Murder... Now and Then (35 page)

Lloyd had been in the CID room, going through the PI reports on Catherine's movements before Mrs Scott's death, more than a little interested in what he was reading. Catherine Scott had lied to the police at the time; he had proof of that now, unlike his predecessors. He didn't believe that either Anna Worthing or Dave Bannister had had anything to do with Holyoak's murder.

He had told Judy what the lab had said about Holyoak's demise, and had even divulged his theories, since there was no one else in the room. Judy hadn't been terribly impressed with any of them, except the ones that he had dismissed as unlikely; the others seemed to her to be designed mostly to make Anna Worthing an innocent bystander. He had bristled when she had said that, and had delivered a swift counter-punch.

‘I've got an interview with the Tory agent, and I want to call in on the Scotts before that,' he had said, looking at her over his glasses. ‘Finch is having another go at Anna Worthing, so …'

‘You want me to go to the post-mortem.'

He had grinned. ‘Got it in one, Inspector.'

He was never slow to pull rank, wasn't Lloyd. Finch could have done the post-mortem – he was only seeing Anna about these keys. Served her right for accusing Lloyd of bias, she supposed, as she drove into the hospital grounds, the familiar dread rising up at the sight of the notice-board pointing the way to the mortuary, never mind the place itself.

‘See how much you can squeeze Freddie on the time of death,' he had said. ‘Chat him up.'

The day she was able to chat anyone up over a mutilated corpse was the day she would pack the job in.

‘Ah, Judy!' Freddie's broad smile altered his whole face, which was long and serious in repose; he chatted to her cheerfully about nothing in particular as he went about his unspeakable business, giving her a running commentary, while directing Kathy to various parts of Holyoak's anatomy that he wanted photographed or pickled or whatever.

‘Stabbed five times,' he said. ‘Died from haemorrhage. Tell Lloyd I'll take him on any time.'

Judy stood a very, very respectful distance away from the activity, and smiled weakly.

‘I'll tell you this,' he said. ‘You've never brought me a healthier specimen.'

‘He looks it,' said Judy.

‘I'm not kidding – he was in perfect shape. He was what – early to mid-fifties, at a guess?'

Judy nodded.

‘Perfect specimen. Strong, well developed – he worked out in a gym, I'm sure of that. Shouldn't think he ever smoked, or if he did, he gave it up a long time ago. Certainly didn't drink to excess, if at all. Everything in beautiful condition – except for a broken bone in his hand which wasn't set any too well.'

They were just like hairdressers, thought Judy. Who set that bone for you? Dear, oh dear, he made a right mess of that, didn't he?

‘Had a light supper of smoked-salmon sandwiches,' Freddie said.

‘Are we any closer to a time of death?' she asked hopefully.

‘Well – his physique comes into play to some extent with regard to body temperature and how long it took him to bleed to death, but honestly, Judy, it is the most—'

‘Inexact science known to man. I know. Please, please, please, Freddie,' she said. ‘We're not going to put it in your statement – just something for us to go on.'

‘Well … I told you that what he was doing at the time could affect the rigor process. And I hazarded a guess as to what he might have been doing.'

Judy nodded. ‘ Forensic confirm that,' she said. ‘And they say he was stabbed on the bed.'

‘Yes. That seems likely. In view of his physical strength, I'd say he had to have been taken completely by surprise. It looks like he was attacked by someone standing over him – the angle of the wounds suggests someone right-handed. After the first blow he was losing blood too rapidly to defend himself – I think he quite possibly died during the attack.' He looked up. ‘That's about it,' he said.

‘Time of death?' asked Judy, with a smile.

Freddie sighed. ‘ I've told you. I can't narrow it down any further.'

‘Freddie … you're not going to send me back to Lloyd with nothing, are you?' she pleaded, coming as near to flirting over a corpse as she could.

‘Between eight and midnight, if you must,' he said. ‘But be warned – in court, I will say it happened between the time he was last seen alive, and two in the morning. There are far too many variables to give anything more certain than that. But I will go so far as to say in court that it is likely to have happened between eight o'clock and midnight.'

Judy smiled. ‘Thank you, Freddie,' she said. ‘And you think that he was in bed with someone who attacked him when he fell asleep after an exhausting session?'

Freddie looked pained, ‘Judy,' he said, ‘delightful though you are, you really are picking up bad habits from your chief inspector. I said nothing of the sort. If you inferred that from what I said, that is your business. I've told you the facts, and one opinion. That a man of his strength and fitness would, I imagine, have had to have been taken by surprise. No more.'

Judy looked suitably apologetic. She listened to some more descriptions of Holyoak's innards, as Freddie continued to exclaim over the sheer perfection of his corpse, and formulated another question.

‘On Thursday you described the exercise he'd been taking as ‘‘very vigorous'',' she said. ‘ What does that mean in Freddie-speak? Over-enthusiastic or sheer brute force?'

Freddie shrugged. ‘Either of the above,' he said. ‘ It depends how willing his partner was. I imagine they'd be a bit sore – he was.'

Judy looked at him. Freddie was being even more meticulous than usual in not making assumptions. ‘Do you think he was with a man?' she asked.

‘I think nothing!' he said. ‘I see, I mark, I inform you of the facts, and I give you the benefit of the occasional opinion. Leave the theories to your lord and master,' he warned. ‘As to the sex of his attacker …' He shrugged. ‘A couple of the wounds are deep,' he said. ‘Which requires some strength. But nothing to rule out a woman.'

‘How come they could lay their hands on a carving knife, that's what I'd like to know,' said Judy. She smiled. ‘There were a lot of people in and out of that flat on Wednesday – any of them could have slipped a knife under the pillow for later. But you tell me that it could be a man or a woman, that their clothes might have been hung up in the wardrobe and won't have any trace of blood on them, that you haven't the foggiest when he actually died – and they are
all
right-handed, Freddie, so as clues go, that one isn't the most helpful you've ever given me.'

He grinned.

Max heard the Welsh accent as soon as he got into the house; he closed his eyes briefly, and went into the sitting room where Catherine sat with Chief Inspector Lloyd.

‘Ah – Mr Scott,' he said. ‘I've been going through your wife's statement to the police at the time of your first wife's death. She has changed her mind about a number of things. Including that she was with you.'

Max sat down wearily. ‘What do you want me to say?' he asked eventually.

‘I want you to tell me why you allowed a seventeen-year-old girl to lie for you,' said Lloyd. ‘And why I shouldn't assume that it was because you had murdered your wife.'

‘Max wasn't with his wife! I spoke to her!' Catherine cried out.

Lloyd was staring at her, as indeed Max was himself.

‘You spoke to her?' Lloyd repeated.

‘Yes,' she said. ‘ I tried to ring Max, but his wife said he wasn't at home.'

Lloyd sat up, and Max wondered how much more he was to find out about Catherine before all this dreadful business was finished.

‘What exactly did she say to you?' demanded Lloyd.

‘Mr Lloyd,' said Max. ‘It was thirteen years ago – how do you expect anyone to remember—'

‘No,' said Catherine. ‘It's all right.' She spoke to Max himself, not to Lloyd. ‘I remember every word of that phone call,' she said. ‘I'd realized that you didn't know that I'd moved – I'd tried to ring you at work, but you weren't there. So I tried your home number.'

Max had never heard any of this; he took a covert glance at the chief inspector, only to find that Lloyd was watching him.

‘She went to get a pen,' she said, ‘to take down my number. But someone came to the door, and she said she was too busy, and just hung up. It was a lie – it was no one important. And I'd missed you by then anyway. That's why I came that morning. I was lonely. I needed you.'

Max couldn't believe he was hearing this. But she had been seventeen. Seventeen, and pregnant and desperate. Then she had been faced with what had happened to Valerie. She hadn't been thinking straight.

‘What time did you telephone Valerie Scott?' Lloyd demanded.

Catherine closed her eyes. ‘I had rung Driver's from a call-box – they were just closing. It would be half an hour after that. Maybe three-quarters.'

Lloyd made a note. ‘You withheld this information, Mrs Scott,' he said. ‘Important information, which you had to know was important at the time. Either that or you're making it up now – which is it?'

‘It was just someone about the election!' she shouted defensively. ‘I heard her send them away! She said one lot had already been round, so it must have been the election!' She ran out of the room, upstairs. Max didn't go after her.

‘This meeting that never actually took place,' said Lloyd. ‘Am I now to understand that it had been arranged some time previously?'

‘Yes,' said Max. ‘Catherine rang me, said she had to see me. I was going in order to tell her that she had to accept that it was over.'

‘And yet you married her six months later,' said Lloyd. ‘It doesn't sound as though it was all over, Mr Scott.'

Max sighed. ‘I loved Catherine,' he said. ‘But I was married, and that did mean something, whatever people think of me. I had no intention of leaving Valerie. I told her that, I told Catherine that I would never, ever, have hurt Valerie like that.'

Lloyd raised his eyebrows.

‘I know I did hurt her, because I fell for Catherine, but that wasn't deliberate. I did everything I could to forget about her,' he said. ‘And perhaps in time I would have done, if I had been given the chance. But Valerie died, and Catherine came here. There seemed very little point in making everything even worse by denying what we felt for one another once the threat of my being charged with murder seemed to have passed.'

Lloyd nodded slowly. ‘I can understand that,' he said.

Max felt that he was being given a glimpse into the chief inspector's soul, just for a moment. But he mustn't let himself get fanciful. They were out to get a result and they would use every trick in the book to get it. He knew that from experience.

‘Is this tale about the phone-call yet another desperate attempt to get you off the hook?' Lloyd asked.

Max didn't know. He looked helplessly at the chief inspector, shaking his head.

Lloyd left at last; Max still didn't go to Catherine, and he didn't go back to work. He needed Anna.

Charles had known, really, from the moment he had got up. He had told himself that Gerry had gone out early; when he had seen her car still there where it had been the night before, he had told himself that she had gone for a walk. Just to avoid him, as he had avoided her last night. He had gone to work, and come back at lunchtime, but the feeling was still there.

It was hard to give a name to it, but it had been real enough. A feeling of not being alone, of the house not being empty, though it appeared to be. A bit like when he was with Victor Holyoak.

He hadn't called anyone yet; he hadn't moved. He had just sat down on the bed beside her. She was dead; he had known that from the doorway, but he had made the usual checks for any sign of life. The empty bottle which had contained the pills she had taken lay on the little cabinet beside the bed, together with the bottle of water she had used to wash them down. She had taken a lethal dose; no more, no less. A doctor's suicide. Not for her the taking of ten times as many pills as was necessary, or the accompanying bottle of Scotch. She had known exactly what would kill her with the least discomfort and the most efficacy.

He hadn't touched either of the bottles; he had only touched her enough to establish that she was dead, and had been for some time. He had to tell the police, get an ambulance, have her body taken away. He had to tell her mother and father, Zelda, Max, everyone who knew her. Knew her far, far better than he ever had, it seemed. But he couldn't move, not yet.

The note was in his hands, if you could call it a note. Four words. Four words that were causing him to question everything he had ever done, everything he had ever believed. Four words that hurt him more than any amount of name calling or blame or bitterness could ever have done.

He tried to ring Max first; Catherine said he was at work. The office said he was at home. Charles closed his eyes. My God, he was with that woman at a time like this.

‘Can someone else help you?' asked the receptionist.

‘Zelda Driver,' he said. ‘ Please.'

He told Zelda, somehow. And soon she was there, guiding him gently but firmly away from the bedroom, making him strong tea with a dash of whisky. Zelda did all the right things, all the things he couldn't bring himself to do. The police, all that. All he did was look at what Geraldine had written. And now they were here; calm, uninvolved, official voices were talking to Zelda. He didn't want them to read it. He crushed the piece of paper, and stuffed it in his pocket. But the words were there, in his head, as he waited for the questions to start.

My name was Geraldine
.