‘And?’ Max prompted.
‘We had a kiss or two. A bit of a fumble, I suppose. Look, is this relevant?’
‘Who knows? Define fumble.’
‘A bit of petting, you know. We kissed, and I fondled her breasts. That was all, I swear. She didn’t turn me on.’
‘Why not?’ Grace asked.
‘She just didn’t. Apart from the fact that she wasn’t anything special to look at, she talked non-stop. I found her tedious.’
‘Then what happened? After your, er, fumble?’ Grace asked.
“I went home,’ he said. ‘The next day, I was informed I’d been accused of rape.’
‘Why do you think that was?’ Max asked.
“I couldn’t say,’ Collins replied thoughtfully. ‘Either she was mad at me for turning her down the first time, or she felt bad when I didn’t take things further. I got the impression I could have spent the night with her if I’d so desired.’
‘Why did she drop the charges?’ Max asked.
“I imagine that all she wanted to do was scare me. And if I’m honest, she did. No bloke wants to be on a rape charge. But I doubt if she wanted to go to court any more than I did.’
‘Have you seen her since?’ Max asked.
‘What do you think?’ Collins demanded scathingly.
‘And I really can’t see what any of this has to do with Alice and Jonathan.’
‘Probably nothing,’ Max agreed. ‘You’re not married, are you?’
‘No.’
‘Why’s that?’ Grace asked. ‘A good-looking bloke like you, I would have thought they’d be forming a queue.’
He didn’t smile. Was he used to such flattery?
“I haven’t met the right person,’ he answered. ‘I’m not anti-women, if that’s what you’re driving at. I simply haven’t found the right one. I was with a girl for six years - we came close to marriage, but neither of us wanted to spoil things.’ He looked Max straight in the eye. ‘I’m not gay, either.’
‘It hadn’t crossed my mind,’ Max said mildly.
‘Do people think you might be gay?’ Grace asked.
“I neither know nor care what people think,’ Collins retorted.
‘A lot of blokes wouldn’t like people thinking they were gay,’ Grace persisted.
‘Well, I don’t care.’
‘What about Monday, the twenty-ninth of November, the evening Jonathan Trueman was murdered?’ Max asked. ‘Where were you?’
“I was at home.’ Once again, he ran a finger inside the collar of his shirt. ‘And no, there’s no one who can vouch for that. I left the office at five thirty, and drove straight home. I was alone.’
‘The weapon used to kill Reverend Trueman was stolen from Mr Hutchinson. Did you know that?’
‘Everyone in Kelton knows that,’ Collins muttered.
‘Could you have stolen it?’ Max asked.
‘Anyone could have stolen it, I imagine. I knew Tony had guns, and I knew where they were kept. Four, he has - three now presumably - in a cabinet in the dining room.
I sometimes think he only invited people to dinner so he could show off his trophies.’
‘A bit of a show-off, is he?’
‘He’s OK.’
‘So if anyone wanted to steal a gun, you reckon it would be easy enough?’ Max asked.
“I didn’t say that. I said I knew they were there, and I knew where they were kept. The cabinet was locked, so whoever did it would have to get in that. And presumably, they’d have to break into the house in the first place.’
‘Unless they had a key,’ Max pointed out.
‘Unless they had a key,’ Collins agreed, somewhat sarcastically.
So Collins hadn’t stolen that gun. If he had, he’d have known there was only one there. He presumably didn’t know that Hutchinson had sold his collection.
The rape charge could be as innocent as he made out.
Even if it wasn’t, it hardly mattered.
‘How often did you see Alice Trueman?’ Max asked.
Collins frowned, not sure where this was leading. ‘Once a week or so, I suppose. If I went to church, which wasn’t often, I’d see her there. If there were gatherings, concerts, fetes, dinner parties, I might see her there.’
‘Any other times? Days out? Anything like that?’
‘No. Of course not.’ Collins still looked scared half to death. ‘Oh, there was once,’ he remembered. “I had to go to an auction in London on behalf of a client last summer.
Without looking at my diary, I couldn’t tell you the date, but it was either June or July.’
It was June the seventeenth. And probably as innocent as Collins was about to describe it. Sod it!
‘We were buying a few pieces on behalf of a client. Alice saw the catalogue, fell in love with some of the pieces, and wanted to go. Of course, I immediately invited her to join me. Jonathan wasn’t happy about it,’ he remembered. ‘He joked about it, said he was worried Alice would spend too much, but I think …’ He hesitated.
‘Yes?’ Max prompted impatiently.
“I gained the impression Jonathan didn’t like to let her out of his sight. I’m not sure why that was. Jealousy perhaps. I don’t know.’
‘But she went?’
‘Oh, yes. And thoroughly enjoyed herself.’
Max thought over the conversation he’d had with Jill that morning.
‘It’s supposed to be a powerful aphrodisiac,’ he remarked.
‘What is?’
‘Good versus evil,’ Max explained pleasantly. ‘On the one hand, you’ve got the devoted vicar’s wife - godliness, goodness and purity. On the other hand, there’s the chance of bringing out her evil side - making her forget the sanctity of marriage, the Word of God, the fact that respectable girls don’t do oral or anal.’
‘That’s disgusting!’
‘Who knows,’ Max continued, ignoring his outburst, ‘perhaps she had fantasies of rape?’
‘Oh, no!’
‘Lots of women do, I gather.’
‘No!’
Max turned to Grace. ‘What about you? Have you ever fantasized about being raped? About being powerless?’
Grace didn’t even blink. “I might have.’
‘There you go,’ Max said, addressing Collins with satisfaction.
‘Women do fantasize about it. Perhaps Alice did.
Perhaps you fulfilled those fantasies for her.’
‘No!’
‘Perhaps you had an affair with her and perhaps she planned to leave her husband for you.’
‘That’s ridiculous!’
‘Perhaps it was her idea,’ Max ploughed on, ‘and perhaps you didn’t want the commitment - or the scandal. So perhaps you had her killed. Or perhaps her husband killed her and you killed him out of revenge.’
‘No, no, no!’ Collins was on his feet. ‘I’m answering no more questions without my lawyer present!’
Max was sitting in his office when Fletch burst in waving a piece a paper.
‘This had better be good news,’ Max warned him.
‘It is, guv,’ Fletch said breathlessly, hitching up his trousers. ‘It’s about that train Jim Brody caught back from London.’
‘And?’
On the night Jonathan Trueman was murdered, Brody had caught the last train back from London to Manchester.
He’d even shown them his ticket.
‘It was cancelled,’ Fletch said triumphantly.
‘So what alternative arrangements were made?’ Max refused to build up his hopes. ‘They can’t leave dozens of passengers stranded in London, Fletch.’
‘The passengers eventually got a train to Stoke, and then a bus was laid on for those going on to Manchester.’
So much for caution. Max’s hopes were already sky high.
‘And there’s no way Brody could have caught a train all the way from London to Manchester? Even if he’d done a different route?’
‘It’s possible,’ Fletch allowed, ‘but he would have known it was cancelled and he would have had to do one hell of a detour. If that were the case, he would have mentioned it.’
‘Let’s go and have a chat with him.’ Max was already putting on his jacket. He had an appointment with his superior but, as he knew the script by heart, that particular bollocking could wait. ‘And why the bloody hell wasn’t this checked out sooner?’
‘Dunno, guv. Because he found that ticket, I suppose, and we were ‘
‘Gullible enough to believe him,’ Max finished, striding out of his office.
They went in Fletch’s car and that was even more untidy than Max’s. As Fletch drove, Max gathered up half a dozen empty coffee cups.
‘The wife’s pregnant,’ Fletch said, as if that explained everything.
‘You what?’
‘Sandra’s pregnant again. Instead of cleaning out the car, she’s been getting the spare bedroom ready.’
‘Yeah? Hey, congratulations.’
‘Thanks.’ Fletch grinned sheepishly and Max knew there was no point reminding him of the sleepless nights spent walking the floorboards that would soon be upon him.
‘But why can’t you clean the car yourself?’
‘Good question.’
One to which there clearly wasn’t an answer.
‘Do you know what you’re having? Boy or girl?’
‘Yes, I expect it’ll be one of those.’ That was Fletch’s idea of a joke. ‘Sandra doesn’t want to know. Says it will spoil the surprise. A boy would be great,’ he said, somewhat wistfully, ‘but we’ll probably have another girl. She’s doing the spare bedroom out in yellow which is sort of neutral, I suppose.’
‘You’ll be better off with a girl. Boys are hell. They’re too energetic, too wily, and too conniving by half. I still can’t believe I got talked into having that damn dog.’ He gave Fletch a sideways glance and grinned. ‘Sorry, Fletch. Dogs are still a sore point, I imagine.’
‘Bloody thing. And it wasn’t an Andrex puppy, far from it. It wasn’t even a puppy, it was almost a year old. When the vet thought he might have to dart it, he estimated its weight as between twenty and twenty-five kilos. A pity that shotgun hadn’t been loaded …’
They were soon driving into Kelton Bridge.
There were some odd characters living in the village, Max thought, but there must be hundreds of normal people, too. It was just the ones he came into contact with that seemed odd.
Fletch took a wrong turning and they ended up going past Jill’s cottage. A bearded chap was working on the roof, and Max assumed it was Len. According to Jill, he’d arrived early yesterday morning, worked till late, and hadn’t stopped singing traditional folk songs all day. Jill reckoned she’d never known a man so happy in his work.
‘Of course, Brody might not be at home,’ Max mused. ‘It was his day for working on the vicarage garden so he might have taken on another job to replace that.’
‘We’ll soon find out,’ Fletch said as he pulled the car on to Brody’s drive. ‘Let’s hope we can nail him for Trueman’s murder,’ he added grimly.
As they got out of the car, Brody came out of his front door, his car keys dangling from his fingers, but he stopped when he saw them. The ever-present collie was at his heels.
‘We’ll only take a minute of your time,’ Max told him.
‘You’d better come in then.’ Brody went back inside and held the front door open for them.
Max and Fletch followed him into the lounge. No one sat down. The dog lay by Brody’s feet, watching Max and Fletch.
‘We thought you might have found a replacement job for the vicarage,’ Max remarked.
‘No.’ He didn’t elaborate. Nor did he seem unduly bothered about the lack of income.
‘Plenty of work around, is there?’
‘Seems to be.’
‘The evening Jonathan Trueman was killed,’ Fletch said, getting straight to the point, ‘would you describe your movements for us again, please?’
“I drove to Manchester Piccadilly, parked the car and caught the 11.15 train to Euston. I got there at around half past one, had a coffee at the station, then took a cab out to my brother’s place just off the King’s Road.’
‘Was the train on time?’ Fletch asked.
‘Give or take.’
He looked uncomfortable, as well he might. Max guessed he had no idea if the train was on time or not.
‘And then what?’ Fletch asked.
“I spent the rest of the day with my brother. He’ll vouch for that. I took a cab from his place back to Euston to catch the 9.05 p.m. train and then drove straight home from Manchester.’
‘How about that train?’ Fletch said, notebook at the ready. ‘Was that on time? Give or take?’
“I don’t rightly remember. I imagine so.’
‘You imagine so,’ Max repeated. ‘Now, the thing is, we’ve checked with your brother and he confirms that you were with him until you left to catch that train. The problem, however, is that the 9.05 train to Manchester Piccadilly was cancelled.’
‘Has that jogged your memory?’ Fletch asked casually.
‘No, but I must have caught a later train, mustn’t I?’
Credit where it was due, he didn’t even flinch. He stared Fletch straight in the eye.
‘No trains went into Manchester that night,’ Fletch informed him. ‘Surely you remember taking a different route.’
‘Ah, now you mention it, yes I do. I had to catch a train to Stoke and then a bus up from there.’
Fletch looked at Max, and Max could see his own thoughts mirrored there. Shit!
Did Brody catch that train and then the bus from Stoke, or was he taking a guess? The Manchester train had terminated at Stoke for a week, while track repairs were
carried out. Brody could easily have heard about it.
‘Did you have an affair with Alice Trueman?’ Max asked.
The question should have taken him by surprise, but it didn’t.
‘What would she see in me?’
‘Was that a yes or no?’ Fletch asked impatiently.
Brody gave his dog a quick glance before looking straight at Fletch. ‘No, I didn’t have an affair with Mrs Trueman.’
“I don’t know how a woman’s mind works,’ Max said, walking over to the window and looking out at immaculate borders, ‘they’re far too complex for me. However, I can imagine a woman like Mrs Trueman, a woman married to a vicar and feeling stifled by life at the vicarage, finding a gardener, a man with a passion for warmth and colour, and especially a man who made her laugh, quite appealing.’ He spun round. ‘I’ve been told she used to look forward to your visits.’
“I couldn’t speak for Mrs Trueman.’
‘So what time did you get to Manchester on the night Reverend Trueman was murdered?’ Fletch asked.
“I really can’t remember.’
‘Do you know anything about shotguns?’ Max asked.
‘Yes, I’ve done some shooting in my time. Clays mainly, but pheasant too. I know Tony Hutchinson’s shotgun was stolen and I assume it was the same one used to kill Jonathan Trueman.’