Verdict Unsafe (36 page)

She told him. Everything. About the Malworth Mafia using Ginny as bait. About trying to keep Matt out of it, about Case believing she was
part
of the Malworth Mafia, everything. When she had finished, she drained her glass of wine, and poured them both more.

Hotshot said nothing for a minute or so, then nodded slightly. “I couldn’t better your defense of the neglect of duty charge,” he said. “I think if we went in for a hairsplitting contest, it would have to be a tiebreak.”

Judy smiled, a little reluctantly. Everything was pleasantly hazy now, including Hotshot. It all seemed like some sort of game. It wasn’t real. It was only a story.

“I doubt if they’ll proceed on that,” he said, and took a sip of wine. “Now—falsifying a statement. That’s a bit more tricky.”

“I didn’t,” she said. “I swear to you, I didn’t.”

“But it looks as though you must have.”

“So you think I did?”

“No. I just said it
looks
as though you must have. I can think of circumstances in which Drummond could have given you that statement even though he didn’t actually carry out the rape.”

Judy shook her head. “No—no, don’t try saying he was just making it up from what he’d been told and all that,” she said, putting down her glass, the better to use her hands, which she felt obliged to do, since she was aware that her voice wasn’t really working all that well. She could think quite clearly; speaking clearly was the problem. “Bobbie’s was different, all right? It was different. She had carbon monoxide poisoning.
She
knew how she got it, I knew how she got it—and Drummond knew how she got it. He told me. Told me about the exhaust pumping into her face, making her gag, the little bastard—he told me!” She pressed her steepled fingers to her lips, her eyes closed, as angry now as she had been when he had told her.

“He could have told you that if he had
watched
the rape,” said Harper quietly.

Judy opened her eyes, lifted her head. “Watched it?” she said. “You’re the one who went on about coincidences!”

“Which weren’t coincidences at all, on either side, according to you,” said Harper. “That poor little girl was the rope in a tug-of-war between Drummond and the Malworth Mafia.”

“Oh, right,” said Judy. “They weren’t coincidences—so this one’s OK, even though it’s the size of Texas?” She seemed to have developed a lisp, and to be condemned to choosing words with esses in them. “Someone hero-worships a rapist, dresses like him, behaves like him, and then has the sheer good fortune of seeing his idol at
work!”

“Would it be such a coincidence? They had exactly the same MO—watched people in parked cars. There aren’t that many people these days who do their courting in parked cars. Their
paths were pretty well bound to cross sooner or later—the wonder is they hadn’t crossed before, if you ask me.”

“Drummond would have told you that!” she said angrily. “It would explain how he could give such a detailed statement! He’d have
told
you!”

“Would he? He would have told me that he saw a policeman carrying out a rape? A rape that wasn’t even reported? A policeman who was ostensibly on duty?” He shook his head. “We don’t know what went on that night,” he said. “We only have the word of two discredited police officers, who have lied and lied again! He was scared, Judy—just like he said. He told me as much as he dared. And he would never have dared tell me that.”

Judy stared at him, then looked away. She took out a cigarette, lit it, inhaled smoke. My God. Oh, my God. They were both at the football ground. They had both followed her, each unaware of the other’s presence in the thick fog. Matt … and Drummond. Matt had raped her, Drummond had watched. And when Matt had left her there, Drummond had stayed and continued to watch until Bobbie had got herself together enough to get back into her car and drive off. Then he had bombed off on his bike, arriving at the police car in the speed trap a minute after Matt. And Matt— Oh, God. Drummond had said something. Something—Matt knew, knew he’d been seen. That was why he had hit him, and Harper was right—they had no idea what else they had said or done to him.

She had got it all wrong. She drank some more wine. She had got it
all wrong
. “How?” she said. “How could I have got it so wrong?”

“I take it that you are the only police officer in the history of organized policing ever to have been wrong?” said Hotshot. Judy pulled a face.

“Oh, I see! It’s just the first time in your own personal career that you have been wrong.”

“It’s not that,” said Judy.

“Well, forgive me for thinking it might be, in view of the look on your face. So, you were wrong. Don’t you think you should be a bit more worried about being suspected of murder?”

She shook her head.

“Why not?”

“Because I didn’t murder him,” she said. It seemed simple enough to her.

“Oh, yes. And we all know if you didn’t do it …”

“You’ve nothing to worry about, sir,” Judy said, remembering what Lloyd had said. “Which means I’m almost certainly guilty.”

“Should I understand that?” said Hotshot.

“No.” She looked a little unsteadily at him. “Look—I don’t care if they think I killed him.”

“You’ll care if you find yourself doing twenty years in Holloway,” he said.

“Yes—yes, right. Yes. But—I … well, I can’t see it coming to that, right? I mean—it might. But I’ll cross that—” She couldn’t remember what you called them. “You know,” she said.

“Bridge when you come to it,” said Hotshot. “Are you thinking of drinking any more?”

“I might,” said Judy. “But I have come to this particular bridge. I was wrong. And … and instinct’s my … thing, do you see?”

Hotshot shook his head.

“Well—Lloyd’s is puzzles. He can spot what’s wrong with a story, a situation. He calls them little puzzles. Like—why did Marilyn not lock herself in the loo?” She hadn’t really given that the thought she had said she would. She had been too busy. “And Tom, he sees things.”

“So will you, soon,” muttered Hotshot.

“I mean he observes things. Not just sees. Sounds, smells— he notices things. You know. What time someone bought a packet of cigarettes—how many are left in it. Whether they could really have smoked seventeen cigarettes in ten minutes— that sort of thing.”

“I’m sure he’s a veritable Sherlock Holmes.” He smiled.

“Well, you can make fun. But if—if your job is sorting out other people’s messes, you have to go about it somehow. My way’s instinct. For instance, I saw you in court, and I thought you were a smoothie lawyer with no scruples, and then I met
you, and—” She smiled, “I
knew
you were,” she said, with a shrug.

He laughed. “I sort out other people’s messes,” he said, “What’s my line of attack?”

“Words. Listening to what people say. Properly. Like …” She thought for a moment, trying to find an example. “Like Merrill saying he said ’if Drummond had raped those women he could prove it. And you said Drummond might not have noticed the word ‘if.’” She looked up at him. “And Merrill might not have said it,” she said. “He was very God-fearing and upright, but I don’t … I don’t think he was very principled.”

“No,” said Hotshot. “I don’t think he was. But he did say ‘if,’ as it happens. For the record.”

“See? You didn’t say he hadn’t. But you even made
him
think he hadn’t, because he knew he hadn’t been playing it straight, and he wasn’t sure. That’s your thing.”

“Don’t you think perhaps everyone’s got a thing?”

Judy shrugged. “Probably,” she said.

“And don’t you think that there have been actors who could have made you believe they were rapists?”

“Sure.”

“Acting was Drummond’s thing,” he said. “He did it all the time. He did it without thinking. The bewildered innocent. The not-very-bright inadequate. The sharp-as-a-tack wide boy. The rapist?”

“Mm,” she said.

“And everyone meets their Waterloo,” he said. “I might be sharp with words, but little Ginny left me with egg on my face more than once, and she can’t even read and write.”

Judy laughed.

“That’s better,” he said.

“Do you think she really did help to set him up?” she asked, still finding that impossible to believe.

“No,” he said. “Not necessarily. He did hero-worship the rapist, remember. And he had had a master class. Wanted to prove himself, perhaps—possibly was even encouraged to prove himself, to make the Mafia’s task easier. I think he attempted to carry out a copycat rape on you, and when that
failed, the Malworth Mafia offered Ginny up to him. He took the bait, and they had him where they wanted him.”

Yes. Yes, that made sense. At least she hadn’t been wrong about Ginny. Judy leaned back against the armchair. “Let’s talk about something else,” she said.

“IS GINNY ALL RIGHT?” LENNIE ASKED, AFTER HE had been given a break for a much needed cup of tea and a cigarette, and the interview was under way again.

“No,” said Finch. “She’s tired. Not very well. She won’t tell us what happened, because you’ve told her not to. So you had better give us some answers if you want her out of here. Who beat her up?”

“I did,” said Lennie, making his mind up. If he kept saying no comment, they would be here all night. “Why?”

“Jarvis told you. Because she told me she’d taken that gun back. I gave her a hiding for lying to me.” He sat back. “OK?”

“A
hiding?” s
aid Finch. “Inspector Hill had to take her to hospital! She needed stitches! That was a beating, Lennie.”

“Yeah, well … I lost it. She ran away, and after a bit I went looking for her in the Transit. I’d just got back when she got home from casualty. That’s when Inspector Hill saw me.”

Finch shook his head. “That doesn’t explain the blood in the Transit,” he said.

“She tried to shut herself in there—I went in after her.”

“You do know we’re having that blood analyzed,” said Finch.

“Yeah, well. It’s Ginny’s.”

“She’ll confirm this, will she?”

Lennie shook his head. “No way,” he said. “Not until I say she can.”

“I’m not sure that’s good enough, Lennie,” said Finch.

*   *   *

Rob was being given his belongings back, signing even more bits of paper, being asked if he understood that he had been bailed to appear at Stansfield Magistrates’ Court on Monday morning.

“Will I go to jail?” he asked.

“Well, not on Monday,” said the sergeant. “Providing you turn up.”

“No—I mean … eventually. Will I go to jail?”

“Couldn’t say.”

He wished they had kept him in custody. He had thought that they would; burglary was a serious crime. But they said that they did that only for violent crime, or where they thought the person might not turn up at court. He wished he looked a little more disreputable.

He would take the taxi out. Sleep on the rank.

“Did Drummond come to the house while Lennie was out?”

“No.” Ginny’s face throbbed now that the painkillers were wearing off, and she wasn’t allowed to take any more for another hour. The cut over her eyebrow was hurting.

“Did anyone come to the house?”

“No.”

“What about the punter?”

She frowned. “What punter?” she asked.

“The one that beat you up! Have you forgotten him so soon?”

She was getting confused. Lennie said just to say no comment, and they’d soon get tired of asking questions.

“No comment,” she said.

“It wasn’t a punter, was it, Ginny?” Sergeant Finch looked at her, worried. “Ginny—we might have to arrest you if you won’t tell us the truth.”

“I’ve not done anything!” She sat back, and looked down. “I get beaten up, and I’m the one that gets arrested,” she said.

“You’ve not been arrested yet. Did Lennie give you the beating?”

“No!” she said, her head shooting up so fast the pain made her dizzy. “No! Lennie would never hurt me like that—never!”

“He says he did.”

Ginny stared at him. What was she supposed to say now? Lennie couldn’t have said that. Sergeant Finch must be trying it on.

“You’re a liar,” she said.

“He said he gave you a hiding because you hadn’t taken the gun back.”

No. He never said that. Ginny shook her head. No matter what they say, tell them it was a punter. That was what Lennie had said. That’s what she should do. “It was a punter,” she said, tiredly, desperately. “It was a punter.”

Finch sighed. “Interview terminated twenty fifty-two hours,” he said, and switched off the tape. “Come on, Ginny—I think you need a proper rest.”

Matt was put in a cell. He sat on the bed and listened to his fellow detainees yelling and banging and throwing up. Saturday night in the cells—it made him feel quite at home. Better than Saturday night in some froggie B & B, if you asked him. Ex-job, he got some perks. They’d even gone out for fish and chips for him. Wouldn’t have got that in La Belle France.

They had made good time in the end; once they were clear of the traffic the lads had used their initiative, and their flashing light. It was nine o’clock. If no one had seen him by ten, he could be pretty sure he’d get left alone until morning.

It bothered him to know that chalked up outside his cell would be the words
Burbidge—rape
. But other than that, he wasn’t sure he gave a stuff anymore.

Nothing had changed. He had come home, told her he would be in court on Monday, and then gone out with the cab. He was taking it all so calmly, as if this happened to him every day. She thought of burglars, if not as people with striped jerseys and bags marked swag, then as something quite close to that. Not Rob. And yet he had gone into other people’s houses, and taken what didn’t belong to him. He had used the garage, of all places, to store his ill-gotten gains. He blamed Drummond. But Drummond was dead, and nothing had changed.

She didn’t know if she could cope with this. But then, she thought, she had coped with being raped. She had coped with making herself go back into the garage. She had coped with what she had found there. She had coped with Rob being arrested. This was just one more hurdle. She had got this far; she couldn’t cave in now.