Why Aren't They Screaming? (25 page)

‘In that case, can I have him?' Loretta spoke without giving herself time for second thoughts.

‘You? Well, I suppose so ...' Jeremy seemed surprised, reluctant even.

‘I
like
cats,' Loretta told him firmly. ‘Don't you want him to go to a good home?'

Jeremy shrugged. ‘OK.'

‘That's settled then. Has he got a cat basket?'

‘A basket?'

Loretta didn't even bother to conceal her impatience. ‘To take him to London in! You don't expect me to drive seventy miles with him perched on my knee?'

‘Oh, right. I
think
I've seen one.'

‘Let's go and look.' Loretta stepped back into the kitchen, still clutching the letter, and picked her keys off the table. She shut the front door firmly, and ushered Jeremy before her down the path.

A few minutes later she returned to the cottage carrying a wicker basket.

‘Poor old Bertie,' she said, putting it down on the kitchen table and bending to stroke the cat's head as he strolled across the floor. She straightened up, drew the letter out of her pocket and opened it. She read:

Dear Sister,
The women's peace camp at USAF Dunstow invites you to an important meeting to discuss plans for a vigil for victims of the American attack on Libya. It is very important that you attend this meeting, at which messages from absent friends will be passed on. Please come to the camp at 11 a.m. on Friday morning. This is very important.

In sisterhood, Elspeth (Scottish)

Puzzled, Loretta read the letter a second time. Two phrases, the one about absent friends and the words ‘very important', had been underlined. This was the first she'd heard of any vigil, and the tone was quite at odds with the hostility she'd encountered during her trip to the camp on Wednesday night. And who was Elspeth? Then the word in brackets jogged her memory; presumably the writer was the Edinburgh woman she'd met at the camp when she went there with Clara. And – suddenly her heart began to beat faster. Was the reference to absent friends something to do with Peggy? After all, eleven in the morning was an odd time
to hold a meeting, and Elspeth wasn't giving her much notice.

Loretta looked at her watch, and saw she had only a couple of hours before she was due at the camp. Why not go there now? For all she knew, she was working herself up over Peggy's absence for nothing – it would be nice to know whether or not there was anything to worry about. She folded the letter, put it in her bag and looked round for her jacket. She was just putting it on when there was yet another knock at the front door. She jerked it open, and found a familiar figure standing there.

‘Good morning, Dr Lawson. Were you –' Loretta watched his mouth move as an F1-11 swooped low overhead. ‘Bloody planes,' said Chief Inspector Bailey as the noise faded. ‘The jet engine is the curse of the twentieth century. Were you on your way out? I was hoping you'd be able to help us.'

Loretta hesitated. ‘You'd better come in.' She stepped back to allow Bailey into the kitchen.

‘My sergeant gave me your message,' he said, pulling out a chair and sitting down.

Loretta thought fast; she'd forgotten her attempt to reach Bailey yesterday, and now the reason for it was no longer valid.

‘I – just wondered how the inquiry was going,' she said lamely.

Bailey observed her for a moment. ‘Very kind of you to take an interest. We have come up with something, as a matter of fact, that's why I'm here. I'd like you to come down to the station and look at some photographs.'

‘Photographs?'

‘Yes. See if you can identify a couple of people for us. I'd rather not say any more at present – there are rules about these things, as I'm sure you know.'

‘You want me to come now?' Loretta asked, dismayed.

‘Unless there's a pressing reason why you can't. These identifications are quite important to us.'

‘All right.' Loretta gave in. If she left at once, she might just get to the camp in time for her appointment.

‘We can offer you a lift – or would you like to follow in your own car?'

‘Thanks, I'll take my own,' She didn't relish the thought of having to make small talk with Bailey all the way to Oxford. He stood up and waited for her to open the front door.

‘My car's down the lane in the lay-by. I take it yours is the Panda in the road?'

‘Yes.'

‘Not a good idea to leave it there, if you don't mind me saying so. I've just got to collect something from the house I'm afraid I didn't come all this way just for the pleasure of your company – and you can follow me to the station. See you there.' He headed across the garden, leaving Loretta to open the gates to the road.

The police station was a modern block in Headington. Loretta followed Bailey's unmarked police car into the car park and reversed into an area marked ‘Visitors'. She accompanied Bailey inside the building to a lift; they got in and rode in silence to the third floor.

‘This way.' Bailey turned left and led her down a corridor to an office with his name on the door.

‘Sergeant Gorringe, Dr Lawson.' He motioned Loretta to a chair at the side of a desk. The sergeant's going to show you some photographs – better get WPC Crossley up here before she starts,' he added.

The sergeant, a red-faced man with long sideburns, picked up a phone and muttered into it. He put it down and the three of them waited in silence until there was a knock on the door. Bailey called ‘Come in', and a dark-haired woman in uniform entered.

‘This is WPC Crossley,' Bailey explained. ‘She's here as a witness that the thing's done properly. OK, show her the pics.'

Gorringe picked up a large brown envelope and began placing photographs on the table in front of Loretta. The women in the pictures stared stonily at the camera, united by their determination to give nothing away. Loretta felt uncomfortable, as if she was prying into private grief. Suddenly she gasped.

‘Peggy!' The girl's hair was different, shoulder length and brown, but it was undoubtedly the same person.

‘Could you tell us where you've seen this person before?' Gorringe asked formally.

Loretta gave Bailey an anxious look, wondering what all this was about. Had they found Peggy, was she all right? What should she say?

‘This is Peggy,' she said slowly, ‘the woman from the peace camp I told you about. The girl who was staying with Clara.'

‘Now you're quite sure about that – no doubts at all?' asked Gorringe.

‘Quite sure – her hair's longer here, and a different colour, but yes – that's her. Where did you get this picture? Is she all right?'

Trom our colleagues in the Met,' Bailey said, making a sign to Gorringe. The sergeant removed the picture and put it on another desk, collecting together the remaining photographs and returning them to the envelope.

‘Now – same thing again,' Bailey said, handing a second envelope to Gorringe.

This time the pictures were of men, and Loretta guessed what was coming.

‘Stop,' she said unhappily as they reached the fifth photograph. This is Mick – Peggy's husband.'

‘Thanks, Dr Lawson, you've been most helpful. Now, if you'll just sign here to confirm your identification of the suspects–'

‘Suspects?'

'Oh yes. The gentleman you've just picked out is a professional housebreaker, name of Michael James Cummins. Does that answer your question?'

‘But Peggy – Peggy hasn't done anything ...' Loretta's voice faltered.

‘This young lady' – Bailey lifted the first photograph from the desk – ‘is Mrs Margaret Cummins. Three convictions for shoplifting, currently serving a suspended sentence. That's why we've got these pics – the Yard routinely keeps photos of convicted felons.'

‘Why did you bring me here if you knew who they were already?' Loretta asked bitterly, examining the form that Gorringe had put in front of her before signing her name twice.

‘We have to be sure, Dr Lawson,' Bailey said in a pained
voice. ‘Bright young PC in Whitechapel recognized your very good description of chummy there, remembered him and his missus. But we have to check these things. We don't want to go asking the public to look out for the wrong people.'

‘You mean you're going to give out their names?' Loretta was horrified.

‘I'm holding a press conference in half an hour,' Bailey told her.

‘But you've got it all wrong. You haven't got any evidence–'

‘What would you say if I told you Mr Cummins's finger-prints were in the dead – in Mrs Wolstonecroft's house?'

‘I – there must be a mistake.'

‘I don't think so. Fingerprinting is a very exact science these days. Shall I see you out?'

‘It's all right, I know the way.'

‘As you wish. Good morning, Dr Lawson.

‘Good morning.'

She walked blindly down the corridor and stopped outside the lift, unable to believe what she'd just been told. Mick's fingerprints in the house! All right, perhaps Peggy's husband was the murderer – but Peggy
couldn't
be involved! The lift doors opened and she moved forward, colliding with someone who was getting out.

‘Jeremy!'

‘We must stop meeting like this!' Jeremy, still unshaven and now even more haggard than he'd appeared earlier that morning, forced a smile.

Loretta hadn't decided how to respond to this ghastly sally when the man accompanying Jeremy touched his arm and pointed in the direction of Bailey's office. The two men set off, leaving Loretta staring after them.

‘Going down?' A man in civilian clothes had got into the lift and was holding the door open.

‘Oh – yes. Thank you.' Loretta stepped inside, resisting the temption to run back and listen at Bailey's door. If the detective was convinced of Mick's guilt – and she had to admit that the revelation about his fingerprints had thrown new light on the case – then why had Jeremy Frere been brought in again? Surely Bailey didn't think all three of them – Jeremy, Mick,
Peggy – were in it together? The lift doors opened and the other passenger stood back to let her out before him. She crossed the foyer, went through the swing doors and down the steps to the car park, trying to construct a theory that would encompass all the disparate pieces of the puzzle. However she looked at it, there was no consistent pattern; it was as though two jigsaws had been jumbled up in the same box. Jeremy's repeated visits to the police station, Peggy's convictions for shoplifting, Mick's presence in Baldwin's, the American plot against Clara – it was like trying to make a landscape with extra pieces thrown in from a jigsaw of a steam train.

She opened the door of her car and climbed in, suddenly overwhelmed by anxiety. If Mick was the killer, what had he done with Peggy? Was she being held somewhere against her will? Had she managed to smuggle out a desperate message to the peace camp? Loretta looked at her watch and started the engine; if she drove quickly, she could be at the camp in half an hour. She waited impatiently behind a police car at the exit while its driver exchanged words with a couple of WPCs, then turned right into the road.

Several unfamiliar cars were parked on the road leading up to the base and, as Loretta approached the clearing, she realized that a meeting was taking place. About a dozen women and a couple of men in clerical clothes were sitting in a haphazard circle round the fire, and Loretta was relieved when the Scottish woman she now knew as Elspeth detached herself and came towards her.

‘Let's go into the caravan,' she said in a low voice, gesturing towards the trees.

Loretta followed her in silence, observing as she went up the steps that an attempt had been made to wash off some of the smoke damage around the entrance.

‘Have a seat.'

Loretta lowered herself on to a seat which folded down from the wall.

‘I hope we can trust you.'

Loretta waited, not knowing what to say.

‘I'm sorry about the other night. The girls thought you
were something to do with the police. They come in all disguises, these days. Obviously you got my note?'

‘Yes. I wasn't sure what it meant.'

‘But you came. I couldn't say too much in case the police were opening your mail.'

‘Oh, I don't think they'd do that.'

‘Don't you?' Elspeth shrugged. ‘I didn't know your last name, by the way. Karen said you left a note with Alison, but she lost it.'

‘It's Lawson.'

‘It doesn't matter. Peggy needs your help.'

Loretta's heart beat faster but she schooled herself to keep calm; Elspeth's face was grave.

‘Where is she? What does she want me to do?'

‘She's in London, I'll tell you where in a moment. But first, I want to ask you something. What d'you think happened on Tuesday night?'

‘I don't know. Clara was murdered, but I don't know who did it, if that's what you mean. I'm sure it wasn't Peggy.'

Elspeth inclined her head. Loretta felt she'd just passed some sort of test.

‘She didn't do it. But she was there.' Elspeth paused.

‘And?' Loretta was unable to stay silent.

‘I don't know, she didn't say.' Elspeth stopped again, felt in her pocket, and drew her hand out empty. ‘I keep forgetting, I've given up ... Loretta, you've got to understand this is very difficult for us – for the peace camp. So many people are against us and a thing like this – a murder, I mean – is just the excuse they need. RALF, you've heard of them, and all the other upright citizens who want to see women silenced. Do you follow me?'

Loretta wasn't sure she did. ‘I don't quite –'

‘Let me put it like this. Peggy needs help, but it's too dangerous for us, this thing she's involved in. So it's up to you – only you can help her. We have to stay out of it.'