The Ten Commandments (24 page)

'Your shoes; what size are they?'

'Nines, though I can't see –' He broke off as, patently, he began to see.

'Do you possess a pair with rubber soles?'

Knowles was about to deny it, but his wife cried, 'What have Patrick's shoes got to do with anything? Is it now a crime to own rubber soles?'

Ferris said tonelessly, 'Whoever broke in to the Mace house was wearing them. We'll need to examine yours, Mr Knowles.'

Sonia looked from him to Patrick's wooden face. 'You can't seriously believe my husband would
break in
to the Maces' house?' she said incredulously. 'They're
friends
of ours – I've known them most of my life.'

'He was getting too close, wasn't he?' Webb remarked, ignoring her. 'He'd worked out by some method of his own what type of man Philpott had been, contrary to received opinion. And he stated in public that he'd been killed, not by one of those he'd hurt directly, but by someone avenging her. We assumed he meant a husband or lover, but a brother would have an equally strong motive. Especially,' Webb added, remembering the newsagent's words, 'one who'd felt responsible for his sister from childhood.'

Sonia Knowles reached blindly behind her for a chair and lowered herself into it.

'My goodness,' Knowles said gratingly, 'you
have
been doing your homework. Well, Mr Webb, or whatever your name is, in this country we're still innocent until proved guilty, so you can theorize all you like. Even if I
had
killed Philpott, there's nothing that could link me with it.'

'Perhaps I should warn you that when we get to the station, we'll be requiring a blood or saliva sample.'

Knowles's knuckles whitened on the arm of his chair. 'Why?'

'Because, Mr Knowles, we're arresting you in connection with two crimes which we believe are linked, the murder of Trevor Philpott and the attack on Mr Mace. And a couple of hairs other than his own were found on Mr Mace's clothing.'

On the way back to Shillingham, Webb phoned Harry Good from the car to inform him of developments.

'Well, he's a dark horse!' Good commented. 'I've never even heard of him!'

'You'll be hearing a lot more, believe me. Ted Ferris and I are on our way to interview him now. Have you any specific questions you want answering on Mace's attack?'

'Nothing more than you'd ask yourself. Come back to me as soon as you have a result.'

'You can bet on it.'

By the time Knowles had had his sample taken and been escorted to the interview room, the fight had gone out of him. He even declined the services of a solicitor. They'd left Sonia in tears at the cottage, having been instructed by Patrick to collect her sister-in-law from the doctor and to stay with her.

'But when will you be back?' she'd cried desperately.

Knowles had climbed into Ferris's car without answering.

Now, seated across the table in the interview room, Webb thought how exhausted the man looked. Until the Judd murder, he must have thought he'd got away with it. In fact, right up until Frederick Mace started declaiming his theories on the Ten Commandments. A very different character from Baring, this one, with a totally different motive, as Mace had recognized.

Ferris switched on the tape and went through the preliminaries.

As he stopped speaking, there was silence. Knowles was sitting motionless, his head bent, staring at the pitted table in front of him.

'When you're ready, sir.'

He raised his head and looked at Webb. Was that on the level, about the hairs on Mace's clothes?'

Webb nodded, then said gently, 'Wouldn't it be a relief to get it off your chest?'

Knowles spread his hands in a gesture of resignation. 'All right, Chief Inspector, you win. But before I say anything, I must make it clear neither my mother nor Zoe has the slightest inkling I was involved in Philpott's death. They simply thought he'd got his just deserts.

'The irony is that I never meant to kill him anyway. My intention was to take him somewhere he couldn't just walk away from, but would have to hear me out. I meant to tell him what I thought of him, punch him on the jaw, then dump him and leave him to find his own way home. I hoped it would be a lesson to him.'

'Perhaps,' Ferris suggested, 'you'd better start at the beginning.'

Knowles sighed, thinking back. 'We'd an awful job finding out what had happened. Zoe arrived home in hysterics and wouldn't stop crying. When we did get it out of her, I wanted to report Philpott, either to you or his manager, but she wouldn't hear of it – swore she'd kill herself if anyone found out what had happened. So, officially, my hands were tied, but I was damned if he was going to get away with it. At the very least I wanted reimbursement for her medical expenses.

'So I pretended I had a house for sale, in a location that was difficult to find. I suggested picking him up outside the Stag and driving him out there. He was quite amenable.

'It was November, a cold, foggy evening. I drove out into the country, and turned down a rutted lane I'd earmarked when driving past. Then I stopped the car and we got out – as I thought, in the middle of nowhere. The ground was very uneven and I'd taken the precaution of bringing a torch; I'd no intention of twisting my ankle.

'But Philpott completely took the wind out of my sails by saying, "We're just behind the Feathers, aren't we? I didn't know there were any houses here."

'I was dumbfounded. There I was, thinking I had him alone in the depths of the country, and it seemed the lane we were in ran parallel to one which had a pub in it. I hadn't even known there
was
a pub, but we'd finished up within a hundred yards of its back entrance.'

Ferris nodded, knowing the terrain. The Feathers could not be seen from the main road, and though there was a board proclaiming its whereabouts, it was quite feasible that Knowles had never noticed it.

All I could do,' he was continuing, 'was make the best of the situation, so I stopped pretending and told him who I was and what I thought of him.

'He was a bit shaken at first, then he started to bluster. And the more he tried to justify himself, the angrier I got. Then he also lost his temper and shouted, "Anyway, why all the fuss? She brought it on herself; she'd been following me round for months, simply begging for it."

'That was it, really. I lashed out with my left and caught him on the chin. He went staggering backwards, then, recovering himself, started to run towards the pub, shouting over his shoulder that I was mad. There's not a proper access there, not much more than a gap in the hedge, but the grass was flattened, so it must be fairly well used.

'I went after him, because I was still determined to get compensation. I caught up with him just as he reached the gap and grabbed his arm, swinging him round, but he shook me off, laughing in my face.

'"God, the way you're carrying on, anyone would think you fancied her yourself! Is that what's eating you? Did I spoil a cosy little arrangement you had with your nympho sister?"'

Knowles broke off and leant forward, his head in his hands. The detectives didn't hurry him. Finally he looked up, his eyes bleary and inward-looking.

'I just – lost it. I'd forgotten I was still holding the torch, but suddenly I was bringing it down on his head with all the strength I could muster. And, not surprisingly, he went down.'

Knowles was breathing laboriously, as though reliving his attack on Philpott. 'I waited for a minute to see if he'd get up, but he didn't. I couldn't leave him where he was, blocking the entrance, so I pulled him further into the car park, between two of the cars. I think I thought someone would find him before long, and give him any help he needed. I was damned if I was going to help him myself, but I swear to God it never occurred to me I'd killed him. I didn't find that out until the news broke the next day.'

He gave a short, bitter laugh. 'By merciful providence, I'd been wearing gloves; not for any sinister purpose, but simply because it was a bloody cold evening. Mind you, no one so much as approached me during the inquiry. Why should they? Philpott's public reputation worked against him, and his death was depicted, at least in the press, as a motiveless crime – an innocent man lured to his death, and not even robbed. Which, I need hardly say, suited me just fine.'

He reached for the glass of water in front of him and took a long drink. Webb didn't blame him. It was close in the small room, despite the high, open window, and the first rumbles of thunder could be heard in the distance.

Webb shifted on his seat. 'How did you feel when Judd's death was linked with Philpott's?'

Knowles shrugged. 'The similarity was a bit unnerving, and naturally I wasn't happy about the revival of interest in Philpott. Still, since I'd had nothing whatever to do with Judd, I reasoned I wasn't in any more danger than I'd been before.'

'Until Mr Mace began airing his theories?' Webb asked, remembering Harry Good.

'That, I admit, put the fear of God into me. He'd really got his teeth into the case and he's an astute old so-and-so. I knew if he came up with anything, the police would take notice. They'd go back to Philpott's firm and start digging deeper.'

'So you tried to stop him?'

Knowles wasn't meeting his eye. 'I wasn't really thinking straight, but it seemed if I could just get hold of his notes, I'd have a clearer idea where I stood. But the desk drawer was locked and I couldn't break it, and I didn't dare hang around any longer.'

'So you waited outside till he walked his dog?' Webb persisted.

'I knew he took it out at nine-thirty every evening.'

Ferris leaned forward. '
How
did you know?'

Knowles flushed. 'His daughter mentioned it once.'

Webb wondered at the heightened colour, but didn't comment on it. 'Did she also mention the route?'

'Yes, she said whenever she took Goldie out, he wanted to go the way her father took him, down to the canal and home round the block.'

'So you were friendly with Mr Mace's daughter, but had no compunction about attempting to murder her father?'

This time, colour flooded his face. 'All right, Chief Inspector, you can't despise me any more than I do myself. I've no regrets about Philpott, but I'd give anything to take back what happened to old Frederick. Thank God he survived.

'In my defence, though you mightn't believe me, it was my mother and sister I was most worried about. My mother's dying and I couldn't let her find out everything right at the end like this.'

He looked up, beseechingly. 'Is there any way of keeping it quiet, just for a day or two?'

'I'm afraid not, sir, but if your mother's as ill as you say, it should be easy enough to keep it from her.'

'But I have to see her. I've been going in twice a day, and if I don't –'

'It's out of our hands, I'm afraid.'

And that, Webb thought, whatever sentence the court might impose, would be Knowles's real punishment.

'So it wasn't the assistant, after all?' Crombie commented, some days later.

'No; he
had
simply slipped and fallen, as his landlady said. What's more, it was just outside the cinema, so there were plenty of witnesses, including,' Webb added meaningfully, 'a young lady who'd been to the cinema with him.'

'Ah-
hah
!'

'Quite so; he's not gay at all. That was simply uninformed gossip about a reserved young man who kept himself to himself.'

'Just goes to show,' said Crombie enigmatically.

If anything, Gillian was more concerned about Alex than Sonia. The latter was proving surprisingly strong; Mrs Knowles had died the day of Patrick's arrest, and Sonia had been left to deal with everything, including her distraught sister-in-law.

'Now that I know what was wrong with her, it's much easier to handle,' Sonia told her. 'Would you believe, neither Patrick nor Sybil had dared mention it to her in all this time? If I can get her to talk about it. I'm sure she'll be much better, and of course I can stress she's not the first or the last to have gone through this.

'Another thing, she's never worked since, just moped around the house all day being pampered by her mother, which gave her far too much time to think, and feel sorry for herself. I'm determined to ease her back into a job.'

Sonia'd smiled. 'This may all sound very altruistic, but I admit to an ulterior motive. I want her to have sufficient confidence to stay on in the cottage. It's not far away, after all, and when Patrick comes out of prison, I want to have him all to myself.'

Gillian suspected that this positive attitude came from the fact that Patrick was leaning on his wife so heavily, needing her now as he'd shown little sign of doing before.

Informed opinion was that his sentence on the murder charge might not be too severe, taking into account provocation and lack of premeditation – always providing his story was accepted. How he'd be dealt with regarding the attempted murder, Gillian didn't know, but she herself could never forgive him. It said a lot for the strength of her friendship with Sonia that it was surviving under such adverse conditions.

Alex, though, was another matter. Consumed as she was with guilt and horror, there was little Gillian could say to help her.

'And to think he tried to kill Pop, of all people – and that I unwittingly helped him! If I hadn't mentioned about Goldie –'

'- he'd simply have waited till Pop came out,' Gillian said firmly. 'It's no use torturing yourself like this, Alex. Anyway, thank God he's as good as new again.'

She studied her sister's downcast face. 'How do you explain all this heart-searching and remorse to Roy? He must have noticed it.'

'He's being very considerate,' Alex said quietly. 'I don't know how much he suspects; do you think I should tell him?'

'Not yet, and certainly not just to salve your conscience; that would do more harm than good. For all we know, the possibility of an affair might never have entered his head, and it would be pointless to hurt him unnecessarily.'

'I know you think I've been a fool,' Alex said, 'and you're right. But I'll make it up to him, I promise I will. I've learned my lesson.'