But then he was sure now that he was in love with her.
Just when it seemed that this more sympathetic man was going to handle things, it was Lambert who now took up the questioning again. ‘Do I take it that you’re denying any connection with the killing of Peter Preston?’
‘Yes. Denying it emphatically.’ But again the adverb emerged as ridiculous, when he had meant it to sound indignant.
‘I see. Then who did kill him, Mr Hilton?’
‘I don’t know, do I?’
‘Don’t you? You may well know things related to this death that we don’t. It is our duty to discover these things. It is your duty to reveal to us anything which might have the smallest connection with this killing. This is murder, Mr Hilton. Not shoplifting, not breaking and entering, not even dealing in drugs. This is the most serious crime of all. Concealing the smallest detail which might have a bearing on this death could make you an accessory to murder. I advise you very strongly to conceal nothing from us.’
Sam licked his lips. ‘Ros Barker didn’t like him any more than I did. Perhaps he was more of a threat to her art than he was to mine, but you should ask her about that. Marjorie Dooks didn’t like him, because he wanted her job and was very rude about the way she was doing it. Even Sue Charles couldn’t have had much time for him, because he liked to pretend that her writing was trivial rubbish. I can’t see any of us killing him, though.’
The now familiar dilemma, which they shared themselves, but couldn’t admit, especially to this talented, dangerous young man. Lambert said evenly, ‘Then who did kill him?’
‘Someone from outside the festival committee. Perhaps it was someone from his family, or from his past.’
‘Perhaps. What car do you drive, Mr Hilton?’
‘A black Ford Focus. It used to be my uncle’s car. It’s fourteen years old now, but it runs well enough. It’s taxed and insured and MOT’d.’
Hook noted the details and the registration number, with a small smile at these unnecessary additions. He thought the nervousness was a good sign; he didn’t really want this raw, gifted young man to receive a life sentence, though he wouldn’t voice that unprofessional thought to Lambert. He said, ‘We’ve charged you with the serious crime of dealing in illegal drugs, Sam. That doesn’t mean you will be treated with any more suspicion than anyone else who is involved in this murder investigation. But you should heed the Chief Superintendent Lambert’s advice. If you think of anything at all which might be relevant in the next few days, you must demonstrate your innocence by bringing it to us immediately.’
Sam Hilton emerged blinking into the sunlight outside the station and breathed deeply of the warm spring air. He felt as though he had received a physical battering. But with a young man’s resilience, he decided within half an hour that it had gone reasonably well. They didn’t seem to be aware of the serious motive he’d had to be rid of Preston.
Long let it remain so.
The contents of Peter Preston’s filing cabinet were interesting indeed. They were voluminous and detailed. They were the collections of a natural gossip. But this was a gossip with a malevolent streak, material assembled by a man who had sought to turn the weaknesses of humanity to maximum account for himself.
Peter Preston might have been old-fashioned in his storage methods for information, but within his own terms he had been methodical. There was an almost priggish rectitude in his organization of the material he had gathered. Each dark green file carried the name of an individual. The thickest files were the oldest ones, presumably devoted to the people who had been acquaintances of his, or more probably rivals, in his more active and successful days. Most of the names Lambert did not know, though he recognized one or two BBC and ITV luminaries from a previous generation. He flicked open a couple of these files; much of the material was bitchy gossip picked up from others, but occasionally there was the date of some action that Preston had obviously thought might be of use to him. The last entries in all of these were several years old.
Lambert turned with quickening interest to the more recent compilations, which included files on every member of the Oldford Literary festival committee. He couldn’t resist turning first to the one on his wife, headed grandiloquently, ‘Christine Evelyn Lambert.’ Disappointingly, it was confined to a single sheet in Preston’s small, neat hand. It included, ‘Husband is Detective Chief Inspector John Lambert, who has been lionized by the media as a modern Sherlock Holmes. No doubt much less bright than he thinks he is. Difficult to get beyond the police mafia to discover the skeletons in his cupboard. Might contact Alexander Bryden to see what dirt he can offer on this Lambert fellow.’
Bryden was a Cheltenham-based con man who had taken a succession of rich widows and divorcees for the bulk of their savings. He had eventually been trapped and sent down by Lambert, who was intrigued to know what connection he had enjoyed with Peter Preston. Perhaps the dead man had not known that Bryden was currently in prison, though the case had been well covered in the press at the time.
The only entry on Christine herself was, ‘Likely to support the Dooks woman in the chair, unless I can find some means of putting pressure upon her. But she seems a moderately intelligent woman, who could be convinced in time of the excellence I have to offer.’ Lambert decided from the other material in the cabinet that ‘moderately intelligent’ was in Preston’s terms a high compliment. He thought it might be difficult to convince Christine of that.
He had seen enough to realize that the material in these files needed to be thoroughly checked. He told Chris Rushton that and gave instructions that he was not to be disturbed for the next few hours. Then he carried the files on the literature festival committee away to his office and shut the door firmly.
Amy Proctor was finding hormones a troublesome thing. Her own seemed to be raging out of control and now there was a young man standing on the doorstep who looked as if he was having trouble with his.
She said, ‘I suppose you’d better come in.’
It was hardly the most welcoming of greetings for a man who had lately decided that he was in love. Sam Hilton said as much.
She gave him a smile which sent the aforementioned hormones into vigorous action. ‘Sorry. I was preoccupied with other things. I’ve got application forms for jobs, which I have to complete today.’
‘This shouldn’t take long. It can’t, really — I’ve to be at Morrisons in two hours myself to take up my gainful employment. Stacking shelves leaves my brain free to work on other things.’ He didn’t choose to confess to many people that he couldn’t exist on his poetry earnings alone. That he should do so to this bright, animated, enchanting creature was really a declaration of trust and love, but he didn’t suppose she recognized it as that.
Amy said with a touch of affectionate mockery, ‘I like the idea of the poetic muse being at work amidst the machinery of life in the supermarket. Collecting trolleys from the car park and contemplating the eternal verities of life at the same time.’
‘The muses don’t seem to pay much attention to me. If I wait for inspiration, I produce nothing. I have to batter my brain into activity and bully my mind into looking beyond the bread and the eggs and the baked beans.’ Writing, whether in prose or in verse, was a serious activity to Sam; he was prepared to outline the mechanics of it to anyone who offered him the opportunity.
‘Student stand-by, the tin of baked beans. I expect I shall have to move on to more adult sustenance, once I get a full-time job. Do you want a cup of coffee?’
‘Yes, if you’ve time.’ He should have been in and out in a couple of minutes, as he’d promised, but he couldn’t resist spending time with this delectable girl with the glossy black hair and the lissom, mobile figure. He followed her into the kitchen and watched the rear of her jeans dreamily as she boiled the kettle and spooned instant coffee into two beakers. He was filled with a spiritual attraction that went far beyond the coarsely physical; but you couldn’t simply ignore the flesh, if love was to be complete.