Scene of Crime (21 page)

Tom thought about that. “So Ryan doesn’t know until we tell him where the stuff came from, or that Estelle Bignall died as a result of what Baz’s mate did to her.” Tom had to admit that Ryan really did seem in the dark about all of that, and trotting out the hoary old story of having
found the stuff indicated that he’d had no time to prepare for questioning. “He’s caught on the hop, and he’s trying to protect Baz, so he makes up a story about being there and seeing Bignall’s car to throw suspicion on Bignall himself.” Tom was nodding now that he could see the logic of this. “But that backfired because of Dexter, and now he’s stuck in a cell trying to work out how he can get out of this without shopping Baz,” he said. “That’s why he said Baz was working with him, because if he can prove
he
wasn’t burgling the Bignalls’ house, we might leave Baz out of it, too.”

Lloyd smiled at him. “It’s perfectly possible,” he said.

Tom smiled back. “I like it, guv. We can get them to check the prints against Baz Martin’s at least. And we should have no trouble finding his mate when they check the other ones.” He backtracked slightly. “Assuming he’s known to us and
was
known to us long enough ago,” he said. “Do you know they’ve got unindexed prints going back two years? No wonder the little sods don’t mind leaving their prints everywhere.”

“Quite,” said Lloyd. “So, if you can find the Pink Panther and eliminate Ryan, we might get a step closer to finding out who
did
break into the Bignalls’ house.”

Yes, thought Tom. It would be worth checking out.

Lloyd stood up. “But, as it happens, I agree with you,” he said, turning to go. “It’s a fiction. Because I still think Ryan was trying to break into Bignall’s Saab.”

Tom made a good-humoured V sign at Lloyd’s retreating back.

“I’ve got eyes in the back of my head, Sergeant Finch,” he called over his shoulder.

Lloyd was very good at theories, and Tom knew that he had a tendency to accept them as gospel. Lloyd knew
that, too; he said that Judy always found the flaw in them, and that Tom took them too seriously. That was why Lloyd had laughed that one off at the end.

But Judy said there was always something in Lloyd’s theories. It was instinctive; he didn’t know himself what it was. The trouble was, Tom knew he couldn’t sift through the nonsense to find the nugget of truth the way Judy could, so he would just have to do it the hard way, and check out Ryan’s story.

He picked up the paper he had confiscated and read the report, swearing under his breath as he reached the part about how charity workers had made the most of the traffic jam “with Sylvesters and Donald Ducks and Pink Panthers all descending on the becalmed drivers,” and how “the frayed nerves of the frustrated drivers were soothed by the St. Anne’s School choir singing Christmas carols.” Ryan had almost certainly got the whole thing out of the paper. He was probably just trying to make a fool of him. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to make inquiries. Ryan need never know he’d taken it seriously, even for a moment. He glanced at the number, rang it, and asked to speak to the editor.

“Yes, Sergeant Finch, how can I help the police?”

Tom explained how he could help.

“Oh, sorry,” he said. “Our collectors weren’t in costume. But dozens of people were organizing collections and bringing the money to us—that little girl has really touched Malworth’s heart.”

He even spoke in journalese. Tom sighed. “I don’t suppose you know which organization wore costumes?”

“I don’t even know which organizations were doing it.”

“But if I find out who was registered—”

“I think you’ll find most of them were spontaneous,
Sergeant. Our appeal is properly registered, of course, but as I said—everyone is collecting. Shops, offices, you name it. We had a steady queue of people bringing in bucketfuls of money, but—really, I don’t think many of them were doing it on an official basis.”

“I wonder where they got the costumes?” Tom asked, thinking aloud.

“There’s a firm that rents that sort of thing—I know it lent them for the day as their contribution to the cause. They’d know who they lent them to, I suppose, but I doubt if the organizers themselves will know exactly who wore what. And, well—I saw at least three Pink Panthers all at once yesterday. I don’t fancy your chances of finding a particular one.”

What he was saying, thought Tom, was that anyone at all could have put on a Pink Panther costume and rattled a bucket at people in order to relieve them of their money. And even if Ryan was telling the truth about being in the traffic jam, then that’s what any friend of his would be doing. Ripping people off. And he wasn’t very likely to find her, in that event. But he could approach this from a different angle; he would have another word with Baz Martin.

And he was beginning to think he’d let Watson off too lightly—he still wasn’t being straight with them about last night, and it might well be worth having another go at him.

The fax suddenly came to life with the report on the broken pane of glass, and Tom read it, his brow furrowing. The writer was puzzled about exactly where the glass had gone when the window was broken. There were what he called spicules of glass in the curtains, which he had expected to find, as the curtains were apparently
closed at the time of the incident. However, he went on, the glass itself had scattered two feet beyond the curtain, which didn’t really make sense, as a closed curtain would have had the effect of containing the glass, and it would have scattered only an inch or two out on reaching the ground. On the one hand, the curtains appeared to have been shut, and on the other, they appeared to have been open.

“Another little puzzle,” Lloyd said when Tom arrived in his office and he read the report on the glass.

“I know,” said Tom. “What’s a spicule?”

Lloyd grinned. “A small spike, I expect,” he said.

“I think these guys can get too clever for their own good. I mean—you smash a hole in a window on a windy, rainy night—what’s going to happen? The curtains’ll billow out, won’t they? So they wouldn’t necessarily have contained the glass.”

Lloyd nodded. “Good,” he said. “No puzzle, then.”

“Do you think we should give Watson a pull, guv? Maybe he
was
taking photographs of her. Stalkers have got to live somewhere—and next door to your target would be very handy. That might be why he moved there. There is something a bit creepy about him—even I’ve noticed.”

“Perhaps,” said Lloyd. “But I don’t think it’s that kind of murder. If it was, I don’t think he’d have faked a burglary.”

“All the same,” said Tom. “We’ve got shoe prints and fingerprints we can’t account for, and he was there. She made a complaint to the council about him—and he’s holding out on us about Dexter. It wouldn’t hurt to talk to him again, would it? Maybe check his shoes?”

Lloyd thought about that, then nodded. “You’re
right,” he said. “It’s time we really did have open minds about this.”

They had come and invited him to help them with their inquiries, and had asked for the shoes he was wearing yesterday; he had thought it better to cooperate with them, but had contacted his solicitor as soon as he’d been brought to the station. He knew all about police stations. You went voluntarily and never came out again. Dexter had been talking, after all, but it didn’t matter, he told himself. It would be his word against that of someone who was seen running away from the scene of a crime.

“I wonder if you feel like telling me when you last saw Mrs. Bignall alive, Mr. Watson?”

The question came from Detective Chief Inspector Lloyd, no less. Whatever they said, Eric could see they had graduated him from witness to suspect, from lone sergeant to two-handed interview team, and it was a DCI leading the questioning. He shook his head. “I can’t really remember.”

The bitch had come to his door saying she knew what was happening and if he didn’t stop she would go to the police, whatever it took. Mad cow. What the hell did what he was doing have to do with her? But it didn’t matter what Dexter had told them about that—the woman was mad. She had accused him of everything under the sun, and he could prove that.

“Perhaps you remember that Mrs. Bignall made a complaint about your taking photographs of her when she was sunbathing in her garden?”

“Yeah,” said Eric. “That’s right. But I didn’t take photographs of her. I didn’t even notice her. The woman was barking mad. Saying I was spying on her and God
knows what all. I don’t really see how I can help you with any of this, Chief Inspector. I told the constable who came originally and the sergeant here everything I know about this business.”

“Did you spy on her?” asked Finch.

“No, of course I didn’t! Why the hell would I want to spy on the woman?”

“Maybe you fancied her.”

That nutcase? Finch must be joking, so he laughed. It was only polite.

“Perhaps you’d like to tell us again what you were doing at eight-fifteen last night,” said Lloyd. “We’ve had two versions already—might there be a third?”

What had Dexter told them? Not much, or this wouldn’t be a voluntary visit to the station. But enough.

“I heard the window break, went out, checked my greenhouse, and went back in. On my way back I saw that their French window was standing open, and one of the panes was broken.”

“And did you do anything about that?” asked Finch.

“No, as I’ve already told you, I didn’t. Why should I have done anything about it? It was their lookout if they’d had their window broken.”

“And you still reckon you couldn’t tell the difference between a foot-square pane of glass being broken and the sort of noise that would be made by one of the panes of glass in your greenhouse smashing?”

“I heard breaking glass, that’s all. It sounded pretty loud to me.”

“Is my client a suspect in this inquiry, Chief Inspector?” asked Watson’s solicitor.

“Let’s say we’re keeping an open mind about that,” said Lloyd.

“Why did you ask for the shoes my client was wearing yesterday?”

“We’ve taken photographs and casts of shoe prints at the scene, and we will compare your client’s shoes with those impressions. It will be of great assistance to us, if only for elimination purposes. We’re very grateful to your client for his cooperation.”

“But he has denied having been on the scene of the break-in.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that,” said Lloyd. “But you see, we don’t think that Mr. Watson has told us the whole truth about last night. For instance, he has said several times that he saw no one.” He turned back to Eric then. “Do you have any comment to make on that, Mr. Watson?”

“No. I didn’t see anyone at all.”

“Come on, Mr. Watson,” Finch said. “Dexter Gibson has admitted being there, and he says you saw him and shouted at him to come back. You wanted to know what he’d been up to, didn’t you?”

So that was it. Watson shrugged. “He’s a good kid,” he said. “And I didn’t see him breaking into anyone’s house.”

“But you did see him running away?”

Watson sighed. “Yes, all right,” he said. “I saw him. I didn’t want to get the kid into trouble, that’s all. He works for me—he’s never given me any trouble.”

“Where was he when you saw him first?” Lloyd asked.

“At the gate.”

“But he was in your garden, rather than on the road?”

Watson shook his head. “No, he was just outside the gate. For all I know, he was just going past.”

Finch frowned. “But your security light was on when
you went out,” he said. “And someone running past your gate wouldn’t activate it, would they?”

“No. Someone was on my property, all right—but that someone doesn’t have to have been Dexter. Kids that age run if they think they might get into trouble, whether they had anything to do with whatever’s happened or not.”

Lloyd terminated the interview then. Eric felt pleased with himself; Lloyd had swallowed whole the idea that he had been reluctant to give them Dexter’s name because he worked for him. Which, now that he thought about it, was precisely the case.

“Oh—one more thing, Mr. Watson. Would you have any objection to giving us a blood sample for DNA testing?” asked Lloyd.

Eric’s eyes widened. What the hell was going on? “What for?” he asked.

“We believe that Mrs. Bignall may have been sexually assaulted,” said Lloyd. “Again, we would like, if possible, to eliminate you from the inquiry.”

Eric looked at his solicitor.

“It’s up to you,” he said.

“Well, I think I’d like you to eliminate me, too,” said Eric. “Yes, you can have a blood sample.”

Now he had to wait until the doctor could get here to take it.

Ryan had been charged with theft, taking and driving away, driving without insurance, everything they could think of—but not, he was very relieved to discover, manslaughter—and he had been given police bail.

“Come on,” said Stan, who had arrived when it was
all over and his services were no longer required. “I’ll give you a lift home.”

“What about Dex?”

“They’ve released him pending further inquiries,” said Stan as he got into the car. He leaned over and opened the passenger door.

Ryan got in and sat back, his eyes closed. “What the hell was he doing there, Stan? Who beat him up? How come he’s got himself involved in all this?”

“How come you’ve got yourself involved?”

Ryan opened his eyes, sat up and looked at Stan. “I swear to you,” he said, “I found that sack in the wood.”

“Oh, yes?”

“Well, if you don’t believe me, what chance do I stand with them? Am I off the hook for manslaughter?”

“For the moment. I wouldn’t count on staying off it, though. So far, you seem to be their only tangible link with this burglary. And a woman died, so they’re under pressure from the press to make an arrest this time. Who do you think they’re going to fall back on if all else fails?”

Judy, waiting in Lloyd’s office, rehearsing how she was going to tell him about the diary, jumped when he opened the door. She always had; he didn’t know how to open a door other than suddenly.

“When’s the appointment?” he asked, looking at his watch. “It’s only ten past three—I thought you said it was this evening.”