Plots and Errors

by Jill McGown

Sandie woke to find Josh looking down at her, and she smiled. Her lip didn’t bleed this time, thank goodness. ‘Make love to me,’ she said.

  He smiled, shook his head. ‘Not yet,’ he said.

  ‘You said not until I’d had a good night’s sleep, and I’ve had a good night’s sleep.’

  ‘It’s half past six in the morning,’ Josh pointed out. ‘You weren’t in bed till past midnight. I don’t call that a good night’s sleep.’

  ‘But it was quality sleep,’ she said, with a smile. ‘I didn’t even hear you come to bed.’

  ‘I know. I was worried you might have concussion or something.’

  ‘He didn’t hit me that hard.’ She sat up, wincing as her body protested at the movement, trying not to show it. He had hit her quite hard enough to be going on with. But she didn’t care, she wanted Josh. She needed him.

  She needed the high, after the deep lows of yesterday: bruised and bleeding and being sick in the middle of nowhere, her miserable exhausting dive, sitting in Angela’s dining room, with Elizabeth and Josh both glaring at Paul, and Paul pretending to be shocked; lying to the police, worrying that they would realize it was a lie as soon as she had spotted her mistake. Now, she needed Josh to make her feel better.

  She kissed him, but he didn’t respond, and she pulled back a little. ‘Does it put you off, me looking like this?’ she asked.

  ‘No! Not like that, it doesn’t. But I’m afraid I’ll hurt you.’ His fingertip gently touched her lip, and she saw blood on it. ‘See?’ he said. ‘You’re bleeding again.’

  ‘Then I won’t kiss you.’ She pushed him down on to his back. ‘It’s only a few bruises,’ she said.

  Thus it was that when the phone rang, neither of them felt inclined to answer it. Or when it rang again. Or even the third time it rang.

  SCENE XXVI – BARTONSHIRE.

  Sunday, September 28th, 7.10 a.m.

  Elizabeth’s House.

  Elizabeth had tried every phone in the whole of Little Elmley. Josh’s phone, the main phone, Angela’s phone. There were extensions everywhere; the place must have sounded as though it was on fire. Then she’d tried them all again, and now she was back to Josh’s phone. Where were they, for God’s sake? She hung up, and tried the other two numbers with little hope of anyone answering.

  She had fallen asleep in the chair last night, waking at five o’clock in the morning. She had been going to ring the police to ask why they were still holding Paul, but had thought better of it; if they had still been holding him, she would have been told. She didn’t want the police here, asking more questions. She had waited an hour or so before trying to raise an answer from Little Elmley.

  She hung up, and rang Josh’s number again.

  SCENE XXVII – BARTONSHIRE.

  Sunday, September 28th, 7.25 a.m.

  Little Elmley.

  Josh heard the tiny ping that his phone made before it gave its shrill announcement, and picked the receiver up quickly before it wakened Sandie, who had fallen asleep after they had made love, unlike him. He had lain awake, wondering how all this was going to resolve itself.

  ‘Josh Esterbrook.’

  ‘Where have you been? Is Paul with you?’

  ‘Well, someone’s in bed with me. I’ll just check.’ Josh looked over his shoulder at the sleeping Sandie, picked up a tissue and dabbed at her lip, which had of course started bleeding again. He turned away again, and addressed the receiver once more. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s Sandie, I’m glad to say.’

  ‘It’s not funny! He hasn’t come home. I thought he might have gone back to Little Elmley. I think he might be afraid to face me.’

  ‘He might be,’ said Josh. ‘But if he did come here, he wisely didn’t let me see him.’ He heard the front doorbell echo through the house. Why was everyone in the world so desperate to get him out of bed at this time on a Sunday morning?

  ‘He might be there somewhere,’ Elizabeth said. ‘But he won’t answer the phone, if he is. Will you look for him? And send him back, when you’ve finished with him.’

  She was trying to get him to do her a favour, Josh thought, as the front doorbell pealed again. She wanted to cross-examine her husband about yesterday, but she wouldn’t mind if she got him back in the same state as he’d left Sandie. He heard his own doorbell then, and sighed. ‘Someone’s at the door,’ he said. ‘I’ll ring you back.’ He pulled on a pair of jeans, and padded barefoot down the hallway, smoothing down his tousled hair as he opened the door to Chief Inspector Lloyd, Detective Inspector Hill, and the blond one.

  Josh was invited to go with Lloyd to Penhallin, and was suspicious enough of police tactics to agree, though a trip to Penhallin was not something he really wanted right now. There were some questions about the last visit to Penhallin, and Josh answered them as he made coffee. They wanted to know if Paul had been at the cottage, and Josh confirmed that he had.

  ‘Did you ring him there?’ asked the blond one, whose name, Josh had discovered, was Finch. He was a sergeant; he looked a lot younger than the sergeants that Josh had had dealings with in the past.

  The kettle began to sing, much to his relief. He needed a coffee before he could feel that his day had begun. He’d be quicker once he’d had had his dose of caffeine, he thought, and he needed to be, because he had said yes to Finch’s question before he realized that he’d have had to know that Paul was at the cottage in order to do that. Finch was jumping on it, wanting to know why he had rung the cottage, and he had no answer, so he picked up Sandie’s coffee, and was on his way with it when he thought he might as well find out if they had seen Paul’s car.

  At first it seemed they hadn’t, but Finch’s voice reached him as he went down towards the bedroom.

  ‘There’s a Range Rover parked in the wood by the road up to the house. I thought it might be an estate worker or something.’

  Josh carried on, and went into the bedroom. ‘Coffee,’ he said softly, bending, kissing her hair. It didn’t tousle; it was too short. He put the mug on the bedside table. ‘Be careful with it. It’s hot.’

  ‘What’s happening?’ she murmured.

  ‘The police are here again, and the woman wants to talk to you about this mugging you invented.’ He sat on the bed. ‘You don’t have to see her if you don’t feel up to it,’ he said. ‘But she says she’s happy to talk to you here. What do you want to do?’

  ‘I’ll see her,’ she said. ‘I’m fine, really, I am.’

  ‘Are you going to tell her the truth?’

  ‘No. I don’t want to bring Paul’s name into it,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell her a different story. One that covers my mistake, and keeps Paul out of it. The more lies I tell, the more likely they are to work it out for themselves, but it won’t have come from me.’

  Josh nodded. That was probably very sensible. He smiled sadly, patted her hand. ‘All right, boss,’ he said.

  ‘And I don’t want her in here. Tell her I’ll be through in about fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Right.’ He stood up, still feeling angry every time he looked at her. ‘I might have to go out,’ he said. ‘It won’t be for long, I promise. I’ll be back before you’re dressed.’ He picked up a tee-shirt, and pulled it on as he went back to the kitchen.

  He told them that he wanted a word with Paul, but that was something they seemed anxious to stop him doing; eventually Lloyd suggested that they take him to the car, and he realized that going down with three policemen in tow would be even better, and agreed. And that was how they all came to find Paul, dead in the Range Rover, a revolver lying on the floor, under the dash. But not just any revolver.

  His revolver.

  SCENE XXVIII – BARTONSHIRE.

  Sunday, September 28th, 8.00 a.m.

  Little Elmley.

  Josh hadn’t come back before she had finished dressing, as he had promised; Josh hadn’t come back at all, and Sandie had gone outside, walked slowly round the house, and down towards the main gate. Once again Little Elmley was alive with police c
ars as the now-familiar yellow crime-scene ribbon flapped and snapped in the brisk breeze, and the wood was cordoned off. She met Josh and Chief Inspector Lloyd on their way back to the house. ‘What’s happened?’ she asked, seeing the blond policeman driving away. But DI Hill was still here.

  ‘It’s Paul,’ Josh said. ‘He’s dead.’

  She made to walk past them, but Josh stopped her.

  ‘No,’ he said, putting his arm round her, and turning her in the direction of the house. ‘Don’t go down there. It isn’t very nice. There’s blood everywhere.’

  So Paul had got blood on the car seats after all; Sandie took some pleasure in that irony, as she walked with Josh and Lloyd back up to the house, trying to keep up with their longer and doubtless less painful strides. The beating and its aftermath, the discomfort of the dive, the constant fear, and, yes, as Josh had warned her, her considerably more pleasant exertions of the morning, were all taking their toll now, as her tense muscles tried to tie themselves in knots. But Josh was still worth it. He always would be.

  Josh was going with Lloyd to Penhallin, and it was clear that they were not going to be able to talk before he left, so she would have to play the next bit by ear. Paul was dead, but she still had more lies to tell. If she told them now that Paul had assaulted her, suspicion might fall on Josh, and she wasn’t going to let that happen.

  DI Hill appeared almost as soon as Lloyd and Josh had left for Penhallin, and she felt the familiar rush of adrenalin. She was sure that DI Hill had nailed her lie about the mugging, but she would weather that easily enough now that she’d had a good night’s sleep, and Josh, and a shower. The aches and pains seemed to disappear; Josh was right. She got off on danger.

  ‘I take it your husband’s told you what’s happened?’

  Sandie nodded. She was taking her cue from Josh; he wasn’t pretending to be any more moved by Paul’s death than he had been about his stepmother’s, and neither would she.

  ‘You worked for Paul, I gather.’

  ‘Yes. I was his personal assistant.’

  ‘Is that how you met Josh?’

  Sandie decided to stick to the official line, the one that Elizabeth had got. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It was the other way round. I met Paul when he came diving with us, and then I went to work for him.’

  ‘How did you get on with him?’

  ‘Very well.’

  The inspector’s eyebrows rose a little. ‘You seem remarkably calm about his death,’ she said. ‘For someone who got on with him very well.’

  ‘I didn’t like him all that much,’ she said. ‘But we worked together very well.’

  Inspector Hill abandoned questions about Paul. ‘I would like to go over part of your statement concerning the mugging,’ she said.

  ‘I wasn’t mugged,’ she said apologetically. ‘I just said that.’

  ‘Well, something certainly happened to you, Mrs Esterbrook,’ she said quietly. ‘Would you like to tell me what?’

  ‘Do you think you could call me Sandie?’ she asked. ‘I feel like Josh’s stepmother when you call me Mrs Esterbrook.’

  Inspector Hill smiled. ‘Certainly,’ she said. ‘Will you tell me who did that to you, Sandie?’

  Sandie prepared herself before she spoke. ‘Josh and I got married on an impulse,’ she said. ‘I moved in with him, but most of my stuff was still in my flat, and yesterday I spent all day ferrying things from there to here. But on my last trip, my ex-boyfriend was there.’

  ‘Your ex-boyfriend,’ said Inspector Hill, with a look on her face that suggested that this story wasn’t going down any better with her than the last one.

  But that was all right, thought Sandie. This was going to be one that couldn’t be instantly disproved, not like her below-par attempt of yesterday, when all they’d had to do was check where her car was. She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. ‘My ex-boyfriend,’ she repeated.

  ‘And he just happened to know you’d be there, did he?’

  ‘No,’ said Sandie. ‘He lives there. I left him for Josh, you see – that’s why I hadn’t been back for my things. But I thought he’d be working late – he usually does on the last Friday of the month, and that’s why I waited until yesterday to get my stuff. But at teatime, he was there, and he thought I’d come back to him. I told him Josh and I had got married, and . . .’ She moved her shoulders in a shrug. ‘He lost his temper.’

  ‘Where does he work?’

  ‘I’d rather not say.’

  ‘Is he still at the flat?’

  ‘No. He just packed up his own things and left. I rang Josh, and he came for me, brought me here. But he had to go to the club, and I wanted to do the night-dive, so I went with him.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us this in the first place?’

  ‘I don’t want to get Brendan into trouble. He’s never done anything like that before. It was my fault – I should have told him about me and Josh.’

  ‘What’s Brendan’s other name?’

  ‘I’d rather not say.’

  ‘It’s up to you,’ said Inspector Hill, shaking her head. ‘But I don’t think anyone should get away with that.’

  ‘That’s why I didn’t want to tell you,’ said Sandie. ‘Josh wants me to make a complaint. But it’s . . . it’s just between Brendan and me.’

  The inspector didn’t believe her, but unless and until she had to, Sandie wasn’t going to tell anyone the truth about what had happened to her.

  SCENE XXIX – BARTONSHIRE.

  Sunday, September 28th, 9.00 a.m.

  Elizabeth’s House.

  Elizabeth was entertaining Detective Sergeant Finch. She much preferred the courtly Chief Inspector Lloyd, but Finch had broken the news to her reasonably gently. She wasn’t attempting a portrayal of deep grief; Paul had tried that last night over his mother, and no one had been fooled. She thought that dignified acceptance might be better. For almost half an hour, Finch talked in general terms about Paul before he got down to the difficult questions, ill at ease with his task.

  He asked her if Paul might have killed himself, and she told him about the will, and why Paul’s father had felt it necessary to make the condition that he had about Paul’s inheritance. Then he asked if Paul might have killed Angela. Not in so many words, but as good as. She had to tell him about Foster, of course; he seemed startled that she would have stooped to such a level, and she found herself justifying her actions. Watching people, spying on them, would be, she supposed, part of Finch’s job; he had no call to criticize her. But she felt the need to explain to this man how her marriage had got to that pitch.

  She had tried Foster’s number just before Finch had arrived, just in case he was in the office on a Sunday; she didn’t suppose he worked regular hours. He hadn’t been there, of course, and she had thought, foolishly, that she would have to wait until he was before she could get his report. It hadn’t occurred to her that the police could find him on a Sunday, not until now. But they would find out where he lived, go and see him, and then they would see that Paul hadn’t killed his mother.

  And then she told him about the revolver, and Josh having been in prison for killing a man. He left right after that.

  SCENE XXX – CORNWALL.

  Sunday, September 28th, 2.00 p.m.

  Angela’s Cottage.

  Lloyd had got people to search the boat, hoping, no doubt, to find a whole cache of weapons, or a secret compartment bulging with packets of white powder. All they’d find down there would be some teabags. One of them, Detective Sergeant Comstock – bad complexion, slicked-back hair – had come back up to where they stood, looking a little disappointed. ‘Whatever was used to break the lock has been thrown in the sea, probably,’ he had said.

  Lloyd had nodded, and they had moved on then to his stepmother’s cottage, where Comstock went over to the desk, and Josh could feel waves of triumph emanating from where he stood, as he called Lloyd in from the kitchen.

  Josh wandered over, saw the burnt and crushed r
emains of a piece of paper in the wastepaper basket. The scene-of-crime people were eager to get it to a lab. Comstock took the pad from the desk to get it checked out.

  They all went upstairs then, Lloyd opened his stepmother’s bedroom door, and Josh found himself looking at Billy Rampton’s dead body, half-dressed, sprawled across the floor. It was then that the enormity of what was happening hit him for the very first time, and it took him some moments to recover himself, during which the people invading his stepmother’s privacy swung into action.

  ‘Stay there, please, Mr Esterbrook,’ said Lloyd, and went into the room, crouched down by the body, and shook his head. Then he asked if Josh knew him.

  Josh told him some of what he knew of Billy. Not all. But he did indicate that he knew him well enough to know he was no loss.

  Lloyd seemed to think that was uncalled-for, but then he didn’t know Billy, and Josh did. Josh knew him much better than he would ever have chosen to know someone like that, but sometimes life just threw people together. Now, Lloyd was asking him if his position under the will would change if Paul had murdered his mother. He was still being very polite; his manner hadn’t changed, not at all, once he’d discovered that Josh had a criminal record, but deep down he was just the same as all the others.

  Josh was a suspect.

  SCENE XXXI – CORNWALL.

  Sunday, September 28th, 3.15 p.m.

  Penhallin Police Station.

  Josh was invited to help the Penhallin police with their enquiries, and it was almost like the old days. He was asked what he knew of Billy, and he still admitted to a lot less than he did know. They didn’t seem to think that he’d murdered him, whatever Lloyd thought, but they did think that his revolver had been used, so he had made a statement concerning the revolver, saying that he had kept it for self-defence. As Paul had warned him, the silencer knocked that on the head, and he was told that it was an offence to own even it, never mind the revolver. That he might be charged with possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life.

  ‘You are aware that in view of your criminal record, you are quite likely to receive a prison sentence?’ said Comstock.