Picture of Innocence (35 page)

‘Why do you suppose Bailey didn’t call a doctor?’ she asked.

Lloyd shrugged. ‘Maybe he was too ill to get to the phone,’ he said.

‘But according to Freddie, it would have been fairly gradual. He might not have been able to carry on much of a conversation, but there must have been a time when he knew he was desperately ill. He could at least have dialled nine-nine-nine, surely? If he could let Curtis Law in when he was barely conscious, he could have called for help at some point before that.’

‘See? Maybe he didn’t let Law in, as I have just suggested.’

Maybe he didn’t, thought Judy, as they left, the hotel. Maybe Lloyd’s weird scenario was right. Maybe Rachel Bailey was a brilliant actress into the bargain. They were pulling out of the courtyard, very nearly on their way back to Stansfield, with her at the wheel, having told Lloyd that he was supposed to be taking it easy, when he told her to stop.

‘Look,’ he said, pointing at a security camera.

‘Yes,’ she said, her voice flat. ‘ What about it?’

‘Do you think they’ve got them in the car park?’

‘Possibly,’ she said, with a sigh. ‘More videos. I don’t think I can take it.’ But she reversed smartly back in, and invited the young man who whisked the cars away and brought them back to show her the way to the car park.

And there were more videos. Judy would pay a lot of money never to have to look at a jerky security video again in her life. And this one, run through at top speed, showed that Rachel Bailey’s BMW had sat in its space in the car park, untouched by human hand, from two twenty-one on Friday afternoon until seven o’clock on Monday morning, when it was driven out by a member of staff.

‘Does this mean we can forget Rachel Bailey and Curtis Law?’ Judy asked, as they went back into the breakfast room for a cup of tea in order to recover from a surfeit of security videos.

But even as she asked the question, Judy knew she didn’t want to forget about Curtis Law. He had been on the ten o’clock news last night, being magnanimous, saying that he didn’t think for one moment that the
Law on the Law
special had in any way affected Chief Inspector Lloyd’s judgement; he had simply moved too fast, and jumped to a wrong conclusion. The item was by way of being a sort of trailer for the network showing of
Mr Big? What Mr Big
? which would now get a much bigger audience than it would have done. Then he had oh-so-casually mentioned the death threats about which nothing seemed to be being done.
She
was beginning to feel paranoid about Law, never mind Lloyd.

‘You can’t clone people,’ said Lloyd. ‘ But you can clone cars.’

‘Oh, Lloyd!’ said Judy, as a middle-aged man approached them.

‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘are you the police officers from Bartonshire?’

‘We are,’ said Lloyd.

‘It’s just that I was told you were asking if anyone had seen Mrs Bailey on Sunday night, and I did. I wasn’t actually on duty, which is why no one told you to talk to me. I’d been to the pub, which is just round the corner from the Executive Wing, so I nipped in the private entrance as she was coming out. You’re not supposed to do that, but it takes a good five minutes longer to walk round to the front, so I always do, if I get the chance.’

‘You’re certain it was Mrs Bailey?’

He smiled. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘She was looking for a cab. She said her husband had ordered one for eleven o’clock to go to St Pancras, but there weren’t any there. But his train wasn’t until half past, apparently, so I told her not to worry, because it was only a ten-minute run at that time of night, and one would be there any moment.’

‘Thank you,’ said Lloyd, and the man left. Lloyd looked at Judy and shrugged. ‘Nicola Hutchins,’ he said. ‘We have to have another word with her’

‘My problem is that I still can’t see Nicola doing all that.’

Lloyd smiled. ‘You’ve changed your tune again.’

‘I know. Because while I don’t see how it could have been anyone else, I still can’t make sense of it. Not after putting up with it all her life. Why now? Like that? Concocting this story about a sheep. Going up there in cold blood to kill her father. I just can’t see it.’

‘It might not have been in cold blood,’ said Lloyd. ‘Perhaps there was a sheep, like she said. Perhaps her father did go out – we don’t know that he didn’t. He could have rung from anywhere. But we know the sheep was supposed to have been seen right beside his land. What if it was just … winded, or something? Just got up and went back through whatever gap it had come out of in the first place? She really wouldn’t have been able to find it, and all the sheep would have been present and correct next day. And what would she be doing when she failed to find it? She’d be going to the farm to find out where it was supposed to be, armed with the very things she would have taken to deal with an animal in pain. A fast-acting barbiturate. Morphine.’

Maybe, maybe. Judy wasn’t sure what you took to deal with a badly injured sheep, and neither was Lloyd. But she always let him ramble on with his scenarios, because there was usually something useful in there.

‘So, supposing
she’s
the one he started knocking about?’ he said. ‘You said her husband shot out of the house as soon as Rachel mentioned bruises. What if that was because Nicola had come home with bruises after she’d gone to deal with this sheep? She had failed to find it, hadn’t she? I expect that was worth a hammering. And what if she decided that she had had enough? Bailey was very drunk. He would be far from alert, and she had the means of his disposal with her. A few minutes’ premeditation. Not planned. Not intended, when she went in there. Last straws exist. Worms do turn.’

‘Mm,’ said Judy, then laughed. ‘But I doubt if I’ve ever heard anything less likely than the winded-sheep theory.’

Lloyd smiled. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘The sheep didn’t exist. But that means she presumably did go there to kill her father, because I can’t think why else she would make it up. And we know she didn’t see Rachel’s car, so …’ He shrugged again.

At half past nine, they finally drove away from the hotel. Judy was still at the wheel, despite Lloyd’s protests that he felt perfectly all right, because she didn’t suppose he would be taking it very easy when they arrived, which they did, one hour fifty minutes and the odd complaint about her driving later, stopping only to confirm to their colleagues that they were back, before continuing north to Harmston, and Nicola Hutchins.

Gus Hutchins was on reception; Nicola was with a patient, he said, and told her they were there. He showed them into the sitting room, waiting with them, making sporadic and unsuccessful attempts at conversation before Nicola joined them.

‘I don’t have much time,’ she said, apologetically. ‘I’ve got another appointment in ten minutes.’

‘This won’t take much time, Mrs Hutchins,’ said Lloyd, standing as she came into the room, remaining on his feet, as did she. ‘We have this morning spoken to a witness who saw Rachel Bailey at the hotel at eleven o’clock on Sunday night. We have further watched surveillance videos from the car park of the hotel in which Rachel Bailey’s car sat from Friday afternoon until Monday morning, without moving from the spot.’

She frowned slightly.

‘Perhaps you can explain how you could have seen it leaving your father’s farm at ten to eleven on Sunday night?’

She blinked a little. ‘I couldn’t have,’ she said interestedly, disconcertingly. ‘ Could I?’

‘Are you saying you lied to us, Mrs Hutchins?’

‘No,’ she said quickly. At least – not … not deliberately. I’m sorry. I must have been mistaken.’

‘Mistaken?’ said Lloyd. ‘And were you mistaken about anything else? About the house being empty, perhaps? About the alarms being off? About this sheep that no one has seen hide nor hair of before or after it was supposed to have been injured on the road? About this phone call that no one can trace?’

‘No.’ She stepped back a little. ‘ No. I don’t think so. I got the call. I … I thought the house was empty.’

‘
Thought
it was empty?’ said Judy, looking up from her notebook. ‘Do you mean you were wrong about that, too?’

‘No. No, it was empty. There was no one there. I waited for him, and when he didn’t come back—’

‘You left,’ Judy finished for her.

‘Yes.’ She looked back at Lloyd. ‘You
do
think I murdered him, don’t you?’ she said.

Lloyd sighed. ‘Until some part of your story checks out, I have little alternative but to work on that assumption. I think you’ve been lying to us, Mrs Hutchins. I think you still are.’

Gus Hutchins got up and left the room. Nicola looked after him, then turned back to Lloyd.

‘I didn’t mean to mislead you about Rachel’s car,’ she said, then smiled, a little tearfully. ‘ I really believed I’d seen it. It must be because she’s a gypsy.’

Judy glanced at Lloyd, who was looking at her, his face as baffled as she felt.

‘I’m sorry?’ he said.

Nicola’s hands clasped and unclasped as she spoke. ‘When I was five,’ she said, ‘there were gypsies on the farm. We had free-range hens, then, and I was allowed to collect up the eggs. And one day, I saw one of the gypsies stealing eggs. He dropped some when he ran away, and when my father saw them, he said I had broken them. I told him about the gypsy, and he stopped hitting me.’

Judy glanced again at Lloyd. Once again, he was looking at her. Once again, his face mirrored her feelings.

‘For a while after that if I was being punished for something I didn’t understand, something I didn’t think I’d done, I’d tell him I’d seen the gypsies do it. And it wasn’t a lie. I believed it I made myself believe it, because I thought it would make him stop. But I’d just get punished twice. Once for what I’d done, and once for blaming the gypsies. But I really believed I had seen them, so that’s what I told him. I grew out of it,’ she said. ‘Or learned not to say it, even if I did believe it, because it meant getting two beatings, one after the other.’

Her hands fell still.

‘But I think I must have done it again,’ she said. ‘Because Rachel’s a gypsy, and you were telling me I’d done something I hadn’t done, something I didn’t understand, and my mind must have played tricks on me. I’m sorry if I’ve caused you unnecessary work.’ A bell rang. ‘That’s my appointment,’ she said. ‘I really must go. Unless you’re arresting me.’

Lloyd shook his head, looking bemused at her sudden change of manner. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We’re not arresting you. We still have further enquiries to make. But I imagine we will want to speak to you again.’

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ said Nicola, and went back through to the surgery, leaving them to find their own way out.

Neither of them spoke until they were in the car.

‘Well, now we know what Rachel meant about lasting damage,’ said Judy, fastening her seat belt. ‘What do you think?’

Lloyd shrugged. ‘God knows. But I’m making damn sure of my facts before I arrest anyone else for this murder. You said you thought Jack Melville was lying to you about his visit to the farm, didn’t you?’

‘Well, yes, but I imagine he’s been taking too healthy an interest in Rachel Bailey,’ said Judy. ‘Like every other man who meets her,’ she added.

Lloyd smiled. ‘And Tom’s convinced that McQueen’s not been straight with him,’ he said. ‘So we have further enquiries to make. We still don’t know why Bailey got drunk, do we? Maybe one of them had something to do with it.’

Yes, thought Judy. That was a little puzzle that they had rather overlooked.

Nicola’s appointment took less than five minutes; she went into the empty waiting room to find a message on her answering machine, asking her if she could oversee that afternoon the repossession of livestock at Bailey’s farm, as an urgent favour for Willsden and Pearce, one of whom had gone down with some sort of bug. She frowned, then smiled. There had to have been a mistake.

But when she rang, Rachel told her that there was no mistake. That her father had gone bust, that the bailiffs had just been waiting for the fortifications to come down so that they could descend, and they would be descending that afternoon.

‘Didn’t even wait till we buried him,’ she said.

Nicola discovered that even the land was worth nothing, because McQueen had lent her rather the money on it in the first place, held the title deeds already, and was taking possession of it as soon as the creditors had taken everything away.

‘Isn’t there something about leaving you the tools of your trade?’ she asked.

Rachel laughed. ‘I don’t have no trade, Nicola.’

‘But Rachel – what are you going to do?’

‘Mr McQueen’s lettin’ me keep the house,’ said Rachel. ‘And a bit of land. I’ll be rentin’ it from him.’

‘Oh. Well – I suppose that’s quite good of him, really.’

‘Yeah,’ said Rachel. ‘Providin’ I can pay the rent,’ she added, with commendable cheerfulness.

Oh, God. Rachel had no money. She had nothing at all. Nicola hadn’t known that this was going to happen. ‘But how
can
you pay the rent?’ she asked.

‘I’ll manage.’

Nicola felt terrible. This was all her fault. And she ought to set Rachel’s mind at rest about her car, now that she knew she couldn’t really have seen it.

‘Rachel, I’m sorry I told the police I saw your car,’ she said. ‘ I couldn’t have, because it was in the hotel car park all weekend. They’ve just told me. And someone saw you there, too. But I didn’t lie,’ she said anxiously. ‘I don’t think I did. Not on purpose. They think I said it to get you into trouble, but I didn’t. I think it’s just because you’re a gypsy. I tried to explain. I really thought I saw it. They think I murdered him. I don’t think I did, but I’m not sure now. Do you think I did? Gus does.’

‘The bastard,’ Rachel said, her voice just a whisper.

Nicola frowned. ‘Who?’ she asked. ‘Gus?’

‘No. No one. Nothin’. Don’t, worry ’bout it. Don’t worry ’bout nothin’, Nicola. You just come over here this afternoon, and we’ll talk. I got to go out for a little while, but I’ll be here later. If I’m not here, you wait for me. All right?’

‘All right.’ Nicola put the phone down, and walked slowly out of the waiting room, into the house. She was going to come out of all this with nothing, not even Gus, she discovered, when she found the note on the kitchen table. He had gone home to his parents, and didn’t, as far as she could see, intend coming back. She barely registered that, throwing the folded paper down again, and went through to the dining room, pulling the shoebox out of the sideboard. Four thousand six hundred pounds. She had counted it as she had taken it from her surgical bag and put it in the shoebox. But then she hadn’t known what to do with it; she couldn’t put it in the bank without Gus finding out, and Gus was almost painfully honest. She supposed that was why he hadn’t been a terrific success as an accountant. She could use it now he’d gone.