Picture of Innocence (24 page)

He had checked the business of the missing money with the officers at the scene, and the office door had been closed when they arrived, and had remained closed until they had cleared the house of all interlopers and called the doctor for Mrs Bailey. The room had then been checked to see if it was harbouring Bailey’s assailant, and the safe had been found open. The first thing they had done was to see if there was money in it, which there wasn’t, which was why they had cordoned it off, thinking that there might have been a burglary. And now it looked as though there had been.

The videos indicated that none of Bailey’s employees could have got into the house, with the exception of Steve Paxton, who wasn’t within range of any of the cameras for a few minutes before he went off for breakfast; Lloyd had suggested that Tom Finch have a word with Paxton, his no-nonsense, to-hell-with-diplomacy approach being called for in the matter of opportunist thefts. Because that was all it was, Lloyd was certain. Bailey had not been killed for the contents of his safe.

But there was no way that Law saw that money on his dash after the story, therefore he had been in the house at some point
before
the money went missing, and had become confused about exactly when he had seen it. Understandable, if he had just murdered someone, which seemed the most likely explanation for his presence, if they were right about him and Rachel Bailey.

When Judy came back to tell him that Curtis Law had been caught in the cowshed with Rachel, he immediately telephoned the ACC to let him know that the tide might be turning, but he was off sick, apparently.

‘I thought he looked a bit pale and wan yesterday,’ he said to Judy, heaping the packets of sandwiches and cans of soft drinks he had got for their working lunch on to his desk. ‘He just would be away, when I’ve got some good news for once.’

Case came in then, to check on progress, so Lloyd passed the good news on to him. He didn’t seem as pleased as he might be.

‘You don’t make a move – not a single move – without rock-solid evidence,’ he said. ‘Do you hear? I don’t want the ACC coming back off his sickbed to find that this case is resting on the word of a couple of bobbies about whether or not there was money in that safe yesterday morning. Not after that programme. I can hear Law shouting fit-up already.’

‘I’ll get evidence,’ said Lloyd. ‘Don’t worry.’

‘Rock-solid,’ Case repeated, and looked at Judy as he got to the door. ‘I’m trusting you make sure it is rock-solid,’ he said. ‘ Your boyfriend has an axe to grind.’

Lloyd didn’t like Case knowing about him and Judy; he never lost an opportunity to remind them that he did, and that made Lloyd uncomfortable. It didn’t seem to bother Judy in the slightest. She waited until Case had gone before carrying on with her report, though.

‘Rachel is still denying that he was with her in London,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t shake her.’

Lloyd opened a can of lemonade and drank thirstily, even though it bore no relation to the real thing as supplied by Rachel Bailey. ‘I’m sure there’s a nice publicity photograph of Mr Law that we can show the hotel staff,’ he said, and listened to the rest of her interview with Nicola, frowning slightly. ‘What makes her think Rachel was there on Sunday night?’ he asked.

Judy shrugged a little. ‘I think perhaps it was just that her father was drunk, and she thought Rachel’s affair must have been the cause,’ she said. ‘That the likely scenario was that he had started in on her, Rachel had fled, and he’d gone after her, brought her back. Not that she’s saying any of that in words of one syllable – I think she’s pretty loyal to Rachel. And she isn’t telling me everything, I’m sure of that. She might be covering up for her.’

Lloyd nodded. ‘Rachel Bailey said this was the first time in eighteen months she had no bruises,’ he said. ‘If bruises are an issue, someone’s going to have to check.’

‘Are you volunteering?’

‘Really, Inspector!’ he said, in mock horror.

But he did very much hope that she didn’t have bruises. Partly because he hoped she hadn’t been there at any time that night, and partly because he didn’t
want
her to have bruises. How
could
Bailey have constantly abused her like that, never mind doing what he had ended up doing to her? He became aware that Judy was looking at him. ‘What?’ he said suspiciously.

‘Tell me something,’ she said. ‘If she offered to go to bed with you, what would you do?’

He stared at her. He had grown used to her direct approach, but he had made a rule long ago that they mustn’t let their private relationship intrude in the office, and while he very rarely kept it, Judy almost always did. And in any circumstances her enquiry would have startled him. ‘What sort of question’s that?’ he said.

‘One I want you to answer seriously, and truthfully, if that’s not too tall an order.’

He and Judy held differing opinions on the matter of sexual relations. She thought sex was overrated as a measure of fidelity; it was the emotional commitment that counted, she said, not a physical activity most of which was sheer animal reflex to certain stimuli. But he thought it was a commitment in itself, something not to be indulged in on a whim.

He did what she asked, and gave his answer serious consideration. He had been attracted to other women, but he had never truly been tempted to be unfaithful to Judy. Rachel Bailey, as Judy clearly knew,
would
be a temptation. But Judy had never been unfaithful to him, and even if that was because of his principles rather than hers, it came to the same thing in the end. If he strayed, it would be a betrayal of her loyalty, and she would find that just as hard to handle as the next person, whatever her beliefs. He wouldn’t hurt her like that. But then, if he knew that she would never know anything about it …

He smiled at the very idea. He didn’t suppose Rachel went for balding, middle-aged policemen unless they could buy her sports cars, and if there was such a being, he wasn’t it. There was little likelihood of their opposing principles being put to the test, so he would give her the truthful answer she had requested. ‘I honestly don’t know,’ he said, opening another can. ‘It might depend on whether or not I thought I could get away with it.’

Judy nodded. ‘Anyway,’ she said, disconcertingly behaving as though the strange little conversation had never happened. ‘How did you get on checking Law’s story?’

Lloyd had made one very small enquiry which had set his imagination off on its usual trip round the houses, but basically, the second part of his theory seemed to have gone the way of all theories. ‘His story checks out,’ he said. ‘ Mrs Archer who owns the newsagent-café place says that Law and his cameraman arrived just after nine. The cameraman had breakfast, Law had coffee. Law bought a
Times
, and sat there doing the crossword.’ He sighed. ‘She even saw him put it in his pocket,’ he said. ‘And I had another look at the tapes from Bailey’s closed-circuit TV. You can see the paper in his pocket when he’s on the phone at the gate. And it wasn’t in his pocket when we saw him later on.’

Judy smiled. ‘No conspiracy theories? Mrs Archer is in on it with him, for instance?’

‘Very funny.’ He looked at her for a moment, then tipped his chair back. ‘A mini-theory,’ he said. ‘Anything strike you as odd about Mrs Archer’s story?’

Judy frowned as she mentally checked off what he had just told her. ‘ No,’ she said. ‘ It’s a very small shop in a very small community. Mrs Archer is quite likely to notice what two media folk are doing. Especially if they’re haring off after a story.’

Lloyd nodded, and rocked gently backwards and forwards. ‘But Law said he was a
Times
crossword man,’ he pointed out. ‘Did it every day.’

Judy gave him a look. ‘ If you’re going to say he got seven down wrong, I’m going to the canteen,’ she said.

‘No, no – listen. I wondered about that, because if he does the crossword every day, and he’s never sure where he’s going to be, then – well,
The Times
isn’t like the
Sun
, is it? You can’t be certain there’ll be one left if you just buy it wherever you happen to be, because newsagents don’t get vast numbers of it in. So I got someone to ring all the newsagents close to where he lives.’ He rocked for a moment. ‘And he gets it delivered.’

‘So?’

‘So why did he buy one from Mrs Archer? Why didn’t he just bring his own paper from home?’

‘There could be a dozen reasons,’ she said. ‘Maybe it was put through the wrong door. Maybe the back page got ripped when he took it out of the letter box, and he couldn’t do the crossword in that one, so he bought another one. Maybe he just forgot it.’

‘Mm,’ said Lloyd. ‘Just seems odd, that’s all.’

She frowned. ‘Supposing he did get one delivered, and then bought another one?’ she asked. ‘What would he gain by that?’

‘Well,’ said Lloyd. ‘If he had left one paper inadvertently at the scene of the crime, a second one could just possibly give him an alibi.’

‘He killed Bailey before breakfast, then went to the café and bought one specially so he could pretend to have dropped it in the farmhouse when he went up there an hour later?’ Judy looked sceptical, but she wasn’t just dismissing it, Lloyd noticed. ‘He’d have had to have known that Paxton was going to get that call,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ Lloyd said. ‘He would. Wouldn’t he?’

Judy looked interested. ‘I did get a slight reaction from Rachel Bailey when I asked her about
The Times
,’ she said, then shook her head. ‘The person on the video left the farm at twenty to three in the morning,’ she said. ‘Law’s paper hadn’t left the wholesalers.’

It had taken her longer than usual to spot the rather large flaw in his reasoning, he thought. In fact, she seemed not to be giving any of this case a hundred per cent of her attention. But ninety-five per cent of Judy’s attention was worth a hundred of anyone else’s, so it hardly mattered. He smiled to himself. Was she
that
worried about Rachel Bailey’s influence? He’d like to think that she was. She had never seemed one jot jealous of him before. But she wouldn’t have asked that question at all, never mind in the middle of the working day, if Rachel Bailey’s potent charm wasn’t worrying her, however slightly.

Judy bit into her next sandwich, then her eyes widened, and she spoke in an unladylike fashion, with her mouth full. ‘But if he’d been in London the night before,’ she said, ‘and caught the eleven-thirty train, he could have bought it there.’

‘Yes!’ Lloyd said, bringing the chair down with a thump. Judy looked relieved, like she always did when he made a safe landing. He smiled broadly at her. He had known if he ran it past Judy, she’d home in on what was eluding him, even if she wasn’t her usual alert self

‘Can we find out where it was bought?’ she asked.

He wasn’t sure. ‘In old British movies,’ he said, ‘the detective could always trace a paper back to
exactly
where it was purchased. There was a code on them. Is there still? Or did that go with hot-metal type?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Judy. ‘But we’ve still got the paper.’

Lloyd frowned. ‘ Didn’t it go to forensic?’

‘No. There didn’t seem much point, because so many people handle newspapers before they ever go to whoever actually buys them. I thought I’d leave it as a last resort.’

‘Good.’ Lloyd picked up the phone, and demanded that it be brought to him immediately if not sooner. It arrived in commendably quick time, folded into a plastic bag; he could see the whole of the top of the front page, and there was no code. But it might be on the back page, which he couldn’t see, so he rang the press officer, and asked her to check her copy for codes.

‘Nothing on the back,’ she said, after a moment. ‘ But are you sure there isn’t one on yours? There’s a number and a letter just under the masthead on this one.’

Lloyd rang
The Times
. It was distribution he wanted, according to the switchboard, and distribution he got. He introduced himself. ‘What does it mean,’ he asked, ‘if one of your editions has no code number on it? Is it worth a fortune?’

The man at the other end laughed. ‘I’m afraid not,’ he said. ‘It just means it’s a London first edition.’

‘You mean the edition that’s on the streets at eleven o’clock the night before?’

‘That’s it.’

‘The edition that you would buy at a stall, like … say … the one at King’s Cross station?’

‘Yes.’

‘And
only
that edition?’

‘Only that edition,’ he said. ‘The London first edition. All the others have a letter and number code on them.’

Lloyd beamed. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘ You have made me a very happy man.’

‘Glad I could be of help,’ he said.

It was good, but, obeying Case’s orders, Judy pointed out that it was a bit airy-fairy for arrests and search warrants and all the rest of it. What they really wanted was proof that it was Law who had been on that train, and Barton station had security cameras.

He stood up. ‘Barton railway station, then,’ he said, polishing off his drink. ‘Hard evidence. Let’s go.’

Barton station was big and busy and had been a hunting ground for pickpockets and flashers and even the odd mugger until it had got the surveillance equipment in. It had cameras everywhere. Except on the trains themselves.

‘They watch the people, not the trains,’ said the chief security officer. ‘I mean, one or two might take in a part of a train while it’s in the station, but you couldn’t guarantee it.’

‘What about the concourse?’

‘Yes, there’s plenty there. You can’t enter or leave the station without a camera picking you up. What time was this train?’

‘It would arrive in Barton at about twelve-thirty a.m.,’ said Lloyd.

‘Oh, well, it would be quiet then. It’s pandemonium an hour earlier than that, but it’s pretty dead after midnight. Shouldn’t be too difficult to spot your man. Most people on that train are going further north than this.’

He and Judy settled down to look at more videos. A trickle of people came through the automatic doors. A man in his fifties. A couple with small, fractious children. Two women on their own, one carrying luggage, the other not. It was fascinating, watching people, thought Lloyd. Maybe he
would
become a security man when he retired, after years of saying that he would sooner nail his head to the floor. The man used the phone. The family and one of the women waited just inside the exit doors, presumably for whoever was coming to pick them up. A member of staff came through, carrying an anorak, and handed it in to Lost Property. Lloyd observed that some absent-minded trainspotter must have found it a bit too hot for the uniform. Judy smiled. The security officer did not. The other woman, the one with the bag, went out, probably to the taxis. The children sat on the suitcases and were given small chocolate bars to cheer them up a bit. Another person came through; a youth with a backpack. He too went straight out. They watched until everyone had been picked up by their various cars. Even watched the cars arrive, from the camera on the road outside. No Law.