The Company She Kept (24 page)

There was suddenly a clamour of panic inside her head, battering at her so that her skull felt fit to split in two. For several indecisive moments she stood immobile, then her natural confidence asserted itself.

Two of them stood there, the Chief Inspector and the bouncy-looking woman sergeant with the thick plait.

‘A few questions, Dr Freeman. It won't take long.'

‘What questions?'
Try not to sound so defensive. Smile.
‘Come in, please. Would you like some coffee?'

‘No, thank you.' The sergeant sounded unhelpful, as she and the Chief Inspector came into the room.

They sat stiffly on the edges of their chairs and Mayo said, ‘Can you remember exactly what time you came home last Tuesday evening?'

‘Yes, straight after surgery. It finished at seven, so I'd be home by about ten past.'

‘Are you sure, Dr Freeman?'

‘Absolutely.'

‘And you didn't go out again until you went out to dinner with Mr Bouvier at eight-fifteen?'

‘No.'

‘I should tell you that we have evidence you were not here at eight o'clock.'

How did they know that? Somebody rang and got my answering service? Somebody called? Felix? ‘I was probably having my bath and didn't hear.'

He made no comment on this, but asked, ‘Do you own this plastic mackintosh?'

Sealed in a labelled plastic bag, it was produced from the sergeant's leather shoulder-bag. ‘Certainly not.'

‘It was found in a cupboard at the Hill Street chapel, which you use as your campaign headquarters.'

‘Well, I'm not the only one using that place, am I?'

‘I must also tell you that our forensic people have found pieces of fingernail there, which we believe to be Angie Robinson's. We believe that she met her death there.' And suddenly, ‘Did you kill Angie Robinson, Dr Freeman?'

She despised alcohol as a prop, but she could have done with a drink at that moment. Even a drink of water, her mouth was so dry. She licked her lips and said, ‘I find that a very offensive remark. I am a doctor, dedicated to saving life, not taking it, especially that of my dearest friend.' There was an expression on his face she could not read, a dark look, flared nostrils. Was it contempt? ‘Please get your coat, Dr Freeman. I think we should be well advised to continue this interview down at Milford Road police station.'

‘You can't do this to me, you've nothing against me!'

‘I'm arresting you on suspicion of the wilful murder of Irena Bron.'

She felt the adrenalin draining from her extremities. Her facial muscles seemed to have stiffened so that she found it difficult to speak. ‘
Irena Bron?
That's ridiculous. You already have the man who murdered her. Felix Darbell has confessed!'

‘Because Felix Darbell genuinely thought he had killed her. And it wasn't for want of trying – but when you knelt down beside her and saw she was still alive, it was you who put your hands round her throat and finished her off.'

‘This is pure supposition!'

‘Rather more than that. We have a witness.'

‘No, she's –'

‘Dead? Were you going to say? Killed because she saw you do it? Yes, I think Angie Robinson did see what happened. I think she was killed because she knew what you'd done and was threatening to tell what she'd seen. But the witness I'm talking about isn't Angie Robinson. There was someone else who saw what you did. Mrs Wilbraham was at the top of the stairs and we have her testimony as to what happened.'

‘Why did you kill Irena Bron, Dr Freeman?'

‘She was very nearly dead when I got into the hall.' Her voice was strong. The drive to the police station had given her time to get herself together. She was defiant and ready, almost eager, to confess. Like many another confession Mayo had heard, it was laced with bravado and a determination not to see herself in the wrong. ‘So nearly dead it was a kindness to do what I did. Do you realize that if she had lived, she might have been paralysed, even brain-damaged?'

‘Kindness!' Mayo repeated. He felt he'd heard it all now. ‘And you say you're dedicated to saving life, not taking it! In my experience, doctors don't accept defeat so easily. So why did you really do it?'

She saw it was useless and gave up any pretence at virtue. ‘Why?' she repeated, almost viciously. ‘Because Kitty Wilbraham had promised me money for the Women's Hospital. I was trying at that time to get it privately funded and she'd promised me a very substantial donation and to leave the rest to the fund when she died. Then Irena came on the scene ... Kitty's daughter.'

‘What made you think Mrs Wilbraham was her mother?'

‘It was obvious, as Felix pointed out to me, and why else would Kitty have taken her in – and made her an allowance when she decided to go away? Irena told me that much herself, and hinted there was more to come. At any rate there wasn't going to be much left for me, for the hospital. I was devastated but there wasn't much I could do about it – until I saw her lying there on the floor, seconds away from death. I knew exactly what I had to do. In a split second it came to me that I could so easily make everything what it was before ... I had no idea Kitty had seen.' But the small frown showed only displeasure; not the faintest shadow of remorse or guilt.

‘Did you not suspect when she went away so suddenly?'

‘Kitty was always capricious – and I had enough problems of my own to think about. It simply didn't occur to me.' He thought perhaps it hadn't. She was so essentially self-orientated, she would be able to block out all issues other than the one which was of immediate concern to her. ‘And your main problem was, of course, Angie Robinson, who had also seen what happened.'

But if she had been ready enough, in the face of Kitty Wilbraham's taped evidence, to admit to killing Irena Bron, the murder of Angie Robinson was a different matter. What he needed here, too, was a confession. He had a feeling he wasn't going to get it. She sat quite motionless, but her eyes were shadowed and the little frown between her brows had become a deep cleft. She lifted her chin defiantly and stared out of the murky window of the interview room.

‘I think Angie Robinson had been blackmailing you emotionally ever since that time. She kept your secret, but her silence was dearly bought. Obligation, someone once said, is a pain, and I think you saw your forthcoming marriage with Mr Bouvier as a way out. But there lay your mistake.' Her hands clenched and she blinked rapidly behind her spectacles and he thought for a moment he'd got to her. ‘It was the one thing Angie would never have tolerated, and everything stemmed from that. I believe she threatened you with exposure if you didn't call off the wedding. Perhaps she'd also threatened to write to us? Or told you she had, but naming no names?'

She gave him no help, and he resumed patiently, ‘You were not, I think, certain whether she'd sent that letter until I told you about it, but you must have known that if she had, sooner or later we would come round to the events at Flowerdew. And that was why you decided to kill her and set Felix Darbell up for it.'

He stopped, letting the silence go on until at last, unable to resist, she said drily, ‘I congratulate you on your imagination, Chief Inspector, but that's absolutely all it is.'

‘I don't think so. You made sure we got on to Felix Darbell by dropping his name to me. There were witnesses to prove he'd committed one murder – he believed it himself. If you could make it seem as though Angie had been blackmailing him over this, it would provide a reason for her murder.

‘But you had to get him here, to Lavenstock, and put him in a position where he could be blamed. So you constructed an elaborate charade which would ensure he was at Bulstrode Street at eight o'clock that night. Meanwhile, you had enticed Angie from her flat and down to the old chapel by means of a phone call – some pretext to do with your campaign, no doubt. It was a very convenient place for you, being in close proximity both to where you lived and the hospital car park where you could later leave her car. And, being Tuesday night, you could count on not being disturbed. While she was on her way, you used your key to slip quietly into her flat and leave a note for Felix Darbell asking him to wait, providing whisky and a glass for him while he waited, and then drove to meet Angie at the chapel. I suggest that by the time Mr Darbell got to her flat, Angie Robinson had been strangled and her body was on its way, in her own car, to Hartopp Moor. All you had to do then was to park the Astra, return to the flat to remove the note and to lock the door and get back to Kilbracken Road in time to dine out with Mr Bouvier. The timing was tight, but you managed it.'

There was silence when he had finished. She sat looking at her clasped hands on the table in front of her.

He said conversationally, ‘It's ironic, you know. The one thing I admired most in you was the thing that gave you away. I saw you as an idealist, Dr Freeman, someone essentially honest –' her eyes slid towards him – ‘and then I learned that you didn't own the house on Kilbracken Road, as you'd led us to believe. A harmless enough little deception in itself, and what did it matter? It made a better story, put you in a favourable light – and that's very important to you, isn't it? But it set me wondering whether you'd been entirely truthful about everything ... We began to look into other things you'd told us, and we found that Angie was far from being the abused and under-privileged child you had made her out to be, whereas a little girl called Madeleine Freeman –'

‘Stop it! You can't have any idea how it was!'

‘After that, there was no holding her. She made a full confession to both murders.' And once started, she had insisted on every detail being correct, mostly in order to justify herself, but also to prove her own cleverness. An exercise in self-aggrandisement.

Mayo stretched his feet towards the roaring log flames. The small table was set in the inglenook beside the great stone fireplace of the old inn. On the table was an enormous pot of tea, a healthy-sized pile of buttered toast, some scones and homemade raspberry jam. Alex was seated opposite, her normally pale skin glowing from exercise and cold and the ruddy light of the fire. They'd just walked seven bracing miles across country on the last cold, sunny afternoon in March, a day full of spring promise. Walked for the most part in silence, enjoying the luxury of each other's company and, for Mayo at least, the release of pressure after the winding up of the Angie Robinson case.

He hadn't spoken much about it to Alex during the major part of the investigation or while the later, supplementary inquiries were being carried out, but now, when all that remained was to deal with the paperwork and the legal formalities necessary to prepare a case for prosecution, she'd known he'd feel the need to talk and get the case out of his system. There were still weeks of work ahead, but all routine stuff. The worst of the pressure had been lifted and he could relax and feel at ease.

‘I still find it incredible, the thought of someone like Madeleine Freeman committing two deliberate murders,' she said.

A public personality, and so dedicated, hard-working and caring, she had seemed – but somehow gone wrong, marred by some fatal flaw. Angie Robinson might have been scarred but so was Madeleine. In her case, marked from an early age by something other than a visible scar.

‘It's a matter of losing control,' Mayo said. ‘Once she did, she was prepared to go to any lengths, even to incriminate an innocent man. Not just any man, but one who'd already borne the burden of her guilt for fourteen years. Do you know what she said to that? “
It was unfortunate that suspicion should have to fall on Felix, but I had to think of my career, my work
.” '

‘Does she feel no guilt?'

‘None at all, I'm convinced. She'd have killed anyone who got in her way, without any compunction.'

He finished the last scone and his third cup of tea. ‘Any more in the pot?'

She squeezed out another cup, and added hot water to the pot. It was dim and cosy here by the fire. The pungently-scented logs settled in a rosy glow. He smiled at her. He thought she looked beautiful in her soft, rust-coloured sweater, a silk scarf at her neck and tan trousers tucked into gleaming leather boots.

During their walk they had passed the tumbledown little house Abigail had set her heart on. ‘Well, it has character,' Mayo said, looking hard at the roof and the spoutings and the surrounding jungle that was the garden. ‘If nothing else.'

‘She'll cope.'

‘Oh, I've do doubt!' He grinned, then said casually, ‘Alone?'

‘Alone.' They continued along the path and Alex said, ‘She's off men, for the moment. They don't mix with ambition.'

‘She might find there's more to life than ambition.'

This was dangerous ground and she hadn't replied. Had he guessed at the still unresolved questions churning around in her mind? Perhaps he had, for he'd changed the subject: ‘There's something about these old houses and the way they reflect their owners. Take that place, Flowerdew – and Mrs Wilbraham. I went back there to get her signed testimony and she seems to have taken on a new lease of life. She's talking about having the chimneys seen to and the house redecorated! She's a cunning old bird ... I don't believe she's told us everything there is to know about Irena Bron's murder, any more than Madeleine Freeman has ... but to prosecute a woman of her age? What else is there to do but turn a blind eye, to that and whatever else she's done?' He added, apparently inconsequentially, ‘She told me she's going to leave what's left of her money, and all those artefacts that are in her red room, to the Bardo museum in Tunis.'

‘I thought they were replicas?'

‘Then they won't accept them, will they?' His expression was enigmatic.