Stone Killer (31 page)

‘
What
other possibility?'

‘You'll be standing in the dock as a man charged with one murder, an' one attempted murder – crimes motivated not by altruism, but by greed. And what will your mother think of that?'

‘Leave my mother out of this, you bastard!' Keene said.

‘There's no way you can also be charged with arrangin' for an innocent woman to be locked away for a crime she didn't commit, but you don't seriously believe the judge is goin' to forget that – even for a moment – do you?'

‘Wait a minute!' Keene said. ‘Did you say I'd be charged with one murder and one
attempted
murder?'

‘That's right.'

‘This is going even beyond the realms of fantasy. Just who am I supposed to have
attempted
to murder?'

‘Judith, of course.'

Keene looked wildly about him, as if hoping that some escape route had magically opened in one of the walls.

‘Judith?' he croaked. ‘But why, in God's name, would I ever have tried to kill her?'

‘For money. Or rather, for the lack of it.'

‘For
money
?'

‘It's the only motive that fits the circumstances,' Woodend said. ‘The only one that makes any sense of this whole tragic mess.'

Keene raised his hand to his mouth, and bit into one of his immaculately manicured fingernails.

‘Well, it certainly doesn't make any sense to me,' he said weakly.

‘Of course it does,' said Woodend, brushing the denial aside. ‘Judith wanted to withdraw money from the company to pay off Burroughs. But – though she didn't know it herself, because she trusted you to look after the books – there wasn't any money to withdraw.'

‘You could never prove that!' Keene protested.

‘No, not me personally,' Woodend agreed. ‘I'm not much good with figures. But by the time the forensic accountants have been over your books, I should have all the evidence I need.'

‘So I tried to kill Judith, did I?'

‘Yes.'

‘How?'

‘By doctorin' the brakin' system of the van she was drivin'. At first I thought it might be somebody else. Sebastian Courtney-Jones, for example. He might have done it because he was enraged that she wouldn't go back to him when he wanted her to.'

‘Yes, he certainly might—'

‘Or Mrs Burroughs – who may have really believed Judith was havin' an affair with her husband.'

‘She's also a poss—'

‘But it couldn't have been either of them.'

‘Why not? Both of them seem perfectly plausible to me.'

‘I should have seen right away why they couldn't have done it,' Woodend said, shaking his head at his own slow thinking on the matter. ‘But it wasn't until I was walkin' alongside your small fleet of identical white vans that the truth finally hit me.'

‘What truth?'

‘
Identical
white vans, Mr Keene. Not one kind of van for the bosses an' another kind for the ordinary workers. They all look exactly the same. So who'd know which particular one Judith would drive away in the followin' mornin'? You would, Mr Keene! An'
only
you.'

‘If all this is true, how do you explain the fact that, having once tried and failed, I didn't make a second attempt?' Keene asked.

‘Ah, because you'd thought through the implications of her death by then,' Woodend said. ‘And you'd realized it wouldn't make things better for you. In fact, it would make them worse.'

‘Insane!' Keene said. ‘Totally insane.'

‘Judith's husband would have inherited her half of the business, wouldn't he? An' he's a military man, with a very orderly mind. He'd have had his own accountants in here before you'd had time to turn around – an' they'd soon have discovered the huge hole in the accounts.' Woodend lit up a cigarette. ‘Where did the money go, by the way?'

‘I told you, I didn't—'

‘You might as well tell the truth – on this matter at least – because it won't take the police accountants long to find the holes.'

‘I had a friend,' Keene said sadly. ‘A very dear friend – or so I thought. He told me about this wonderful business opportunity. All he needed was a little backing, to get it started.'

‘An' then he vanished into thin air – an' the money with him,' Woodend guessed.

‘That's right,' Keene agreed. ‘But Élite's not bankrupt, you know. It's still a very profitable business, and I could have paid back all the money I'd borrowed, given time.'

‘But Judith didn't give you the time, because she wanted money immediately,' Woodend said. ‘You should have confided in her, you know. I'm sure she would have understood. She knew all about the kinds of things that people will do for love.'

‘But just because I'm an embezzler, it still doesn't mean that I'm a murderer,' Keene said defiantly.

‘No, it doesn't,' Woodend agreed. ‘But I haven't finished paintin' the picture for you yet. This jury at your trial is goin' to be askin' itself several important questions. An' one of those questions is goin' to be, “Who knew that Judith was plannin' to meet Burroughs that night?” Well, it could only be somebody who shared with her the secret of
why
she was meetin' him. An' that somebody is you.'

‘Dozens of people could have known that
Burroughs
was going to be there that night,' Keene said. ‘Hundreds of them!'

‘I don't think he would have told anybody at all about what he was doin',' Woodend said. ‘It was as much in his interest as in Judith's to keep the reason for their meetin' a secret.'

‘He could have been followed there. His wife could have followed him. Or anybody else, for that matter.'

‘An' then there's the question of Judith's overall,' Woodend continued, unperturbed. ‘That was a big black mark against her at her trial. The jury assumed that, because of the bloodstains it had acquired durin' the course of the murder, she'd thrown it away. But we know she didn't kill him, so it wouldn't be bloodstained at all. Besides, there was a witness to her leavin' the buildin' – a nightwatchman called Goodrich – an' he's convinced she didn't have it with her.' He paused. ‘By the way, that nightwatchman didn't only see Judith – he also saw you.'

‘You must think I'm a complete fool,' Keene said angrily.

‘What makes you say that?'

‘If the nightwatchman had seen me – which he couldn't have done, because I wasn't there – he would have told the police at the time.'

‘Ah, but he didn't
know
he'd seen you,' Woodend said. ‘He claims he saw Judith drive up. But he's wrong about that. What he
actually
saw was simply a white van with the words “Élite Catering” written on the side. Then he went off to have his brew, an' to listen to the radio for a few minutes. When he came back, he saw Judith drive away in what he thought was the
same
white van. That's how he was sure she'd been there for fifteen minutes. But she hadn't – and it wasn't. What he'd actually seen was two white vans from the same fleet – the first driven by you, an' the second driven by Judith.'

‘You'll never be able to prove that,' Keene told him.

‘Probably not,' Woodend said easily. ‘But with all the other proof I've got, I won't need to, will I? Let's get back to the overall, shall we? What actually happened to it?'

‘How can you possibly expect me to know that?'

‘Judith said it was still in the back of the van when she entered the builders' merchant's. But the police didn't find it there when they looked there later. So it must have disappeared while she was inside the buildin'. An' who took it? Why, you did! After you'd killed Burroughs, you hid your van somewhere Judith wouldn't see it, then returned to the scene of the crime on foot. You must have been lurking in the shadows when Judith drove up.'

‘Fantasy! Pure fantasy!'

‘All right, let's assume for a second that somebody else took the overall,' Woodend said amiably. ‘How would they have gone about it?'

‘I'd imagine they'd simply have opened the back door of the van and removed it.'

‘The van would have been locked – just like all the ones parked outside are. Judith's not the kind of woman to have one rule for her employees an' another for herself. Whatever her mental state at the time, she'd have instinctively made sure she'd locked her vehicle.'

‘Then whoever took the overall must have forced the lock.'

‘They couldn't have done that with leaving evidence of their handiwork behind – an' accordin' to the police experts, there was none.'

‘Then they picked the lock, for God's sake!'

‘Even that would have left traces. Besides, they wouldn't have had long enough. Judith was in that office for a very short time indeed – you don't hang about when you discover a dead body – so whoever removed the overall would have had to be very quick. That suggests he had a key. An' who had a spare key to Judith's van, Mr Keene?'

‘You're surely not suggesting—'

‘You did! You killed Burroughs, and made sure Judith would be charged with it. Because even though she was in gaol, there was no reason why she still couldn't be a partner in your firm. An' as long as
she
was your partner, nobody else was goin' to ask to take a look at your accounts.'

‘This is outrageous!'

‘Were you wearin' gloves that night, Mr Keene?'

‘I … I … I wasn't there, so it doesn't matter whether I was wearing gloves or not.'

‘I'm guessin' that you were. But even gloves leave traces at the crime scene, you know. Minute threads that you don't even notice have gone. Then there's the other clothes you were wearin'. More minute threads left behind. The forensic boys will have bagged them all, you know. They'll still be there in the evidence store – just waitin' to be compared to what you've got in your wardrobe.'

‘I've …'

‘Got rid of all those clothes? Well, that doesn't matter. It was just an example of what we can do to pin the murder on you. There are a hundred other ways we can place you at the scene of the crime – ways you wouldn't even dream of – once we know where to look. An' now we do.'

‘I want to see my lawyer!' Keene said.

‘What for?' Woodend wondered. ‘We're only chattin' here, Mr Keene, an' if you don't want to say anythin', then I'm certainly not goin' to make you.' He took another sip of the brandy, and smacked his lips in appreciation. ‘Shall we talk about Major Maitland now?'

Keene folded his arms, and kept his mouth tightly shut.

‘No?' Woodend asked. ‘Then I'll just have to talk it through with myself, won't I? Let me see … what was I goin' to say about Major Maitland? Oh yes! Everythin' was goin' so well after the murder. Your scheme had worked out just perfectly. Then Maitland came along, took his hostages, an' forced us to re-open the case. You must have hated him for that. But then you persuaded yourself that once he was out of the way, the whole thing would soon blow over again. Any comment you'd care to make at this point?'

Keene shook his head.

‘But you had to make sure he was
really
out of the way,' Woodend continued. ‘That's why you came to me, and asked if you could talk to him. That's why – when you did get to talk to him – you reminded him of
just how long
his wife still had to serve of her sentence. Your objective was never to convince him to give up – it was to strengthen his resolve to stay in there. Because the longer he held out, the more chance there was of him gettin' killed. Of course, there was also the chance that some of the hostages would also get killed in the process, but that was a risk you were prepared to run, because you don't really care what happens to other people.'

‘I care about my mother,' Keene said.

‘That's true,' Woodend agreed.

‘And I cared about Judith. You have to believe that.'

‘Aye, you probably did,' Woodend conceded. ‘But you were still willin' to destroy her if she got in your way. An' if that's what you do to people you care about, what lengths will you go to with people you don't give a toss for?'

During the course of the conversation, Keene's face had run through the whole gamut of expressions – from concern to mystification, from mystification to outrage, from outrage to self-justification. Now it had assumed the cunning look of an animal which finds itself trapped – but believes there might still be some way of escaping.

‘If I'm as big a monster as you seem to think I am, why are you offering me an easy way out?' he wondered aloud. ‘If I did what you say I did, why aren't you pushing for the maximum sentence?'

‘I thought we'd already discussed that,' Woodend said. ‘I'm doin' it for young Timothy's sake – so he'll never learn the truth about his father and Judith Maitland.'

Keene studied him carefully, for at least half a minute. ‘I believe that
is
part of it,' he said finally. ‘But there's something else, isn't there – something you're not telling me.'

‘I give you my word that if you sign the confession I want you to sign, I'll back you to the hilt. After all, I've no choice, have I?'

‘Haven't you?'

‘None. Because if your story falls apart, then the career of the feller who came up with it – which is me – will go just the same way. So we both have an interest in hidin' the truth, don't we, Mr Keene?'

‘You haven't answered my question,' Keene said accusingly. ‘You're still holding something back.'

‘Perhaps you're right,' Woodend conceded. ‘But that's my business, isn't it?
Your
business is to decide whether you serve ten years or twenty-five.
Your
business is to work out whether you want your mum to go to her grave thinkin' of you as a cold-blooded murderer, or whether she dies believin' that you found Miss Right after all, an' killed to protect her. So which of the two is it goin' to be?'