The Ten Commandments (16 page)

As agreed. Good was conducting the first part of the interview, but it was fast reaching an impasse by the time a DS tapped at the door and asked for a word with him. The DCI went outside, returning a minute later with a triumphant look on his face.

'You still maintain you've never met Simon Judd, Mr Baring?'

'I keep telling you, don't I?'

'You do indeed. But you'll be interested to hear some 119 samples removed from your car prove beyond doubt that he's been in it.'

Baring frowned, glancing at his solicitor for elucidation – which, however, was not forthcoming. 'Samples?' he repeated aggressively. 'What samples? Think I'm a bleeding commercial traveller?'

'Traces of his blood and several hairs, together with fibres from the jacket he was wearing.'

Finally realizing the implications. Baring half rose to his feet, before being restrained by the solicitor's hand on his arm.

'That's a bloody lie! There's
nothing
in that car – I scrubbed it out myself. You're –'

'Mr Baring!' interrupted the solicitor. 'I strongly advise you to say nothing further.'

'But listen to 'em – they're trying to fit me up!'

Webb, watching the man closely, sensed his uncertainty, his fear.

'Blood, hairs and fibres,' Good repeated deliberately, 'which definitely link Mr Judd to your car.'

'Hold on a minute' – Baring licked his lips nervously – 'I've just thought – that'd be the night it went missing. Slipped my mind for a moment, like, but it must have been then, 'cause I was leaving next day on the trip and in a right state, I can tell you.'

Good treated him to a long disbelieving look, and the man blundered on. 'Parked outside as usual after work, and when I went out to the pub later, it'd gone.'

'You reported it, of course?'

'Nah. When have the police ever done me any favours? Ten to one
I'd
have ended up the villain, like you're making out now.'

'And it reappeared just as suddenly?'

'Eh?'

'Your car; it came back of its own accord?'

'Oh – yeah. Next morning when I looked out, there it was, large as life, a bit further down the road. Gawd, was I glad to see it!' He flicked a quick look at Good, and added, 'Kids, I expect.'

Good sighed. 'I'm sure you don't expect me to believe that.'

'Believe what the hell you like,' Baring said defiantly, 'it's the truth. And if you're on the level about them hairs, it would explain how they got there without me knowing.'

Webb leant forward, entering into the questioning as previously arranged. 'Where were you last evening, Mr Baring?'

The man looked at him uncertainly, unsure of this second approach. 'Last evening?'

'Between eight-thirty and ten pm.'

Baring glanced from him to Good and back again, sensing a trap. 'What's that got to do with this Judd bloke?'

'Just answer the question, please.'

'Well, I was keeping out of the way of you lot, wasn't I?'

'But where exactly? You were seen leaving the M4 motorway at ten-thirty yesterday morning, where you failed to comply with a request to stop. When you eventually did so, you evaded the officers and ran off into the Hazeldene housing estate. That was at approximately ten-forty-five. We would like to know how you spent the next twenty-four hours.'

'Lying low, like I said. I bought bread and cheese and cans of beer and made for the woods till things died down a bit.'

'If you're as innocent as you claim, why were you so anxious not to be caught?'

Baring snorted. 'I was innocent last time, and a fat lot of good it did me. Went down for three years, didn't I?'

Keeping his eyes steadily on the man in front of him, Webb said slowly and deliberately, 'I put it to you that sometime during yesterday evening you broke into a house belonging to Mr Frederick Mace, and ransacked his study.'

Baring was staring at him wide-eyed.

'And later,' Webb continued, with more assurance than he felt, 'you lay in wait for him when he walked his dog, jumped him and submitted him to a vicious attack.'

Baring found his voice at last, and shrilly. 'There you go again!' he cried. 'I don't know what the bleedin' hell you're on about – I never went near no house and I didn't attack no one, neither.'

'Just a minute. Chief Inspector,' the solicitor broke in. 'I wasn't given notice of this line of questioning. Are you now accusing my client of another crime, and if so, how does it tie in with the current inquiry?'

Webb said heavily, 'We believe it does tie in;
how
is what we're trying to establish.' He turned back to Baring. 'What size shoes do you wear, Mr Baring?'

Emboldened by his solicitor's intervention, Baring mimed incredulity. 'What is this, twenty bleeding questions?'

'Your shoe size, please?'

'Sevens, if it's any of your business.'

'Would you remove a shoe and hand it over?'

Baring glanced at the solicitor, who nodded impatiently. Webb took the proffered brogue – not, he noted, rubber-soled. It was indubitably a size seven, which came as no surprise. Therefore, as Webb had suspected when he first saw the man, whatever else Baring had done, he had not broken into the Mace house. So who the hell had, and why?

Patrick said. 'You're not saying the dinner party's still on?'

'Yes; I phoned Gilly as soon as I heard, and she was most insistent. I suppose it will help take her mind off things.'

'But ye gods, with her father at death's door, if not already dead? Surely –'

'He isn't, actually – he seems to be pulling through, thank God. I'm very fond of old Frederick; I've known him so long he's like a second father.'

Patrick rubbed a hand over his eyes. 'Well, I'm glad to hear it, of course, but when I heard the news, the prospect of an evening in was very welcome. I'm totally shattered. God,' he added after a moment, 'I didn't mean that the way it sounded.'

Sonia laid a hand on his arm. 'You do look pale, darling; what's wrong?'

'Mother – what else? I nearly phoned you, but there was little point. She had another attack this afternoon.'

'Oh, Patrick, I'm so sorry. How is she now?'

'Very weak. It's no good, Sonia, she's too much for Zoe to manage any longer.'

Sonia felt a clutch of dread. 'So what will you do?'

'God knows. I suppose I'll have to find a home of some sort. She'll hate it, but there's no option.'

He turned abruptly and went to the drinks cabinet. 'Is there no way we can get out of this dinner?'

'Not really, in the circumstances. We owe it to Gilly and Alex to turn up.'

Patrick's hand stilled briefly. Alex. Sweet mercy, he could do without this. 'Can't you say I'm unwell?'

'Look,
you
need some light relief as much as they do. There's no more you can do this evening, so relax. You might even enjoy it.'

However, Sonia thought as she changed to go out, the original purpose of the evening was unlikely to be served; Gilly would be in no condition to assess Patrick's attitude, and in any event he was under par himself. The object now would be to offer moral support at a difficult time; any other consideration would have to be postponed.

Roy said anxiously, 'Are you sure you feel up to this?'

'I've told you I'm all right. Stop fussing.'

'You seem very much on edge to me.'

'Of
course
I'm on edge! How could I be anything else?'

'But he's out of danger, darling. You must try to calm down.'

Alex made a dismissive gesture. She could hardly explain it was the prospect of being with Patrick and Sonia which at the moment was uppermost in her thoughts.

She reached for the scent bottle, then stopped with her hand in midair as she remembered Gillian's warning:
For God's sake don't wear your Chanel.
Pulling open a drawer, she searched for an alternative, unearthing an old and almost empty bottle of Rive Gauche. That would do. She tipped it over her wrists, shaking out the last drops, then, glancing in the mirror to check her hair, saw Roy's reflected image, still anxiously watching her. She forced a smile and swivelled to face him.

'I'm sorry to be so grumpy; lack of sleep, probably.'

He smiled back, accepting the apology, though he knew, as she did, that her bad temper was of longer duration and had deeper roots.

The front doorbell chimed, heralding the arrival of the baby-sitter. Alex stood up, smoothed down her skirt, and, with the unfamiliar scent of Rive Gauche in her nostrils, went down to let her in.

Her father's attack having pushed everything else from her mind, it was only when Sonia and Patrick arrived that Gillian recalled with a start the reason for the dinner – a reason which, in any case, no longer held. For what need had she to study Patrick's behaviour when she already knew Sonia's suspicions were well founded? She felt a stab of pity for her friend.

Her eyes went from Sonia's determinedly bright face to Patrick's pale one, wondering if they realized that their body language betrayed them. In some indefinable, and no doubt unconscious, way, Patrick was holding himself apart, separate from his wife even as she leaned slightly towards him. Gillian saw his eyes flick quickly to Alex, then away as sharply as if their exchanged glance had burned him.

Sonia came forward to kiss her. 'How are you, love?'

'Coping, and very glad to see you both. What would you like to drink?'

Gillian wondered if she sounded as stilted to the others as she did to herself. The evening was not boding well; Alex was jumpy, Roy guarded, she and Hugh tired. Now Sonia and Patrick had brought their own anxieties to add to the already fraught atmosphere.

Quite suddenly, the prospect of walking on eggshells all evening seemed unbearable, and it was only by a conscious effort of will that she prevented herself from running upstairs and leaving them all to their own devices.

Then Hugh came into the room with a tray of glasses. As though he sensed her distress he looked quickly across at her, and in that held glance she read love, reassurance, encouragement. He would help her out; he always did. She gave him a shaky smile and turned back to her guests.

Some hours later, Gillian was sitting up in bed, an unread book propped in front of her, listening to the sound of the shower from the adjoining bathroom. Well, the evening was over, thank heaven, and all things considered, it had gone reasonably well. As far as she could tell, Sonia had no inkling that Alex was the other woman in Patrick's life; her attitude towards her was as natural and friendly as always.

And after a shaky start, Alex herself, drawing on some inner reserve of energy, had sparkled and bubbled as though she had no cares in the world. Gillian had seen Roy's eyes on her, puzzled, but with a faintly dawning hope. Oh God, what a mess it all was! If only she could discuss it with Hugh; but she'd promised Alex to say nothing.

He reappeared in her line of vision through the half-open door, vigorously towelling himself dry.

Echoing her thoughts, as so often happened, he commented, 'Alex seemed in good form, for a change.'

'Yes, I was just thinking that.'

'Wonder what brought it on. Perhaps your pep talk the other day.'

'Perhaps,' Gillian said noncommittally.

'Patrick seemed a bit under the weather,' Hugh continued, in an unnerving, if unwitting, sequence of thought.

'His mother's had another attack – Sonia told me. It's a constant worry for them both.'

'And his sister's rather a broken reed, from what I remember.' Hugh came into the bedroom, the towel draped strategically round his waist.

'Son's terrified that if his mother goes into a home, he'll want Zoe to live with them.'

'I shouldn't envy her that.' Hugh shed his towel and climbed into bed beside her.

'I was very proud of you this evening, Mrs Coburn,' he commented, slipping an arm round her. 'You looked gorgeous, as always, and, despite the last twenty-four hours, carried everything off with aplomb – no mean feat.'

'I was glad of your support,' she answered, leaning against him. Then, suddenly, she sighed. 'Oh, Hugh, whatever would I do without you?'

'I'd rather you never found out!' he answered, and bent to kiss her.

Harry Good didn't know what time it was – the middle of the night, anyway, and he was damned if he could get to sleep. He longed to talk the case over with his wife – she'd a sound head on her shoulders, and he valued her opinion – but despite the tossings and turnings by which he'd surreptitiously hoped to waken her, she slept on, and he'd had to abandon the attempt.

With a sigh, he turned his pillow over yet again in search of a cool patch of linen, tucked it under his chin, and allowed his overactive brain to resume its treadmill.

That toerag Baring was still playing games with them; the story of the stolen car was so much baloney, though they'd no means of proving it. So what had they got? His car'd been seen at the crucial time entering the pub car park, and the blood, hairs and fibres proved conclusively that Judd had been in it at some stage.

But frustratingly enough, there was nothing other than ownership of the car to put Baring himself on the spot. The only witness to have come forward had caught a glimpse of the corpse, not of the driver. Which was a case of sod's law, if ever there was one.

And, as Baring's solicitor had not failed to point out, since they'd been unable to establish any link between his client and Judd, what possible motive could he have had for killing him? It was the Feathers case all over again.

As for the murder weapon, Baring's house and garden, together with the surroundings of the Nutmeg, had been exhaustively searched, to no avail. But hell's teeth, the bloke had left next day for a tour of the bloody country. He could have dumped it anywhere.

Good turned over restlessly. And as if all that wasn't enough, Dave Webb was convinced it wasn't Baring who'd attacked old Mace. Which meant they had
two
-

Mace! As the old man's face formed in his mind, he remembered the urgent request he'd promised to attend to – and instantly forgotten. Well, a day's delay wouldn't make much difference; ten to one there was nothing in the old boy's theories anyway.