Lambert nodded several times, as if this time he accepted her account of things. ‘Have you thought of anyone who can confirm that you were here at the time when Beaumont died?’
‘No. There isn’t anyone. I had telephone calls between eight and nine on that evening, but nothing after that.’
‘Who do you think killed Martin Beaumont? We now think it was someone in his immediate circle, not an outsider.’
‘I don’t know. It’s your business, not mine. It wasn’t me. But you’re not going to believe that just because I say it, are you?’
‘Not just because you say it, no. The nature of our work does not allow that. You can see that you did not help yourself by concealing what you have now told us.’
‘It’s a motive; no more than that. I admit that I was quite pleased when I heard Beaumont was dead. But you must have other motives, as well as mine.’
They didn’t respond to that. Sarah Vaughan was left staring bleakly through her window at the view which everyone found so attractive. She’d have to go in to work at the vineyard soon. She’d have to spend the rest of her day among the other suspects.
TWENTY-FOUR
In Oldford police station, it was early afternoon. The sun was high, the CID section was almost empty, and the postprandial atmosphere was soporific.
Detective Inspector Rushton did not like that. He knew that the end of this day would mark a full week since Martin Beaumont had been shot through the head. His enthusiasm for data meant that he was well aware of one of the hoariest of police statistics: there was a sharp decline in successful conclusions to those murder hunts which had no arrest within seven days.
He wandered through to the front of the station, where his mood was not greatly improved by a conversation with the uniformed station sergeant. This corpulent veteran was due for retirement in three months and he wanted nothing more than an uneventful countdown to that date. Rushton wanted a sense of urgency, and he was not going to find one here. He enjoyed being at the centre of the investigation, correlating and cross-referencing the multitude of data as it accrued, but today he envied Lambert and Hook their more direct involvement with the people in this case.
Then, when he was telling himself that he would have to wait for any serious input until the pair arrived back at Oldford, he received an encouraging phone call. More than encouraging, in fact. Crucial, perhaps. A young probationary constable had unearthed a witness who had seen a car in Howler’s Heath at eleven o’clock on the Wednesday night of the murder. A parked car, in fact. No number: you couldn’t expect miracles of the ever-fallible public. But a colour and a make.
A colour and a make which tallied with the vehicle of one of the key suspects in the Beaumont case.
Two hours after Tom Ogden had finished his discussions with Jason Knight and Alistair Morton, he ushered Chief Superintendent Lambert and Detective Sergeant Hook into the same stone building.
He had set out the shabby furniture a little more formally, but he took the same chair behind the table, with the two CID men facing him across it. He met them as they climbed out of the police Mondeo, but they exchanged scarcely a word with him as he led them into the old byre. Once they had the privacy of the old stone walls around them, Ogden discovered why that was.
Even now, they did not speak, but looked at him expectantly. He said nervously, ‘I trust you’ve made some progress. As I told you, I had no time for Beaumont, but I shall be interested to hear how-’
‘You lied to us on Saturday night.’ Lambert said bluntly.
The farmer’s healthy outdoor complexion reddened visibly. In this place, he gave the orders and was obeyed without discussion. He was not used to being challenged. In addition, he was fighting the acute discomfort which affects the normally honest man when he has lied. ‘I might have made some sort of mistake.’
‘There was no mistake, Mr Ogden. DS Hook asked where you were last Wednesday night and you said you were at the cinema with your wife. That was a deliberate lie. You also asked your wife to lie on your account.’
Ogden was speechless. The justified allegation that he had forced Enid, the most honest and straightforward woman he knew, to lie on his behalf hit him hardest of all. As if he feared that the man might wander even further out of his depth, Bert Hook explained quietly, ‘You and your wife were seen at the cinema on Thursday night. Not Wednesday, as you claimed to us on Saturday.’
‘All right. I lied and I admit it. And I was stupid — as Enid said, with the size of the team you’ve got on the case, I was always likely to be rumbled.’
Bert hoped that Ogden was right in that assumption. He had an uncomfortable feeling that if Chris Rushton’s fiancee hadn’t recognized the Ogdens at the cinema on Thursday night, his story might have been accepted. Hook said heavily, ‘You’d better tell us now where you really were on Wednesday night.’
‘I was at home. Enid had had two sleepless nights with toothache and a visit to the dentist last Wednesday. She went to bed with painkillers at about half past nine. I’d no one to account for where I was after that.’ Ogden spoke as if he was delivering words he had prepared for this moment, as he probably was. It made him sound as if he did not expect to be believed.
Lambert said curtly, ‘In fact you went to Howler’s Heath, where you met Martin Beaumont and shot him through the head with his own weapon.’
‘No. I was at home. If you must know, I sat in a chair and worried myself about Beaumont’s latest offer for my land, because Enid had said I should accept it.’
‘Then why lie about the matter?’
Tom looked down at the deeply scratched table, at the chip in the edge which had been there since his grandfather’s time, when cattle had been milked in here. ‘Because I hated Beaumont and everyone knew it. Because I had a police record of violence. I knew you’d bring that up. Because I’d have liked to kill the bastard, if I’d felt I could get away with it!’
They listened to the heavy, uneven sound of his breathing. It seemed to fill the room like the breathing of a heavy animal in pain. When it subsided a little and he glanced at them again, Hook spoke like a therapist. ‘Did you kill him, Tom? It would be far better to tell us now, if you did.’
‘No. I didn’t stir from the house. But I can’t expect you to believe that now, can I?’
‘If you didn’t kill the man, who did?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know what goes on at the vineyard. I’ve never wanted to know. That bugger must have had a lot of enemies, from what I saw of him.’
Lambert spoke more sternly, the complement to Hook’s persuasion. ‘It’s your duty to tell us anything you know. If you didn’t kill Beaumont, it’s also very much in your own interest to speak out.’
Tom Ogden nodded. Having lied to them once, he had an urgent desire to tell them something, anything, which might persuade them that he was now telling the truth. ‘Two of them came to see me this morning. From Abbey Vineyards, I mean. They’ve got plans for the future. They want me to join them.’ It felt disloyal, but at the same time it felt the right thing to do. He didn’t want to conceal things, not any longer. And a horrifying possibility had struck him only now, whilst the police stared at him across his table: one of his earlier visitors might have murdered to achieve what they wanted, what they were now inviting him to be part of. The two of them might even have done it together.
Lambert was studying the troubled face closely, as if he could read the workings of the mind behind it. All he said was: ‘We’d better have the names of these people.’