The Chief Inspector's Daughter (21 page)

Potter certainly had a motive, for robbery and for rape if not for murder. And as the DCI was fond of pointing out, violence fuels itself and can turn to murder all too easily.

Tait glanced at one of the photographs, in which Jasmine was posed elegantly on the sofa behind which, several weeks later, her body had been found. ‘A good-looking woman, wasn't she?' he said, deliberately needling Potter to see how the man would react. ‘I knew her well – we were friends. Close friends, you might say.' He smiled reminiscently over the photograph. ‘She had a beautiful body … but then, I expect you remember that, don't you?'

An angry, strangled noise rose in Potter's throat. He took a menacing step towards the sergeant and raised his hands. His face was pale, his eyes staring.

Tait backed, suddenly alarmed by the realization that he had pushed the man too far.
God
, he thought, remembering the violence with which Jasmine had been murdered and measuring himself disadvantageously against her former husband,
what an idiot I was to bait the man when I'm here alone
! He tried to shift unobtrusively towards the door, and at the same time remember what he had learned, and had so far had no opportunity to put into practice, about unarmed combat. Was it better to run, and live to be a prudent chief constable, or to die an heroic sergeant?

Potter made a grab. Tait ducked, dropping the magazine, and vaulted over an armchair, putting it between himself and his assailant. Then he staightened, and took a deep breath. Potter hadn't harmed his wife and family, and the chances were that he wouldn't resort to violence in his own home. Tait decided to arrest him now, and call in the local police immediately for support. He stepped forward resolutely, and put out a hand to make the mandatory arresting contact. ‘Robert John Potter—' he began.

But he missed, because Potter was in process of bending to pick up the magazine, smooth out the pages and replace it on the coffee table.

‘I'm sorry,' the man mumbled awkwardly. ‘I shouldn't have snatched at the magazine like that. Hell, I've been divorced from her for nearly ten years, so your relationship with her is none of my business.' He moved an Action Man toy from a chair, sat down and blew his nose. His eyes had blurred over with tears, and he wiped them shamefacedly. ‘The fact is that I've been distressed by her death, though I tried not to let on to Jill when we saw the news on regional television last night. So when I saw you looking at Jasmine's photograph, and heard you talking about her like that, I felt that I couldn't stand for it. When you know that a woman you once loved has been murdered, you don't want her to be sullied any further.'

Tait's adrenalin had ebbed, leaving him limp. He sat down abruptly opposite Potter. ‘If it's any consolation to you, I didn't sully Jasmine,' he confessed. ‘I knew her slightly, and I liked her and admired her, but I didn't get anywhere near her. That was only wishful thinking.'

Potter nodded. ‘A lot of the men we knew used to indulge in that. It was the same with me, sometimes. She looked a lot sexier than she was.'

They exchanged wry grins, and then two fair chunky little boys rushed in from the kitchen to kiss their father good-bye before they went to school. Potter's face lightened immediately. He tousled their hair, went with them to the front door, meekly accepted his wife's rebuke for messing up their hair just after she had brushed it, and waved them out of sight.

‘Come and have some breakfast,' he said to Tait when they had gone. ‘If you've driven down from Suffolk you must be hungry.'

Jill Potter smiled hospitably as the sergeant, embarrassed into silence, entered the kitchen. It was a small room crowded with scuffed electrical appliances on which were piled clothes in various stages of the laundering process. On the formica-covered table were the remains of the boys'boiled eggs, a tangle of small damp socks and a bulky carton of washing powder. There were just two slices of streaky bacon in the pan that Mrs Potter was holding; she herself appeared to be breakfasting from a mug of coffee.

‘Bacon?' she offered. ‘Do have this if you'd like it, I can easily cook some more for Bob.'

Tait assured her untruthfully that he had already eaten on the way down, but he accepted coffee. Potter made it, with boiling water and a spoonful of a cheap blend of powdered coffee and chicory. ‘Milk and sugar?' he enquired, offering Tait a bottle of one and a bag of the other. The men squeezed together side by side on the narrow bench at the table. ‘Sergeant Tait came down to tell me about Jasmine,' he explained to his wife.

Jill's face clouded. ‘Yes – poor woman, what a terrible thing to happen.' She paused in the act of feeding the washing machine with dirty clothes, and went slightly pink. ‘It probably sounds odd, but I've always felt that she was part of the family, in a way. I'm rather proud of the connection. I borrowed a
House and Owner
from a friend last week because there was a feature about Jasmine in it. I was a fan of hers before I met Bob, and I simply couldn't believe that he seriously wanted to marry me after being married to a woman like her …'

Potter looked up from his bacon and gave his wife a fond, totally committed smile. ‘Jasmine could never be bothered to learn how to make a good Yorkshire pudding,' he said.

‘Yes, but still … with her looks and her money …' Jill Potter returned her husband's glance, half questioning, half teasing, steadfastly affectionate. And then her smile vanished and she turned aggressively to Tait.

‘
That's
why you're here, isn't it?' she demanded. ‘Not to tell Bob that Jasmine is dead, but to find out whether he killed her. He's one of your suspects, isn't he?'

Tait put down his mug. ‘We have to make routine enquiries,' he agreed.

‘I suppose you do,' said Potter. His wife began to say something indignant, but he interrupted her. ‘It's understandable, Jill, and we've got nothing to hide. If you want me to account for my movements, I took young Mark to the dentist yesterday morning, and in the afternoon we went round to Jill's mother's.'

She snatched his empty plate with an angry burst of energy and then stood behind him, pressing the other hand on his shoulder. ‘Bob's the last person in the world who would hurt anyone,' she protested. ‘It's unthinkable! Oh, you can check what we were doing yesterday, I can give you the addresses, but you'll just be wasting your time.'

‘What about the night before?' asked Tait. ‘What were you doing on Sunday evening?'

Husband and wife looked at each other uncertainly. Potter scratched his blond head. ‘Well … nothing I can prove to you. We were here, at home – we haven't any money to spare for outings while I'm on strike. I'd gardened most of the day, and I had a stiff back, so I was glad to put my feet up in the evening. We all watched the children's television serial, and then we had supper and put the boys to bed. Then Mark woke crying with toothache, and then the dog threw up at the foot of the stairs … just a perfectly ordinary family sort of evening.'

Sergeant Tait thanked them for the coffee, and said good-bye to Jill Potter. Her husband accompanied the detective to the front door.

‘Am I really under suspicion?' he asked.

‘We always keep an open mind until a case is wrapped up, but if your conscience is clear you needn't lose any sleep over it,' said Tait. ‘Tell me, have you see Jasmine since your divorce? Or kept in touch with her in any way?'

Potter shook his head. ‘We'd drifted apart completely long before the divorce came through. We married too young, that was the trouble – we loved each other, but we hadn't enough in common to make a good marriage. I wanted a family, and Jasmine didn't. And then she started writing her books, and she began to withdraw from me. In the end I felt that her fiction gave her more satisfaction than I did.' He hesitated. ‘Did she marry again?'

‘No. I don't think she was really the marrying kind.'

‘That was probably our trouble,' Potter agreed. He looked Tait over. ‘Are you married yourself?'

‘Not yet.' The sergeant's disapproving glance took in the chipped and fingermarked paintwork of the doors, the domestic clutter, the stain on the carpet at the foot of the stairs. His visit to the Potters had reinforced his intention not to marry before he could support a family in a more spacious style; and he certainly intended to find himself a more decorative wife than Bob Potter had settled for.

But Potter, his composure completely regained, was smiling with contentment. ‘I can recommend it,' he said. ‘There's nothing to beat married life – as long as you can find yourself a wife like Jill rather than Jasmine.'

Looking back at the house as he got into his car, Tait saw that Jill Potter had joined her husband on the front step. They stood for a moment with their arms round each other, and then they turned and went inside and closed the door. Tait, his hand raised in a farewell gesture that they hadn't noticed, had an unaccustomed sensation of being excluded.

‘Frankly, sir,' said WPC Hopkins firmly, ‘if this trip's going to land any more two-year-old dribblers on my lap, I'd rather you took someone else.'

Chief Inspector Quantrill assured her that Oliver Buxton's fiancée was unlikely to have acquired a child of any age during the preceding six weeks. ‘But from what little I saw of the girl at Jasmine Woods's party, she seemed very highly strung. She's probably het-up anyway, with her wedding in the offing, and she's bound to be very distressed about the murder. She may be reluctant to talk about her former employer at all, and she'll certainly prefer to talk to another woman rather than to me.'

Patsy Hopkins agreed. It was a sunny, windy morning, and a drive into Norfolk in civilian clothes with Douglas Quantrill was a much pleasanter prospect than a routine patrol round Breckham with spotty young PC Fowler, looking for any trouble that might be brewing in the London overspill estates that circled the old town.

‘No news of your daughter?' she asked, as they crossed the river boundary between Suffolk and Norfolk.

‘None at all,' said Quantrill gloomily. That was one of the reasons why he had sought Patsy Hopkins's company. The relentless optimism that he felt obliged to display to his wife was very wearing, and he needed to be able to talk honestly to someone who was sympathetic but not emotionally involved. ‘I'm worried as hell, Patsy, I don't mind telling you.' He rehearsed his fears to her. ‘Any suggestions?' he begged. ‘Any ideas?'

‘I did wonder whether Alison might have got to know someone in Thirling during the time she worked at Yeoman's – someone she liked and might go to if she wanted to hide. For instance, did Jasmine Woods have any domestic help?'

‘Yes, a Mrs Fornice Pearce. The boys doing house-to-house enquiries unearthed her – she accounts for a lot of the fingerprints at Yeoman's. Sergeant Tait interviewed her yesterday: a widowed pensioner, rather deaf. She worked three mornings a week at Yeoman's, and was last there on Friday. She wasn't able to give him any useful information as far as the murder's concerned, and I don't recall Alison ever mentioning her so I doubt she'd go there. But it's worth a try. Anything's worth a try. We'll do another house-to-house at Thirling.' Quantrill was about to radio an instruction to the incident room when a personal call came through to him from the station sergeant at Divisional Headquarters.

‘We've just had some information about your daughter, sir.'

Quantrill did a copy-book emergency stop. ‘Yes?'

‘A girl answering her description and carrying a small suitcase was picked up by a private hire-car in Breckham market place at about ten last night. She'd rung for the car from a call-box, saying that she wanted to go to Yarchester. The driver said she seemed upset – she hardly spoke on the journey, and he thought that she was crying. She asked him to drop her in Horsefair Street, at the castle end. He asked if she'd be all right, but she seemed to have pulled herself together by that time. She said that she was going to visit a friend, and he saw her go to a public telephone as he was driving off. That would have been at about half-past ten, he thinks.'

Quantrill thanked him, eased his car further into the side of the country road and then sat silent, rubbing his chin. His instinct was to turn the car and head for Yarchester in search of his daughter, but his sense of discipline restrained him. He was, after all, busy with a murder investigation; and if Alison had gone to Yarchester to visit a friend, there was no reason to be concerned for her safety.

‘She must be all right, then,' said WPC Hopkins, echoing his thoughts. ‘At least you can be sure that there wasn't anyone lurking round your house trying to silence her. You know for sure that she hasn't been abducted or tried to hitch a lift, and that she hasn't done anything silly like jumping in the river. Panic over, wouldn't you say?'

Quantrill relaxed. He smiled at her. ‘You're right, Patsy. I must find her, of course – quite apart from wanting to know where she is, I need to talk to her about what she saw at Yeoman's yesterday morning. But there's no point in my going blundering about looking for her. The Yarchester boys can do that – though if they make as much of a success of it as they have of finding Gilbert Smith …'

He turned gloomy again. Smith was still, in default of evidence pointing to anyone else, the number one suspect. If he had any connection with the murder, and if Alison – who might well know where to find him – had gone to Yarchester to join him, thinking of him as a friend, she could be walking right into danger instead of out of it.

The Chief Inspector radioed instructions from his car to Divisional Headquarters. Someone – preferably WPC Beth Knowles – was to visit Mrs Quantrill immediately to tell her that Alison had gone to Yarchester the previous evening to stay with one of her friends; and Mrs Quantrill was to be asked to suggest the names and addresses of anyone she knew, or thought Alison might know, living in or near the city. This information was to be passed straight to Detective Inspector Carrow of the Yarchester division, who would be expecting it. Mrs Quantrill was not, repeat not, on any account to be allowed to think that there was any further anxiety over their daughter's safety.