Pretty Maids All In A Row (25 page)

A burst of applause from the screen assaulted Jessica's ears like a handful of pebbles, sharp and penetrating. She's mad! she thought. I must humour her. But God, she'll be here
all night
!
And I can't even move quickly, let alone run away. It was the age-old nightmare, needing to escape and unable to move. But what did she
want?

She drew a breath. I'm an actress, aren't I? Then
act,
as if my life depended on it. Perhaps it does. 'Why did you do that?' she asked calmly.

'I don't want interruptions.'

'Very well. You have my undivided attention.' She paused. 'You say you were twelve, but your sister was in a cot. I'm surprised you're that much older than Carrie.'

'Ah,' Delia said softly, 'but you see, Carrie isn't my sister.'

'Not your sister?' Jessica echoed weakly.

Delia smiled. 'I thought you'd have guessed by now. Freda Cowley did.' And as Jessica stared in total bafflement, she repeated softly, 'Carrie's not my sister—she's my wife.'

Webb looked round the crowded public bar of The Pack-horse. 'So you've nothing to report on the Fair?'

WDC Pierce shook her head. 'There's a firework display on now, but PC Frost said I needn't stay.'

'We'd no joy either, had we, Ken?' Webb looked at the bar clock. 'Ten past nine. We might as well be making tracks.'

'Excuse me, sir.' The barman stood by their table. 'Chief Inspector Webb, sir? There's a call for you.'

Webb pushed back his chair and followed him to the stone passage leading to the lavatories. A phone was fixed to the wall, its receiver hanging by its flex. He nodded his thanks and the man withdrew.

'Webb.'

'Station Sergeant, Guv. A lady just phoned. Wants you to ring back.'

'What lady, Sergeant?' Hannah? He didn't deserve that.

'Mrs Farrow. Said she'd remembered something and you asked her to phone.'

Susan! 'Did she leave a number?' Webb took it down, said curtly, 'Thank you, Sergeant,' and, fumbling for coins with one hand, dialled rapidly. The phone was lifted at once.

'Susan?'

'Hello, Dave.'

'You've remembered, about that face?' 'Yes, but I'm afraid it won't help. It was
just a hairdresser I went to once.'

'But she
is
a hairdresser.'

'That's what was wrong. The one I knew was a man. Funny, though, I could have sworn it was the same face.'

Webb stared at the brick wall in front of him. Some crude graffiti were scribbled there, but he didn't even see them. Beside him, two men came, laughing together, out of the lavatory.

'Dave?'

'Yes, I'm still here. Look, Susan, this could be vital. When and where did you know this man?'

'I didn't
know
him. He did my hair a couple of times, that's all, when we were living in Ashmartin.'

'' Ashmartin?''
Where the unknown woman was raped. 'When was that?'

'Must be three years ago now. Before we moved to Stratford.'

Delia Speight a
man?
Webb's scalp was pricking, as though electric needles moved systematically over it. 'Thanks, Susan. If this cracks it, you'll get a bottle of champagne.' He put the phone down and was turning away, his brain already clicking into gear, when it rang again. Impatiently he turned and caught it up.

'Yes?'

'Guv? Fenton again. Thank God I caught you. I've just had Mr Selby. on the line from London. In a fair state, at that. He's been trying for over an hour to phone his wife, and can't get through. Keeps getting the engaged tone, but the operator says there's no conversation on the line. Could—'

'I'm on my way.'

Webb dropped the phone and strode back into the bar. The sight of his face was enough to bring Jackson and Sally Pierce to their feet.

'Outside—at the double. I'll tell you as we go. Hinckley Cottage, and pray God we're in time.'

The eye sees what it expects to see. Where had she read that? Believing 'Delia' to be a woman, Jessica—and presumably everyone else—had seen him as a woman. Now, knowing otherwise, it took only the slightest adjustment of focus to perceive instantly that he was a man—even though that adjustment made her flesh crawl. There was a bloom of golden hair on cheeks that, perhaps, were not as rounded as a woman's. He'd no need of a wig. The curly hair was unisex, of a length and style suited to both. Now, having acknowledged his charade, he'd let the feminine mannerisms lapse and was lounging in his chair in a frankly male attitude. In blouse and skirt, it reduced his previously convincing performance to the crudest level of drag.

Jessica spoke at last, surprised and gratified to find her voice normal. 'So why the play-acting?'

Speight shrugged. 'I've always cross-dressed occasionally. Then I was in trouble a few years back, so I went over completely and we moved here as sisters.'

'But you must have needed papers—national insurance—'

'My kid sister died when she was three, so I used her name. She was the real Delia Speight.' 'Carrie—didn't mind?'

'She was used to it. She lived next door, and we often dressed up as kids. I was always the girl.' He looked at her sardonically. 'And in case you're wondering, cross-dressing doesn't mean I'm either queer or impotent. We've always lived as man and wife.'

Understanding filtered through. 'Then she wasn't—' 'Raped? No, though it came in handy, accounting for her condition.'

'And—?' But that question Jessica daren't ask. Nor did she need to.

'Freda Cowley? Well, like I said, she found out.' Jessica moistened her lips. 'How?'

'Came back with Carrie one day after the dentist. She went to the bathroom for aspirin, found my aftershave, and put two and two together.'

'What happened?' Keep him talking. The longer he talked, the more time she'd have to plan. The cloakroom was the nearest room with a lock. But would he allow her to go alone?

'The next day, Wednesday, was my half-day. She rang and asked me to come and do her hair. I do go to clients' houses, so I thought nothing of it. But when I got here, she came out with it. Thought it was a huge joke, but at the same time it excited her. Going to bed was her idea.'

He shrugged. 'She might have kept quiet, but I couldn't risk it. If she talked, the whole new life we'd built up would be blown. Or she might have put the screws on, which would be worse. I didn't want to kill her—that's not how I get my kicks—but I'd no choice.'

'So you made love to her, and then you smothered her?'
In our bed?

'It was quick. She hardly knew a thing.' 'Then you tidied the house to make it ready for tenants. For us.' 'Right.'

'And sent the keys to the estate agents.' 'Yep. To account for her disappearance.' 'It was very clever of you.'

'That's what I thought. But now you've found out, too.'

Jessica said carefully, 'No, I didn't. You told me.'

'Same difference. I hadn't meant to, though. It was the talk of nursery rhymes that did it.'

'What
did
you intend to do, D—. I don't know your name.'

'Johnnie. Going to rape you, wasn't I, like the others. Wait till you were in bed, then climb up the ivy—make it look an outside job. Quite a feather in my cap, laying Jessica Randal.'

'You could hardly boast about it.'

He ignored her
. 'And when it was over, "Delia
'd be there to comfort you.' He gave a pleased laugh.

It was a play, she assured herself, not real life at all. Any minute now, the producer would call from the shadows, 'Take it again from—' For how could she be sitting here, in this godforsaken cottage, chatting to a murderer?

'Of course,' she said reasonably, 'it's not like it was with Freda. I'm not interested in blackmail—I've enough money already—and it's not as though I live here. In another couple of weeks, we'll be gone. Your secret doesn't concern me.'

Those masculine/feminine eyes, bright and fringed with stubby lashes, were on her face, assessing her reactions.

'I fancy you,' he said at last. 'Have done since I first saw you.'

'When you did my hair?'

He smiled. 'Long before that. When you first arrived. Carrie told me you'd come, so I went up the road with my binoculars. You were asleep in the garden. I watched you for quite a while, and from then on it was only a question of time. So when she said last night you'd asked her to sleep here and she couldn't, it was the perfect opportunity.'

Jessica stared at him disbelievingly.
'Carrie
suggested you came? Knowing—?'

'No, of course she didn't, and I didn't tell her, neither. This is between you and me.'

'Mrs Markham knows you're here. She was there when you offered to come.'

'She knows
Delia's
here,' he corrected her. 'But what has Delia to do with the rapist climbing in the window?'

Jessica held his eyes, seeing the desire there. 'And now?'

'You can take your choice. Rough or smooth, as they say at Wimbledon.'

Panic surged through her. God! she screamed silently. Help me
now,
And her prayer was answered, for Speight straightened suddenly. Then, moving swiftly out of his chair, he switched off the television and stood listening. Jessica, bewildered at the sud
den change, stared uncomprehend
ingly as he turned and raced for the kitchen. She heard the scraping of the bolt and the back door rocking open, before detecting the sounds that had alerted him—voices outside and footsteps on the gravel. A second later, a heavy knock sounded on the door and a voice called urgently, 'Mrs Selby? Webb here. Are you all right?'

For several long seconds, Jessica sat staring at the door, willing her shaking lips to respond. As another knock, louder than the first, shook the house, she managed to call, 'Round the back! He ran out that way!'

With difficulty she pulled herself on to legs that would not support her. The
journey across the room was the longest of her life, and when her fumbling fingers opened the door at last, only the red-haired girl from the Fair stood there. She put an arm round Jessica and led her back inside. 'I'll make a pot of tea,' she said.

Webb swore as he rattled the side gate. Locked, damn it. 'Leave it, Ken. There's a field alongside, we'll go that way. He can't have got far.'

'But where would he be making for?' Jackson panted, running at his side.

'Home, perhaps. God knows.' They swung together over the fence and into the dark field, running diagonally across it towards the far end of Hinckley's garden. The ground was rough and uneven. 'Mind your ankles,' Webb warned.

They reached the far end of the field and paused, staring through the darkness ahead.

'What's that building down there?'Jackson asked.

'Looks like a farm. The Davis's, isn't it? Why?'

'I thought—Yes, look, Guv! Someone's moving down there!'

'Come on!' Over another fence and down the grass slope leading to the river which flowed along the foot of the valley. They turned and jogged steadily beside it towards the clump of buildings that made up the farm.

'Jack Frost's son works here,' Jackson volunteered between gasps.

As they reached the farm gates an explosion rang out and they both stopped, looked at each other, then raced with renewed urgency in the direction of the yard. A door of one of the sheds was open, and a smell of cordite reached them. Lying on the floor with a shotgun beside it lay the body of the person known as Delia Speight.

'"And the bullets,"'
Jackson said grimly,
'"were made of lead, lead, lead.'"

Behind them came the sound of running footsteps as the occupants of the farm hurried to investigate.

'Best not go inside, sir,' Webb said firmly, pulling the door shut. 'There's nothing that can be done till the doctor gets here. If we may use your phone?'

The saddest part of a case like this, Webb reflected, was the people left behind, the ones who got hurt. In this case, Carrie and Bob Davis the farmer's son, both of whom had loved 'Delia'. Carrie at least had known the truth. It was Davis who had the double horror.

'But I was with her this afternoon,' he kept repeating, as they waited in the farm kitchen for the Coroner's Officer. 'At the Fair. She came back with me, to set Ma's hair. Then we—' He turned away, a hand over his eyes. Webb waited patiently.