Cold Coffin (28 page)

“Gavin was just like a jelly and hadn’t a clue what to do,” she’d told Kate. “I could see that if I didn’t come up with an answer there was going to be the most awful sordid scandal, with my name splashed all over the headlines.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper, and Boulter nudged the tape recorder closer.

Kate said, “Tell us exactly what you did, Mrs. Kimberley.”

“Well, first, I made Gavin help me wrap Uncle Noah’s body in some polythene sheeting he had, and between us we carried it out to my car. I remembered about Milford Grange being empty while the Tillingtons were away in New Zealand and I thought that would make a good hiding place for the moment until we could work out a proper plan that was really safe.”

“How did you intend to get into the house?” Kate asked. “You must have known there was a burglar alarm.”

“Yes, I knew that, but several times when I’d been going back with Marjorie after we’d been shopping together, I’d seen how she shut it off. It gives you about half a minute after you open the front door before the alarm begins to ring. And once, Marjorie had forgotten her latchkey so I knew where they kept a spare one under a loose paving stone. Luckily, Gavin and I didn’t pass a soul on the drive there and getting into the house was quite easy. Marjorie had talked about emptying her big chest freezer before she left, so it seemed a good idea to use that, to ... to give us a bit more time to make our plans.” Her beautiful face took on a hard-done-by expression. “If it hadn’t been for those wretched thieves breaking in, we’d have got away with it.”

“And afterwards,” said Kate, “you drove Sir Noah’s car to Cardiff Airport, and left it there? And Gavin Trent followed in his car to bring you back. Is that right?”

Paula gave a shudder of remembrance. “It was a simply terrible night. I knew we had to hide the car somewhere, get it well away from the neighbourhood. Gavin was just shot to pieces, so it was all up to me. I decided that leaving it at the airport would be a clever idea, to make it look as if Uncle Noah had gone abroad somewhere. With luck it wouldn’t be found at once, so no one would be quite sure
when.
It was an awful journey, though, because I couldn’t manage the gears properly, and I had a narrow escape on the Severn Bridge when I knocked into something.”

“And Trent’s death?” Kate asked. “Were you involved in that?”

“No!” Her eyes dropped and for several moments she didn’t speak, while a perfectly manicured hand pushed back a streak of her blond hair that had fallen across her face. “Afterwards—after that night, I mean, I was terrified at what I’d helped Gavin do. When Aidan arrived back from Hong Kong, I told him what had happened. Everything. I didn’t mean to, but I couldn’t help myself. I was so scared, you see, and I felt desperate. Aidan was very shocked, of course, because he’d always been quite fond of his uncle, and he was absolutely furious with me. He called me all kinds of names for getting involved with a weak bastard like Trent and ending up in such a hellish mess. Then after a bit he cooled down, and said he’d decided to help us cover things up. It was an enormous relief, I can tell you, because I still hadn’t been able to think what to do about Uncle Noah’s body, and I knew that Aidan would be able to come up with some sort of plan. It was a bad mistake of mine, he said, to have returned to London. It would have looked much more natural if I’d stayed down here so as to be with Vanessa while she was so upset about Uncle Noah being missing. Right away, he phoned Vanessa and offered to help in any way we could. For the next couple of days I kept up the pretence of having flu, so I didn’t have to go anywhere ... I just couldn’t face anyone. Gavin kept on phoning me to ask what on earth we were going to do and it was obvious that he was cracking up completely. Then on the Wednesday, Aidan told me he’d decided to drive down and see Gavin that evening, to make him understand that he’d got to pull himself together. And also to make plans with him about how to dispose of Uncle Noah’s body. As a precaution, he said, it was best that nobody should know where he’d gone, so we agreed to say that we’d spent the evening alone together, if anyone should ever ask.”

Kate cut in, “Your husband telephoned Lady Kimberley that evening, didn’t he? Just after ten o’clock, I believe. Where was that call made from?”

“From the cottage. Aidan said he was going to drop in there first and phone Vanessa, pretending he was phoning from the Sloane Street flat, which would help support our story. And if anyone phoned while he was out asking for him, I was to say he’d gone to bed early with a headache and would return their call next day. Aidan thought of everything.” Paula gave a deep sigh, then rushed on, “Anyway, when he got back home, which was very late, Aidan was evasive and I felt certain he wasn’t telling me everything that had happened. I was sick with worry, but I didn’t dare press him. Then the next day, after Gavin’s body had been found and we heard from you that the police were treating it as murder, I guessed that
Aidan
had killed him. I knew it, really, but I was too scared to ask him outright. Aidan kept saying that everything would be all right now, as long as we stuck to the story we’d agreed on. He’d got everything under control, he insisted. Then yesterday evening when I told him about bumping into you in Aston Pringle and how you’d dropped your wallet, he said it was obvious that you’d used that as a trick to get my fingerprints.” She broke off and looked at Kate. “Is that true?”

Kate nodded. “When I heard Tom Jones’ voice on your car stereo it clicked in my mind that you must be the woman we were looking for—the woman with whom Gavin Trent had been having an affair. I needed to check your fingerprints against prints found on a Tom Jones tape we discovered at Trent’s cottage.”

Paula stared at her, baffled, seeming at a loss.

Kate explained. “Any other fingerprints you left at the cottage must have been wiped away during house cleaning, but the music tapes were all in a cabinet and the cleaners wouldn’t have had reason to touch them.”

“Oh God, if only I hadn’t given Gavin that damn tape. It was a stupid idea. I knew he just hated any modern music like that, but I’m crazy about Tom Jones and I couldn’t resist making him pretend to like it to please me.”

“Let’s get back to yesterday evening. Did your husband finally admit to you that he’d killed Trent?”

Paula nodded, avoiding her eyes. “He said that he’d had to, for our safety, because Gavin was in such a state he couldn’t be trusted not to break under questioning and tell the police all about Uncle Noah’s death and how I’d helped him. Aidan swore that he hadn’t
intended
to kill Gavin when he set out to talk to him, but when he saw what a state he was in he knew it was the only way.” She blinked rapidly. “I ... I’m not sure if that’s true. I think that Aidan meant to kill him all along.”

“I think so, too,” Kate told her. “We have definite evidence that Trent’s death was premeditated. A tree branch which we found beside the pond had been prepared in readiness to hold the victim under water, and I take it your husband knew that Trent couldn’t swim?”

“He must have known. I mean, most people did because Gavin never used the pool at Uncle Noah’s.”

“And your husband was brought up in this area, wasn’t he? So I presume he would have known that the pond in the woods was a particularly deep one.”

“He must have done. He told me once that as a boy he spent a lot of time playing in those woods. Oh, God, I never realized before how ruthless Aidan could be.”

“To return to yesterday evening, Mrs. Kimberley. When your husband worked out that I’d got your fingerprints, what did he say to you then?”

“He said that we’d have to get right away, out of the country, before the police came for us. He told me he’d made plans, just in case, and that he’d got plenty of money to take with us. But he said we needn’t leave quite at once, and it would be a good idea for me to get a few hours’ sleep first.”

“He gave you some sleeping pills?”

“That’s right. And some gin. Aidan said it would make the pills work faster. And then ... oh, I can’t remember properly. I think he gave me two more pills, saying I hadn’t taken the others, though I was sure I had. I ... I was confused....”

* * * *

It was armed with all this information that Kate had begun her interview with Aidan Kimberley. But she wasn’t prepared to reveal everything his wife had told her, not yet.

“What was it you were escaping from, Mr. Kimberley?”

“I wasn’t escaping from anything. I had some business to attend to. Urgent business.”

“Where was that?”

“In Malta, of course.”

“And what was the large sum in currency required for?”

“I don’t have to account to you for what I do with my own money.”

“It was the proceeds of the sale of your half share of Croptech, was it not? You told Lord Balmayne you needed it to meet commitments in the City, resulting from some unwise financial transactions. Will an investigation of your business affairs bear out that statement?”

Kimberley was clearly startled that she knew so much. “There is nothing you can prove against me.”

“Why did you administer an overdose of sleeping pills to your wife?”

“Is that what Paula said? She took the pills herself. Anyway, it was only four Mogadons altogether.”

“Enough to keep her from realizing you were deserting her. You plied her with gin first, so she was confused about the number of pills she swallowed.”

“If Paula overdosed, that was entirely her own doing. She must have taken some more pills after I left.”

“You plied Trent with drink, too, didn’t you? It was no doubt he who drank most of the whisky you took with you to his cottage on the evening of his death, while you kept a clear head. You got him thoroughly befuddled, then you persuaded him to walk with you to the pond in the nearby woods, saying you thought that would be a good permanent hiding place for Sir Noah’s body, provided it was well weighted down. Once there, you pushed him into the water and held him under with a tree branch until he drowned. Afterwards, you went back to his cottage, letting yourself in by the back door—which you had earlier surreptitiously unlocked for that purpose—and cleared away the signs of your presence there, before returning to London.”

“That’s ridiculous. I was in London the whole time this was supposed to be happening. You can’t prove I wasn’t.”

Kate abruptly took another direction. “What precisely was the business you had in Malta, Mr. Kimberley?”

“That’s my affair. It has nothing to do with all this.”

“Why did you book your ticket under a false name?”

“There’s no crime in that. My passport was in order.”

“You had
no
business in Malta, did you? In fact, it was sheer chance that Malta was your destination. Merely that you were able to get a reservation at short notice on a flight that was leaving for Malta last evening. Almost anywhere would have done you as well, so long as it was beyond our jurisdiction. Hasn’t it occurred to you to wonder how we managed to track you down so quickly?”

“Paula must have—”

“How could she possibly have known? You made sure she was lying in a drugged sleep before you put through that call to Heathrow. No, Mr. Kimberley, it was you who left a trail behind you. In your haste you overlooked a small facet of modern technology that could give you away. The last number you dialled from your home remained locked in the phone’s memory. I merely had to touch the redial button to discover who it was you’d spoken to. I got straight through to the British Airways desk at Heathrow. They were able to recall their conversation with a Mr. Kay earlier that evening. A minor slip-up, but in your case a vital one.” She paused, then added, “You shouldn’t have made an enemy of your wife, you know. It will be on her evidence that you’ll be convicted of murder.”

“She’s lying, the bitch.”

The interviews with Kimberley and his wife had brought Kate a long way to an understanding of what had happened. But not far enough to make a charge of murder stick. She still hadn’t one jot of firm evidence that Kimberley had been anywhere near Trent’s cottage that night. If only someone could be found who’d actually seen him or his car in the locality.

Images flashed through her mind of the events of that fateful evening. It was possible that close questioning of the Inchmere St. Mary residents might turn up someone who’d seen Kimberley’s car when he called at his cottage to make the phone call to Lady Kimberley. It was possible, too, that some late-night walker might have spotted a man who could be identified as Kimberley in the vicinity of the pond or of Trent’s cottage. But how to find such a witness? Someone with a dog, perhaps? Which brought her to think of George Jessop. Could he and Cheryl Miller have seen anything, when they’d set out with Jessop’s dog around midnight? Then suddenly her mind targeted on Duncan McEvoy, who’d been sitting in his car waiting for Jessop to go to bed before purloining some blocks of Cotswold stone.

That lane running past Croptech would be the route Kimberley must have taken as he headed back to London after drowning Trent in the pond and returning to the dead man’s cottage to remove all signs of his presence there. She recalled McEvoy’s statement. He’d been unable to identify the woman, he told her, because he’d been temporarily dazzled by a passing car’s headlights. A big car. How many cars travelled along that minor lane around midnight—on any night? How many
big
cars?

It was the moment, Kate decided, to go out on a limb. She flashed a glance at Boulter to warn him something unexpected was coming.

“It’s no use, Mr. Kimberley,” she said, displaying impatience. “I have a witness who saw you in this area on that Wednesday evening.”

“That ... that’s impossible.”

“After you killed Trent, you headed back to London. Do you remember, as you went past the Croptech premises, a car was parked on the verge without lights? The driver of that car saw you, Mr. Kimberley. He saw you!”

The man shot her an evil look. Boulter was frowning tensely. Kate held her breath.

“All right, all right,” Kimberley muttered at last. “But before I say another word I want my solicitor present.”