I levered the George Woodrow’s body apart, and picked everything out, including a thimble, three glass marbles, a red pencil and assorted seashells. The policewoman listed its more recent contents, put them in a large see-through plastic bag and wrote me a receipt. She waited while I watered the plants on the roof, because I wasn’t sure when I’d return. The blackbird flew to the railing and whistled at me in a meaning way. Tranquillity, birdsong, the sun on my back; it felt good. I put out some sultanas, and grabbed my handbag, a packet of chocolate digestives and some apples to take with me.
By the time we got back to the police station, I was ready for lunch. The gaggle of paparazzi had swollen to more than two dozen, smoking, talking on their mobiles, wandering around. Several took photos as we drove past. We came back the way we had left, from the car park. Jeff was on his own in the waiting room, stretched across three chairs. He opened his eyes when I went in, and closed them again.
“Where’s James?”
“Being grilled.”
After a quick flip through the
News of the World
(it has a certain fascination, but really isn’t my sort of thing) I sifted through the pile of tatty magazines and travel brochures on the low table and selected Friday’s
thelondonpaper
to read. They brought us coffee in a thermos jug and sandwiches, and we’d just started on them when the door opened and Ric came in, Dog shadowing him closely the way he always does on unfamiliar territory. Ric was no longer handcuffed.
“How’s it going?”
“It’s okay…” I sensed some reservation. “They don’t think I killed Bryan.” He sat between me and Jeff and unwrapped a sandwich. “It’s not just what we said, Phil’s told them Emma did it.”
“That’s great…” Why wasn’t Ric happier? “Are they going to charge you with all that other stuff, like wasting police time?”
“I don’t know. Probably not. But Phil’s brought up Emma’s rape claim. He’s saying that’s why she lost it and stabbed Bryan, the balance of her mind was disturbed. Of course they knew about it, it’s on their records even though she didn’t go ahead and press charges at the time.”
Jeff said, after calling Emma some pretty unsavoury names, “She can’t prove it.”
“No. And the police don’t think a jury would convict me, they said so. No evidence, just her word. She lied to them about Bryan, and she and Phil were going to kill us - she won’t have much credibility in court. It’s not that. The thing is, I can’t prove it didn’t happen, either. Once the story gets out, it’ll be there forever, with people thinking maybe she was telling the truth. That’s what pisses me off.”
“Oh Ric.” I reached for his hand. How could I say no one would believe it of him, when I had myself, briefly?
“Fuck her,” Jeff said, inappropriately in the circumstances, making Ric smile wryly. “Don’t let her get to you. She’s done a runner, that never looks good. If they don’t find her she won’t even be in court. Don’t worry about it, mate.” He squeezed Ric’s shoulder.
I said, “They haven’t found her yet, have they?”
“No. They found her car, though,” Ric said. “In the short term car park at Heathrow.”
“Maybe she’ll go to France and get your old job in the Auvergne, working with the Percherons.”
Ric smiled properly this time. “I hope not, she’d be rubbish. She’d neglect the horses, seduce the farmer and murder his wife. While Phil was adjusting to life in jail.” He poured coffee into a cardboard cup and laughed. “That reminds me, the first thing they asked me was if I wanted my solicitor to be present. I said, on the whole, I’d rather manage without him.”
We all looked up at the sound of footsteps outside. I thought it would be James, let out for lunch. The door swung ajar, letting us hear giggling and scuffling, then opened wider, and a voice whispered, “Go on!” A petite policewoman appeared in the doorway, while her friend hung back, peeping round the jamb. She blushed, hesitated, and said to Ric, “D’you mind me asking for your autograph? I’m a big Voices fan.”
Ric turned on the charm. “It’s a pleasure.”
She came into the room, handed him a police note pad and a pen, and went pinker. “It’s just so amazing to see you.”
He smiled into her eyes. “What’s your name?”
“Donna.”
“Pretty name. Suits you.” I looked over his shoulder as he wrote, in a bold scrawl,
To Donna - you can handcuff me any time you like, Ric Kealey
. “I’ll twist Jeff’s arm and make him sign it too if you’ll do me a favour.”
“Sure, anything.”
“Can you get me some dog food? Dog hasn’t eaten today. And water.”
“No problem. I’ll ask the dog handlers.” Ric did the smile, and she gazed at him and left. Muffled shrieks and laughter died away down the corridor.
“Jesus, I’d forgotten what you were like with the fans,” Jeff said. “I may vomit. It’s an obsession, like you’ve got to make every single saddo fall in love with you. It’s deviant, man.”
“Shut up and sign this,” said Ric, passing him the pad. Donna seemed to have cheered him up, I was pleased to see.
“You know I don’t do autographs,” Jeff grumbled. “There’ll be a queue right down the corridor once she shows this around.”
“Yeah, and you’ve got so much else on.” Jeff took the pen, eyes narrowing. “And don’t write anything obscene. Just your name. That’s it.” Ric plucked the notepad from his hand. Jeff’s signature was a tangle, underlined - very him.
We made desultory conversation as we finished the sandwiches, swapping our extremely limited knowledge about legal matters, most of it gleaned from films and television. The policewoman came and went, and Dog wolfed his lunch. The sun moved round and streamed in the window, making the room look dusty. Suddenly I felt tired. “When d’you think they’ll let us go?”
Ric shrugged, opening the biscuits. “Dunno. They haven’t finished with me yet, they just let me out for lunch. They might want to keep me overnight.”
They collected Ric again. Jeff and I lined up chairs on opposite sides of the sunny room, so we could sleep; ugly chairs, upholstered in harsh turquoise, with square steel legs. The sort of chair only a government institution would buy, that you’d never find in anyone’s house. But quite comfortable. One moment I was wishing it was darker, the next I had sunk into deep velvety oblivion.
“Excuse me, sorry…sorry to wake you…” An insistent voice that wouldn’t go away, dragging me up from dreamless depths. “I’ll get you a nice cup of tea…” I opened my eyes. A uniformed policeman bent over me. The sun slanted more gently through the windows; it must have been early evening. I leaned on an elbow and looked at my watch. Six fifteen. I’d been asleep for hours.
“The inspector would like another word with you.”
I swung my feet to the floor. Jeff had gone, and James was stretched out asleep in his place, his blond hair tousled and endearing. I got up, heavy-headed, and followed the policeman. He showed me into the small bare interview room, and went to get the promised tea.
“Ah, sit down.” The inspector smiled, switched on the recorder, gave a number, date and time and told it he was recommencing the interview with Cassandra Tallis. “I just want to ask you about one or two discrepancies that have come up.”
I frowned, wishing my brain would pull itself together and join the rest of me. “Sure.”
“While you were tied up, you heard Phil Sharott and Emma Redfern discussing how he proposed to murder you and Ric Kealey, dispose of Kealey’s body and set up your flat to look as if he’d killed you?”
“That’s right.”
“Phil Sharott says the conversation never took place.”
“Well it did.” He couldn’t get away with telling barefaced lies, could he?
“He says that in any case you were unconscious at the time, as he’d injected you with five millilitres of ketamine - which your blood sample confirmed - and couldn’t have heard anything. He claims you imagined it under the influence of the drug.”
“Is he saying he wasn’t going to kill us?” My brain grappled with this, while my body got indignant; I felt hot and my pulse rate shot up. I gripped the edge of the table.
“No, he admits planning to murder yourself and Ric Kealey. But he maintains that Emma Redfern was not involved, as you say she was.” The inspector glanced at his notes. “He says she did not see you tied up; she believed he was going to pay you off and take Ric abroad. He says she was unaware of his intentions.”
I gave a gasping laugh. “She was keener than he was! She said he should have let Ric drown three years ago, she said he was too soft. She was the one who wanted to torture poor Dog to make Ric say where the diamonds were - when Phil wouldn’t let her she was going to bash him to death with a candlestick. Not Phil, that is, Dog. Then torture me instead.
And
she knocked Ric unconscious with the wrecking bar.”
“Her fingerprints aren’t on it.”
“One of them must have wiped the fingerprints.” My slow brain made a great effort and put two and two together. I stated the bleeding obvious.
“He’s lying to protect her.”
A policewoman escorted me to the waiting room once more. I saw a group of people approaching us down the institutional magnolia-painted corridor, and a disagreeable shock jolted through me. Emma, much shorter than the three policemen around her, blonde hair shining against their dark uniforms. Two civilians, one in a suit, one in casual clothes, walked alongside. As we passed, our eyes met. Hers were guarded; her expression did not flicker. She looked away.
Chapter
31
*
Shortly before eight that evening, the police had finished with me, James and Jeff - for the present, at any rate - and told us we were free to go. In the end they decided to let Ric out on police bail, which I thought an encouraging sign, particularly as they’d now got Emma in custody blackening his name. They wanted him back, though, at two p.m. on Monday.
Ric, with Dog and attendant policeman, joined our little group last, and while we waited for him I went to the Ladies, had a wash and put on my best make-up. My mood had lightened; Emma could do her worst, but she was lying; she’d be spending the night in jail, and Ric wouldn’t. Everything would work out.
When Ric arrived, we stood around for a minute, deciding what to do next. We felt as if we were about to be let out of school on the last day of summer term. All of us had managed to snatch some sleep during the day (Ric rather less than the rest of us, as the police spent longer with him) and were in party mood. After what we had been through together we were Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D’Artagnan, blood brothers, closer than family; we didn’t want to part.
“Let’s all go for a slap-up meal to celebrate, and to hell with Emma,” Ric said. “Get a limo to take us back to London.”
“Excellent idea,” said James.
“What about my van? And your motorbike?”
“We’ll get them tomorrow. I can’t ride the Harley, anyway.” He glanced at the policeman. “Insurance, that sort of thing. How about the Connaught?”
“Looking like this?” I said dubiously. We were all the scruffy side of casual. Even James looked as though he’d dressed in the dark. “And there’s Dog.”
“The Dorchester,” Jeff said. “They’ve got private dining rooms. And they do good Chinese, as well as poncy French stuff.”
“I thought you were banned at the Dorchester?”
“Nah, that was the Savoy. Dickheads.” Jeff got on his mobile and rang the Dorchester. “Hi, Jeff Pike here. Fine. I want a private dining room for this evening…round about nine thirty. I’m bringing Ric Kealey and a couple of mates. That’s right. Yeah, better had. Okay.” He finished the call, then made another to order a car to take us to London.
The policeman interrupted him, “D’you want to tell it to go round to the car park, so you don’t have to walk past the press? There’s quite a few of them out there.”
Jeff raised his eyebrows at Ric, but he shook his head. “No. I’ve waited a long time for this. We’ll go out the front.” He took off the cheap navy hoodie he’d just pulled over his black tee shirt, and abandoned it on a chair. He put his arm round my waist, and we headed for the exit.
Beyond the glass doors of the main entrance, the golden evening light glowed. Ten metres away our silver limousine waited, and on either side of the path leading to it was the press. The police had erected metal barriers to keep them back, and several uniformed officers patrolled to keep order. Behind the barriers, leaning over them, were hordes of reporters, jostling shoulder to shoulder, and cameramen with enormous cameras, many on ladders so their faces were banked high like spectators at a football match. Film crews had set up tripods and carried big furry microphones. In the background three satellite trucks waited to beam footage across the world.
They became aware of our presence, and the crowd stirred as every camera lifted, ready. Ric turned to us, a shadow passing over his face. “D’you think word’s got out yet…about Emma?”
“It doesn’t matter if it has. It’s not true. You can handle it.”
He hesitated. “How do I look?”
“You look like shit, man,” said Jeff. “They won’t know you. You’ll have to tell them who you are.”
“Hey, don’t spare my feelings, Jeff, just give it to me straight, I can take it.” Ric ran his hands through his hair, ruffling it. The gash on his head showed dark against the blond; he had stubble on his jaw and shadows round his eyes. His pale skin contrasted with his black clothes.