The Other Woman (25 page)

‘Anonymous confirmation is no confirmation at all,' he said. ‘It could have been Drummond himself.' But it was an automatic last-ditch defence of his stance over Drummond.

She spoke to Menlove, and hung up, looking a little puzzled.

‘What?' said Lloyd.

‘Some children blackberrying along the Stansfield Road found a flick-knife in the bushes,' she said. And now a search has turned up the ski-mask.' She frowned. ‘ He's never got rid of them before,' she said. ‘Or at least, we haven't found them if he has.'

‘Any prints on the knife?' Lloyd asked.

‘Lots. Of the children who found it. They were playing with it, would you believe? But the mask might give us something to go on.'

Lloyd sighed. ‘Perhaps,' he said, and turned his attention to Barstow. ‘What have you got?' he asked.

‘We found a cutting from a newspaper in the pocket of the skirt. We've sent it for prints – here's a photocopy.' Barstow picked up a sheet of paper, and handed it to Lloyd. ‘One of your theories looks good,' he said, with a smile.

Lloyd took the paper, and read.

Are you the Other Woman?
This newspaper is doing a series of articles on marriage
and morals, and would like to hear from women whose men
belong to someone else. Your contribution would be held in the
strictest confidence, and nothing will appear in print which
could in any way identify you or your partner.

There was a Stansfield phone number at the bottom. It wasn't the general number for
The Chronicle
, which had recently moved to brand-new offices in Stansfield from Barton, swopping hot-metal type for electronics, but it was close to it, and he suspected that it was a direct line. It seemed unlikely that it would belong to anyone other than
The Chronicle's
feature editor, who had assured him less than an hour ago that she had never met the girl.

Judy rang the number, ready to launch into her Other Woman act. After listening for a moment, she hung up. ‘Melissa Fletcher isn't there to speak to me right now, but if I'd like to leave my name … et cetera, et cetera,' she said. She looked at Lloyd.

‘She told me she'd never met her,' said Lloyd.

‘Perhaps Sharon never rang her.'

Perhaps. But Melissa. Fletcher, or Whitworth, or whatever the damn woman's name was, had gone missing on Friday night, and her boyfriend had found Sharon's body. What Lloyd had confidently dismissed as coincidence was looking decidedly odd again. The versions of events given by Melissa Whitworth and Gil McDonald were at considerable variance not only with one another, but also with Simon Whitworth's.

But if Melissa Whitworth and Gil McDonald were somehow involved in Sharon's death, wouldn't their accounts of events have given one another an alibi, rather than the opposite? And, quite apart from anything else, their joint reason for murdering Sharon Smith utterly eluded him.

And there was Drummond. There was always Drummond, whom Lloyd kept trying to cast in the role of witness rather than suspect, but without success. He looked at the copy of the newspaper cutting, and shook his head. Too many little puzzles.

He doodled on the blotter in front of him. There was one way that they could get it over with quickly. One way that would frighten the life, and the truth, out of McDonald and Melissa Whitworth. He glanced at Judy, who was talking to Finch, who had just come in. Above their heads was the board where a picture of Sharon Smith smiled at him. They would be releasing it to the press tomorrow; it would be on
The Chronicle's
front page by late afternoon, and the trickle of response TO the radio appeal might gather some momentum; he didn't want still to be messing around with the Whitworths and Mad Mac if they had nothing to do with it.

‘My office,' he called over to them, and strode out of the murder room. Judy would argue with his proposed strategy; he would just have to pull rank.

They came into his office, and sat down. Lloyd raised his eyebrows at Finch. ‘ Did you get anything from Malworth?' he asked.

‘Not yet,' he said. ‘But I'm having a drink with some of the lads tonight – I might be able to pick up the rumours.' He sighed. ‘And I'm sorry, sir,' he said. ‘But so far I can't find any connection at all between Drummond and Sharon Smith. They really don't seem to have known one another at all.'

‘No,' said Lloyd, resignedly. ‘I didn't think they would have.'

Finch seemed disconcerted; Judy smiled.

‘Don't worry, Tom,' she said. ‘You'll get used to it.'

Lloyd frowned a little. Used to what? ‘Lunch-time,' he said, standing up. ‘ Team talk. Canteen.'

He watched Finch and Judy exchange glances, and raised his eyebrows. ‘I want us all to know exactly where we're going on this,' he said, ushering them out of the room. ‘And what we're doing this afternoon.'

‘Oh, but sir, I was rather hoping to take the kids to—'

The kids? He had
children
? He was barely more than a child himself. ‘Whatever you were hoping to do this afternoon, Finch, you're working,' said Lloyd.

The young man accepted the order with an air of resigned martyrdom, and another covert, but not covert enough, look at Judy, who smiled.

Lloyd felt like a school-teacher taking slightly unruly children on an educational trip as he walked along behind them to the canteen. He wanted to get the Whitworth connection settled one way or the other, and he wanted it settled now; they could listen while they ate, and they would do what he told them to do, whether they liked it or not.

He'd teach them to make veiled allusions about some aspect of his personality which seemed to amuse them.

Mrs Smith, thin and colourless, admitted Lionel, who had belatedly realised that with all his other troubles, he hadn't yet been to pay his respects. Wanda Smith sat on a sofa, a younger version of her mother, her eyes pink-tinged with grief.

A photograph of Sharon was on the bookcase, which had no books in it. Just photographs and ornaments. Sharon had been good at her job, and she had made an effort; always smart and well-groomed, the family tendency to a lack of colour made up for with skilful make-up. Lionel always admired that in a woman.

But then, the other two-Smiths probably didn't look like this all the time, he reminded himself.

‘If there's anything I – or the firm, of course – can do, Mrs Smith,' he said.

She shook her head. ‘There's nothing anyone can do,' she said.

No. Lionel had never had to talk to anyone who had been bereaved by murder before. By road-accidents, by illness, by suicide, even, and God knew that was hard enough. But murder? He hadn't come to terms with it himself, and he had only known the girl for just over a year. What Mrs Smith must be going through was unimaginable.

‘Obviously, if you have any legal … well, you know. Just ring myself or Simon … Simon Whitworth. And—' He wasn't sure how to say this in order not to give offence, but Sharon had moved back with her mother to help out financially after her father died; he had to say it. ‘And – well, don't … don't worry about money, Mrs Smith.'

‘I'm all right, thank you, Mr Evans.'

There was a photograph on the television of a man in his fifties. Lionel sighed. The Smiths had had more than enough to cope with; they probably didn't need his presence making matters worse. He had said what he had come to say.

He got up. ‘I'm dreadfully sorry,' he said.

Mrs Smith accepted that with a slight inclination of her head. Her eyes were dull with misery. ‘She said she'd be home by seven,' she said. ‘I had her tea ready.' There was a hint of what he had heard before from the suddenly bereaved; a feeling of having been let down. Sharon hadn't said that she was going to die.

‘If … if you need any help with anything at all, please don't hesitate,' he said. He meant it, but it didn't matter how he said it, it still sounded like the automatic reaction to death; meaningless and pointless. ‘ I'll see myself out,' he said.

He was on his way home when what Mrs Smith had said struck him. Sharon was at the football match; why would she have said that she would be home by seven?

It probably meant nothing, he thought. She'd changed her mind, that was all. But he couldn't see Sharon doing that without warning her mother not to get her tea ready. Still … he wouldn't have thought that she would have been in any way personally involved with someone like Jake Parker, never mind having an affair with Simon Whitworth, so it just went to show that you didn't really know people at all.

But falling for someone was a bit different from deciding to go to a football match, he argued with himself. Anyone might behave uncharacteristically where the emotions were concerned. But going to a football match – especially one involving Stansfield Town – was hardly a great emotional upheaval. Unless Simon had changed his mind, and gone after all. Perhaps they'd had a row; perhaps she had followed him up there …

He should go to the police. Tell them what he thought. Tell them, at least, what Mrs Smith had said. But could he really do that to Simon? Why not? he argued with himself. What did he know about Simon Whitworth? Next to nothing. He had answered the advertisement, so he'd got the job. For all Lionel knew, he might be perfectly capable of losing his temper to a murderous extent.

And Lionel had known Sharon well enough to be certain that if she really had been having an affair with Simon, then as far as she was concerned, it would have been serious. Simon had presumably just been bored with his unglamorous wife; Sharon could have become an embarrassment to him.

He slowed down as he reached the road that would take him home, or up the hill to the police station. He took the turning for home. Odd, he thought. He had taken Whitworth on purely and simply to implicate him in a fraud, without a qualm. But he didn't feel that he could go running to the police with this.

Parker had pointed out that if Whitworth was suspected of having murdered Sharon, that would rather strengthen Lionel's hand; perhaps that was why the guilt. He couldn't be sure of his motives in going to the police. Implicating him in a fraud – shifting suspicion – was one thing; accusing him of murder was quite another.

He would have to give it serious thought.

They hadn't spoken; Melissa sat with Robeson on her knee, staring at the sports programme on the television, not watching it.

Simon asked if she wanted coffee, and his voice came out hoarse from misuse. She said she did; that was something.

As soon as he moved towards the kitchen door, Robeson was off Melissa's knee like a shot; he hurtled towards the closed door, trusting in Simon to open it before he hit it, which Simon did, with precision timing that would have done justice to the Red Arrows.

‘All right, all right,' he said, getting out his plate and the cat food. Merely watching the can being opened sent Robeson into ecstasies; he rolled on the floor, then righted himself, and wound in and out of Simon's legs, purring loudly enough for Melissa to hear him.

‘I think food has always been his real passion,' she called through, in an attempt at lightening the prevailing mood. ‘I don't think he'll care what we've done to him, as long as we feed him.'

Simon laughed, to try to help out, but silence reigned again, and it was only Robeson's purr and the clink of his identity disc on the dish that was heard until the doorbell rang.

Simon went into the living room as Melissa answered the door, and she came back with a woman whom she introduced as Judy Hill. At first he thought she was a friend from work, and was relieved; then Melissa said that she was a detective inspector, and he had to work hard at not allowing the dismay to show. This was quickly followed by the intelligence that she was investigating the rapes, and he breathed again, his stomach feeling as though he was on a roller-coaster.

‘Not at the moment,' said Detective Inspector Hill, correcting Melissa. ‘I'm here about Sharon Smith.'

The roller-coaster dived again, and Simon sat down on the arm of the sofa. His heart could sink no further.

‘You ran an advertisement,' the inspector went on, addressing Melissa. ‘
Are you the other woman
?'

It could sink further, and did. An advertisement?

‘Yes,' Melissa said, eventually, after what had been a very long time to think about her answer. ‘I'm doing a series of articles on marriage,' she added. ‘ It was to get copy.'

Simon almost laughed. He had seriously thought that Melissa had put a personal ad in the paper, trying to find out what had gone wrong between them.

‘And Sharon Smith replied?'

All manner of terrible possibilities went through Simon's head during the long, long silence that followed.

‘Did Sharon Smith reply?' repeated the inspector, and Simon realised that Melissa hadn't answered her question.

‘Yes.'

The inspector nodded. ‘ Did you interview her?'

Melissa's eyes' flicked for an instant to his; they held a warning, an indication that he was not to contribute to this conversation. ‘Yes,' she said.

‘Were you aware of her identity when you interviewed her?'

‘Yes, of course. I imagine that she wasn't aware of mine, however.'

She had to have been, thought Simon. She knew Melissa's name, knew what she did for a living.

‘I'd like to know what passed between you during the interview,' said the inspector. ‘Presumably she was having an affair with a married man.'

‘Naturally, since that was the point of the article.'

‘Did she mention a name?'

‘No.' Melissa's eyes slid towards Simon. ‘He might be one of many,' she said. ‘ Sharon preferred married men, apparently. She said single men were too possessive.'

Simon couldn't believe he was hearing this.

‘And you were aware that she was the victim of the murder about which Sergeant Finch and Detective Chief Inspector Lloyd interviewed you yesterday morning?'