Apportionment of Blame (33 page)

Chapter 18

O
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the way back to see Gemma my mobile phone chirruped at me, so I pulled over to answer it.
    “Is that Greg Mason?”

“Yes.”

“This is Mrs Hughes, Gemma's mother.”

I could tell by the tone of her voice that something was wrong.

“She's gone.”

“What do you mean?”

“Gemma. She came home from work and I told her you had been and would be back this evening. She said she wouldn't talk to you and rushed out of the house. I thought she had just gone to her flat, but the next thing I heard was her car rushing out of the drive.”

“I'm on my way,” I told her, put the car back into gear and shot off down the road towards Monks Colne.

She opened the door as I was walking along the garden path and I could see her husband standing behind her.

“Come in,” she said, but then her husband took over.

“What's all this rubbish about Gemma being the cause of that young woman's death? How dare you come to my house and make accusations about my daughter? What right do you have? Who do you think you are?”

“Geoffrey,” his wife said mildly.

“Don't Geoffrey me,” he shouted and then turned back to me.

“If anything happens to my daughter as a result of unfounded allegations made by you, I'll..”

But I never heard what he was threatening to do, as his wife shut him up and guided us all back into the living room.

“What have you got to say for yourself?” Mr Hughes was immediately back on the attack.

“Has your wife told you what I said earlier?” I asked him.

“Of course she has,” he shouted.

“Then you will know I am not making allegations, but following up enquiries, and particularly the story told by someone else.”

“You said that Gemma and Monty caused that girl's death.”

“No, I didn't. I told your wife what I had been told, and asked her where Gemma and the dog were that evening.”

“That's right, Geoffrey,” his wife told him.

“And now it seems that Gemma has taken herself off,” I went on. “Does that strike you as the action of someone not involved? I'm not saying how she might have been involved. But if she had no connection at all with what happened, why would she react like that?”

“He's right, Geoffrey.”

Mr Hughes looked from me to his wife and back again, as if searching for the explanation he desperately wanted to find.

He was a big man in every sense, tall and broad shouldered with a thick neck and florid cheeks. Drinker, I thought, with a potential heart problem, which he is certainly not helping when he behaves like this.

“I could have gone straight to the police,” I said. I had done, of course, but I wasn't going to tell them that. “Would you rather I told them what I know and left them to sort it out? Or would you rather I did it a little, shall we say, more quietly and discreetly?”

He was continuing to wrestle with his temper, apparently unable to consider that his daughter could be at fault.

“Geoffrey.” She said it in a cajoling voice which I guessed she had used many times in the past.

He looked at her.

“Oh, all right,” he said and flopped down into an armchair.

“Please,” his wife said. “Sit down.”

But I decided to stay on my feet. I thought it might generate a bit of authority, not that I really had any. At least it made me feel better with Mr. Hughes sitting down.

“So,” I said. “do you have any idea where Gemma would have gone?”

“No,” Mr. Hughes said, and his wife shook her head.

“Is the dog with her?”

“No, he's in the garden.”

“Good. I don't mind going after Gemma, but I might have thought twice about a dog that size.”

“Monty's all right. He wouldn't hurt a fly.”

“I'm not sure the average fly would agree with you. He may be well behaved, but he is big and very heavy, and, I imagine, very defensive of Gemma.”

Mr Hughes' head fell forward and he pushed his hands through his hair. I took this as a subtle sign of acceptance.

Mrs Hughes sat down on the arm of her husband's chair. She was beginning to find the likelihood of what happened very difficult.

“Now, can you think where she might have gone? Is there anywhere she likes to go particularly? Does she have any friends she might go to see? Anything you could tell me would be useful.”

Mrs Hughes looked at her husband.

“She doesn't have many real friends,” she said. “She spends so much time on her own. I don't know what to make of her.”

“She's never had boy friends,” her husband said towards his feet. “I don't know why. She's not unattractive.”

That answered one question at least. I looked at his wife, and her expression told me she knew more than him. Or perhaps it was that she accepted, while he didn't, or couldn't.

“Where might she go if she wanted to be on her own?”

“I don't know,” Mrs Hughes said. “There's the caravan.”

“Where's that?”

“Seawick. Down by the coast. We often spend weekends there and the odd week during the summer. The dog loves it there. We walk for hours on the beach.”

“Does Gemma have a key to the caravan?”

“Oh, yes. We all have.”

“Is the caravan park open at this time of the year? I would have thought it would close down for the winter.”

“All the facilities close, but owners can always get in if they want to.”

“Can you think of anywhere else she might go, or do you think the caravan is the most likely place?”

“I can't think of anywhere else.”

“Then I'd better go and look for her,” I said as I got up.

“I'll come with you,” Mr Hughes said, to my surprise. It was clearly not a suggestion.

“If you like.” No point in arguing, although I didn't exactly relish the thought of his company.

He went in search of outdoor clothing and I met him in the hall.

As we made our way to the front door, Mrs Hughes was fussing round her husband.

“You won't be angry, will you dear?”

He hurrumphed his reply.

“Let's just find Gemma first,” I suggested. “And bring a torch. I have one in the car, but we may need one each.”

He ducked back into a cupboard below the stairs, and then we went out together, back into the cold, where the wind was beginning to pick up. Great, I thought. A wind chill factor on top of the cold. Just what we need.

I went straight to my car, determined to maintain some sort of authority and control over this journey. It looked as if Mr Hughes had expected to use his Land Rover, but he didn't argue and joined me in the Honda.

“Comfortable,” was the first thing he said, as he reached for his seat belt.

“What the hell's that?” was the second thing he said as the CD player kicked in as I turned on the engine. I simply turned it off without reply. This was not the time for a detailed discussion on the finer points of Queen's later music.

“Which is the quickest way?” I asked him.

“I usually use the 120 right along to Clacton, then turn back to St. Osyth and down to the coast.

“OK.”

I drove out along the lanes as fast as I dared in the wind, and we were soon on the A12 and flying north towards Colchester's northern by-pass.

“Tell me about Gemma,” I said carefully.

“A funny girl,” he said after a pause. “Always a loner at school. Got on with her work. Quite bright, but not brilliant, you know what I mean?”

I could see out of the corner of my eye that his face was fixed forward. He didn't want to look at me, or he was too scared of what might have happened to relax.

“Had several jobs before she landed the one at Colbox. She seems to like it there. She's been there a while. Speaks highly of her boss.”

“Did you know that the girl who died also worked at Colbox?”

“Yes. My wife told me you'd mentioned it. But that could be a coincidence.”

“It could be, but there have been too many coincidences in this case. And when there are too many, I start to consider that they are not mere coincidences, but actually mean something.”

He was quiet for a while, then turned towards me.

“What do you know for sure that happened that night?” he asked.

Once again I was up against the honesty problem. What does he need to know, I thought. Let's stick to that.

“Helen, the girl in question, worked at Colbox. So does Gemma, and for several months they worked in the same department.”

I waited for a response, but there was none.

“Rumour has it there was a little unfinished business between Gemma and Helen.”

“What kind of unfinished business?”

“I'm not sure exactly. But I sense there was a bit of bad feeling between them.”

“All right. It happens. What else?”

“I know that Helen visited someone living down Barn Lane. Quite close to you, actually. I also know that when she left the house she walked down towards the railway, because she was seen. And the person who saw her claims to have seen her by the railway line talking to someone else, and a dog barked just before he heard the train braking.”

“And you assume, therefore, that it must be Gemma.”

“It does seem likely. Think about it. Your garden is next to the lane. There is a gate. Gemma could have gone through the gate to walk your dog, and met Helen totally by surprise. Unfriendly words could have been exchanged on a not too friendly basis. Your dog could have reacted to what was happening by jumping up at Helen, by a railway line with a train coming.”

“I asked you what you know. You are telling me what you think.”

“One thing leads to the other. I know there was a connection between the two at Colbox. I know there was a problem between them. I know where your garden is in relation to the railway line. I know you have a large dog. Two and two usually make four. It's not rocket science.”

“But even if what you say is true, it sounds like an accident to me.”

“I tend to agree. But then why has Gemma taken off? We have to find out exactly what happened. Helen's parents have a right to know how their daughter died. Thoughts of suicide or murder are not what parents want to think. It's bad enough losing a daughter, without losing one like that. If it was a genuine accident, then it's going to be a little easier for them to deal with.”

“If what you say is true, will Gemma get into trouble?”

“That is not for me to say, but I shouldn't think so. She didn't do anything wrong, although it looks as if she did leave the scene of a fatal accident, and the police might want to speak to her about that.

“I can hardly blame the dog either, for protecting its owner if it thought she was being attacked. But, as I said, that is not my decision to make. I just want to get at the truth.”

“Why didn't Gemma just say what happened?” her father asked.

“Who knows? No doubt she was embarrassed. It was a pretty awful thing to witness. And if I'm right, she did walk away and leave Helen lying there, which doesn't show her up in a good light. She feels she has something to hide. We need to persuade her to tell the truth.”

It went quiet again then. The road was dry, which was a blessing in the darkness, and once we left the A12 and began to head towards the coast, the traffic began to thin. I raced on, keeping to a steady seventy miles an hour.

There was a bright moon right in front of us, almost beckoning us on, but there were also large clouds. The speed of the wind rushing in from the sea carried successive clouds in front of the moon, each one casting the evening into sudden, but short lived, darkness. It was like driving from sunshine into shade. One minute everything was clear, the next all I could see was the road immediately ahead in my headlights.

At the end of the by-pass I swung straight round to the left onto the single carriageway road, glad there was little traffic about to hamper our progress.

Neither of us spoke. Gemma's father had run out of questions and there was nothing I wanted to say. I just wanted to find Gemma and get this over with. But I could sense his tension next to me. The words coiled spring came to mind.

At the roundabout in Clacton we turned right and headed west, parallel to the coast. As soon as we left the buildings behind us I could feel the wind pushing at the car from the left, making it difficult to maintain a straight line at the speed I wanted to drive.

We passed a garage and the road went down into a dip.