Scene of Crime (22 page)

“Relax,” she said. “That’s not why I’m here.”

He sat down. “To what do I owe the pleasure, then?”

“I don’t think you’re going to like it very much,” she
said, going into her bag. She took out the diary and placed it on the desk.

Lloyd frowned. “What’s that?”

Judy took a deep breath. “Estelle Bignall’s diary.”

Lloyd looked at it much as she had; like her, he neither picked it up nor touched it. “Why is it on my desk?” he asked. “Or don’t I want to know?”

“You don’t want to know, but you’re going to. Marianne Mackintosh gave it to me.” She told Lloyd how Marianne had gotten it.

“Oh, great,” he said. “And am I right in assuming that you wouldn’t have left your lair to come here if you hadn’t thought it important to my investigation?”

Judy nodded. “I suggest you read the entry I’ve marked.”

“How the hell did Warren miss her diary?”

“Warren?”

“PC Warren took Bignall round the house to check if anything was missing—he must have been in the bedroom. And you’re telling me this was just lying there for Marianne Mackintosh to pick up?”

Judy was glad that someone other than she was getting the blame for this unorthodox acquisition of evidence, but she did feel that Warren was being judged harshly. “Presumably he had no reason to suppose he was dealing with anything other than a burglary gone wrong at the time,” she said. “And there’s nothing to suggest it’s a diary, is there?”

“There’s nothing to suggest it isn’t! Young Sims would have had a look, that’s for certain—he takes the job seriously, which is more than Warren seems to do.” He shook his head, picking the diary up, and sighed. “Oh, it’s me I’m angry with, really. I should have thought
about looking for a diary—I was the one who suspected there was more to it than met the eye.” He put on his glasses and began to read, his eyebrows rising. “Does she give him a name anywhere?” he asked.

“According to later entries, she calls him ‘Papa,’ and he calls her ‘Nicole,’ so that’s not much help. He’s married, and older than her, and that’s about it in the way of clues.”

The diary started in October, which was when Estelle had joined the writing group, and at first she had written in it every day. Then one Monday in November she had announced that she had a lover, and after that wrote in the diary only on Mondays. She seemed to have been reluctant to embark on an affair, but whoever it was had told her it was just what she needed.

“She had a novel way of dealing with the guilt,” Judy said.

Lloyd read a few entries and looked up. “Do you suppose Papa knew that he was a Carl substitute?” he asked.

Judy shook her head. “I doubt it,” she said. “I imagine if he’d had the slightest idea of her state of mind he would have been off like a shot. She picked the wrong men, all right.”

“Unlike you,” said Lloyd, with a smile. “If you were paranoid about the man next door taking photographs of you sunbathing, I hope I’d build you a higher wall before December.”

Judy laughed. “You wouldn’t know how to go about building a wall at all,” she said.

“True.” Lloyd read a few more entries, and closed the diary with a sigh. “I take it she was entertaining Papa when she was supposed to be at her writer’s group?”

“Yes. I spoke to the group leader—she says Estelle came for three weeks and then didn’t come back.” She anticipated Lloyd’s next question. “And no, they didn’t lose any other member at around the same time. Besides, they’re all women.”

Lloyd turned the pages. “Damn,” he said. “There’s no entry at all for yesterday.”

“No,” said Judy grimly. “I don’t suppose she got the chance to write it up.”

Lloyd nodded, and closed the diary. “How long do these evening rehearsals usually last?”

“I’ve only been to a couple,” said Judy. “One lasted about two hours, and the other about three, I think. Last night’s broke up, of course. I think it depended on what they were doing, and on Marianne, of course. I believe she made them all stay until about midnight once, whereas sometimes she decided she was too fatigued to carry on after an hour. Once she sent them all home as soon as they got there.”

“So Papa had no way of knowing how long he had before Carl came home,” said Lloyd, tipping his chair back. “It’s reasonable to assume he would arrive very shortly after Carl left and that he wouldn’t stay too long, just in case. He doesn’t sound overly considerate of Estelle, from what I’ve read. Half an hour would be about my guess.”

Judy agreed, but she could feel one of his theories coming on, so what it was reasonable to assume would have very little to do with it.

“I think she entertained Papa last night,” he said. “And Carl Bignall knew that she would be doing just that.”

Judy listened as he told her of Freddie’s findings, about
Ryan’s insistence that he saw Carl Bignall’s car there. Even she had to concede that Lloyd had every reason to theorize this time.

“Let’s say Carl found her diary last night,” said Lloyd. “He leaves the house as usual, but he doesn’t go to rehearsal—instead, he drives round thinking about what’s been going on, then comes back, goes in and finds her in the altogether except for a bathrobe, having just entertained Papa. They have a row, they struggle—she cries out, and he pushes her face in a cushion or whatever to keep her quiet. If he had a hand on the back of her neck, that would produce the bruises at either side of her jaw-line, according to Freddie. He’s angry, and he doesn’t let her up for air until it’s too late.”

It seemed a lot to assume, but Judy didn’t interrupt. It was always best to give Lloyd his head when he was theorizing. Forensics would or wouldn’t back up the cushion theory.

“So now she’s dead, and he has to do something. So he leaves her trussed up and gagged, shoves some presents into a bin bag, and breaks the window.” His face lit up, as it always did when a little puzzle had been accounted for. “It opens inward, so he can stand inside the house but break the glass from the outside, and he used the curtain to try and deaden the noise—
that’s
why there was glass in the curtain. And when he let go of the curtain, the glass would fall straight down. Once the window was closed again, it would be about two feet away. It was the
window
that was open when the glass was broken, not the curtain.”

Judy hadn’t the faintest idea what he was talking about, but he seemed to, so that was all right.

“He goes out, and runs down the driveway, locking
the gates behind him so no one can get in, which will buy him a little time.” Lloyd brought his chair forward with a thud. “Dexter runs, too, triggering the security light, and the rest of it happens just as Ryan said it did. Then Carl turns up at rehearsal and tells us that Estelle has a cold, to lend credence to what will appear to have happened.” He sat back. “Well? Objections?”

Her first objection was why did Carl Bignall leave the diary lying around for Marianne or anyone else to find? Surely he would have disposed of it if he’d killed Estelle as a result of what he read in it.

“He didn’t mean to kill her,” Lloyd said. “Perhaps he forgot that the diary
was
evidence. Perhaps he believes in hiding things in plain sight—if it was just lying there, no one would think anything of it. And he was right, wasn’t he?”

“Could be.” Judy moved on to her next objection. “Wouldn’t a doctor know that the gag would give him away?”

“Perhaps,” said Lloyd. “Perhaps not. I don’t really know. But all this would have been done in a panic, and in a very few minutes. Given that the times aren’t exact, I would estimate seven or eight at the most. So I don’t suppose he gave a lot of thought to that.”

“Which brings me to my third objection,” she said. “He would have to be able to think like lightning. And he didn’t look like a man who had just committed a crime of passion when he did turn up last night. He must have arrived at the theater within twenty minutes of doing all that, thinking, presumably—what with the security light going on and people coming out of their houses—that the police would practically be following him there. And he was perfectly calm.”

Lloyd assumed the slightly mutinous expression he always had when she argued with his theories. “He’s an actor,” he said. “He pulled it off, and hoped for the best.”

“And I thought Mr. Jones said the noises he heard were outside.”

“He left the French window open—they were close to it.”

“And why was Dexter there?” She smiled. “He doesn’t exactly fit the bill as the boyfriend.”

“No,” Lloyd agreed. “But he did have a crush on her. Maybe he knew about the boyfriend. Maybe he was there because of the boyfriend. Envious, jealous—worried about her, even. With good reason, since he seems to have been taking advantage of her.”

“Could be,” said Judy, nodding. She could imagine Dexter worrying about Estelle’s unsuitable liaison.

“I might have another word with Dexter—see if throwing Carl Bignall’s name into the conversation produces a reaction.” He smiled. “You’ve got more holes to pick in it, I know you have.”

“Who walked the mud through the house? Not Carl, presumably, because why would he step in the mud at the bottom of his garden? He wouldn’t need to get in from Watson’s garden.”

“Pass.”

“Why did he leave her in the kitchen?”

“Pass.”

“And when did he tie her hands? She struggled to free herself, didn’t she?”

“Pass. But let’s forget theories and look at the facts. He wasn’t happily married, his wife was having an affair, his car was seen in Eliot Way
when
the window was
broken, two people were heard having a row
before
the window was broken, the burglary seems to have been staged and the proceeds dumped, and this all happened when he says he was ‘driving around.’ I think that’s more than enough grounds for bringing him in for questioning, don’t you?”

Judy nodded. “Does this mean you won’t be coming with me to the clinic?” she asked.

“Not necessarily,” he said, immediately on the defensive, as he always was when pretending he didn’t use every excuse in the book to get out of this particular duty. “When’s the appointment?”

“Half past five.”

Lloyd looked at his watch. “Half past five,” he said, setting its alarm. “There.” He patted the watch. “I’ll be home by quarter past.”

Oh, sure he would, thought Judy. She had handed him the excuse on a plate this time.

Carl sat in the interview room, waiting for the tape to be set up. He hadn’t been surprised when he was asked to come in and answer questions. He knew that driving around was not going to impress them as an alibi, and he knew that Lloyd was already suspicious of him, and would want more detail about that drive, which he couldn’t give. Because he had left the house and
had
just driven around. Anywhere. Everywhere. He had no idea where exactly.

He’d been cautioned, told that he wasn’t under arrest, asked if he wanted a solicitor. He didn’t. The first question startled him.

“What size shoe do you wear, Dr. Bignall?” asked Finch.

“Ten,” he said.

“Thank you.” Sergeant Finch put a familiar-looking book down on the desk. “Do you know what this is?” he asked.

He knew he’d seen it somewhere before, but he wasn’t sure if he did know what it was. Oh, of course, yes, he did. He frowned. “Yes,” he said. “It’s Estelle’s journal. Where did you get it?”

“It was handed in to us by Marianne Mackintosh,” Lloyd said from over by the window set high in the wall, apparently anxious to catch a glimpse of something, standing practically on tiptoe in order to look out. “She found it when she went to your house this morning. She thought we ought to see it.” He turned as he spoke.

Carl frowned, puzzled, and looked back at Finch. “Why didn’t she just leave it where it was?”

“She thought we’d be interested in the contents,” said Finch. “She was right. Have you read it?”

“No, of course not. It’s private.” He’d had no desire to read it. “She started keeping it when she joined the writer’s group—the others suggested it. Keeping a journal helps you learn how to put things down on paper.”

“I think perhaps you should read it now.” Lloyd left the window and pushed the book across the table to him. “If you don’t mind.”

Carl picked it up and opened it where someone had thoughtfully provided a Bartonshire Constabulary bookmark. He was startled, to say the least, by what he found himself reading. He leafed back through it; the previous entries were her thoughts on current affairs, on the weather. This announcement that she had taken a lover just suddenly appeared, and then there was nothing but weekly accounts of this apparent love affair. He looked up, shaking his head. “I don’t understand,” he said.

“Seems clear enough to me,” said Finch. “Did you find it? Read it? Decide to face her with it?”

Carl stared at him. “I’ve never read it,” he said. “This is the first time I’ve ever opened it.”

“Did you go back home to catch her? Have a fight with her?”

Carl felt as though he was in a play that he had failed to rehearse. None of this was making any
sense
. “I’ve told you—whoever had that row, it wasn’t me and Estelle.”

“Then what were you doing between half past seven and twenty-five to nine?” demanded Finch.

“I drove round to clear my head.” He appealed to Lloyd. “I told you all this last night.”

“You said something happened that you had to think about,” Lloyd said. “But you wouldn’t tell me what. I think you found that diary, left the house, drove round, then turned back and went home again.”

But this was nonsense. Nonsense. What on earth would make them think that? They couldn’t just accuse people out of the blue, could they? He had never read her diary, he didn’t believe for one moment that she had a lover, he had not had an argument with her, and he had not come back for any reason at all. He had driven around, and then gone to the theater. He told them that for the umpteenth time.

“Did anyone see you driving round?”

Carl looked back at the uncompromising Finch. He doubted very much that anyone had seen him. Driving around was driving around—people didn’t see you. You were doing it because you didn’t want to see people. That was kind of the point of it. “No,” he said. “Not as far as I’m aware.”