The Other Woman (35 page)

About five minutes after they left, in other words. And he had made a joke about rows. He had discounted the Whitworths and their petty affairs because he was so certain that the fraud must have been at the bottom of it, so convinced that Drummond had been lying. Andrews had warned him about that, which was the only reason he had gone to the Whitworths again that morning.

‘Lloyd,' Judy said sternly, reading his thoughts. ‘If she didn't think she was in danger, why should we have done?'

‘Because that's our job,' he said.

But he had to snap out of the comforting self-pity, and he had more news to impart to Judy. She would like this news, though. It was one of the few things he didn't feel guilty about. He got up and went over to the door, closing it. ‘Speaking about jobs,' he said. ‘I got a wink tipped this morning.'

Judy twisted round to look at him, her eyes instantly suspicious, just from his tone of voice.

He smiled. ‘Barstow's got that job – he's going as soon as we can find a replacement.'

Her eyes were wary now.

‘Apparently,' Lloyd said, ‘HQ need Barstow very soon – and want the post here filled without a gap. In the circumstances, they think it sensible for you to transfer permanently.'

Eyes widening, as she tried to fathom his reaction. She frowned. ‘And you didn't block it?' she asked.

He smiled. ‘As if.'

‘But if I worked here, we'd have to continue the way we are,' she said. ‘Domestically.'

Lloyd nodded. He knew when he was beaten. They were going to continue the way they were until Judy decided otherwise. In the meantime, he'd rather have her working with him than never see her at all. And it really had come from headquarters this time.

‘And you don't mind?' she said.

He shrugged. ‘Not if you don't. You'll hear officially this afternoon, I understand. It won't affect your chances of promotion – they just think you'd be better off not at Malworth.'

What his informant had actually said was ‘After promotion is she? Well, she's good – the Chief likes her. She could go far in personnel, admin work – but she's gone as far as she's going in CID if you ask me – you want a small wager on it?' Lloyd didn't tell Judy that bit. Especially since he hadn't taken the bet.

He put on a cassette of Whitworth's interview, and let Judy hear it. She listened, her face thoughtful, until he switched off the machine.

‘What do you think?' he asked.

‘He's a mess,' she said

‘Mm,' said Lloyd. ‘But is he a mess because his wife and girlfriend have both been murdered for no apparent reason, or is he a mess because he murdered them?'

She shrugged. ‘That's what we have to find out,' she said. ‘The lab or Freddie might come up with a bit more this time.'

‘What does your instinct tell you?'

She smiled. ‘It tells me it hasn't got the faintest idea,' she said. ‘But while there might have been another motive for Sharon's murder, I can't see that there's one here. This has got to be domestic.'

‘Yes,' said Lloyd, heavily, sitting down.

‘Perhaps he thought if he killed them both, that would solve his dilemma,' she said.

Nothing would surprise Lloyd. ‘Either way, it looks as if he killed his wife after we left last night,' he said. ‘I'd better go and confess to Andrews.'

Finch knocked and came in. ‘Am I interrupting, sir?' he asked.

‘I welcome the interruption,' said Lloyd.

Finch pulled a chair from the wall. ‘OK?' he said.

Lloyd nodded. It was the same fine line that he himself walked with his superiors; the minimum of deference. He liked it, but he didn't think it would go down too well with Andrews. He hoped that Finch had some native cunning in these matters.

He sighed aloud. He had had the CID to himself for six months until Andrews had arrived. He had already been told that he mustn't let subordinates become too familiar, that he mustn't encourage the use of first names. No fear of that, sir, he had said with utmost honesty. Even Judy didn't know his first name, so he was damn sure Finch wasn't going to. He'd been chewed out about his fixation with Drummond, and now … Now transfer to traffic was staring him in the face. Judy would probably get his job – he should have taken his HQ mole up on his wager.

Finch looked anxiously at him, and Lloyd realised that it was the sigh that had caused him to delay saying whatever it was that he had been going to say. He smiled. ‘Fire away, Tom,' he said.

‘I've got the strength on what went down on Friday night with Drummond,' he said. ‘ If you still want it, that is.'

The strength on what went down. Oh, well. Finch was observant, and reasonably literate; he was bright, and he wasn't a yes-man. You couldn't expect an elegant turn of phrase into the bargain. ‘Yes,' he said. ‘ I still want it.'

‘Back in August, these two were on traffic duty in the centre of Malworth, which consists mainly of catching people running the red lights in the evening,' he said. ‘It has to be the most boring shift in the history of policing.'

Lloyd nodded.

‘Then what should they see but a motorbike without lights going through on red at about sixty miles an hour. So they give chase – but you know the Chief's orders about high-speed chases in built-up areas. They don't radio in.'

Lloyd shrugged acceptance of that.

‘Then he starts ducking down alleyways and up steps and all sorts of daft tricks, and they lose him.' Finch leant forward a little. ‘The first rape took place that night, but they don't make any connection, because it was in Stansfield. But then on Friday night, they're operating a radar trap on the dual carriageway just beyond where the speed limit comes down to forty. And along comes a motorbike, without lights, doing about eighty. They give chase again, and he isn't fast enough into Malworth to get the opportunity to do his trick riding, so they catch him.'

‘And beat him up because he gave them the slip last rime?' said Lloyd.

Tom wrinkled his nose. ‘Not exactly,' he said. ‘They've stopped him for speeding, and riding without lights. They've warned him that he might be prosecuted for reckless driving, and they should have just let him go. But they want to get a bit of their own back, so they hang on to him, in the hope of finding something. The bike's his, his insurance and licence are in order, he's not drunk – they search him for drugs, and find out that he's dressed in black from top to toe. Jacket, sweater, jeans, boots, gloves.'

Lloyd waited.

‘By this time there have been two more rapes, and the girls had all described someone wearing black. But you can't arrest someone for wearing black,' said Tom. ‘So they ask him where he's been – and they ask him about the previous time they saw him. He catches on to the fact that they didn't report chasing him that first night, so he knows they're on dodgy ground. He starts saying things on purpose to make them think he's the rapist, but nothing they could hold him on. They go back to the car. Then he calls out something about getting their wives, and what he'll do to them. One of them lost his rag, and the rest you know.'

‘They believed Drummond was the rapist, and didn't even mention it to the incident room?' Judy said.

Finch shrugged. ‘They were in too deep by the time they'd thumped him,' he said.

Lloyd sighed. ‘ Thanks, Tom,' he said.

Tom left, and Lloyd looked at Judy. ‘ What do you think of their story?' he asked.

‘Sounds just about stupid enough,' she said. ‘And Drummond sounds just about weird enough to fantasise about being the rapist,' she said. ‘From what you've said.'

‘He was indeed.' Well weird enough, as Finch would say.

‘He dresses like him,' she said. ‘He follows girls, he watches people in cars … he wanted the traffic men to think he was – he wanted you to think he was. Too bad for him that he's the one person we know it isn't.'

So Drummond got beaten up because they thought he was the rapist, not because he'd been with Sharon, and then seen her murder. He was just a voyeur, as Judy had said. And when nothing at all had happened in the car, he'd made something more exciting up. And that meant that Lloyd was in deep trouble, because it had been a domestic all along; he had left Mrs Whitworth in extreme danger, while he pursued a shaky, unsubstantiated theory of his own.

‘You were right,' he said to Judy. ‘I was wrong. Simple as that.'

Judy never looked smug when she had been proved right. He did. He knew he did. The phone rang, and he picked it up with a shrug, expecting an angry summons upstairs.

‘Lloyd? Ron Merrill.'

‘Hello, Ron – what can I do you for?' said Lloyd, sounding as though he hadn't a care in the world.

‘We caught the bastard. Well – two fitters coming home from doing a double shift did. Running back to his bike after he'd attacked a girl. And you were right all along.'

Lloyd frowned. What had he been right all along about?

‘It was Colin Drummond,' said Merrill.

Lloyd stared at the phone.

‘No one's had a squeak out of him yet, but I'm about to have a go, and I'll make the little bugger think hard about the mess he's in.'

An apt description of Mr Drummond, thought Lloyd, still tongue-tied. If Merrill had been in the room, he would have kissed him.

‘Are you still there?' asked Merrill.

Lloyd smiled. ‘Yes,' he said. ‘I'm still here.'

‘Tell Judy, will you?'

‘Oh, yes,' said Lloyd. ‘I'll tell Judy.' He hung up.

‘Tell Judy what?' she asked.

He told her.

‘But it can't be him,' was Judy's instant, illogical, and un-Judy-like response. ‘How could he be in two places at once?'

‘He wasn't,' said Lloyd. That was the whole point, as he had told Judy last night. Drummond
hadn't
raped Bobbie Chalmers; someone else had, someone who knew exactly what Drummond's MO was. Lloyd, who had hoped all along that he was wrong about that, was now a very relieved man. He sat back, hands behind his head, thinking it through.

Judy got out her notebook, and turned the pages, shaking her head. ‘Maybe he has an identical twin,' she said, with a reluctant half-smile.

Lloyd smiled. ‘ It answers all the puzzles,' he said. ‘Sharon spent the first half – as it turns out, the only half – of the match in the changing room with someone. Whitworth, presumably. I think he's denying it because he caught a glimpse of his wife, and he thinks she killed Sharon. If he admits that he saw her there, it'll look like he killed his wife for revenge.'

‘That is what it looks like,' said Judy.

‘Barnes got Parker out of circulation.' He closed his eyes. ‘And Drummond was waiting for Sharon,' he went on. ‘ He probably followed her there. He certainly followed her when she left.'

‘Why didn't he rape
her
?' Judy asked. ‘ He had plenty of opportunity. What was different about Sharon?'

Lloyd tipped the chair back, as his new improved scenario unfolded. ‘Drummond followed her because he was going to
kill
her,' he said slowly. ‘Not because he was going to rape her. That was the one thing he had no intention of doing to her.'

Judy frowned. ‘Do you still think he knew her?' she asked.

Lloyd shook his head. ‘He didn't know her at all,' he said. ‘He had been offered a deal.'

‘By us?' She shook her head as obstinately as ever.

‘By them,' said Lloyd, careful to preserve the distinction between the good guys and the bad guys. ‘By corrupt police officers. They are not ‘‘us'' – not to me, they're not.'

Judy looked irritated. ‘Nor to me,' she said. ‘I just don't think—'

‘He followed Sharon, waiting for his chance. But Melissa Whitworth came along and picked Sharon up, and he had to hang fire until she had driven away, leaving Sharon on her own.'

He was thinking aloud now. Thinking aloud, and tipping his chair back on its hind legs. Two dangerous things to do, but if he was any judge, it was worth the strong possibility of his achieving the feat of falling flat on his back and flat on his face at one and the same time.

‘He killed her, then rode off on the bike. He
knew
he was going to be stopped by the police; it had all been arranged. He rode the way he did to give them something to stop him for, because the stop on the dual carriageway – at that particular time – was going to ensure that we believed him to be the one person who couldn't be the rapist.'

Judy's permanent frown grew deeper, and she shook her head.

‘Meanwhile,' he said, ‘someone in Malworth was making sure that Parker understood that he and his were vulnerable, covering his own traces with his impersonation, and at the same time eliminating Drummond from the rape inquiry.'

‘Why?' she asked.

‘In return for getting rid of Sharon, who had found out what was going on. It could be,' he added, ‘that the quiet, shy, retiring Sharon was trying her hand at a spot of blackmail. She must have shown her hand some time ago for all this to be arranged.'

‘Who?' said Judy. ‘Who was she blackmailing?'

Lloyd didn't answer. ‘What Drummond hadn't bargained for was being beaten up,' he said, taking the whole thing through to its logical conclusion. ‘These two took the opportunity to mete out a little punishment for his misdeeds, since he wouldn't be having to answer for them anywhere else.' He rocked gently as he spoke. ‘And what
they
hadn't bargained for was someone picking up the incident on the computer, connecting it with Sharon's murder, and bringing Drummond in for questioning.'

‘Why did they put themselves in such a dodgy position in the first place?' she asked. ‘If they had wanted to beat him up, they could have done it any time. Why choose a time when you know you've already reported stopping him? It's much more likely that they just lost their tempers, if you ask me.'