Murder... Now and Then (47 page)

But he couldn't let her believe that he was some self-sacrificing hero. ‘I'd have been here anyway,' he said. ‘I couldn't-forsake all others. I couldn't the first time, and I wouldn't have with Catherine – I don't kid myself. This time round, I don't have to feel guilty.'

They stuffed pillows into pillowcases.

‘You
like
having a sexless marriage?' she asked.

‘It's no big deal,' he said.

The reason for her phobia was a big deal. These people might have helped, if she had explained what she had believed about her mother's stroke. What she had done to her mother was a big deal, running away like that. But he could forgive all that; she had had a lot to cope with, and she had failed; there was no shame in that. But not telling him that Victor Holyoak was her stepfather; that he was finding hard to forgive.

They persuaded the cover to go on the duvet, and they had run out of chores. He had to go home.

He found Catherine sitting at the dining table; all the way home he had told himself that he mustn't get angry, but all his good intentions evaporated, like the euphoria of being with Anna had done.

‘When was I supposed to find out?' he demanded, as he walked in. ‘ Tomorrow? When he made his announcement?'

Catherine sat, her head on her hand, not responding. It was as though he hadn't spoken.

‘Look at me, for God's sake! I want to know. What were you going to do tomorrow? What did you imagine you'd achieve? Does he know you haven't told me? What was he supposed to do?'

‘I'm not going to be there,' she said. ‘ I don't care what he does.'

He came over to her, pulling out a chair, sitting down. ‘You are going to be there,' he said.

She looked at him then, shaking her head.

‘Yes, Catherine. You have to face him. You have to look at him and accept that he isn't the monster you've created. Whatever he did, you can't go on blaming him for what happened to your mother!'

‘Can't I?' she said, almost inaudibly.

‘No, damn it, you can't!' He banged the table with his fist. ‘It's cruel, Catherine, can't you see that? It's cruel, and unfair!'

She closed her eyes.

‘Catherine, I can't believe this is happening – I can't believe you did that. You didn't just walk out on him – you walked out on your mother! Because you found him with some woman? What did that prove, for God's sake?'

‘Some woman?' she repeated, dully. ‘ Is that the story?'

Max sat back, frowning, then realized. ‘Is
that
what this is all about? It was a man? A boy? All right, it frightened you, and you got it all mixed up with what had happened to your mother – that was all right when you were sixteen, Catherine, but you're not sixteen any more. You can't let something like that blight your whole life!'

She turned away, and he put his hands on her shoulders, firmly turning her towards him again.

‘For God's sake, Catherine, I'm not telling you anything you don't know yourself! Whether or not you like him is up to you. Whether or not you want to speak to him is up to you. But why didn't you
tell
me who he was? Why didn't he? Is that why he's been keeping out of sight? Did you ask him to? What did you hope to achieve? Did you think he'd melt away?'

‘I'm going to bed,' she said, getting up.

‘You never tried to get help, did you?' he said. ‘You never told these people anything that they could work with.' He shook his head. ‘I'm sorry about what happened to your mother. And I'm sorry that you had some traumatic experience. But cutting yourself off completely from your family was no answer. All you've done is hurt your mother and me as well as him.'

She walked away.

‘And you've got to come tomorrow,' he said. ‘I am the general manager – albeit owing to nepotism I knew nothing about – but I am, and my wife should be there.'

She turned. ‘But I'm not your wife, am I?' she said.

Max jumped up. ‘Oh, yes you are,' he said. ‘I love you. You
are
my wife. And you must know what it's going to be like for me – half the people there are still convinced I'm a murderer! I need you, Catherine.'

She left the room, and went upstairs. Max sank down again at the table, wondering just what would have happened tomorrow if Anna hadn't told him. Why would she have preferred him to find out that way? What reason could she have had for not telling him, when he was going to find out anyway?

He didn't understand.

Max looked at them, and then at Catherine. She was, she had been reminded, still under, caution. They wanted to ask her some more questions concerning Valerie's death.

But they knew all the answers to the questions that had been asked then. And they knew that Catherine's alibi had been false, that he hadn't been with her at all. He had told them this time round that he had been having an affair with Catherine; he had had to, once he had discovered about the abortion, because they would find out, eventually. So surely he was even more suspect than before?

But it wasn't him they had come to see. It was Catherine. They had told her she could have a solicitor, but she had said she didn't want a solicitor; she wanted Max. They had agreed that he could stay. Because they knew that he knew what it was all about; that what would come out of the interview would come as no shock to him, because that shock had already rocked his system once, and it could do no more harm.

They were all in the sitting room; him, Catherine, Lloyd, and Hill. All seated. Max sat on the arm of Catherine's chair, his arm round her, because now he understood. They hadn't discussed it; there had been no need.

Inspector Hill spoke first. ‘Mrs Scott, you told me last night how determined you were to marry anyone in order to get away from what you called your stepfather's megalomania,' she said.

Catherine shook her head firmly. ‘No,' she said. ‘ Not anyone. Max. I loved him. I wouldn't have married anyone else.'

No. He knew that he knew a great many things now that he had never known.

‘But he was already married.'

‘Yes.'

‘Had you asked him to seek a divorce?'

She took a deep breath and let it out the way she had learned to do when they were still trying to conquer her phobia, and then looked up at him. Max patted her. He mustn't answer for her, he had been told. Same questions, different answers. Truthful answers, now, from Catherine, as far as possible. But they all knew that the moment would come, and Max could only hope that they could prove nothing, like before.

‘Yes. He said he couldn't possibly do that.'

‘Did that upset you?'

‘Yes.'

‘And you told DCI Lloyd that on the third of May that year you telephoned and spoke to Valerie Scott?'

‘Yes.'

Lloyd took over then. ‘You said that you heard her answer the door to an election campaigner, and complain that she had already had one of ‘‘their lot'',' he said.

Max stiffened, but Catherine still felt almost relaxed under his protective arm; her shoulder muscles no longer tying themselves in knots, as they had been for weeks.

‘Thus placing yourself firmly in London at the time Mrs Scott died.' He sat back, and regarded her. ‘But it wasn't true, was it, Mrs Scott?' he said.

Catherine frowned, but still no reaction, still no tensing up. Max could feel his legs, his neck growing stiff from tension.

‘Two lots of campaigners did go round from one party – you had got that right. And there was a campaigner with Mrs Scott at approximately the time that you stated you had made this call.' He leant towards her. ‘Unfortunately,' he said, ‘that was the only one who visited Valerie Scott. The first team was organized by Dr Rule, who knew only too well that there was no point in calling on the Scotts, who he knew always voted Labour. So no one from the first lot called on Valerie Scott at all.'

‘But that's what she said,' said Catherine, frowning.

‘No,' he said. ‘ I don't think so. Mrs Scott I think you came to Stansfield that evening, having got Mr Scott to go on a wild-goose chase to London, or at the very best realized that he was on one, because he didn't know your new address. I think you wanted to see Valerie Scott. Alone.'

Catherine shook her head, and Max prayed that they were shadow-boxing, like they had with him.

‘Perhaps you took matters into your own hands. Told her you were having an affair with her husband, had a row with her that ended in violence. Or perhaps you were desperate enough to have Max Scott for yourself that you went with the sole intention of ridding yourself of your rival.'

Catherine went pale, and twisted round to look at Max, her eyes wide. ‘Oh, my God,' she said. ‘That's what you thought. That's what you thought when you saw him – you thought I'd … you thought—' She stared at him. ‘ You still think it. You still think I killed her!'

Max held her close, no longer capable of thinking anything. If Catherine hadn't … who? Why? He had always forced the questions away, because at the back of his mind, at the very back, he had always wondered about Catherine's overwhelming insistence that she would tell the police that he had been with her when he hadn't, her turning up exactly when she did, asking him to go and see her, not telling him she'd moved. And when he had seen Holyoak, seen the man he had seen that night, known that Catherine could have proved his innocence, and had insisted on that lie … He had felt the rage and horror well up, and found himself slapping her, demanding to know the truth. But he had believed, he had believed inside that he did know it, that he had known it all along. And then, later, he had believed that he knew why, and he had finally understood, and had forgiven her.

Now he didn't understand, and he held the sobbing Catherine, and looked helplessly at Lloyd and the Inspector. It made no sense. Who else could have wanted Valerie dead?

‘I was in London,' Catherine was protesting through the sobs, looking up at him. ‘ I was at my digs. I did ring Valerie, she did say what I said, I swear to you, Max, she did!' She turned back then, to the police. ‘ My stepfather and Annabel … Anna Worthing – whatever she calls herself – they came to my digs! They saw me! About an hour after I called Mrs Scott! They saw me – he was going to Holland that night – he wanted me to go to the ferry with them and say goodbye to my mother. I wouldn't go, and they stayed for about twenty minutes trying to persuade me!' She turned back to Max. ‘ It's the truth!' she said. ‘Oh, Max – I didn't … I would never have done such a thing to you!'

‘And Anna Worthing will confirm this?' asked Lloyd.

‘Yes,' said Catherine. ‘Yes! Ask her. Just ask her. I wasn't here, I was in London. I didn't kill Valerie.'

No. The subject had remained undiscussed, even when everything else was being unlocked, that first night they had had together after Holyoak had died; the idea that had consumed him with rage, then haunted him for hours, persisting even when a new and equally appalling truth had dawned on him, was that Catherine had killed Valerie, and he had accepted that, in the end. But now he knew he hadn't just been uncontrollably, unprecedentedly angry with his fragile and precious wife; he had wronged her.

They left; he and Catherine stayed locked together, not speaking, not moving, for a long, long time.

Anna had retired with the brandy bottle, but she hadn't drunk any. She hadn't slept either, but she did feel that it was a step in the right direction.

She answered the door, opening it on the chain. It was Inspector Hill, this time. She had never entertained so many police officers since her Leyford days, when the two-faced bastards would come looking for freebies. But she and the inspector had had a long talk last night; Anna had told her everything she was scared of, from Bannister to corporate image-makers to trying to hustle a living, without Victor to protect her.

‘How are you?' asked the inspector.

Anna shrugged. ‘OK, I suppose,' she said. ‘I saw the patrol car a few times last night.' She had spent a long time looking out of the window at the darkness, at the town, at the future.

‘Good. They'll keep an eye on you over the weekend,' Inspector Hill said briskly. ‘Bannister will be back to appear before the magistrates – we'll oppose bail if we have any reason to think he'd come here again. But I don't really think he will,' she added. ‘ Not now he knows you didn't set him up.'

Anna could never be that sure of any man, except Victor, and Victor was dead. ‘ Would you like a cup of tea?' she said. She, AnnaBelle le Sueur, was asking a cop if she would like a cup of tea.

‘Thanks,' she said. ‘But first – the night you went to Holland with Holyoak. Was that election night?'

‘Yes.'

‘Did you and Victor Holyoak call on Catherine?'

‘Yes. She was in digs by then, and he'd just found her in time before he left. I don't know why he wanted me to be there, but he did, and I knew by then not to ask questions. She wouldn't come with us, though, and he only wanted her to—'

‘Say goodbye to her mother,' finished Inspector Hill.

‘Yes. Take a seat.' Anna went into the kitchen, and set about making the tea, still thinking of her future. ‘I'll have to get out of this place, won't I?' she called through.

‘Not yet,' said the inspector. ‘It'll probably take them months to sort out his financial affairs – I'd sit tight if I were you. Whoever ends up owning it might let you rent.'

Anna laughed. ‘What do you suppose the rent is on a place like this?' she asked.

‘You've got a good job.'

Anna went back in to look at her. ‘I know Mr Lloyd says everyone's incompetent,' she said. ‘ But at least they know what they're supposed to be doing. Victor gave me that job because he
knew
I couldn't do it.'