Why Aren't They Screaming? (14 page)

‘Where did the gun come from?' she asked suddenly, trying to summon up her mental picture of the scene in the drawing room and wondering why she hadn't spotted it.

‘We won't know much till we get the ballistics report,' Bailey said, ‘the gun itself being missing. We don't even know what type it was yet. I'm glad to say we didn't find it when we searched your cottage,' he added, a fleeting smile passing across his austere features. ‘Which inclines me to think you and Mr Herrin are probably in the clear.'

Loretta looked blankly at him; it hadn't occurred to her that she and Robert were suspects.

‘Don't worry, miss, at the moment you're well down my list. Now, what can you tell me about your friend Peggy?'

Loretta was about to protest Peggy's innocence again but decided it might antagonize Bailey; she was also very tired. She told the detective what she knew, which didn't really amount to much – she realized she didn't even know Peggy's surname or where she had lived in London. But she was able to give full descriptions of both the girl and her husband, not forgetting the tattoo on Mick's forearm; Bailey cheered up considerably on hearing this detail, and said something about getting the Met on to it.

‘Right, then ... if you'll just read through your statement and sign each page at the bottom – if you agree with it, that is...'

Loretta took the long, hand-written statement and examined it page by page. The sentences were short, inelegant; even so, she had to admire the way in which the
policewoman had succeeded in reducing Loretta's occasionally disjointed narrative into a concise account of her part in that evening's events. She signed her name half a dozen times, and returned the clipboard to WPC Baker.

‘You can go.'

Loretta started to get up. Bailey held up a hand.

‘No, I meant WPC Baker.'

Loretta sat down again, wondering what was coming next. Bailey waited until the other woman had left the room, then leaned back with his hands behind his head.

‘So – who d'you think did it?'

Loretta blinked. Until this moment the detective's manner had been neutral, occasionally accusing, not one to invite confidences. She remembered the exchange at the top of the stairs and, without further thought, rapped out two words.

‘Not Peggy!'

‘That's why I'm asking you. You're obviously convinced this girl's innocent – why?'

‘I – it's just ... not in character. I told you – she was grateful to Clara for taking her in... It's just – impossible.'

‘So we go back to my original question. Who d'you think did it?'

Loretta sat in silence, unable to think of anything to say. She realized, surprised, that she'd hardly considered the question. It was as if, from the moment she discovered Clara's body, she had taken to living in the present tense. The evening seemed to have stretched backwards in time until it occupied most of her recent life; she was aware of a protective numbness in her brain which had excluded all but the demands of each long moment. She shook her head slightly, seeking to dislodge the film that seemed to have grown over her mind. Bailey, observing her, appeared to understand the process.

‘Take your time,' he said quietly.

Loretta looked up, taking in the detective's features for the first time. He had fair hair and skin, grey eyes which lacked expression; it was a face she found impossible to read. But – he seemed genuinely interested in what she had to say.

‘Since Peggy's missing,' she said slowly, ‘the obvious person is Mick. She wouldn't have gone with him voluntarily,
I'm sure of that. But what if he came here to get her back, and Clara tried to stop him? He might have taken the jewellery to make it look like a robbery. But–' she stopped, realizing she had been thinking aloud.

‘But?' Bailey prompted her.

‘I was just thinking about the gun,' she said reluctantly. ‘Somehow ... well, I just can't see Mick as the sort of person who'd carry a gun. He was violent, yes. But with his fists, or maybe a knife ... not a gun. Though these days...' She trailed off. She had a nagging feeling that she'd forgotten something, and it didn't feel as if it had anything to do with Mick. What was it? She cast her mind back over the last few days, trying to pin down something that was floating just beyond reach of her conscious mind. Then, ‘Oh! How could I forget... Inspector, Clara was being threatened! Phone calls, letters, they started as soon as she allowed the peace women on to her land. Look' – she had seen a momentary flicker in Bailey's light eyes – ‘I don't know what your feelings are about the peace camp, and I don't want to know. What I'm telling you is fact. Clara was getting anonymous letters and phone calls – most of them were silent, the phone calls, I mean, but she said someone read the burial service to her once. And someone threw paint at the house on Saturday night – you know about that, of course?'

Bailey nodded. Loretta wondered whether to tell him about the voices she and Clara had heard in the night, but something held her back.

‘She showed you these letters?'

‘No.'

‘You hear any of the phone calls?'

‘No, but I haven't been here very long ... She was keeping a list of them somewhere, a sort of log. I expect you'll find the letters when you search the house.'

‘So you're suggesting that the people behind these letters and phone calls are responsible for Mrs Wolstonecroft's death?'

‘
I
don't know! You asked me a question, and I'm doing my best to answer it. You must admit, it's a very odd coincidence that Clara got all these threats and now she's been killed.'

‘Miss Lawson, there's a world of difference between
sending anonymous letters and shooting someone. Crime statistics show that the sort of people who make threats very rarely carry them out –'

‘But what about Saturday night – the paint? That was real enough! What if that was a warning, and now –'

‘Sorry, you're way off beam there. We charged three eighteen-year-olds with criminal damage' – he looked at his watch – ‘several hours ago. They left the station just before we got your – Mr Herrin's call. I don't think any of them's likely to have nipped straight back here and shot Mrs Wolstonecroft on the way home. The time's wrong, for one thing, and two of them had their dads with them.'

‘I didn't know that.' Loretta felt cheated; she had more or less decided to trust Bailey, and he'd been holding out on her.

‘No, and I think you've been reading too many spy novels, Miss Lawson.'

‘And you've been watching too many gangster movies! You seem to think Peggy's some sort of moll, sucking up to Clara just so she could let her husband into the house. And it's
Dr
Lawson, I told you at the start.' She was sick of people who couldn't remember her name or get her title right; as soon as the words left her lips, she regretted them, but it was too late. Bailey's expression – hostility – was for once all too easy to read, and she knew she'd blown any chance she'd had of persuading him of Peggy's innocence. He opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by a knock at the door.

‘Come in!'

A young PC appeared, edging into the room in a state of suppressed excitement.

‘Excuse me, sir – sorry to bother you – but I found this.' He whisked something pink from behind his back and placed it triumphantly on the table in front of them. Loretta gasped; it was a barrel bag identical to the one she had described to Bailey earlier.

‘It was in the bushes at the side of the garden, just before you get into the trees.'

‘Well done.' Bailey was on his feet, drawing on gloves. Holding the very tip of the zip fastener, he slowly eased the bag open. His hand darted inside, and reappeared holding a
small square object in a gilt frame. Loretta recognized it at once as one of the paintings from Clara's sitting room.

‘Probably realized it was too easily identified,' Bailey said, putting the picture down next to the bag. ‘Looks like your friend Peggy's got some explaining to do,' he went on, turning to Loretta. ‘I take it this is her bag – the one you were telling me about?'

Loretta nodded miserably.

‘You can go now,
Dr
Lawson. Thank you for your cooperation. We'll be in touch if we need to speak to you in the next day or two.'

She was being dismissed, and the detective was already building up a case against Peggy.

‘Look, Inspector Bailey –'

‘Chief
Inspector.'

‘All right, Chief Inspector. I really don't want to quarrel with you. I'm sure you want the person who did this caught as much as I do.' She wasn't expressing herself very well; shock and exhaustion had taken their toll. ‘I just think you should –'

‘Thank you, Dr Lawson, I can assure you I know how to do my job.'

His gaze had dropped from her to the bag on the table in front of him. He picked it up and shook it; it seemed to be empty.

She turned unhappily to leave the room.

‘Oh, I forgot.'

The sound of Bailey's voice made her turn. ‘One of my men found this on the floor in your bathroom.' He tossed a cassette tape on to the table. ‘Don't want you to accuse us of holding on to your property unnecessarily.'

Loretta reached across and took the cassette, wondering when she'd dropped it. She remembered carrying a shoebox containing tapes up to the bedroom – perhaps it had fallen out then. She put it in a trouser pocket, too tired to think. Bailey hardly acknowledged her goodbye, and she returned downcast to the hall.

She decided to wait for Robert, a decision she later regretted since it meant she was still sitting on the bottom stair when Clara's body was removed from the house. The corpse was
carried to a waiting van on a stretcher, covered up, of course, but its awkward contours impressed her as an indelible image of lifelessness. It wasn't Robert's fault that Loretta was present at this unhappy juncture, but Colin Kendall-Cole's; Bailey had asked to see Robert after Loretta, but Colin had made a great show of looking at his watch and muttering about his important appointment.

‘Sorry, old chap – sure you understand,' he had said, looking from Robert to Bailey with an apologetic shrug.

Robert hadn't bothered to argue, telling Loretta afterwards that he simply hadn't the energy. In fact, as she drove him back to Flitwell just before one in the morning, he seemed even more exhausted and dispirited than she. As she drew up, he shook himself out of a reverie and gave her a bleak look.

‘I can't – it seems unreal.'

Loretta was once again oppressed by an uncertainty as to how she should respond. Was Robert the sort of man who'd welcome physical closeness in grief, as she would? Or would he prefer to face his thoughts and feelings alone? She placed her hand tentatively on his, and read her answer in his lack of response.

‘I'd better get back to the cottage,' she said in a low voice, making it clear she didn't expected an invitation to stay.

‘Sure you'll be all right?' He squeezed her hand at last, as though grateful for the space she had established between them.

‘Oh yes. It's probably the safest place in Oxfordshire tonight,' she said with a determined attempt at lightness. There must be more police per square foot than anywhere else in the county.'

‘See you tomorrow.' Robert opened the door and climbed out.

She drove quickly back to the cottage, observing as she parked the car that Baldwin's was still ablaze with light, and that dark shapes were moving about the garden.

She put her key into the lock and let herself into the cottage, finding that the light had been left on in the kitchen. Sitting on the table was the Le Creuset casserole in which she had been cooking the lamb; its contents were blackened and
stuck to the sides and bottom. Whoever had moved it from the hob – a policeman, she presumed – had been too late to save the food. It hardly mattered; her appetite had long ago disappeared.

She bolted the front door and went into the bathroom, pausing to check that the door in there was locked before climbing the spiral staircase to the bedroom. It was still a warm night, and she opened the small window in the roof, letting in the faint scent of flowers she had noticed hours before. She dropped her clothes on to a chair, pulled on a night-shirt, and lay on top of the bed cover, her eyes fixed on the sloping ceiling. After a moment, she leaned across and turned off the bedside lamp. Her first night in Keeper's Cottage and Clara's last on earth: the thought, sentimental, uselessly melodramatic, refused to be banished from her head as she lay in the imperfect darkness. She tensed her body and tried to relax it limb by limb, at the same time taking long, slow breaths. Even so, sleep remained elusive; for what seemed like hours she lay restless, occasionally disturbed by voices in the garden, despairing of ever getting to sleep.

Loretta awoke next morning to a pounding on the front door. Running downstairs in her night-shirt, she found Ellie and Here on the doorstep. Here's expression was grave; Ellie was flushed and voluble.

‘Loretta, is it true? The police won't tell us anything, they won't let us near the house. Is it true?'

Loretta was borne back into the kitchen by the force of Ellie's anxiety. She pushed her hair back from her eyes, which were puffy and sore after a night of, at best, fitful sleep, and braced herself for another interrogation.

‘Loretta,
please
– Betty in the post office says Clara's dead – I just can't believe it! Say it isn't true!'

Ellie was gripping the back of a chair with both hands, her eyes wide with fear. Loretta was trying to think of the right words with which to confirm the news when Here intervened.

‘Wait a minute, lovely.' He placed a restraining hand on his wife's arm. ‘Loretta looks all in.'