Picture of Innocence (21 page)

He smiled. ‘The
Mary Celeste
,’ he said. ‘ ‘‘Marie’’ is a popular misconception.’

She smiled back. That was more like it, even if it was an act.

‘But he did make a fool of me, didn’t he? You thought I was just being oversensitive.’

‘Yes, I did,’ she admitted.

And why me?’ he asked. ‘There were three forces involved in the end. Two other heads of CID who missed the connection. He didn’t even mention the others.’

She thought perhaps she knew. Lloyd could be infuriatingly patronizing. She was used to it; Curtis Law wasn’t, and he had done it for nothing more than spite, as far as she could see. But she didn’t say that. She just shrugged.

‘It’s going out on the network,’ Lloyd said, in a small voice. ‘Everyone will see it.’

‘Lloyd,’ she said. ‘It will be watched by about five per cent of the population if he’s lucky. Half of them will fall asleep, and the other half will all have forgotten what it was about the next morning.’

‘Yes,’ he said, with a little smile. ‘ You’re right.’

And you are going to come with me tomorrow to Aquarius?’

He looked at her from under his lashes. ‘Do I have to?’

‘The sooner you see him the better. You can act as though nothing’s happened, you
know
you can.’ She had restored some of his self-esteem, but that wasn’t what was worrying him. She led him to the sofa, and sat down with him. ‘Tell me what’s really wrong,’ she said.

He put his arm round her. ‘ How much do you love me?’ he asked.

She smiled, not sure of the connection. ‘I don’t think love’s something you can quantify,’ she said. ‘You either love someone or you don’t. I love you. That’s it.’

‘It’s just that I keep seeing this scenario,’ he said. ‘Where Curtis Law goes off to London with Rachel Bailey, leaves her there on Sunday night and Monday morning to establish a watertight alibi for herself, then either with or without her knowledge, comes back, goes to Bailey’s farm, gets in on some pretext or other, and stabs him to death.’

‘And?’

‘And I think I’m being dangerously less than objective. That figure going through the gate could be one of at least three people I met today, all of whom loathed Bernard Bailey, but it wasn’t when I was talking to any of them that I actually thought about it. It was when I saw Curtis Law, and he was just there to
report
on the murder. That’s crazy, isn’t it?’

‘No,’ she said.

‘It is! I’m trying to
pin
it on him, for God’s sake, Judy! I doubt if he has any feelings about Bernard Bailey at all, and I have no evidence whatever that he and Rachel Bailey are anything more than acquaintances.’

He took a breath. ‘ I just wondered if you loved me enough to tell me if you thought I was paranoid.’

Judy smiled. Lloyd’s scenario might be quite wrong, but it wasn’t one conjured up out of thin air and injured pride. She too had met people who
could
have been the figure at the gate, but it was when she had seen Curtis Law that she had involuntarily
thought
of that figure, and only then. She hadn’t known Lloyd had, and he hadn’t known she had. They had each independently thought of it because it
looked
like him, it was as simple as that. And crime reporters knew how the police operated; when one half of a marriage was found murdered, the other half came under immediate and detailed investigation. She had never known a reporter not to ask, off the record, if the spouse had an alibi, because if not, suspicion was automatic, and if so, that alibi was subjected to scrutiny. Curtis Law hadn’t asked, which was odd. But odder still was the fact that, on that report, he had
given
her an alibi, one that no one on their side of the fence had mentioned to him.

‘I do love you enough,’ she said. ‘And I don’t think you’re paranoid.’

‘Good,’ he said, kissing the top of her head. ‘Now you can tell me why I’m not, and bring me up to date with your enquiries.’ He stood up. ‘Do you fancy a sandwich? I’m starving.’

It was after midnight, and he was all set to work. Judy yawned. ‘If I’m going to be up all night, you have to come with me to see Curtis Law tomorrow,’ she said. ‘ Is it a deal?’

‘Done!’ he shouted from the kitchen.

Curtis looked up from the draft of his lunchtime bulletin on the murder as Chief Inspector Lloyd and Inspector Hill were shown in, and got to his feet, stubbing out his cigarette. He tried to gauge Lloyd’s mood, but he couldn’t; he thought it best if he mentioned
Law on the Law
first.

‘I don’t suppose this is a social call,’ he said. ‘Not after last night’s programme. I’m sorry if it – well, you know. But …’ He shrugged. ‘ That’s show business.’

‘Oh, I quite understand that, Mr Curtis,’ said Lloyd. ‘Don’t give it another thought.’

He looked as though he really didn’t mind, but Curtis doubted that.

‘We’re here to see the videos,’ Lloyd went on, handing him the one that Sergeant Finch had confiscated. ‘ But first I would like to ask you some questions about your report on the murder, if I may.’

Curtis smiled, despite feeling a touch apprehensive. He had been expecting this, and he had his answers ready. ‘Of course,’ he said, waving a hand at the two vacant chairs. ‘What did you want to know?’

‘When you used the expression ‘‘documents and cash’’ about the contents of Mr Bailey’s safe, was that just poetic licence?’

Curtis frowned. That had not been the question he had anticipated. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Journalists don’t use poetic licence.’ He saw the raising of Lloyd’s eyebrows, and ducked his head a little in acknowledgement of his naive answer. ‘I don’t, anyway,’ he said.

‘You actually saw cash in Bernard Bailey’s safe?’

‘Yes. Quite a lot, I think. Notes. In bundles. Why?’

‘We didn’t find any cash.’

Curtis stared at him. ‘You must have done,’ he said. ‘It was there, on the top shelf.’

Lloyd shook his head.

‘Well,’ Curtis said. ‘ Perhaps Rach— Mrs Bailey removed it,’ But that made no sense, he thought, even as he spoke the words. Rachel had been half out of her mind; she wouldn’t have been able to think straight enough to remove money from the safe, unless she’d done it before she’d found Bailey. But why would she remove it at all? She wouldn’t, was the answer. Paxton seemed the only possible explanation for its disappearance. ‘Perhaps that foreman bloke helped himself to it,’ he said.

‘Unlikely,’ said Lloyd. ‘Our officers arrived to find him coming to blows with your cameraman, and they were on the premises from then on.’

‘Yes, but one of them was attending to Mrs Bailey, and the other was throwing us out. Where was the foreman while all that was going on?’ That had to be the explanation, Curtis decided. Perhaps Paxton had already known the money was there, and had realized that in all the confusion, he could take it without anyone noticing.

‘We’ll make enquiries,’ said Lloyd. ‘And … how did you know that Rachel Bailey had spent the weekend in London?’

That
was
one of the questions Curtis had been waiting for; he had realized that Lloyd would jump on it as soon as he heard it. ‘Your sergeant must have told me,’ he said to Inspector Hill.

‘He didn’t know himself when he spoke to you,’ she said.

He’d thought of that, too. ‘ Someone else, then. One of Bailey’s employees, probably. I spoke to a lot of people.’

‘Thank you, Mr Law,’ said Lloyd. ‘Now we would like to see the videos.’

‘Yes, sure. Just … take a seat.’ Curtis put the video in, pressed the play button, and they watched the soundless film.

Arriving at the farm. Curtis himself getting out, using the phone. The road ahead as they drove through the opening gate, up to the farmhouse. Then a mishmash of sweeps as Gary got out, running with the camera. The open front door, the hallway, lit only by the light from the sitting room, rendering the picture non-existent until the camera made an adjustment for the light and the closed box of the alarm-control panel and Bailey’s office door came into focus; the camera swivelling round as Gary went into the sitting room. What looked like a blank screen until the camera adjusted again, then Bailey’s body in long shot, followed by an unsteady zoom in. The camera moved round to Rachel, frightened out of her wits, saying something, looking bewildered and hurt, before the picture went haywire again.

‘That’s it,’ Curtis said. And you wanted to see Gary’s shots of people going to the house on Sunday, is that right?’ He reached behind him for the video, and put that one in, watching as various people tried to effect an entry to the farm. ‘What’s he doing there?’ he asked, as he saw one visitor he recognized. ‘He’s a debt collector.’ He ran it through to the next visitor. ‘She’s a member of SOWS,’ he said. The next startled him even more than the debt collector had. ‘That one … he’s a repo man. Collects cars. I did a piece on him.’

He looked at his visitors. ‘Was Bailey in financial difficulties?’ he asked, but he hadn’t expected them to answer, and they didn’t. He was already mentally rewriting his lunchtime bulletin. ‘ If he was,’ he said, ‘ why on earth didn’t he just sell the place?’ He ran the tape further on; a couple more people came and went, but there was nothing of interest, until Mike McQueen, who spoke briefly on the gate phone, and was allowed in.

‘Can I get you anything?’ he asked. ‘We’ve got some cans of Coke in the fridge.’

‘Thank you,’ said Inspector Hill.

‘I don’t suppose I could beg a cup of tea, could I?’ said Lloyd. ‘I overslept, and I can’t function without one.’

‘Sure.’

Curtis went into the little kitchen, and put the kettle on. Why hadn’t Rachel told him that Bailey was in debt? He had to be, with these two calling on him on a Sunday. He was meeting her at the flat at lunch-time; they had decided that would be best, rather than his going to the farm, because the police wouldn’t be crawling all over it. He’d ask her. Maybe she hadn’t known about it. He threw a tea bag into a mug, and drummed his fingers on the worktop, waiting for the kettle to boil.

‘Why are you having diplomatic tea?’

Lloyd didn’t drink other people’s tea; he maintained that no one knew how to make a decent cup of tea except him. And he hadn’t overslept;
she
had. She always liked to give herself time in the morning, but Lloyd got up at the last minute. This morning, they had both done it, causing her to miss breakfast, which hadn’t bothered her as much as it might. She had been feeling a little queasy in the mornings, and had given it a miss once or twice lately.

She had waited until Lloyd was safely out of the flat before returning for something she had deliberately forgotten. Then she had put the testing kit safely in the bathroom cabinet, and had caught Lloyd up, promising herself that she really would do it. Tonight.

When she had arrived at the station, she had switched off her engine just as the local news had come on; she had put the radio back on and had listened to the reaction to
Law on the Law
. Mostly people complaining about the programme, rather than the policing, she had been gratified to hear. She had got out of her car quickly as she had seen Lloyd leave his, so that they would meet whatever reception Lloyd was going to get together, because he had still been convinced that everyone would be sniggering behind his back. But Law’s overkill approach, his singling out of Lloyd for blame, had turned the whole thing into a them-and-us situation in which there were no shades of grey; Law was a bastard, and Lloyd was a hero.

He had come with her to talk to Curtis Law without giving her an argument, saying he was only too glad to get away from people popping their heads round his door to tell him what they’d like to do to Law if they got their hands on him. But she knew that the show of support had meant a lot more to him than he was saying, and that Lloyd was ready for Law now. Which she wasn’t sure was altogether a good thing.

‘I’d sooner have a Coke, but tea takes longer, and I wanted to talk to you,’ he said, his voice as quiet as hers had been. ‘He smokes and drinks Coca-Cola, you’ll notice,’ he added.

‘So do I,’ said Judy.

‘And did you notice that his instinct is to call Mrs Bailey Rachel?’

‘So do I,’ she said again.

‘And there’s this.’ Lloyd picked up a copy of
The Times
, the crossword almost complete.

Judy found her father and London coming into her mind again, and tried to push the thoughts away. She must have been born with some sort of homing instinct, like salmon; she was being compelled to return to her spawning grounds to reproduce.

‘Yoo-hoo,’ Lloyd was saying. ‘Ground control to DI Hill.’

‘What?’ She focused on Lloyd. ‘Oh, sorry. I was thinking about something else.’

He smiled. ‘That’s most unlike you, Inspector. Penny for them.’

She would have to be careful. Now that he was no longer preoccupied himself, he would start noticing if she was. ‘I was thinking about my father,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure why. Maybe just because it’s a long time since I’ve been to see my parents.’ She smiled. ‘Linda sees more of them than I do,’ she said guiltily. Lloyd’s daughter had lodged with her parents for a while when she was in London, and still visited them practically every week. Judy sighed, acutely aware of her inadequacies as a daughter, as a life partner, as a potential mother. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘What were you saying?’

‘I was saying – did you get a close enough look to know if these are the same block capitals?’

Judy looked at today’s crossword, and realized why she had thought of her father every time she had looked at yesterday’s. She pointed at it. ‘They’re crossed out left-handed,’ she said. ‘The clues.’

Lloyd frowned. ‘ How do you know?’

‘Right-handed people do it the other way. Bottom left to top right. Left-handed people do it like that. Bottom right to top left. When I was in that room yesterday I kept thinking about home, and I didn’t know why. But it was because of the crossword clues being crossed out like that. My father crosses out the clues as he goes along – and he’s left-handed. It must have registered at the back of my mind.’

‘Have you noticed whether or not Mr Law is left-handed?’