‘No matter.’ Farrier still sounded cheerful to me. ‘The bank will have the details of the cheque you paid into your account.’
‘It wasn’t a cheque. It was cash. There’ll be a record of that.’
‘Not quite the same though, is it? It could have come from anywhere. And it seems a bit odd. A respectable solicitor carrying round a bundle of used tenners.’
‘Twenties,’ I said. ‘And fifties.’ At last his scepticism cut through my apathy. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Mr Howdon…’ He paused, and I could hear the quotation marks. ‘… doesn’t recollect meeting you after Mr Samson’s funeral. He doesn’t think you were there even.’
Chapter Fifteen
They decided to let me go in the end, though I could tell Miles didn’t like it. Even walking to get bailed by the custody sergeant, I was still trying to persuade Farrier that I’d been telling the truth.
‘There was a receptionist at Howdon’s office. Show her my photo. She’ll know me.’
‘Perhaps.’
But I could tell he didn’t hold out much hope. Nor did I. She worked for Howdon, didn’t she? She’d do as she was told.
He felt sorry for me. Like the bystanders that day in Blyth, he thought I was a nutter. He felt a bit foolish because he’d been taken in by my story, but, as I’ve said, he was a kind man. He suggested I make an urgent appointment to see my psychiatrist. ‘No trekking in the Atlas Mountains this time, though, pet, whatever he says. You mustn’t leave the country.’
I nearly told him about the feeling I’d had in Delaval that I was being followed. It was possible that there was someone else in Isabella Street that morning. But I couldn’t. All I’d had was a sense of being watched. Glimpses of shadows. He couldn’t take that seriously and nor could I.
Jess was waiting for me by the front desk. I’d been bailed to stay at her house. She didn’t see me immediately. She was sitting on a padded bench which ran along one wall, staring ahead of her. Not reading or knitting, just sitting, as if sitting was an active pastime in its own right. She was making a statement and she wasn’t going anywhere. Then she saw me and she opened her arms wide.
‘Eh, bonny lass,’ she said. ‘Fancy stumbling on something dreadful like that.’ To show me and the officers with me that she didn’t believe for a minute I was capable of hurting a fly. She never believed any of her lodgers were guilty of the crimes they were charged with, but it was still comforting. She pulled me onto the seat beside her and gave me a hug. I wanted to cry, but I’d save that for later. We stood up together and walked out to the car park, where Ray was waiting patiently in the van.
As we joined the Spine Road a big brown cloud covered the setting sun and the light seeped out from behind.
‘I’ve asked Lisa to pop in,’ Jess said casually. So she intended to treat me as an invalid, not a murderer.
‘Jess, man, it’s eight in the evening. She’ll want to be out.’
Lisa was a party animal. Her idea of business wear was a short leather skirt and fishnet tights, a skimpy cardie which left nothing to the imagination, and a jacket on top to make her look professional. Often she turned up on a visit with a hangover. She’d done a stint attached to the drug and alcohol abuse clinic. ‘I know,’ she said, when I’d pointed out there might be a tad of hypocrisy in her position. ‘I met a couple of patients in the Bigg Market the other weekend and I was in a worse state than they were.’ She’d been brought up in Ashington, had one of those accents which pinpoint where you were born to a couple of streets. During our first session she’d invited me to talk about my family. ‘After all,’ she’d said, ‘our parents are always with us.’ When I’d explained that mine very certainly weren’t, she choked with laughter over one of Jess’s milky coffees and apologized for not having read my notes properly. After that we’d got on fine.
‘She was on call anyway,’ Jess said. The three of us were squashed in the front of the van, with Jess in the middle, and I felt her tense. ‘Humour me, eh, pet? I feel the responsibility, you know. I’d rather have a professional give you the once-over.’
Ray dropped us in the back lane. He wouldn’t come in. He muttered something about his neighbour’s ballcock, but I suspect all the talk of madness was making him feel uncomfortable.
A couple of lodgers were sprawled in front of the telly in the front room. You could tell their minds weren’t on the programme. They’d stayed in especially to find out what had happened with the police. Murder was well outside their league and I sensed a new respect. They were probably disappointed that I was there at all. It would have been much more dramatic if I’d been arrested. Jess got rid of them, bribed them probably with a couple of quid each to spend in the club. Then we sat looking at each other.
‘I spoke to that Mr Farrier,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t think you did it.’
‘No? You could have fooled me.’
She ignored the interruption. ‘Not possible, he said. Time-wise. The boy wasn’t long dead when you found him. Mrs Russo remembered you in the icecream shop. You were sitting there like a wet weekend, she said. Apparently. Then there was that lassie that let you into the house and went up with you. She went in first, didn’t she? She swears you couldn’t have killed him then. So when could you have done it? And what did you do with the knife?’
‘I was at the house earlier. No one was in, but I could have done it then and got rid of the knife.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘You were too long in the ice-cream shop. And why would you go back to the house if you’d killed the lad?’
She stared at me. A challenge to be rational. I wondered how she’d got all that out of Farrier. Why had he given away the information? She went on, ‘What were you doing there, anyway?’ So that was it. He’d asked her to find out.
I gave her exactly the same story as I’d given the police. ‘But Farrier doesn’t believe I’d been asked to trace Thomas. He won’t accept that’s why I was there. He thinks I’m crazy. Or lying.’ I paused. ‘Did I show you the letter from the solicitor, Jess? The one telling me about the funeral at Wintrylaw?’
She shook her head slowly. ‘Sorry, pet. I never did see it. You were outside, do you remember, when the postie came. But of course there was a funeral. Why else would you get Ray to take you all that way up the coast? You’d never heard of the place before, had you?’
That was true. Philip had never mentioned it.
Outside in the lane there was the sound of a car being driven too quickly, the painful squeal of brakes. Lisa had arrived.
‘That lass’ll kill herself one day,’ Jess said automatically. It was what she always said. She caught my eye and gave an awkward grin to show she realized she was repeating herself, then stood up to let Lisa into the house.
Tonight Lisa was in casual mode: jeans which seemed moulded to her backside, a sleeveless top and nothing else apparently except short shiny boots with big heels. Jess very obviously left us alone. She said I must be starving – she knew she was – and she’d sort out some food. Lisa seemed to have skipped that part of her training which emphasized the need for a non-judgemental approach, for tact and discretion.
‘What’s been going on, then?’ she demanded. ‘Jess says you’ve not been taking your pills.’ Thanks Jess, I thought. Who else have you told? Perhaps you put a note in the Newbiggin parish magazine?
I explained how good I’d felt in Morocco, how I hadn’t thought I needed them.
‘You’ll need them now.’ No argument, no discussion.
‘Maybe.’
‘No maybe. It’ll be a stressful time. Don’t you think anyone walking into a room and finding what you did would be shocked? For Christ’s sake, Lizzie, accept that you’re human.’