'Yes, it does, Chief Inspector,' she said, in honeyed tones. 'But I am a very good criminal silk. In fact, I'm probably the best around at the moment. So my clients tend to leave court either by the front door, or in the knowledge that their sentence is a hell of a lot shorter, or less expensive than it might have been.
`Take the trial I'm on just now as an example. It's been going on for weeks. The Judge has just begun his summing up, and it'll take him another couple of days, but I know already and so does he that my client will walk. The chap's as guilty as sin, but my duty to the court is to demonstrate the weakness of the case against him. The Crown hasn't delivered enough material to the jury for a conviction, and the Judge's summing up should point that out.
I tell all my clients that I'm there to prevent a miscarriage of justice, and they understand that. The fact is that in a good proportion of my work I actually achieve such a miscarriage, of natural justice at least.
`Therefore, Mr Donaldson, there are no grudges harboured against me as a result of my work. It's the bad barristers who have plots hatched against them in Parkhurst.'
`How about your private life, Mrs Noble?' Neil Mcllhenney had decided almost at first sight that he disliked the woman. It was obvious in his tone. 'Any enemies there?'
The frost returned to her eyes. 'Not that I know of, Sergeant. Have you?'
Mcllhenney smiled. 'That's a sure-fire certainty, ma'am. I think I'm making one even as I speak, which probably means that I'm good at my job, too.'
`No doubt you are, Mr Mcllhenney, but I fail to follow your line of questioning. Why should my enemy want to kill my husband, or blow up a planeload of people?'
`Who says he did? Perhaps he wanted to kill you and didn't care whether he got Mr Noble.' He glanced around the drawing room. 'Maybe the bomb was meant to go off here, only it had a dodgy timer. Maybe your enemy assumed that Mr Noble would open the box at home, only he didn't.'
Ariadne Tucker was rattled. 'What enemy? I've told you, I don't have any.'
`How about someone who's mentally disturbed?' the Sergeant fired back. 'Emotionally stable people don't plant explosive devices. Any nutters in your life, public or private?'
‘For the last time,' she shouted at the policeman. 'Sane or otherwise, I don't have any enemies!'
`So who would write those letters accusing you of adultery?' said Mcllhenney quietly, managing, with a great effort, to keep triumph out of his tone. 'A well-meaning friend?'
She looked at him. The anger left her eyes. She nodded solemnly. 'Nice one, Sergeant.'
She pushed herself out of her armchair and walked over to the bay window.
All right, I'll tell you. There's no point in keeping it quiet now anyway. Maurice himself wrote the letters.
`From the earliest days of our marriage, he was paranoid about me. He was convinced that I had affairs. It started off as hints at first; nudge, nudge, wink, wink, sort of stuff, but gradually it became more serious. The hints became accusations.'
`We have to ask you this, ma'am,' said Donaldson. Was there substance in them?'
`No, there was not,' she said firmly.
`So how did you react to his suggestions?'
‘I cross-examined him.'
`What do you mean?'
I put him in the witness box. I made him set out his evidence, and I took it apart.'
`Did he have any evidence?' asked Mcllhenney.
She sighed. 'No. Deep down poor Maurice, much as I loved him, was an essentially insecure personality, with little or no inner self-belief. He really could be quite inadequate.'
`Sexually?'
She looked sharply at the Sergeant. 'Well, if I'm being frank, he wasn't a superstud. But I was speaking in emotional terms. As I said, he was paranoid, a classic manifestation of low self-esteem. For example, if I met a colleague of his and exchanged even a few friendly words, it would fester, and I'd hear about it at some time in the future.'
`Did you ever meet Colin Davey?'
`Yes, I was introduced to him at a reception around two months ago. I took an instant dislike to him. Then about a fortnight after that I had a consultation with a solicitor who turned out to be his Constituency Chairman. As it was coming to an end, Davey called into his office. After we had each completed our business we talked for about twenty minutes, while he waited for his car, and I for my taxi.'
`What did you talk about?'
`Trivia. I didn't like him and I could tell that he didn't like me but it was easier to jabber about the weather than to sit in silence.'
`Did your husband know of these encounters?'
She nodded. 'He was in the room on the first occasion. The second time he was in the official car which came to collect Davey from the solicitor's office. When it arrived, Davey and I came out together.. ' Her voice trailed off as she saw the expressions on the faces of the two policemen.
Oh no,' she said quietly. 'Surely not.'
`Later, did Mr Noble ever mention either of those meetings?' asked Donaldson.
She shook her head. 'No, he didn't. But after the letters, he wouldn't have.'
`What do you mean?'
`When Maurice showed me the first letter, I guessed at once that he had sent it to himself.
I didn't accuse him at that stage. I just burned it, and I did the same with the second. But when the third arrived, I decided that I had to put a stop to it, so I called in the police.'
‘Did you expect them to trace it back to him?'
`No. I was pretty certain they couldn't do that. I simply wanted to give him a scare and put a stop to the endless accusations. It worked. The arrival of the police gave him a hell of a fright. After they had gone, I sat him down and made him promise that the nonsense would stop. I told him that if he ever accused me again of having an interest in another man, then I really would leave him. That seemed to have done the trick'
`So he said nothing to you about Davey?'
Not in that context, no. All that he said about him was professional. About his conduct, about the way he treated his staff, and generally about what a horrible man he was.'
And you agreed with that?'
She nodded. 'Maurice was dead right about him. I thought that he was a typical politician.
Arrogant, self-centred, and power-hungry sums up the way he came across to me.'
`You weren't attracted to him by all that arrogance?' asked Donaldson. 'It can happen, you know.'
She laughed, bitterly, in his face. ‘Not in the slightest, Chief Inspector. But surely your argument is that my husband thought I was.'
‘Not our argument, Ms Tucker. Simply a line of enquiry, a piece of potential evidence which we have to assess. From what you've told me and from what we've heard from others, it's a pretty strong possibility.' He paused. I'd like to record this discussion, ma'am.
Would you give us a formal statement, please.'
Of course,' she said. 'I know the drill. I'll set something down, sign it and let you have it.
Could you collect it tomorrow evening?'
Donaldson nodded. 'Yes, but in the circumstances I'll have to ask you to write or type it yourself, rather than dictate it to a secretary'
`Naturally.' She brushed her hands down her skirt. 'Now, will that be all?'
The DCI shook his head. 'No, there's just one other thing. The forensic people who looked over your house found signs of entry at a small mezzanine window. They said it was unalarmed.'
`Yes, it is, I'm afraid. The alarm system was in the house when we bought it. I expect that whoever installed it saved a few pounds because that window is so small. We'd been meaning to upgrade it, by installing movement sensors, but we never got round to it.'
`Have you noticed anything out of place since last Thursday evening?' asked Donaldson.
'Or did you hear anything that night? You said that you worked late.'