The effect was very satisfying. He tottered for a moment, then crumpled to the ground, emitting a sound like the air being forced out of a paper bag, and lay immobile.
“Thank you very much, Carole,” said Robert Coleman through his bleeding lips. “You really helped me out there.”
“My pleasure.” She waved the gun ineffectually in her hand. “I’m afraid I’m not used to handling these.”
“No reason why you should be. I’ll take it.”
She handed the weapon across, and looked down at the recumbent figure of the ex-prisoner. “So what do we do with him? Wait till the police arrive?”
“We could do that,” said Robert Coleman, “but we might have a long wait.”
“What do you mean? What are you going to do with him then?”
“I think he might suffer an accident. Get caught in the blaze when he torches your car.”
“What are you talking about? Why would he want to torch my car?”
“He wouldn’t. But to the police that would look like what he’d been trying to do.”
“But, Robert, why should my car be torched?”
“Because it will have your body in the back of it, Carole. Strangled. Just like all the others.”
Thirty-Nine
The shock was so great that Carole could hardly get her thoughts together. “You mean the police aren’t coming?” she asked feebly.
“No. I was told where to look for him, and it was expected I would pass that information on to the police. And I will. But not yet. I’m afraid the police will arrive here in Leper’s Copse too late to find evidence of the last act of Mick Brewer’s murderous career.”
“So you killed Howard?”
“Had to. He was going to meet up with Mick. I couldn’t risk Howard hearing what Mick had to tell him.”
“And it was you who set up the car to take Howard from the hotel?”
“Phil did it, actually. But I knew Bazza would do what I told him. He owed me a few favours for the lenient treatment I’d arranged for him when he came up before me as a magistrate. But, once I knew the police were after him – well, he’d become a security risk.”
“A security risk who conveniently came down to Fethering to see you?”
“Yes, disposing of him was easy. Bazza would always do exactly what I told him.”
“And that business of the DNA link to Michael Brewer – you left the playing cards at the crime scene?”
“Of course. A pack of his I’d had since before he was arrested for Janine Buckley’s murder.”
“So what about that murder?”
“What about it?”
“Did you do that too?”
Robert Coleman smiled a crooked smile. But it wasn’t just his bruised lips that made it crooked, and triumphant. “You’d never find any proof linking me to that. Whereas there was lots of proof linking Mick. Fingerprints on the stolen car, fingerprints on the petrol can.”
“How did you arrange for that to happen, Robert?”
“It’s amazing what people will do when they aren’t on their guard. I stole the car, having previously fixed to meet Mick. Siphoned out a lot of fuel, so that it ran out. Got Mick to fill it up from the can in the boot. Then took him off to get drunk, just the two of us, back at his place. I put something in his drink, so he was soon out cold. Then I spilled a bit of petrol on his clothes, and left him. I was the only alibi he had – he thought I’d stayed with him overnight, but no, I’d left about nine. I’d already arranged another alibi for myself for the rest of the evening, so when the police questioned Mick, it sounded like he was lying. Anyway, he was too drunk and drugged to have a very clear recollection of that night.”
“Then you picked up Janine Buckley, drove into the estate where Mick Brewer worked, strangled her and torched the car?”
He shrugged. “It had to be done. Maman would not have survived the shame.”
“What shame? Oh, my God.”
“Are you saying that the baby Janine Buckley was carrying was not Michael Brewer’s? It was yours?”
His cocksure silence was quite as articulate as a spoken confirmation.
“So that night – the party at your parents’ house in 1973, when Janine Buckley and Michael Brewer went upstairs, when you were supposed to be with Diana Milton…”
“Sorry about that. I couldn’t resist it when you mentioned Diana Milton at lunch at my club. I saw a chance of putting you off the scent. If I was screwing Diana all night, there was no way I could have been with Janine.”
“So it was you and Janine who were the couple?”
“One couple.”
“What do you mean?” The realization came to Carole like a thunderclap. “Marie and Michael Brewer? Michael Brewer is Gaby’s father.”
Robert Coleman didn’t confirm this either, but Carole knew she had hit on the truth. All kinds of potential ramifications spread from this one revelation, but she wasn’t really in a position at that time to pursue them through to their logical conclusions.
“But why, Robert? Why did you do all this?”
“To protect Maman. She was so frail emotionally, and her Catholic faith was so strong. She could not have coped with the knowledge that I had got a girl pregnant. She could certainly not have coped with the knowledge that Marie was pregnant. Maman had very high standards.”
“You mean she couldn’t have condoned an unwanted pregnancy, but she would have condoned murder?”
“Of course not.” He was shocked by the suggestion. “She never knew about the murder, or never knew of any family involvement in it. Whereas there was no way she could have remained ignorant of the pregnancy.”
“Or the two pregnancies. It was your idea that Howard Martin should marry Marie?”
“Yes. He wanted that more than anything, so he was happy. To me the marriage seemed a good way of covering up her lapse. Everything was confused round that time, with my father dying and Maman having her breakdown. I was afraid Marie might have a breakdown too, so I told her that she would be safe with Howard. They married quickly, and moved away to Worcester. Then I encouraged them to announce that Gabs had been born prematurely. It all made sense.”
“But did your killing Janine Buckley also make sense?”
“Of course. I was about to start my career in the police force. The last thing I needed at that stage of my life was a woman and child in tow.”
He spoke with the logic of the criminal. Anything was justified, so long as it served his ultimate purpose.
“But how did you get Marie to agree to marry Howard?”
“She was in shock after Janine’s death. And,” he said with the confidence of an arch-manipulator, “Marie has always done what I told her to.”
Carole began to understand the full scale of the trauma which had changed Marie from the bright and lively schoolgirl to the frightened neurotic of her later life.
“So did Marie know that you killed her friend? And that you had framed the father of her child for the murder?”
Robert Coleman smiled another irritatingly complacent smile. “Marie has always been very good at shutting certain things out of her mind. And I have always seen it as my duty to protect her from the…nasty things of life.”
The strength of Robert Coleman’s control over his sister was becoming clear. Marie might even have worked out that it was he who had killed her husband. But that was one of the areas where she would not have allowed her mind to go.
“Just as you always protected your mother from the unpleasantnesses of life.”
“Yes. I could never have done anything to upset Maman.”
“Or never have allowed her to know about things that might upset her?”