Scene of Crime (26 page)

Leeward nodded slowly.

Tom was startled; he almost forgot to mention it for the tape’s benefit. “Dr. Leeward nods his head,” he said.

“Are you admitting that you were in the Bignalls’ house last night?” Lloyd asked.

“Yes,” said Leeward.

Lloyd picked up his pen; it was Tom’s turn now. “Why did you go there?” he asked.

“She hadn’t turned up. I knew something had to be wrong—it was too important to her for her just not to turn up.”

“What was?”

Leeward smiled a little. “Her methadone.”

Tom stared at him, feeling his face grow red with anger. Freddie had phoned less than an hour ago and said he hadn’t found any evidence of drugs in her system at all. What was Leeward trying to pull? “Are you trying to tell us she was a drug addict?” he said.

Leeward shook his head. “No,” he said. “I was speaking figuratively.”

“Well, I’d rather you spoke English.”

“
I
was her methadone. I was trying to reduce her dependency on Carl, that’s all.”

“How?”

“By proving to her that she was desirable.”

“How?”

Leeward still smiled. “The usual way,” he said.

Tom ran a hand over his cropped hair and didn’t speak for a moment, because if he had, he would have been calling Leeward very unpleasant names. “Are you now
saying you
were
having an affair with Estelle Bignall?” he said, when he felt able to be civil.

“Yes,” Leeward said. “If you want to call it that.”

“What would you call it?”

“Therapy.”

“Therapy?”

“Yes. But—it wasn’t something I set out to do. I didn’t mean it to happen. It just did. I thought it would help her. She was obsessed with him, and she … she seemed so alone. She said he wouldn’t have anything to do with her, that he hated her, that she was so unattractive that he couldn’t bear to touch her. Yes. At the time, I thought it was therapy.”

Tom jumped on that. “At the time?” he repeated. “What do you think it was now?”

Leeward shook his head, and thought for a moment. When he spoke, it was in a mocking tone, stressing the word “think” each time he used it.

“I think,” he said, “I was allowing myself to be deceived. I think she might not have told me the truth about their marriage, because Carl is devastated now that she’s dead. I think I was just jealous of Carl, and I think she knew that, used that knowledge to … ensnare me, I suppose. That, Sergeant Finch, is what I think.”

Tom was open-mouthed. “You took advantage of a vulnerable patient, and now you’re saying she seduced
you
?”

“I suppose you’ve been made to believe that Estelle was a raving lunatic,” Leeward said.

“No,” said Tom, his voice cold. “We’ve been told she was a manic-depressive.”

Leeward smiled again. “Labels,” he said. “It’s very easy to put labels on people. Psychiatrists love doing it.”

“Are you saying there was nothing wrong with her?”

“No. There’s no doubt she had psychological problems. But I think that Carl has a tendency to blow them out of proportion. He behaved to the outside world as though there were no problems at all, and all that does is exaggerate what problems there are when you have to go home to them.”

“Is this relevant?” asked Tom.

“I think so. You said I took advantage of her, but Estelle was perfectly capable of living her life without Carl—she just didn’t believe that she could. She was an intelligent woman, she was popular, she had friends. But she did have low self-esteem, and the impression given to me was that this was because of how Carl saw her. I saw her differently, and at the time I believed she needed to know that.”

“By having sex with her?”

“The ethics involved here don’t actually concern the police,” Lloyd said. “It’s a criminal offense if you work in a mental institution and have sex with a patient whom you know to be mentally ill, but that doesn’t apply here, as I’m sure Dr. Leeward is aware.”

“You’re making it sound as though I
planned
it,” said Leeward. “I just saw her there, in tears, desperate for Carl, who didn’t want her anymore. She thought no one wanted her. I just wanted to prove to her that she was desirable. It was … crazy. I know that now. I think I got it all wrong, anyway, and I don’t know how I allowed it to happen.”

“How you
allowed
it to happen? You
made
it happen!”

“It takes two to tango, Sergeant Finch.”

Tom tried to calm down. As Lloyd had just pointed
out, all this was only relevant in as much as it gave Leeward a motive. He knew that he would be no use to Lloyd if he stayed angry; two-handed interviews only worked if you were aware of what the other was doing, and Lloyd was being the friendly cop. He was the aggressive one, but the aggression wasn’t supposed to be real; Lloyd needed him to be on the team. He took a deep breath and expelled it slowly. “Why did you go there last night?” he asked.

“As I said, I was worried when she didn’t turn up, because it was very important to her. I waited until I knew that Carl would have gone to his rehearsal, and I went over there. The house had been broken into, and I could see her in the kitchen. She was … tied up. Gagged. She was
dead
.”

“I don’t think so,” said Tom. “I think she was alive when you got there. But you found out that she didn’t need your so-called therapy anymore. That’s why you think she lied to you about her marriage, isn’t it? Why you think she deceived you? Because she told you that she and her husband had got it together that very evening.”

“No,” said Leeward, his eyes widening. “No.”

“Then what happened?” Tom carried on, deliberately ignoring Leeward’s denial. “She threatened to tell her husband? You went for her—she tried to get away from you? Ran into the sitting room, making for the French window? You caught her as she opened it, called her names, struggled with her, decided that she had to die. That’s what happened, isn’t it?”

Leeward was shaking his head.

“You were heard! The people next door heard a row. Then a scuffle—that was when you tied her hands so she couldn’t defend herself, wasn’t it?”

“No!”

“And then there was silence,” Tom said. “That was because you had suffocated her, hadn’t you? Then you got to work and made it look as though someone had broken in.”

“No! No, she was dead! She was dead when I got there!”

Lloyd put down his pen. Tom sat back. He had enjoyed that; it had gotten some of the anger he felt out of his system.

“All right, Doctor,” Lloyd said. “Tell me exactly what happened. From the moment you arrived.”

Leeward looked nervously at Tom, then took a deep breath and calmed himself down. “I parked at the rear, but I couldn’t get in that way, because the gates were locked. I was going to go round to the front, but as I walked past the house next door I realized I could get into their garden through that one. So that’s what I did, and when I got to the house, I could see that the French window was broken. I opened it and saw there had been a burglary. And then I saw Estelle. I went to her, and felt her pulse, but she was dead. I didn’t know what to do.”

Lloyd frowned. “You had found a house that had been burgled and a woman dead, and you didn’t know what to do? I can’t really believe that, Dr. Leeward.”

Leeward shook his head. “I had no reason for being there,” he said. “I couldn’t tell how long she’d been dead—I couldn’t say she’d called me out, because for all I knew she might not have been able to. I had known Carl would be out, so I couldn’t have been calling on him. Don’t you see? If I’d called the police, it would all have come out. I’d lose my job, my marriage—everything. Everything. And
she was dead—there was nothing anyone could do for her. It would have helped no one, and done a great deal of harm.”

He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, blew his nose. “Maybe if I’d taken just a moment to think I would have come to my senses. But I ran. I ran back out, and over the wall, but it was dark, and there were bricks piled up—I fell and hurt my ribs.” He paused in his account to pull his shirt out and show them his bruised ribs, as though that proved something. “I picked myself up, got over the wall, and suddenly a light came on. I almost died of fright, and I just kept going until I got to the car. It wasn’t until I was driving away that I realized I was only wearing one glove. I’d taken the other one off to feel for a pulse.”

Lloyd shook his head. “Dr. Leeward, I’m sorry, but your story doesn’t add up.”

Leeward stared at him. “What?”

“What time did you get there?”

“I don’t know for certain.”

“Where had you arranged to meet Mrs. Bignall?”

“We met at the surgery.”

“What time did you leave the surgery?”

“Quarter to eight—I wanted to be certain Carl was gone by the time I got there.”

“And the journey takes how long?”

“I don’t know … fifteen, twenty minutes. I got there just after eight, I think. A few minutes after eight.”

“At a few minutes after eight the next door neighbors heard an altercation between a man and a woman. Then silence. Then a few minutes after that they heard a window breaking. Four people heard the window breaking, and
one heard the bricks being dislodged. They all saw the security light. And you triggered it when you ran away. I think you broke that window. I think you killed Estelle Bignall and faked a burglary.”

“No, no. No!”

Tom supposed that anyone who could convince himself that it was okay to screw your psychologically disturbed patients could convince himself that he hadn’t done away with them, because Leeward truly seemed to believe that they had the wrong man. But five witnesses, even if one of them was Ryan Chester, was a bit difficult to get around.

“I—I saw the man who did it!” Leeward shouted. “He was trying to steal my car! He ran away.”

That clinched it. Tom had never felt kindly disposed toward Ryan Chester, unlike Judy Hill. But he did now. Because he was going to put Leeward where he belonged.

Lloyd sighed. “Denis Leeward, I am arresting you on suspicion of murder. You do not …”

There was no reaction as Lloyd went through it all again, making certain the procedure was followed to the letter, because Leeward obviously knew something about all of this, and one slip-up could cause trouble if you weren’t careful. Leeward was sitting there, his eyes wide, but they weren’t seeing Lloyd, Tom was sure.

“You have the right to have someone informed of your arrest, and you can make a telephone call if you wish,” Lloyd concluded.

“I think,” Leeward said slowly, “that it was when I found the glass in the sole of my shoe that I knew I couldn’t hope to get away with it.”

“With what?” said Tom. “Murdering Estelle Bignall?”

His eyes seemed to focus for the first time since Lloyd
had arrested him. “No,” he said. “And I don’t want to answer any more questions.”

“Very well,” said Lloyd. “Interview terminated, 7:05
P.M
. We’ll see how you feel in the morning, Dr. Leeward. I would advise you to think very carefully about legal representation. Take Dr. Leeward to the custody suite, Sergeant Finch.”

Tom got wearily to his feet and took Leeward’s arm.

“Can I phone my wife?” he asked.

“What’s going on, Dex?”

Dexter looked at Ryan, his eyes wide with would-be innocence. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“I mean why were you anywhere near the Bignalls’ house last night?”

“I went for a walk.”

“Come on, Dex—don’t give me that! What were you doing there? Who did that to you?” He shook his head. “And why did you lie about me?”

Dexter frowned. “I didn’t,” he said.

“You told them I wasn’t there! You said you hadn’t seen a car there!”

Dexter was shaking his head. “I didn’t,” he said.

Ryan leapt to his feet. “Were they lying to me? They’ve no right to do that. If they were lying, I’ll—”

“No,” Dex said, agitated. “No, Ryan—listen! I didn’t mean I hadn’t said that. I meant I
didn’t
see you. Or a car.”

“But you must have!”

“I didn’t,” said Dex. “There was no one there. The road was empty.”

Ryan sat down again. What the hell was going on? He hadn’t imagined the bloody car. So if Dexter really hadn’t
seen him, then it was Dexter who wasn’t there. He looked at him. “Where were you?” he asked.

“Eliot Way.”

“Before you were in Eliot Way.”

“Nowhere.” He looked scared.

“Dexter, tell me where you were!”

“I wasn’t anywhere!”

And with that, he ran upstairs. Ryan heard his bedroom door slam, heard him crying. He thought about going after him, then thought better of it. He’d get nowhere. Better to leave him alone, let him calm down.

Whoever had done that to him had scared him. Scared him into lying about everything he’d done, everything he’d seen. And Dex
had
been a bit funny for a long time now, now that he came to think of it. His mother had noticed long before it got to this stage, and as usual had ignored it for as long as she could. But he had to have it rammed down his throat, hadn’t noticed until the poor kid was beaten up and was upstairs crying his eyes out because he was too scared to tell even him the truth about what had gone on in Windermere Terrace last night.

Neither of them had been much help to Dex, whatever it was that he’d gotten himself mixed up in.

“He’s been
arrested
?” Carl wouldn’t have believed that things could become more incomprehensible, but they just had.

“He’s at the Stansfield police station. I wanted to go, but he said they were locking him up for the night and I wouldn’t be allowed to see him anyway.”

Carl sat down with her on the sofa. Perhaps he was
jumping to conclusions. “But what’s he been arrested for?” he asked. “Drunk driving or something?”

She shook her head. “It—It’s about Estelle, Carl,” she said, her voice a whisper. “He says they’ve arrested him on suspicion of murder. It’s ridiculous—I don’t understand what’s going on. It’s obviously all some dreadful mistake. I don’t understand why he hasn’t told them that he was with his—”

“But—why?” Carl spoke through whatever she was saying. His head was spinning. “What’s Denis got to do with what happened to Estelle? Why on earth would they—” And then, in the world’s slowest double take, he realized why the police had been so certain his car had been outside his house last night.