“Where is he?” Diamond asked.
“In intensive care at the RUH. We’ve got a man at the bedside in case he recovers.”
“He’s that bad?”
“They say the injuries are severe. She used a plastic bag filled with copper coins. They kept it by the door and put their excess change in it to dole out to people collecting for charity. Two poundsworth of coppers can make quite a dent in someone’s skull.”
“And is she talking?”
“At this minute, no. She’s in the toilet, throwing up. Too much vodka. Don’t worry. WPC Blinston is with her.”
Diamond turned to Julie. “You’d better get down to the hospital.”
Wigfull said, “Didn’t you hear? There’s a man at the bedside already.”
“I want Julie there.” Momentarily it threatened to become a clash of wills. In a rare act of conciliation, Diamond confided, “We’ve got new information on his possible involvement in the Britt Strand murder. We were all set to interview him. If he should come round, anything he says could be vital.”
Julie left for the hospital.
Diamond joined Wigfull in an interview room, across a table from Mrs. Violet Billington, the self-confessed husband-beater. Dressed in a faded green and white cardigan that made Diamond think of overcooked cabbage, she was almost as pale as the box of tissues in front of her, yet the blue eyes conveyed the same contempt she had shown earlier in the day.
However, she was prepared to talk.
Having recited the formal preliminaries of a taped interview, Wigfull asked the tense little woman whether she was willing to describe what had happened to her husband.
She summed it up in a sentence. “He came home and I hit him.”
“There must have been a reason.”
After a pause: “He’s a monster-that’s the reason.”
“You’d better explain what you mean by that, Mrs. Billington.”
Wigfull received the full force of the withering stare. “Why ask me? You know perfectly well that he murdered our lodger.”
Considering the explosiveness of this statement, Diamond exercised commendable restraint as he took over the questioning. “You’re speaking of Britt Strand? We must have it confirmed for the record.”
“Who do you think I mean-the Queen of Sheba?”
“Britt Strand?”
“Oh, come on-of course!”
“Has he told you this himself?”
“No. But he didn’t have to,” said Mrs. Billington. “I know. And you know, too. You were coming for him this evening.”
“Coming to interview him,” Diamond made clear, at pains to conduct this scrupulously while the tape was running. “If he hasn’t actually confessed to you, what are your grounds for saying he murdered Britt?”
She said vehemently, “You don’t know him like I do. He’s got sex on the brain-at his age. You’d think an old man would grow out of it. Not him. He’s always been out for the main chance, flirting with girls young enough to be his daughter. I couldn’t count the number of times I’ve caught him out. He’s not even subtle about it. I’ve had them phoning the house asking to speak to him. I’ve found their cigarette ends in the car. I’ve seen the hotel bills.”
“That may be so, but loose living is one thing and murder another.”
“He killed this one because she wasn’t having him. She didn’t succumb to his blandishments. He kept trying and she kept giving him the frost. His pride couldn’t take it.”
“How do you know this?”
“I saw the evidence. He tried all his usual overtures, boxes of chocolates and bunches of flowers, but she wasn’t interested.”
“He gave her presents while you were there?” Wigfull said in disbelief.
“He wasn’t that obvious with it.”
“How do you know about the presents? You looked into her flat?”
“No need. She threw them out with the rubbish. Flowers from our garden and whole boxes of Milk Tray, unopened. He always gives Milk Tray. Pathetic, isn’t it? That TV advert must have sunk into his brain. Anyway, they ended up in the bin, still in their wrapper. That’s how much that one thought of him. She wasn’t some pathetic creature in one of the shops he visits desperate for attention. She had better fish to fry.”
If Mrs. Billington had any sympathy for the fate of her former lodger, she wasn’t exhibiting it. The reference to “that one” depersonalized Britt unpleasantly. She was given no credit for resisting the wayward husband. The bitterness was all-consuming.
Diamond said, “I don’t think you understood my question. How do you know that your husband murdered Miss Strand, as you allege?”
This time he drew an answer of stunning candor.
“Because he asked me to lie to you to cover up for him. He wasn’t really with me in Tenerife on the night she was killed. He was already back in England. He cut short our holiday after getting a phone call. He said he had to attend a crisis meeting. It was a crisis for someone all right.”
“When was this?”
“The call?”
“The flight home.”
“The day she was killed. He doesn’t realize how repulsive he’s become. He still thinks he’s God’s gift to women. The young things round the pool weren’t interested, so he made up his mind to come home and try his luck with the lodger.”
“Is this what you believed at the time?”
She lowered her eyelids. “No. I swallowed the lie. I really believed he had an emergency at work.”
“And when you got back?”
“He met me at Bristol Airport and drove me home.”
“How did he seem?”
“Twitchy. I put it down to the problems at work. When we got home, the first thing I noticed was the milk bottles on the doorstep. Britt hadn’t taken in her milk for two days. It didn’t seem that important. She might have gone away in a hurry to interview someone. But I couldn’t understand why Winston had left two pints going sour. He blustered about it, said he’d stayed in London for another meeting. He isn’t much of a liar. I knew he was making it up.”
“Did you query it?”
“I was too tired to bother. We went to bed and I was dog tired, but I couldn’t sleep. I felt uneasy about the lodger upstairs. She really preyed on my mind, so I asked him to check, and you know the rest.”
“We don’t,” said Diamond. “We don’t know what induced you to make a false statement when the police arrived.”
“I didn’t.”
“I don’t follow you,” said Diamond.
She turned her eyes upward and pursed her lips. “Winston told me he didn’t want you people bothering his bosses by checking whether he was telling the truth. He was worried about his job and he thought he might lose it if the police came asking about his movements. It was simpler all round if we both said we’d traveled back together the same day. I said I refused to tell any lies, but if he wanted to speak for both of us, that was up to him, and that’s what happened, if you check your statements. In mine, I stated when I returned to Bristol and I made no mention of Winston.” For a moment, Mrs. Billington’s eyes had a gleam of triumph.
“So he behaved as if someone else had killed Britt Strand?” said Diamond.
“That’s what he wanted me to think.”
“And did you?”
“At the time, yes. I knew he was an incurable skirt-chaser, but I’d never dreamed he was dangerous.”
“When did that occur to you?”
“When you came to see me this morning. It’s obvious, isn’t it? You don’t think Mountjoy killed her. You’re on to Winston at last, asking about the sexy cards he sells and whether we grow roses in the garden. I can put two and two together.”
Ten minutes ago, Diamond had been cockahoop at putting Winston Billington into the frame. Now his elation drained. His worst apprehensions were confirmed. Whatever the rights or wrongs of it, his interview must have triggered the attack. “But you said yourself that the roses couldn’t have come from your garden,” he said limply.