Verdict Unsafe (31 page)

She nodded again, looking thoughtful.

“Meanwhile, Lennie, knowing that Ginny has collapsed, tries to get help for her by using Drummond’s mobile phone. His own is out of order, remember? He dials nine-double-nine, then heads back home in the Transit. Not hearing anything about Ginny, he is about to go to the hospital to make sure she got there, when you arrive with her. There are bloodstains in his van, so he closes the door before you can see in.”

“Nice,” said Judy. “Neat. Except that I saw Drummond go down there under his own steam.”

“You saw someone in dark clothes and a crash helmet,” said Lloyd.

“Who had just got off Drummond’s bike,” said Judy. “And who took his crash helmet off.”

“He was a long way away by then. You were seeing him through heat haze and smoke from the bonfire. Perhaps you were mistaken.”

“And perhaps it was his twin brother,” said Judy. “But it makes more sense than your last one.”

The FME said that if Ginny had no objection, then she could be interviewed. Lloyd sent her with a WPC, whom he tried to remember not to call WPCs, to have some lunch in the canteen first, and prepared to interview her husband.

Carole watched the news again. The underpass, the enormous bonfire, still smoldering even when the camera crews got there. The firemen, damping it down, the policemen looking through its ashes for the weapon, in case it had been thrown onto the fire.

Somehow it seemed more real, now that it had been sanctioned by the TV news. It was so neat. Edited, marshalled, explained in short sentences. Not a bit like life. But it made Drummond seem much more dead.

There was no emotion, as she watched Detective Chief Superintendent Case say that they were keeping an open mind as to the motive behind the murder; no elation, no relief, even. Colin Drummond was dead, and it was just another anxiety.

*   *   *

Ginny was here somewhere; Lennie was worried about her. She wasn’t well enough to be here.

“No comment,” he said, to the question of why there was blood in his van.

“Drummond raped your wife, didn’t he?” said Sergeant Finch.

“She wasn’t my wife then,” said Lennie. “I didn’t even know her. Maybe if I had, I’d have wanted to kill him, but—” He shrugged. “I didn’t,” he said. “I didn’t want to, and I didn’t kill him. Is she all right?” he asked.

“As well as can be expected,” said Finch.

She shouldn’t be here. But give Finch his due, he hadn’t meant for her to come; Ginny could sometimes just put her foot down. Even with him.

“Did he come after her again? Did
she
kill him?”

“I don’t know who killed him.”

“But your wife had a gun, hadn’t she, Lennie?”

“I don’t know,” said Lennie.

“Someone gave her a gun. Last Friday.”

“Did they?”

“Did she kill Drummond?”

“No.”

“You just said you didn’t know who’d killed him.”

“I know she didn’t.”

“How?”

Lennie sighed. “No comment,” he said.

He had gone back in to her this morning after Rob had gone, and had had to plead with her to let him cut the sweater off. He couldn’t bear looking at it, and it had to have been uncomfortable. He’d promised to get her another one, just like it. Tears came into his eyes again, and he knocked them away.

“Something bothering you, Lennie?”

He didn’t speak. The GP had come to see her then, once she had proper clothes on, thank God, or Lennie didn’t know what the man would have thought of him. As it was he didn’t think much.

“She should be in bed, Mr. Fredericks,” he’d said. “It isn’t just the injuries, you know, but the physical shock of having received
such a beating.” He was Asian, spoke very quickly and quietly. He blamed Lennie for letting her work as a prostitute. “She should be resting, quiet.”

“She won’t stay in bed,” Lennie had said.

If the doctor was so bloody clever, he could come here and make her go home and go to bed, because neither he nor the police could.

Chief Inspector Lloyd wasn’t saying much; even less than he was. He had just sat there, until now. Now he was walking around the room, reading the notices as though they hadn’t been up there for months. And now, he spoke. “Where were you when that happened to Ginny?” he asked.

“I drive a cab. I was taking it back to the guy who does the night driving. Rob Jarvis.”

“And while you were out someone came in and gave her that beating? How did that make you feel, Lennie?”

“How do you th—?” Lloyd turned as Lennie spoke, eyebrows raised, and Lennie realized what he had done. “That isn’t what happened,” he said. “Ginny was with a punter in the underpass.”

“No comment,” he said, to every question after that.

They left him after they’d had enough.

Matt had lunch, packed a bag with stuff already folded, ready for the journey. He checked the house like he checked the bank. Doors, internal doors, windows. Gases. Lights. He checked his pockets. Wallet, travel documents, passport, maps, paper, pen, phrase book.

He threw the bag in the boot, got in, and drove off.

“Virginia Fredericks,” she said, when invited to do so for the tape. She was angry. Angry because they’d come in and said they wanted to look in Lennie’s van and then they’d said there was blood in it and he had to go with them and it was her fault. It was all her fault. Why should Lennie get the blame?

“Now,” said Chief Inspector Lloyd, “if at any time, you feel that you need to rest or to stop the interview altogether, you must say so. Do you understand? We won’t carry on until you feel up to it.”

“Yeah,” she said.

“It’s important that we know who did that to you,” he said.

“A punter.”

“What were you doing with a punter in the underpass?”

“What do you think I was bloody doing?”

“Why did he hit you?”

“He just turned nasty.”

“For what reason?”

“They don’t need a fucking reason!”

He smiled. “You know,” he said, “Inspector Hill tells me that you went through almost a whole day in court without swearing once. Do you think you could pretend you’re in court now?”

“Why should I?”

“Well,” he said, “it’s quicker, if you don’t. Takes up less space on the tape. Saves money. Puts more bobbies on the beat. Prevents more crime. Brings down insurance premiums, brings down how much it costs to store things, therefore how much it costs to sell them, therefore how much it costs to buy them. Everyone would have more money. Just think,” he said. “If this was a long enough interview, you could make Britain great again.”

She smiled, despite herself.

“Now,” he said. “Bobbie Chalmers gave you a gun, didn’t she? Last Friday?”

“Yes.” Lennie hadn’t said she shouldn’t tell them about that.

They asked who else knew she had the gun. Not Lennie, she said quickly. He thought she’d taken it back when he’d told her to. Rob Jarvis knew about it, she said, and she told them she had shown him it on Wednesday morning.

“Why?”

“He said Drummond might come after me, and I said I’d got protection. Showed him the gun when he didn’t believe me. He told me how to use it.”

“And where’s the gun now?”

She shrugged. “I dunno,” she said.

“Where did you keep it?”

“In a drawer in the room where I take the clients.”

“Was that where you were assaulted?”

“I wasn’t assaulted,” she said, shaking her head. “Just beaten up.”

“Oh, right.” He smiled. “But it happened in the house, didn’t it?”

“No.”

“I think you or Lennie got the gun to stop it happening.”

“No. It had gone by then anyway.” She said she thought Rob had taken it.

Lennie had told her that he’d packed in driving his taxi, that she didn’t have to do him in the mornings anymore. That was good, but she’d said how that meant that neither of them would be bringing in money for a while, not until her face mended. He’d said he’d think of something.

Chief Inspector Lloyd asked when she had last seen the gun, and she told him Thursday lunchtime. When did she know it was missing? Yesterday afternoon.

“So what makes you think Rob Jarvis took it?” asked Sergeant Finch. He was cute. He’d got curls, like a little boy.

“He was there yesterday morning,” she said.

“Was he alone in the room at all?” asked Lloyd.

“Yeah. Just for a minute. He goes straight upstairs when he comes in.”

“So he saw it on Wednesday morning, was alone in the room yesterday morning, and you noticed it was gone yesterday afternoon—is that right?”

“Yeah,” she said, feeling her eye and her cheek beginning to throb at the same time as one another. She felt a bit sick.

“I think you could do with a rest,” said Lloyd. “I’ll send you in some tea and biscuits. Or would you rather have a glass of water?”

“Water,” she said. “Can I take my painkillers?”

“Of course. Someone will take you home, if you want.”

She shook her head. She didn’t want to be there without Lennie.

“I think you should have a rest in our sick bay,” said Lloyd. “We call it that—it’s a tiny room with the same kind of bed as you get in the cells, but fewer people have thrown up on it.”

Lloyd was quite nice really, like Inspector Hill. But the one with the curls was cute. Sergeant Finch. When Chief Inspector Lloyd put off the tape, she told him that. The Chief Inspector laughed, and Sergeant Finch went all red, right up to the roots of his curly hair.

CAROLE HEARD ROB MOVING ABOUT UPSTAIRS, and she went up to him. She just wanted to talk, to tell him what she’d done. She had to tell him.

He was just putting on his dressing gown; he pulled it around his naked body when she came in, turned away, looking out of the window. She watched as he tied the belt. He was embarrassed because she had caught him without his clothes on.

The knocking on the door made them both jump. It was probably someone selling double-glazing or religion, and she wanted to talk to Rob.

An even louder knock, then the doorbell. “Police, Mr. Jarvis! Can you open the door, please?”

He walked past her, out of the room. She didn’t go downstairs with him.

Jarvis was in; the cab was there, and anyway, Lloyd had seen him at the bedroom window when he had pulled up. He was about to call through the letterbox again when he saw the figure through the fluted glass.

“DCI Lloyd, Stansfield CID, Mr. Jarvis,” he said. “May I come in?”

“Yes,” said Jarvis. “Is this about the girl that was murdered? I told DC Marshall—I didn’t see anything. I haven’t remembered anything that might help you.”

“It’s not exactly about that,” said Lloyd. “Though we haven’t ruled out a connection. It’s about Colin Drummond.”

“Oh,” said Rob. “I do hope you don’t expect me to be overwhelmed with grief.”

“No, sir,” said Lloyd. “But we have traced the gun used in his killing to a prostitute called Ginny Fredericks—I believe you know her?”

Jarvis nodded.

“She says you saw this gun, sir. On Wednesday morning— is that true?”

“Yes. She had it for protection from Drummond. I showed her how to use it. And if she used it to blow away that little shit, she deserves a medal.” He walked to the window, looked out as he spoke.

“She says she thinks you must have taken it,” said Lloyd. “That it went missing sometime between Thursday lunchtime and yesterday afternoon, and that you were in the room alone for a few minutes yesterday morning.”

Jarvis shook his head. “I didn’t take it,” he said.

“Would you say Mrs. Fredericks was a quick learner, sir?” asked Lloyd.

“What?”

“You show her how to use a gun on Wednesday, and by Friday she is carrying out an efficient instant killing. You served in Northern Ireland, I believe?”

Jarvis turned. “What’s that got to do with it?” he asked.

“The style of the killing,” Lloyd said. “It reminded me of a terrorist execution.”

“Everyone’s seen that a dozen times in films and documentaries,” Jarvis said. “Even Ginny. Otherwise, how do
you
know what a terrorist execution looks like? Come to that,” he went on, “I’ve only seen it that way.”

Yes, all right, thought Lloyd. If I want my theories demolished, I’ve got an expert. I don’t need amateurs horning in. “You were in your cab opposite Marilyn Taylor’s flat on Wednesday night,” he said. “You told DC Marshall that you had seen nothing, but I find that hard to believe, Mr. Jarvis, because someone left that block of flats at about quarter to eleven, and according to you, you were still across the road.”

“I must have been looking the other way,” said Jarvis. He went to the sideboard, took out a glass. He hadn’t looked at Lloyd once.

“I don’t think you were,” Lloyd said. “I think you saw Drummond leave that block of flats, and I think you followed him, right into Stansfield. I think you saw him put something on the bonfire at the boating lake, and you went to check what it was. Someone saw a man by the bonfire, shouted at him, and watched him leave in a taxi, Mr. Jarvis. It was you, wasn’t it?”

Jarvis gave a brief nod.

“Why didn’t you tell the police what you’d found?”

“I just found a bag of clothes—it’s not against the law to put things on bonfires. I didn’t know he’d raped anyone, not then.” He poured himself a whisky, and splashed soda into it.

“But you still didn’t tell the police once you did know,” said Lloyd.

“I just didn’t think it would do my wife any good if we got involved with Drummond again,” he said. “I’m sorry. I should have told your constable, but I just didn’t need that sort of hassle.”

“I think it might have been because you wanted him all to yourself,” said Lloyd.

Jarvis frowned, shook his head. “Sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You didn’t want him arrested and tried—you wanted to kill him.”

“Yes,” said Jarvis, setting his drink down again, and looking straight at Lloyd for the first time. “Oh, yes, Chief Inspector, I wanted to kill him. I wanted to kill him the moment I saw my wife lying in hospital, and I’ve wanted to kill him ever since. Every time I see my wife take a bus, because she can’t bring herself to use the car that’s sitting in the garage. Every time I go up Lennie Fredericks’s stairs and wait for his wife, every time I think what my life, my marriage was like before I had to do that. What I was like before. So yes, you’re right. I wanted to kill him. But I didn’t.”