After a while, she reached up and gently disengaged his hands. “I’m all right,” she said, wiping the tears out of her eyes. “I’m sorry for inflicting myself on you, but it’s been on my mind all day. Going over and over it again. I can’t understand my feelings. I should feel sorrow, loss… but all I feel is anger. I hate him. I hate him for doing this! And I hate myself for feeling like that.”
Banks could do nothing but sit down helplessly and let her cry again. He remembered his own reaction to finding Riddle’s body; there had been a lot of anger in that too, before it gave way to guilt. The selfish bastard.
When Rosalind had finished, he said, “Look, I can’t pretend to know how you feel, but I feel terrible myself. If I’d gone out there sooner I might have saved him.” It sounded even more pathetic than his opening gambit, but he felt he had to get it off his chest.
Rosalind gave him a sharp look. “You? Don’t be silly. Jerry was a very determined man. If he wanted to kill himself, he’d damn well do it, one way or another. There was nothing you could have done except perhaps postpone the inevitable.”
“Even so… I keep thinking if only I hadn’t put off the visit. If only I hadn’t… I don’t know.”
“Disliked him so much?”
Banks looked away. “I suppose that’s a part of it.”
“Don’t worry. Jerry wasn’t a very likable man. Even death won’t change that. There’s no sense in your feeling guilty.”
“I’ve been thinking about what might have caused him to do it,” Banks said after a short pause. “I know you said he was depressed over Emily’s death and all the fallout that engendered, but somehow, even all that just didn’t seem enough in itself.”
“He was upset about those lies in the newspaper.”
Banks paused. He knew he shouldn’t be telling Rosalind about her husband’s problems with Barry Clough, but he felt she deserved something from him; he also thought it might put Riddle’s death in perspective for her a little more clearly. Call it guilt talking. He took a deep breath, then said, “I was out at a place called Scarlea House yesterday afternoon. Ever heard of it?”
“I’ve heard of it, yes. It’s an upmarket shooting lodge, isn’t it?”
“Yes. According to the bartender, your husband had dinner with Barry Clough there the Sunday before last.”
Rosalind paled. “Barry Clough?”
“Yes. The man Emily lived with for a while in London.”
“I remember the name. And you’re telling me that Jerry had dinner with him?”
“Yes. Are you sure you didn’t know?”
“No. Jerry never said anything to me about it. I knew he was out for dinner that night, yes, but I thought it was just one of his political things. I’d stopped asking him where he went a long time ago. How would a newspaper find out about that anyway, even if it is true?”
“They didn’t have to know about that specific meeting,” said Banks. “Remember, the article never made any direct assertions; it was all innuendo. It’s even possible that someone on the staff at Scarlea House – one of the waiters, perhaps – talked to a reporter but refused to be quoted as a source. I don’t know. These journalists have their tricks of the trade. The point is that it happened. Did you have any idea at all that your husband had talked to or met with Clough?”
“No. Absolutely none.”
Banks believed her. For one thing, Riddle wasn’t stupid enough to tell his wife he was having dinner with the man suspected of murdering their daughter. “Your husband told me that Clough was trying to blackmail him. Using Emily.”
“But Jerry would never agree to anything like that.”
“I think that was his dilemma. That was what tore him apart. Certainly Emily’s murder hurt him deeply, but this was what finally pushed him over the edge. There he was, a man of honor, who has to decide whether he wants to fall into the hands of a gangster or have his daughter and, by extension, his entire family, vilified in public.”
“Are you saying that he didn’t know whether he would have done what Clough asked or not, and he couldn’t face making the decision?”
“Possibly. But going by the tabloid article, it looks as if he had already turned Clough down, or that Clough had lost patience waiting.”
“If Clough was behind it.”
“Who else?”
“I don’t know.” Rosalind leaned forward. “But, if all you’re saying is true, it doesn’t make sense…”
“For Clough to kill Emily?”
“No.”
“That’s true. That’s what your husband said, too, when I asked him about it. Clough had nothing to gain. I still think he’s a strong candidate, but I must admit the whole thing’s been puzzling me a lot.”
“Who, then?”
“I don’t know. I feel as far away from a solution as I ever have.”
“What will you do about Clough?”
“Keep at him. There are other things we want to talk to him about, too. I’ve got to tell you, though, that I’m not at all hopeful about convicting Clough of anything, no matter what he’s done.”
“Why not?”
“A man like him? If he can blackmail a chief constable, imagine what else he’s got going, who he might have in his pocket. Besides, he never does anything himself. He delegates, keeps his hands clean. Even if, for some reason we haven’t considered, he was responsible for Emily’s murder, he’d have got one of his minions like Andrew Handley or Jamie Gilbert to do the dirty work. And he’s rich. That means he’ll be able to afford the best defense.”
“Sometimes I wish I was in criminal law,” Rosalind said, her eyes burning. “I’d love to take on his prosecution.”
Banks smiled. “First we’d have to persuade the CPS it was worth pursuing, and that’s a Herculean effort in itself. In the meantime, we’ve still got a murderer to catch.”
Rosalind sipped some wine. At least she didn’t pull a face and spit it out. “You’ve probably deduced this already,” she said, “but our marriage was very much a matter of convenience. He gave me the things I wanted and I didn’t embarrass him in public. I like to think I might even have helped him advance. Other than that, we went our separate ways.”
“Affairs?”
“Jerry? I don’t think so. For one thing, he didn’t have the time. He was married to his work and his political ambitions.” She looked Banks straight in the eye. “Me? A few. Nothing important. All discreet. None recently.”
They sat quietly for a few seconds. A gust of wind rattled the loose window upstairs. “You said you wanted to talk to me?” Banks said.
“Oh, it’s nothing to do with the murder. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to mislead you in any way. It’s just that, well, you give the impression you think I’ve been holding something back, not telling you everything.”
Banks nodded. “Yes. I do think that. I have done from the start.”
“You’re right.”
“And now you’re going to tell me?”
“No reason not to, now. But first, do you think I might have another glass of wine?”
That evening at home, Annie reheated some vegetable curry in a bowl and sat in front of the television, hoping the flickering images would take her mind off her problem. No such luck. There seemed to be nothing on but nature programs, current events or sports, and nothing she watched had the power to absorb or distract her at all. She flipped through her meager collection and briefly entertained the idea of watching a comfort video, Doctor Zhivago or The Wizard of Oz, but she even felt too agitated to concentrate on a movie.
Damn Banks, she thought as she washed out her dish. How could he do this to her? Maybe she had let things cool between them romantically, but that gave him no right to treat her like some probationary DC who couldn’t be trusted with the full story. She knew that his action hadn’t been technically wrong in any way, but it had been dishonest and cowardly. As SIO, Banks was quite entitled to follow up a lead and decide whether it required action or not. Obviously, in the case of his night with Emily Riddle, he knew exactly what had occurred, so he knew that no further action was needed.