Death of a Stranger (20 page)

“I promise.''

“The side gate's locked, so no one can get to the back door, you'll be okay in the garden if you feel like a change, and it's a glorious evening.'' His thoughts were already racing towards his next concern, but he forced himself to hold them back. “There aren't any real hazards between here and the garden, you should be able to walk—''

“Tim!'' For the first time since the news of Simon's death, it was a real smile. “It's my shoulder I dislocated, not my leg, and I've stayed in this house before. Now, off you
go
!''

Although it was almost six o'clock the heat hit him on the doorstep, rebounding from brick and stone and stucco. The thought of Constance Lorimer's house, of its owner perhaps eating a meal, made him feel sick in anticipation, but he was so eager to get there he felt a rare frustration with the small, slow road system whose quickly changing borders he usually so much enjoyed. As he passed Beth Smith's immaculate home he saw that the outer door was shut, and found himself surprised when Constance's battered front door was jarred open without a diffused blonde aureole appearing behind the stained-glass sunburst.

“What do
you
want?''

It was Constance glaring at him from the threshold, looking as though she had commanded it motionless for years, the only movement the smoke drifting upwards from the cigarette stuck to her pouting lower lip.

“Another word with you, Mrs Lorimer. This time about a murder.'' Unless she or Beth had listened to the lunchtime news he would be giving her a shock. If she hadn't committed the murder herself, of course. Either way, Tim thought wearily, she was unlikely to vouchsafe him a reaction, genuine or feigned.

He saw her eyelids flicker, and even against the gloom behind her he was sure her squat body had jerked, but she spoke with her usual loud harsh scorn. “So? What do you think a murder has to do with me?''

“I don't know, Mrs Lorimer, that's why I want to talk to you. May I come in?''

It was the last thing he wanted, but he had to be glad when she leaned past him, her mustiness enveloping him like the furry dust turning in the sun shaft that disappeared as she closed the door behind him. Slowly, then, she turned and led the way towards her sitting-room, her legs toiling like uprooted stems. Their passage across the malodorous hall seemed unending, but again there was the slight relief of an open window. Replanted with her back to the fireplace and having lit a fresh cigarette from the old one, Constance waved him to a chair.

“So, then, Mr Le Page,'' she said as he sat gingerly down. “Someone has despatched that mother of yours at last.''

He wanted to get up again, put his hands round her brown, thickly-veined neck, and squeeze. If he could bring himself to touch her. “My mother wasn't the victim this time, Mrs Lorimer. A young friend of our family who came over for my wedding, Simon Shaw, was run down and killed in the Vale in the middle of last night, close to the Golden Rose garden centre.''

He hadn't expected a visible reaction, certainly not the cackle of laughter. It ended in a bout of rheumy coughing as Mrs Lorimer choked on cigarette smoke. “And you think I knew where her boyfriend would be, and at what precise time,'' she croaked at last, before hawking so explicitly Tim had to swallow a sudden excess of saliva. “Tell me how I discovered that, Mr Le Page.''

“I can't, Mrs Lorimer.'' Because he hadn't the faintest idea.

She was nodding in agreement. “Of course you can't. But I suppose you want to take my car again?''

“Yes.'' Tim realised as he spoke that he had wanted to take Constance Lorimer's car into custody since the moment he had heard the news of Simon's death, but it was only when he had got into his own car in Rouge Rue that he had given in to the weakest of his current instincts and used his mobile to ask for it to be impounded again. Probably uselessly, by now: if she had run Simon down, he had allowed her time to wash it. But the guilty car this time had been in collision with a hedge as well as a human body, and there was just the chance it might have collected a tell-tale mark she would be unable to remove.

If the murder victim hadn't been his brother, would he be in her house now? Knowing her history
vis-à-vis
his mother, he thought that he would and felt suddenly on surer ground, wishing he had brought Ted with him so that the interview could have been official. As it was, he would have to log his visit as no more than a courtesy call to inform Mrs Lorimer that her car was to be impounded for the second time. “And, you see, it was Mr Shaw who pulled my mother back from the other hit-and-run incident in L'Hyvreuse. We have to consider the possibility of a connection.''

“If there's a connection, Mr Le Page, it's the proof of my innocence. Until you arrived just now I didn't so much as know the name of your mother's latest.'' Her eyes, which had held his from the moment she had asked him to sit down, seemed to intensify their gaze. It was impossible to know if she was speaking the truth.

“This is an informal chat, Mrs Lorimer, and everything you've said to me is off the record. We'll leave it there for the moment.'' He had to look away from her to be able to get to his feet. “ Miss Smith not with you today,'' he commented, as with an uncommunicative grunt she began her return plough across the once-white carpet.

She answered him as she put her hand out to the front door. “Miss Smith doesn't live in my pocket. She'll be with her young man. Lorna Le Page isn't the only one.''

“Young man?''

Constance Lorimer's sniff was as rheumy as her cough. It felt like fantasy to think that she had been married to Simon's father. “Her handyman she calls him, and perhaps that's the right word for him, it covers everything he does for her.'' This time it was her scorn that intensified her gaze. “You didn't know that, did you? You looked on the surface and you saw an old maid. But that's not Beth, she gives herself a good life.'' Bizarrely, Tim was aware of Constance Lorimer's vicarious pride in her friend's achievement, the only emotion beyond her scorn of him and his mother he was sure he had correctly interpreted.

“And spends plenty of it with you, Mrs Lorimer.''

Against the light from outside he saw her complacent shrug. “I can't complain, she's a good friend. When can I expect to lose my car again, Mr Le Page?''

“At any moment.''

“It hasn't been out of the garage since they brought it back last time. You'll be wasting your time.''

“Murder investigations always involve a waste of time.''

Now she was smiling, a rictus of the lips which had her cigarette wobbling. If she had killed Simon, the essential second car wash could be disguised as the first. Simon's clothes had been geared to leave no traces, and all he could hope for, apart from vestiges of the Vale flora, was that someone from the forensic team might have a sufficiently good memory to spot a new wound among the old scars on the body of the car, and have a good enough photo of the front nearside to back it up …

He wasn't surprised to see Constance Lorimer still smiling as he looked back at her from the gate. Beth Smith's car was in her driveway when he reached her house, and she was turning left on foot out of her gate, towards Constance's. He had hardly gathered speed and was able to look her in the face for a moment as she paused, stared, and then smiled in recognition. It was obvious to her where he had been, and he saw the minimal shrug of her thin shoulders as she went on her way. He thought he had also seen more colour in her face and a fullness to her lips which he hadn't noticed before, but that could be simply because what Constance had said about her had made him look at her in a different way.

It was still Constance who remained smiling in his mind's eye to irritate him as he gathered speed, but when he stopped in a layby and answered his mobile the lingering image of her disappeared.

Ted told him there was recently deposited blood matching Simon's on both sleeves of the anorak they had impounded from Bernard Charters.

A
t half-past eight the report came through: none of the three members of the Charters family were of the same blood group as Simon.

It made things a great deal easier. Tim reluctantly sent the wife and the son home and then, with DS Mahy, called Bernard Charters into an interview room, put in a tape, and told him the news.

Charters made no verbal response, but Tim, closely observing the non-hirsute parts of his face, saw his Adam's apple jerk sharply up and down and a tic start work under an eye.

“So there's only one explanation possible, Mr Charters: you were in physical contact with the dead man after he had received his injuries. I really don't think there is any point in denying it. Take your time.''

For a few seconds there was no reaction, then Charters' chest rose and fell in a deep sigh and he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table top and his chin on his clasped hands.

“I did go out to the lane,'' he said, quietly but clearly. “And I did go up to the body. I – I was so shocked I don't know exactly what I did then, but if you found blood on my sleeves … I must have touched it. Perhaps I put my hands on the shoulders for a moment … I'm not sure.''

“We think you did something much more specific with your hands than that, Mr Charters. There was a camera on a cord round the murdered man's neck. It appears from marks on the back of the neck that someone tried to break the cord. When they were unable to, they opened the camera and took the film out. The camera was still open when we found the body, and there was no film in it.'' When he said ‘body' or ‘ murdered man' he could just manage to turn his near-constant mental image of Simon's lifeless face into a blank. “I think you removed that film, Mr Charters.''

“You found my fingerprints?''

“We found evidence on the camera that someone had used cloth to obliterate any. They succeeded, but I don't really think that helps you.''

“What
do
you really think, Inspector Le Page?'' Bernard Charters had thrown himself back in the chair he was too big for, and Tim was aware that he had suddenly relaxed, perhaps into the calmness of despair. “That I followed the man by car when he ran from my house, drove into him, backed down the lane, drove on to my forecourt where I left the car, then came out again on foot to see what damage I'd done?''

“That could be it in a nutshell.'' Ted nodded his approval.

“But it isn't what happened.'' In another extravagant movement Charters was leaning across the table. “I did come out, but only on foot. And I only touched – the body – because the face was unmarked and the injuries were hidden in the clothes and I thought he might still be alive.''

“And when you found he was dead you went back home to bed. You weren't going to tell the police about the man entering your house, and you weren't going to tell them you'd found his body.''

“The police found the body soon enough. And as I already told you – I wasn't leaving a burglar free to break into other houses. He was only interested in me.''

“So you tell us.'' Tim suddenly realised how tired he was, although he couldn't envisage sleeping, being able to shut out the heartrending, irremediable thing that had happened.

“Were you aware that you had bloodstains on your jacket, Mr Charters?'' Ted was asking.

“I didn't think whether I had or not, it was so ghastly. Like a nightmare.'' Charters shot upright. “If I'd killed the man, Mr Le Page, I'd have thought then, wouldn't I? I'd have washed the jacket, or I'd have destroyed or dumped it. Isn't that something in my favour?''

It had to be. Tim was glad that Ted stepped in. “It's amazing what one can overlook at a time of stress, Mr Charters. But yes, we're aware you made no attempt to wash or destroy the jacket you wore.''

“You're sure there's nothing else that you'd like to tell us?'' Tim inquired.

“Nothing else.'' But Charter's deep-set gaze shifted down to the table top as he spoke, and Tim's instinct that he was still holding something back was restored.

“I shall want an amended statement, Mr Charters. Then you're free to go.'' He would have liked to interview the wife and son again as well, but felt it would be heavy-handed at that juncture. And there might be something to learn in the morning from the London insurance agent.

“Care for a beer, sir?'' Ted asked, as he joined Tim in the office after handing Bernard Charters over to a uniform. “Cordammy, I'm not thinking, you'll be wanting to get back to your bride. A rotten way to spend a honeymoon, Tim, I'm really sorry. You know, the Chief wouldn't have insisted—''

“I was the one who insisted, Ted. Simon Shaw was a good friend.'' He hated belittling Simon's significance. But perhaps eventually he might feel he could tell Ted what that was. When the case was closed and no one was in a position to take him off it. That was why he didn't want to sit with Ted over beers at the moment, not because he wanted to go home.

But he told Ted that was where he was going, thanked him for being so thoughtful, and set off across the island to the west coast.

The temperature had dropped during the day, and a wind had come up. The change suited his uneasy mood. He parked by Grandes Rocques and walked south towards Cobo, running when he was on springy turf and taking his shoes and socks off when he came to the shore. He even paddled at the edge of the receding tide, then sat on a pink rock as dusk turned to dark and the last of the day's holiday-makers trickled away. He had seated himself so that he could measure the coming of the night against the dark green bulk of Le Guet, the wooded headland forming the southern end of Cobo Bay, and watched it until its dark green daylight detail had faded to featureless black. When he eventually got to his feet there was one star just above the faint grey horizon, which by the time he had put on his shoes and socks and walked briskly back to his car was obscured by the blown strands of cloud puffing up the sky.