by J M Gregson
She took her time, frowning a little with concentration. ‘He was only Clare’s stepfather, of course, and she was very close to her natural father: she was planning to visit him in New Zealand next year. To tell you the truth, I couldn’t quite work out what she felt about her stepfather. They seemed quite friendly when she began her studies, but over the last eighteen months she’d got cooler towards him, I think. She wouldn’t really talk to me about it, but I don’t think she wanted to meet him any more. I think it was Mr Hudson who arranged all their meetings in the last few months before she died.’
Lambert kept a perfectly straight face, nodded as if she was merely confirming previous findings for them. He said casually, ‘But she was still in touch with Roy Hudson?’
‘Oh, yes. Fairly regularly, I think. As I say, Clare didn’t seem to want to talk about it, but I gathered she saw her stepfather quite often.’
This was a direct contradiction of what Roy and Judith Hudson had told them: it would need following up, in due course. As would the meetings Clare had had with Ian Walker. Lambert wasn’t surprised that Walker had been in touch with his ex-wife and had denied it. He thought the sheep-badger found lies came more naturally to him than the truth, when he was speaking to the police.
But Roy Hudson was an altogether more interesting case. John Lambert felt the familiar quickening of the pulses, the sharp interest of new suspicion. He mustn’t show that to this alert woman. ‘Is there any working acquaintance of Clare’s who you think might have killed her? We speak in confidence, of course.’
‘No.’
Had the blunt negative come a little too promptly? He studied the sharp, unlined features beneath the dark, short-cut hair. With her small, neat features and wiry frame, Sara Green looked like an alert kitten, who might spring unpredictably into movement at any moment. ‘What about Martin Carter?’
Sara knew now that she should have mentioned him herself. But she didn’t know how much they had already discovered about the research assistant. She said as casually as she could, ‘Martin? He was an embarrassment to Clare, nothing more.’
Lambert had been watching that well-formed face for any sign of jealousy. He saw none. So he said, ‘I understand he was something of a suitor to Miss Mills himself over the last few months.’
Sara smiled, perfectly relaxed, it seemed. ‘He wasn’t in with a chance. Clare was too kind-hearted to choke him off as she should have done. I suppose the fact that he was a postgraduate student gave him a certain standing with her, at first. But I told you a few minutes ago that Clare had discovered the nature of her own sexuality. That is rather a cliché, but it was appropriate in her case. She should really have told him about me and got rid of him. But we were very discreet, for a long time. She was probably trying to protect me when she didn’t send him on his way.’
As always, he would have liked to hear what Clare Mills had to say about this, whether she was in complete agreement with it. Sara Green certainly didn’t seem to have felt sexually threatened by that attractive but rather gauche young man. He said on impulse, ‘What do you think would have happened to you and Clare, if she hadn’t been killed?’
‘She would have come and lived with me here, as soon as she had completed her degree.’
‘That was agreed between you?’
She paused. ‘Tacitly agreed. We hadn’t even discussed it, in those detailed terms. But I am confident that that is what would have happened. You asked me to be completely frank with you, and I am trying to be just that.’
He thought she might have broken down again with the domestic picture she had just given them, but she seemed to have done with tears, though she still clenched her handkerchief in her hands.
Lambert found himself admiring her composure and the way she bore her loss as he and Hook went back to the car. Then he reminded himself that sexual jealousy was the passion which above all others drove people to murder.
Thirteen
The full post-mortem report was waiting at Oldford police station when Lambert and Hook arrived there late on Saturday afternoon.
Rushton had copies ready for them, and the three men pored over the details without speaking for a few minutes. Then Lambert said, ‘We knew she wasn’t drowned. She was strangled, probably manually, possibly by someone wearing gloves, though the days in the water make it difficult to be certain. This report suggests that in all probability she wasn’t killed near the river. She’d been lifted, they think, to judge by the slight bruising on her legs and beneath her arms. And there was some small evidence of hypostasis, even after three and a half days in the water.’
Rushton nodded eagerly. He had read the report three times whilst waiting for his superintendent to come in. ‘Yes. The blood seems to have settled in the buttocks and the backs of the thighs, implying that the corpse was left lying on its back. The pathologist says that she probably lay somewhere for an hour or two after death before she was consigned to the river. He doesn’t commit himself to how long and he says it can only be his informed opinion. That’s pathologist-speak for saying he wouldn’t swear to it as a fact in court.’
‘We’ll need to run a check on transport, whenever we can,’ said Lambert. ‘But we may need the owners to volunteer their vehicles for forensic examination, as things stand.’ He shook his head in frustration. Examining vehicles was a difficult area; like search warrants for houses, permission to examine vehicles was difficult to obtain until the CID team had collected more definite evidence against particular individuals. Yet how did you assemble that evidence when you were hamstrung by restrictions?
Hook was looking at the last paragraph of the report. ‘It says here that certain fibres found on the dead girl’s clothing have been sent for analysis. And something which looks like hair.’
‘Can’t see either of them being of much use to us, not after three days in the water,’ said Lambert gloomily.
Which goes to show that even the Great Detective can sometimes be wrong.
‘Denis Pimbury’ was growing used to his new identity.
There had been an awful moment on the first day when the farmer had called his name out and he had failed to respond, for fully two or three seconds. In some of the battle situations in which he had found himself back in Kosovo, such a delay would have been fatal. In the more relaxed context of a Herefordshire fruit farm, he had got away with it. Many of the fruit-pickers were much worse at the language than he was, and those who were British had shaken their heads and smiled superior smiles at the obtuseness of foreigners. Denis had put his hand up sheepishly and claimed his pay. He didn’t mind if people thought him a little stupid; he had found by now that it could sometimes be quite useful if people underestimated you.
But the main principle, the one you had to remember above all others, was to keep out of things.
When he heard the two men who had driven up in the shiny new car using his name, his first instinct was to flee and hide. There weren’t as many people as usual working on a Sunday; there were only about half the normal workforce, people like him who needed the extra money. He felt more exposed. He wanted to seek the sanctuary of the ditch at the edge of the farm as he had done on that previous occasion when men came looking for illegal immigrants. But he controlled the urge. You couldn’t run for ever, and wasn’t it for this very reason that he had acquired his expensive new identity?
He bent again over the row of strawberries, picking slowly and methodically, watching the shallow basket fill with the fruit even whilst he listened to the sounds behind him. He was apparently totally engrossed in his task when he heard the farmer’s voice say behind him, ‘This be Denis Pimbury.’
He straightened slowly, stilling the trepidation he felt in his breast, and turned unhurriedly to greet the men who stood beside his employer. They were wearing clothes which were far too neat for this place. He brushed the sweat from his face with the sleeve of his forearm, in that gesture he had seen the local men use. He was adopting the habits of the men of Herefordshi
re and Gloucestershire whenever he could now. Trying to be inconspicuous had become a habit with him.
He couldn’t conceal his accent, of course. His English was becoming better every day, but he had the careful enunciation of the foreigner rather than the cheerfully slurred tones of the locals. He used the right phrases, spoke them a little too slowly. ‘I’m Denis Pimbury, yes. What can I do for you?’
They were big men, both of them. It was the shorter and more solid of the two who said, ‘Not a common name, that. And you’re not from round here, are you? Not from England at all, I should think.’
‘I have passport.’ He resisted the impulse to reach into the pocket he had sewn onto the inside of his shirt and produce the precious document. He had never yet been asked to produce it, but he never went anywhere without carrying it upon his person. He gave them the words he had rehearsed so often at nights, trying to make them sound as though he had not gone over them a hundred times, ‘My father was English, but he died when I was a boy. My mother was Croatian. I have been abroad for some years, but I kept my English passport.’
The tall, thin man had not spoken since they arrived, but he seemed to be weighing every word Denis said and every move he made with his cool grey eyes. Now he said, ‘Where do you live, Mr Pimbury?’
He pronounced the name politely but carefully, as if he did not quite believe it. Denis gave him the name of the street in Gloucester. People who knew the city often said that it was very near the place where the infamous multiple murderers Fred and Rosemary West had lived. Denis was ready to nod sagely and produce a comment if these men had done that. He had learned a little about the awful Wests; it was part of the business of being a local to be able to comment upon them. He had been past the place where they had lived and killed so many young girls: it was now a quiet garden of remembrance for the victims.
But this man didn’t mention the Wests. He chilled Denis Pimbury’s blood with the mention of another and altogether more familiar death. ‘We’re investigating the murder of a Clare Mills, who lived very near to you in Gloucester. We’d like to ask you some questions.’
‘I do not know anything about this death.’
He articulated the words carefully, but his denial was surprisingly prompt. Too prompt. Lambert made it a statement rather than a question as he said, ‘But you knew Clare Mills.’
Denis found that he was surprisingly calm, now that the moment had come. He must be careful what he said, especially in this strange language where you could so easily give things away. But these English policemen were not like those sinister figures he had known in the last days in Croatia. Those men came in plain clothes like these two, but they came during the night and they knew what they were going to do before they ever saw you; it was no use being careful about what you said to those men, because whatever you said had no effect. He said, ‘I don’t know if I knew this Clare Mills. I have not seen picture of her.’
He thought they might now produce a photograph. That would give him the chance to study it and the time to gather his thoughts, before he eventually admitted that he had known this woman. Instead, Lambert said confidently, ‘You knew her all right, Mr Pimbury.’
Again he spoke the surname as if it were in inverted commas, as if this were merely a title he was giving to the man to humour him. But that nuance was wasted on the man from Croatia, whose mind was on very different things. Denis said carefully, ‘I knew girl called Clare. She was kind to me.’
‘Yes. That was Clare Mills. We need to know when and how often you saw her.’
Denis nodded seriously, his swarthy face the model of a man dutifully trying to help. ‘I saw her near the docks at Gloucester the first time. I asked her the way to my street. The one where I had been told I could stay. Six weeks ago. Maybe seven.’ He frowned hard, as if anxious to give them the most accurate information he could. It was surely a good idea to dwell on this perfectly safe area.
‘But you saw her again, in the weeks which followed.’
Again it was a statement, not a question, and Denis noticed that. These men had talked to a lot of people, seemed perfectly confident. He wouldn’t deny them then: not here, where the truth did not matter. ‘She was kind lady, Clare. She said she lived near my street herself, and she took me there, showed me the way. I said could we meet again, and she said yes.’ He wouldn’t tell them about her hesitations, about how he had needed to assure her in his halting English that he was not a danger to her, how he had explained that he had not a single friend in this new land. There was no need for them to know any of that.
Lambert watched him carefully as he picked out his words. That scrutiny did not upset Denis as it upset most people; he was used to police who studied your every movement, waiting for you to make a mistake. And he was not surprised when the superintendent said, ‘Our information is that you met her again, several times. What was the purpose of these meetings?’
‘I told you, Clare was kind lady. She said she would do what she could to help me to establish myself here.’ He was proud of that last phrase; he had got it from Clare and used it many times since: now it seemed the right one for this moment.
‘Establish yourself?’
Denis thought there was the ghost of a smile about the tall man’s lips as he repeated the phrase. The Croatian lifted his hand to stroke the stubble on his chin, wishing he had shaved before he came out so early on this Sunday morning. It hadn’t mattered at work, of course: the men who worked here shaved after they had finished their work, if they shaved at all. But he felt at a disadvantage with these strangers in their clean long-sleeved shirts and their well-creased trousers. It was an unexpected reminder of those days he thought he had discarded for ever, when he had been training to be a doctor, when he had been used to dressing as a professional man.
He picked his words carefully as he said, ‘I was new here. I did not know the language of the country or the customs of this nation. Clare helped me to get to know my new country.’
Hook looked up from his notebook and said gently, ‘But you have an English name. An English father.’
‘I had not lived here since I was infant. This is new country to me.’ The Croatian’s eyes were almost black, their darkness emphasized by the fact that they were so deep-set, over high cheekbones and sallow skin. They looked defiantly at Hook, who had never worked outside this area, warning him that he would meet a fierce obstinacy if he chose to challenge these assertions.
But Hook was interested only in that thin, lifeless body he remembered upon the slab in Chepstow. He said, ‘You must tell us about your meetings with Clare Mills, Mr Pimbury.’
‘She was kind lady. She made me feel like a man.’
‘How? Can you explain that, please?’
He looked around him, at the long furrows of red soil stretching away to the end of the field, at the stooped, unheeding figures, moving their baskets up beside them as they worked their way along the rows of strawberry plants. ‘Is hard work, this. Long hours, very hard work. You never see woman. In evenings, sometimes, is nice to see woman, have drink. Have conversation. Clare, she help me with my English. Also help me to enjoy my life in England.’
Hook nodded, looking at the lean, hard body of the man in front of him, wondering just what lay behind those fierce warrior’s features. And wondering also about the nature of this strange relationship between the English rose who had come through an unhappy marriage and embarked upon a degree and this enigmatic hard man from another culture and another land. ‘How often did you meet Clare?’
Denis, slim and watchful, found himself warming to this well-fed Englishman with the countryman’s features and the seeming willingness to understand and sympathize with him. The sergeant was less forceful than the taller man who had spoken at first, who had seemed to bring some of the intensity and tension Denis felt himself into the exchanges. He must be careful, though: he could not afford to be caught off his guard. ‘I met her five or six times. Each time, we agree when we meet again befor
e we part from each other.’
‘You met in pubs?’
‘Yes. Every time in pubs. Every time but one in the same pub. I was there first, waiting for her. She said is not good for English ladies to go into pubs on their own, wanted me to be there when she got there.’
That tallied with the information the uniformed men had brought in. It was touchingly old-fashioned in a woman of twenty-five to feel that way about going into pubs, if it was true. But the pubs in question had been pretty rough ones, in the toughest part of Gloucester. And no one had been able to tell the police anything about what had passed between this strangely assorted pair. The people who had noted them had sniggered about them or shrugged their shoulders, but no one had heard anything significant in their conversation. Hook nodded understandingly, then said as casually as he could, ‘And what did you talk about?’
‘All sort of thing. She always asked me how I was getting on, how I was settling in. And she talked to me about her studies.’ He wanted to tell them how they had laughed about some of her lecturers, how he too had been a student once and had told her about life in his university in Croatia. But he was determined to keep off that, to say as little as possible about his life before he came here. He did not want to be forced to talk about the English father he had claimed, this mysterious Mr Pimbury, nor about the mother who had taken him off to her homeland in his infancy. When you were lying, the less you had to say the better.
‘And what did she say about her life at the university?’
He shrugged, feeling the tenseness in his shoulders as he did so, willing it to drop away with the gesture. ‘We discussed psychology.’ He articulated each syllable carefully, as if it were a completely new word for him. He wouldn’t tell them of their lively exchanges, of how he had been able to help Clare, to give her one or two ideas from his own studies which she had not met before.
Instead, he said, ‘Psychology is very difficult subject, I think. But we talked about Clare’s mother, about the problems they had getting along with each other. And I think Clare was good student. Very intelligent. She was doing well at the university, getting good marks.’
