Tired and scruffy, Smith now appeared not so mean, or guarded, as he had in the photographs. He’d evidently slept in the suit. But to his credit he seemed to have some concern about his wife’s condition.
“Is she going to be all right?”
“They think so,” Hen said.
“She fell and cracked her head, didn’t she? Do they know she’s epileptic? You can never tell when a fit is going to happen.”
“She’s going to be fine,” Diamond said. “But you’re under strong suspicion.”
“Of what?”
“Attacking her.”
His eyes stood out like cuckoo eggs. “Me, attack Olga? I wouldn’t hurt her.”
“You were seen at the house yesterday afternoon. She was found there later when your daughter came home from school.”
“I’m not violent, I tell you.”
“You’ve got to tell us a whole lot more than that. Where were you last night?”
“Does it matter what I was doing? You’re way off beam if you think I had anything to do with this.”
“Answer the question, Mr Smith.”
He sighed as if all this were too tedious to relate. “I drove miles, and slept in the car. Salisbury Plain, I think. When I turned on the radio about midday I heard someone say Olga was injured and in Crawley General and they were looking for me. I drove here to try and see her.”
“Why were you on the run if you’re innocent?”
“That’s something else.”
“Come on. We’re not arsing about here.”
“I panicked. That’s all.”
“Why? What is there to panic about?”
“She told me on the phone the police had been to the house.”
“Is that so scary? What’s the scam, Mr Smith? What have you been up to?”
He shook his head. Suddenly the eyes were more defiant than panic-stricken. It was obvious he wasn’t going to roll over easily.
Diamond gave Hen an enquiring look, a slight lift of the eyebrows that said, in effect, shall we pursue this? Whatever racket Smith is in, banking large amounts of cash, there are more urgent matters to discuss before DI Bradley arrives.
Hen nodded. They had a good understanding already.
Diamond said, “You know there’s a lot of interest in the dead woman who was found on Wightview Sands beach?”
Smith stared back in alarm.
“We’re in charge of that investigation.”
“You’re not trying to swing that on me?”
“You’re a key witness. You called the lifeguard, I understand.”
“Yes.”
“And then you quit the scene. And you haven’t responded to any of the calls for help.”
“I couldn’t tell you anything. I didn’t want to get involved.”
“For the same reason you spent last night on the run?”
“Well, yes.” He held out his hands in appeal. “But what do you expect from me? All I did was tell the lifeguard guy she was down there and helped him lift her off the beach and into a hut, and then I left.”
The next logical step was to remind him that he’d been requested to remain until the police arrived, but this wasn’t a blame session. They needed cooperation.
“Now we’ve got you here, can you tell us anything else about the dead woman? Did you notice her before this?”
He took his time over the question. That day on the beach had been obscured by more vivid recent experiences. “She was there most of the day. Arrived not long after we did, around eleven thirty, I suppose.”
“Alone?”
“Sure. There was no one with her.”
“Do you remember what she was carrying?” Hen asked.
“She had a windbreak with her, blue, I think. The first thing she did was put it up.”
“Any kind of bag?”
“I guess she must have had one, but I don’t remember any when we moved her. My wife is better at remembering stuff like that. Well, when she’s OK she is.”
“Sunglasses?”
“For sure. And a towel. She had this towel that she spread on the sand to lie on.”
None of this added much to their knowledge, except that Emma Tysoe had arrived alone. The rest was familiar, its function mainly to assist Smith to visualise the scene. Now that the focus had moved away from Crawley, and he was less tense, he might contribute something of use.
Diamond took up the questions again. “So she spread her towel quite near you?”
“Just in front. But we couldn’t see her without standing up.”
“That was because the windbreak was in the way? But you’d have noticed if anyone joined her at any stage?”
“I guess I would have done. No, I don’t remember anyone arriving. People going by, like they do on a beach, but no one actually joining her.” He shrugged, and he seemed to be genuinely trying to think of an explanation. “Wait a bit. Olga said something about a guy who tried to chat the woman up, and she wasn’t having any of it.”
“She did?” Diamond leaned forward eagerly. “When was this?”
“Not long before lunch.”
“Did you see him?”
“No, I had my eyes closed. Well, I was probably sleeping, because I’ve got no memory of this.”
“How can you be sure of the time?”
“I’m going by what Olga said.”
“Did she describe this man?”
“Something about a black T-shirt. That’s all I recall.”
“Come on. She must have noticed more than that.”
“I didn’t ask. He didn’t interest me.”
“He could be really important,” Hen said.
Smith obviously didn’t think so. “I wouldn’t make too much of it if I were you. The woman was OK when he came by. And after.” He hesitated, dredging up another memory. “Actually, Olga told me the woman spoke to her.”
Diamond’s eyebrows shot up. “They spoke?”
“Only something about Haley, friendly like. You know how people talk to you about your kids.”
Neither Diamond nor Hen had any such experience to draw on, but they could imagine.
“It would help if you could remember what was said.”
“It was Olga who spoke to her. I wasn’t listening. She told me later. It was only some friendly piece of chat.”
“This was when-in the morning?”
“Before we had lunch. I’m just making the point that she was all right at that stage. It was some hours after that she was killed.”
“How do you know when she was killed?”
He reddened. “It must have been the afternoon, mustn’t it? A dead body wouldn’t be lying there for hours with nobody noticing.”
“So when do you think the murder happened?”
“I’ve no idea, unless it was when Olga and I went for a swim.”
“What time was that?”
“Some while after the tide had turned, and was coming in.
Towards four o’clock.”
“Do you remember looking at her when you got up for your swim?”
“Not particularly.”
“Not at all?”
“To be honest, there were some attractive women not far away on our left, showing off their assets.”
“Topless, you mean?”
“If you’d been there, you wouldn’t have looked anywhere else, believe me.”
Hen rolled her eyes, and said nothing.
Diamond asked, “How long were you away? Any idea?”
“For the swim? Half an hour to forty minutes. It was warmer than we expected, so we stayed in for some time. When we got out, the tide had covered a lot of the beach. It comes in fast. And that was when my wife panicked a bit-well, quite a lot-because we couldn’t see where Haley, our little girl, had gone. We’d left her playing with some other kids, chucking a Frisbee about. There was no sign of Haley or the other girls.”
“This was after four thirty?”
“Don’t know for sure. I wasn’t wearing a watch. I said I’d check with the lifeguards while my wife went back to our place on the beach. Someone had to be there in case Haley came back. So that’s what we did. I went up to the platform where the lifeguards keep watch, not far away from where we’d been sitting all day. I told them my kid was missing and gave them a description and they promised to make a search. They suggested I looked for her by the ice-cream queue outside the café, because lost kids often find their way there. I tried there first and couldn’t see her, so I went to look in the sections of beach either side of us. The groynes dividing it up are quite high in places.”