“Rumours about you and Tony Pawson?”
“Yes, and there was no foundation for them. I’ve told you the truth about my evenings with Tony.”
“But you didn’t tell Sergeant Mayhew.”
“He didn’t know anything about them.”
“So you didn’t say anything? A police officer was asking about strangers coming in and chatting you up, inviting you out, and you didn’t say anything?”
Her nervousness was being supplanted by annoyance. “Listen, Tony is nice to me. He treats me decently. Your sergeant was here on a murder inquiry. Do you seriously expect me to give you his name as a suspect?”
He started to say, “If you had...” Then he stopped and fitted the phrase into another question. “If you hadn’t been working yesterday, would you have gone out with Pawson?”
“Probably.” As she realized what he was suggesting, she felt her own fingernails pressing deep into her thighs.
“These rumours. Who exactly was putting them about?”
“Some fellows in the pub.”
He insisted on more than that. She was forced to admit under more questioning that she had been seriously involved with Matt at one time. Matt obviously interested him. He knew about the old Cortina he drove and his work as a slaughterer. This brought the questioning to an end, but the inspector hadn’t finished with her. He wanted her to return with him to the pub and point out Matt.
After DI Briggs had finished questioning him and left, Matt behaved like the star witness meeting the press, holding forth to the entire pub about Tony, referring to him as “our barmaid’s fancy man” and insisting that he would be arrested before the day was out for the murders of the two women.
That evening Alison finished work at six and walked in steady rain through the streets of Bridgwater, longing for a few quiet hours at home, free of the tensions in the pub. She was thinking she would not stay in the job much longer. The sight of Tony’s Mercedes outside the house where she lived made her say out loud, “Oh, God!” and reach for a railing for support. Her first impulse was to turn and walk away. But the car door opened and Tony actually ran towards her, opening one of those huge golf umbrellas. “You’re drenched. Come under this, for pity’s sake.”
Controlling herself, she told him she was almost home and didn’t care about getting wet, making it as plain as she could that their friendship was at an end.
With no chance of being invited in, he asked if she would step into the car for a moment because there was something he wanted to tell her.
Alison couldn’t face explanations. She changed tack completely and used the excuse that she was wet through. She asked him to let go of her arm.
He said, “You believe I killed those women, don’t you? I’ve had two long interviews with the police. Do you think I’d be at liberty now if they knew I was a murderer?”
She said truthfully, “I can’t believe you killed anyone.”
“You’re afraid of me. I can see it in your eyes.”
“Tony, all I am is tired. I’ve had a hard time lately. I just want to get home.”
His voice rose at least an octave. “That’s why I want to talk to you. I know you’ve been bothered by the police. I don’t blame you if it turns you right off me. I want the chance to say sorry.”
“Consider it done. I’m tired and wet through.” She started walking away and he stepped in beside her, turning to face her, appealing to her with those soulful brown eyes.
“Tomorrow, then?”
She said, “No. It’s over, whatever it amounted to. Let’s leave it like that.” She was at her front gate.
In an odd, troubled voice that she found chilling, he said, “Can’t you understand? I’m not willing to leave it like that.”
Frightened now, she ran up the path to the front door, let herself in and slammed it.
Later, she plucked up courage to look out of the window and was relieved to see that the car had gone.
The murder of Angie Singleton, the Langport barmaid, had happened on Saturday night, when Alison would have gone out with Tony if she had not changed her plans. He had been free that evening. The more she thought over what she had learned, the more uneasy she felt. These murdered women had consented to sex, so they must have fancied the man who eventually put his hands around their throats. Suppose it was Tony. Just like her, they could have been attracted by his money, allowed themselves to be driven out into the country, probably treated to a meal somewhere, and gone with him afterwards. The difficulty she had with this was in understanding what turned him from the gentle, diffident man she knew into a strangler. Did sex transform him? Was it something deep in his psyche that made him hate the women he went with? Maybe his reluctance for sex came from a recognition that he couldn’t control his violence. By not insisting on a physical relationship, had she saved her own life?
That same evening, she phoned the Glastonbury Police. DI Briggs and Sergeant Mayhew were with her inside the hour. She handed them the paper tissue with the lipstick imprint and explained where it had come from.
“It’s been on my conscience. If Tony really is a suspect, it’s just possible that this is the mouth-print of the first girl, Emma Charles. I read in the papers that her bag was found beside her. I suppose you can check whether she had a lipstick similar to this.”
DI Briggs agreed with an air of resignation that forensic science was equal to the task. “We could have done with this the first time you were questioned. This will take at least another week to check. The lab run all kinds of tests.”
“It’s still a long shot,” Alison pointed out.
“Let us be the judges of that,” he said, leaving her with the clear impression that he knew a lot more about Tony’s involvement than he was willing to admit. “Meanwhile, if you value your life, have nothing to do with this man. If he pesters you, call us straight away.”
Ten days went by and there was no arrest. In the Jellied Eel, Matt was increasingly critical of the police. “They know who did it. We all know who did it. So why don’t the buggers pull him in? If they don’t act soon, some other woman is going to get stiffed.”
Colwell, quick to fuel Matt’s complaints against the police, said, “’Tis evidence they lack. These days they want a watertight case, or the Prosecution Service isn’t interested. I was talking to a copper not so long ago and he told me there are murderers and child molesters known to the police, no question, and they can’t touch them. They just don’t have the evidence.”
“I gave them evidence enough,” said Matt.
“All you gave they is hearsay and rumours,” chipped in one old man who was weary of all the bluster. “You don’t know nothing of what happened down Meare Green or Westhay.”
Matt’s credibility was in question and he was loud in his defence of it, hammering the table with his fist. “I don’t know nothing, eh? Why do you think we’ve had the police call here three times, then, questioning a certain party about the company she keeps?”
“They questioned thee, come to that,” the old man pointed out, and got a laugh for it.
“Took a statement from I,” said Matt, reddening suddenly. “That’s different. There’s no suspicion attached to me.”
“So you tell us.”
“I had information, didn’t I? Spoke to the driver of that there Mercedes that sat outside on certain occasions when we couldn’t get a decent service at the bar. And why couldn’t we get served? Because the staff was otherwise occupied, flirting with a fat cat, as she believed. Fat cat be buggered. She were flirting with a bloody tiger.”
Alison heard this in silence and pretended not to listen, knowing it would only encourage Matt if she got involved. If only to put a stop to the innuendo, she longed for an early arrest.