Death Line (31 page)

“No!” Sarah Astell gripped the wooden surround of her chair as the officers approached. “Go away! Edwin, stop them. Make them understand I didn't do it.”

Astell's only answer was to put his head in his hands again, as if to shield himself from the sight and sound of his distraught wife. But her next imploring wailing of his name brought him to his feet, white-faced now, and he pulled her up. “I think you'll have to be brave, Sarah. At least for a little while.” She swayed in his arms and he told her in a tone intended to encourage, “Come along, my dear. You'll have to go with them. It'll only be for a short while, I promise. Try not to worry. I can't believe they have a case against you. They'll soon find out their mistake. Anyway, I understand they can only hold you for a limited time before they must either let you go or arrest you, and I doubt they'll be able to do that.”

At the word arrest, she clutched at him and let out a frightened cry. “They can't arrest me, Edwin, they can't. You mustn't let them. You know I'm not well...”

Somehow Astell managed to calm her. “I can't stop them taking you, but you'll be back home very soon, I'll make sure of it. Just promise me you'll say nothing until I can contact our solicitor and get him to the police station. Promise me?” His long, gloved fingers cradled her head on either side while he gazed at her, his expression that of an anxious parent trying to imbue a weak and easily-swayed child with some of his own strength.

His voice, with its sensible advice and measured tones seemed to calm her, for, after gazing uncertainly back at him, she nodded, the action sending the tears in her eyes cascading over their rims. “I promise.”

“Good girl.” After helping his trembling wife into a warm coat, he had more words of comfort for her. “I'll get straight onto Courtney and then follow you on to the police station. We'll be with you very soon.”

“But what if he can't come, Edwin? What if he...?”

Her shushed her. “He'll come. I don't care what it costs, or how inconvenient he finds it to do so. I want you home here with me, not locked up in a police station. And the sooner the better.”

In spite of her distress, a creeping flush of pleasure stole into Sarah Astell's pale cheeks. She reached out a trembling hand and touched his face, gazing searchingly at him, murmuring his name softly before he released her.

As soon
as Mrs Astell had been driven off to the station, Rafferty wasted no time. He called more officers, and when they arrived five minutes later, he led the way upstairs. Once in the Astells' bedroom, he instructed them to begin searching. They started with the wardrobes; Astell's wardrobe was half-empty, but Mrs Astell's was full to bursting. Rafferty watched impatiently, as the clothes in each were checked. To his surprise, Mrs Astell hadn't destroyed the dress. It was very foolish of her, but also very natural. It had been expensive. Even if it was likely to incriminate them, not many women would be able to bring themselves to throw away such a beautiful gown. After he examined the hem and discovered it did have several pulled threads, he had it carefully bagged up and labelled.

Moon, father and daughter, both seemed to favour the same hiding places for their secrets. Because, hidden at the back of Mrs Astell's wardrobe, they found the twin of the Memory Lane video they had found concealed in Jasper Moon's wardrobe. After killing Moon, she would have taken and destroyed the video Moon played in his office, but she would have realised he would have another copy hidden away. In desperation, she had ransacked his office. Unfortunately for her, Moon had taken the precaution of hiding it at his flat.

Rafferty frowned, he was missing something – what was it? But, he realised, it hardly mattered. They had the dress and the video; with the rest of the case against her, they had more than enough for a conviction. Now he had the evidence, Rafferty was content to leave the other officers to continue their search. With a nod to Llewellyn, he led the way downstairs and into the sitting room. There was one more thing he needed. He thumbed along the spines of Carstairs' journals till he found the one he wanted. Quickly, he hunted through the first quarter of the journal for 1956. It was as he had thought – Carstairs had been continuously abroad throughout that period. It was just another piece in the jigsaw, because they already knew he couldn't have fathered Sarah.

Astell had been speaking to his solicitor on the telephone when Rafferty came out into the hall and had just put the phone down when someone rang the front door bell.

It was Mercedes Moreno, a large bouquet of flowers in her hand and a concerned expression on her face.

“I'm afraid Sarah isn't here,” Astell told her. “The police have taken her to the station for questioning over Jasper's death.” He attempted a bleak smile. “They seem to think she killed him.”

“What nonsense is this?” Mrs Moreno demanded, turning to Rafferty. “You think that poor, sick lady could have killed Jaspair? Is stupid. She could not have even left the house,” she insisted. “I know this as Edwin and I, we were both in the kitchen the entire time, and would have seen her leave the sitting room.”

“Not if she left by the French window in her sitting room,” he told her. Edwin Astell must have momentarily forgotten his earlier story, he realised, because when Mercedes Moreno had stated that neither of them had left the kitchen once she had returned to collect her gloves, but had stood chatting to her, he had nodded his head absently in agreement.

Rafferty quickly picked up the discrepancy. “I thought you said before that you had popped in on your wife twice during that time?” he said to Astell. “Mrs Moreno has already told us that she arrived back to fetch her gloves just before 8.10 p m and she's now let slip that you were both in the kitchen the whole time. Perhaps you'd care to explain?” he invited. Behind him, he heard Mrs Moreno's gasp of dismay. “Perhaps it's time you both told me the whole truth. Mr Astell? I'm waiting.”

“I-I.” Astell cleared his throat and gazed unhappily at him. Then he sighed. “All right, I admit I lied. I was worried about her. Worried that when you learned of that foolish telephone call she made to Jasper, you might suspect what you evidently do suspect. I thought by saying I had popped in on two occasions between 8.00 p m and 8.30 p m, I would be able to supply her with an alibi. It was obvious that Jasper must have died during those times.”

“I see. Thank you for at last confirming what we've long suspected.” As Llewellyn had said near the beginning of the case, those two visits Astell had claimed to have made to his wife's sitting room hadn't quite rung true. “You realise that now we've finally got this information, it strengthens the case against your wife considerably?”

Astell only managed an unhappy nod in reply, all his earlier bluster quite gone.

Rafferty
had expected Sarah Astell to go to pieces during questioning. Instead, to Rafferty's astonishment, she had shown sufficient sense to take her husband's excellent advice to heart and had said nothing until her solicitor arrived. Even then, when Rafferty pointed out that the alibi she and her husband had concocted for her hadn't stood up to deeper investigation, she had merely asked, “What alibi? I don't know what you're talking about,” refused to discuss it any further, and again insisted she was innocent.

Exasperated by her continuing denials, Rafferty took the video out of his pocket, put it in the machine, and pressed the “play' button. 'We know you went to Moon's office,” he told her. “We know what happened there.”

As the naked images began playing on the screen, she screamed, making Rafferty jump. “What are you doing to my Daddy?” she shouted at the writhing bodies on the film. “Don't you hurt my Daddy. Get off him, get off him.” Her voice had taken on the lisping tones of a little girl and she leapt at the screen as if she intended to destroy it and the evidence it showed.

Stunned, it was a few seconds before Rafferty reacted and when he tried to restrain her, he found she was stronger than she looked. With difficulty, he managed to force her back in her chair.

She blinked, and Rafferty, thinking she had got herself under control, moved away. But as she caught sight of the still playing film, she began screaming again.

Courtney, her solicitor, the soul of urbanity till now, banged on the table and shouted above the noise, “I really must protest, Inspector Rafferty. Protest in the strongest possible terms. What do you think you're doing, showing my client a pornographic film? I really must protest,” he began again, like a stuck record. But his voice was cut off in mid-stream as his client leapt to her feet, one hand landing inadvertently on the solicitor's paunch, effectively robbing him of breath, much to Rafferty's relief.

“Make them turn it off,” she demanded of Courtney, as she put her hands over her face. “Make them turn it off. Where did they get that filthy thing?”

“You know where,” Rafferty told her. “It's the video Moon sent you for your birthday.”

She denied it, of course. “It is not! He sent me one of the classics,” she paused as she stumbled for a name – any name, Rafferty thought. “He sent me a video of Jane Eyre, I tell you. Not this ... this...abomination. Edwin will tell you it's the truth.”

Rafferty didn't doubt it. Astell would say anything to protect her, that much was clear. “And where is this other video?”

“It's at home in the rack,” she told him sullenly. “Edwin wouldn't let me throw it away, as I had intended. But I had no intention of playing it. You'd think he'd realised I didn't want birthday presents from him.”

Rafferty frowned. They were getting nowhere. It was evident they were further away from a confession than ever. He switched the video off, hoping it would calm her and sat beside her. “We understand how you must have felt, especially when you learned that Alan Carstairs wasn't your father.” He had left an officer at the Astells' house to await the arrival of Sarah's mother. She had insisted on coming to the station and Rafferty, after a little persuasion, had persuaded her to tell them the truth about Sarah's parentage. But it was plain her daughter wasn't about to admit she had discovered her mother's secret that night. At Rafferty's words, she took refuge in her semi-invalid status and slumped to the floor in a swoon.

They swiftly revived her. After giving her a glass of water, Rafferty said, “Please, Mrs Astell, acting like this isn't helping you. I can understand that you've had some tremendous shocks recently. First that video and learning that Moon was your father.”

She stared at him, giving a convincing display that this was the first she had heard of such a suggestion. “Moon my father? How dare you say such a thing? Of course he wasn't my father.” Naively, she added, “How could such as he be anyone's father?”

Rafferty tried to make her see that she was only harming herself by her insistent denials. “Look, Mrs Astell, this behaviour isn't helping you. I'm sure, when the case comes to court, the judge will be sympathetic. But it would still be better for you to start to co-operate, you know. You must tell us the truth.” He paused. “Now, perhaps we can start again?” He nodded at Llewellyn to turn the tape recorder back on. Quickly, he repeated the details into the machine, before turning back to Mrs Astell. “We know you went to Moon's offices that night, so why don't you admit it?”

“But I didn't, I tell you.” She appealed to her solicitor. “Why won't they believe me?”

A little breathlessly, Courtney told her, “They believe they have evidence that you were there that night.”

“Evidence? But how can they have? What evidence?”

Rafferty told her. “Unfortunately for you, that expensive cashmere dress with the silver threads snagged on Moon's desk. It's a very distinctive dress, Mrs Astell. Perhaps you can explain how we found threads from it on the desk when you told us you'd never been to the offices?”

“But I wasn't wearing that dress,” Mrs Astell protested.

Rafferty sighed and stood up. Perhaps a few hours to think would bring her to see sense? “It's useless to lie, Mrs Astell,” he told her as he made for the door. “We know you were wearing it. In fact-”

“Oh earlier, yes, I did wear it. I admit that. Why shouldn't I? But I felt cold, so I changed into another dress.”

Rafferty paused in the doorway. “Do you really expect us to believe that?”

“But it's true.”

A faint vein of scepticism threaded through his voice as he asked, “If it's true, what time – exactly – did you change from the cashmere dress? And what – exactly – did you change into?”

Mrs Astell frowned. “Let me see. It was just before Clara Davies left at 8.00 p m. Mrs Moreno had already left, I'd said my goodbyes and gone upstairs to change. I'd felt chilly earlier standing at the step seeing Mrs Hadleigh into her taxi and decided to put on something warmer; a thick, cowl-neck dress in navy and white. I left Edwin chatting to Clara by the door. She'd just left as I came down the stairs after getting changed and Edwin had gone through to the kitchen. While I was upstairs I remembered I'd promised to let her borrow some of my father's photographs for the biography on him she's trying to write. I quickly took the album I thought most suitable and ran after her. She was just getting into the taxi. She must have seen me very clearly as the outside light was on. She'll be able to tell you what I was wearing.”

Bemused, Rafferty stared at her. Could they have been wrong, after all? But how could they be? There were too many other factors against her. She was simply trying to delay them for reasons of her own. He doubted Clara Davies would confirm what she said. But if she did, the case he had thought so strong would collapse around his ears and a little shiver of anxiety gripped his stomach. Because, if her story was confirmed, it was improbable she would have stolen upstairs a second time to change back into the chilly number specifically to creep out into the stormy night to murder Moon. Even if she'd had time, what would have been the point of such behaviour? “Just as a matter of interest, Mrs Astell, how many people knew what dress you intended wearing that evening?”