The Young Widow (29 page)

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Authors: Cassandra Chan

BOOK: The Young Widow
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“Let's get inside,” he said. “I have something to tell you.”
Her eyes widened at his tone. “Has something happened?” she asked anxiously.
“I'm afraid it has,” he answered, holding the door for her. “Come up to the flat.”
She followed him silently up the stairs, but all pleasure had disappeared from her expression. Gibbons let them into the flat, shrugging out of his jacket, and moving first to the kitchen to put on the kettle. They would shortly, he felt, be in dire need of a cup of tea.
Annette stood a few feet within the door, her bearing marked by uncertainty.
“Jack?” she said. “What's wrong?”
Gibbons came back into the room and, taking her hand, led her to a chair. She kept tight hold of his hand as she sat, so he perched on the arm, reaching out to stroke her hair.
“It's bad news,” he said. “But we'll get through it together, Annette—never doubt that.”
“But what is it?”
“It's Maddie,” said Gibbons, and he could not keep the anger out of his voice. “She rang Carmichael today and now claims that she has proof that you left the house after eleven-fifteen that morning.”
Annette appeared altogether bewildered by this statement. “But it's not possible,” she protested. “It was eleven when I left—both Kitty and I say the same. She had just brought in Geoffrey's coffee and she would never be late with it. Kitty's always very prompt about everything.”
“I know,” said Gibbons soothingly. “But McAllister was working in the tulip beds just off the terrace and he saw you leave. He hadn't any idea of what time it was, but he knows it was shortly af ter Maddie called good morning down to him from her window. Maddie now says that she looked at her clock then and that it was eleven-fifteen.”
Annette was shaking her head. “It's not true,” she said. Tears sprang into her eyes. “It's not true. I did leave at eleven. Maddie's lying.”
“I know that,” said Gibbons, cradling her head against him. “I know she's lying, but Carmichael's not so sure. I've done my best to plant doubts in his mind, but he's still going to pull you in for questioning tomorrow.” He hesitated. “Annette,” he said, “it's going to be bad, the interview. I can't help that. Carmichael's going to do his best to pull you apart like a puzzle and reassemble you more to his
liking, and he's very good at what he does. Harrowing doesn't begin to describe it. But you've just got to be strong, no matter how awful it gets, and remember it will be over soon. Carmichael's got no evidence aside from Maddie's lie, and he won't charge you unless he can browbeat a confession out of you. You won't give him that, because we both know you didn't do it.”
“Oh God,” said Annette, her voice muffled against Gibbons's shirt. “I don't think I can stand it.”
“Yes, you can,” said Gibbons. “You're stronger than you know and you've already been through so much, you can take this little bit more. It'll be all right in the end, Annette. You've got to remember that.”
She looked up at him through her tears. “Will you be there?”
“I can try to be, if you want me,” he replied. “But it won't do any good. I won't be able to help you or even smile at you. If Carmichael ever suspects I'm in love with you, I'll lose any influence I have with him. He'll never believe another thing I say about you.”
In truth, Gibbons did not want to be present for the interview. He did not want to watch Carmichael use his skills to break down the woman he loved, and he had already invented various excuses to give to his superior.
But Annette was shaking her head. “I don't care,” she answered. “It'll be a help if you're there because I'll know there's one person in the room that knows I'm innocent.”
“Then I'll ask Carmichael if I can sit in,” said Gibbons, albeit reluctantly. “I can't promise, because if he's thought of an errand he wants me to run, I'll have to go, but I'll do my best.”
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Her tears were tapering off and Gibbons released her to lean back in the chair.
“There're two things you have to remember,” he said, holding her eyes. “When we come to pick you up in the morning, you must act surprised. Carmichael mustn't know I've warned you. You can do that, can't you?”
She nodded, blotting her face with a handkerchief. “Yes, I'll remember,” she promised. “I'll be surprised.”
“The other thing is to demand your solicitor,” continued Gibbons. “Carmichael may try to persuade you not to send for him, but don't give in. Refuse to answer anything until the solicitor arrives, and stick to it. No matter how reasonable Carmichael sounds, just keep asking for your lawyer.”
“All right. I can do that.” She reached up to touch his face. “It'll come right in the end. You say so and I believe you.”
“You'll never have cause to doubt me,” Gibbons promised.
T
he morning dawned, bright and dazzling. Bethancourt did not feel at all in step with it. His first thought upon waking was of Gibbons taking the woman he loved in for questioning and standing by while Carmichael raked her over the coals. He had gone round to Gibbons's flat last night, after Annette had left, and spent his evening trying to cheer his friend. He had rashly promised to drive down to Hurtwood Hall this morning and do his own poking around, although he couldn't think what earthly good it would do. Nevertheless, he spent far less time over his coffee and newspaper than was usual, and was on the road an hour after waking.
When he arrived, he drove around to the service entrance, and knocked on the kitchen door with his mind firmly made up to be as objective as possible. If there was a reason to think Annette Berowne innocent, Bethancourt was determined to find it.
“Well, you're the day after the fair,” said Kitty when she saw him.
“Excuse me?”
She waved impatiently. “They've been and gone, and taken Mrs. Berowne with them.”
“Ah, yes, I know. Can I come in?”
“Yes, of course.” She stood back to let him in and added, “Luckily it was only sandwiches for lunch.”
“What?”
“I mean, I didn't have a lot of food waiting that would go to waste.”
Bethancourt eyed her. There were circles under her eyes and her usual spirits appeared to be flagging.
“Sleep badly?” he asked sympathetically.
She pushed her hair back from her face. “I suppose I did. It's all very unsettling, you know. I mean, first Mr. Paul's a murderer, then he isn't and we're back where we started, and then it's Mrs. Berowne. I suppose you think you've got the right person this time?”
Bethancourt opened his mouth to say yes, and then closed it again as he remembered his resolution. “I don't know,” he said at last. “It's a mess of a case.”
Kitty sighed. “It is that. Well, sit down and have some coffee.”
She joined him at the table, tucking one foot up on the chair and cradling her mug in both hands. Always before when Bethancourt had been in her kitchen, she had been a bundle of energy, tackling one job after another without pause, but now she had the air of being too weary to rise.
“You seem almost sorry that it's turned out to be Mrs. Berowne,” he said.
“It's not that. It's the waiting to see if it is really her. I learned my lesson with Mr. Paul. The police took him in and I thought, ‘Well, thank God it's over.' Only it wasn't. And let me tell you, Maddie gloating is no easier to put up with than Maddie furious about her nephew being suspected.”
“She's been crowing, has she?”
“That's an understatement. She suggested we could have a bottle of champagne tonight with dinner. I don't feel like champagne.”
“No, I don't expect you do. Tell me, Kitty, could she possibly be lying?”
Kitty looked surprised. “Maddie? You mean about the time she saw McAllister?”
“That's right.” Bethancourt leaned back and reached out to scratch Cerberus's ears. “It's not that I firmly believe Annette to be innocent,” he said, “but the timing does concern me. From the very first it was clear that Maddie loathed Annette and believed in her guilt more firmly than in God. Then the police come up with a motive for Paul Berowne and Maddie blows a gasket. The police have to release him, but Maddie had to know it wasn't over, and that Carmichael wasn't concentrating solely on Annette. And suddenly she remembers that it was eleven-fifteen when she said good morning to McAllister.”
Kitty frowned and rubbed the tip of her nose. “Put like that,” she said, “it does seem suspicious. But I honestly don't know, Phillip. Maddie's smart; it's not as though she couldn't think of it. But would she do it? I don't know. I guess I can't rule that out, though lying isn't like her.”
Bethancourt nodded and sipped his coffee. “Tell me something else, then,” he said. “Have you noticed any changes in Mrs. Berowne in the last few months, before her husband died?”
“Changes? Changes how?”
“I mean did she seem any different than she did when you first came to work here? Was she any less happy, or less bright and cheery? Did she drink more, or did she seem bored? Did she spend more time out shopping, or did she and Geoffrey have more frequent arguments?”
“They never had very many,” Kitty answered. “And she certainly wasn't drinking more—I buy the liquor and I'd have noticed.” She paused thoughtfully and looked off into space. At last she shook her
head. “I don't think so,” she said. “Certainly I never noticed a change in her. Why do you ask?”
“Because if she's guilty, one would rather expect some sign that she was tired of her husband, however small. On the other hand, perhaps she's just a superb actress and kept whatever she felt to herself.”
Kitty was silent again, thinking this over. Then she sighed. “If there was any sign, I missed it,” she said. “Even going over the past with that in mind, I can't pick out anything about her that seemed different.”
Bethancourt was disappointed, though he kept it to himself. He had very much been hoping that Kitty, her memory jogged, would come up with something that would settle his conscience. Instead, all she had done was, in essence, to say that Gibbons's view of the case was perfectly possible.
 
 
Gibbons's nerves were on edge
. Carmichael had determined that the best way to begin was to persuade Annette to admit that Berowne's money had been a factor in her decision to marry him. He had been leading up to this point gradually, and Gibbons had inwardly winced to see the wariness fade from Annette's face as the questions remained innocuous. But he knew, as she did not, that the interrogation would not remain innocuous for long.
It was dawning on her even now as Carmichael's questions became more pointed.
“So,” the chief inspector was saying almost casually, “it was only four months after you began dating that Geoffrey Berowne proposed to you. And how long was it before you realized that he was a very wealthy man?”
Annette looked suddenly uncertain.
“I—I don't know,” she faltered. “I suppose—I knew he was well-off by the places he'd take me. And, of course, when I saw the estate, I realized that he must have money.”
“And that no doubt influenced your decision to marry him.”
“No!” she answered, stung. “It did not. I would never marry a man I didn't love, no matter how rich he was.”
“And yet you seem to only fall in love with wealthy men,” said Carmichael evenly.
Her eyes pleaded with him, but she did not answer.
“It's rather curious, that. All three of your husbands were not only well-off, but many years older than yourself. Why is it, do you think, that you are only attracted to older men?”
Her eyes went to Gibbons involuntarily, but she looked away again at once.
“I don't know,” she said softly. “It just happened that way.”
“So if Geoffrey Berowne had been a younger man, a man your own age, for instance, do you think you would still have fallen in love with him?”
“I suppose so.” She looked up. “It's what's inside a person that counts, isn't it?”
“Certainly,” agreed Carmichael, “but in love, the outer package is generally assumed to play a role as well. Were you sexually attracted to Geoffrey Berowne?”
Annette flushed scarlet. “I loved him,” she muttered.
“Yes, so you've said, but did you want to go to bed with him?”
“Of course I did.”
“How long was it after your first date that you did sleep with him?”
She was obviously embarrassed, and answered in a low voice, her eyes on the table before her.
“It was the night he proposed. Six weeks before we were married.”
“I see. So you dated him for two and a half months and although you lusted after him, you couldn't manage to get him into bed? I find that difficult to believe.”
“He never asked me,” she said desperately. “I never thought it strange—he had very conservative morals.”
“Yes, a highly religious man, according to your vicar. So you never tried to seduce him because you were afraid of offending him?”
“I—I thought he would ask when he wanted to.”
Gibbons clenched his fists and looked away. He knew it was only the beginning.
 
 
Bethancourt knocked on the
door of Maddie Wellman's room with trepidation. He had not seen her since the day she had thrown him and Gibbons out, and he was unsure of what his reception might be. He was counting on the fact that she would probably be pleased at the opportunity to gloat over him and thus would tolerate his presence.
She looked surprised to see him, but immediately set aside the book she had been reading and motioned him in.
“I certainly didn't expect to see you,” she said. “Come in and sit down.”
“Shall Cerberus come in, too?” he asked. “I brought him up because you seemed to like him.”
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
She held out her hands to the great dog, who padded over to sniff them politely and allow his chest to be petted.
“Yes, you're a beautiful boy, aren't you?” she cooed.
Bethancourt lowered himself into a chair and reflected that the conversation might be all right after all.
“I came,” he said, “to take my leave of you and Kitty, now that the case seems to be wrapped up.”
“Ha!” she said, so sharply that Cerberus started. “And no thanks to you lot.”
“No,” admitted Bethancourt. “Thanks to you, as I understand it.”
“Really,” she said, “if the police would just tell a body things instead of endlessly asking impertinent questions, they might solve their cases sooner. I'd no idea that McAllister had seen Annette leaving
the house that day. If I had, I could have solved the whole thing half an hour after that ass Gorringe got here.”
She was obviously still greatly annoyed with the police performance, but she was equally obviously enjoying herself. Bethancourt began to relax a little.
“I'd no idea you didn't know,” he said. “I suppose we all just assumed, since you'd seen McAllister out there, you would realize he had seen Annette.”
“Never occurred to me,” she said. “Usually McAllister's completely oblivious to anything other than the job at hand. And besides, he was nowhere near the side door when I saw him.”
“But you knew the police had been questioning him?”
“Of course, I'm not blind. But I thought they were just trying to jog his memory, make sure he hadn't seen anything. I was rather amused,” she admitted. “Having tried to have a conversation with McAllister myself, I could just imagine the grunts the police were getting instead of the information they wanted.”
Bethancourt was exceedingly glad to hear that he and the police had apparently been separated in her mind.
“Gwenda was the only one he ever talked to,” she added reminiscently. “I always thought he must have been a bit in love with her, the way he'd listen to whatever she said and run off and do it, while the rest of us could talk a blue streak and he'd just go along and do whatever he'd meant to in the first place.” She sighed. “If I saw more of him, I might have known earlier what he'd seen. Apparently he'd complained to Kitty about the police, but she never realized I didn't know. When I came back from talking to him yesterday morning, I was all excited and I burst in on Kitty in the kitchen with the news that McAllister had seen Annette leaving. Quite a triumph, I thought it. And she just stared at me and said, ‘Yes, I know.'” Maddie chuckled.
“How did he come to mention it to you?” asked Bethancourt.
“Well, it all started over these tomato seeds Kitty'd bought,” said
Maddie, not at all displeased to be asked to tell the story again. “They're a different sort from the kind McAllister usually grows and I can't tell you why she's so keen on them, but she is. She'd given the packet to him and asked him to start them for her, and then discovered he'd never done it. She asked him again, and then they had an argument about it, and finally she came to me. So I went down yesterday morning early and said to him, ‘Look here, McAllister, I know it's probably foolishness, but Kitty's got her heart set on these tomatoes. Can't you just indulge her?' And he started in on how he might be able to do extra things like planting extra tomatoes we didn't need if the police would stop pestering him about Mrs. Berowne, but as it was the apple trees were long overdue for spraying. So I said, rather sharply as I recollect, 'Really, McAllister, the police are hardly taking up all of your time. And why should they be bothering you about Mrs. Berowne anyway?' He said he didn't know, and if he'd realized they were going to hound him for the rest of his life, he'd never have told them he saw her leaving that day.”

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