Evil Intent (34 page)

There was another long pause. ‘No promises.’ Then she looked at her watch. ‘Your five minutes are up, Inspector Stewart,’ she said briskly,
opening
the car door and raising her umbrella in one swift movement.

Triona disappeared into the night. Neville sat for a moment before pulling out and turning the car towards home. It was a foul night;
visibility
was poor. He wasn’t entirely sure that it was all down to the heaviness of the rain and the inefficiency of his windscreen wipers. It might have had something to do with the mist of tears in his eyes.

In spite of his exhaustion, sleep eluded Neville that night. After an hour or two of tossing and turning, he got up and poured himself a stiff whiskey.

Why, he asked himself, had he let her go? At the time he had convinced
himself that it was out of indifference. There were plenty of other fish in the sea, he’d told himself defiantly. If she wanted to leave, let her – he’d soon find someone else.

As time went on, though, he’d come to realise that it was more complex than that. He’d been terrified of the feelings she aroused in him; he hadn’t been able to handle them, or envision where they would lead him. It was easier – far easier – to let her walk away.

It wasn’t that he didn’t miss her, or feel pain at her going. But
eventually
the pain had faded, the wound healed over. He’d managed to forget her. Almost. Only occasionally, in the middle of the night, he would think of her, the scar tissue throbbing to remind him of what he’d lost.

Tonight the scar tissue felt as though it were a fresh wound, still
lacerated
and bleeding.

After nine years, Triona O’Neil was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever known. The most beautiful, and the most desirable.

The Stanfords’ phone rang in the early hours of Friday morning. It wasn’t the first time that such a thing had happened; it was, thought Jane as she struggled to consciousness, something that came with the territory. Part of a vicar’s lot. And a vicar’s wife’s as well.

They kept a phone at the bedside, just like a doctor. She allowed Brian to answer it, but listened to his side of the conversation and tried to guess at the other half. ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ Yes, of course I’ll come.’ ‘No, I don’t know.’ ‘It’s her day off today, so I can’t speak for her.’ ‘Yes, I’ll see you soon.’

Brian put the phone down and relaxed back against the pillows for a moment, sighing.

‘Dennis Harrington?’ Jane surmised. Brian had always told her
everything
when it came to his parishioners, or
their
parishioners as she liked to think of them.

‘Yes. Elsie seems to have taken a turn for the worse. They don’t think she has long, apparently.’

‘You’re going.’ It was a statement rather than a question.

‘He wants her to have the Sacrament.’

Jane nodded. The usual thing.

‘He said,’ Brian added, ‘that he hadn’t heard anything from Callie. That she hadn’t come to the hospital.’ He turned and blinked short-sightedly at his wife as he reached for his spectacles. ‘You
did
tell her, didn’t you, Janey? That Elsie was in hospital and wanted to see her?’

She thought quickly, not wishing to incriminate herself or to make any claims which could be disproved. ‘It might have slipped my mind,’ she admitted.

‘Well, perhaps you could give her a ring a bit later,’ Brian suggested,
getting
out of bed. ‘I know it’s her day off, but she might be willing to make an exception in this case.’

‘All right,’ Jane agreed, knowing in advance that she just might forget again.

The gusty storms of Thursday had given way to grey skies and steady rain. It couldn’t be said that the sun rose, but the sky lightened enough to
signal 
that a new day had arrived. Still Leo sat at the window.

Then, suddenly, he rose from his chair. He went through to the
bathroom,
showered, and got dressed, putting on clean black trousers and one of his uniquely colourful clerical shirts. From his wardrobe he retrieved a small duffel bag, in which he put an extra shirt and a change of underwear. Then he went downstairs, took an umbrella from the hall stand, and threw open the front door.

The crowd had gone. They’d finally given up, he supposed. Only the faithful remnant remained: the weedy ginger-haired man, curled up asleep on the top step, kept relatively dry by a propped-up golfing umbrella.

He scrambled to his feet as Leo opened the door. ‘Oh!’ he said. ‘Oh!’ Like some strange little wild creature in a children’s book, Leo thought.

Leo stated the obvious. ‘The others have gone?’

‘The police were here. Didn’t you hear them? Everyone else was tired of waiting. After the police left, they all went.’

So they’d had their story after all. ‘What about you, my friend?’ he asked kindly. ‘Why are you still here?’

‘I didn’t want to give up.’

‘Come with me, then. You shall have your reward.’ Leo raised his umbrella and walked out into the rain.

The man followed. ‘Where are we going?’

‘Never mind, my friend. You’ll soon find out.’

‘Could I ask you some questions?’

Leo shook his head. ‘Not now.’

They went through quiet residential streets in silence, over pavements blanketed with slippery leaves, the little man scurrying to keep up with Leo’s long strides. Then they turned a corner and were in the Edgware Road, in the midst of the rush hour. No one gave them a second glance.

Leo was mounting the steps of the police station before his companion realised where they were headed. Lowering his umbrella, he went to the desk. ‘I’m Leo Jackson,’ he said pleasantly. ‘I believe that you want to arrest me.’

All week, Callie had been looking forward to having a lie-in on her day off. She hadn’t set the alarm, and there was no sun to peep round the edges of
the curtains to rouse her. So she drowsed a bit, halfway between sleep and waking, until she became aware that she was not alone in the bed.

Bella.

Callie had shut her in the kitchen as usual, but she must not have closed the kitchen door firmly; Bella had left her basket and sought her mistress out some time in the night.

She cuddled the furry little body, stroking her silky ears, taking comfort from her warmth. Bella accepted the caresses blissfully, paying her back with the occasional lick; if she’d been a cat, she would have purred.

For the first time in days Callie thought about Adam, and the old times. If things had been different …

But, she realised with a dawning feeling of liberation, she had no regrets. Not even a pang of pain, thinking of him. At this moment in her life, she would rather have Bella in her bed than Adam. Pippa was welcome to him. In – or out of – her bed.

It was also Vincent Underwood’s custom to observe Friday as his day off. His pleas to the Bishop for more help in the parish had still failed to bear fruit, but he’d managed to arrange for Benedict Burton, the retired priest, to cover for him that day and take the services at St Mary the Virgin. So the day was his to enjoy.

His mood, at breakfast, was ebullient. Marigold, still feeling shaky from her ordeal at the hands of the bag-snatcher, joined him at the table to find him reading the newspaper and chuckling to himself.

It was not the
Globe
he was reading, but the eminently respectable and high-toned broadsheet which had been delivered to this house every day as long as Marigold could remember, even back to her childhood. This
broadsheet
had not found it seemly to enter into the speculations surrounding Jonah Adimola’s murder, except in the loftiest manner; today it deigned to inform its readers, in a brief paragraph, that a woman had been arrested in connection with that murder and was helping police with their enquiries.

Vincent read the paragraph out to Marigold as she spooned marmalade onto her plate. ‘So the police have listened to me at last,’ he said smugly. ‘I told them from the beginning that Frances Cherry was the only one who
could have done it. After all, it was her stole he was strangled with. I can’t understand why it’s taken them so long to arrest her.’

Marigold was only half listening. ‘I suppose they have to be sure about these things,’ she said. ‘They can’t just go round arresting people without being sure.’

He ignored her, turning back a page and smoothing the paper out on the table. ‘Here’s something else which will amuse you. “The Reverend Leo Jackson, Area Dean of Bayswater, has withdrawn his acceptance two days after his appointment as the next Bishop of Brixton. The withdrawal was announced by Church House, following unsubstantiated tabloid
allegations
of sexual misconduct on the part of Mr Jackson. Mr Jackson was unavailable for comment.” I’m sure he was,’ chortled Vincent.

‘It says “unsubstantiated”,’ Marigold pointed out. ‘It might not be true.’

‘Of course it’s true.’ Vincent slathered marmalade on a triangle of toast and bit into it with a satisfying crunch. ‘You know what I always say, my dear. No smoke without fire.’

Marigold averted her face from him. Oh, how could he gloat like that, after what he’d once put her through? If it hadn’t been for her father …

Over a leisurely breakfast of cereal and toast, Callie thought about how to spend her precious day off. The weather was far too unpleasant to
contemplate
spending any more time than necessary outdoors. She would have to give Bella a couple of walks, and she needed to do a bit of shopping so she’d have food for the weekend.

Apart from that, all she really wanted to do was take a long hot bubble bath, then just slob around the flat, enjoying some quality time with Bella. And if there was anything she could do for Frances …

Or, she thought suddenly, with a sinking feeling, she could go and see her mother.

She hadn’t even spoken to her all week. With everything else that had been happening, her mother had been relegated to a nagging twinge of guilt at the back of her mind.

Guilt, and duty. A strong combination, when it came to her mother.

She washed up the breakfast dishes, poured herself another mug of tea, 
then picked up the phone with a sigh and rang Laura Anson.

‘Well, I must say. I’d been wondering what on earth had happened to you,’ her mother started off. ‘I know you’re busy, but at least you could have rung.’

It was all so predictable. Evidently it never occurred to Laura Anson that the telephone worked both ways; she preferred to play the martyr, waiting for calls which never came. Or at least not as often as she thought they should.

‘And have you heard anything from Peter?’ Laura went on.

‘He’s gone to Italy. Milan.’

‘I
know
he’s gone to Italy. With one of his chums, I believe. He rang me before he left. But he hasn’t even sent me a card. I thought he might have sent one to
you.’

‘The post can be quite slow,’ Callie said.

‘That’s true,’ her mother admitted grudgingly. ‘Your card from Venice took ten days.’

Venice. Callie wished, with a sudden and intense longing, that she were back there. Far away from sodden London, basking in the golden Venetian sunshine, in a gondola with…

No, she said sternly to herself. Don’t go there.

Frances’ breakfast – an omelette – had come from the freezer, via the microwave. Neither process had improved it, and it had a tough, rubbery consistency which defied the plastic cutlery supplied to those in custody. Just like airline passengers, thought Frances with grim humour. Neither could be trusted with implements which could be used to harm themselves or anyone else.

Not that she had an appetite, though she hadn’t eaten much at all in the last twenty-four hours.

Twenty-four hours. It was time to review the custody arrangements again.

Triona arrived a few minutes before eight, and was allowed some time with her client. ‘How did you sleep?’ she asked.

Triona, thought Frances, didn’t look as if she’d slept particularly well
herself: her unruffled expression of the day before showed distinct signs of strain. She hoped she wasn’t responsible for that. ‘Not too well,’ she
admitted.
‘I did manage to doze off towards morning. But it was pretty noisy in the cells for most of the night. And the bed wasn’t the world’s most
comfortable.
Not,’ she added, smiling ruefully, ‘that I’d expect it to be.’

‘Well, I’m going to do my best to get you out of here in a few minutes,’ Triona assured her. ‘They don’t have anything to charge you with. It’s
disgraceful
that they haven’t let you go yet.’

Sergeant Salome Pratt was back on duty, and that gave Frances some cause for hope.

But Neville Stewart had already talked to Sergeant Pratt. He’d
conveyed
to her the information that Detective Superintendent Evans was in agreement that Frances Cherry should be held for another twelve hours. It was especially important, he’d said, now that they had Leo Jackson in
custody.
If the two of them had in any way worked together to commit the murder or cover it up, they would need both of them there.

So when she visited Frances, it was as the reluctant bearer of bad tidings. In spite of Triona’s protestations, it had already been agreed. It had been decided, as well, that Frances was not to be told of Leo’s arrest. Not for now.

‘I don’t have anything else to say,’ Frances stated. ‘They can keep me here as long as they like, but I’m not saying another word.’

Then Sergeant Pratt, perhaps feeling guilty, offered a concession. ‘If you’d like to have any visitors today,’ she said, ‘I could make arrangements for that. Would you like to have your husband come again? Or a friend, perhaps?’

She didn’t want to see Graham in here again, Frances realised. He had put on a show of bravado for her benefit, but it had been painful and
stressful
for both of them. And although she’d like to see Leo, it was out of the question to consider dragging him into this.

Callie, she thought. She would love to have a visit from Callie. Wonderful, normal Callie.

Leo Jackson, Neville and Cowley soon discovered, was no more co-
operative
than Frances Cherry. It wasn’t that he was belligerent or contentious:
he was acquiescent to the point of passivity.

He refused counsel, in spite of the warnings of the custody sergeant that he ought to have legal representation. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong,’ he said. ‘I’ve answered all of your questions honestly, every time I’ve talked to you. And now I have nothing more to say.’

Sergeant Pratt had set them up in an interview room, giving them
priority
over the petty criminals who had come in overnight. Leo Jackson sat on his own at the table, across from the two policemen.

‘We’d like to ask you some questions about Oliver Pickett,’ said Neville.

‘I have nothing to say.’ His mouth was curved into a semblance of a smile, but his eyes were shuttered, blank. No matter what the question, he offered the same response.

After half an hour, they gave up.

Lilith rang Oliver that morning, on the new mobile phone number which only she possessed.

There was loud music playing when he answered; she had to strain to hear him. ‘I just wanted to see how you were doing,’ she said.

‘Yeah. Fine.’

‘The story in yesterday’s paper – I hope you were happy with it. That you felt I’d got across what you wanted to say.’

‘Yeah, it was good.’

He sounded different, somehow, she thought. His accent a bit more pronounced, perhaps; his voice a little slurred. Was it possible that he was drunk? At this hour of the morning?

The poor lad. She supposed he was drowning his sorrows. The abuse he’d suffered at the hands of Leo Jackson had probably scarred him for life. Thanks goodness, Lilith told herself virtuously, there were people like her in the world who were willing to take a stand for what was right. To stick their necks out in the pursuit of truth and justice.