J. Gregson - Die Happy

The day of the murder. Hook let the thought hang between them for a moment before he said quietly, ‘What did he say, Ros?’

‘He’d heard about this exhibition — seen the advanced publicity, he said. He told me that he knew about the fight and the knifing and one or two other things. He said I should resign from the festival committee and everything connected with it. Or I could stay on it, if I changed my attitude and supported him. Then he would reveal nothing of what he knew about my past and the criminals I had associated with.’

‘And if you didn’t accede to this?’

‘Then he’d turn up at a time of his choosing during this exhibition and make a public denouncement of me. He mentioned the arts correspondent of Radio Gloucester and a couple of national journalists he knew. He said he could ruin my reputation over three or four days by gradually revealing what he knew.’

‘Perhaps you should have told him there was no such thing as bad publicity, Ros.’

She smiled weakly, looked him briefly in the face before glancing down at her hands again. ‘Perhaps I should. I didn’t come up with anything like that. I couldn’t think straight — couldn’t think at all. I was so shocked that he should know these things about me that I was completely floored.’

Hook nodded, full of understanding, even regret. ‘So you couldn’t see any way out of it. You thought you had to shut him up at all costs. You went to his house on Tuesday evening and decided to silence him once and for all. Maybe you didn’t even intend to kill him when you went there. Maybe there was an argument and you reacted instinctively to his threats.’

‘No. I probably felt like killing him, when I found what he’d been doing. But in fact I did nothing. The next day, I heard that he was dead.’

Hook nodded slowly. ‘Where were you on Tuesday night, Ros?’

Now at last she spoke with a flash of spirit. ‘I told you that on Thursday. I was at home on my own. Kate was visiting her mother and her young brother. Why do you ask me again?’

Hook smiled at her in the avuncular manner he had adopted throughout. ‘I just thought I’d give you the opportunity to revise that if you wished to.’

‘And why should I do that?’

‘No reason, if it’s true.’

‘It’s true. And it’s also true that I still haven’t found anyone to prove it to you; nor have I any further ideas on who rid the world of Peter Preston.’

Hook glanced at Lambert, who plainly thought they were done here. Bert stood up beside his chief. As he followed him out, he stopped and turned round, almost treading on the toes of Ros Barker as she followed them across the small room. ‘So long as you are innocent, I shouldn’t worry too much about an alibi. It’s often the guilty who take care to have something lined up for us.’

Sue Charles worked the hoe steadily and systematically over the soil she was preparing for the antirrhinums. ‘I love the spring and the blossom all around us, but you have to keep up with it in the garden or nature will take over. George used to say that gardening wasn’t a hobby like other hobbies, because you couldn’t pick it up and put it down as you pleased. If you neglected it at certain times, it could overwhelm you.’

‘That’s very true, I suppose, Mrs Charles,’ said Brian, ‘And as you say, spring is one of those times. The weeds soon take advantage, if you’re not around.’ The gardener dumped his final batch of weeds into the wheelbarrow and prepared to wheel it away towards the larger of the two compost barrels. He stopped to fondle Roland’s ears and smiled as the cat stretched his body indulgently and began to purr.

Sue looked at the pair fondly. ‘He used to run away from you, when you first came. He gets used to people quite quickly, really. It’s four o’clock and time you were packing up, Brian. Have you got time for a cup of tea?’

He sensed that she wanted company. It must be lonely being a widow at times, even though she had her writing to keep her busy. And she made the best flapjacks he had ever tasted. ‘I’d love to, Mrs Charles. I’ve finished for the day when I’m done here.’

He sat in the neat sitting room in the bungalow. She brought in flapjacks on a plate as he’d hoped and he leapt forward and said, ‘I’ll pour the tea, Mrs C.’ That was the most informal address he used for her, and it seemed quite daring to take the initiative with the teapot. But his wife said men should be prepared to do these things, even old-fashioned pensioner men like him; he had found over the years that Margaret usually knew what was best for him. He munched happily at his flapjack and said gallantly, ‘There’s no need for you to work with me in the garden, you know.’

‘I enjoy it, when I can muster the time. I expect the proofs of my latest book will be here for checking tomorrow; that will take all my time up for a few days. It was good of you to come on a Sunday.’

‘Makes no difference to me, Mrs C. Be able to take the missus out somewhere during the week.’ Brian didn’t speak of the project with any great eagerness. He accepted the direction to take a second flapjack and said, ‘Have they got anyone for this murder yet, Mrs Charles?’

‘I don’t think so. Perhaps they never will.’

‘I should think you might be able to help them, writing about such things all the time.’

Sue laughed. ‘The last thing the CID would want is my help, Brian. It’s a very different thing writing tales which people might enjoy reading from the real thing. I realize that and I can assure you the police do.’

‘I bet you still have your own ideas, all the same, Mrs C.,’ he said loyally.

‘They wouldn’t want me bothering them Brian. They have a big team on a murder case and they gather all sorts of information. For all I know, they may be preparing to make an arrest at this very moment.’

‘Anyway, you make the best flapjacks in Europe. No one’s going to dispute that,’ said Brian, licking his lips after the last delicious mouthful.

Whilst Sue Charles was entertaining her gardener, the woman she had comforted in this room on the morning after the murder was seated in her sitting room with very different visitors. Edwina was attempting to explain her conduct to the CID.

She said, ‘I’ve told you where I was when my husband died: in a hotel at Broadway. And I’ve explained why I was less than honest about that at first. I should like to have kept Hugh Whitfield and my relationship out of this, had that been at all possible. He has a wife who is dying of an incurable disease; surely you can see why I wouldn’t want her to know about Hugh and me?’

Lambert had refused tea. He sat beside Hook on Edwina’s sofa looking large and threatening. ‘That attempt to deceive us was understandable, though ill-advised, as was your attempt to persuade your daughter to lie on your behalf about your whereabouts on that night. Now we find that you have still not been completely honest with us. Find, indeed, that you have lied to us about what happened on that evening.’

She stared past them across the big room, looking through the window to the border beyond thirty yards of lawn, where peonies were opening to their full brief grandeur. ‘You’ve been talking to the hotel staff.’

‘We know more than that.’

She looked at them now and the grey-blue eyes beneath the neat hair widened with fear. ‘More than they can tell you? How can you?’

‘I told you that your husband was aware of your affair, that he had employed a private detective to furnish him with the details of it. He followed you out of the hotel that night. So we know that you left at eight ten p.m. and did not return until ten twenty-seven p.m. He recorded also that Mr Whitfield drove into the hotel car park at Broadway exactly seven minutes after you, at ten thirty-four.’