Picture of Innocence

by Jill McGown

  ‘Then you switched the alarms back on, pushed the phone back into the socket, gave the now comatose Mr Bailey his key back, and stuck the knife into him four times. When you had done that, you took your newspaper, and you smeared it with blood, and left it lying on the floor.’ Lloyd perched on the corner of the table. ‘This was the window dressing. And it was done for three reasons. One was to make me suspect you of a murder that never happened, the second was to leave a clue that would give you an alibi for the real murder, and the third was to give Rachel Bailey a real, honest-to-God fright.’

  And it had worked, Curtis thought. On all counts.

  ‘This time you ran the tape back thirteen minutes,’ said Lloyd. ‘Not to remove the recording of your arrival as before, and as you would subsequently say, but rather to mask the fact that you had not arrived by the gate, which was, of course, going to be your story. Because the longer Bailey had appeared to remain conscious, the later he would be assumed to have been given the drugs, which would have the effect of isolating Nicola Hutchins as his murderer.’ He got off the table. ‘ Then you left by the front gate, concealing your identity to some extent, but knowing that you would be faintly recognizable, and that together with all the other clues, you were certain to be suspected of the murder of Bernard Bailey.’

  Curtis lit a fresh cigarette.

  ‘And it was, you thought, foolproof. The worst that could happen would be that Nicola would find Bailey, and get help in time to save him. Then when Bailey recovered and accused you, you would simply deny ever having been there, and you would have an alibi to prove it. However, none of that happened. As far as you were concerned, everything had gone as hoped for. But it hadn’t, Mr Law. It hadn’t.’

  Presumably Rachel had been right. Nicola had found her father. So what? She hadn’t done anything about it. Curtis had been a bit worried about how long Nicola had been in the house, but not too worried, because nothing had come of it. He had assumed that Nicola had thought her father was drunk, and that Rachel had been involved in his subsequent stabbing; that she had said nothing in order not to get Rachel into trouble. But he had known that she would crack, that she would tell them in the end about seeing the car, and that the hotel car-park videos would apparently prove she was lying.

  ‘You thought Bailey would still be unconscious by the time his daughter left, but she, afraid of offending him, waited longer than you thought, and Bailey was conscious and lucid long enough to get himself from the kitchen to the sitting room, long enough to try to tell Nicola what you’d done to him, and long enough to issue a final threat. And that was the straw that broke the camel’s back, Mr Law. The worm turned. But you weren’t to know that.’

  Curtis didn’t know what he was going on about with his camels and worms. He was still waiting to see some evidence.

  ‘So you thought it had worked. But in order for me to suspect you, you had to catch my attention, didn’t you, Mr Law? So you did a voice-over for the news report, mentioning money in a safe that you couldn’t have seen through a closed door. You knew Gary would get the camera rolling as soon as he got to the farm, and we would confiscate the tape, and, of course, watch it – video of a murder scene is very helpful. And the first thing the camera would see would be the closed door to Bernard Bailey’s office.’

  Curtis didn’t react at all.

  ‘What you didn’t know; Lloyd went on, ‘was that the money wasn’t there any more. And what you still don’t know is that it was Nicola Hutchins who removed it.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘We have two statements, Mr Law. One is from a Jack Melville, who called on Mr Bailey at ten o’clock on Sunday evening in which he says that he gave Mr Bailey four thousand six hundred pounds, and one is from Nicola Hutchins, who says that she removed four thousand six hundred pounds from Mr Bailey’s safe at about midnight that same evening. And if you saw that money, Mr Law, then you couldn’t possibly have been on the eleven-thirty from St Pancras.’

  Was that it? Were they going to have to rely on Nicola Hutchins giving evidence? Someone who stole from her own father? Someone who would agree that the moon was made of green cheese if it meant avoiding an argument? Someone who every now and then lost it altogether? Curtis smiled. ‘ How do you know she removed it at midnight?’ he said. ‘She could have put the alarms off. She could have come back later, once she was certain he would be in a coma, gone in the back way, and taken the money after I stabbed him. A good brief would get her admitting that in five minutes flat.’

  ‘For the tape,’ said Lloyd, ‘I am shaking my head. A good brief would know that she couldn’t possibly have done that. How did she leave? If she had left the back way, the alarms would have had to remain off. If she left the front way, she would have been on the video.’

  Shit, shit. Curtis thought furiously. ‘How do you know Rachel didn’t turn the alarms hack on when she got home?’ he said, beginning to hear a note of desperation in his voice. ‘ Just because she says they were on doesn’t mean they were. You can’t trust her an inch. She and Nicola could be in this together.’

  ‘But the alarms were on when we got there,’ said Lloyd. ‘And when Bernard Bailey was examined by the pathologist, the key to them was in his shirt pocket. That key was in there when he was stabbed, Mr Law. And no one had removed it, because it was covered in undisturbed blood. Therefore the alarms were reset before you stabbed Bailey. No one turned them on after that. Mrs Hutchins took the money when she says she did, and you were not on that train.’

  Curtis closed his eyes. Sod’s Law. Sod’s Law had got him. Law on Sod’s Law, he thought. Maybe he could do a series when he got out of prison.

  ‘But.’ Lloyd reached down, and picked up a video. ‘ Thanks to Inspector Hill, we can prove that by more solid means.’

  Barton station concourse, timed at eleven twenty-five, when the station was busy with people catching last trains. Curtis watched as he walked into camera range in a crowd of other people. There simply wasn’t a way on to Barton station by which you could avoid the cameras, but he had taken precautions. He had worn a different hooded jacket from the one he had been wearing when he had left Bailey’s farm, and had ditched it on platform three.

  With the hood up, he couldn’t be picked out from the crowd just by running through the security videos, because his face was in shadow. He had given Rachel the Roger Wheeler disguise, because there was no way in the world that he was recognizable on the video as it stood. So how the hell had they picked him out? But they had. They could, and would enhance it.

  ‘It’s good to know, isn’t it,’ said Lloyd, ‘that there are some honest people left in the world. An anorak was found on platform three, Mr Law, and handed to a member of staff, who handed it in to Lost Property, as we saw when we were anxious to prove that you were on that train. And it occurred to me that it was a very warm night on which to have worn such a garment. Inspector Hill even found herself reflecting that she had only seen one other person wearing a hooded jacket recently, and that had been to conceal his identity. She remembered that, Mr Law, when we began to piece things together.’

  Curtis crushed out his cigarette.

  ‘It was, as I’ve just said, a very warm night. Once they knew what to look for, it took the station security staff no time at all to find you, because absolutely no one else was wearing a jacket with the hood up. And, of course, as I’m sure you know, security video pictures can be enhanced. We’re assured that this one will blow up quite effectively, and that quite enough of your face is showing for you to be identified.’

  He knew that.

  ‘Unfortunately, that was the one thing that Sergeant Finch couldn’t arrange in time for this interview, but we know that’s you, Mr Law, and we are going to prove it, make no mistake about that.’

  Curtis was under no illusions about the weight of Lloyd’s evidence, but there was even more.

  ‘A bonus,’ said Lloyd. ‘The jacket has gone to forensic. The hood yielded two head-hairs. So if you want to fight t
his, Mr Law, your brief will have to challenge not just the unstable Mrs Hutchins, but documentary evidence, video evidence, and forensic evidence, all proving beyond a doubt that your alibi was faked. And I believe there can only be one reason for faking an alibi for murder. But that will be up to the jury to decide.’

  It was happening. It really was. This wasn’t a nightmare. This was for real.

  ‘So that’s why you’re sitting here. Because Inspector Hill doesn’t miss a trick, and because Nicola Hutchins, whose total lack of confidence in herself you hoped to exploit, whom you hoped to frame for murder, defied her father for the first time in her life.’

  Curtis nodded. He wasn’t going to try to deny anything. They had enough evidence to sink him. But he wasn’t going down alone. ‘I trust you’ve arrested her, too,’ he said.

  ‘Who?’ asked Lloyd.

  ‘You know damn well who!’ shouted Curtis. ‘You can’t play favourites! I did it for her. And she had better be charged too, or you’ll be in deep shit.’

  Lloyd looked faintly puzzled. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Who are we talking about?’

  ‘My accomplice, Mr Lloyd,’ said Curtis. As you’ve just demonstrated, I couldn’t be in two places at once.’

  ‘Ah, yes, your accomplice,’ said Lloyd, and picked up another tape, replacing the one already in with the new one.

  The station concourse once again. People coming through the doors from the platform. Lloyd froze the picture. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it has to be one of these people. Which of them would you like me to arrest?’

  ‘Rachel Bailey is the one carrying the hand luggage,’ said Curtis, through his teeth.

  ‘Oh, the girl who walked past the taxis?’ said Lloyd. ‘Is she?’ He got up and bent over, peering at the screen. ‘Are you sure?’ he said. ‘You can’t see her face with that sunhat, and of course, she’s walking away from the camera, unlike you, so there’s no point in enhancing the video still, because we’d just get a better picture of her hat. But anyway, she’s got long dark hair, and she must be at least a size larger than Rachel Bailey. What do you think, Inspector?’

  DI Hill looked over at the screen, and spoke for the very first time. ‘At least,’ she said. ‘Maybe two sizes larger.’

  ‘She’s wearing the padded waistcoat and wig that I used as Roger Wheeler,’ said Curtis. As if you needed telling.’

  ‘Well!’ said Lloyd, shaking his head. ‘I’d never have recognized her. Indeed, I didn’t recognize her, when I saw this video before.’ He took off his glasses and looked at Curtis. And you know something? I don’t think anyone else would recognize her. I’ve a feeling that she will deny absolutely that it is her. And there won’t be much we can do about that if she does.’

  Curtis stared at him. ‘Are you saying you’re going to let her get away with this?’

  ‘No,’ said Lloyd. ‘Not if she’s involved, and we can prove it. What I’m saying is that that isn’t evidence of her involvement that would stand up in court. So unless she admits that she is this woman …’ He shrugged. ‘Do you think she will?’

  Curtis turned to Inspector Hill. ‘Then I’ll ask you what you asked me,’ he said. ‘How did I know she would ring the café? If I didn’t leave her the mobile, if I didn’t ring her at the hotel, then she already knew to do that, didn’t she?’

  Inspector Hill nodded. ‘If you didn’t ring her at the hotel,’ she said. ‘But as you pointed out yourself, we have absolutely no proof that you didn’t leave her the mobile. What you did or did not do with the mobile won’t form part of the case against you, because we can’t prove where it was when that call was made, or who made it. I believe you pointed that out, too. Besides, that was in order to set up your deliberately transparent alibi for the stabbing, on which no charges are being brought.’

  Jesus. He stared at them. ‘Rachel Bailey got me to murder her husband, and you’re going to do nothing about it?’

  Lloyd sat back. ‘Did she? In your last statement, you said that she had not asked you to murder her husband.’

  ‘She said I could kill him and get away with it! She said I could run rings round the police!’

  ‘A rare lapse of judgement on her part,’ said Lloyd. ‘ But did she actually ask you to murder him? You told us repeatedly that she knew nothing whatever of your plan to murder her husband.’

  Curtis stared at him. ‘ But she did know!’ he shouted. ‘ I even told her I was going to poison him! She bought the paper, brought it to me! And after I’d done it, I made her believe that I had stabbed him instead of doing what I’d said I’d do, that I hadn’t done it right, and I hadn’t killed him after all, so that even she wouldn’t know what had really—’ He broke off.

  Lloyd nodded. ‘ You thought of absolutely everything, Mr Law,’ he said. ‘You covered every angle you could possibly have foreseen. You set up clues and alibis and red herrings like nobody’s business. I think you may actually have made it impossible for us to implicate Rachel Bailey in her husband’s murder. You’ve run rings round yourself, Mr Law.’

  Christ. Lloyd was right. She really believed that she hadn’t murdered Bailey, and innocence was the best defence of all. He couldn’t be certain that she wasn’t innocent of Bailey’s actual murder. But innocence was not a word he would associate with Rachel Bailey.

  ‘Do you know what she was doing, the last time I was in here?’ he shouted. ‘Screwing McQueen, that’s what she was doing! Because he’d said he’d buy her land if she did. And do you know what that makes her? A whore. She’s nothing but a whore who murdered her husband for money, and you’re going to let her walk away from it!’

  Lloyd gave a short sigh. ‘I can only assure you, and hope that you accept my assurances, that we have not yet finished our enquiries, and that we will be questioning Mrs Bailey further, in view of what you have told us. That if we do uncover any evidence of her involvement, the appropriate charges will be brought. But for the moment, you’re on your own, Mr Law. Interview terminated at 17.15 hours.’

  Curtis was taken away, and charged for the second time with the murder of Bernard Bailey. Last time, when he had been asked if he had anything to say in answer to the charge, he had said nothing. This time, he said that he had done it for her.

  But he was on his own, and that was the way he was going to stay, if he knew Rachel Bailey at all.

  Mike watched as two bailiffs supervised the removal of everything they thought was worth anything. Rachel had told him what Nicola had done, what it was that she had been bottling up, what it was that had pushed her to the very edge of her reason. Served the bastard right, that was what he had said. Rachel had agreed. But it should never have happened, she had said. Mike chose to let that pass.

  Nicola was behaving exactly like you would expect a vet to behave when supervising the removal of a herd of cattle, as though nothing at all was wrong; Rachel stood, leaning against the porch railing, watching her peach armchairs being loaded up into a removal van.

  ‘This has nothing to do with me, you know,’ Mike said, joining her on the porch. ‘I’m strictly land and buildings.’

  She smiled. ‘I know that,’ she said.

  ‘I could maybe buy some of it back for you.’

  She looked up at him. ‘You hagglin’ now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She shrugged. ‘Reckon it’s a buyer’s market this time,’ she said. ‘I got no money for the rent. Seems that money forms part of Bernard’s estate. It’ll go to creditors.’

  ‘Same arrangement as before about the rent. And make a list of the stuff you want back, if you like. I’ll go to the auction.’

  ‘Depends,’ said Rachel. ‘What do I have to do for it?’

  ‘Shirley and I are going to need your help with her,’ he said, nodding across at Nicola. ‘You know her. We don’t.’ He sighed. ‘You’d swear there was nothing wrong with her, most of the time. But there is.’

  ‘She’s always fooled folk,’ said Rachel. ‘ ’Cos she did so good at school and college an
d all that. But that’s because she didn’t want no comeback from Bernard bout wastin’ his money. She don’t know who to be frightened of now, and she can’t keep up the act like she could.’ She looked up at him again. ‘D’you think they’ll do anythin’ ’bout her not gettin’ help for Bernard?’

  Mike shrugged. ‘I’ll take her to my solicitor this evening, see what he has to say. Whatever happens, she’ll need professional help. But I think we can probably do more good than they can, in the long run.’ He watched the last of the cows being loaded up. ‘Will you let me buy you a cow back?’ he asked.

  ‘What do I have to do to get a cow?’

  ‘Give us a drink of real, unpasteurized milk straight from her udder now and then. There’s nothing like it. Margaret used to bring me it from Hawthorne’s. I haven’t tasted it in twenty-five years.’

  Rachel smiled. ‘Done,’ she said, and spat on her hand.

  Mike smiled, spat on his, and they shook on it.

  Lloyd smiled tiredly as Judy came into his office. They hadn’t had any chance to talk since their interview with Nicola; they had had to assemble the interview room, and Tom had surpassed himself with his evidence-gathering; they had been under way with Curtis Law before they’d had time to get their breath back. ‘ Thank you,’ he said.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Giving me the floor with Law.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  ‘When I think what he tried to do to Nicola Hutchins, …’ Lloyd was lost for words, as he thought of her cowering away from his hand after having so bravely got herself together, calm and assured, even when she was confessing to what she had done. It took so little to knock her off balance, and Law had known that, used that. But he hadn’t realized how deep it went. He shook his head. ‘I don’t think even Rachel knew the extent of the damage,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ said Judy. ‘ When you come to think of it, perhaps Bailey did commit suicide, in a way.’

  Yes. More poetic justice. ‘ But she was the only one who knew Nicola was damaged; Lloyd said. ‘And she was right about Gutless Gus. Off like a shot as soon as he sussed she wasn’t quite the ticket.’