‘Do you remember when you arrived home then? Perhaps we could work back from there.’
‘Eleven, twelve. I’m hopeless with time. Ask anyone.’
‘Were you the last to go?’
‘As far as I recall.’
‘And how did you leave Mr Hadleigh?’
‘Alive and well.’
‘And in good spirits?’
For the first time Jennings paused. He looked down at his olive-green walking boots then across the room at a crime-prevention poster showing a disembodied hand creeping into an open handbag. ‘Hard to say, really. He didn’t strike me as someone who gave a lot away.’
‘What did you talk about? After the others had gone.’
‘Writing. That is why I was asked.’
‘Do you often accept this kind of invitation?’
‘Not as a rule, but Midsomer Worthy was quite near. Also I thought it might be amusing.’
‘And was it?’
‘No. A positive Valhalla of tedium.’
‘Perhaps you could tell us—’
‘For heaven’s sake! What on earth have my impressions got to do with this shocking business? We’ll be here all night at this rate.’
‘As an outsider, Mr Jennings, you have a viewpoint that could be uniquely helpful. I’m not only interested in your opinions of individual group members but also in any cross currents or tensions you may have picked up during the course of the evening.’
‘Relating to Hadleigh, you mean?’
‘Not necessarily.’
Max regarded a poster on the other wall, this time seriously and at some length, as if gradually coming to terms with the notion that Neighbourhood Watch could change his life. Sergeant Troy, who had been leaning against the door, picked up an orange vinyl chair and sat just behind his chief. The room was very quiet. Just the hiss of tape and the occasional scraping of a chair leg as Jennings fidgeted about . . .
‘In your business,’ Barnaby nudged the conversation back on the rails, ‘you must need a keen eye and ear. Your raw material aren’t they, people? Surely you must have noticed something.’
‘There was a woman with red hair - I’m afraid I forget her name - who was in love with Hadleigh. And extremely unhappy about it. A ghastly little man called Clapton. Hopelessly ineffectual and, I suspect, completely un-talented, with his poor squash of a wife. A sweet old chap so distrait it hardly seemed safe to let him loose without a keeper and a fearsome, barking-mad woman with legs like Nelson’s column and a quite Laurentian idolatry for what she kept calling “true English blood”.’ He looked back and forth between the two policemen. ‘Is the theory then that one of them came back later and did him over?’
Barnaby admitted to some surprise at this suggestion. ‘You’re the only person I’ve yet spoken to who didn’t assume the murder was the result of a break-in.’
‘Oh, no writer worth his salt’s going to settle for that. Far too tame. Where’s the plot?’
‘Why did you go and visit this group, Mr Jennings?’
‘I’ve already been asked that.’
‘Your agent was frankly disbelieving. She implied it was the sort of thing you’d never do.’
‘Talent? What on earth have you been talking to her for?’
‘We were trying to trace you. After your wife had told us—’
‘
You’ve been to my house?
’ The words emerged in a tangled skein as if the man’s tongue was so stiff it could not shape or separate them properly.
‘Obviously. Mrs Jennings seemed to think you had gone to Finland.’
‘Jesus Christ. What did you tell her?’
‘At that stage there was nothing we could tell her. And in any case she was hardly in a condition to take much in.’
‘It was your Mr Stavro,’ said Troy, ‘who described your movements. According to his statement you asked for an early call, saying you had to drive to Heathrow. He also mentioned that you got home on the night in question at one a.m. and not, as you have just suggested, between eleven and midnight.’
‘I told you. I never know what time it is.’
‘Rather a waste of that beautiful watch then, sir.’
Jennings seemed not to have heard. ‘Have you . . . ? Did you go back to the house? Talk to my wife again?’
‘No.’
‘So, as far as she knows . . .’
‘You’re still pussyfooting around Helsinki.’
Even as he spoke Barnaby wondered how true that was. He recalled the woman’s bitter, wasted smile and eyes that could take no more yet knew that more was surely on the way. Saw her coppery limbs, banded with cold fire, cleaving through the water; up and down, up and down, like some glittering, cruelly constrained tropical fish.
Jennings’ infidelities were his own affair (unless they had some bearing on the present case) and should have been a matter of complete indifference to Barnaby. Yet, momentarily, he felt both pity and disgust which he made no attempt to conceal. To his surprise, for the writer had struck him as self-contained to a fault, Jennings immediately started to explain and justify himself.
‘It’s not what you think.’
‘Really, Mr Jennings?’
‘If you’ve been looking me up you’ll perhaps know that my wife and I had a son who died when he was small. He would have been nine this year. His death affected Ava terribly. Everything about her seemed to change. She became morose and occasionally violent. Spent some time in a mental hospital. She wouldn’t let me near her physically or emotionally. I couldn’t comfort her and I had no one to comfort me. It was my child too.
‘I’m not the philandering type but eventually, more out of loneliness than anything else, I became involved with someone. Over a long period of time we’ve grown very close and, I must admit, I now can’t bear the thought of life without her. I wanted to tell my wife, but Lindsay wouldn’t hear of it. She said Ava had had enough misery already to last a lifetime. We’ve been together, if one can so call snatched hours here and there and a few weekends, for five years. This is the first time we’ve attempted anything like a real holiday. The cottage belongs to Lindsay’s friends. I was very happy there, but she couldn’t settle. Kept fretting, sure something would go wrong.’ Jennings picked up his beaker of coffee, by now quite cold, peered into it and said, ‘God - what a mess.’
It was only too plain what mess he meant. The murder of Gerald Hadleigh seemed hardly to engage his interest at all.
‘I hope this can be kept out of the newspapers, chief inspector. It’s not as if it’s relevant to your investigation.’
‘That’s really not in our hands, sir.’
‘I can’t believe that.’ Then, receiving no response, he rose wearily to his feet, saying, ‘Well, if someone will show me where you’ve parked my car . . .’
‘I hardly think you’ll need to know that just yet, sir.’
‘I’m sorry?’ Jennings, already moving towards the door, turned back in some surprise. ‘Isn’t that it then?’
‘Not by a long way, I’m afraid.’
The chief inspector, more entertained than annoyed at this impromptu example of faux naivety, gave the machine the precise time and situation and switched off.
‘In that case I must talk to Lindsay. Persuade her to go home.’
‘You can have five minutes,’ said Barnaby thinking, as Troy had done, thank God, Lindsay not Barbara. ‘But I’m afraid it won’t be a private conversation.’
‘Why the hell not?’
‘Rules and regulations.’
‘I’ve never heard such arrogance. I shall complain about this. And at the highest level.’
‘By all means. But I think you will find that such a procedure is quite in order.’
When Jennings returned, in rather more than five minutes, he looked both unhappy and distracted. It was plainly an effort, when Barnaby once more switched on the tape, to drag his attention back to the matter in hand. When asked if he wished to have his solicitor present he hardly seemed to register. It was repeated.
‘No thanks. At one fifty an hour I keep him for high days and holidays.’
Barnaby chose his first question purely for its shock value. ‘Tell me, Mr Jennings, had you met Gerald Hadleigh before last Monday evening?’
‘What? I didn’t quite . . .’
He had heard. He had heard perfectly. Barnaby kept his eyes on his suspect’s face watching the play for time, and simultaneously guessing at the selection/rejection thought processes now whirring away in Jennings’ mind. Why had that old buffer refused to go home? Could Gerald have possibly asked him not to? If so what reason had he given? Was my name mentioned? The police would have talked to St John by now - what had he told them? Alternatively, was there perhaps some letter or paper - perhaps and old diary - in the dead man’s effects that proves some connection between us. Better play it safe.
‘Yes, I knew him. Very slightly. Some years ago.’
‘Was this perhaps why you accepted the invitation?’
‘Partly. I suppose I was a bit curious as to how things had gone with him. You know, the way one is.’
‘So that’s why you made a point of staying behind? To catch up on old times?’
‘Yes.’
‘Not then, as you stated earlier, simply to talk about writing?’
‘That as well. It was something we had in common.’
‘Hardly to a comparable degree.’
Max Jennings shrugged. ‘Writing’s writing.’
‘You seem to have gone to a lot of trouble to bring about a meeting of so little moment.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I understand you stayed behind long after most of the others had gone, made a show of leaving, then virtually tricked your way back inside the house.’
‘What dramatic nonsense. I forgot my gloves.’
‘So why was it necessary to bolt the door?’
‘I didn’t.’
‘And, if you only went back for something you’d forgotten, why were you still there over an hour later?’
‘We got talking. All right?’
‘About the past?’
‘Largely.’
‘Did Mr Hadleigh get upset?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Then I’ll put it more plainly.’ Barnaby leaned forwards, resting his elbows on the edge of the table. Bringing his face closer. ‘Did you reduce him to tears?’
Max Jennings stared at Barnaby then skewed his head round to look at Troy. He regarded first one man and then the other, all the while struggling to project the image of someone utterly bemused at this preposterous notion that had been so crudely thrust upon him. But he did not answer and his eyes were bright and extremely concerned.
The interrogation started in earnest. Both officers took part and the rhythm was hard and relentless.
‘Why were you so determined to get Hadleigh on his own?’
‘Why was the murdered man afraid of you?’
‘He wasn’t—’
‘So afraid that he begged St John not to leave the house
under any circumstances
until you did.’
‘Everyone had commented on how tense he was.’
‘Hardly spoke.’
‘Wound up.’
‘Like a watch-spring.’
‘Been drinking.’
‘You can hardly blame me for—’
‘Why did you lie about the time you arrived home?’
‘I didn’t. It was a mistake—’
‘Why did you lie about going to Finland?’
‘I’ve explained that—’
‘When did you discover that this cottage, supposedly belonging to your mistress’s friends, would be available?’
‘The exact dates, Mr Jennings. When did you learn those?’
‘A while ago.’
‘How long a while?’
‘A couple of months.’
‘Before you accepted Hadleigh’s invitation?’
‘Well . . . yes.’
‘Convenient.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘To just be able to vanish like that.’
‘After a murder.’
‘I’d call that handy.’
‘Very nice.’
‘Why did you take all the clothes you wore that night away with you?’
‘It’s an outfit I’m comfortable in. I wear it a lot.’
‘What happened to the brown suitcase?’
‘The brown . . . ?’
‘Belonging to Hadleigh.’
‘Missing from his place. Not found at yours.’
‘Why on earth should it be—’
‘Where is it, Mr Jennings?’
‘Dump it on your way to “Heathrow”?’
‘What did you take from the chest of drawers?’
‘I don’t recall a chest of—’
‘In the bedroom.’
‘I was never in the bedroom.’
‘Is that a fact?’
‘I didn’t go upstairs at all.’
‘Why didn’t you get in touch with the police once you knew of Hadleigh’s death?’
‘I
didn’t
know—’
‘That’s your story,’ said Sergeant Troy. ‘Your girlfriend might be singing a different tune.’
‘My God!’ Jennings sprang to his feet with quick aggression, as if he had been physically invaded. ‘If anyone’s treating her like you’re treating me I’ll wring their bloody neck.’
‘Sit down.’
‘I feel like standing up. I assume I’m allowed to stand if I want to?’ He glared at the two policemen in turn, his eyes and hands in perpetual motion. Then he sat down again in a curious, stiff way, balancing on the very edge of his seat as if to underline the transitory nature of his presence.
‘Look at it from our point of view, Mr Jennings,’ said the chief inspector and although the words might have been construed as conciliatory there was no hint of appeasement in his voice, which was unemotional to the point of coldness. ‘Hadleigh was known to be afraid of you to a degree which led him to ask for what might well be construed as protection, albeit from a rather fragile source. In spite of this, and due entirely to your own machinations, he found himself in the very position that he wished to avoid at all costs. The following morning he is discovered dead and you, the last person to see him alive, have disappeared. And this after giving your wife false information about your whereabouts. By some freakish coincidence you then find yourself shut away in a cottage, miles from anywhere, which just happens to be minus all the usual lines of communication to the outside world. Really, you must think we were all born yesterday.’