Lambs to the Slaughter (25 page)

‘I asked Ellie.'

‘There you are, another simple explanation to what, on the surface, was an apparent contradiction,' Meadows said. ‘But there is one thing I still don't understand – if one of your friends didn't drive the brat home, then who did?'

‘It must have been one of the gatecrashers,' Ellie said.

‘Were there many of them?'

‘Quite a few. I give really cool parties.'

‘And you didn't try to get rid of these gatecrashers of yours?'

‘Now that would have been distinctly
un
cool.'

Sutton laughed again. ‘Young people!' he said.

‘Young people,' Meadows agreed. She turned her attention to Ellie again. ‘Louisa described the boy as being tall, and having blond wavy hair. Was he a gatecrasher?'

‘He must have been.'

‘You do remember him being there, don't you?'

‘I'm not sure.'

Meadows closed her notebook. ‘Well, that's about it – apart, of course, for the names and addresses of the guests who you changed the date of the party to accommodate.'

‘What!' Sutton said.

‘You heard,' Meadows told him.

‘But you said we could wrap the whole thing up tonight.'

‘I lied – but then, you've been lying to me ever since I walked through the door.'

‘I resent being called a liar in my own home,' Sutton said, ‘and if you wish me to hand over any information at all – however trivial it might be – you'll need a warrant.'

‘Oh, I don't see much of a problem there,' Meadows said. ‘Would you like to know my thoughts on what I've heard so far?'

Both father and daughter remained silent.

‘Not very curious, are you?' Meadows said chirpily. ‘But I think I'll tell you anyway. Firstly, my thoughts on Ellie's friendship with Louisa. Now, Louisa's a lovely girl, as I know from personal experience.'

‘You
know
her?' Sutton asked.

‘Yes. Didn't I make that clear from the start?'

‘No, you bloody well didn't!'

‘That was rather careless of me. Anyway, I can almost believe, at a push, that a girl three years older than Louisa would want to make friends with her – even though, as we all know, a three-year gap is such a huge one at that age. But if she did make an older friend, it wouldn't be a girl like you, Ellie. The other girl would be a sensitive, intelligent, caring soul – not a self-absorbed sulky brat.'

Sutton sprang to his feet. ‘How dare you talk to my daughter in that manner? If you don't leave this house immediately,' he continued, taking a step or two towards her, ‘I'll throw you out myself.'

Meadows raised a single finger in the air. It was hard to say exactly what made it seem so threatening, but it stopped Sutton in his tracks.

‘I'm not big, but I'm highly trained, and if you lay one hand on me, I'll break you in half,' Meadows said calmly. ‘Now sit down again, Dr Sutton.'

‘I . . . I refuse to answer any more of your impertinent questions,' Sutton blustered.

‘But I'm not asking questions – I'm telling you how things were,' Meadows said. ‘So sit down and listen!'

Sutton stepped backwards, and sank heavily into his seat.

‘Ellie made friends with Louisa specifically so she could invite her to the party, and the party was planned specifically so that Louisa could come. There's a rather nice symmetry in that, don't you think?'

Sutton and Ellie said nothing.

‘The expensive ring Ellie is wearing is her reward for the part she played in all this,' Meadows continued. ‘Now I admit that statement is no more than a guess at the moment, but if turns that it was bought this morning – and that's how it
will
turn out – then the guess will become a certainty. So Ellie got the ring as a reward. What did you get out of this whole shabby business, Dr Sutton?'

‘No comment,' Sutton growled.

‘I see you're already getting prepared for the grilling you'll be given tomorrow,' Meadows said. ‘Good idea. Now where was I? Oh yes. Whoever wanted Louisa to come to the party changed his mind about the date it would be held on – I don't know why that should be, but then that's hardly surprising, since I don't even know yet why he wanted her there. But I'll find out in time. Anyway, at the party, it all goes according to plan. The boy – let's call him Boy X – offers Louisa a lift home and drives her to a deserted spot, where he first rapes her, and then sodomizes her—'

‘He . . . he promised me that no harm would come to her!' Sutton gasped.

And the moment the words were out of his mouth, he looked as if he could cheerfully have eaten his own tongue.

‘That was a trick!' he said accusingly. ‘If the girl had been raped and sodomized, DCI Paniatowski would have said so this morning.'

‘If she had been raped and sodomized, I don't imagine DCI Paniatowski would have been in a fit state to say
anything
,' Meadows countered. ‘Still, you have rather let the cat out of the bag now, haven't you?'

‘No comment.'

‘It really is time to come clean, Dr Sutton.'

‘No comment.'

‘Suit yourself,' Meadows said, standing up. ‘I'll show myself out. See you tomorrow then – when we'll be looking at each other across the table in Interview Room A.'

It was standard police procedure for the victims of attacks to describe their attacker to the police sketch artist, but Paniatowski had not wanted to take her daughter down to Whitebridge Police Headquarters, and had asked the police artist – as a favour – to come to her home instead. And he was there now, working with Louisa in the living room, while a chain-smoking Monika paced the length of her study and wished they would hurry up.

The phone rang, and Paniatowski grabbed at it.

‘The whole thing was a complete set-up, boss,' Meadows said from the other end of the line. ‘It wasn't a case of Louisa being in the wrong place at the wrong time – she was targeted. She was the whole point of the party.'

‘You're sure?' Paniatowski gasped.

‘I'm sure,' Meadows confirmed. ‘For a bright man, Sutton's awfully stupid, and he let it slip out that he was working for someone else.'

‘Someone else? Who else?' Paniatowski asked. ‘In God's name, Kate,
who
?'

‘I don't know yet,' Meadows admitted, ‘but I'm putting the investigation on an official basis, and I'm going to call our Dr Sutton in for questioning first thing in morning.'

‘I appreciate this, Kate, I really do,' Paniatowski said.

‘It's all part of the service,' Meadows said. ‘Try to get a good night's sleep, boss.'

And then she hung up.

Paniatowski began pacing the floor again, with Meadows' words echoing round her brain.

Louisa was targeted! Louisa was targeted!

But why had she been targeted? What reason could there possibly have been for targeting her?

If there had been a phone call demanding a ransom, that would at least have explained matters.

If she'd been raped – or worse, never seen again because she'd been sold into sex-slavery – there would have been some evil, twisted logic about it.

But apart from her being slipped some mild sort of drug, she hadn't been touched.

An elaborate plan had been constructed – involving a university lecturer, his daughter and God knew how many other people – with the sole purpose of snatching Louisa. And yet once she'd been caught – once he'd got what he wanted – her captor had simply let her go!

There was a gentle tap on the study door, and she looked up to see Louisa standing there.

‘We've finished, Mum,' the girl said.

Paniatowski gave her a hug.

‘You've been a very brave girl, and I'm so proud of you,' she told her daughter.

‘Hugo would like a word with you before he goes,' Louisa said.

‘Would he, now?' said Paniatowski in a light singalong voice – a voice which she hoped would completely disguise from Louisa the anguish that she was feeling. ‘Well, I'll tell you what, you stay here, and when he's gone, I'll make us both something special to eat.'

‘Something wicked?' Louisa asked, with a grin.

‘Something really wicked,' Monika promised.

She walked slowly from her study to the hallway, and the hallway to the living room. She hadn't wanted to walk – she'd wanted to run – but it was important that Louisa think she was calm, so the girl could be calm herself.

The police artist was standing in the centre of the living room, under the ceiling light, and studying the sketch.

‘This is really weird, ma'am,' he said. ‘It's the second time today that I've drawn—'

‘Give me the picture, Hugo,' Paniatowski said. ‘For Christ's sake, give me the bloody picture!'

The sketch artist held his pad out, and Paniatowski grasped it with trembling hands.

‘Oh no!' she moaned softly.

She had been bracing herself for her first sight of the man who had threatened her daughter, but she had never – even in her wildest imaginings – thought it would be anything like this, and it required an effort of will from her not to go straight into a dead faint.

Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to take another look. She felt the same unease as she had when looking at the picture which had been drawn from Susan Danvers' description – the same sense that she had seen the man before, and that it had been a horrible experience.

And that was not surprising, because though the hairstyle in this picture was slightly different, it was undoubtedly the same man.

I
f there'd been a competition to find the dreariest room in the whole of the Whitebridge Police HQ, then Interview Room A would only have won second prize, having been beaten – but only by a nose – by Interview Room B. The room was painted in chocolate brown to waist height, and sickly cream above that, and as Beresford and Crane entered it at eight twenty-five on Wednesday morning, Crane found himself wondering whether it had been skilfully designed by a team of expert psychologists whose aim was to break the human spirit.

‘Susan Danvers will crack,' Beresford said, as they sat down at the table. ‘By ten o'clock – at the latest – she'll have told us all we need to know.'

Crane looked up at the small window, set high in the wall, and noted that the outside of the glass was frosted over.

No, this room hadn't been
designed
at all, he decided. It was like the least favoured child in a large family, and was simply uncared for.

Beresford looked impatiently at his watch.

‘How long have we been here, Jack?' he asked.

‘Can't be more than a minute or two, sir,' Crane replied.

Beresford checked his watch again. ‘What the hell's keeping them?' he demanded.

At eight thirty-one, Susan Danvers arrived with her WPC escort.

She looked tired, Beresford thought – and that was all to the good, because although he'd spent a fitful night himself, he felt wide awake.

Susan Danvers' escort guided her to the chair facing them, and when she'd sat down, Beresford said, ‘I hope they gave you a good breakfast, Susan.'

‘Do you?' Susan replied, sounding slightly puzzled. ‘And why would you hope that?'

‘Because I've got your best interests at heart,' Beresford told her. ‘You may not believe that at the moment, but it's true. I want to make this whole process as painless as possible for you.'

‘Then let me go,' Susan suggested.

‘You know I can't do that,' Beresford said.

‘I know you don't
want
to do that, because you need to convict somebody of killing my Len, and you think you've got a good chance of convicting me,' Susan countered.

Maybe this was going to be a little harder than he'd first thought, Beresford decided.

‘I'd like you to account for your movements from Sunday afternoon onwards,' he said.

Susan sighed. ‘I went to the brass band competition because I wanted to talk to Len.'

‘If you wanted to talk to him, why didn't you wait until he got back to the village?'

‘I thought it would be easier at the competition. I thought if I did it there, he'd
have to
listen.'

‘And did you talk to him?'

‘No.'

‘You didn't? Not after you'd travelled all the way to Accrington for just that purpose?'

‘I've told you once I didn't. I'll not tell you again.'

‘
Why
didn't you talk to him?'

‘Because it turned out that I was wrong when I thought it would be easier there.'

‘I'm not sure I know quite what you mean,' Beresford told her.

‘Don't make me say it,' Susan pleaded.

‘I have to know what happened,' Beresford said firmly.

‘All right, then,' Susan said angrily. ‘I didn't talk to him because when he saw me walking towards him, he turned his back on me.'

‘So what did you do then?'

‘I caught the next bus back to Bellingsworth, and went straight home.'

A lie! Beresford was sure it was a lie, and glancing at Crane, he could see that Jack thought so, too.

She hadn't gone straight home at all. Of course she hadn't. Because
before
she could go home, she'd needed to spike Len's cocoa with laxative.

‘What time did you get home?' he asked.

‘At about half past five.'

‘And when did you leave your house again?'

‘When I set out the next morning to make Len's breakfast for him.'

‘You didn't go out again that night, say between ten o'clock and two o'clock in the morning?'

‘No.'

‘Why did you go to make Len's breakfast?'