Vince May - Presumed Dead

‘What time did you arrive there?’ Hubbard asked.

‘About quarter to eight. I was just in time for dinner.’

‘Did you go straight there from the farm?’

‘Yes.’

‘You didn’t stop anywhere on the way?’

‘Just for petrol.’

‘Where was that and what time?’

‘The BP station on the A27, just past Lewes. It could only have been five minutes after I left the farm. If you let me have my wallet back, I’ll show you the credit card chit.’

‘We’ll look at that later.’ Hubbard made some notes then changed his tack. ‘Who knows the combination to your gun-safe?’

‘My gun-safe? Don’t tell me he was shot with one of the Purdeys!’

‘Answer the question please,’ Hubbard said firmly.

Ross hesitated then said slowly, ‘Just myself and my late wife.’

‘Are you certain about that?’

‘Absolutely, my wife and I were extremely careful about keeping it a secret. She was terrified that our son would find a way into it and get his hands on the guns.’

Hubbard changed tack again. ‘Do you own a pair of Hush Puppy shoes?’

‘Certainly not,’ Ross scoffed. ‘I have all my footwear handmade by a little chap in London.’

Hubbard made more notes then said,’ I’d like to leave it there while we check the things you’ve just told us. We’ll start again in half an hour.’

Butcher switched the recorder off and followed Hubbard out of the room. As soon as the door was shut he asked, ‘What do you reckon, Boss?’

‘I’ve interviewed a lot of villains in my time,’ Hubbard said thoughtfully, ‘and although I hate to say it, I think he may be telling us the truth.’

Butcher thought for a moment. ‘I suppose it’s possible someone could have broken in while they were upstairs, cracked the safe thinking it held the family jewels, then been disturbed by Crawford after Webley had gone.’

‘It’s possible, that might explain the Hush Puppies and why he went out the back door,’ Hubbard mused. ‘The other thing is, I can’t see that Webley had a motive. Let’s check up on his story anyway, then have another go at him.’

Half an hour later, they were back in the interview room with the CD recorder running. A search of Ross’s London home had revealed nothing incriminating and no shop bought shoes. The Fortesques had confirmed his story, also saying he’d seemed perfectly normal when he’d arrived. The credit card receipt they found in his wallet showed a time of 18:23, also confirming what he’d told them.

The lab had been over his clothes and the contents of his suitcases and had found no trace of blood and no Hush Puppies. Hubbard’s well-developed instinct was starting to tell him they had the wrong man, for this crime anyway. But there was still the question of his wife’s body. Why had he automatically assumed he was being arrested for his wife’s death, and why had he been so insistent that it was an accident?

‘Tell me,’ Hubbard started, ‘why did you have your wife’s remains cremated so quickly after your return from France?’

Ross was ready for this question, had been for days. ‘I had urgent business in the United States that would keep me there for some months,’ he said confidently. ‘It was a simple choice of having the ceremony immediately, or waiting until I returned. For my son’s sake, I thought it best to get it over with.’

It seemed reasonable enough, but Hubbard pressed on. ‘Who identified your wife’s body after the accident?’ he asked.

‘I did,’ Ross answered, confident that no one could now contradict him.

‘And you are certain that the body you identified was in fact that of your wife, Lady Webley?’

‘Absolutely certain. After all, a man should know his own wife, what?’

‘You would have thought so,’ Hubbard said. ‘What if I were to tell you that I have reason to believed that the body you put forward for cremation was not, in fact, your wife?’

‘I would say that you would have a hard job proving it now,’ Ross said with a smile.

Hubbard paused for a moment then said, ‘On the contrary. You saw an empty coffin cremated. The body we had removed from it before the cremation is now lying in the mortuary of a nearby hospital, and I, for one, am confident that it is not your wife. What have you got to say to that?’

Ross’s mirth changed instantly to shock, which he expertly covered, then delivered his pre-made excuse with a confidence borne out of years of lying. ‘I suppose I could have made a mistake,’ he admitted humbly, ‘she was pretty badly smashed up you know, and I’d had a few before going up to the hospital.’

For the second time, Hubbard was half inclined to believe what he was being told. He was also beginning to wonder if having the first wife exhumed was going to be a mistake, but there wasn’t much he could do to stop that now, the procedure was due to go ahead in a few hours’ time. Anyway, he was only about fifty percent certain about Webley. Either he was an innocent man, or he was the best liar he’d ever come across in thirty years on the force. Time to start again.

Hubbard went right back to the beginning and asked all the same questions again in a slightly different way, but after three solid hours, he’d still not managed to get Ross to make a single mistake or change his story on either subject one iota. Finally, by two thirty, Hubbard decided he was wasting his time, so after confiscating his passport, he released Ross pending further investigation. He also intended to speak to the police in Chamonix to find out more about the disappearance of Lady Webley, but that could wait until Monday.

Right now, all he wanted to do was to get home, spend a little time with his wife, then have his dinner before heading up to Minster at Stone for the exhumation, which was scheduled, like most exhumations, to take place in the dead of the night.

Alice woke abruptly as Philippe stopped to pay the toll at the beginning of the Autoroute Blanche, just south of Geneva on the last leg of their drive to Chamonix. She’d been so tired after her sleepless night on the train that she’d nodded off almost immediately they had left the house.

They’d had a busy morning. Directly after they’d finished their breakfast, Philippe had announced that they must get rid of all the clothes they had been wearing the previous day, just in case they were ever linked to the farm. They had both gone and changed then he’d put every single item, including jackets and shoes, into the washing machine on a boil wash. While they were waiting for that to finish, he’d burned the bogus lawyer’s report and deleted the file from his hard disk. Once the washing machine had finished, he’d bagged the clothes and shoes up with his household rubbish and had driven it to the local tip, where he’d thrown it into the compacting machine personally.

While he’d been gone, Alice had treated herself to a long, hot bath, then had got dressed into her dirty, blood stained walking gear and the spare trousers which they had borrowed from the Charpoua Hut. She’d also looked out the hooded jacket, gloves and crampons they had borrowed, ready to take with her. After that, she’d carefully packed all her new clothes away into a suitcase, which Philippe had hidden in his own bedroom. Philippe had then changed into his climbing gear, packed an overnight bag, and by midday they had been ready to roll.

Just before they had left, Philippe had logged onto BBC Online on the Internet, looking for any news of the shooting. The BBC hadn’t, by that time, picked the story up, so there was no mention of it. Alice had told him he was wasting his time and explained that while they were away, their housekeeper only went in once a week, on a Wednesday, to do the dusting, so it was unlikely the body would be discovered until then. Philippe hadn’t told her about the car that had pulled up while he’d still been in the house. He hadn’t wanted her to feel pursued on top of all her other emotions.