The Lady of the Lake

by Peter Guttridge

  ‘She can stay if she wants. She knows my situation only too well.’

  The woman looked at her watch.

  ‘No – I have to go. Let’s have lunch in the Bull in an hour.’

  She got up and sauntered out just as the coffee arrived for Heap and Gilchrist. ‘Do you want more?’ Heap asked Mrs Rabbitt. She shook her head.

  ‘I see you’ve moved back into Plumpton Down House,’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘How else can I give my children the attention they deserve?’

  ‘What happened with the Lego?’

  Rabbitt shrugged. ‘The boys needed to let off steam. Do you know how frustrating it was for them to have this giant Lego thing and not be allowed to play with it? Well, now they can.’

  ‘What are you doing about your café?’ Heap asked.

  ‘Closing it for the time being. It is impossible to get the staff anyway in this cray cray country. Where else in the world would the government give a huge contract to a ferry company that has no ferries, no money and whose terms and conditions on its website are cut and pasted from a pizza takeaway shop? That’s what your government has done, I see from the newspapers. Anyway, now my sole focus must be on my children and sorting out my late husband’s estate.’

  ‘Are you the executor of his will?’

  ‘I am his wife.’

  ‘Estranged wife,’ Gilchrist said. ‘Where are your children now?’

  ‘At home, I presume. With their tutor.’

  ‘Mrs Rabbitt, what are you doing with your husband’s car?’ Heap asked.

  ‘Driving it.’

  ‘I mean – how did you get it?’

  ‘My husband allows me to use it whenever I want to. Allowed me.’

  ‘Really?’ Heap said. ‘He gave you the keys when?’

  ‘I have the spare set.’

  ‘When exactly did you borrow the car on this occasion?’ Heap said patiently.

  ‘Well, I didn’t exactly borrow it. Major Rabbitt left it with me when he was too drunk to drive.’

  ‘OK,’ Heap said. ‘But when?’

  ‘Sunday afternoon. He turned up out of the blue at the café, which was closed. I keep my Sundays sacred.’

  ‘You’re religious?’

  Rabbitt laughed a harsh laugh. ‘Religious about having a good time on Sundays, yes.’

  ‘You told us you hadn’t seen him for a while,’ Heap said.

  ‘Did I? I must have forgotten.’

  ‘Were you with him at the Jolly Sportsman at Sunday lunchtime?’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘No. He was there with some floozy? That would explain why he arrived drunk.’

  ‘What did he want?’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘To pay me off.’ Rabbitt looked into the dregs of her coffee. ‘He wouldn’t divorce me because he knew I could take him to the cleaners so he hoped to get me to agree not to go after the big money by offering me a different deal.’

  ‘What kind of different deal?’

  ‘Shares in a new business opening he was discussing with that Moroccan guy.’

  ‘Properties in Brighton?’

  Rabbitt wrinkled her nose. It looked grotesque on such a hard face but maybe it was the only part of her Botoxed face she could move.

  ‘Something else.’

  ‘Can you say what?’

  ‘He didn’t go into specifics.’

  ‘Legal?’ Heap asked.

  Rabbitt gave him a long look. ‘He didn’t go into specifics,’ she repeated.

  ‘We’re going to need to impound the car,’ Gilchrist said as Heap pulled out his phone to call Sylvia Wade. ‘There might be evidence in there.’

  ‘How are me and the boys supposed to get around?’

  ‘You don’t have your own car?’

  Rabbitt grunted.

  ‘Where is his car now?’

  ‘The car park of the Bull.’

  ‘We can give you a lift back to Plumpton Down or into Lewes if you want to pick up your own car.’

  ‘Now? Only I’m supposed to be having lunch with my friend in an hour.’

  ‘Now,’ Gilchrist said, as Heap finished his call.

  The local community policeman took the car keys from Rabbitt as they all gathered in the pub car park on the other side of the High Street. He said he would drive Mrs Rabbitt into Lewes to get her car. Gilchrist and Heap left them there and drove over to the Jolly Sportsman.

  They’d phoned ahead and the manager, a Sarah Loudon, was waiting. She was a striking brunette in a blouse and slacks.

  ‘Major Rabbitt was sitting over in the corner there with a younger woman. Sunday lunch is probably our busiest time – our busiest family time too. I didn’t approve at all of the way he was behaving. I asked him politely to refrain.’

  ‘They were kissing?’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘Well, he had his tongue down her throat for certain but he was pretty much groping her.’

  ‘Did they stop?’

  ‘Not immediately. I had to ask him again more firmly.’

  ‘Did they settle down then?’

  ‘They left. Without paying for the bottle of wine he’d ordered and half drunk but I was just glad to get them out of here.’

  ‘Did they arrive drunk?’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘I didn’t see but my waitress said they were.’

  ‘Is he a regular here?’

  ‘Not to drink but to bring people to eat, yes.’

  ‘And has he behaved like that before?’

  Loudon shook her head. ‘He’s usually busy making not-so-subtle suggestions to me. He’s a creep.’

  ‘Was a creep. He was murdered that evening.’

  Loudon put her hand to her mouth, her eyes widening. ‘Well, I’m sorry for anyone who is murdered,’ she finally said. ‘But I can’t actually say I’m sorry sorry. I don’t think he was a very nice man at all.’

  ‘Did you know the woman he was with?’

  ‘To be honest I thought it was his wife – ex-wife? – the hard-faced blonde. But it was some other woman. Similar though.’

  ‘Really? Gilchrist said. ‘I don’t suppose we could borrow you for twenty minutes to see if you recognize this woman.’

  ‘You know who she is?’

  ‘Possibly. With luck she’s sitting in the Bull in Ditchling.’

  ‘You want me to confront her?’

  ‘No, no, nothing like that. To be honest, I want you to sneak a peek at her and tell me if it’s her.’

  ‘Sounds a bit cloak-and-dagger,’ Loudon said cautiously.

  ‘Doesn’t it? But you’d be doing us a great favour.’

  Loudon ran her fingers through her hair. ‘Then sure.’

  Heap left Gilchrist and Loudon in the car and hurried into the Bull.

  ‘Was Mark Harrison in your place on Sunday?’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘Ostrich Man? Sure, just briefly.’

  ‘He’s a regular?’

  ‘Well, for a drink. He doesn’t often eat with us, even though we occasionally buy ostrich meat off him. Occasionally because people are cautious about it.’

  ‘Have you tried it?’

  Loudon shook her head. ‘I’m vegetarian.’

  Heap came back. ‘She’s in the back room sitting on her own – Mrs Rabbitt hasn’t joined her yet – looking at her phone. If you’re willing, Ms Loudon, we can do a walk through without her even noticing.’

  ‘OK,’ Loudon said.

  ‘I’ll stay here,’ Gilchrist said. ‘Going in mob-handed will only draw attention.’

  While she waited she phoned Sylvia Wade. ‘What’s happened with Joe Jackson?’

  ‘His body has been moved to the path lab and SOCO are still at the crime scene, of course. I’m not sure there is much you can do here today, ma’am, if it’s more important you stay there.’

  Heap and Loudon came out of the pub. As they approached the car, Heap nodded. Gilchrist got out. ‘OK – you’ve been very helpful, Ms Loudon. Thank you so much. We may need to take a statement from you but I assume you can
be reached at the Sportsman?’

  Loudon nodded. ‘I have a flat there.’

  ‘Which I’m sure you’re keen to get back to.’ She looked at Heap. ‘DS Heap here will take you back. Thanks again.’

  Heap opened the passenger door for Loudon. As he came back round the car Gilchrist said: ‘I’m going to make a start on our woman in there before Liesl gets here. You get back as quickly as you can.’

  ‘Of course, ma’am.’

  The bleached blonde Gilchrist and Heap had seen with Liesl Rabbitt in the Ditchling Museum was still focused on her phone when Gilchrist went in. Gilchrist quietly asked at the bar what was in the glass of wine the woman was drinking and ordered another and a Chardonnay for herself. Well, why not?

  She took over the Merlot and Chardonnay and sat down opposite the woman. The woman looked up expectantly and frowned when she saw Gilchrist. Gilchrist pushed the Merlot across and raised her own glass. ‘Cheers,’ she said. The woman just looked at her but Gilchrist took a sip of her own wine anyway.

  ‘I wanted to talk to you before your friend arrived, to ask you about Sunday lunchtime in the Jolly Sportsman. Where did you go when you and Richard Rabbitt were asked to leave?’

  The woman looked at Gilchrist and down at the glass Gilchrist had put in front of her.

  ‘You’re wondering who I am,’ Gilchrist said. ‘Sorry, it was rude of me not to introduce myself. I’m DI Gilchrist and I’m investigating the murder of Richard Rabbitt. And you’ve been identified as one of the last people to see him alive.’

  The woman continued to stare at Gilchrist. ‘Is your English not very good?’ Gilchrist said. ‘I was just hoping to talk to you before your friend joins you for lunch because I didn’t want it to be awkward for you to explain what you were doing snogging her ex-husband in a public place on the day he died. Oh, sorry, snogging is probably too English a term for you if your English is not very good.’

  ‘Her English is very good,’ Liesl Rabbitt said, sitting down beside Gilchrist. ‘She’s just trying to decide if you are cray cray woman.’ Rabbitt pulled the glass of wine Gilchrist had bought for the mystery woman towards her and took a large sip.

  ‘Why would she think I was cray cray?’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘Well, maybe just square, then. You think I don’t know about Sophia and my husband screwing? I’ve been in the same bed with them while they’re doing it. You don’t do threesomes, police lady? You don’t know what you’re missing.’

  ‘But you didn’t seem to know they were together on Sunday.’

  ‘I care what my friend does for money with the weakling?’

  ‘What did she do after she left the Jolly Sportsman, both of them drunk?’

  ‘She drove him to me.’

  Gilchrist gave her a stern look. ‘You know there are severe penalties for withholding evidence from the police, Mrs Rabbitt?’

  ‘Who is withholding what evidence?’

  ‘You told us you hadn’t seen your husband for ages, then it turns out you saw him the day he died. You told me you got the car when he arrived drunk. You didn’t say he arrived with someone else.’ Gilchrist addressed both of them: ‘What happened when it was time for him to leave your café?’ Someone touched Gilchrist’s shoulder. She looked up. Bellamy Heap stood behind her.

  ‘You drove him back towards his house,’ Heap said to Rabbitt. ‘I’ve just been informed on the way back here that CCTV footage from Lewes High Street has you leaving with Sophia here and Richard Rabbitt. Where did you go?’

  ‘We went to the casino in Brighton Marina,’ Mrs Rabbitt said.

  ‘Richard Rabbitt went gambling with you?’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘No, just me and Sophia.’

  ‘What happened to your husband?’

  ‘We dropped him just by the cattle grid at the start of the lake. He wanted to walk the rest of the way up the drive to his house. He liked to survey all that he owned. Plonker.’

  ‘What time was that?’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘Around six?’

  ‘That would fit with the CCTV in Lewes, ma’am.’

  ‘How drunk was he?’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘Pretty drunk. He’d carried on drinking.’

  ‘What did you talk about with him that afternoon?’

  Mrs Rabbitt smirked at Sophia. ‘We didn’t do too much talking.’

  Gilchrist digested that. ‘I thought you despised the man.’

  ‘Money is money.’

  ‘OK,’ Gilchrist said. ‘We’re going to leave you to have your meal but immediately after that you are going down to the community policeman’s house just down the High Street here so he can take your statements. He will be expecting you. If you don’t, you’ll be arrested. Your full name and address, Sophia? You don’t say much, do you?’

  ‘Not unless it’s something worth saying,’ the woman said, her voice throaty and smoke-damaged.

  Back out in the car, Gilchrist said: ‘We’d better get down to the crime scene in Brighton.’

  Heap nodded. ‘When DC Wade phoned about the CCTV she also mentioned that Mr Fitzgerald from the Wetlands Centre has sent footage from last week along to us. A whole bunch of people together on the other side of the lake. Including Donald Kermode.’

  ‘Really? Well, we do need to talk to Kermode but I think we have to go to Brighton first.’

  ‘Agreed, ma’am. DC Wade is going to download the film to my iPad, once I can get a signal.’

  They drove back to Brighton via the Ditchling Beacon. ‘What’s this?’ Gilchrist said, picking up from the footwell of her seat the pamphlet Heap had bought at the museum. She looked at the black and white image of a burning car on the cover. ‘The Hassocks blockade?’

  ‘No idea, ma’am. Looked interesting though.’

  Gilchrist dropped it back in the footwell. They glanced out of the car windows at the views either side of the car as they crested the Beacon and headed across the Downs to the sparkling sea of Brighton in the distance.

  ‘Ma’am, I can’t be late tonight. Kate is in a state about her mum’s funeral tomorrow, even though there will only be about ten people there.’

  ‘Understandable. Why don’t you go off after we’ve visited the crime scene?’

  ‘There’s something else, though. The wake is kind of unusual. How’s your vertigo?’

  Gilchrist frowned. ‘What do you mean? Are we going on the i360? That’s novel for a wake.’

  Heap shook his head. ‘Weather dependent, we’re going over the Downs in a balloon.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ll let Kate explain.’

  Gilchrist thought for a moment. ‘Can you steer those things?’

  ‘They more or less drift on air currents as I understand it, ma’am. Why?’

  ‘How could that guy guarantee to get round the world in eighty days then?’

  ‘I don’t think that was entirely by balloon, ma’am.’

  ‘I was wondering what our crime scene might look like from the air?’

  ‘What indeed, ma’am? Perhaps we could also send up a drone?’

  ‘Have you forgotten that Don-Don is in charge of drones for the county? It probably wouldn’t get much beyond hovering over Katie Price’s house.’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten Don-Don. I wish I could. Perhaps we could cause a crisis over Gatwick again to get him back where he belongs.’

  ‘I definitely think that’s worth considering.’

  When they got to the rundown Art Deco block of flats on the seafront they weren’t expecting to see much. Joe Jackson’s body had already been removed. Sylvia Wade was waiting for them when they climbed up four flights of rubbish strewn stairs to the flat.

  ‘I’m told the lift never works,’ Wade said as they put on their paper onesies at the door to the flat.

  ‘Good exercise,’ Gilchrist said, trying not to wheeze too loudly. Bellamy Heap had, of course, scampered up like a mountain goat.

  ‘Bilson has been and gone?’ Gilchrist said, mildly disappointed not
to see him.

  ‘It wasn’t him actually, ma’am,’ Wade said. ‘He’s not in work today.’

  A couple of SOCO officers were moving around the bedsit sifting things. Gilchrist saw the splashes of blood on the rumpled bed. ‘It all happened there?’

  ‘It seems like it. He was badly beaten and there were cigarette burns on his face and chest. Something had been done to his testicles too in that they were swollen to twice the normal size.’

  ‘Has Bilson’s colleague established cause of death yet?’

  ‘Not yet, ma’am. In fact, it’s not immediately obvious.’

  Gilchrist looked at the film posters Sellotaped to the wall. Horror films mostly, some vintage, some recent.

  ‘Movie buff,’ Gilchrist observed.

  ‘Media studies student at Brighton University, ma’am.’ Wade pointed at a pile of cheap business cards on the table in the centre of the room. ‘Fancied himself as a Steven Spielberg though.’ The card said Joe Jackson, Auteur.

  Heap was standing by Gilchrist. ‘Just a fancy name for a film director, ma’am,’ he said.

  Gilchrist turned to him. ‘I knew that – even without being a member of the Lewes Film Club.’

  ‘Ma’am.’

  ‘So what’s happening in the rest of the building, Sylvia?’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘Well, Customs and Immigration are all over it. Hundreds of people of a range of ethnic origins on every floor but this one. Crammed in, forty to a flat, though only twenty at any one time since there’s a night shift and day shift who take turns on the same mattresses. Deplorable bathroom conditions, dodgy kitchen appliances, boilers uncertified. No fire exits in place. The lifts don’t work. The four flats on this floor are the exception – they seem to be legitimately rented by people like Mr Jackson.’

  ‘So it’s reasonable to think that Farzi wanted to get the people on this floor out to maximize his profits here,’ Gilchrist said. ‘Is there a caretaker or building manager on site?’

  ‘Theoretically, but he’s nowhere to be seen,’ Wade said. ‘The whole building is being emptied and the “tenants” taken to a holding centre near Gatwick for processing.’

  ‘What about the other flats on this floor?’

  ‘Nobody home in the other three. Looks like they are students too. We are trying to reach them.’