Picture of Innocence (44 page)

‘He didn’t know I knew. Thought he was gettin’ somethin’ for nothin’.’ She shrugged. ‘It was another gamble,’ she said. ‘Reckoned once he’d had me, he’d want more, and he did. So I kept a roof over my head.’

Lloyd shook his head slightly. ‘So,’ he said, ‘you had manipulated Curtis Law, you had manipulated McQueen, and then you manipulated Inspector Hill and me.’ He shook his head tiredly. ‘Don’t tell me,’ he said, leaning on the filing cabinet. ‘You didn’t have no option.’

‘I didn’t,’ she said.

‘You knew McQueen didn’t want Bailey dead.’

She nodded. ‘Had to get you off Nicola’s back, while I thought what to do. You thought she’d done it. She thought she’d done it. Thought she’d been imaginin’ things … I had to do somethin’.’

Lloyd looked weary, as he walked slowly back to the chair, and sat down again. ‘Rachel,’ he said, ‘why did any of this have to happen? Why did Bailey have to die? Why didn’t you just leave him? Stay away? Go and set up home with Curtis Law, steal McQueen away from his wife – anything? Why did he have to die?’

Rachel walked back round the desk. ‘ Thought you were a detective,’ she said, opening the drawer, pulling out the folder of photographs, taking out the top one, pushing it over to Lloyd. ‘You think I carried on takin’ the pill after he’d done
that
to me?’ she said, tapping it. ‘First thing I did soon’s I could move was burn every packet I had, case he found them. First thing
he
did soon’s I could move was carry on tryin’ to get me pregnant. And he did.’

‘You don’t look pregnant.’

‘Well, I am. Thirteen weeks. You can check with my doctor if you want. My mother was the same. A month ’fore she was due, wasn’t no one could tell she was pregnant, ’ cept me. So I could’ve hung on, if I hadn’t had to tell him ’bout it. But I did.’ She smiled. ‘Didn’t have no option.’ She picked up the photograph, putting it back in its folder. ‘He got me to the doctor, got it confirmed. Soon’s they could tell the difference, he made me have a scan.’ She glanced back at Lloyd. ‘I’m carryin’ Bernard Bailey’s son,’ she said. ‘And he knew it.’ She shook her head. ‘Told you, Mr Lloyd. Wasn’t no amount of money’d make me give Bernard Bailey any baby of mine to damage.’

That was what Judy had meant about it costing Rachel a lot more than four thousand six hundred pounds. She had already worked out Rachel’s motive. He hadn’t exactly been on the ball over this one. But then, he hadn’t been well.

‘If I’d stayed away, he’d’ve found me. No way he’d let me leave him when I was having his son. Or give up what was his once he was born. Wouldn’t let his first wife take Nicola away from him, so there was no way he’d let me take a boy away. And Nicola would’ve sworn blind that he never laid a hand on her if it come to a custody fight.’

Lloyd nodded.

‘Would’ve been my word ’gainst his. And what am I? A tinker. A traveller. With six half-brothers and sisters, and not one of us got a father we’d know if we saw him in the street. Someone he paid to have his baby for him. No way I’d win. Couldn’t leave my baby with him, couldn’t stay and watch him hammer all the guts out of him like Nicola’s mother watched him do to Nicola.’ She put the folder back in the drawer, closed it, and sat down. ‘That’s why he had to die, Mr Lloyd. Couldn’t see no other way of dealin’ with it.’ She shrugged. ‘Didn’t have no option.’

And Curtis Law? Did he know all this?’

‘No. Wouldn’t’ve done it for me if he’d known I really was pregnant. He thought I was goin’ to get kicked half to death again, that’s why he offered to kill him for me. But I never said I wasn’t pregnant. Never lied bout it. Not to him, not to you. Not to anyone.’

‘No,’ said Lloyd. ‘You just manipulated everyone.’

She sat back. ‘You goin’ to arrest me?’

Lloyd sighed, rubbed his eyes, and shook his head. ‘I could,’ he said. ‘I could arrest you, get you to repeat everything you’ve told me on tape. But your confession would be inadmissible, because I’m afraid I tricked it out of you. They didn’t find your pendant in the car.’

Rachel smiled. ‘I know,’ she said.

Lloyd looked really puzzled this time. ‘Then why the inducement?’

‘Had a bet with myself that you wouldn’t take me up on it. Even though you’d like to. Even though you didn’t really have to get rid of evidence, didn’t have to break no rules, run no risks. You could’ve got it for nothin’, just like McQueen. But I reckoned you had too much respect for your lady inspector. For yourself. Maybe even for me.’

Lloyd’s tired face broke into a smile. ‘I should have known I was being manipulated again,’ he said. ‘Is there anyone you haven’t manipulated, Mrs Bailey?’

‘Your lady inspector,’ she said. But she had plans for her, if she got the chance.

‘What were the terms of the bet you had with yourself?’

‘You won either way,’ said Rachel. ‘If I lost, you got me. If I won, you got told what you wanted to know. But I’ll deny every word if you try takin’ it further. And I didn’t have no motive at all, did I? I’m carryin’ his son, and the only way I was goin’ to get anythin’ out of him was if he stayed alive and farmed this land. No reason I’d want him dead.’

‘No,’ said Lloyd. ‘I doubt that I can take it any further. I can’t prove a thing, thanks to Mr Law.’

‘What did they find in the car?’

A gold cigarette lighter. Mr Law’s, I presume, since I notice he’s reduced to matches these days. I take it the hotel found your pendant?’

‘No,’ said Rachel. ‘Reckon someone found it, though. Someone got lucky, maybe, walkin’ along the Embankment or somewhere. Hope it was someone homeless. But I couldn’t afford to be homeless, not with a baby on the way. That’s why I had to work on McQueen. I thought I’d have the pendant to fall back on, but I don’t.’

Lloyd frowned. ‘But if you really have lost your pendant, how could you be so sure that they didn’t find it in the car?’ he asked.

‘ ’Cos I never drove that car, Mr Lloyd. Wasn’t slow off the mark, just never knew nothin’ bout it. It was Curtis’s car I drove back to London.’

‘Ah,’ said Lloyd. ‘The one that was in for service, according to him.’

‘He went to collect it when he’d finished here on Monday. I thought he was gettin’ the train. But he must’ve driven this BMW back then.’

‘So how did you find out?’

‘To start with, I really thought Nicola had murdered Bernard. Didn’t know why she would suddenly take it into her head to do that, but it was obvious there wasn’t no sheep, no way Bernard would’ve had the alarms off. So I thought she’d done it, and got so frightened she lied ’bout seein’ my car. And I could understand that – I was frightened, and I’m not Nicola. It’s a frightenin’ thing to do, murderin’ someone.’

‘I imagine it would be.’

‘Then McQueen told me to get rid of Curtis if I wanted our arrangement to go ahead. Reckoned the quickest way to do that was tell him bout McQueen. Kindest way was like I’d told him by accident, so he’d think he was ditchin’ me. So I told him bout the photograph, said I thought McQueen had done it. It was just so I could tell him where I’d seen it. But he said McQueen didn’t come here with a bag full of drugs.’ She shrugged again. ‘You hadn’t told him how Bernard’d died, and I’d only just found out from Nicola. That’s when I realized that he
had
poisoned Bernard, just like he said he would, that Nicola hadn’t done it at all. So there was no way she would say she’d seen my car less she had. I didn’t know how he’d got here from London on Sunday night, but then I reckoned he must’ve taken my car, didn’t get away from here fast enough, and Nicola saw him.’

Lloyd nodded, the frown between his dark eyebrows almost permanent now.

‘Then Nicola told me that she couldn’t’ve seen my car after all, that you’d checked up on it, and it hadn’t left the car park. The poor kid thought she’d been seein’ things, or lyin’ without even knowin’ she was doin’ it. But she
had
seen it, and if my car hadn’t gone from the hotel, that meant he’d got one just the same, and he’d made
sure
Nicola saw it, so she’d look like she was lyin’.’

Lloyd got up again, stiffly, holding his back.

‘And he’d got you suspectin’ her, and Gus suspectin’ her, and me suspectin’ her – he’d even got her so she wasn’t sure herself what she’d done, because she
had
done somethin’. And she should never’ve been here to do that. He’d no business draggin’ Nicola into this. Wasn’t her problem, it was mine. She was right on the edge as it was, and he knew that. He’d no right messin’ about with her, Mr Lloyd. No right at all.’

Lloyd drew the sheet away from the paintings, but it didn’t matter, because the sun had gone down now.

‘If you’d arrested her, I would’ve told you all this on tape, and that’s the truth. Wouldn’t let Nicola take the blame for somethin’ I did. But she came and told me ’bout takin’ the money, and I reckoned you’d put two and two together quick enough if I sent her to you. I didn’t know what she was keepin’ back, or maybe I would’ve done it different. Kept her out of it.’

‘But you’ll see Curtis Law go to prison without a qualm?’

Rachel nodded. ‘He wouldn’t
be
goin’ to prison if he hadn’t tricked Nicola into comin’ here on Sunday night,’ she said. ‘Reckon it’s his own doin’, not mine.’

‘Poetic justice,’ Lloyd said, carefully separating the canvases, looking through the paintings.

‘But it would’ve worked,’ said Rachel, pleased at least to know that she hadn’t lost her touch after all. ‘If I’d just hung on to that money, he
would’ve
run rings round you. I read him right.’

‘Yes,’ said Lloyd. ‘He would have run rings round me.’ He smiled. ‘But no one runs rings round my lady inspector, Mrs Bailey. She was on to him before Nicola arrived, and she didn’t need the money to prove it. You could have had four thousand six hundred pounds stashed away for a rainy day, if you’d read
her
right.’

Rachel smiled. ‘It don’t matter,’ she said. ‘And I reckon Nicola’s better off with it out in the open, anyway. Couldn’t get her to tell me nothin’.’

Lloyd straightened up from the paintings, and rubbed his eyes. ‘I think perhaps I’d better leave my car here, if I may,’ he said. ‘And get my lady inspector to come and pick me up. I think I’d be a bit of a liability on the road.’

‘Sure. I won’t be here tonight, but it won’t come to no harm. I can lock it up in the barn. Can’t put no alarms on though. They took all the security stuff.’

‘Why didn’t they take the paintings? Are they coming back for them, or what?’

‘They didn’t belong to Bernard,’ Rachel said. ‘ They’re mine.’

‘Well,’ Lloyd said, stepping back, looking at the top one. ‘I can see you might not want to pawn one, but it’ll get you as much as your pendant would, I’m sure. And you always got it back, didn’t you? So perhaps you’d get the painting back too.’

Rachel smiled. ‘They’re not worth nothin’,’ she said.

Lloyd frowned. ‘How much did you pay for them?’ he asked.

‘Nothin’. They’re mine, like I said.’

Lloyd pointed at her. ‘
You’re
Trelawny?’

She nodded. ‘Goin’ to call myself that again, now,’ she said. ‘Don’t want his phoney name. Don’t want my baby havin’ it, neither.’

‘But they’re wonderful,’ he said. ‘You must know how good they are. Have you studied art?’

Rachel shrugged. ‘In a manner of speakin’,’ she said. ‘A lot of artists in Cornwall. Got to know one pretty well. Taught me a lot.’

‘Another arrangement?’ Lloyd shook his head. ‘But he must have told you that you were good, surely?’

She smiled. ‘Told me I was a lot of things when we split up,’ she said. ‘Don’t recall good bein’ one of them. But they’re not worth nothin’, are they?’

‘I’m not an expert,’ said Lloyd. ‘But I’d expect to pay at least as much for one of them as I’d pay for a gold pendant, however thick and solid. And, if I hadn’t just treated myself and my lady inspector to a night in that hotel, I might be offering to buy one.’

‘You can have one,’ said Rachel.

He shook his head.

‘I’m not offerin’ no inducement this time,’ Rachel said. ‘I’d like you to have one. You’re a nice man. Don’t know many of them. Maybe just you.’

‘You haven’t got that kind of money to throw away yet,’ Lloyd said. ‘Take them round some art dealers. See how much they think you can get for them. Please don’t rely on Mike McQueen and a cow to keep you and your baby fed.’

Rachel looked at the paintings. She thought they were good. Good enough to hang. Good enough to make sure they didn’t get taken away. She’d just never thought she could sell them. But it would be nice to be able to pay McQueen’s rent in cash and tell him to stuff his arrangement.

‘I’ll try that,’ she said.

‘Good,’ said Lloyd, going out to the telephone.

Judy drove up to the farmhouse, frowning as she saw the building in virtual darkness. Lloyd’s car was outside, as was the old sheepdog, sound asleep on the porch.

The front door stood open, and she could see a faint light from the office. She knocked, called.

‘In here,’ said Rachel Bailey.

Judy saw the long room to her right virtually empty, and walked towards the office, tapping on the half-shut door, pushing it open. It was lit by one desk lamp. ‘Taxi for Lloyd,’ she said, a little surprised by the subdued lighting, and the general atmosphere, as Rachel and Lloyd sat sipping lemonade, easy in one another’s company. It wasn’t a lot like a police interview, she thought. Rachel Bailey ate men for breakfast, he was ripe for compromising himself, and he had come here at night to interview her alone. But it looked innocent enough now, and if it hadn’t been, she didn’t want to know.

Lloyd got up, holding on to the desk as he pushed himself wearily off the chair. ‘ Perhaps we could give you a lift?’ he said.

‘No, thanks, all the same,’ said Rachel. ‘ Don’t take much time to walk to Nicola’s, and Nell could do with the exercise.’

She came with them to the door; Lloyd said goodnight, and went down the steps to the car.

‘Is Mr Lloyd all right?’ asked Rachel.

‘Yes,’ said Judy. ‘He’s just tired out. He had this virus that’s going round. He shouldn’t really have been at work today.’

‘He’s a good man,’ said Rachel. ‘You want to hang on to him.’