Picture of Innocence (39 page)

‘A nice, neat theory,’ Judy said. ‘Clears everything up. There’s just one problem with it. If Nicola Hutchins took the money, then how did Curtis Law see it? It was only there from ten o’clock until midnight, and he was on a train—’ She broke off, and there was a little silence broken only by the pages turning in her notebook. ‘You can clone cars,’ she said, almost to herself. Then: ‘Why
didn’t
he ask Rachel just to get rid of the newspaper when she got home?’

Lloyd turned, saw her face, and heaved a huge sigh of relief, and not just because his gun dog was pointing at last, but because she was pointing right at Curtis Law.

‘You always home in on the right things,’ Judy said.

Yes, sometimes he did, but that was because he blasted away at anything and everything, so he had to wing something now and again. It took his gun dog to find them.

‘That money was never reported stolen,’ said Judy, after she had gone through her notebook, and found all the puzzles had been answered, even ones they thought they had already answered.

‘No,’ said Lloyd.

‘So if we can get our evidence some other way, we can deal with that on an unofficial basis.’

‘True. I’d rather we did, anyway,’ said Lloyd. ‘Nicola wouldn’t make the most reliable of witnesses.’

They went into the CID room, and Judy told Tom Finch exactly what had to be done by his small workforce in order to get the hard, rock-solid evidence that they had to have if they were to prove it, and he wrote out a list as she spoke.

The post-flu-type viral fatigue that Lloyd had been warned to expect was beginning to catch up with him; it looked and sounded like a horrendous amount of work to him. But Tom saw no reason why in this age of faxes and computers and information highways they couldn’t wrap it up today. They had three hours before people began shutting up shop, he said, and if he couldn’t galvanize into action the various organizations and companies involved, no one could. At least, that was Lloyd’s translation. What Tom actually said was, ‘No sweat, guv. Three hours till knocking-off time for most of that lot. We can get most of this stuff down the line. Consider it sorted.’ Then he had sucked in his breath. ‘ Could take a while to find this outfit, though,’ he said, tapping one of his tasks. ‘Is that a problem?’

Judy checked her notebook, then wrote three names on his pad, at the bottom of his list. ‘Try them first,’ she said.

Tom raised his eyebrows.

‘Just a hunch.’

Tom’s phone rang, and he picked it up. ‘ Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, she’s here – hang on.’ He looked up at Judy. ‘McQueen’s just come in with Nicola Hutchins, guv,’ he said. ‘She wants to talk to you.’

Downstairs, Nicola Hutchins was waiting in an informal interview room.

‘What did you want to see me about, Mrs Hutchins?’ Judy asked, as they went in.

‘I took this from my father’s safe.’ She pushed a shoebox across the table. ‘He owed me at least that,’ she said, as Judy opened the box and took out the bundles of notes. ‘He set me up in the practice as a wedding present, so he’d look big to his friends in the Masons, and then he expected me to tend his animals for nothing for the rest of his life. I don’t think I took anything that wasn’t owing to me.’

‘This money was never reported missing,’ Lloyd said. ‘ So, if you want to return it to Mrs Bailey, then you can do that.’

‘I tried to. Because I found out that Rachel has no money at all. They’re taking all her stuff away this afternoon – her furniture, and everything. They’ve already repossessed her car. So I took it back to her. But she said I had to tell you about it.’

Well, well, well. Lloyd could see only one reason why Rachel Bailey would want Nicola to do that.

‘It wasn’t really a lie about her car.’

‘It wasn’t a lie at all,’ said Judy. ‘Was it?’

Nicola shook her head slightly, her lips tightly shut, her hands clenched into fists.

‘You did see her car, didn’t you?

Nicola’s hand went up to her hair, and was brought down again.

‘Mrs Hutchins,’ Judy said, her voice holding the nanny-like firm-but-fair warning note that she could do to perfection.

Nicola looked at her, her eyes wide with misery. ‘ I don’t want to get Rachel into trouble,’ she said.

‘But Rachel told you to come here. So she can’t think you’ll get her into trouble.’

Her hand hovered once more, and was put firmly back in her lap. ‘ But – but I don’t know what she wants me to tell you!’

‘Then tell us the truth, Mrs Hutchins. You know what you saw. You’re trying to make yourself believe you didn’t see it, but you did.’

‘But you said her car was in a car park all weekend! And she said, yes, it probably was. But I had to tell you what had happened. But if I do that—’ She broke off.

‘Just tell me everything you remember about going to the farm on Sunday night,’ said Judy. ‘All of it. Whether you think you must be making it up or not. Everything you remember, Nicola.’

And at last, Mrs Hutchins put her hair firmly behind her ears, and said nothing at all. And neither did Judy. The next person to speak in this room would be Nicola Hutchins, if they were there until midnight.

Nicola tried not saying anything, but she couldn’t do that, not yet. Maybe not ever, but then she would have thought that she could never have done a lot of the things she had done recently. She didn’t have to do anything she didn’t want to do, she reminded herself. And she had handled Finch. But that wasn’t going to work, not this time. She couldn’t make it work with Inspector Hill.

There had been a little while today when she had thought that her childish fantasy about the gypsies had returned to haunt her. Because she had lied over and over again about what had happened that night, and when they had said that Rachel’s car had been in the hotel car park all weekend, she had thought she must have lied about that too. She couldn’t believe that she would have done it to get Rachel into trouble, so it had to have been a throwback to her childhood, and the non-existent gypsies who might, just might, stop him hitting her, like they had once before. But they never had again.

Bleak memories crowded in on her as they had done on Sunday night when she had stood over her father, helpless for the first time in his brutal, bullying, melodramatic life. She had lied about that until she had almost believed that he really hadn’t been there. But it had to stop now. She had to tell the truth now, while she still knew which was which.

But she hadn’t lied about the car. Did Rachel really mean her to tell them about that? It didn’t matter what she had meant, because Nicola knew she was going to tell them the truth, like the inspector had asked. And now that she knew she wasn’t going to try to lie any more, she was all right. She could hold herself together. She wasn’t a confused, frightened five-year-old, inventing gypsies. She knew what she had done. She just didn’t know if it was murder, that was all.

‘When I got to the farm, I saw Rachel’s car leaving,’ she said. ‘I know I did. It was her car. I saw it. I know its number. I know you say it was somewhere else, but I saw it. The sitting-room door was open, and the light on, but he wasn’t in there. I saw the light from under the office door, and I went in, but the office was empty. Everywhere else was in darkness, so I thought he must have gone after Rachel, that he’d been hitting her or something. And that’s when I saw the money.’

‘Is that when you took it?’ asked Inspector Hill.

Nicola shook her head. ‘I went back out into the hallway, and I saw that the alarms were off, which I couldn’t imagine him having done. Then I realized that I would have seen the Land Rover if he’d gone after Rachel, so I thought he’d gone to meet me, crossed the fields. I had to wait for him, because I hadn’t found the sheep, and he’d blame me for that anyway. It would only be worse if I wasn’t there when he got back.’

Failing to find the sheep would have constituted an offence; failing to wait for his return would have constituted a greater offence. The greater the offence, the more severe the punishment; Nicola had been too frightened not to wait.

‘So I went into the sitting room, and waited for him. Then I saw the whisky bottles, and I wasn’t sure what had happened. If he’d been drinking as much as it looked like he had, it had to have been something bad. I thought it must have had something to do with Rachel, or why else would she be driving away so late? Then I heard a noise in the hallway, and I went out, and he was there. He was drunk, swaying about. I could smell it. He pushed past me, and went into the sitting room.’

‘Did you speak to him?’

‘I asked where he’d been and he said he’d been in the kitchen, but it had been in darkness, so I don’t know if he really was in there. He was very drunk. Or – rather, I thought he was just drunk. I asked about the sheep, and he said to forget about the sheep, there was no sheep. He said something about Curtis Law, and told me to get the doctor.’

Inspector Hill nodded, noted something down.

‘I went to the phone, but it wasn’t working, and I was on my way out to go to the pay phone in the village when I heard him being sick, so I went back in. He was on his knees on the floor, and I helped him up, and got him to the sofa. He was saying he was cold, so I put on the radiators, and then he fell asleep. I thought he would just sleep it off, but I waited, in case he was sick again. And when he opened his eyes again, I could see the pupils were contracted, and I thought he’d taken something. I thought he’d done it again.’

‘Done what again, Mrs Hutchins?’ asked Lloyd.

It was Inspector Hill who answered. ‘A sort of suicide attempt,’ she said. ‘Is that what you thought it was?’

‘Yes,’ said Nicola. ‘With him having said something about Curtis Law. I thought Rachel must have told him about her and Curtis. I thought she must have told him she was leaving him, and that he’d taken something to try and stop her going, because he
couldn’t
beat Rachel into submission, not like he could my mother. An when she just ignored him, he’d rung me with this story about a sheep, just to get me there so I would get a doctor for him before whatever he’d taken actually worked. I thought that Rachel had left because she knew I’d be there, and I’d deal with it.’

She saw Chief Inspector Lloyd smile a little when she said that.

‘Then next day, when you told me he’d been stabbed,’ she said, looking at Inspector Hill, ‘ I thought maybe she’d gone back to him, found him on the sofa, and just … you know. And I didn’t want to get her into trouble, because I thought that was what had killed him.’

‘Was your father lucid when he woke up?’ asked Lloyd.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Rachel. ‘He said he’d told me to get a doctor, and I hadn’t, and when he was strong enough, he’d give me a hammering I wouldn’t forget, and to fetch one now if I knew what was good for me, and I …’ She closed her eyes, made herself tell them. ‘ I said no.’ She opened her eyes then, and looked at their faces, but it was serious, professional, unshockable expressions that they held. ‘And I told him I was never taking another order from him, or another hammering from him, because he was going to die, and it was his own fault. I told him that all I was taking from him was what he owed me. I told him I was taking the money from the safe.’ She paused, aware that Inspector Hill was taking notes, feeling that she should give her time to catch up. ‘By the time I’d finished talking he had started rambling about Curtis Law again, but I couldn’t make anything out. Whatever he’d taken was working fast, because of the alcohol. Well – whatever he’d been given, I suppose, but I didn’t know that. Not then.’

‘Did you know how ill he was?’ asked Lloyd.

‘Yes. I knew he would go into a coma if he didn’t get help. I knew he would die. I wanted him to die. But I thought he’d taken something himself. I thought it was his own fault. When he finally lost consciousness, I took the money from the safe, and closed the office door again. Then I went home. Gus was back from the pub, complaining that I hadn’t rung him, and … and it was as though it had never happened.’

Lloyd nodded slowly, and got up, came round to her side of the table. The inspector was still writing.

‘Is that murder?’ she asked him. ‘Did I murder him?’

‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘You didn’t murder him.’

‘But it is against the law, isn’t it? To leave someone like that? Without getting help?’

‘Well, don’t worry about that just now.’

Nicola saw his hand come towards her, and her arm automatically went up to ward it off. But he just patted her shoulder. She felt herself blush hard. That was silly of her. He hadn’t been going to hit her. She had known he wasn’t going to hit her. Why had she done that? She’d stopped doing that a long time ago.

Inspector Hill took her hand. ‘I think perhaps you need some help, Nicola. Would you like me to phone your doctor?’

Nicola shook her head. ‘I’m all right,’ she said. ‘I know what I did just now, but I’m all right.’ She saw the inspector look worriedly up at Lloyd, and she too looked up at him. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I used to do it to Gus if he reached out to me like that. He always just pretended I hadn’t. I’d stopped myself doing it. I don’t know why I did it just now.’

‘Is your husband at home?’ asked Inspector Hill.

‘He’s left me,’ Nicola said, then almost laughed. ‘I’ve lost a husband and found a grandfather. Mr McQueen says he’s my grandfather. Well – his wife’s my grandmother. He’s worried about me. He wants me to stay at his house tonight. He says his wife will, be there, and we should meet. But I don’t know them. I don’t really want to go there.’

‘Do you have someone else you can go to? Or someone who can stay with you? So that you’re not on your own?’

‘Rachel,’ she said, and then she remembered, and her hand flew to her mouth. ‘I’m supposed to be there,’ she said. ‘I’m supposed to be at the farm. Mr McQueen’s waiting to take me back. They’re coming to take the—’ She saw Inspector Hill’s concerned face. ‘Am I free to go?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ she said, doubtfully. ‘If you think you’re all right.’

‘Most of the time.’ Nicola smiled briefly, a little tearfully. ‘I see dogs like me in the surgery,’ she said. ‘Ones people have rescued. But they get better, once they realize it’s stopped. So will I.’