And Justice There Is None (28 page)

Gavin Farley’s house was pseudo-Tudor, with freshly painted trim and a well-kept garden. A new model Mercedes sat beside a workaday Vauxhall Astra in the drive. “Maybe we’re in luck and Farley’s wife is at home, too. Should we split up, interview them separately?” suggested Cullen.

“Let’s see how it goes. It’s the Astra that he drives to work—I remember seeing it in front of the surgery.” The car was maroon, with a distinctive crack in the left taillamp.

Taking advantage of the wait after ringing the bell, Cullen glanced
at his companion. As he’d discovered on Saturday night, the redheaded, faintly freckled Gemma James was not as formidable as her reputation had led him to believe. Nearer his age than he’d expected, she’d been friendly, if slightly wary, and this morning she’d done him the favor of not mentioning Saturday night’s dinner.

Mrs. Farley, a thin, worried-looking woman of middle age, was indeed at home, and greeted them warily.

“I’m Inspector James and this is Sergeant Cullen,” Gemma told her. “Could we have a word with you?”

“But—” Mrs. Farley looked round uncertainly. “My husband’s out in his shop. I’ll just go—”

“No, that’s all right, Mrs. Farley. We’d like to speak to you first. It won’t take a moment.”

With obvious reluctance, the woman took them into the front room, but a glance towards the rear of the house had shown Cullen two preadolescent children sprawled in front of a television in a den. The boy and girl, both slightly overweight and smug-looking, glanced up at them with disinterest before turning back to their program.

Mrs. Farley perched on the edge of a chair while he and Gemma sat opposite on a sofa. Doug had learned enough from Stella to realize that the furniture and objects in the room were expensive, and also that they had been put together with a complete lack of grace and style.

“Mrs. Farley,” said Gemma, “can you tell us what time your husband arrived home from his surgery on the Friday before last?”

“Friday before last? However should I remember that?” Mrs. Farley picked at the reindeer appliqué on the front of her Christmas pullover.

“You must have heard about the woman who was murdered that evening? Dawn Arrowood? That should help you place it.”

“I don’t have time to watch the news, what with the children’s activities.”

“But surely your husband must have told you about it. She was one of his clients.”

The hand on the sweater grew still. “Oh, of course. Gavin was so
shocked when he read it in the papers the next day. And I do recall now, about that Friday. I had to pick up Antony, our son, from a football match, and when we got back Gavin was home. That would have been half past six or so. He was already out in his workshop.”

“So you can’t be sure of the exact time?” asked Cullen.

“No. But I heard his shower running, so he must have been home a few minutes.”

“His shower?”

“Gavin has a shower stall out in his shop. I won’t let him come in the house covered in sawdust.”

“What does Mr. Farley make?” Gemma’s face reflected nothing but friendly interest.

“Jewelry boxes, CD holders, pen trays … things that are useful
and
decorative, he likes to say. He gives them to his special clients.”

Cullen saw Gemma’s lip twitch and made an effort to control his own expression. “Do you know if he meant to give one of his … creations … to Dawn Arrowood?”

“I’ve no idea,” Mrs. Farley replied stiffly. “What is this about? Gavin barely knew this woman. She’d been into his surgery once or twice with her cat.”

“That’s odd.” Gemma frowned. “We were under the impression that Mrs. Arrowood was quite a regular client of the surgery, and that Mr. Farley always made an effort to see her himself.”

Mrs. Farley stood, jerking her cheerful reindeer sweater down over her bony hips. “I don’t know about that. You’ll have to speak to my husband. And I’ve things to do—the Christmas dinner … I’ll just go and get Gavin.”

“If you’ll just point us in the right direction, Mrs. Farley, I’m sure we can find him ourselves.”

“S
HE KNOWS HE’S UP TO SOMETHING, BUT SHE’S NOT SURE HOW BAD IT
is,” Cullen murmured to Gemma as they made their way down a path made of concrete stepping stones. At the bottom of the garden, light seeped from the door of Farley’s workshop.
“I suspect that woman has lived in fear of the sky falling every day of her married life,” Gemma said pensively. “And I don’t like this business about the shower.”

The whine of a saw came from inside the building. Gemma waited for a pause, then pounded on the door. “Mr. Farley? It’s Inspector James.”

“If she knows he’s a rotter,” whispered Cullen, “would she still protect him?”

“With her life.”

The shop door opened and a heavyset, dark-haired man stared out at them. He wore a leather apron, and had pushed safety goggles up on his forehead.

“Well, well, well,” said Farley, as jolly as one of Father Christmas’s elves. “To what do I owe the honor? I’d invite you to come in and make yourselves comfortable, but as you can see …” His gesture swept the small room.

The smell of resin caught at Cullen’s throat. He looked round the room, making out several different saws of incomprehensible purpose, a good deal of raw wood and sawdust, and shelves full of Farley’s “objects.” Cullen found himself hoping not to be a recipient of Farley’s generosity, and wondered why the veterinarian chose to makes boxes rather than representations of the cats and dogs he knew so intimately. Perhaps Farley didn’t really like animals all that much.

“We’ll manage,” said Gemma, easing her way into the room without touching anything. “It’s about Dawn Arrowood, Mr. Farley. On the afternoon of the day she died, she told a friend that she’d had an unpleasant encounter with you that morning. An argument.”

“That’s nonsense. Why would I have had an argument with Mrs. Arrowood—although I did remind her again that she must keep her cat in the house, regardless of her husband’s preference.”

“That’s not what she said. She told her friend that you came on to her, that you were sexually offensive, and that when she told you to stop, you were abusive.”

“The woman must have been imagining things. I never did any such thing, and I’ll thank you not to malign my professional
reputation.” Farley’s protest seemed just a bit too polished, as if he’d been expecting the accusation.

“She can’t very well argue with you now, can she?” Cullen pointed out, then added, “What about the client who brought sexual harassment charges against you two years ago, Mr. Farley?”

“Those charges were dropped! The whole thing was a complete fabrication, and I was exonerated!” Farley took a step back and pulled off his safety glasses. The rubber had left a red imprint like a brand against the pasty skin of his forehead. “She had a grudge against me. Her dog had died and she couldn’t deal with it. The judge accepted that.” Lowering his voice, he said confidentially, “Look, Dawn Arrowood
did
flirt with me, I’ll admit that. She was one of those women who think every man on earth should fall at their feet. But I never crossed the line with her.”

“Then you won’t mind telling us where you were from the time you left the surgery that day until you arrived home,” said Gemma.

“But I—” Farley glanced from Gemma to Cullen. “I went for a drink. At The Sun in Splendour. You must know it,” he added, as if that somehow gave his story credibility.

Cullen had met friends there for a drink. It was a yuppie pub, frequented by well-dressed, well-off young men and women, like Dawn Arrowood. “So you left your surgery before five o’clock, checked out the action at the pub, then arrived home about, what, half past six? Then what did you do?”

“I—I’m not sure exactly what time it was. I worked out here for a while, until my wife called me for dinner.”

“And do you always shower before you begin working in your shop, Mr. Farley?” asked Gemma.

“What? I don’t understand.”

“Shower.” Gemma pointed at the cubicle, just visible at the back of the room. “Your wife said you were showering when she came in at half past six. That seemed a bit odd to me—I thought the idea was to shower when you’d finished your project.”

The whites of Farley’s eyes glinted. “It was my wife. She doesn’t like me going to the pub, so I showered to get rid of the smell.”

Had he washed away the smoke and perfume from the bar, wondered Cullen? Or Dawn Arrowood’s blood? “You didn’t tell your wife you’d been to the pub?”

“No. I—I said I had to work late. You’re not going to tell her, are you?”

“Oh, I’m afraid you’ve worse problems than that, Mr. Farley,” Gemma said with a sigh. “Such as explaining to your wife why the police are searching your workshop and your car.”

“A
NOTHER HOUSE-TO-HOUSE INQUIRY, THEN?”
D
OUG ASKED AS THEY
drove back to the station an hour later. They had waited for the forensics team to arrive, then cautioned Farley to keep himself available for further questioning.

“For a sighting of the Astra? Yes. And it won’t be popular on Christmas Eve, I can tell you.”

“Arrowood made the nine-nine-nine call at six twenty-two. Would Farley have had time to kill Dawn, then get home and into the shower by half past?”

“That’s making two assumptions,” said Gemma. “The first is that Farley’s wife is telling the truth about the time. For all we know he’s primed her and she’s lying through her teeth.”

“And the second?”

“The second is that Dawn had just died when Karl found her. She might have died five, ten, even fifteen minutes earlier. Her body was in a sheltered spot, which could have delayed cooling, and the pathologist certainly won’t swear to an exact time on the stand.”

“One thing you can say about Farley,” Cullen mused. “He would certainly know how to wield a scalpel.”

Gemma frowned. “I’ve just remembered. Bryony told me the surgery was burglarized recently. She said some supplies and instruments were missing. I wonder …”

“A scalpel?”

“It’s possible,” Gemma said. “I’ll ask Bryony. And I’ll have forensic
pick up some of the surgery’s scalpels for comparison, just in case we
do
turn up a murder weapon. It is the season of miracles, after all.”

Cullen was silent, concentrating on his driving. Then he said, “How do you manage to keep your patience? Sometimes I think it will drive me bonkers, the waiting.”

“Me? Patient?” Gemma gave a snort of derision. “Kincaid would fall over himself laughing if he heard that. He’s the one never gets his feathers ruffled, while he’s always on at me about staying calm. But …” Her smile faded. “It gets easier as you go along, somehow. There’s a place you get to, if you can put your mind in neutral, where sometimes things click into place.” She gave a little shrug. “I know that sounds like rubbish.… And of course you have to have the right bits of information floating round in your head for it to happen.…”

“Trust the process, rather than forcing it? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yeah, I suppose so.” She gave him a conspiratorial smile. “But in the meantime, I’m going Christmas shopping.”

H
OW HAD SHE ENDED UP IN THE LAST
-
MINUTE
C
HRISTMAS CRUSH, JUST
like any man? Gemma wondered, but she suspected that indecision had fueled her procrastination as much as busyness. She shoved and elbowed her way to the nearest department store, riding the escalator up to the toy department with a torrent of shoppers.

She saw the perfect gift for Toby immediately. It was a fireman’s kit, complete with a little bunker coat and hat, and a set of bright red, two-way radios with a base station. Toby would love it, she knew, but then she’d never expected any difficulty finding something that catered to a four-year-old’s interests.

Kit, however, was a different matter. Teetering on the edge of adolescence, too old for most toys, but not yet ready to graduate to the teenage realm of music, clothes, and cash. She wandered through the aisles, chewing on a fingernail as she deliberated, rejecting one item after another. At last something caught her eye—a boxed set of
science questions. It contained hundreds of cards (hours of fun for home or car, the label promised her) and it was just the sort of thing Kit would find irresistible.

But was that enough, she wondered as she rode back down to the ground floor with her purchases. Then a thought occurred to her and she stopped at the bottom of the escalator, blocking the traffic behind her until someone gave her a not-so-gentle nudge. In one of the boxes Kit had brought from Grantchester, she’d glimpsed an unframed photo of his mother. The lens had caught Vic laughing into the camera, full of life and energy.

Would she be barging too forcefully into Kit’s emotional territory if she took the photo and framed it for him? And was he ready for such an ever-present reminder of his loss?

Well, she’d never know unless she made the attempt. She would do it, she decided, and went straightaway to the stationery department before she could change her mind. Choosing a lovely silver frame in what she hoped was the correct size, she watched in satisfaction as the clerk wrapped it in tissue.

That left Duncan, she thought as she reached the street once more, and his gift was the most difficult of all. It must be something special, something that would symbolize this new stage of their life together—but what? She walked along the street, looking in shop window after shop window. A few items prompted her to go inside, but in the end everything seemed too ordinarily personal, too practical, or revoltingly sappy.

She’d almost given up when she saw it, in the window of a house-wares and pottery boutique. A hand-painted ceramic plaque, with a border of dark green leaves in which nestled berries the same brilliant scarlet as their front door, and in its center, in bold black on a white ground, their house number. It was perfect.

When she came out of the shop minutes later, humming the Christmas song that had been playing over the loudspeaker, the 59 bus was just pulling in to the bus stop. The gods were definitely smiling.

On reaching Notting Hill again, she felt so full of seasonal cheer that she made another spur-of-the-moment decision. Getting off the
bus, she went into the elegant bakery just round the corner from Elgin Crescent.