The Last Detective

'Yes.'

'And ever since Tuesday, 10 October, you have been without a chauffeur, because that's the day Mrs Didrikson was taken in for questioning by the police. When were you informed?'

'I can't recall.'

'Chief Inspector Wigfull testified that he phoned you between eight and nine that evening, 10 October.'

Buckle shrugged. 'Fair enough.'

'I must insist on a better answer than that. Do you recall being telephoned?'

'All right. It was some time that evening. I didn't check my watch.'

'It's important, you see, because there was a delay of some twelve hours before the Mercedes Mrs Didrikson drove was collected for forensic examination. The car stood outside her house for twelve hours. When it was collected, we now know, the impossible was shown to have happened. The scientists proved with their genetic fingerprinting that the body of Geraldine Jackman had been in the boot of that car. I say it was impossible because Mrs Didrikson has told me so, and I believe her.'

Buckle stared rigidly ahead like a guardsman being bawled at by a drill sergeant. Actually Lilian Bargainer had not raised her voice one decibel.

The skill of this cross-examination was profoundly satisfying to Peter Diamond. Compelled to hear his own deductions voiced by proxy, he was locked in to every word the barrister uttered.

'I put it to you that the impossible can only be explained this way. When you got the call from Chief Inspector Wigfull, you decided on a plan to confuse the police and divert suspicion from yourself. For it was you, wasn't it, Mr Buckle, who deposited the body of Geraldine Jackman in Chew Valley Lake?'

Nobody protested and Buckle made no pretence of a response. A paralysing curiosity gripped the court as Mrs Bargainer talked on. 'On the night of 11 September you drove there with the dead woman in the boot of your Mercedes. And when, a month later, you heard that Dana Didrikson was being held overnight, you thought of a way of confirming the police in their suspicion that she was the murderer. The spare keys for her Mercedes were held by your company. You drove up to Lyncombe where the vehicle was parked. You opened the boot and undipped the fabric lining.'

Buckle's eyes flicked towards the jury, as if in search of a doubter. The looks that met his were not encouraging.

'Are you listening, Mr Buckle? You undipped the lining. Then you removed the lining from the boot of your own car, the lining the body had lain on, and fitted it into the other car. Do you deny it?'

Peter Diamond so completely identified with the question that he started to say aloud, 'Speak up'. He clapped a hand to his mouth.

Buckle was saying, 'You've got me totally wrong. I didn't kill Gerry Jackman. Before God I didn't.'

'You put her in the lake.'

He hesitated.

'You put her in the lake,' Mrs Bargainer insisted. This had become a contest of wills.

Buckle stared around the court. In the dock, Dana had put her fingers to her throat.

'Do you deny it?' Lilian Bargainer demanded.

He capitulated. 'AH right, I did. I put her in the lake.' As a murmur from all sides of the court broke the tension, he added more loudly, 'But I didn't kill her.'

Mrs Bargainer frowned, put her hand to her face and let the fingers slide down to the point of her chin in an attitude of incomprehension. 'You're going to have to help me, Mr Buckle. What you are claiming now is curious, if not incredible. Let's have this clear. On the night of 11 September you drove to Chew Valley Lake with the body of Mrs Jackman and deposited it in the water, and yet you didn't kill her. You insist on that?'

'Yes.'

'Why? Why behave in such an extraordinary fashion?'

He was silent.

'You must explain, Mr Buckle, you really must if we are to believe you.'

His mouth remained closed.

Mrs Bargainer said, 'Let's approach this another way. You didn't kill her. Did you know she had been murdered?'

'No,' said Buckle, freed from his constraint. 'That's the point.'

'Good. I'm beginning to understand. You found her dead, is that right?'

'Yes.'

'You didn't know she'd been murdered, is that right?'

'Yes.'

'You thought she'd overdosed.'

'Yes – I mean no.' Buckle stared about him. He'd been snared, and he knew it.

Lilian Bargainer said without even a hint of irony, 'You said yes and you meant no. Which is it? I put it to you that your associate Andy Coventry was supplying Mrs Jackman with cocaine that he got from you. You're the importer and he was the pusher. Am I right?'

Sir Job sprang up, but the judge gestured to him to be seated.

'You had better consider your position, Mr Buckle,' said Lilian Bargainer. 'It's too late now to deny your involvement in drugs. If you do, you lay yourself open to suspicion of murder. Which is it to be?'

Buckle swayed slightly in the witness box, sighed heavily, and then the words tumbled from him. 'What happened was this. Come September, Andy bunked off to Scotland on some course. He was her supplier, like you said. I got word from my contacts that she was shouting for the stuff. She was making trouble about Andy being unavailable. Big trouble. She was threatening to blow the whistle on us. So I went to see her on the Monday.'

'Monday, 11 September?'

'Yes.'

'What time?'

'About lunchtime. When I got no answer at the front I went round the back. The kitchen door was open. People with the habit aren't too clever about things like that. I called out and still got no anwer, so I tried upstairs. She was dead on the bed. It got to me, I can tell you, finding her like that. She's overdosed, I thought. They say cocaine can kill you, just the same as heroin. I could see real trouble ahead if the doctors opened her up. So I decided to move her. That's what I did. Carried her downstairs and put her in the car. That night I dropped her in the lake.' He closed his eyes and added, 'I was hoping that would be the end of it.'

'And the Jane Austen letters?'

'They were stuffed down the front of her nightdress, like she was hiding them. I thought it must be something she meant to trade for the coke, so I took it. I didn't even look at them till later.'

'And what happened when the body was found in the lake?'

'I was really scared – but not a word was said about drugs. She'd been smothered, the papers said. I realized what I must have done – I'd moved a murdered corpse. The next thing, they arrested Dana – my driver – and it was all too close to home for my liking. I could be done as an accessory. So when the chance came, I switched the linings, just like you said. I only did it to cover myself. Dana had been stupid enough to kill her, I thought, so I wasn't causing her any more aggravation than she deserved.'

'What happened to the log?'

'I burnt it, obviously.'

'Obviously?'

'Well, every trip was accounted for. If the police had seen it, they'd have found out that her car wasn't used to move the body, wouldn't they?'

'And presumably you falsified the log in your car?'

He nodded. 'It's a simple matter when you're behind with the entries, as I was.' Then Stanley Buckle drooped like a bull pierced with bandilleras.

But Mrs Bargainer had another ready. 'Let's turn to something else that was brought to the court's attention. I put it to you that when you heard Coventry had been arrested, you broke into Mrs Didrikson's empty house and taped the letters into her dressing table as another diversion.'

Buckle hesitated.

'Why did you do that?' said Mrs Bargainer gently, as if he had made the admission already.