Death of a Stranger (7 page)

“No stitches in the leg, fortunately,'' the nurse concluded. Tim knew he would always remember the way a top tooth jutted over her lip as she offered him a reassuring smile, and the shiny yellow wall behind her of the small office in which they were standing. A uniformed constable he had last seen on the Duke of Richmond dance floor was sitting outside the room to which a junior nurse escorted him. As he spotted Tim and scrambled to his feet he registered a shocked compassion which he immediately tried to banish from his face. “Sir … I'm sorry, sir,'' he mumbled, before freezing into an impassivity worthy of a Buckingham Palace sentry.

“Thank you, Constable. You may relax.'' At another time the man's dilemma would have amused him. “Has my mother said anything?''

“I've not been allowed yet to speak to her.'' The constable cast a rueful glance at the severe-faced nurse.

“She's asleep,'' the nurse said, her severity softening to uncertainty as she turned to Tim and registered a mingling of reflex disapproval of a policeman about to upset a patient, and compassion for an anxious relative. That dilemma could have amused him, too. “But I suppose …
You
may go in,'' she conceded briskly, her face sharpening again into a quelling glance at the junior policeman.

“Thank you,'' Tim responded gratefully. “Don't go away, Constable,'' he said, as the nurse bustled off. “ I'll probably be doing your work for you and if so you can take it down for your report.''

He was as thankful as he would have been as a child to see that the lovely face was unmarked. But it was unnaturally pale and seemed to have shed flesh in the short time since he had last seen it. She was lying on her right side and her left shoulder was heavily bandaged. He thought she was asleep, but as he slid silently into the chair by the bed she opened her large dark eyes and smiled at him.

“Hello, darling.'' It was a sleepy whisper that immediately reassured him.

“Mother. You're all right?''

“No. I'm worried about you and Anna and Scotland.'' The whisper had risen to a murmur. “ No need for you not to go. In fact if you don't go I shall be extremely angry.''

He didn't have to force his smile. “That's very unselfish of you.'' And very characteristic, her egotism had always been shot through with understanding of other people. “But we don't want to leave you. And you needn't be angry, because even if we were prepared to go we couldn't. I'm the detective inspector and'' – for a moment he hesitated – “ from what Simon has told me, what happened could have been attempted murder.''

“It
was
attempted murder.'' Tim was glad to see that the wide eyes retained their power to flash. “She failed the first time, so she's tried again.''

“Constance Lorimer kept her anger at that pitch for thirty years?''

“She didn't have to. She just had to see me again for it all to come back.''

See that you're still a beautiful, desirable woman
. Tim thought of how Constance Lorimer had looked that afternoon inside the railings at St James's: plain, dumpy, faded, and full of rage. Against all his training, he found himself convinced of her unproven guilt. And her unstable state of mind. No one with their sense of self-preservation intact would have attempted to kill in a way that pointed so obviously to the culprit.

“Mother, when you're able to leave hospital you'll have to go straight back to England.''

“If you'll let me confront her on my way to the airport. With you as my police escort.''

“We'll see. Now, do you feel up to telling me what happened?''

“Of course, darling.''

It was a long time since he had opened a notebook for such a purpose. Shaw came well out of her account.

“If he hadn't grabbed me the way he did, Tim, the car would have gone over some part of me, I'm sure of it. I wonder his arms didn't come out of their sockets, he yanked me so hard. He was hurt too, you know. I made them tell me about him before I agreed to take the painkillers. I …'' Perhaps it was because she had seen the involuntary tightening of his face, perhaps because she realised she could be giving something away about her feeling for Simon Shaw, that Lorna tailed off. Tim suspected her yawn of being manufactured. But he got to his feet.

“You must sleep now. I'll be back in the morning. I'm glad Simon was with you.'' But if he hadn't been, she wouldn't have been jaunting off to the lookout in the dark.

“Say goodnight to Anna. I'm so sorry, darling. Your wedding day …''

She really did seem to be falling asleep. Tim kissed her, left the ward, and dictated what she had said to the grateful constable. He had just finished as Simon Shaw appeared. There was a plaster on his left cheek and his left arm was in a sling.

“Contact with the pavement,'' he said lightly, touching the plaster.

“And the arm?'' Tim asked.

“Only bruised. Have you seen her?''

“Yes. She gave me a statement which I've passed on to the constable here, so that's done with. She's gone back to sleep.''

Tim stopped speaking and they looked steadily at one another. Tim knew his eyes were telling Shaw to go away, but wasn't sure what Shaw's were saying because of the sadness in them.

“Look, she's all right.'' He hadn't known he was going to be reassuring. “But I'd rather you didn't disturb her now. I think you and I should have a chat, but it can wait till the morning. Can you come and see me at the station? Say eleven, give you time to rest.'' He knew eleven would be all right for him, he had no appointments.

He hadn't expected the man's face to brighten. “ Yes, Tim! I'll be there.''

“Good. Give you a lift now to the hotel? It's on my way home.''

The brightness died. Shaw looked resigned, and Tim knew he had been intending to disobey him and go in to Lorna. “Thanks, that would be a help, my hire car's at the Duke.''

“I realised that.''

They didn't talk on the short journey to the hotel, and Shaw slipped out of Tim's car with the one word “Thanks''. As he let himself into his house Tim saw a light in the kitchen. Anna was sitting in her dressing-gown at the old scrubbed wooden table, and there was steam rising from the kettle spout.

She got up as he came in and went to warm the waiting teapot, waiting herself, characteristically, for him to speak.

“She's all right,'' he said at once. “Still herself. The shoulder's back in place and there was no need for stitches in her leg, but they'll keep her in for a few days. She's convinced it was Constance Lorimer, although neither she nor Shaw really saw anything.''

“
You
can't be convinced it was. Come and sit down.'' She put a mug in front of him, pressed his hand briefly as she resumed her seat on one of the two old white-painted bentwood chairs.

Tim sank on to the other one. “I know, but how can I think of the woman as innocent?''

“Perhaps whoever it was was after Simon. His sleuthing assignment?''

“He's hardly had time to start.''

“He could still have blown it.''

“On his first day? It was Mother in the road, so we have to begin by looking for someone who wanted to harm Mother. Constance Lorimer showed her hostility in public yesterday. Which makes it easy for me to ask her to let me have a look at her car. That's going to be my priority, after I've explained to the Chief why I've put myself back on duty. Shaw's coming to see me at the office at eleven, so he can tell me about his first day's work. Now, it's only half past two, so let's go back to bed.''

“Yes. I got through to the airport and cancelled our flight.'' Anna looked with amusement at his bewildered face and ruffled his hair. “You'd forgotten, hadn't you? That you hadn't intended going to work today?''

“For a moment, yes. Oh, darling, I'm sorry. When Shaw rang and told me … It was like I'd always known and I think the idea of going away disappeared then. Are you very disappointed?''

“Of course not. We've got forever after, and I want you to catch whoever tried to kill your mother. When you leave in the morning I'll ring the hire car people and the hotels.'' She grinned at him as she got to her feet. “ Then go back to work myself, and wonder by lunchtime how they could have managed without me.''

To their surprise both of them slept, although Tim did some uninterpretable mumbled talking that disturbed Anna a couple of times. They woke finally earlier than usual, too tense for dalliance, and it wasn't quite eight o'clock when Tim reached the featureless green stretch of Cambridge Park with Duffy, and saw a pale sun rising over the curve of L'Hyvreuse where it descended towards the lookout. He also saw, to his satisfaction, a couple of constables examining the roadway outside the Duke of Richmond Hotel; he had told the constable at the hospital to contact the station and ask for an early check.

“Anything?'' He let Duffy go, and the streetwise dog bounded on to the grass and began to tear round in circles.

The constables straightened up. “Nothing, sir,'' one of them said, and the other shook his head.

“Ah.'' Tim's disappointment made him realise that Constance Lorimer's dilapidated appearance the day before had made him hope at least for a bit of rust. But from what he had heard, the injuries to his mother as well as to Simon Shaw had come from the violence of their retreat as much as from the impact of the car. And a thread of nylon from Lorna's tights would be more traceable on a tyre than on a roadway. Until the driver cleaned up …

“Come on, Duffy!''

As always the dog bounded over to him when he heard Tim's voice, and they set off back to Rouge Rue, Tim in a sudden fever of anxiety to get to Constance Lorimer, even though his common sense told him that if she was guilty she must already have taken what action she could to obliterate any trace of impact on her car.

It was still only twenty past eight, and he forced himself to make a pot of tea and eat a piece of toast with Anna before ringing his Chief and then setting out again, this time by car, to collect an alerted and speechlessly sympathetic DS Mahy from his home down town and drive north with him along the coast road to St Sampson.

It was to be another settled day, Tim knew from the pastel start it was making, a hazy sun casting a delicate light on the grey-green sea to their right. Constance Lorimer lived at the back of the island's second town, still in the house she had shared with her husband until Lorna Le Page had taken him away. An uglier house than the attractive older stuccoed villas alongside it, although it was set back from the building line in a small surround of its own ground. As he parked on the short driveway in front of the closed garage door, Tim remembered how disdainful of the property his mother had been, and recalled its origins aloud to Ted.

“A speculative builder bought the land in the thirties and there was quite a for and against controversy in the
Press
when he built on it in the style of the moment.'' The flat steel bars on the curving sunshine windows looked, now, like dirty sticking plaster, and the Art Deco sunburst over the front door had lost a ray.

“It hasn't worn well.''

“It hasn't been maintained.'' Because the deserted wife had lost heart? Tim was for the first time ashamed that under the influence of his mother he had never accorded Constance Lorimer a jot of pity.

The second sunburst was intact: an orange orb rising from a royal-blue sea in a stained-glass oval set into the top half of the front door. Tim studied it as he waited for the door to open, and had to lower his gaze to meet Constance Lorimer's deep-set, suspicious eyes.

“I'm Detective Inspector Le Page and this is—''

“I know who both of you are. What do you want?'' A cigarette hung from her full lower lip, and her voice had grown deeper and more husky since Tim had last heard it.

“We want to have a look at your car, Mrs Lorimer.''

No reaction beyond a deepening of the suspicion, but if she was guilty she as well as her car would be ready for him, and Tim tried to damp down his excitement. “ What for?''

“Because last night someone tried to run my mother down outside the Duke of Richmond hotel.'' The sharp intake of breath, the sudden clenched grip on the door frame, looked like a reaction to shock, but whether real or feigned there was no way of divining. “And yesterday afternoon, following my wedding, you were seen to make threatening gestures to her outside St James.''

“So that means I'd try to kill her? I don't wish her well, God knows, she destroyed my life, but even that wouldn't turn me into a murderer.''

“You tried once before.''

He was surprised to see the putty-coloured face blush, it had looked so bloodless. “Not to kill her, man, just to give her a shock. I didn't touch her. And it was thirty years ago.''

“So perhaps you intended to give her a second shock?''

“I might have done, yes,'' she said judicially, still looking up boldly into his eyes. “ I might have taken a run at her and her latest fancy man. Oh, yes, I could see she's still at it. But I didn't. I didn't take my car out yesterday, Mr Le Page. Neither Beth nor I was fool enough to think we could park anywhere near St James; we went by bus, and came home the same way. And I washed the car yesterday morning, so you won't find any marks on it anywhere.''

“You'd be surprised, Mrs Lorimer, what forensic experts can find these days.'' There was a confidence in DS Mahy's voice which Tim couldn't believe he was feeling: if Constance Lorimer had dried her car properly, they were unlikely to be able to prove she had washed it twenty-four hours later than she was claiming.

“They can't find what can't be there.''