Die Happy (32 page)

John Lambert grinned at Chris Rushton's mention of thick-skinned coppers. Hook and he had enjoyed some fun in the past from taunting an over-serious Rushton, who was never quite sure when the older men were extracting the urine. Chris was more balanced since the entry into his life of Anne Jackson, the lively primary school teacher who was ten years his junior and had been briefly a suspect in a murder investigation. Lambert said patiently, ‘Does that complete your list of major suspects, Chris?'

Rushton looked down at his notes for a moment, though he knew what he was going to say. ‘I don't think we should rule out Kate Merrick. As far as I can see, she's devoted to her partner. She'd be very sensitive to any attack on Ros Barker's integrity as an artist or a person. She's younger than Ros and very much under her spell. She wouldn't be objective or balanced in her reactions to any attack on Ros.'

Lambert nodded. He had been awake since five and an idea that had at first seemed preposterous had become increasingly credible over the hours since then. There was a second or two of silence before he said gnomically, ‘I think we shall find that affection for a partner is a major factor in this case.'

TWENTY-ONE

I
t was an agreeable moment in the leafy Oldford suburb. Monday afternoon was a quiet time for cats, with the world back at work and most of the birds resting in hedges and trees after a sunny, song-filled morning. Roland sat on the gatepost and surveyed the warm world through half-closed eyes. The tiger in him was merely quiescent; at the first sign of prey or danger he would be instantly alert.

At two o'clock the sun was high, the day was at its hottest, and Roland's eyes had closed completely. At one minute past two, his eyes were wide with apprehension and hostility. Bert Hook drove the police Mondeo carefully past him and into the drive of the modest bungalow with the immaculate gardens. Bert eased himself from the driving seat, waited for his chief to rear himself stiffly to his full height on the other side of the vehicle, and looked round appreciatively at the spring-green lawn with its sharply cut edges, the weedless beds with their newly planted bedding plants, and, in the furthest border, the luxuriant pink of the peonies and the thrusting stems of the roses that would follow them into bloom.

‘I wish I could say it was all my own work, but my gardener was here yesterday. He's a good man.' Sue Charles was framed by honeysuckle in her front doorway, enjoying Hook's obvious approval of the work she had done with Brian on Sunday afternoon. She led them into her home, not closing the door until Roland had sprung from his watchtower and followed the trio inside.

‘I've made some tea,' she said, as she ushered them into the cosy sitting room and installed them upon the couch opposite her favourite armchair. ‘I think Brian has left some of my flapjacks for you!' she called from the kitchen. She bustled back in with a tray containing cups and saucers, a teapot, and a plate with the five remaining flapjacks from her Saturday baking. ‘I'm glad to see people enjoying them. They just sit in the tin when I'm on my own.'

John Lambert, who wished that she had not done this, left Hook to offer the conventional thanks for her bounty.

He did not say anything for a long time, watching Hook bite appreciatively into the flapjack he had himself refused to take. Eventually his gaze settled upon Sue Charles. He studied her for a moment, apparently more in sorrow than in anger, then took a belated sip of his tea. The author was a highly intelligent woman, despite the efforts she sometimes made to disguise the fact; his look had already told her more than many words would have done.

But she might be mistaken. She would keep up the front for as long as it was necessary and worthwhile. ‘I'm always glad to have visitors – the writer's is essentially a lonely life, especially after she has lost her partner of many years. But I confess I'm surprised to see you again so soon. You must think I am in a position to help your investigation, which surprises me. Or have you come here to tell me that you have made an arrest?'

Her blue eyes were bright and attentive beneath the neatly parted grey hair as she settled herself back into the old-fashioned winged armchair, which might have been designed to house her still supple and agile body. Her head was a little on one side, which they now recognized as one of her mannerisms when asking a question. She looked, Hook thought, like everyone's favourite aunt, the understanding and encouraging relative, which as a Barnardo's boy he had never had.

Lambert was as composed as his hostess, but firm beneath his reluctance as he answered her query. ‘We have come here this afternoon not to tell you about an arrest but to make one, Mrs Charles.'

She would play it out until it became hopeless. All might yet be well, she told herself determinedly. She looked at Roland, who had leapt up to his favourite place upon the sunny windowsill. His tale was lashing behind Lambert's head, almost as if he had understood the words which had come so quietly from that long, grave face. She must make a final effort, if only for his sake. ‘You cannot possibly mean that you think I killed Peter Preston!'

‘That is exactly what I mean.'

‘He didn't like me and I didn't particularly care for him. That is hardly reason for murder. Do I strike you as the type of woman who would commit murder because of a few insults to my writing from a man like Preston?'

She addressed her question to Hook, as if turning to a balanced man for a more balanced view. But it was Lambert who answered her. ‘You do not strike either of us as that sort of woman, no. Perhaps that blinded us to things we should have followed up earlier. The fact that you collected the deceased's wife immediately after she had been informed of his death and brought her here, for a start.'

‘I gave poor Edwina a little tea and sympathy, that's all. She was sorely in need of both.'

‘I expect you did, yes. But you also informed yourself about when the murder had been discovered and what had been revealed to the widow at that point. It was no coincidence that you were waiting to pick her up that morning. You knew what had happened and hoped to find a distressed Mrs Preston in Oldford. You took care to let us know that she was very shaken, as someone might have been who had committed a serious crime.'

‘Or as someone might have been who had lost a much-loved husband.'

‘Perhaps. Except that you took care to emphasize when we saw you for a second time that Edwina and her husband were living separate lives and that their marriage was probably over.'

‘As a case against me, this is pretty thin stuff, Chief Superintendent. You'd have difficulty proving that I tried to make you believe Edwina was guilty of murder.'

‘You're probably right about that – it's just interesting to follow the way your mind was working. Your initial tactic was to try to divert us right away from the people like yourself around Preston. It was you who pointed out that Preston must have made enemies in his earlier and more successful life at the BBC and elsewhere. You pointed out without any real evidence that these were “rich and powerful people, with the money and contacts to employ a hitman”.'

Sue forced a smile. ‘Thin stuff, I say again, Mr Lambert.'

‘I agree; not the stuff on which to base serious charges. You did, however, make one very definite mistake, one which I think would be damning even in a criminal court. You knew how Peter Preston had been killed, which only the killer and our detection team knew at the time.'

She showed no immediate sign of dismay. Lambert was filled with a reluctant admiration for her insouciance. In the same instant, he realized that perhaps she did not much care, that perhaps she had always anticipated that it would come to this in the end. You could never approve of people who took the law into their own hands, but there were rare occasions like this when you felt despite yourself a strange sympathy and understanding for those who did.

Sue Charles stared at him for a long moment before she said, ‘And how exactly did I make this “mistake” which you see as so crucial?'

Lambert nodded at Hook, who flicked open his notebook. He knew the key phrases well enough, but he found it was easier to read them out than to look directly into the face of this most unlikely murderer. ‘You said that you found it difficult to believe that “someone took a pistol to his house and shot him”. You should not have known at that moment the manner of Preston's death.'

‘I expect Edwina told me when I brought her here after she'd been told of the death.'

‘Mrs Preston was told only that her husband was dead when she arrived back at her house that day. She did not know that he had been shot.'

‘But what possible reason could I have for killing Peter? He'd made a few scathing references to my writing, but I found them pathetic rather than wounding.'

‘I agree with you on that. I think you are too sensible a woman to kill a man because of his opinions of your work, however derogatory they might be. But it was you who pointed out that “few of us are completely objective about our own work”. You were trying to convince us at the time that Preston's contemptuous dismissal of Sam Hilton's poetry and Ros Barker's paintings might have driven them to kill him. You even took the care to point out that “young people seem to react more violently to criticism than my generation”.'

‘I still think that's true, you know. Perhaps it just reflects a tendency in our present society to resort more quickly to violence.' She seemed to be weighing his point as if she were engaged only in some complex intellectual argument that interested her.

‘But Preston was a malevolent and unscrupulous man, not just a petty critic. He knew how to hurt you: by revealing the stuff he had grubbed up on your husband.'

‘You told me about that. I didn't know anything of it until then.' With the mention of her husband, her face had turned to stone.

‘Oh, I think you did, Mrs Charles. Preston used his material to threaten the other people on the literature festival committee. He was hardly likely to deny you his unwelcome revelations, particularly since he thought of you as the most vulnerable, as he recorded in his notes.'

She said dully, ‘I couldn't let him attack George like that. I couldn't let him go around saying and writing these things, as he threatened to do.'

It was her first admission of guilt. Hook made a note of it, though he knew in his heart that it would not be necessary to quote this in court. He referred again to his notes and said gently, ‘You said to us on Saturday, “It doesn't happen often, but I can be very direct when I'm upset”. You were very upset when he made these accusations about your George, weren't you?'

It was less an accusation than a helping hand towards the confession they all knew was coming, and she took it as such. ‘It was George's pistol I used on Peter Preston. That seemed like poetic justice to me.'

‘It was a weapon your husband had retained from his army days, I suppose.'

‘Yes. I always wanted George to get rid of it, but he said he wasn't going to live in fear of the young ruffians who practised burglary as a hobby. He was rather an old-fashioned man, my husband, but I loved him.'

For a moment, it looked as if she would weep at the memories that besieged her. Hook said softly, ‘Loved him enough to kill the man who was besmirching his memory.'

She glanced at him for an instant, as if she was surprised to see him sitting there, as if she resented his intrusion into her memories. ‘I don't know what I intended to do when I went to see Peter that night. I think I thought that if I threatened him with the pistol I'd frighten him off. But he laughed in my face – he obviously thought an elderly middle-class lady wouldn't use a firearm on him.'

‘As we did also, for rather too long,' Lambert said quietly, with a strange combination of grimness and tenderness.

‘I waved the pistol at him and asked for a guarantee that he wouldn't speak and would destroy whatever vile notes he'd made on George and his business career. He refused and laughed at the idea. When I levelled the weapon at him he grabbed it and we struggled for a few seconds. It was quite ridiculous, two people of our ages struggling like that. But then the gun went off – twice in quick succession – and it wasn't ridiculous any more. I couldn't believe what had happened for a moment, but I could see that he was dead without even checking. I got out as quickly as I could.'

‘And took the pistol with you. Where is it now, Mrs Charles?'

At the bottom of the River Wye. I can take you to the spot, but I doubt you'll recover it.'

Lambert doubted it too. But it wouldn't be necessary now. There was material for a plea of involuntary manslaughter in her account, once it had been shaped by a clever defence lawyer. But the prosecution would argue that she had gone to see Preston with murderous intent, with a loaded pistol in her handbag. That was fortunately not police business. Hook stepped forward and pronounced the words of arrest in a muted, almost apologetic tone.

She nodded her recognition of the formal phrases familiar to any crime writer, then stood and signified that she was ready to accompany them. She said, ‘I wouldn't have allowed it to go to trial, you know, if you'd arrested someone else. I'd have come forward immediately. It's important to me that you know that. I suppose I just hoped that it might go down as an unsolved case.'

Hook had the completely unprofessional thought as he stood beside her that he might not have minded that. This killer was worth much more than her despicable victim.

She strode steadily before them to the door of her sitting room, then stopped and turned. There was no need for words. Lambert said quietly, ‘We'll make sure that Roland is looked after, Mrs Charles. He'll have a happy home.'