The Other Woman (34 page)

Mac couldn't think straight. She was dead. She was
dead
. He looked at Sergeant Finch. ‘I … I just went to see her,' he said.

Finch looked disbelieving. ‘Odd time to visit someone, wasn't it?'

‘She came to see me yesterday,' he said, still unwilling to believe what he had seen with his own eyes. It was some sort of cruel joke. It was a mistake, it wasn't true. She wasn't dead. She wasn't.

‘What happened when she came to see you?'

‘Nothing,' said Mac, shaking his head, bewildered. She had sat in the armchair, he had sat on the bed. Nothing had happened.

‘Why were you at Mrs Whitworth's house at eight thirty in the morning?'

Mac looked up at him. ‘Do you have a cigarette?' he asked.

‘I don't smoke. Answer the question.'

He needed a cigarette. They'd brought him tea, but he needed a cigarette.

‘I wanted to see her.'

Finch sat down with a sigh. ‘What about?' he asked.

Mac shook his head. He couldn't talk about it. He couldn't think about it. The last thing he'd said to her was get out. Get out. And now she was dead, and he couldn't answer questions about him and Melissa. It was private, it was his hurt – he didn't want to share it.

‘Why did you go to see her?'

‘It's got nothing to do with you!' Mac shouted.

‘You have found two bodies in four days, McDonald! I think that's got something to do with me. Why were you there?'

Oh God, he needed a cigarette. ‘She – she told me she didn't want to see me any more,' he said.

‘When? When did she tell you that?'

Mac looked at him with eyes that-wouldn't focus. ‘He had to think about every word before he understood it. ‘Please, can you get me a cigarette?' he asked.

Finch shook his head. ‘When did she tell you she didn't want to see you any more?' he asked.

‘Yesterday,' said Mac, now that he had sorted out the question.

‘Why didn't she want to see you any more?'

‘She – she thought I'd been blackmailing her,' said Mac.

‘She didn't want to see you because she thought you were blackmailing her?'

Mac shook his head. ‘No – no, she didn't want to see me because I
wasn't
,' he said.

‘Make sense, McDonald!' he shouted.

Mac licked his lips. He needed a cigarette. ‘She saw her husband,' he said, trying to explain. ‘That's why she didn't give you the tape. She thought I was …' He ran out of steam. Finch would never understand anyway.

‘And this morning?' Finch ran his hands over his face. ‘ What time did you get there?'

Where? Mac needed a cigarette.

‘What time?' Finch picked up his paper cup, screwing it up, throwing it into the bin as he spoke.

Mac frowned, and drank some more tea, but it was cold, and he wanted a cigarette. ‘I don't know,' he said. ‘I walked. I don't know.'

‘Were you angry?'

No. He hadn't ever been angry with her.

‘What did you do when you got there?'

Where? Mac had lost the thread.

‘Answer the question, McDonald.' Finch stood up, and opened the door in answer to a knock. He held a brief conversation with someone, but Mac couldn't hear what they were saying.

‘What happened when you got to the house?' asked the other man, who until now had stayed silent.

‘I've told you.'

Finch left the room, and Harris recorded the fact.

‘I went in.'

‘Did you see anyone else?'

Mac shook his head. ‘Her car was outside, but it was the only one there. Her husband must have gone to work. I wasn't going to go in if he was there – I didn't want to get her into … The door was open, though. I knocked, but no one answered. So I went in. And she was … she was lying there. Just like on Friday. Just the same. Exactly the same. I thought I hadn't been awake all night after all. I'd fallen asleep. I was dreaming. I …' He took a deep breath to steady himself. ‘And I phoned the police,' he said. ‘Again.'

‘You're sure that's how it happened? Maybe she was there when you arrived. Maybe she opened the door to you. Maybe you asked her to reconsider, and she wouldn't. Isn't that what happened, Mac?

Did you have a row? Did she tell you to get out?'
No. No. He'd told her to get out. He closed his eyes.
‘Did Sharon upset you too?' he asked.
Sharon. Sharon Smith. A name on a tape. That was all; he didn't

even know what she looked like. Just a name on a tape. Had she

caused all this?
‘Did she say she didn't, want to see you any more either? Is that

what it is? Women don't appreciate you, do they, Mac?'
Mac shook his head slowly. The rain that had fallen steadily all

morning, soaking him on his long walk to Melissa, brushed dismally

against the window, blown on the wind.
‘Tell me again about this morning.'
Mac stared at him. ‘I've just told you,' he said. ‘I've told you

over and over again. He must have killed her.'
‘Who?'
Mac made little patterns on the formica with his finger as he

spoke. ‘Whitworth,' he said.
Harris looked sceptical. ‘Why would he do that?' he asked.
‘Because of Sharon Smith,' Mac said. ‘ Because of me. I don't

know.'
‘We have to ask you to stay here, Mr McDonald,' said Harris.

‘While we make further inquiries.'
Mac nodded. ‘Can someone get me cigarettes?' he asked.
Harris sighed. ‘I'll see what I can do,' he said.

Simon sat in the interview room, unshaven, unmoving, unblinking, as Chief Inspector Lloyd and Sergeant Finch waited for some sort of explanation that he couldn't give.

The two people who meant most to him in his life were gone. People survived that; they lost families in accidents, in natural disasters. In unnatural disasters, like bombs on planes. But someone had singled out Sharon and Melissa, and he didn't know who, or why. Or how to survive it.

They thought he had done it. Perhaps he had. Perhaps while his mind told him he had been driving along a street or sleeping in a chair at his desk, he had in reality been strangling the two women he cared for.

This was the interview room where he had seen Parker on Friday night. He had been in dozens in his time; in the early days, he had inclined towards criminal law. He had enjoyed it; there was a pleasing camaraderie in the weekly magistrates' court sessions. A kind of shorthand evolved between solicitors and justices, and even-between the justices and regular petty offenders.

But there had been more money in conveyancing. You would never get fat on legal aid.

‘Did you murder your wife, Mr Whitworth?' Finch asked.

Whitworth shook his head slowly.

‘You were very angry with her, weren't you?'

The shake turned into a nod. ‘Yes,' he said.

‘Why?'

He lifted his eyes painfully to Lloyd's. ‘ She said such dreadful things about Sharon,' he said.

Lloyd nodded.

‘And they weren't true. I know they weren't.'

Lloyd sat down. ‘ Why would she lie?' he asked.

Whitworth dropped his eyes again. ‘ I think …' He stopped, and shook his head again. ‘I thought,' he amended, ‘that she must have – you know. Killed her.' It hurt him physically to say the word.

‘What made you think that?' Finch asked.

Lloyd stood up, and feigned interest in the cabinet of the cassette recorder. Simon looked over at him. He knew police tricks at interviews. Asking sudden questions, non sequiturs, in an attempt to catch people off guard. That was why he had wandered off; he wanted to listen, then throw in a question to catch Simon out.

‘I didn't believe that Sharon had said those things,' he said. ‘ That she preferred married men – that I needed the excitement. That I hated her.' He was shaking his head again, as he spoke. ‘She said that, you know. After you'd gone. That Sharon said I felt so guilty that I hated her. I thought Melissa was making it all up.'

Lloyd seemed to be paying no attention, but he was, of course. Simon knew that, and almost gave him the answers to Finch's questions, so much in charge was he of an interview in which he appeared to be taking no part.

‘But you believe it now, Mr Whitworth?' asked Finch.

Lloyd was watching him closely as he answered. ‘I believe she said it,' Simon conceded. ‘But it wasn't true. I was the first man she had ever been with. I know I was. And we'd only made love a few times. She … she didn't like using the office. She was always afraid Lionel would come back for something.' He smiled sadly. ‘We'd stay late, but sometimes – most times – we would just talk. Get to know one another.'

‘But you had sex with her on Friday, didn't you?' Finch said.

‘Yes,' Simon said, miserably. That made it sound so sordid, and it wasn't. It wasn't.

‘Whose idea was it to use the changing rooms at the sports ground? Hers?'

Simon frowned. ‘We didn't,' he said.

‘Sharon got the key from Parker, saying she wanted to change her clothes – did you meet her there?'

‘No,' he said. ‘We were in the office.'

‘But she left the office at six,' said Lloyd. ‘We know she did. She went to the superstore and bought the clothes she was wearing.' He walked over to Simon, coming close, making him shrink back a little in his chair. ‘Did you meet her at the ground?' he demanded. ‘Did she engineer it all? Get both you and your wife up there, hoping to bring something to a head?'

‘No.' Simon groaned.

‘It all looks as though it was arranged, Mr Whitworth.'

Simon covered his face with his hands. ‘ I loved her,' he said. ‘And I didn't want to hurt Melissa – I didn't want to hurt either of them!'

He heard Lloyd sit down again. ‘ But you did hurt them,' he said, his voice gentle. ‘Didn't you?'

‘They're dead,' Simon said distractedly, his face still buried in his hands. ‘ They're dead. They're both dead. I don't understand.' He bent over the table, in physical pain.

‘But you didn't mean to hurt them,' said Lloyd. ‘We understand that.'

The pain went; Simon knew that tone of voice. Lloyd thought what he'd said was some sort of confession. He sat up. ‘ I didn't kill them,' he said.

‘What did you mean when you said you didn't want to hurt them?'

‘I just meant … I thought I could …' He shook his head. ‘You know,' he said. He had thought he could have his cake and eat it. Have both of them, hurt neither of them. ‘But I did hurt them,' he said. ‘If Sharon really did say those things to Melissa – she must have been desperate. She must have wanted to break us up any way she could. Because I didn't have the guts to tell Melissa I was leaving.'

‘You thought your wife had killed her?'

He nodded.

‘Is that why you killed your wife?'

Whitworth sighed. ‘I didn't,' he said. ‘ I didn't. I don't understand. Someone …'

‘What happened last night after we left?' asked Lloyd.

‘She … she kept saying things about Sharon. I just walked out. I slept in the office.'

Lloyd got up. ‘All right, Mr Whitworth,' he said. ‘ We'll leave you to think very hard about what happened last night. Then we'll talk to you again.'

No. No, he couldn't bear to talk about it any more. ‘I'm not answering any more questions,' he said, surprised at the firmness of his own voice now that he had come to even as negative a decision as that. ‘I've told you what happened. I'm not obliged to say anything.'

‘Neither you are,' said Lloyd abruptly. ‘ Interview terminated.'

He was taken to a cell. He sank down on to the bench, and doubled up with the pain again.

‘Do you need a doctor?' the constable asked.

‘No,' said Simon.

He supposed he needed a solicitor. But he couldn't bear the thought of anyone he knew seeing him in this condition. If only he knew why they had died. Why Sharon had said those things to Melissa. He couldn't have been that wrong about her. She couldn't have been that good an actress. And even if she had been – why would she have bothered?

The money? This money that Jake Parker and Lionel were misappropriating? Dodgy share certificates, bogus land deeds – his head had still been spinning with Lionel's confession when the police had come to tell him about Melissa.

Sharon surely hadn't been mixed up in that.

Dennis Parry. Lloyd looked at the name of the registered owner of the car he had seen outside the Whitworths', and sighed. Someone who had broken down, as Judy had said. Nothing to do with this. He glanced out of the window, and saw Judy's car pull in.

He waylaid her before she went diving off anywhere else. ‘Judy,' he said, and jerked his head towards his office.

She followed him in, shaking rain from her hair. ‘Anything?' he asked.

She shrugged a little. ‘Freddie says that it is an exact copy of Sharon's murder,' she said. ‘Well – he wasn't as definite as that, but that's what he meant. He'll be doing the post-mortem tomorrow – he can't fit it in today.'

‘I've seen Whitworth,' he said. ‘ He denies everything, of course. I've left him to stew for a while.'

Judy sat down. ‘We couldn't have known,' she said.

‘You saw him! He couldn't wait for us to leave so that he could get his hands on her!' Lloyd shouted. ‘You checked that it was all right for us to leave!'

Judy nodded. ‘And she said that it was,' she reminded him.

Lloyd sat down, little comforted by her words. Andrews would be here any minute, and he wouldn't think that they couldn't have known what Whitworth would do. ‘How long had she been dead?' he asked.

She looked a little unwilling to impart the information. ‘Freddie saw her half an hour ago, and his estimate is eight to ten hours.'