Too Much of Water (28 page)

‘That was good of you and Bert.'

He glanced sharply at her, but there seemed to be no hint of irony. His wife was an innocent soul, who didn't play the game herself. He said contentedly, with the air of a man who had successfully addressed a problem, ‘He's been getting a bit above himself lately, has Chris.'

Roy Hudson decided that he would be at his most urbane.

He had considered when Hook rang to make the appointment whether he should be prickly about this, should take the view that he'd offered them all the help he could and it was time they stopped coming to see him at work. But that wouldn't serve any useful purpose. The CID had been perfectly polite so far, if a little terse on their last meeting at his house, so there was no reason why he should not observe the courtesies towards them. Better that way, in fact. Play an impeccably straight bat until they got tired of it and went away.

He didn't realize that Bert Hook was a cricketer, who had outwitted a lot of straight bats in his time.

Hudson greeted them affably and said, ‘I can easily rustle up some coffee for you, if you think this is going to take long.'

‘No need for coffee, thank you. Too early in the morning for that. And this shouldn't take very long, if you give us honest answers to our questions.' Lambert as usual was watching his man closely and showing not a trace of embarrassment about doing so.

‘Of course I shall. I'm as anxious as you are that you discover who killed poor Clare. And although Ian Walker wasn't my favourite man, we can't let people get away with murder, can we?'

‘Where were you between eight p.m. and midnight on the night of the twenty-first of June, Mr Hudson?'

‘That's the night when Clare was killed. I was at home with my wife. I'm sure I've told you that before.'

‘And Mrs Hudson has confirmed the fact. Can anyone else do so?'

He smiled, refusing to be ruffled by this more aggressive line of questioning. ‘No, I don't think so. But the innocent don't need cast-iron proof of things, do they?'

‘And your wife was with you throughout the evening?'

‘Yes. But you surely wouldn't be suggesting that Judith might have been out killing her own daughter.' He smiled at the absurdity of the suggestion. Bert Hook was thinking that this was the first woman he had met who might just have been capable of killing her only daughter.

‘And last Monday night?'

He took his time. They had caught him out in a lie here, but at least he was prepared for it. ‘I think I told you when we last met that I was at home. That wasn't in fact the case.'

‘So why tell us it was?'

‘Because I was foolish. Because I wished to give my wife an alibi for the time when Ian Walker was killed.'

‘You're saying that she shot him on that night?'

‘No. Of course I'm not. But she'd already told you that she sometimes felt like killing him, because of what he'd done to Clare. I wanted to protect her.' It sounded thin, even thinner than it had when he had prepared it. But it was the best he could do. And he would do anything to protect Judith: that at least was true.

Lambert studied him dispassionately for long seconds before he said, ‘So where were you on Monday evening?'

‘I was out on business. Judith was at home on her own.'

‘We shall have to press you about your exact whereabouts between eight and ten on that evening.'

‘And if I am unable to provide you with anything more exact than I have already given you?'

‘Then we shall be unable to eliminate you from the enquiry into the murder of Mr Walker.'

‘Which is not to say that I killed him, of course.'

‘Of course. But your failure to cooperate with us in our enquiries would have to be noted.' Lambert tried not to show his impatience with a man who seemed to be playing games with them in the course of a homicide investigation.

Roy Hudson smiled. ‘I was in Cheltenham, Mr Lambert. And in anticipation of your next question, I shall give you a name. Mark Jolly.'

‘This is a man who can confirm your whereabouts during the hours I mentioned?'

‘Indeed he can. He was with me throughout the evening, Superintendent. In Cheltenham. I should like you to note that, DS Hook. The best part of thirty miles away from the spot where Ian Walker died.'

Hook looked up from his notebook. ‘This Mr Jolly. Is he a friend? A drinking companion, perhaps?'

‘You could probably best describe him as a business associate. But he will confirm that I was with him throughout the evening.'

‘What sort of business would that be, Mr Hudson?'

He hadn't expected that question. He realized now that he should have done, but he tried not to let that ruffle him. He smiled and said, ‘In a small company like this, there is a need for a versatile workforce. You need salespeople, of course, but you need also someone who will keep you in touch with your suppliers. And someone who has his finger on the pulse of demand, so that one can anticipate traits. It's a strange world, the world of office equipment. Mr Jolly is well versed in it. He is useful to me in all kinds of ways. He does a lot of running about, a lot of unglamorous but very necessary dogsbodying. I prefer to think of him as a general business associate.'

It was flannel, and he fancied they knew that as well as he did. But for some reason they did not press him about Jolly, did not follow up on exactly what kind of business he had been conducting that night. That should have reassured him, but in fact it made him more uneasy. Lambert said, ‘We shall need to speak to Mr Jolly. But no doubt you would expect that.'

He gave them the details of Jolly's address, making a note to himself to go over what the man should say yet again as soon as they left him this morning. He was thick but reliable, Mark. He wouldn't let him down.

But Hook was getting something out of the briefcase he had set down beside his chair. He produced a polythene envelope, extracted the contents carefully, unwrapped blue tissue paper as if he were a conjurer producing something remarkable; Hudson had a sudden shaft of irritation at the painstaking slowness of this stolid man. ‘What have you there?'

Hook did not reply until he had the contents displayed on Hudson's desk. Then he said, ‘I wonder if you recognize these items, sir.'

Roy Hudson looked down at the innocent trinkets. A diamond ring and an emerald brooch. He recognized them all right, but the sight of them set his brain racing. Why were they here? Where had they come from, and what would be the implications of identifying them?

He picked up each of them in turn, then revolved them carefully between his fingers, playing for time. The key thing was where they had been found, how they had come into the possession of these senior policemen. But they weren't going to tell him that, unless it suited them to do so. He forced a smile and said, ‘Of course I recognize them. They belonged to Clare Mills, didn't they? I should know: it was me who gave them to her.'

The full name dropped oddly from his lips. They would have expected ‘Clare', or at least ‘my stepdaughter' from him. Bert Hook, ball-pen poised now over his notes, said, ‘When did you give them to her, Mr Hudson?'

He took his time, checking in his mind that each statement could do him no harm. ‘I gave her the brooch when Judith and I told her that we were going to get married. I knew how attached she still was to her father. I hoped the gift would act as a goodwill gesture, smooth the way for her mother's remarriage.'

‘And did it do that?'

He wanted to say that it was none of their business. But he knew that he and Judith had kept these men at arm's length until now, that they couldn't go on doing that for ever. And they'd already caught him out in one lie. Besides, he needed to give them the best possible version of his relationship with Clare, to get himself off the hook. ‘It did, yes, to a certain extent. Clare wore the brooch at our wedding, so that had to be a good thing.' He was pretty sure that she hadn't, but no one was going to be able to disprove it, at this distance in time.

‘And the ring?'

He took his time again, wondering how he could make the best capital of this. ‘That was later. I couldn't be precise.'

‘It looks like an engagement ring.'

‘It does, rather, doesn't it?' He laughed, pleased with himself for being able to relax like this. ‘That isn't an accident. When Ian Walker proposed to Clare, he produced an awful glass thing which might have come out of a Christmas cracker. We tried to persuade her not to marry him. When it became clear that she was determined to do just that, I wanted her to have a proper ring.'

It didn't seem particularly likely, but they'd never be able to expose it as a lie. Hook wrote it down dutifully, taking what seemed to the man opposite him an age over it. Roy Hudson said, ‘Was Clare wearing these things when she was pulled out of the river?'

Hook looked at Lambert, wondering how much he wanted to reveal of the manner in which these things had come into police hands. The superintendent said quietly, ‘Both these items were taken to a pawnshop on Tuesday by a man who had known your stepdaughter, Mr Hudson.'

Roy tried not to shout out his triumph. This took him off the hook all right. He had always known that it would be so. He could not keep the elation out of his voice as he said, ‘That's it, then, isn't it? This man killed Clare and removed her jewellery. I can assure you that those were the only two items she possessed which were of any value. And now he's no more sense than to go pawning them, only ten days after her death. He's delivered himself into your hands, surely?'

Lambert said, ‘He's certainly delivered himself into our hands, yes. We haven't yet established that he killed Clare Mills.'

Bert Hook, who had thought privately that he was probably the only man who didn't believe that the man who called himself Denis Pimbury was their killer, was delighted to hear his chief speak with such conviction. Lambert picked his words as carefully as the man in front of them was doing as he said, ‘We have not so far been able to disprove the man's account of where he was on the Saturday night when Clare died. We need evidence before we can charge a man.'

‘Evidence which will be forthcoming, I am sure.' Roy tried not to sound too smug or sycophantic, tried not to show the immensity of his relief, which at that moment was surprising even him. ‘With the efficiency of the police machine, it's only a matter of time, I'm sure.'

Lambert answered his smile. ‘I'm sure it is, Mr Hudson. Whether the man who pawned these items is the man eventually arrested for the murders of Clare and of Ian Walker, only time will tell. In the meantime, it is possible, even probable, that we shall need to speak to you again.'

‘Always at your service. Always anxious to be of help to the forces of law and order!'

Roy Hudson tried not to sound too dismissive as he showed them to his door.

T
hirty-six hours in custody had not improved Martin Carter's appearance.

His hair was still a bright young man's red, but the face beneath it was unnaturally white; the once bright blue eyes had lost their lustre and there were dark hollows beneath them; and the wide mouth drooped in what seemed permanent despair.

A night in a cell usually has a pronounced effect on anyone who has not been there before. It had softened Carter up nicely for the Drugs Squad officers, who were now convinced that he had given them everything he had to give about the organization he was working for. As they had feared, he did not know very much: little more than the name of the man immediately above him in the chain and the person who had recruited him and supplied him. The barons who made the millions out of illegal drugs kept themselves well insulated from the dealers who took the risks on the streets. The man at the top of the pyramid above Carter was not even in the country for most of the time, though his Swiss bank account was kept regularly supplied.

Martin Carter had been charged with dealing in Class A drugs and then led back to collapse limply into his cell. The Drugs Squad superintendent intended to ask for him to be remanded in custody, but that would be more to protect him from the wolves above him in the hierarchy of the evil industry than because he represented any further danger to the public.

The Drugs Squad enjoy a high degree of autonomy within the police service, and their superintendent was a powerful man. It was not until he had a phone conversation with Superintendent John Lambert that he knew that Carter was a suspect in a murder enquiry.

Lambert had let him stew for another night in the cells before he came with DS Hook to interview him. They studied the pathetic figure unhurriedly before they began to question him; there is rarely need for haste when a man is in the cells. Eventually Martin could stand their scrutiny no longer. He said wearily, ‘I've told those Drugs Squad officers all I know. I've nothing left to say.'

‘I doubt that. We're here about something even more serious than drugs. Murder, Mr Carter.' The pitiful figure in front of him excited feelings of compassion in John Lambert, but this was no time for mercy. This was the time to have the truth out of a man: people with no resources left lost the capacity to deceive.

Carter did not look up, even at the mention of that oldest and worst of crimes. He was a man at the end of his resources, who had not even examined the drab surroundings of the interview room to which they had brought him for this exchange. ‘I don't know anything about Clare's killing. I can't be of any help to you on that.' He delivered his monosyllables slowly and evenly, like a man speaking in a dream.

‘You won't expect us to take that at face value, Mr Carter. You're a criminal now, charged and awaiting trial.'

His face winced on that, but still he did not look up. He lifted his hands from his sides and put them on the square table in front of him, as if to demonstrate that they contained nothing. They were small, delicate hands, as pale as the rest of him. The fingers began to twine and untwine, very gently, as if someone had pushed the slow-motion button on a video. ‘I'm a criminal and my career's gone. Clare Mills wouldn't think much of me now, would she?'