The Cold Hand of Malice (17 page)

‘Her husband works as a security guard at the same place you do – or did?’

Bryce nodded. ‘That’s right. I suppose you’ll have to talk to her?’

‘Yes, we will have to talk to her,’ Tregalles told him flatly. ‘Address, please.’ He sat there with pen poised over his notebook.

‘Nineteen Grandview Gardens. Could you wait till the evening before you talk to her?’ he asked hopefully. ‘And let me phone her first just to let her know – I mean I would like to warn her. It will come as a bit of a shock if two policemen walk in and start asking about, well, you know.’

‘No phone call,’ said Paget firmly. He eyed Bryce narrowly for several seconds before asking, ‘Does this have anything to do with why you were sacked?’

Bryce looked horrified. ‘Good God, no!’ he breathed. ‘Jesus! If my uncle ever hears about this he’ll go up the wall, even though the randy old sod’s been doing the same sort of thing himself for at least as long as I’ve been close to him, and probably a lot longer than that. I’ve never seen anyone like him for pulling birds. But Bill Lattimer is a friend of his, so he’d
really
let me have it if he found out I was bonking Lattimer’s wife.’

‘Let me understand this,’ said Tregalles heavily. ‘You are out there every other night, screwing this man’s wife while he’s at work? You’re unemployed; your partner is supporting you
and
looking after a baby, yet you go out night after night and leave her stuck at home worrying herself silly about how she’s going to manage?’

Timothy Bryce seemed to shrink before the sergeant’s malevolent glare. ‘I didn’t mean it to turn out like that,’ he said sulkily. ‘It just sort of happened. Lenore was lonely, left all by herself night after night,’ he protested. ‘He’s pushing fifty, and she’s only thirty three or four, and she needed . . .’

‘A toy boy?’ Tregalles broke in. ‘Oh, yes, very understandable,’ he said derisively as he wrote something in his book. ‘At least Sally has the baby to keep her company. Yours, is he?’

‘Of course he’s mine. And I
have
been out looking for a job. I have been trying.’

‘Have you now? Very commendable, I’m sure. How long have you known this Lenore?’

‘We met at the Christmas party. We danced together and she came on to me. We’d both had a bit to drink, and we ended up in one of the offices. You know how it is, Sergeant? I mean it happens, doesn’t it?’

‘Obviously. Now, let’s get back to Wednesday, the fourth of March. Are you saying that this Lenore Lattimer will verify that you were with her that evening?’

Bryce looked startled. ‘Wednesday,
the fourth?
’ he repeated, hoarsely. ‘I thought . . .’ He tilted his head back, covered his face with his hands and said, ‘Oohh shit!’

Tregalles exchanged glances with Paget. ‘Mr Bryce, I am asking you if Lenore Lattimer will confirm that you were . . .’ He stopped. Bryce, face still covered with his hands, was shaking his head violently. ‘Mr Bryce?’

Slowly, Bryce lowered his hands. ‘I made a mistake,’ he said in a voice so low that Paget asked him to repeat it. ‘I made a mistake,’ he said more clearly. ‘In the date. I was confused; I thought we were talking about . . .’ He lifted his hands in a helpless fashion and let them drop as he shook his head and said, ‘Oh, never mind; it doesn’t matter now.’

‘Are you saying you were
not
with Mrs Lattimer that night?’ Tregalles prompted.

Bryce nodded slowly.

‘But you were out of the house?’

‘Yes.’

‘Jogging?’ Tregalles asked sceptically.

‘Yes. Well, not exactly.’

‘Which is it, Mr Bryce? Yes or not exactly? I’m waiting for an explanation and I haven’t got all day. Do you have a dog?’

‘A
dog
?’ Bryce stared at the sergeant as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

‘That’s what I said. Do you or don’t you have a dog? It’s a simple enough question.’

‘No – well, yes, we did until last week, but it’s not our dog. It belongs to Sally’s parents. Sally agreed to look after it while they were away. We don’t have it now. But I don’t understand this. What the hell has a dog got to do with anything?’

‘It could have everything to do with whether you will be charged or not,’ Tregalles said as he turned to Paget. ‘I’d say we are back where we started, sir. Mr Bryce was out jogging – or not, as the case may be – and we have a report of a jogger in the next street to Pembroke Avenue about the time of the murder. Dark tracksuit – could very well have been Mr Bryce, don’t you think, sir? I think that warrants a search of the house for a start.’

‘And three hours unaccounted for,’ said Paget. ‘So, in the face of the evidence, and since you can’t account for your movements that night, I’m afraid we’re going to have to hold you on suspicion of—’

‘Jesus Christ, man, you can’t be serious?’ Bryce burst out. ‘I’ve been telling you the truth! I made a mistake, that’s all. About the date. Look,’ he said desperately, ‘what If I
do
have an alibi? Can we at least keep all this from coming out?’ His voice dropped to an urgent whisper. ‘I don’t want Sally to know. I love her, I really do. It’s just . . .’

Paget eyed him stonily. ‘If you have something to say, Mr Bryce, then say it,’ he said, ‘and stop wasting our time. And you had better get it right the first time, because if you don’t, there is every chance that you will go down for the murder of Laura Holbrook.’

Although the tape was still running, Tregalles opened his notebook again. ‘All right, Bryce,’ he sighed as if already weary of the subject, ‘this is your last chance. Where were you between the hours of seven and ten in the evening on the night Mrs Holbrook was killed? And don’t mess me about this time.’

Timothy Bryce’s eyes flicked from one to the other but both faces were impassive. ‘Look,’ he said again, ‘it’s not really the way it looks. Honestly. I was with a girl I know. We were at uni together; we shared digs there for a while, and now she’s living here in town. Her name is Hilde DeGraff. She works in the municipal offices, and she has a flat two streets over from where I live. It was a spur of the moment thing. I started out to go jogging that night, but when I realized I was passing her door, I thought I’d just drop in to see how she was doing, and we stayed chatting for most of the evening. I didn’t tell Sally because I didn’t think she would understand.’

‘I wonder why?’ Tregalles muttered, shaking his head. ‘Let’s have it, then – the address of this Hilde DeGraff.’

Fifteen

Paget had just settled to the task of finishing off his daily progress report when Ormside called from downstairs to report that Bryce’s prints had been taken. ‘We don’t have enough hard evidence to apply for a search warrant,’ he said, ‘but I made a deal with him. He’s agreed to turn over the tracksuit and anything else he was wearing last Wednesday night, as long as we don’t mention where he was to Sally Craig. We’ll also be looking for dog hair, and anything else that Forensic might find interesting. As for the DeGraff woman, she’s at work today, so I thought it might be best to wait till after work to talk to her.’

‘Agreed,’ said Paget, ‘but make sure that Bryce understands that he’ll be in serious trouble if he attempts to talk to her before we’ve had a chance to talk to her ourselves. And have Forsythe do that. DeGraff might be a little more forthcoming to another woman. Anything else?’

‘Couple of things,’ Ormside said. ‘Just received a fax saying that Mrs Holbrook’s body can be released for burial.’

‘Better let Mr Holbrook know, then,’ Paget told him. ‘And find out when the interment will take place and let me know. What’s the other thing?’

‘It seems that Mrs Ballantyne forgot to mention a couple of things when you spoke to her on Saturday. The prints we took from her yesterday – once she eventually turned up – match some they found in the Holbrook house. They were on the banister, on the bedside lamp, the telephone, and the bedroom window sill. Could be the break we’re looking for, especially since we now know that something may have been going on between her and Holbrook.’

The information was sobering. It was hard to imagine the diminutive Moira Ballantyne beating another woman to death, but stranger things had happened. ‘Have Tregalles bring her in,’ he said. ‘Better send a policewoman with him just in case Mrs Ballantyne doesn’t want to talk to us and he has to arrest her. And let me know when she arrives. I’d like to talk to her myself.’

Moira Ballantyne was trying hard to look composed as she watched Tregalles set up the tape recorder, but she couldn’t conceal her apprehension completely.

She was a small woman, fine-boned and dainty. Her blonde hair was cropped and combed straight back with just the hint of a wave in the boyish cut. But there was nothing boyish about the perfect oval of her face, unblemished skin, full lips, and hazel eyes. Nor could the straight-cut two-piece suit in a heather tweed, and snow-white blouse with just a touch of lace at the neck, conceal the trim figure and slender legs. And, despite the weather, fashionable, open-toed shoes completed the ensemble, adding inches to her height.

She was an attractive woman, and whether or not it was true that she and Holbrook were having an affair, or had had one in the past, Paget could see how gossip at the club might link the two together.

Tregalles set the recorder in motion and entered the time, date, location, and those present, including the name of the policewoman who sat just inside the door.

Paget began by thanking Moira for coming in – not that she’d had much choice in the matter – to help them clear up one or two things that seemed to be, as he put it, ‘at variance’ with what she had told them a few days ago. Their eyes met across the table, and Paget sensed a flicker of fear before Moira looked away.

‘It’s the fingerprints, isn’t it?’ she said before he had a chance to ask a question. She shook her head sadly. ‘I knew I should have told you the truth the other day, but I was afraid you wouldn’t believe me if I did. I didn’t have anything to do with Laura’s death; you have to believe me about that, and I was hoping . . .’ She spread her hands and shook her head again.

‘Hoping we wouldn’t find your prints at the scene?’ Paget finished for her. ‘But you were there, in the room, weren’t you, Mrs Ballantyne?’

She nodded. ‘It was the light in the window, you see,’ she said in a low voice. ‘That’s what made me decide to go in. I had no idea . . .’

‘Let’s begin at the beginning,’ Paget suggested. ‘You told us the other day that you were at home all evening on March fourth, the evening Mrs Holbrook was murdered. I take it you are now saying that was not true?’

Moira nodded. ‘I went out to post—’

‘Please answer yes or no for the tape, Mrs Ballantyne,’ Tregalles broke in.

‘Oh! Oh, yes, of course. Yes. I mean I did go out that night to post a letter to my mother. The letterbox is at the top of the street. I didn’t notice a light in Laura’s bedroom window on the way up there, but I did on the way back, and that surprised me, because she hates any sort of light when she has a migraine. So I went in.’

‘What time was this?’

‘Quarter past nine, nine thirty, something like that. I don’t remember exactly.’

‘You say you went in. How did you get in? Was the door unlocked?’

‘No. I have a key. I keep it on my key ring because I look after the plants and things when they’re both away.’

‘So you went in. Tell us what you did then.’

‘I went up the stairs. I didn’t call out or anything just in case she was asleep. I thought perhaps her migraine had cleared up and she’d turned the light on, then fallen asleep again.’

‘You went into the bedroom,’ Paget prompted. ‘What did you see?’

Moira chewed on her lip and drew a deep breath before answering. ‘At first, I thought she had fallen out of bed. I really did. The sheets were pulled half off the bed, and although I couldn’t see the lamp itself, I could see the light shining from the floor, so I thought – I don’t know what I thought, really, except that something had happened to Laura. I think I called out. I went around the end of the bed, and that’s when I saw the blood . . .’ The words died in Moira’s throat. She swallowed hard and took a deep, shuddering breath, then sat back and looked at Paget and shook her head.

‘How was she lying?’ he asked quietly. ‘Was she lying on her back, her side . . .?’

Moira looked up at the ceiling and took another long breath before she answered. ‘Sort of on her side but face down,’ she said. ‘The lamp was on the floor beside her. It was tipped over on its side, but still on. I tried to turn her over, but the lamp was in the way, so I picked it up and set it on the little table beside the bed. It’s funny, Laura wasn’t very big, but she seemed to be so heavy. Down on my knees like that I couldn’t seem to get a good grip on her, and – this probably sounds silly now – I didn’t want to hurt her. Then, quite suddenly, she rolled over and I saw her face.’

Moira’s face was pale, her breathing shallow. Paget poured a glass of water and handed it to her. She sipped it slowly at first, then deeply, gulping the liquid down until she’d almost emptied the glass.

Paget gave her a minute to recover before asking what she had done next.

Moira looked down at her hands. ‘I didn’t know what to do. I was in shock. I’d never seen anything so brutal in my life before. I knew it was no good calling a doctor or an ambulance. There was no doubt whatsoever that Laura was dead, and the only thing I could think about was getting away from there, because it suddenly occurred to me that whoever had killed her might still be in the house.’

‘Did you hear or see anything that would suggest someone was still in the house?’

‘No, but I imagined all sorts of things, and as I said, I just wanted to get away from there.’

‘Tell me again why you decided to go
into
the house in the first place.’

A small frown drew the delicate eyebrows together as if puzzled by a question she thought she had already answered. ‘As I believe I said, Chief Inspector, I saw the light on, and I wondered about it. It crossed my mind that Laura might have used the migraine as an excuse to get out of going to see a film she wasn’t keen on, and was there on her own, so I thought I would just pop in.’