The Best of British Crime omnibus (51 page)

‘Well I don't believe Jane killed him,' said Molly flatly. ‘Why couldn't it have been one of Helga Greet's lot? They knew where he was, too.'

‘Getting rid of him to save on his million pound bonus? The police may want to think so. I believe members of the Greet brigade would have felt too vulnerable to have risked it.'

‘The Inspector said Bob was standing by Jane.' Molly looked irritated as the doorbell sounded again as she stopped speaking. ‘Oh no. Now who can that be?'

Treasure found Stuart Bodlin at the door – with a day's growth of beard which gave his normally pallid, sunken countenance a sinister dimension. He was dressed in a faded red T-shirt, jeans, and white sneakers.

‘On the drive up I knew there was nowhere else I should go. No one else I should speak to. You understand? I'm sorry. It's urgent,' Bodlin was saying as Treasure showed him through to the kitchen.

The visitor seemed to be in a kind of daze, his voice devoid of expression. The excuse for his presence was probably meant to cover his appearance too. He stood irresolute in the centre of the kitchen, the legs of the shrunken jeans revealing that he was wearing odd socks – one dark blue, the other a patterned red. Wordlessly, he had acknowledged Molly with a dejected sort of bow.

‘Do sit down, Stuart.' She moved up a little and patted the end of the banquette beside her. ‘Would you like something to eat?'

He sat. ‘Nothing, thank you.'

‘Some coffee, perhaps? We were just reaching that stage,' said Treasure returning to the table himself. He had brought an extra coffee cup. ‘We all wondered what had happened to you. No one at the factory knew where you were.' There was a touch of admonition in the voice.

‘At a friend's cottage. In Dorset. I often go there at weekends. Or when I need to think.' If the need for thought wasn't sufficient to explain a day's absence from his laboratory, no other was being offered. ‘The news on the radio at six said Dermot Hackle died of a heart attack. In the flat where he was held by kidnappers. As soon as I heard, I got in the car and drove up straight away.' The speaker's head was bent so low that he seemed to be addressing his feet beneath the table. Molly wondered if he would notice the socks. He had earlier taken off his spectacles.

‘We were both at that flat shortly after Hughie McFee found the body,' said Treasure.

Bodlin's gaze came up. ‘Hughie found him? They didn't say that. And both of you were there.' The last was a comment not a question. ‘You must understand. There was no kidnap. That was a sham.' He looked down again, kneading his hands together.

Molly opened her mouth to say something, but was stayed by a glance from her husband as the scientist continued.

‘You see, I was at Bob Larden's house yesterday. In the afternoon. After the meeting with Professor Garside. Something I heard then. When I was making a phone call. In the study. It seemed impossible. I didn't know what to do. Not till I knew Hackle was dead.' He drew in his breath sharply.

‘What was it you heard?' asked Treasure.

‘The tape of a phone conversation. Jane Larden talking to Hackle. Bob was having everything recorded. We'd all agreed to do that. In case the SAE called us at home. His wife couldn't have known it. Or she'd forgotten. Or thought she'd switched off the machine. Most likely it was that. The ordinary answering tape wasn't on. It's a complicated mechanism. Well slightly.' The speaker's frown deepened, as he drew the front of his right wrist across his brow. ‘She called Hackle at lunchtime yesterday. I mean she knew the number. Where he was. I wouldn't have heard the tape, except I didn't want my call recorded. It was personal. Very personal.' The last phrase came out defiantly, as if he was expecting it to be challenged. ‘I was checking the machine. To make sure I'd switched it off. When I recognised the voices, I had to hear the rest.' His voice was now reduced almost to a whisper. ‘It was compulsive. I'm not ashamed of what I did.'

‘Did either of them say where Dermot was?' Treasure asked.

Bodlin shook his head. ‘She said she'd be with him after four thirty.'

‘Did she say where she was phoning from?'

‘No.'

‘Then he probably assumed it was from her car.'

‘He said he couldn't wait to see her. And … and what a pity he'd be setting himself free on Friday. That they'd miss their afternoons together. Except soon they'd be together for ever.' Bodlin paused. ‘It was a very intimate conversation.'

‘And it shocked you?' said Molly.

‘Not because they spoke as lovers. Because they were conspirators … who'd tricked everyone … robbed us all. I couldn't believe it. The depth of it. You understand? I didn't know what to do. How I should tell Bob. You'll think that's weak, I know. But I couldn't just come out with it. Not cold.' He looked appealingly from Treasure to Molly.

‘I understand,' said Molly. ‘It was a terrible dilemma for you. Please go on.'

‘It was then I heard Bob's wife. She was downstairs. Speaking to him.' Bodlin's nervousness had made him nearly breathless, and might also have been the cause of his suddenly running out of words.

‘So what did you do, Stuart?' This was Treasure, in a lively, encouraging tone, while wishing Bodlin would get on with it. Nor did the banker share his wife's view on the terrible dilemma. The man's duty had been obvious.

Bodlin swallowed painfully. ‘I left. I don't know what they thought. I didn't care.'

‘You hadn't erased what was on the tape?'

‘No.'

‘So Bob could have played it himself later?'

‘I thought he was bound to.'

‘You preferred that to happen? As opposed to telling him?'

‘Yes.'

‘And after that?'

‘I sat in my car. Up the street. I was too upset to drive. I knew they should be exposed. Hackle and Jane Larden. I nearly went back. But in the end I couldn't do it. I remember thinking the damage was done anyway. Then, before I left— ' He stopped, covering his face with his hands. He took several deep breaths before resuming despondently with: ‘Anyway, what does any of it matter now? He's dead. They said it was his heart.'

‘He was murdered,' said Molly.

‘Murdered?' The hands parted. The eyes stared out between them in stark surprise. ‘Are you sure?'

‘Poisoned by Bovetormaz. Around seven last night,' Treasure added.

‘Who did it?' The murder method seemed not to have impressed itself on the speaker.

‘We don't know. Jane Larden's been to the police to say she didn't. She's confessed the kidnap was a hoax. The Irishman on the telephone was Dermot doing an impersonation. It explains why both voices on the tapes opened the lock to your lab. We figured that as an outside possibility last night, after we checked the tapes. At the time it still seemed too bizarre to credit.'

‘Was the Bovetormaz injected?' asked Bodlin.

‘No, Hackle was just scratched with it.' The banker leaned back. ‘So you'd remained undecided about what to do. Left for the country to make up your mind? Or hoping Bob would play that tape for himself?'

‘Hoping he'd play it, yes.' But there had been hesitation before the reply.

‘Did you have other ideas before that?'

There was a long pause. ‘I thought I'd like to kill Hackle,' the scientist almost whispered.

‘Did you kill him?' Treasure's tone was as impassive as a psychoanalyst's.

‘No. If I'd known where he was …' The words petered out. ‘No, I didn't kill him.'

‘You knew Jane was going to him. You didn't wait and then follow her?'

‘No. I went home. I'm alone there. My … my friend's away. After a while I didn't want to stay in London. So I drove to Dorset.'

‘To keep out of the way till the truth was exposed?'

This time there was no response to the question. Bodlin's gaze had dropped again.

‘Of course, you couldn't rely on Bob playing the tape. So who else had you told?'

‘No one.'

Molly had looked as surprised as Bodlin at the question.

‘You confided in no one before you left?' Treasure pressed. ‘Not to someone who happened along while you were sitting in the car near the Lardens' house?'

Bodlin's head came up rapidly, almost as though it had been tugged from behind. He looked confused. Both hands went to rubbing his thighs. ‘No … no one.' His forehead was beading with sweat. ‘Look, I came to tell you the kidnap was a hoax. I didn't know you knew that. I didn't know Hackle had been murdered.' He pulled his glasses from his shirt pocket and put them on. Suddenly his actions had become sharper, the expression in the eyes guarded. ‘So I've nothing new to tell anyone. I should have stayed out of it.' He rose from the table. ‘I'm sorry. Sorry I came here. Sorry I disturbed you. It was all a mistake. I can find my own way out. Please don't bother …' He was still muttering apologies as he reached the doorway.

Molly was about to call him back. Her husband's raised hand discouraged her.

‘Is he a bit mad?' Molly asked as they heard the front door slam. She got up to clear the table.

‘Eccentric and quite brilliant. I've told you before, he loathed Dermot.'

‘Enough to kill him?'

‘With the right provocation.'

‘He didn't know where Dermot was. He said so.'

Treasure gave a dismissive grunt. ‘He only had to follow Jane.'

‘A lot of people could have done that. Bob himself. Even Mary Ricini as a matter of fact.'

‘Oh? Why Mary?'

‘Something Rosemary Hackle said. When we were alone. It didn't seem important. Not until just now.' Molly opened the dish-washer. ‘Tim, that's the Hackles' little boy, told his mother last night that he saw his father with a ginger-haired woman on Sunday afternoon. At Heathrow.'

‘He told her this after they knew Dermot was dead?'

‘Mmm. Up to then, Tim had promised not to tell her. Promised his sister and Mary. It was to save Rosemary's feelings.'

‘Mary knew though?'

‘Yes. He told her yesterday afternoon, just before Rosemary got home with the daughter. Mary left soon after to go back to the office. Said she wouldn't be long. But it was after seven when she got back. Rosemary told me all this when we were just making conversation. Rather difficult conversation in the circumstances. She was saying what a help Mary had been all week, in so many ways. That she must have had to neglect her important work.'

‘Except she went to make up for it between five and seven yesterday?' Treasure considered the two melon skins before dropping them in the waste bin.

‘On the face of it, yes. But what if Mary had really gone to confront Jane at her house then? About her being with Dermot? When he was supposed to have been on his way to Nottingham.'

‘Mary might have got a flea in her ear if she'd done that.

Helga Greet was also what you might call ginger. When she was Kirsty Welling she wore a black wig. So it could have been Greet or Jane who was with Dermot. More likely Greet. She was certainly with him some time on Sunday to give him the flat key. Furlong said so. Perhaps Dermot drove her to the airport to catch a plane to Zürich?'

‘Should the police be told what Tim saw?'

‘Doesn't have much significance now where Dermot was on Sunday. Or who he was with.'

‘Except it might have had for Mary when the little boy told her yesterday. I still think it could have sent her to Jane to demand an explanation. And she could have run into Stuart outside Jane's house, then followed Jane.'

‘Could have,' he repeated, but sounding unconvinced.

‘Mary wouldn't have had trouble getting some of the knock-out drug. She even had time to go to the factory for it.'

‘You're building a lot on a slim hypothesis.'

‘Darling, you're very protective towards Mary. I think it's because you rather fancy her.' Molly gave an indulgent smile.

‘Expect so,' he replied, as though the comment had hardly rated one. ‘All right. If Stuart didn't follow Jane and then murder Dermot. If the murder wasn't done by one of Helga Greet's people— '

‘And you don't believe it was.'

‘That's right. In that case it could have been Bob who followed her, after hearing the tape before or immediately after she left. Or it could have been Mary after talking to Stuart. Or someone else who talked to Stuart.'

‘You seem sure Stuart told someone what he knew.'

Treasure picked up the wine bottle to see that it was empty. ‘I'm convinced he did. Then washed his hands of the whole thing. Like Pontius Pilate.'

‘She's numb about it, I tell you. As if she's not involved. Not remotely.' Bob Larden looked up from the pewter tankard he was holding and stared out across the river, except his gaze was empty. The Managing Director of Closter Drug was grey faced. He seemed to have aged a generation since Treasure had last seen him.

‘Jane's had a bad shock,' said the banker, who was standing beside the other man.

‘She and I both have.'

‘You might say we all have.'

The two were on the otherwise empty terrace of The Doves, the old waterside pub at Hammersmith. They had arranged to meet there after talking on the telephone. Jane Larden's sister was keeping her company for an hour: Larden had been glad of the excuse to get away briefly.

There was now a distinct chill in the night air but both men were dressed against it. The temperature was also ensuring their privacy: other customers were staying in the warmth of the bar.

‘The husband is always the last to know about a wife's infidelities,' Larden went on. ‘I suppose that's true this time?'

‘I believe there'd been some talk. Nothing concrete.'

‘Some talk. Oh God.' Larden leaned heavily on the rail over the river. ‘I believe I did know. When she made me sell the shares. To protect Dermot. But subconsciously I thought at least I was buying her loyalty.' He grunted. ‘How blind can you be? When you're besotted by someone.'