The Other Woman (39 page)

Downstairs, he could hear the rattle of Robeson's disc on the plate as he cleaned it. Simon went out, leaving the door open, and went to the car, throwing the case in the back. He looked back at the house. He had to do something with the cat. He could take him with him, but he didn't know if he would come. Look what happened to him last time.

‘Robeson,' he called. ‘Here, puss.' He opened the passenger door; Robeson ran down the path and jumped on to the passenger seat, curling up. Simon patted him. Robeson had, after all, proved that he hadn't killed anyone.

But they had died because of him. And Robeson couldn't make that better.

Judy had taken a statement from Drummond; now that he knew that his fourth victim had not been murdered, he was pleased to give details. He had raped Bobbie Chalmers, then driven off afterwards, as he always did, with the bike unlit. He had heard the police siren, and known that they would catch him, so he had jettisoned the mask and the knife.

He had been quite upset about that; he had been unable to get another flick-knife, and had had to make do last night with a kitchen knife. She, he had informed her, had been within an ace of being his fifth victim, and he made her a promise that she would be his sixth.

She drove back to Stansfield, thinking about the girl who had been raped in her stead, thinking about the total lack of remorse on the young, handsome face as he had told her what he had done, what he had intended doing to her, if Lloyd hadn't changed his mind.

Barstow was packing up the personal stuff in his office, which consisted of a tiny space partitioned off from the CID room; he wasn't going until the end of the week, but Judy had moved in with him already, and elbow-room was severely limited. She sat down at the quarter of a table which she had been allocated, and began the mountain of paperwork that the morning had produced.

‘Two results,' said Barstow, encouragingly. ‘Good ones, at that.'

Judy tried to smile, but she had never felt less like doing so. Parker's greed had ruined too many lives to feel any uplift about his arrest.

Barstow went out, and Lloyd came in about two minutes later, closing the door.

‘Parker is being as good as his word,' he said. ‘A full confession. It seems he killed her in the changing rooms, left her there, then simply collected her once Whitworth had driven him back to the ground, and left her where Mad Mac found her.' He shook his head. ‘ Bobbie Chalmers had slipped the receipt for the clothes under Barnes' seat – Parker picked it up and put it in Sharon's bag. So I don't think I can keep my promise,' he added, with a shrug. ‘She was an accessory at the very least.'

‘You just promised to do your best,' said Judy, dully. ‘You've done that.'

‘Are you OK?' he asked.

She nodded.

He contrived somehow to find a space on the overcrowded table to perch. ‘No, you're not,' he said.

She looked up at him. ‘That note,' she said. ‘ The one that was left on the car?' She gave a short sigh. ‘It said – in effect – that I had lost two good men their jobs. And I have, haven't I? Drummond deserved a lot worse than they gave him.'

Lloyd looked at her for a long time before he said anything. ‘They lost their own jobs,' he said quietly, when he did speak. ‘The moment they took the law into their own hands. They have no right to wear a police uniform, and you have no right to condone what they did.'

God, he could be a pain sometimes. ‘Have you read this?' she asked, pushing the statement over to him.

‘No. And I don't care what it says. If you want the right to beat someone you stop in the street, go and live somewhere where people disappear because they have the wrong politics, where society is frightened of its police. Because that's what you're advocating, if you think anyone deserves to be abused by people in authority.'

He was angrier than Judy had ever seen him. He lost his temper, lost his patience with her, all the time. But he had never been this angry with her.

‘I was going to be next,' she said in her own defence. ‘That girl last night was raped because I wasn't.'

‘I
know
you were!' he shouted. ‘Merrill told me. And that girl was raped because these two broke the rules. I'm not pretending I don't bend them and stretch them – everyone does sometimes. But you don't do what they do. So don't let me hear you saying that he deserved it – what he deserved was to be safely in custody, where he would have been if they had been doing their jobs – not lying in wait for you, not raping anyone!'

Finch knocked and came in. ‘I wondered if anyone would like to go for a drink,' he said.

Lloyd looked at him. ‘Now that it's just the three of us,' he said, still angry, ‘I have to say that that was a very stupid thing to do.'

‘Yes, sir,' said Finch.

‘If someone is holding a gun on you, you do what he says,' said Lloyd. ‘The safety catch was off – you could have had your head blown off!'

‘Sir,' said Finch. ‘But it's just that if there is one thing that worries me more than a villain with a gun, if s a cop with a gun. And I wasn't about to become his hostage for bloody hours, with guys in bullet-proof vests waiting to take a pot-shot at him! I did it because I thought I was going to have my head blown off if I didn't! Sir,' he added, as an afterthought.

Lloyd sighed. ‘Oh, what the hell,' he said. ‘Yes – lets go for a drink.'

‘I don't feel much like celebrating,' said Judy.

‘No,' said Finch. ‘Neither do I, really. But I thought we could unwind a bit.'

Judy conceded that unwinding might be a very good idea, and they walked from the station to the pub on the corner. Finch walked beside her; Lloyd walked a little way behind them.

‘Would you have put Bobbie Chalmers in a lineup?' Finch asked.

Judy had watched Parker, correctly gauged his feelings for Bobbie, and then used them against him. That was enough ruthlessness for one day. She shook her head.

‘I would,' said the voice from the rear.

They went into the pub, and Finch tapped Lloyd's elbow, nodding over to the bar, where Gil McDonald sat staring into space, his hand round a glass. He looked up when he felt himself being watched, and made his unsmiling way to where they were claiming a table.

‘Fruit juice,' he said, putting the glass of orange down firmly on their table.

Lloyd smiled. ‘Good,' he said.

Mac lit a cigarette. ‘Are you going to charge me with anything?' he asked.

Lloyd frowned. ‘Like what?' he asked.

‘I wiped that tape – from the rumours flying round this place, it sounds like it could have been evidence.'

‘It could have been,' said Lloyd, sitting down beside Judy. ‘But thanks to the inspector, we won't be needing it.' He looked up at Mac. ‘I am really very sorry about Mrs Whitworth,' he said.

Mac nodded. ‘So am I,' he said. ‘ But – well, I don't think she would think much of me if I went to pieces now.' He turned to Judy. ‘If you're still interested in a test drive, you won't be seeing me,' he said. ‘I'm moving on.'

Judy managed a smile. ‘Good luck,' she said.

Mac went off; Finch went to get the drinks, and Judy caught Lloyd's hand under the table. ‘Sorry,' she whispered.

Lloyd shook his head. ‘I just keep thinking what if I'd just gone home? It would have been you that—'

He broke off as Finch came back, a drink in each hand.

‘I know you're right about guns, sir,' he said. ‘ But I just saw his attention wander, and took my chance.'

Lloyd took his drink. ‘ Let's forget it,' he said.

Finch smiled, and gave Judy her wine. ‘You were wrong about one thing, though,' he said.

Lloyd squeezed Judy's hand, then let it go. ‘I'm never wrong,' he said, taking a deep draught of beer.

‘He's never wrong,' said Judy.

‘You were this time,' said Finch, reaching back to the bar to get his own drink and sitting down. ‘I'd
far
sooner have had another lecture on apostrophes.'

Judy didn't know why Lloyd was laughing, but the winding-down process was working. She liked Finch, and she was back at Stansfield, which was what she had wanted ever since the transfer to Malworth. It was the last tiring that Lloyd wanted, really; he could have blocked it, and he hadn't. But then he was the unselfish one.

One of them had to be.

First published in 1992 by Macmillan

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