Murder in the Cotswolds (13 page)

“I wouldn’t say no. It’s gorgeous sitting here in your garden.”

While Alison was in the kitchen, Kate brooded. This was an opportunity to put the question that wouldn’t leave her alone. The question that haunted her.

Alison emerged in no time carrying a silver tray laden with tea things and a plate of almond slices.

“That was quick,” said Kate admiringly. “I’d have had to search for things, and I’d probably find I’d run out of milk or something. You must be a very organised lady.”

“Well, I knew you were coming. I always try to think ahead and plan things.”

“Me, too, but I don’t often succeed.”

Idle chat was all very nice, but that damn question was still right there, demanding to be asked. Kate plunged.

“Did it ever strike you that there might be another man in Belle Latimer’s life?”

Alison stared at her in amazement, then burst out laughing. “I’m sorry, but that’s a hoot. Belle Latimer was as prudish as they come. Sex was a four-letter word to her.”

“Really. Isn’t that surprising for someone who breeds horses?”

Alison shrugged. “I suppose so, but that’s the way she was. If you wonder how I know, I can give you a good example. She was on the committee of the Troubadours ... being who she was she had a finger in most things that go on in this town. Anyway, about two years ago it was suggested that we put on
Lock Up Your Daughters.
Her ladyship objected. Said it was far too crude and suggestive. She was overruled for once, I’m glad to say, and it proved one of our most popular shows ever.”

Alison was so emphatic that it would have been easy for Kate to forget her years of experience and seize on this as conclusive proof that Richard Gower had not been having an affair with the woman and, therefore, that he’d had no possible reason to kill her.

“Did you have anyone in particular in mind for the role of Belle’s lover?” Alison queried amusedly.

“If so, I’ll keep it to myself.” Kate said that with a little smile, a smile that came to her easily. “It seems that I was on the wrong track. Well, tempting as it is to ignore my conscience, I’d better make a move.”

They both stood up. “I’ll ring you nearer the time about the tickets for the show,” said Alison. “There’ll be no problem. We never sell out, except possibly on the Saturday. And even then I’ll wangle you a couple of seats if that’s the only night you can manage.”

“Thanks a lot. I’ll look forward to it.”

* * * *

All Sunday evening, while Kate waded through the flood of Action results which poured in ceaselessly, she felt absurdly jumpy about tomorrow’s interview with Richard Gower. If he was going to convince her of his innocence, he’d need to come up with something concrete. She had to be objective about him, one hundred per cent objective.

A traitorous thought edged into her mind. Were the anti-women brigade in the police as wildly wrong as she’d always maintained? Were women too easily swayed by their emotions to do the job efficiently? No, damn it, that just wasn’t true. This was a once-only lapse on her part. Never before had she found herself in this ridiculous position—attracted to a man who was the prime suspect in a murder case. Anyhow, she
wasn’t
allowing that to affect her judgement.

Monday morning finally arrived. Kate drove to Divisional Headquarters and parked in the bay reserved for the DCI. Her office, unused for several days, struck her as airless. She threw open the window, then spread papers on the bare desk to give an impression that Gower’s arrival would be an interruption to her busy schedule. She summoned a PC.

“Just because I’m using my office rather than an interview room to see Mr. Gower, it doesn’t mean that this is in any way a social call. So no well-meant offer of coffee—right?”

“Understood, ma’am.”

She referred to her watch several times during the five minutes coming up to ten o’clock. At the tap on the door, she jumped.
God, what a state you’re in, Kate!

“Mr. Gower to see you, ma’am.”

“Ask him to come in, please.”

Richard Gower entered swiftly, and his limp was very noticeable. He looked drawn, almost gaunt, yet his attitude was impatient. He accepted her gestured invitation to sit down, and began speaking at once.

“I really don’t see why we couldn’t have had dinner together, instead of this cold-blooded formality. Still, if that’s the way you say it has to be, then okay. But it’s time you put a stop to this crazy situation. You’ve allowed everyone to get the impression that I was involved in Belle Latimer’s murder.”

“It’s not a question of what the police have allowed, Mr. Gower. The known facts speak for themselves.”

“Just because, according to you, it was my car that was used for the killing.” His mouth tautened. “I suppose I have to accept that as an established fact. But it
doesn’t
follow that I was driving my car that night.”

“Agreed, it’s a long way from being conclusive proof. However, you’re unable to offer any satisfactory evidence of your movements at the time.”

“Good God, woman!” He raked fingers through his already rumpled hair. “I’ve told you exactly what happened. I can’t do more than that. Who put you up to this ridiculous persecution?”

Is it a way of getting back at me because the
Gazette
has hit out now and then about police inefficiency?”

“I’d advise you to be careful what you’re saying,” she said sharply. “We have every justification for treating you as a principal suspect in this case, Mr. Gower. Your alibi amounts to nothing, unless it can be corroborated.”

“How the hell
can
it be corroborated? I was at home alone at the relevant time. Maybe I can’t prove that, but you can’t prove that I wasn’t.”

“Don’t be too sure. If you happened to have been seen driving your car near the scene of the crime, and the witness comes forward, your alibi would collapse.”

Gower sucked in an angry breath. “I couldn’t have been seen, because I wasn’t there. If you found a so-called witness, he’d be lying in his teeth.”

“Since you insist that your story is true,” Kate said, “why not put an appeal in the
Gazette
asking the person who phoned you to come forward?”

“What’s the point? It seems to me that whoever phoned and fixed for me to be at home was the person who used my car to kill Belle Larimer.”

“If that person exists. You claim you were at home because you were waiting for someone who didn’t turn up ... that somebody else must have driven your car ... that these two people are in fact one and the same. Are you now suggesting that this unknown person was aiming to frame you for the crime?”

“It’s a possibility. All I know for certain is that I didn’t kill Belle Latimer. You’ll never pin it on me, because I didn’t do it.” He gave a hollow laugh. “Or am I being a naive idiot for having such touching faith in British justice?”

“If you are, then I’m one, too. But you’re right, of course. You’ll never be charged with murder unless or until we have overwhelming evidence against you.”

“And you’ll never get that. For a start, you haven’t a motive. Isn’t that always the first thing you look for? Where’s my motive for killing Belle Latimer?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Gower—yet. But if there is one, I’ll find it.” Kate hesitated, shifting around some of the papers on her desk.

“All right, let’s play it your way for a while,” she said. “You’ve implied that you might have been framed. So who would want to frame you?”

He spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “No one that I can think of. I won’t say there aren’t plenty of people I’ve upset in one way or another, but ...”

“Think hard,” Kate found herself urging him. “Think back to your days as a foreign correspondent. Does anything come to mind? Were you ever threatened?”

“Many a
time, when I did an expose on political corruption and that sort of thing. I’ve been beaten up more than once and threatened with worse. And I’ve also been officially threatened with deportation. But I can’t see anyone pursuing me to this extent. It’s all water under the bridge now. I’m a forgotten man, I’m no danger to anyone.”

“How did you get injured?” she asked.

“I happened to cop a sniper’s bullet in Gaza. My own bloody fault. He didn’t intend to hit me. I wasn’t his target.”

“You were married once, I believe. And you’re now divorced?”

“So?”

“How did it come about that you broke up with your wife?”

Gower stared at her for a few moments, then threw back his head in a short bark of laughter. “A deep-dyed vengeance plot by an embittered wife? Forget it. Marion divorced me because she was fed up with being a grass widow for months on end while I was roaming the world on foreign assignments. I can’t blame her entirely, I suppose, although she knew the score when we got married. I wasn’t willing to chuck my career and become the sort of husband she wanted to turn me into. An unadventurous chappie with a nice steady job and home every night.”

“And then you got injured and were forced to chuck it after all,” Kate said with involuntary sympathy.

“Ironic, isn’t it? But running a local rag on a shoestring budget isn’t the nice steady job that Marion had in mind. She’s found the ideal mate now, though. He’s an insurance broker. They have three kids, and they all live happily in a four-bedroomed mock-Tudor detached house in Esher with two cars in the garage.”

“You sound bitter.”

“No, I’m not. I’m glad for her. But I still shudder at the thought of what I might have been, if Marion had got her way. She had her good points, but we just weren’t meant for each other.” He gave Kate an edgeways glance. “How about you? I saw from the press handout that you’re
Mrs.
Maddox. Is your husband still around?”

“We’re not here to talk about me,” she said stiffly.

“Hey, I only asked.”

Kate unbent enough to say, “My husband is dead.”

“Oh. Recently?”

“Fourteen years ago.” She wanted to leave it at that, but for some reason she felt impelled to add, “Noel was killed in a hit-and-run accident.”

“I see. That explains a lot.”

“What does it explain?” she enquired coolly.

“I only meant that it explains why you feel so gut-involved in this case.”

That was much too near the truth for Kate’s liking. She said in an even voice from which she tried to remove all trace of emotion, “I’m doing my job to the best of my ability, just as I intend to do with all the other cases that are put into my hands. Personal feelings play no part in a police officer’s duties.”

He inclined his head. “Said the wrong thing, didn’t I?”

“Forget it.” Kate glanced down at her notepad, breaking the eye contact. Those intelligent dark eyes of his saw too much.

“We don’t seem to have got anywhere, do we?” he said quietly.

“How do you mean?” She glanced up at him with challenge.

He sat looking at her in silence for a moment or two, his face serious. “You know, if you could put your suspicions about me on one side and begin looking elsewhere for your murderer, you’d save yourself a lot of time in the end.”

“If you
weren’t
responsible for Mrs. Latimer’s death and I can prove that, my time will have been well spent, won’t it?”

“How much do you really care whether I’m guilty or not?” he asked, frowning at his own words. “You’re like a hunter in pursuit of a prey. You’ll never
prove
that I killed Belle Latimer, because I didn’t. But if you can somehow stitch up a case against me, that would be fine with you, right? Another major crime neatly solved. A feather in the cap of Detective Chief Inspector Maddox. Another notch towards your next promotion. What are you aiming for? To be the first woman chief constable in history?”

Don’t let him get to you, Kate!

She said levelly, “All I want to establish is the truth. And I will, I promise you I will.”

His eyes caught hers and held them for a stretching moment. “In that event, I haven’t a thing to worry about. Correct?”

Kate said nothing, just watched him. Eventually he rose to his feet and stood awkwardly, his weight almost all on his right foot. His laugh was awkward, too.

“If and when you finally clear the stain from the Gower name and I’m no longer persona non grata, perhaps we might have that dinner together. To celebrate. Or would that offend your sense of propriety?”

Kate had no answer to that. She made a gesture that could have meant anything. With a rueful smile, Richard Cower turned away to limp to the door. Kate stopped him there, a sudden urgency in her tone.

“Find the man who phoned you, Mr. Gower, that’s the first priority. If you get any ideas about who it might have been, let me know.”

His face cleared. “Then you do believe I might be telling the truth?”

“Do you honestly think that I don’t
want
to?” she said, then added hastily, “Good morning to you.”

“Did you drag anything useful out of Gower?” Tim Boulter, given the tip-off about the chief inspector’s return to the Incident Room, had come to Kate’s office bearing hot coffee for them both.

“Thanks, Tim, I can just do with that.” She sipped appreciatively. “Gower is still sticking to his guns that he didn’t do it. He challenged me to pin a motive on him.”

“He’s got more front than Harrods, that one. What’s your own opinion about him, guv?”

She liked that “guv.” Oh yes, she liked it. But she didn’t like his question. She couldn’t boast anything as clear-cut as an opinion about Richard Gower. She shrugged a “don’t know” in reply, and turned her attention to the pile of new reports on her desk.

“So McLeod’s brother-in-law swears that Bruce did spend the evening of the killing with him,” she said.

“A real smart-ass, he is. Got it all off pat, even down to how many brown ales they each sank.”

“He’s lying about something, though, I’ve felt that all along. But I doubt if McLeod’s our man.” Kate turned a page. “Look at this, Tim. We were on the right track about Linda West.”

It was a report from Criminal Records on the enquiry about Linda under her maiden name of Foster. Probation for shoplifting, and she’d asked for eight other offences to be taken into account. All were items of jewellery and silver, which she’d voluntarily handed back. No evidence of any attempt to turn it into profit.