Too Much of Water

by J M Gregson

  ‘Yes, I could have done that. But I did not do it.’ Denis was beyond caring whether they believed him any more. His situation in this strange, desirable country, which he had so quickly come to love, seemed hopeless. He couldn’t understand why they did not arrest him.

  Instead, they noted his address in Gloucester, told him to carry on with his work on the farm for the moment. Other policemen would be coming to see him about his situation, which couldn’t be allowed to continue. They told him that almost as though they regretted it.

  John Lambert did not reply when Bert Hook offered his opinion on the road back to Oldford that the man known as Denis hadn’t done either of their murders. It was perhaps his silence as they drove through the Herefordshire lanes that drew from Hook the proposition that Denis might make rather a good doctor.

  Lambert thought that was perhaps the most unlikely thought so far in this whole unlikely case.

  Twenty-Four

  DI Rushton had heard all about Judith Hudson. He switched to the Internet, put up Asperger’s syndrome on his computer and read a little about it before venturing out into the Forest of Dean to see this woman who was such a puzzle to the CID team.

  It was a strange meeting, this one between the handsome policeman with few of the social graces and the woman who seemed to become more and more locked into her own world as the stress of events increased around her.

  Chris said with stiff apology, ‘I’m sorry to come here with questions at this time. I know you will feel that you have had quite enough of questions.’

  ‘It is a busy time in the garden. You would not think it, perhaps, but as we approach the end of spring and move into high summer, everything grows apace. You have difficulty keeping up with things. The grass needs mowing twice a week.’

  She spoke like a gardening page in the local paper. He looked at her closely for the first time. She did not seem as though she was being wilfully oblique. Chris sought desperately to establish some sort of link with her. ‘The death of your daughter must have been a great shock for you.’

  ‘It’s well worth mowing frequently, mind you. The fine grasses like it, you see, and the coarse ones don’t. The meadow grasses mow out, in time, and you get a much more closely knit turf, if you cut it often.’

  The way she ignored what he had said disconcerted him. He found himself saying, ‘Yes. I’ve lived in a small flat, since I was divorced. I don’t have much of a garden. But then I don’t seem to have much time for it, these days.’

  ‘The dahlias will be out soon. I start them in the greenhouse, you see. We’ve got a few flowers already, and lots of buds. I was looking at them this morning.’ She was looking past him, through the long window of the old stone house and down the length of the garden. She hadn’t looked into his face since he had come into the room, but he didn’t feel that there was anything personal in her evasion.

  ‘Were you very close to your daughter, Mrs Hudson?’

  ‘Not recently, no. Not during the last few years.’ She nodded to herself, as if that was a perfectly satisfactory summary of their relationship, and then said, trying genuinely to be helpful, ‘We each led our own lives, you see, Clare and I. I expect you come across that quite a lot.’

  ‘Not as often as you might think. Did your husband like Clare?’ Chris Rushton had meant to be subtle, understanding, prising confidences from her where others had failed. Now he was driven into a clumsy directness.

  ‘Roy?’ She took her gaze from the garden and stared at the Persian carpet, as if contemplating the relationship for the first time. ‘Oh, Roy liked her well enough. But Clare didn’t like him very much, I think.’

  ‘And why was that?’ Chris tried not to show his excitement, sensing he might elicit some strange, abrupt revelation here.

  ‘Oh, you’d really have to ask him about that. She wouldn’t give him what he wanted. And he likes his own way, my husband. My second husband, that is.’

  A strange suggestion from a very strange woman. She surely couldn’t mean that Roy Hudson had been pursuing her daughter sexually? Surely even this woman would have been more affected than this by anything of that nature? ‘What was it that Clare was refusing to do, Mrs Hudson?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. You’d have to ask Roy about that. I just know that he used to get frustrated with her. I didn’t think it was worth bothering, myself. I didn’t have a lot to do with her after she married Ian Walker, you know.’

  ‘I see. You didn’t like Ian Walker, did you?’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head emphatically and looked him in the face for the first time, as if glad to find something they could agree upon wholeheartedly. ‘No one liked Ian Walker. No one in our family, I mean.’

  ‘Who do you think killed him, Mrs Hudson?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know that. That’s your business, isn’t it? But I can’t say that I’m sorry that he’s dead. He didn’t make Clare happy, you know. We told her he wouldn’t, but she wouldn’t take any notice of us.’

  ‘I see. And where was your husband last Monday night?’

  ‘Out on business. The others asked me that. I’m sure that they did.’

  Rushton didn’t tell her that he was checking whether her story had changed. It seemed to him quite possible that it would have, with this brittle, unpredictable woman. On the other hand, he felt now that lies would not come naturally to her. He said, ‘Can you tell me the nature of that business?’

  ‘No. You should ask him yourself.’

  ‘Lead separate lives, do you, Mrs Hudson?’ It felt rather like leading a child, but Chris Rushton was desperate to discover something new about this strange partnership.

  ‘No, I wouldn’t say that. Roy needed my money, didn’t he, in the early days? But I suppose I don’t show any great interest in his business activities, nowadays.’ She looked as if that reflection came as a surprise to her. ‘I’m really more interested in my garden here, you see. I could show you round, if you like.’

  ‘I’m afraid I haven’t the time at the moment. Have to get back to the station and serious crime, you see!’ He gave her a ritual little laugh at the policeman’s lot, but she merely nodded her acceptance. ‘You say your husband needed your money to help him in the early days of your marriage?’

  She didn’t take offence at the question, as he had thought she might. ‘Yes. I didn’t mind. I inherited a little money, and I came out of my first marriage with quite a good settlement. Share and share alike, what’s mine is yours, and that sort of thing.’ This time it was she who gave the little giggle, and Rushton had a feeling that she was quoting phrases which Roy Hudson had used to convince her that she should help him.

  ‘But the business has picked up since then.’

  ‘Oh, yes. I’d never have thought there was so much money in office supplies! He’s doing very well now. Came home in a new Mercedes on Tuesday.’

  Rushton would have suspected irony with other women, but Judith Hudson seemed incapable of irony. He had learned something from this visit, anyway. Roy Hudson had used her money, had perhaps married her for it. That might explain both the curious marriage itself and the daughter’s animosity to her stepfather.

  ‘Have you ever handled a shotgun, Mrs Hudson?’

  She did not seem to be annoyed by his sudden change of tack, did not seem to resent the implications of the question. Perhaps she did not even see those implications: there was no sign of tension in the open, unlined face beneath the ash-blonde hair. She turned her clear brown eyes upon his face as she said, ‘I used to be quite a good shot, when I was young. Rabbits and hares, mostly. My father taught me. But I haven’t shot for years, now. I decided I didn’t really like killing things.’

  Judith Hudson’s last sentence rang through DI Rushton’s mind as he drove beneath the green canopies of the Forest. A woman with no sense of irony.

  Sara Green couldn’t be certain what they wanted to speak to her about, and that made her nervous. That Detective Sergeant Hook had been very polite when he rang, bu
t very insistent. They needed to talk to her again. They could see her at the university if she preferred it, but he thought it would probably be more private for her to see them at her home. Sara wondered why this needed privacy.

  She could have met them any time during the day, because her lecturing commitments were finished for the year and she was marking summer examination scripts at home. But she had been allowed to specify the hour for this meeting, and it had seemed a wise precaution to give herself an interval of two hours before it took place. That would give her the opportunity to compose herself and prepare for it. But she was used to formal meetings in the university, where you knew what you were going to talk about. How did you prepare when no one had given you an agenda for a meeting? How did you compose yourself when you did not know what arguments you would have to meet?

  She had always scorned housework, but now she found herself completing a series of minor domestic chores, seeking to occupy herself as she waited for the CID men to arrive. Her small, high-ceilinged cottage was part of the conversion of an old church, where in the nineteenth century Sunday school children had listened rapt to simple tales with simple morals, recited to them by women like Sara. For them, this voluntary, unpaid instruction had then been the nearest thing to a fulfilling career.

  Now that things had moved on, the present mistress of this little kingdom had a fulfilling career of her own, a love-life which defied the conventions which had once prevailed in this high-windowed stone temple. No children ever came here now, and Sara Green’s modest, impeccably tasteful abode was never really untidy.

  Yet she found herself vacuuming the floor, putting the crockery which she normally left to drain into the kitchen cupboards, even dusting the window-sills and the surfaces of the perfectly arranged furniture in her sitting room. Dusting! That was an activity for mothers and ancient aunts, in Sara’s view. She could not believe that she even possessed a duster, still less that she was now diligently applying its livid yellow softness to the picture frames and plates on her walls.

  And inevitably, when they eventually came, she did not feel prepared for them. How could she be, when Hook had given her no intimation of the reason for this visit?

  The two big men looked unhurriedly round the room before they sat down in the armchairs she offered them. It was almost as though they were checking on her cleaning, Sara thought resentfully. But perhaps it was just a CID habit. Perhaps these people were trained to look at the detail of any place they entered, in case it could tell them something about the person who lived or worked there.

  She knew that she should wait for them to take the initiative, should force them to make the running. Instead, she found herself saying with a directness she had never intended, ‘Have you discovered who killed Clare yet?’

  Lambert smiled, understanding this anxiety in one who had been so closely involved with the dead woman. But it was an infuriating smile to Sara, because it seemed to her patronizing. He said, ‘I think I can tell you that we are much nearer to an arrest than we were when we last spoke.’

  She wondered exactly what that meant. And most of all what it meant for her. Had they found out what had happened in her last days with Clare? She couldn’t see how they could have done that. But then she couldn’t be certain that Clare hadn’t spoken to anyone, and they were clever, these people. They spoke to everyone, even to people you least expected to be involved. She knew that from talking to Martin Carter: that pale, red-headed, callow young man had been really scared when she had last spoken to him at the university. It must be because of the prying that these people and the rest of their team had been doing over the last ten days.

  Sara had thought they would have been quizzing her by now, launching straight into whatever it was they had come here to tax her with. Instead, both of them continued to look around the room, studying her curtains, her wallpaper, her pictures and ornaments, as if a detailed study of the decor and furnishings could conjure up the life she had conducted here with Clare Mills. She could think of nothing other to say than a banal, ‘It was good of you to come out here to see me.’

  ‘Not at all. Frank discussions are better conducted as privately as possible.’ She did not like either the phrase or the smile with which Lambert accompanied it. Then he did ask her a question, more shocking for its abruptness after the prologue of harmless courtesy. ‘Will you tell us again where you were on the night of Saturday the twenty-first of June, please?’

  It was so sudden that she couldn’t remember what she had said the first time, or even if they had asked her the question in this direct way. She told herself that she must keep calm: she had only to stick to what she had worked out a week and more ago and all would be well. ‘I was here. Watching TV. There was the usual Saturday-night rubbish on. I watched the highlights of the cricket at some point during the evening. I have a weakness for the game, you see – I blame my father for that. I follow Middlesex, though I’ve never lived in London. But it was Freddy Flintoff who had a big innings that day. I recorded the highlights and watched them twice.’

  She knew that she was talking too much, giving too much detail, but once she had embarked on the tale she did not see a way of shortening it. She knew also that it was a useless defence, that anyone could have mugged up the little she was giving about what had been on the box that night. Lambert seemed to her to imply as much when he said, ‘Was there anyone else with you at any point during the evening?’

  ‘No. If I’d been – well, been involved in the death of Clare, I’d have made sure I had someone to support my story, wouldn’t I?’

  He looked at her face for a long second before he spoke. ‘Would you? It’s true that sometimes it’s the most innocent people who leave themselves without an alibi. Did anyone ring you during that evening?’

  ‘No.’ She was aware that the answer was out too promptly, right on the heels of the question, that she had not given herself the time to think which an innocent person should have taken. And this time she could think of no way of elaborating words to disguise her gaffe. She felt her lips setting like those of a stubborn child as she stared at this irritating man defiantly. Did he never blink? The grey eyes seemed to be looking into the secrets of her mind, the long, lined face to embody a wealth of experience, which would take in her petty traumas and range them alongside more serious evils.

  It was the man she had almost forgotten beside him who said, ‘I watched Freddy Flintoff’s innings on that Saturday night. I don’t blame you for recording it: it was well worth a re-run.’

  She smiled weakly, not knowing how to react to this, trying to realign her attention to him. This was the man who had carried the Herefordshire attack in the Minor Counties league for many years, she had been told. Detective Sergeant Hook looked an unlikely figure for a fast bowler, with his slightly overweight frame and his fatherly, benevolent air. She said, ‘I’ve played women’s cricket a little myself, but I don’t appreciate all the subtleties. Dad used to say there was more to batting than giving the ball a bash, but I must admit I enjoy seeing it hit hard.’

  ‘Everyone does. Was Clare Mills a cricket fan?’

  ‘No. I was trying to educate her to the game.’

  ‘But you weren’t together on that night.’

  ‘No. I’ve already said we weren’t.’

  ‘Yes, you did. I just thought that if you were as close as you said you were, you might have been together, on a Saturday night.’ Hook was concerned, thoughtful, as if he wished his quiet manner to take away the undoubted sting from his suggestion.

  ‘We weren’t joined at the hip, you know.’

  ‘No. But it’s surprising that you didn’t know where she was planning to be on that evening.’

  He had put his finger on the weakness in her account of things, this man with the friendly, avuncular air. He spoke as if he were slightly puzzled, as if he wished to understand more clearly for her sake, not his. Sara said in a low voice, ‘Normally we would have been together. Clare had other things on t
hat weekend. I’m not sure what. She may just have been anxious to revise for her end of year examinations. She was a conscientious student, you know.’

  ‘Yes, we do; everyone has emphasized that to us. But she had already taken the important papers. I should have thought you’d have known that, being as close to her as you were.’

  His broad brow furrowed a little in perplexity. Sara Green was realizing how easy it was to underestimate this man with the village-bobby exterior. She said, ‘I do remember that, now that you mention it. I was merely trying to think of what she might have been doing on that night.’

  ‘Do you think she might have been meeting Ian Walker?’

  She wondered if there was a trap here. But she couldn’t see one. She said carefully, ‘She might have been, I suppose. She knew that I didn’t approve of her seeing that man at all, so it’s conceivable that she wouldn’t have told me, if she was planning to meet him.’

  ‘Why would she have been seeing him, do you think?’

  ‘He kept trying to get money out of her. Walker was a sponger. Clare was too soft-hearted to deal with him. I’d have sent him on his way.’

  ‘I see. You don’t think there was any residual affection between them?’

  ‘There shouldn’t have been. He was a bad lot. Clare shouldn’t have had anything more to do with him.’

  ‘But she did.’

  ‘I told you, she was soft-hearted. Too much so for her own good.’

  ‘And on his side?’

  ‘I don’t say he wouldn’t have fancied getting her into bed again. “A quick shag for old times’ sake”, he’d have called it, I’ve no doubt.’ She was aware that her anger was colouring her face, that she was supposed to be objective, even detached. But she was still too animated as she went on, ‘There was no real affection on his part. Maybe a bit of lust, an eye for the chance of sex. No more than that. Clare should have sent him packing!’