Model Murder (27 page)

“How was it you knew where and when to waylay her last Wednesday? Had Corinne told you of her plans?”

“No, it was the admiral. He happened to mention that Corinne was going away for a few days, but that she’d be there up until lunch-time on Wednesday, if I needed to check anything with her. I guessed at once that Corinne would be spending the time with some man, and the thought drove me out of my mind.”

“Going to plead insanity now, are we?” said Boulter, in his hard-man role. “You chose a nice quiet spot on the route you knew she’d have to take, with the deliberate intention of killing her and making sure no other man could have her. You were no more out of your mind than I am, Berger.”

“Hang on, Sergeant,” said Kate, with the voice of sweet reason. “How can we know the state of Mr. Berger’s mind at the time?”

Berger shot her a grateful look. “I suppose, in a way, that I
was
insane. It’s a terrible thing to be in love with a woman who can treat you so callously. It seemed like the end of the world when she finished with me. The end of everything that made my life worth living.”

“So you went to plead with Corinne one last time?” Kate suggested.

“Yes, that’s right. I should have known better, but I thought I might persuade her when she realised how much I truly loved her. It seemed impossible to believe that she could go off with some other man when she could have me, who was willing to make all kinds of sacrifices for her sake.”

Kate didn’t need to glance at Boulter for him to keep silent. Her own voice was low and steady, almost gentle. “Tell us exactly what happened.”

“I got to Streatfield Park about half-past one, and I waited a few yards along from the entrance gates. Corinne drove out just after a quarter past two, and I followed her. She must have realised it was me, but she didn’t stop. So when she turned along that lane—she’d always claimed it was a good short cut to the motorway—I accelerated past her and cut in, forcing her to stop. She was furious with me, but I still thought I might somehow get through to her. I got in beside her and said straight out that I knew she was going away with a man. She didn’t deny it. She suddenly started laughing. ‘That’s right,’ she said, ‘I’m off to Gay Paree for a few days—with someone who’s a helluva better lover than you ever were, Ram.’ ”

In his misery and indignation at the memory, Kate knew he was telling the exact and shaming truth.

“What did you do then?” she asked softly.

Berger gave her a lost look. “Do? I reached out and grabbed her by the shoulders. I wanted to shake some sense into her. She knocked my hands away—Corinne was a strong woman—and she told me to get out of the car and stay out of her life. I saw red, a blinding red, and after that everything went hazy. Next thing I knew my hands were around her neck. I suppose she must have struggled. I remember she grabbed a torch from the dump bin on the door and tried to hit me with it. Then suddenly she went limp. I didn’t mean to kill her, you’ve got to believe me.” He was looking not at Kate, but at the man who seemed to be his disbelieving enemy.

“Nevertheless,” Kate pointed out, “you did kill her. You can’t escape the consequences of that.”

“I know, I know. But I didn’t do all the rest of it. Not dragging her into the woods and ripping her clothes and making it look like rape. That wasn’t me. I swear to God it wasn’t.”

Why should it matter so much to a man who faced a murder charge that he shouldn’t be blamed for this final degradation of his victim’s dead body? Kate felt a tug of pity for Berger.

Not so Boulter, who said harshly, “Maybe not. But you didn’t try to resuscitate her or summon help, did you? No, you just beat it and left her there.”

“I didn’t mean to leave her like that. I was going to try and revive her ... give her the kiss of life or something. Only before I could do anything I heard a car coming. I was in a blind panic. I ran to my own car and drove off fast. I had to go past the other car ... there was no time to swing round and go back. But I kept my face away and I just hoped and prayed it wasn’t anyone who’d recognise me.”

“Unfortunately for you, it was.”

“Who?” he demanded, but then rushed straight on without waiting for an answer. “Was it him who did those other beastly things? Why did he, what was it all for? When I heard about Corinne’s body being found in the woods and that she’d been raped, I was totally stunned. I couldn’t make any sense out of it. Or was it someone else who did that, not the one who saw me? And why, for God’s sake?
Why?”
He was in a ferment, reliving the past days of horror and fear and bewilderment.

“You’ll know the answers to all those questions soon enough,” Kate told him, “when we compile the case against you.”

Again, Berger buried his face in his two hands. “I’m done for, aren’t I? I had so much, and I’ve lost it all. Thrown it all away.”

Why the hell, Kate, do people only value what they’ve got when it’s too late?

It was just on ten when Kate decided to pack it in for the day. Tomorrow there would be the winding-down of the investigation, starting on the huge mass of paperwork that still faced her, standing drinks all round as a thank-you to the men and women on the squad. She hoped that by tomorrow evening she’d feel less tired and more in a mood for celebrating.

The phone on her desk rang. Boulter picked it up, spoke, then glanced at his chief inspector apologetically. “It’s a personal call for me, guv. I’ll take it somewhere else.”

“No need, Tim.” She stood up, easing the taut muscles of her neck, and reached for her bag. “I’m going to freshen up now, then it’s off home for both of us.”

When she returned, Boulter had finished his phone call. There was a grim look on his face.

“Fancy a drink, Kate?” he asked, taking her by surprise. That hadn’t been on their agenda.

Why not? She needed to unwind. Besides, she had a feeling that Boulter was in need of a shoulder to cry on.

“Okay, Tim. Just one. The Market Inn suit you?”

He shrugged, indifferent about where they went.

Downstairs, as they reached the vestibule, the man at the desk glanced up.

“Ah, ma’am, I thought I’d missed you. Message just received from the hospital. Admiral Fortescue passed away fifteen minutes ago. Peacefully, they said to tell you, in his sleep.”

“Thanks, Barry.”

She and Boulter left the building, to walk the short distance to the pub.

“The old boy willed himself dead, Tim,” she observed sombrely as they fell into step. “It almost amounts to suicide.”

“Sensible man.” Boulter’s voice was bitter. “Saved himself from facing a murder rap, hasn’t he?”

“I doubt if it was for himself, Tim. By nature the admiral was a fighter. More likely he was thinking of his son ... all the scandal, and the embarrassment a prolonged trial would cause Dominic and his family.”

“And now, I suppose, the son and heir will flog off the ancestral home for an almighty packet, like Larkin said he would, and hot-foot it back to the U.S.A. Sod the precious Fortescue inheritance his old man was trying to save for him. The lucky bastard.”

Kate waited until they were seated, with the drinks Boulter had fetched from the bar in front of them. Then, she said, “Okay, Tim, let’s have it. What’s eating you?”

“Julie’s bloody walked out and left me, hasn’t she?” he burst out.

“You mean,” Kate said, dismayed by the rage boiling inside him, “that she’s gone to stay with her sister again?”

“Yep. That was her on the phone just now. But this time she’s not coming back. A trial separation, she calls it.” He snorted. “Trial is about right when those two sisters get their heads together—with me in the dock. I’ve never done a damn thing right, according to that bloody Brenda. Her and her prick of a husband who’s got a cosy little nine-to-fiver at the Town Hall. They’re who put Julie up to it, that’s for sure.”

“What suddenly brought this on?” Kate asked in a carefully neutral voice.

“She’s been thinking things over all day, she said, and she’s realised that coming back was a mistake. There was no future for us together.” Boulter gave a hollow laugh. “It’s all down to me, according to her. All my bloody fault. Just because I’m a normal human being and don’t match up to the crazy fantasy she’s got in her head of the perfect husband. I can’t ever be relied on, I’m always getting home late, I hardly see the children, I never take her out, I forget birthdays and anniversaries, I’m bad-tempered and slovenly. You name it, I’ve bloody got it or done it.”

“I’m very sorry, Tim. Really sorry. But don’t you think it’s possible that Julie has a point? I mean, do you ever try to see things from her point of view?”

The black look he shot her said,
You too? Traitor.

Kate went on, “Okay, if you want to be left alone and nurse your grievances about the state of matrimony, go right ahead. But if you want to get your wife and children back, you’d better do some hard thinking. Some of Julie’s criticisms you can’t do much about, they come with the job, but she’s intelligent enough to know that. With other things, though, I think you could make a bit more effort to match up to what Julie wants—what every woman wants—from her husband. A bit more understanding. A bit more attention. A bit more romance in your relationship.”

Kate wondered if she’d pushed her nose in too far where it wasn’t wanted, but when he didn’t smack her down she felt emboldened to continue. She was fond of Tim Boulter. She liked his wife, too, even though Julie had made it very clear that she disliked and resented Chief Inspector Kate Maddox. As for the two children, Mandy and Sharon, they were really nice youngsters. The Boulters had all the ingredients to be a happy little family. Kate, having lost her own chance of family happiness through a cruel stroke of fate, hated to see so much potential thrown away for want of effort.

“Your marriage is worth saving, Tim. Worth fighting for. Why not give it a try?”

He shrugged petulantly. “It’s not up to me, is it? Julie’s the one who walked out.”

“I know, but you can go and see her, can’t you? You’ll want to see the children, anyway. Talk things over with Julie and try to sort out your differences. Be reasonable, and ...”

“Reasonable? She doesn’t know the meaning of the word.”

“I think you’d find she does. I think you’d find that Julie will respond if you show her that you’re willing to try, too. Always assuming, of course, that you really do want her back.”

There was pain and darkness in his eyes. “Sometimes I think I hate her guts. That if I don’t ever see her again it’ll be too soon. But then ... oh, I don’t know. It’s going to be hell without her and the kids.”

Fretting over the Boulters’ problems as she drove home, Kate reflected irritably that any of her male colleagues would take the sensible view that so long as his work wasn’t affected, the sergeant’s personal life was entirely his own business. Being a woman was a bloody curse sometimes.

She’d been busy handing out sage advice to Tim Boulter, but she still had a repair job to do on her own relationship. As things were, she faced going back to an empty home, when she might have been returning to the welcoming arms of someone she loved. The word caught Kate by surprise and she thrust it out of her mind. She was in no mood to analyse her feelings towards Richard just now.

She turned in at the gates of the stable conversion, and rolled to a standstill. Getting out, she spotted among the cars parked in the forecourt one that was joltingly familiar. Richard’s blue Volvo. What did this mean? She went over to investigate and found Richard sitting behind the wheel, fast asleep.

She reached in through the open window and shook him by the shoulder.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded as he woke, her voice belligerent.

He blinked at her in the dim light that seeped out from behind the drawn curtains of the other flats. “Waiting for you, what else?”

“But ... why?” Fear gripped her suddenly. “Has something happened to Felix?”

“Calm down,” said Richard, climbing out of the car. “Felix is doing fine, as you saw for yourself this evening. But she phoned me about an hour ago to say she thought I’d like to know that you’ve solved your case.”

“Felix says altogether too much.”

“But is she right?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. That’s why I’m so late home, wrapping things up.”

Richard was silent for a countable number of seconds. Then he put a hand up and laid it against her cheek.

“We can’t talk out here,” he said. “Let’s go inside.”

Unsteadily, Kate found her key and opened the front door. Richard waited without speaking while she switched on lights and drew the curtains in her living room. When at length he spoke Kate could read an underlying challenge in his voice, a hint of lingering anger and resentment.

“Are you going to tell me about it now? Who was it killed Corinne?”

Did he have to pressure her like this? It wasn’t the right moment. And then Kate suddenly knew it never would be the right moment. Ought she to admit to Richard that she’d felt jealous of Corinne Saxon ever since he’d first told her of their former relationship? Or did he already know that; had he guessed? What he couldn’t know about was the shaming spark of satisfaction she’d felt on recognising the murder victim as her imagined rival. She had carried the guilt of that with her all through this enquiry. It would take a long time to erase it from her mind.

“It was Adrian Berger, the architect,” she said, and then, “I need a drink, Richard.”

“I’ll get it. You sit down.”

Kate flopped onto one end of the long sofa, kicking off her shoes, while Richard fetched the whisky bottle and two glasses, putting them on the low coffee table in easy reach. He poured a good measure for them each, handed Kate hers, then sat down too—but at the far end, away from her.

“Adrian Berger,” he said. “I never guessed it would turn out to be him.
Why,
for God’s sake?”

“Jealousy. He was crazy about her. They’d been lovers, and Corinne dropped him for another man.”

Richard nodded, accepting that. “But why the disgusting farce of making it look like rape?”