A Ghost in the Machine (48 page)

“If you and your wife insist, on Miss Lawson's behalf, that your own solicitor is present at her interview that is your prerogative. But if you think she will be returning home with you until he is available you are very much mistaken. She will be detained here for however long it takes. Do I make myself clear?”

You could say he had, decided Troy. In fact, you could pretty much count on it. All the clattering keyboards and murmuring voices in reception had become silent under the need to give full attention to the power and volume of the chief's address.

Troy answered the telephone, listened, then said, “Jenny Dudley's arrived, sir. Interview room three.”

“Miss Lawson?”

Kate, who had an arm round Polly, removed it and gripped her hand. Mallory, riven with doubt and fear, got up, then quickly sat down again. Kate started to cry. Barnaby had no patience with such emotional incontinence. Anyone'd think their daughter was going to the scaffold.

 

Polly didn't know how they'd found out. She didn't care. The discovery was all of a piece, somehow. Almost to be expected. Seduced by pride in her own cleverness and dazed by greed, she had flown too near the sun. And yet, even in the depths of mortification and misery a tiny shred of self-preservation still remained. So when during their brief private interview the solicitor advised her of her rights, including the right to remain silent, she decided to do just that. Guilty she may be but there was no need to hand herself over trussed up like an oven-ready chicken. So, when the older of the two policemen asked if she knew why she was there Polly said nothing.

Then the young one went through his notebook quoting dates. Stating that she had been seen entering the office premises of Brinkley and Latham on two separate occasions when said premises were closed. In both instances a witness was prepared to identify her and give evidence. As was the minicab driver who brought her from Chorleywood to Causton market place.

Then they wanted to know where she had got the keys, why she had entered first the building then Dennis Brinkley's office especially. What was she looking for? What did she hope to accomplish?

Polly tried to work out what was going on. Where Dennis came into all this. Who was this “witness” prepared to give evidence? Surely not Dennis himself. He just wouldn't do it – go to the police behind all their backs. Perhaps it was that awful man Latham. They were off again.

“Where did you get the keys, Polly?”

So it was Polly now.

“Where did you get the keys?”

“Did you steal them?”

“Did you steal the keys to his house as well?”

“At the same time, perhaps?”

“Do you come down to Forbes Abbot often?”

“Were you there on Tuesday the twenty-fourth of July?”

At least this question was specific. Was she there? A backward glance down an unspeakably dark memory lane and she was being sick in the gutter, raging in the marble vestibule of Whitehall Court, weeping and screaming in her bedroom. Polly spoke briefly to Mrs. Dudley and was reassured.

“No, I wasn't.”

“Prove that, can you?”

“Definitely.” The hall porters wouldn't forget her visit in a hurry.

“All day?”

“I didn't wake till lunchtime. Shortly after that I went out. I saw…some people. Then I came home.”

“Who are these people?” asked Sergeant Troy.

“I've no idea of their names.” Polly explained where they could be found.

“Was anyone in the flat with you?”

“No.”

“Then we've only your word that you slept late.”

Polly, who had believed herself to be totally bereft of energy or any spark of gumption began to experience faint stirrings of resentment.

“So? What does it matter when I got up? What's so special about Tuesday the twenty-fourth?”

Barnaby regarded Polly with disdain. He did not take kindly to someone insulting his intelligence. Or trying to play foolish games. His voice was deliberately aggressive when he said, “You're surely not pretending you don't know?”

Polly shrank from this harsh approach; from the vigorous accusing stare. It was rather frightening. And surely a bit extreme. Technically she had broken the law and no doubt would be duly charged but it wasn't as if she had stolen anything that was not in the family, as it were. Or caused any damage.

“Polly?”

“I'm not pretending anything,” cried Polly. “I
don't
know.”

Troy looked across at the chief. Noted the dark brow and tightening jaw. No wonder he was angry. Were they really supposed to believe that three weeks after Brinkley's death with his body as good as discovered by this girl's father she knew nothing of the matter? Given that it had slipped his mind to mention it, which frankly beggared belief, the bizarreness of the machinery responsible had ensured comprehensive coverage in the daily press. There had even been drawings of a trebuchet. The dramatic setting aside of the inquest verdict after Garret's murder had also been widely reported. No, decided Sergeant Troy, genuine though her bewilderment seemed, Polly must be having them on.

“You appear to be puzzled by this whole situation,” suggested Barnaby. “Let me enlighten you, at least in part. One of the people who watched you enter the bank building on the night of the twenty-third was Brinkley himself.”

“
Dennis?
”

“You didn't see him?”

“No.”

“Surely he followed you in. Daughter of old family friend, acting very strangely. Not to mention illegally. He confronted you. Probably not angry – just wanting to understand.”

“I didn't—” Polly's voice rasped in her bone-dry throat – “see him.”

“Stay down here that night?”

“I've already told you…”

“No matter. London's not far. Plenty of time to nip down to Forbes Abbot in the morning, get into the house, do the necessary and back to the Smoke. All ready to ‘wake up,'” he poked two-fingered quotation marks directly at her face, “at lunchtime.”

“Necessary?”

“Take the keys off the garage board, did you?”

There's a punch, thought Troy. Out of the blue, below the belt. The girl went even paler. The solicitor was solicitous, touching Polly's arm, murmuring advice. Polly shook her head. She was tired and just wanted it over.

“Yes.”

“When did you do that?”

“I had a meeting with Dennis in Causton…”

“Early afternoon. We know.”

Polly bowed her head. She was not surprised. Was there anything they didn't know?

“The bus back stops outside Kinders. No one was around so…”

“How did you know where the keys were?”

“I'd called there a few days earlier but he was out. I noticed them then. They had an ‘Office' label.”

“And the house keys?”

“Why would I want his house keys?” Her voice, weak to start with, was getting duller and slower – like a battery running down.

“Because I believe,” said the chief inspector, “that on Tuesday, the twenty-fourth—”

“I've
told
you where I was then. How many more times? What does it matter anyway?”

“It matters,” said Barnaby, “because, as I'm quite sure you're aware, that is the day that Dennis Brinkley was murdered.”

Polly recoiled at the sickening violence of his words. For a moment she seemed about to speak. Her mouth formed a strange shape, twisted to one side. Then she fell forwards, knocking the water jug over. The water ran everywhere, soaking her face and hair. Dripping off the table to form pools on the dusty floor.

 

Seated at his desk in the incident room, DCI Barnaby was getting outside his third cup of the very strongest, very best Bolivian coffee. He felt he needed it. More, he felt he deserved it. He was not a whiner or a shifter of blame. He felt the phrase “it wasn't my fault” to be only a step away from “they started it,” and that both should be abandoned by adolescence at the very latest. But today, just for a brief moment, he had been sorely tempted to take refuge. Eventually he settled for the almost equally shifty, “How was I supposed to know?”

Sergeant Troy, listening, tried to look sympathetic but only succeeded in looking rather stern. He'd spent enough years exposed to lectures on the importance of the open mind not to be mildly chuffed when the DCI had kept his own tight shut and fallen headfirst into a dump truck of crapola. Because if he'd thought there was a possibility, however slight, that the girl had really not heard of the murder of Dennis Brinkley it would have been counterproductive to fling it so violently into her face. Afterwards all hell had broken loose, with Polly sprawled over the table, the solicitor threatening harassment, the chief switching the tape off and cursing. Himself running to get help.

The Lawsons, who were still in the waiting room, heard the shouting and rushed outside to see what the matter was. Someone from Traffic came out to persuade them to calm down but the man especially would not be talked to. He started demanding to see his daughter and began charging about opening doors. His wife, equally distressed, though more on his behalf, onlookers felt, than her own, was begging everyone in sight to tell her if “Polly” was all right.

Into this turmoil Barnaby strode. Fatally deciding that the best form of defence would be attack he immediately squared up to Lawson.

“Why didn't you tell me your daughter was not aware—”

“Where is she?”

“What's happened?” cried Mrs. Lawson as Sergeant Troy moving quickly, flashed through the pass door. “Why is that man running?”

“Miss Lawson fainted. There's no cause—”

“You bastard.” Lawson swung a punch. It wasn't precisely aimed but there was a lot of rage behind it. It landed on Barnaby's face, crashing into the side of his nose and his right eye.

Not long after this the girl appeared to recover. She had so far not been charged. To the station's surprise Mallory Lawson had also not been charged, in his case with assaulting a police officer. Eventually the whole family, drastically sobered, had wandered off, together yet plainly quite separate, in the direction of the visitors' car park. Though relieved beyond measure to see the back of them, Barnaby thought he wouldn't mind being a fly on the wall when they got home.

All this was three hours ago. Now he sat trying to put the unpleasant and humiliating fracas from his mind and hoping for a result via the clattering keyboards and now less frequently ringing phones. Troy came over to collect his empty coffee cup.

“She never did cough it then, our Poll?”

“Cough what?”

“Why she was in the office in the first place.”

“I'm hoping Leo Fortune will find that out.”

I'm hoping to sleep with Cameron Diaz, reflected Sergeant Troy, and if the Lawson girl's half as smart as she's cracked up to be, I'd say the odds are in my favour. As he thought these lascivious and traitorous thoughts, Troy kept his eyes fixed on the chief's in-tray. Like everyone else present he was trying to avoid staring at what was plainly going to be an absolutely splendid shiner.

“Even if he does find out, sir, it won't help us solve Brinkley's murder.”

“Why not?”

“If Lawson didn't even know it had happened how could she have been involved?”

Before Barnaby could reply someone signalled from the far end of the room. He got up and quickly made his way over. “What is it, Bruno?”

“Maybe you should take this call, sir. An Alan Harding from Northwick Park claims to have seen Ava Garret the night she died.”

“Him and half Uxbridge,” sighed Barnaby. There had been hundreds of calls already.

“This sounds like the all-singing, all-dancing version.” Sergeant Bruno Lessing passed over the receiver.

“Mr. Harding? Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby – Causton CID…Yes, I am.”

Troy came over too. He and Sergeant Lessing watched and listened. Heard the DCI's voice quicken with interest as he asked questions.

“Would you be prepared to make a statement for us, sir?…No, no, at your nearest station. Or someone could come to the house, if you prefer…Excellent. Do we have a contact number for you?”

Barnaby hung up, seeming quite pleased. He was displaying what Troy always thought of as his “sniffer” look. Nostrils flexing, mouth tightly closed but smiling a bit, head cocked as if listening to a sound no one else could hear. He seemed flushed too, though it was hard to tell, what with the eye and everything.

“This sounds like the real McCoy. Harding was on the same Metropolitan Line train as Ava Garret. He described her clothes, jewellery, even a handbag, which the poster didn't mention. He was sitting some distance away but could hear her talking to a couple of girls, teenagers. According to him she never stopped. She didn't receive or make any calls on a mobile but got off when he did at Northwick Park.”

“Brilliant,” said Lessing.

“He was well ahead of her at the exit so didn't see which way she went. But once we've nailed the exact time of the train's arrival we can put out an appeal. Not just for the teenagers but for anyone else who got off at the same time.”

“Wouldn't it be great if this ‘Chris' character had actually met her off the train?” said Lessing. “And we got a description.”

“Wouldn't it just.” Barnaby recalled his recent fantasy, which might not be so fantastic after all.

“How about if he was in disguise?” asked Sergeant Troy.

“How about you giving up Agatha Christie for Lent?” said the DCI.

 

At just about the time that Barnaby was in receipt of a black eye, and the Lawsons were beginning their wretched journey home, Roy and Karen were getting ready to have tea with Doris. Karen had put on her second new top (the one with kittens in a basket), clean socks and the sneakers. There had been some attempt to constrain her hair in bunches with bright pink bobble things but it was so silky it wouldn't bunch and slid out and halfway down her back again. She was talking to Barbie. Roy could hear her through the bathroom door. Having managed for years with a lick and a promise he now had a bath every day. In fact, this was his second, he'd got so sweaty painting.