The Other Woman (38 page)

‘Don't think I wouldn't do it, Mr Parker,' she said, her voice like ice.

He leapt to his feet. ‘But … it – it would
kill
her! She – she can't even bear me to go near her! You can't let that bastard—' Parker was deathly pale.

‘She'd do it, too, wouldn't she?' Judy went on. ‘In the hope that he didn't recognise her. She'd do it. For you. Are you worth it, I wonder?'

Parker shook his head. ‘Bobbie didn't break any laws,' he said. ‘Leave her out of this, and I'll make a statement. Everything. The scam – Sharon, everything. But you have to promise to leave Bobbie alone.'

‘She impersonated Sharon Smith while you murdered her,' Judy said ‘That makes her a murderer too. We can't leave her alone.'

‘No,' said Parker, his voice agonised. ‘No. She didn't know why she was doing it. I told her Whitworth had cheated me. I said I was trying to make trouble for him. I swear to God that's all she thought she was doing! She'd never have done it if she'd known – you've got to believe me! She knew I was in trouble about money, that's all – I told her she mustn't say she'd been anywhere near the ground. That's why she said the rape happened in Malworth.'

He appealed to Lloyd, having given up on Judy. ‘ Leave Bobbie out of it,' he pleaded. ‘I'll tell you everything if you promise to leave Bobbie alone.'

Lloyd took a deep breath, and thought about it. He believed Parker, though it might not be too easy to convince other people. But he could try. ‘All right,' he said. ‘As far as I'm able.'

Parker let out a huge sigh of relief, and sat down again, heavily.

‘Sharon wanted me to give the money back. She guessed we were going to make it look like Whitworth's doing, and she didn't want him to know anything about it. Three million pounds, and she wanted me to give it back! I tried to explain, but she wouldn't listen.'

Lloyd frowned. ‘ Explain what?' he asked.

‘That it was
Evans
who would carry the can, not Whitworth! Only an idiot like Evans would ever think Whitworth could really be put in the frame. I conned Evans into believing he could get away with it, and taking Whitworth on was part of the con. That's all.'

‘All,' repeated Lloyd. It sounded like quite enough to him.

‘Evans was greedy,' Parker said. ‘Like all the others. You can always con greedy people – not one of these investors checked that I could really deliver what I was promising, because all they could see was a fast buck. I just had to spend enough to make it look like something was happening, and they were throwing money at me.' He sighed. ‘But maybe I got greedy too,' he said. ‘I should have got out sooner.'

Lloyd raised his eyebrows at the rare moment of honesty.

‘But Sharon wouldn't budge. She didn't want her boyfriend finding out that he was just window-dressing, not if he didn't have to.

‘A month, she said. Or she would tell Whitworth, and they'd go to the police. Ungrateful little bitch. I just wanted to …' He closed his eyes. ‘ I thought of it when I saw that advertisement in the paper,' he said. ‘It seemed a fair bet that it would be Whitworth's wife who was writing the article – I rang the number, got her answering machine, and …' He shrugged. ‘To start with, it was just a way of giving you more suspects,' he said. ‘But then I saw its potential.'

‘And the whole thing was arranged for Sharon's benefit?' asked Lloyd. ‘The opening, the match – everything?'

Jake nodded. ‘I arranged it for a Friday, because that way the Saturday paper would only have the bare details. You wouldn't have released her name or photograph. I'd have more time that way.'

Parker's years of street-violence had not been frittered away, Lloyd thought.

‘I told Sharon I was prepared to talk about it, and to meet me at the ground before six-thirty. And I spun Bobbie a tale,' he went on. ‘She agreed to do it – but I swear to God she didn't know why. She was never going to know – she was supposed to leave next morning,' he said. ‘Dennis was taking her to the ferry. She'd have been abroad – she would never have known what had happened.'

Lloyd frowned. ‘What about you?' he asked.

‘I was going to get my money on the Monday morning, and I'd have been away by the time the paper got Sharon's photograph, and Whitworth's wife blew the whistle.' He looked at Judy again then, his eyes bleak. ‘ Bobbie didn't know what to do when Whitworth's wife pulled up beside her,' he said. ‘She thought going back to the ground was the best thing. But the place was shut down – so she made some rude comments and got herself thrown out of the car,' He gave a long, shuddering sigh. ‘She thought she was safe then,' he said. ‘But that bastard got her.'

Judy looked away from him as he continued.

‘And she was in hospital. She couldn't leave. I had to kill Whitworth's wife before she saw Sharon's photograph. You knew Bobbie! It would take you thirty seconds to put two and two together. I had to get her out of the way.'

If they stayed here much longer they'd be agreeing with him that murdering two women was an eminently reasonable way out of one's problems, Lloyd thought, and stood up. ‘James Edward Parker, I am arresting you for the murder—'

Parker got to his feet slowly, waving away the caution. ‘I have to get some clothes on,' he mumbled.

‘Finch,' said Lloyd. ‘Go with him.'

When they had left the room, Judy looked up from her notebook. ‘I'm not very proud of that,' she said.

‘It worked,' said Lloyd, with a shrug.

‘I'm not sure you understand the seriousness of your situation, Mr Drummond,' said Merrill.

Colin still didn't speak.

‘When you were in custody on Saturday, you permitted a doctor to carry out a medical examination, during which you agreed that a blood test could be done,' said Merrill, slowly and carefully.

Colin shrugged again.

‘Do you ever read the papers, Mr Drummond?' he asked. ‘Or watch the news?'

He read motorbike magazines. Nothing else. Nothing else was worth reading. Above the bike magazines in the newsagent's, there were these girlie ones. A waste of money. They were ten a penny on the street – why look at pictures of them in magazines when you could have one any time you liked? He'd sooner look at a 750cc any day. You didn't see them every day. And he watched videos mostly.

‘Have you ever heard of genetic fingerprinting?' asked Merrill.

Colin raised his eyebrows a little. Fingerprints. They were trying to catch him out. They were trying to make him say that they couldn't have found his fingerprints, because he wore gloves. Merrill must think he was stupid.

‘It's a sort of extra-special blood test,' said Merrill. ‘It can distinguish one person from another, just like fingerprints can, but you get the match from blood, or skin, or hair – or semen. You know what that is, do you, Mr Drummond?'

Colin could get annoyed with this. He didn't answer. If Merrill wanted to believe he was stupid, let him. Lloyd knew he wasn't stupid. And Lloyd's girlfriend would know he wasn't stupid, too. Soon.

‘I assume you do,' he said. ‘And with violent crime – with rape especially – that means it might as well
be
a fingerprint.' He leant forward a little. ‘We get the samples from the victims,' he said, ‘and we take blood tests from possible suspects, and look for a match. They tested a whole town once before they got who they were looking for. They got him in the end, though. But we were lucky – we didn't have to do that – you fell into our laps, as it were.'

Colin's eyes grew thoughtful. It sounded as though they weren't going to let him go.

‘It's a legal means of identification, Mr Drummond. And really, it's better than a fingerprint. You might touch something at the scene of a crime in all innocence. But there's no inadvertent way to leave a genetic fingerprint, and no way that this wasn't out and out rape. If you raped these women, we can prove it,' he said. ‘Do you want to make a statement?'

Colin nodded. In a way, he didn't mind. He wanted people to know what he'd done. He'd like to tell them he'd done five of them, not just four. But the one he did on Friday was dead; they'd say he'd killed her, and he hadn't.

He'd leave that one out.

Jake dressed slowly, with Finch chivvying him. He opened the shirt drawer, and took out a shirt, gathering up the pistol at the same time, slipping it in his pocket, very grateful to Lloyd for not continuing the search for incriminating evidence of his involvement in the fraud.

He opened the wardrobe, and chose one of his specially imported Chinese silk ties from the rack.

‘I see you didn't waste any of those beauties on your victims,' said Finch drily.

Jake looked at himself in the mirror, carefully knotting the tie, and spoke to Finch's reflection. ‘ Too identifiable,' he said. ‘I bought one at a chain-store. I hadn't done that for ten years – you know that? And then before I knew it, I had to buy another for Mrs Whitworth. Thank God for Sunday trading, eh?' He smiled at his own joke, though he didn't feel at all like smiling.

‘Ready?' said Finch impatiently.

‘Ready,' said Jake, turning and drawing out the gun. ‘ Keep your hands where I can see them,' he said. ‘And turn round.'

‘Don't be stupid, Parker,' Finch said, raising his hands, his eyes wide with apprehension before he reluctantly turned his back on him.

‘Now – can you feel that?' Jake asked, touching the back of Finch's neck with the gun.

‘Yes.'

‘The moment you can't feel it, you're dead. Walk very slowly out of the room,' said Jake.

Lloyd was in the hallway; he froze when he saw Finch emerge.

‘Tell her to come out here where I can see her,' said Jake. ‘Slowly, with her hands up. And yours.'

Lloyd never took his eyes off him as he relayed the message, his voice unnaturally calm.

She appeared in the doorway, closing her eyes for a second, as though the situation might have altered when she opened them again. But it hadn't.

Jake controlled his breathing, and his tendency to shake, before he spoke. ‘We're leaving here. If you want to keep him alive, you won't try to stop us. Out,' he said to Finch.

‘Parker – where is this going to get you?' Lloyd asked.

‘You don't think I went into this without making sure I could disappear? You would have been looking for me once the photograph went to the paper. So I can vanish, and I will. Move,' he said, pushing Finch in the back, making him stumble. ‘Stop!' he shouted, as they lost contact. He released the safety catch; Finch was much more careful as they made slow progress past a grim-faced Lloyd and a pale, frightened Inspector Hill. Jake wished it was her he had at the end of the pistol.

He had to get Bobbie, then get far enough away to dump Finch, and get out of this. There was no way he was going to prison for years. No way he was leaving Bobbie to them.

‘I have to open the door,' said Finch. ‘Look – it's locked. I need to use both hands, and I might lose contact – I don't want you shooting me just because I was trying to open the—'

Jake doubled over in the middle of the explanation as Finch's elbow suddenly thrust into his solar plexus, and he felt the gun slip from his grasp, saw it kicked out of his reach. Someone pulled his hands behind his back and handcuffed him.

‘It's over, Jake,' said Finch, scooping up the gun, making it safe, handing it to the inspector.

Jake, coughing and spluttering, was lifted to his feet by the two men. He shouldn't have had the other drink. It had slowed his reactions. Had he jeopardised his deal? He looked at Lloyd, and decided that he trusted him. ‘You promised,' he said.

Lloyd nodded. ‘I promised.'

It was the fraud squad now, all right. Turning the office upside down, carting off boxes and boxes of files and accounts and computer disks.

Lionel's father and grandfather would be turning in their graves, of course. And he supposed it was a dreadfully ignominious end to almost a hundred years of exemplary legal practice.

But he was very, very glad that it was over.

Simon Whitworth got out of the police car and stared at the mean little house, standing on its own, with no neighbours. They had asked if there was someone they could get to be with him, but he had said no. He wasn't staying. He would go home. Back to his mum and dad, like a child. He needed his mum and dad. But he didn't want them coming here. Not here.

They'd have liked Sharon. Some of the terrible weight that had been pressing him into the ground had been lifted when they had told him what had really happened. Sharon had just been Sharon. She had been exactly what he thought she was. She had never met Melissa, never said those things. She had loved him. Too much to tell him what she had discovered, because then he would have known why he had been taken on by Evans, and she had known that that would have hurt him. That was why she'd gone to Parker instead of to the police. Because of him. And the weight had come pressing down again, harder than ever.

And Melissa. She had been protecting him, too. Was that all he could inspire? He had left her alone, and Parker had come and snuffed her out too. All because of him. No Melissa. No Sharon. He didn't think he could get his mind round that. His case was already packed, and there was nothing else he wanted from this place. He opened the door.

Robeson yelled indignantly that he hadn't been fed since yesterday, and Simon went into the kitchen, Robeson weaving through his legs. He spooned catfood on to a plate, then went up to get his suitcase. He dragged it out from under the bed, and threw a few more things into it. He couldn't think about what he was going to do. He didn't know if he would ever be able to do anything again. He couldn't think about inquests and funerals and trials. He was going home, that was all he knew.