J. Gregson: In Vino Veritas

‘The car concerned is a silver-grey metallic Audi saloon. We believe it is the car owned by Mrs Jane Beaumont.’

Hook, studying her now as closely as Lambert, felt a reluctant admiration for the coolness of the woman. There was no obvious sign that she was forcing the smile she gave them as she said, ‘What you believe and what is fact may be a long way apart. Jane Beaumont was at home in her bed at the time of the murder. I have already told you that. I am prepared to testify to it in court, if necessary.’

Lambert was inexorable, sensing now that he had her in a corner, that in the crisis she was not going to let her new friend suffer for her. ‘Your testimony would not be worth very much, as you were not in the house at the time.’

‘Jane will tell you that I was. I believe she has already told you so.’

‘She was in bed and asleep at the time of her husband’s death.’

‘I’m glad that you admit that. The presence of a similar car to hers at the scene of the crime has no connection with Jane Beaumont.’

‘It was Mrs Beaumont’s Audi which was in Howler’s Heath at the time of the killing. I said that she owned it. I did not say that she was driving it on this occasion.’

‘This gets more outlandish by the minute. Do I understand that you’re now suggesting that some person unknown stole Jane’s car and-’

‘No!’ Lambert’s denial was like a gunshot in the quiet room. ‘I’m stating, not suggesting, that, without Mrs Beaumont’s knowledge, you drove out to an assignation with Martin Beaumont. That you shot him through the head with his own pistol.’

She looked him fiercely in the face for several seconds, in what had become a contest of wills. Then, with a sigh which was scarcely audible, she acknowledged that there was nowhere for her to go now. ‘He’d arranged the meeting, not me. I didn’t intend to kill him when I went there.’

They could hear the beginnings of a defence plea in court here, but that was not their concern. They wanted an arrest and a conclusion to their involvement. It was DS Hook, speaking as though he were neutral in this battle of opposing wills, who said softly, ‘It’s over, Miss North. You should tell us now about what happened last Wednesday night.’

She stared at him in surprise for a moment, as if she had forgotten his presence in the intensity of her duel with Lambert. Then she spoke in a steady monotone, like one under hypnosis. ‘Martin asked me to meet him in that place and at that time. I asked him why he had to be so secretive about it, but he said he didn’t want the rest of his staff at Abbey Vineyards to know about the meeting. I thought he was going to make some offer to me about the withdrawal of my capital from the firm. That’s why the secrecy made sense. Martin regarded any concession as a mark of weakness, so I could understand that he wouldn’t want others to know about it.’

She turned her head for a moment to look at the bright sunlight and the rich green of her lawn outside the house, as if realizing for the first time that these things were going to be denied to her. Then she resumed her trance-like monologue. ‘Martin wasn’t making any concessions at all. He wanted to warn me off any friendship with his wife, any attempt to rescue Jane from the prison without walls in which he held her. He said he wasn’t going to buy me out of the company and he would make very sure that Jane didn’t get her divorce.

‘I think I said that he couldn’t do that nowadays, that the laws of the land would allow Jane to escape him. That’s when he reached for the pistol. I knew from my years with him that he always kept it in the driver’s door of his car, hidden under a windscreen cloth, but for a moment I couldn’t move: it felt as if someone had frozen my limbs. He waved the pistol in my face. He shouted at me that he wouldn’t allow anything to threaten the future of Abbey Vineyards. He’d always been irrational about the business, almost as if it were a child of his, living and breathing. I believed him. I believe he was threatening that he would kill Jane or me if we damaged the firm. That was when I panicked. I grabbed at the gun and it went off.’

Beaumont had been shot very precisely through the temple. Lambert wondered if that would have happened, in the sort of struggle she described. But that was for others to argue, months later and in the solemnity of a criminal court. Sinuous minds, well versed in the law, would explore the plea of self-defence, perhaps the reduced charge of manslaughter, over days, maybe weeks.

That was not the concern here. Hook stepped forward and announced formally that Vanda North was being arrested for the murder of Martin Beaumont. She listened to the familiar words of arrest and the caution about prejudicing her defence if she withheld information, as if they fascinated her.

They led her to the door and the waiting police car. It was not until the door was opened for her that she stopped suddenly, as if she felt the need to explain her confession, ‘I love Jane. I couldn’t allow anything to happen to her, could I? We would have built a life together.’

Five minutes later, when she was sitting very upright in the back of the car with Lambert beside her, she said, as if there had been no pause, ‘Maybe we still will, in a little while. Jane has a lot of life left to live, now that Martin’s gone.’