why are you having diplomatic tea?’
Lloyd didn’t drink other people’s tea; he maintained that no one knew how to make a decent cup of tea except him. And he hadn’t overslept; she had. She always liked to give herself time in the morning, but Lloyd got up at the last minute. This morning, they had both done it, causing her to miss breakfast, which hadn’t bothered her as much as it might. She had been feeling a little queasy in the mornings, and had given it a miss once or twice lately.
She had waited until Lloyd was safely out of the flat before returning for something she had deliberately forgotten. Then she had put the testing kit safely in the bathroom cabinet, and had caught Lloyd up, promising herself that she really would do it. Tonight.
When she had arrived at the station, she had switched off her engine just as the local news had come on; she had put the radio back on and had listened to the reaction to Law on the Law. Mostly people complaining about the programme, rather than the policing, she had been gratified to hear. She had got out of her car quickly as she had seen Lloyd leave his, so that they would meet whatever reception Lloyd was going to get together, because he had still been convinced that everyone would be sniggering behind his back. But Law’s overkill approach, his singling out of Lloyd for blame, had turned the whole thing into a them-and-us situation in which there were no shades of grey; Law was a bastard, and Lloyd was a hero.
He had come with her to talk to Curtis Law without giving her an argument, saying he was only too glad to get away from people popping their heads round his door to tell him what they’d like to do to Law if they got their hands on him. But she knew that the show of support had meant a lot more to him than he was saying, and that Lloyd was ready for Law now. Which she wasn’t sure was altogether a good thing.
‘I’d sooner have a Coke, but tea takes longer, and I wanted to talk to you,’ he said, his voice as quiet as hers had been. ‘He smokes and drinks Coca-Cola, you’ll notice,’ he added.
‘So do I,’ said Judy.
‘And did you notice that his instinct is to call Mrs Bailey Rachel?’
‘So do I,’ she said again.
‘And there’s this.’ Lloyd picked up a copy of The Times, the crossword almost complete.
Judy found her father and London coming into her mind again, and tried to push the thoughts away. She must have been born with some sort of homing instinct, like salmon; she was being compelled to return to her spawning grounds to reproduce.
‘Yoo-hoo,’ Lloyd was saying. ‘Ground control to DI Hill.’
‘What?’ She focused on Lloyd. ‘Oh, sorry. I was thinking about something else.’
He smiled. ‘That’s most unlike you, Inspector. Penny for them.’
She would have to be careful. Now that he was no longer preoccupied himself, he would start noticing if she was. ‘I was thinking about my father,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure why. Maybe just because it’s a long time since I’ve been to see my parents.’ She smiled. ‘Linda sees more of them than I do,’ she said guiltily. Lloyd’s daughter had lodged with her parents for a while when she was in London, and still visited them practically every week. Judy sighed, acutely aware of her inadequacies as a daughter, as a life partner, as a potential mother. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘What were you saying?’
‘I was saying – did you get a close enough look to know if these are the same block capitals?’
Judy looked at today’s crossword, and realized why she had thought of her father every time she had looked at yesterday’s. She pointed at it. ‘They’re crossed out left-handed,’ she said. ‘The clues.’
Lloyd frowned. ‘ How do you know?’
‘Right-handed people do it the other way. Bottom left to top right. Left-handed people do it like that. Bottom right to top left. When I was in that room yesterday I kept thinking about home, and I didn’t know why. But it was because of the crossword clues being crossed out like that. My father crosses out the clues as he goes along – and he’s left-handed. It must have registered at the back of my mind.’
‘Have you noticed whether or not Mr Law is left-handed?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘But it won’t be difficult to find out.’
‘And,’ he said, ‘there is one other reason.’
But Judy had to wait to find out what that other reason was as Law came back in.
‘Anything else I can show you?’ he asked.
‘I’d like to see the first tape again, please,’ said Lloyd. ‘ From the top.’
Law obliged, removing the tape that was inside the machine, and inserting the first one again. With his left hand, Judy noted. It was presumably his crossword.
The gate, Law using the phone, the front door, the screen going dark, Bailey’s office door …
‘Pause it, please.’ The picture froze on
the door, and Lloyd looked at Law. ‘How did you see cash or anything else in Mr Bailey’s safe when – as is quite evident on the still displayed on your video – his office door was closed when you arrived at the farmhouse?’
Law stared at the screen, then looked back at Lloyd. ‘Someone must have opened it after that,’ he said.
‘When? Who? According to you, one officer was calming Mrs Bailey down, and the other was ejecting you and your cameraman.’
‘You don’t think I took the money, do you?’ asked Law incredulously. ‘I know I’m not likely to be at the top of your Christmas-card list, but accusing me of theft seems a little—’
‘No,’ said Lloyd, interrupting him. ‘You would hardly have mentioned it in your report if you had stolen it. But someone took it, and I’m trying to get an idea of when.’
Law shrugged. ‘I’ve already told you what I think happened to it, and that seems to bear me out. The foreman must have gone into the office after the scuffle and left the door open. I must have seen the money as I left.’
‘Perhaps.’ Lloyd picked up the newspaper. ‘I see you do the crossword,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said Law, looking a little confused by the abrupt change of subject.
‘Do you always do it?’
‘Yes.’ His tone was a touch wary. ‘ I’m not one of those three-minute forty-two-seconds men, though,’ he added.
‘No,’ said Lloyd. ‘In fact, you didn’t finish yesterday’s at all, did you?’
Law frowned. ‘ Yesterday’s?’ he repeated.
‘Yesterday morning’s Times was found beside Bernard Bailey’s body,’ said Lloyd. ‘With the crossword half done. By someone left-handed. Mr Bailey didn’t take the Times, he didn’t do crosswords, and while I don’t know which hand he favoured, I know which one you do. I think it was your newspaper, Mr Law.’
Law’s eyes widened, and he hit his forehead. ‘I knew I’d mislaid it,’ he said. ‘I was going to finish the crossword when I got home, and it wasn’t in my pocket. It must have dropped out. I’m sorry.’
‘Where were you at half past two yesterday morning?’
‘I was in bed.’
‘Can anyone confirm that?’
‘No,’ Law said. ‘I live alone. But don’t you think it’s more likely that I dropped it during the scuffle with Bailey’s foreman?’
‘Is it?’
‘Of course it is,’ said Law. ‘ I was doing the crossword when he got the call about Bailey having been murdered. I thought I’d left it in the café, but obviously that’s what happened to it.’
Lloyd smiled. ‘Let’s watch the next bit, Mr Law.’
Law looked less than enthusiastic as he played the video again. The camera swept round, the screen Went almost white, then Bailey’s body and the coffee table appeared. Under it was the newspaper.
‘Pause it.’ Lloyd looked at Law, his eyebrows raised. ‘The paper seems already to be there, Mr Law.’
Law swallowed. ‘So was I,’ he said quickly. ‘I went in first.’
‘Gary will confirm that, will he?’
‘I doubt it. He was trying to keep the camera functioning, as you can see. I doubt if he knows where I was.’
‘But you didn’t lose it in the scuffle, did you?’ said Judy.
‘Obviously not. It must have fallen out of my pocket when I bent down to look at Bailey.’ He looked from Judy to Lloyd. ‘ I’ve confirmed that it was my paper,’ he said. ‘I’ve apologized. Why all the questions?’
‘Oh, just little puzzles, Mr Law.’
‘Well, I hope I’ve cleared them up for you.’
‘Perhaps.’ Lloyd stood up. ‘Good morning, Mr Law. Thank you for your time. But I think we may be having another chat quite soon.’
Judy smiled, when they got back out. ‘You really enjoyed that, didn’t you?’ she said.
‘Yes.’ He smiled back. ‘Do you think he is Rachel’s boyfriend?’
‘I don’t know. Which is why,’ she said, as she got to her car, ‘I’m going to have another word with Nicola Hutchins, because I’m pretty sure she knows who is.’ She shrugged. ‘She won’t be difficult to crack,’ she said, a little guiltily.
Someone who was perfectly prepared, just to get her hands on some money, to live with a man capable of calculated, sadistic violence towards her, was able to make her feel guilty, and Judy wasn’t sure why. But she had walked all over Nicola Hutchins, and she was about to do it again; she didn’t exactly feel proud of her ability to do that. Rachel had spoken of her in the same breath as Bernard Bailey more than once, and Judy hadn’t liked that at all.
‘And I’m going to check out Mr Law’s story,’ said Lloyd grimly. ‘He’s no innocent bystander. He’s no mere reporter of the facts. He didn’t ask me why half past two in the morning was important – he just went straight into his explanation for the paper being there.’
‘But it probably is what happened,’ Judy pointed out.
‘Is it? Would blood have come off the sofa and on to the paper if he’d dropped it when he said he did? Wouldn’t it have been too dry by then? It was certainly dry by the time I got there.’
Judy wasn’t sure. It had been more or less dry when she had seen it, but some might still have got smeared on to the paper.
‘And he didn’t ask me why he would want to kill Bernard Bailey. A disinterested observer would surely have found the suggestion a little odd.’
‘Yes,’ said Judy, thoughtfully. ‘I expect he would.’ And she headed off to speak to Nicola Hutchins.
‘At last.’
‘Sorry, Mr McQueen. Couldn’t get here no sooner,’ she said.
She was wearing a sundress so light and fine and soft that it barely seemed to exist at all. It was short. It was sleeveless. It had probably cost more than Shirley’s entire wardrobe. Mike had never seen her like that; she had always worn modest, if expensive, clothes on her visits to him before.
He held open the study door, and she went in, sitting down at the desk, looking up at him expectantly. ‘What did you want to see me about?’ she asked.
He shook his head. ‘I really fell for it, didn’t I?’ he said, taking a cigar from the box, and walking over to the open French window, his back to her. ‘ Hook, line and sinker’
‘Fell for what?’
He turned back, picked up the matches, and removed the unlit cigar from his mouth. ‘ Such innocence,’ he said. ‘You’re good. You’re very good.’ He walked out on to the terrace, and didn’t turn round when he heard her follow him out. She moved into his line of vision.
‘I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,’ she said.
She had been sunbathing during the heatwave; her skin had tanned, rather than reddened, as you might expect it to, with her colouring. But there were those dark lashes that fringed her eyes, and those dark brown, almost black eyebrows, and Mike supposed that was the explanation; her genes had naturally produced the look that other women used hair dye and eyebrow pencil and mascara to achieve, and they allowed her skin to tan.
He had thought that her attraction would have waned, now that he knew what she was really like. The woman was trying to implicate him in her husband’s murder, and he still wanted her. Her legs were bare and brown, and Mike couldn’t take his eyes off them, as she leaned back against the hideous fakerustic garden table that Shirley had installed, its honest wood turned and varnished and polished, its rough edges smoothed. She had done much the same to him, he supposed, now that he came to think of it.
‘I’m talking about death threats,’ he said. ‘It never crossed my mind that I was being set up to carry the can for a murder.’
She stared at him, her eyes widening. ‘You don’t really think I did that, do you?’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t do that to you, Mr McQueen. You and Mrs McQueen have been good to me.’ She shook her head. ‘I didn’t do that,’ she said slowly, seriously. ‘I didn’t. And I didn’t stab Bernard, neither. I wasn’t even there.’
‘So it was a stroke of good fortune that
someone came and stabbed your husband to death just when I was going to take the other route and you were going to lose out?’
She shrugged a little. ‘Reckon so.’
Mike shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not, pet,’ he said. ‘Because I won’t be buying your land.’ He lit his cigar to give himself something less heady than her perfume to smell. He shook the match out. ‘The police will see I had no motive.’
‘You think if you don’t buy my land the cops’ll just forget ’bout how much you wanted it?’ she said, her voice low and sweet. ‘‘ They might start rememberin’ if I tell them bout the abortion.’
Mike stepped forward in what was intended to be a threatening manner. ‘Are you trying to blackmail me now?’ he asked.
As threats went, it was less than effective. The slow smile began to appear, and her blue eyes twinkled at him. She stepped forward too, her face close to his. ‘ Reckon I am,’ she whispered.
He moved away from her again. ‘Well, it won’t work. I’m not buying your land. Tell the police what you like.’
Still she smiled. Nodded her head a little to acknowledge her failure as a blackmailer. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘ But I didn’t stab Bernard. And I didn’t get you to do them death threats so you’d get into trouble. The death threats didn’t have nothin’ to do with you. I just needed them, that’s all.’
Mike was intrigued, if a little sceptical. ‘Needed them?’ he said.
She leaned back on the table again. ‘ You know Curtis Law?’ she asked.
‘The young man from Aquarius? Yes.’
‘Well, him and me – we’ve been … you know.’
Mike couldn’t remember the last time he had felt a stab of real, green-eyed jealousy. He thought perhaps he never had. He puffed his cigar. Once, he would have thought she was telling him in all innocence, with her Mr McQueen act. Now he knew better. She knew exactly the effect she had on him, had played on it ever since he’d met her.
