"You can go home now, Miss Cattrell. There's a car waiting for you."
She gathered her bits and pieces together and stuffed them carelessly into her handbag. "And my other things?" she asked him.
"They will be returned to you tomorrow."
Bill unfolded himself from his chair, stretched his huge hands to the ceiling and yawned. "I can take you home, if you'd prefer it, Anne."
"No, it's late. You get back to Polly and the children."
He straightened his shoulders and the snap as the bones locked into place was loud in the small room. "This is going to cost you an arm and a leg, my girl-it's goodbye to fifty quid every time I draw breath, remember-so what do you say? Shall we sue? I'm game." He beamed. "We're embarrassed for choice really. Harassment, abuse of police powers, damage to your professional reputation, loss of self-esteem, loss of earnings. I always enjoy litigation cases when I've had a chance to see both teams in action."
Her eyes gleamed. "Would I win?"
"Good lord, yes. I've hit the opposition for six off far stickier wickets."
Walsh, who had found Bill's wisecracks increasingly irritating, spluttered angrily. "The law is not a joke, Mr. Stanley. I regret any inconvenience Miss Cattrell may have suffered, but in the circumstances I don't see that we could have acted any differently. It was her choice to have you present while she answered questions and, frankly, had it not taken you three hours to get here, this could all have been dealt with very much more quickly."
"Couldn't make it any sooner, old man," said Bill, poking a finger through his string vest and scratching his bear-hairy chest. "My day for child-minding. Can't abandon the brood to their own devices. They'd slaughter each other the minute I was out of the house. Mind you, you might have a point. Don't relish accusations of sloppiness floating around in open court." He gave Anne's shoulder a friendly squeeze with his great paw. "I'll give you a discount. It's less fun but probably more sensible."
Walsh gobbled furiously. "I've a damn good mind to charge you both with wasting police time."
Laughter shook the solicitor's huge frame as he opened the door for Anne and ushered her out. "No, no, Inspector. I do the charging. Indecent, isn't it? I win whichever way you look at it." He escorted her to the front door where a police car was waiting, took her face in his hands and bent to whisper in her ear. "That little farce is going to cost you fifty smackers to one of the AIDS charities, plus an explanation."
She patted his cheek. "I needed someone to hold my hand," she told him.
He grunted his amusement. "Bollocks! I'd have been angry if I hadn't wanted to find out what the hell was going on and if I hadn't been waiting for a chance to meet that bastard Walsh." The smile faded from his voice. "Give me a ring tomorrow and I'll come down and talk to the three of you. Murder is a dangerous game. Anne, even for the spectators. It's too easy to get dragged in. Phoebe knows that better than anyone." He put his hand on her bottom and propelled her towards the car. "Give her my love, and Diana too." He waved goodbye, then walked to his own car and set off back to London and his weekly night-shift in a shelter for the homeless.
Andy McLoughlin lingered in his car on the other side of the road. It was parked in the twilight zone between two pools of orange lamplight and he had seen without being seen. His hands shook on the steering wheel. God, he needed a drink. Had she kissed him? It was difficult to be sure. Did it matter anyway? It was their easy understanding, the way their bodies had leant against each other in uncomplicated friendship that had rocked him. He didn't want her loved. He eased himself out of the car and went inside in search of Walsh. "How did it go?"
The Inspector was standing at his office window, glowering into the night. "Did you see them? They've just gone."
"No."
"Damned solicitor took three hours to get here, arrived sporting a filthy string vest and looking like the hairy man of Borneo. Matter of fact, I'm highly doubtful about his credentials." He took out his pipe. "You were quite right, Andy. It was beef blood. We were being had. Why?"
McLoughlin lowered himself into a chair. "A diversion. To draw you away from the rest of the house."
Walsh walked back to his desk and sat down. "Possibly. In that case it didn't work. There wasn't a stone left unturned by the time we'd finished." There was a long silence before he tapped his pipe on a sheaf of letters in front of him. "Jones found this little lot in Mrs. Goode's studio." He pushed the papers towards McLoughlin and waited while the Sergeant skimmed through them. "Interesting, don't you think?"
"Did Jonesy question her about them?"
"Tried to. She said it was none of his business, that she'd got her fingers burnt and preferred to forget it, certainly had no intention of answering questions on the matter." He fingered tobacco into the bowl of the pipe. "When he told her he would have to take the letters, she lost her temper and tried to snatch them back." There was a twinkle of amusement in his eye as he lit the tobacco and sucked in warm smoke. "Two PCs had to restrain her while he removed them to his car."
"And I thought she was the least volatile of the three. What about Mrs. Maybury?"
"Good as gold. She took herself off to the greenhouse and spent most of the afternoon rooting Pelargonium cuttings while we turned her house inside out and found nothing." Noises of succulent contentment puttered from his mouth. "I've detailed a couple of lads to tout those shoes round the menders. It's a long shot but someone might remember re-heeling them. I don't care what Mrs. Thompson says-let's face it, she's so damn cuckoo she wouldn't recognise her own reflection if it didn't have a halo round it-those shoes are the missing Daniel's. Size eight and brown. Too much of a coincidence."
McLoughlin forced his pricking eyes to stay open as he re-read the top letter. It was undated and very brief. "Monday. My dear Diana, Of course I regret what's happened, but my hands are tied. If it will help I can come out on Thursday to discuss the position with you. Yours ever, Daniel." The address was Larkfield, East Deller, and scored across the page in angry writing was: "Meeting confirmed." The previous letter, a carbon copy of a demand from Diana for an up-to-date statement of Daniel Thompson's business, was dated Friday, 20th May.
"So when did he go missing?"
"Thursday, twenty-fifth of May," said Walsh with satisfaction, "the very day he had arranged an appointment with Mrs. Goode."
"So why didn't you bring her in with Miss Cattrell?"
"I can only cope with one at a time, lad. She'll keep another twelve hours. At the moment I'm rather more interested in why Miss Cattrell went to such extraordinary lengths to get herself brought in for questioning. Any ideas?"
McLoughlin looked at the floor and shook his head.
14
Anne was dog-tired. Her body had been pumping adrenaline for several hours, exciting her brain, racing her heart, keeping her at a peak of almost intolerable stimulation. Her reaction when she sank into the back of the warm police car was immediate and total. She fell asleep, upright at first but ending in a flat ungainly sprawl along the length of the seat when the driver took a bend too fast. Thus, the photographers outside the unlit gates of Streech Grange missed the picture they had been waiting for: Murder Enquiry-Journalist In Questioning Drama. They had seen too many police cars come and go to be interested in one without a passenger. Fred, sitting doggedly on an old deckchair at the padlocked gates, was not so easily fooled. He let the car in, satisfied himself with a momentary flash of his torch that it contained Anne, then with a sigh of relief resumed his seat. His clutch was safely in the nest. When the police car had gone he could retire to bed.
Barely awake, Anne let herself in through the front door and staggered sleepily across the carpet. Outside, with a new passenger in the shape of PC Williams, now relieved from guard duty, the police car grated away across the gravel. Anne leaned against the wall for a moment to collect her scattered wits. Behind Phoebe's door, she heard the warning bark of the dogs. The next moment, Jane Maybury precipitated herself into the hall and flung herself on her godmother. Together, they collapsed in a heap on the floor where Anne lay, eyes closed, and trembling.