Element of Doubt Page 18

  Thanet waited until Lineham had fetched the tissues and she was rather more composed, then said, ‘Look, Mrs Speed, I can guess how painful all this is for you. There’s absolutely no need for you to be here while we’re talking to Mr Speed. Why don’t you go and lie down for a little while? Your husband will call you for us, when we need to see you … And if you’re not feeling well enough, then we’ll leave it until another day.’

  Long before he had finished his little speech she was shaking her head.

  ‘No, I’d rather stay, thank you. Really.’

  Thanet guessed that she would prefer to know exactly what was going on in here than lie on her bed in a torment of uncertainty and speculation. He gave a slight shrug. ‘As you wish.’ He glanced from wife to husband and then said, ‘Perhaps it might help and perhaps hurry things along a little if I openly state what I hinted at just now. We do know about Mrs Tarrant and your son.’

  He had guessed that this would produce more tears, and he was right. Mrs Tarrant briefly turned her face into her husband’s shoulder and he put his arm around her. After a moment she sat up again, blew her nose and whispered, ‘I’m sorry. It’s just that … I can’t …’ And she shook her head, at a loss for words. Finally she raised her head and looked directly at Thanet. ‘I still find it difficult to believe.’

  ‘I can imagine. I’m sorry.’

  She studied his face, and after a moment said with a note of surprise, ‘Yes, I believe you are.’

  ‘It must have been a tremendous shock to you.’

  ‘Yes.’ She glanced at her husband and added bitterly, ‘To both of us, in different ways.’

  ‘There was a row, I believe,’ said Thanet.

  ‘Yes.’ She frowned at the memory, and blew her nose again. ‘Tim …’

  Thanet said nothing, waited.

  She gave a little shrug. ‘Tim says it was her doing. That the idea would never have entered his head, if she hadn’t made the first move. To him she was just Damon’s mother, that’s all. And then … But I don’t want to go into all that. It happened, that’s all, and somehow I’m going to have to learn to accept it.’

  ‘How long had it been going on?’

  She was studiously avoiding looking at her husband now. ‘A couple of weeks, so far as I can gather.’

  ‘And you suspected something of the sort, Mr Speed?’

  ‘Yes. But …’ His voice was hoarse and he paused to clear his throat. ‘But not that it was … him, of course.’ He obviously couldn’t bring himself to say his son’s name in this context.

  ‘So you decided to try to find out who had supplanted you.’

  Speed nodded.

  It had been exactly as they thought. Speed became suspicious when Nerine started putting him off. He knew her routine for entertaining her lovers over the lunch hour and on the day of the murder he decided to spy on her, to try to find out who his rival was. In the normal way of things Tarrant never returned home during the day and Speed had been disconcerted to see his Mercedes turn into the drive. But it had occurred to him that Tarrant’s return home might have been unexpected. If Nerine were entertaining a lover it would be interesting to see what transpired. And he might yet learn who his rival was.

  So he had carried out his plan, parking in the field and entering the garden via the back gate as usual, then hiding in the rhododendron bushes, a vantage point which gave him a good view of both front and side entrances.

  He had been there only a minute or so when Tarrant came out in a hurry, jumped into his car and drove off. He had looked upset and Speed wondered what had happened in the house. He knew that Nerine always locked her bedroom door when entertaining, and thought that Tarrant had perhaps heard voices inside and jumped to the obvious conclusion.

  ‘You didn’t think that in that case he might have forced some sort of confrontation? Hammered on the door? Gone around onto the balcony and tried to get in through the french windows?’

  Speed shook his head. ‘No.’ He shifted uncomfortably. ‘He … His attitude to Nerine’s boyfriends was very peculiar. I mean, he used to behave as though it wasn’t happening, even when it obviously was, right under his nose! I could never understand it.’

  Mrs Speed was sitting tight-lipped, nostrils pinched as though there were a bad smell in the room.

  Speed cast her an apologetic glance, then said, ‘Anyway, I thought it was worth hanging on a bit longer, just in case there was someone with her. And then, about ten minutes later …’

  ‘All right,’ said Thanet. There was no point in rubbing salt into the wound. ‘We can guess what happened next. You saw Tim come out, realised you couldn’t have a shouting match there and then in Mrs Tarrant’s garden, and ordered him home. Why? You knew your wife would be here. I should have thought she’d be the last person you’d want around, in the circumstances.’

  ‘She wasn’t supposed to be here,’ said Speed sullenly. ‘I’d told her I wouldn’t be back, dinnertime, and she said in that case she’d ring up a friend of hers, go shopping with her in Sturrenden and have a bite to eat in the town.’

  ‘But Betty had already made other arrangements,’ put in Mrs Speed, ‘so I didn’t go.’

  ‘I see.’ More lies, said his tone. He distinctly remembered both of them giving the impression that Speed had all along intended going home for lunch that day.

  ‘So what happened?’

  Speed was studiously avoiding looking at his wife. ‘She could see something was wrong, straight away.

  “Lance! I thought you said you weren’t coming home? I haven’t got anything ready for … What’s the matter? What is it?”

  “I … Oh God.”

  “Lance. Tell me.”

  “It’s Tim.”

  “Tim? What’s happened to him? Has there been an accident? He’s not … He’s not … dead?”

  “No, nothing like that. He’s all right. But …”

  “But what? Lance, just tell me, will you?”

  “I don’t know how to. I’ve just found out …”

  “WHAT?”

  “That he’s been … having it off, with Mrs Tarrant. Oh God, Ceel, I’m sorry. Don’t look at me like that. He’ll be here any minute. I sent him home. I thought you’d be out.”

  ‘And then Tim came home,’ said Speed, ‘and there was the most almighty row. He didn’t stay long, walked out in the middle of it.’

  ‘I’m surprised he went back to work in the garage that afternoon, after all that.’

  ‘I said he’d bloody better, or he could say goodbye to his nice little holiday job, and they don’t grow on trees these days, you know. I stayed behind with Ceel for a while. She was in a bit of a state.’

  Scarcely surprising, thought Thanet, after that little bombshell had landed in her lap. ‘And then what?’

  The staccato question made them exchange a look of surprised alarm.

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Speed. ‘You know what happened then. We told you, last time you was here.’

  ‘You mean, you went back to the garage as if nothing had happened, worked there all afternoon, took a car out for a test drive for twenty minutes at around a quarter past five, then shut up shop and came home as usual.’

  ‘Yes. Yes!’

  ‘No little detours to High Gables, to see Mrs Tarrant?’

  ‘No! Look, Inspector, you wanted the whole truth and now you’ve got it.’

  ‘Have I? How do I know you’re not lying, Mr Speed?’

  ‘Because I’m not! I swear it.’

  ‘That’s what you said last time. And the time before. That’s the trouble with telling lies, you see, Mr Speed. You destroy your own credibility.’

  This was unanswerable. Speed’s lips tightened, but he said nothing.

  Thanet turned to Speed’s wife. ‘And you, Mrs Speed?’

  Without looking at her husband, Celia Speed said calmly, ‘After the row with Tim I was furious with Mrs Tarrant.’ Her chin lifted a little ‘I had every reason to be, I think you’ll agree.
First my husband, then my son … I decided I’d go and tell her exactly what I thought of her.’

  Speed obviously knew all this. He shook his head in resigned exasperation. His wife ignored him but there was a note of defiance as she continued.

  ‘I couldn’t go straight away because of the meeting in the village hall. I’d been asked to give the vote of thanks, to the speaker. Afterwards, well, I wanted to get it over with and in fact I walked as far as the gates of High Gables … But old Mr Parkin was expecting me. He’s got arthritis and we all take it in turns to give him a hand. I always go on Thursday afternoons, and I was already late because of the meeting. So I visited him first, then went back to High Gables again. This time I actually got as far as walking up the drive.’

  ‘And then?’

  Mrs Speed’s plump cheeks quivered as she shook her head. ‘I couldn’t do it. I … I’m not the sort of person who goes in for rows, and I was still feeling all churned up after the one at dinnertime. And, well …’

  She gave her husband an uncertain, embarrassed glance, and Thanet wondered what was coming. ‘You may think me stupid, Inspector, but people like Mrs Tarrant always make me feel nervous. Well, inferior, I suppose. I mean, she was so beautiful, always so elegant, so confident … I just lost my nerve. I told myself I hadn’t given up the idea, but I’d do it another day, when I was feeling better, and, you know, had got myself ready.’

  Had had her hair done, armoured herself in her smartest clothes, and was feeling her unconfident best, Thanet supposed. He winced at the thought of such a confrontation and was glad that Celia Speed had at least been spared that. There was no doubt in his mind as to who would have come off best.

  ‘And then …’ She shrugged. ‘I just came home.’

  And nothing could shake either of them. These were their stories and they were sticking to them. After a while Thanet decided that it was pointless to continue.

  He and Lineham walked back to High Gables to pick up the car. It was very hot, the sun high in a sky of the purest cerulean blue. The cottage gardens were a brilliant kaleidoscope of colour, canvases crowded with the strawberry pink of foxgloves creamy-white at the throat, the frothy gold of alchemilla, the sprawling mauve of catmint and everywhere the pinks and reds, yellows and apricots of roses in full bloom.

  ‘Well, if either of the Speeds did it, it looks as though we’re going to have to produce some pretty cast-iron evidence before they’ll admit it,’ said Lineham.

  ‘Mmm.’ Thanet paused to inhale the fragrance of a clump of sweet rocket growing through a white picket fence. ‘Let’s hope forensic come up with something useful. Let’s see, it’s Saturday. With any luck we might have something through from fingerprints on Monday. And the PM should be finished by now, so I expect Doc Mallard will give us a verbal report this afternoon. Not that I’m expecting too much from that.’

  It was just before two o’clock and outside the village hall a little queue had formed.

  ‘Didn’t know jumble sales were so popular,’ said Lineham.

  Thanet grinned. ‘Quite a lot of people become addicted, I believe. Joan tells me that lots of dealers comb the local paper for jumble sale ads and get in there fast, in the hope of bargains. She usually runs the white elephant stall at our church bazaar and the second the doors open people come streaming in as if it were the first day of Harrods’ sale. They know exactly what they want. There’s one chap who always hunts for brass, makes for her stall like a homing pigeon, turns everything over, grabs what he wants and is off, presumably to his next target, within a matter of minutes.’

  ‘Scavengers.’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘Look, I bet that’s one, sir.’

  Among the straggle of determined women with carrier bags was a seedy-looking character in stained corduroys, a grubby checked shirt and greasy anorak.

  ‘No prize for that observation, Mike.’

  ‘There’s Mrs Haywood.’

  Beatrix Haywood was approaching from the other direction, scarves a-flutter. She spotted them, raised a hand in greeting and came to ask if there were any news of Damon before pushing past the queue. She knocked on the door and was admitted.

  ‘Helping on one of the stalls, I expect,’ said Lineham.

  ‘Mmm.’ Thanet was trying to decide what to do next, but he needn’t have bothered; over the car radio they learned that Halo Buzzard had been picked up and brought in for questioning.

  ‘Who knows?’ said Thanet as they sped back to Sturrenden. ‘We could have been running around in circles for nothing. Buzzard is, after all, the only person known to have uttered threats against her.’

  In most murder cases, as Thanet knew well, the most obvious suspect usually turns out to be the murderer. He had had just such a case himself, only last year. This might well turn out to be another.

  ‘Yes, ten years ago! That’s why I doubt if it’ll come to anything. For one thing, ten years is a long time to cool off. For another, no one who has spent ten years inside is going to risk spending another ten unless there’s a pretty hefty profit in it.’

  ‘It’s also a long time to brood over a grievance.’

  ‘I know. But still …’

  Buzzard was in a belligerent mood. As soon as Thanet entered the room he jumped to his feet.

  ‘’Ere, what the ’ell’s going on? There was I, behaving meself, ’aving a nice quiet drink with me mates and in come you lot and before I know where I am I’m stuck in ’ere and left to cool me ’eels for an hour. I got better things to do with me time, you know.’

  ‘And so have I. So let’s get on with it, shall we, Buzzard?’

  The reason for the man’s nickname was immediately obvious. Thanet knew that ‘Halo’ was thirty-two, but his face had the unmarked smoothness and texture of youth, and his blue eyes and fair curls gave him a deceptive air of innocence. It was all wrong, Thanet thought, that a man who had been convicted of armed robbery and grievous bodily harm should look so angelic.

  ‘Get on with what? I’m not getting on with nothing. I know my rights and I demand my phone call and my solicitor.’

  ‘Don’t worry, you’ll get your rights. All in good time. If that’s what you want. But don’t you think you might be overreacting a bit? I merely wanted to have a little chat with you. Afterwards, if you’re in the clear, you can go.’

  ‘A little chat!’ Buzzard almost spat the words. ‘Very cosy, I’m sure. Oh, no, you ain’t catching me out like that. I ain’t saying a word until my brief is here.’

  ‘Pity. You could have been away in a matter of minutes. Still, it’s up to you. As it is, I’m afraid you’ll just have to accept our hospitality for a bit longer.’

  ‘Why? I told you, I ain’t done nothing.’

  ‘I seem to have heard that song before,’ said Thanet. ‘And you ought to know by now that we don’t pick people up without good reason.’

  ‘Pull the other one. Once you’ve been inside you can’t even crap without the rozzers breathing down your neck … Anyway, what good reason? Go on, you tell me that. What good reason?’

  ‘You were seen in the area where a crime was committed, on Thursday afternoon.’

  ‘So what? What crime? Where?’

  Had there been an overtone of unease, there? Of fear, even?

  ‘On the outskirts of Sturrenden.’

  ‘Mistaken identity.’

  ‘No mistake. The witness is reliable.’

  ‘I don’t care if the Pope hisself swears he saw me. He’s lying.’

  ‘You were somewhere else, of course.’

  ‘Of course. Playing poker with some mates.’

  ‘Time, place, names, addresses?’ said Thanet wearily.

  Lineham took them down.

  Thanet stood up. ‘We’ll have to check these out of course.’ He turned to go.

  ‘’Ere! You’re not going to leave me twiddling me thumbs while you check all that lot? It’s Saturday. They could be anywhere … football match, taking the kids to the seaside …
They could even be away for the weekend!’

  ‘That’s just too bad, I’m afraid. Come on, Buzzard. You’re not seriously suggesting we let you go so that you can rush off and contact these mates of yours, make sure they back up your story? You must be joking.’

  ‘It’s harassment, that’s what it is. Harassment. Dragging me in off the street and interrogating me …’

  ‘You weren’t dragged, and a five-minute conversation can scarcely be called interrogation.’

  ‘You haven’t even told me what I’m supposed to have done!’

  Thanet had reached the door, and he turned to face Buzzard.

  ‘Murder,’ he said quietly. ‘That’s what.’

  Buzzard’s expression changed. His eyes narrowed and his mouth pinched up in apparent disbelief. ‘Murder? What the ’ell you on about? Whose murder? When? Where?’

  ‘If you’re telling the truth,’ said Thanet, ‘you don’t need to know, do you? You’ve got an alibi, remember?’ And he turned and walked out. As Lineham closed the door behind them he heard Buzzard say, ‘’Ere, ’ang on a minute …!’

  ‘We’ll leave him to stew for a while,’ said Thanet. ‘You’d better get a team onto checking up on these “mates” of his. I’ve no doubt they’ll back him up, but we’d better go through the motions.’

  ‘What d’you think, sir? D’you think he’s our man?’

  Thanet sighed. ‘I doubt it, worse luck. But there was something … Underneath all the bluster I thought I detected a distinct note of nervousness.’

  ‘I agree. I was wondering … Even if he’s not involved in our case, it’s possible he was up to something else that afternoon.’

  ‘Let me see … Thursday … Thursday … Of course! The burglary out at Nettleton Grange! Mike, I bet that’s it. And if so … Look, go and have a word with Bristow, he’s in charge, tell him what we think and suggest it might be worth getting a search warrant sworn out, while we’ve got Buzzard safely tucked up here. It’s a long shot, but we might just be lucky.’