The Secret of Annexe 3 (26 page)

Morse closed his eyes momentarily in what looked like a twinge of intolerable pain; and Lewis began ‘You mean . . .?’

‘She came about a quarter to six. She just said she didn’t know what to do – she wanted help.’

‘Did she want money?’

‘No. Well, she didn’t mention it. Not much good asking
me
for money, in any case – and she knew that.’

‘Did she say where she was going?’

‘Not really, but I think she’d been in touch with her sister.’

‘She lives where?’

‘Near Newcastle, I think.’

‘You didn’t tell her she could stay with you?’

‘That would have been a mad thing to do, wouldn’t it?’

‘Do you think she’s still in your house?’

‘She’d be out of there like a bat out of hell immediately we’d gone.’

(Morse gestured to Sergeant Phillips, spoke a few words in his ear and dismissed him.)

‘So you think she’s off north somewhere?’ continued Lewis.

‘I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. I advised her to get on a boat or something and sail off to the continent – away from everything.’

‘But she didn’t take your advice?’

‘No. She couldn’t. She hadn’t got a passport, and she was frightened of applying for one because she knew everybody was trying to find her.’

‘Did she know that everybody was trying to find
you
, as well?’

‘Of course she didn’t! I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I’m sure you know why we’ve brought you here,’ said Lewis, looking directly across into Wilkins’s eyes.

‘Really? I’m afraid you’re wrong there.’

‘Well she
did
know that everybody was looking for you. You see, Mr Wilkins, she went back to her own house in Chipping Norton, at considerable risk to herself, to remove any
incriminating evidence that she thought might be lying around. For example, she took the postcard you wrote to her from the Lake District.’

There was a sudden dramatic silence in the interview room, as though everybody there had taken a sharp intake of breath – and was holding it.

‘It’s my duty as a police officer,’ continued Lewis, ‘to tell you formally that you are under arrest for the murder of Thomas Bowman.’

Wilkins slumped back in his chair, his face ashen-pale and his upper lip trembling. ‘You’re making the most terrible mistake,’ he said very quietly.

‘A
M
I
DOING
all right?’ asked a slightly subdued Lewis as, five minutes after this preliminary interview, he sat in
the canteen drinking coffee with Morse.

‘Very good –
very
good,’ said Morse. ‘But we’ve got to tread a bit carefully from now on because we’re getting to the point where we’re not
quite
sure of the ground – by which I mean it’s going to be difficult to
prove
one or two things. So let’s just recap a minute. Let’s go back to the
beginning of things – Plan One, let’s call it. Bowman follows his wife up to Diamond Close that day, and later he confronts her with the evidence. She’s getting desperate anyway,
and she goes along with the quite extraordinary plan he’s concocted. As we’ve seen he fixes up the phoney address and books a New-Year-Package-for-Two at the Haworth Hotel. She tells
Wilkins that her husband’s gone off on a course and that they can spend all that time together; and he jumps at the chance. Once she’s safely in her room, she rings Wilkins – we
still haven’t checked on that, Lewis – to give him the room number and soon she’s giving him the happy hour between the sheets. Then they both get ready for the fancy dress
– which she’s already told Wilkins about, and which he’s already agreed to. If he
hadn’t
, Lewis, the plan couldn’t have worked. At about seven o’clock
she makes some excuse to go out, when she gives the key to Bowman himself, who’s waiting somewhere near the annexe, and who’s dressed up in exactly the same sort of garb as Wilkins. Now
Wilkins is a stronger man, I suspect, than Bowman ever was, and I should think that Bowman wouldn’t have taken any chance about letting the whole thing develop into a brawl – he’s
probably got a knife or a revolver or something. Then the deed is done, and the next part of the deception begins. They could disappear from the scene straight away, but they agree that’s far
too risky. Somebody’s going to find the body immediately if they do, because the “Ballards” as they called themselves won’t be there for the party. There’s virtually
no risk in their being recognized anyway: they’re both in fancy dress for the rest of the evening – he’s got his face blacked, she’s wearing a veil; and the only time a busy
receptionist had seen Margaret Bowman was when she’d been muffled up in a scarf and hood – with a pair of dark skiing glasses on, for all we know.’

Lewis nodded.

‘That was the original plan – and it must have been very much as I’ve described it, Lewis; otherwise it’s impossible to account for several facts in the case – for
instance, the fact that Bowman wrote a letter to his wife that would give them both a reasonable alibi – if the worse came to the worst. It wasn’t a bad plan, either – except in
one vital respect. Bowman was beginning to know quite a bit about Wilkins, but he never quite knew
enough
. Above all, he didn’t know that Wilkins was beginning to dominate his wife
in an ever increasing way, and that she’d become so sexually and emotionally dependent on him that she came to realize, at some point, that it was her husband, Tom Bowman, she wanted out of
her life for good – not her lover. Maybe Bowman had become so obsessed with this revenge idea of his that she saw, perhaps for the first time, what a crudely devious man he really was. But
for whatever reason, we can know one thing for certain:
she told Wilkins what they were planning
. Now you don’t need to be a genius – and I don’t think Wilkins
is
a genius – to spot an almost incredible opportunity here: the plan can go ahead as Bowman had devised it – exactly so! – but only up to the point when Bowman would let
himself into the room. This time it would be
Wilkins
who’s waiting behind the door
for Bowman
with a bottle of whatever it was to smash down on the back of his
head.’

‘Front, sir,’ murmured Lewis if only, for conscience’ sake, to put the unofficial record straight.

‘So that’s what happened, Lewis; and it’s Plan Two that’s now in operation. After murdering Bowman, Wilkins is all ready to go along to the party in exactly the same
outlandish clothes as the murdered man would be found in. The two men were roughly the same height and everybody is going to assume that the man in the Rastafarian rig-out at the party is the same
as the man in the Rastafarian rig-out later found dead on the bed in Annexe 3. Almost certainly – and this is in fact what happened – the corpse isn’t going to be found until
pretty late the next day; and if the heating is turned off – as it was – and if the window’s left half-open – as it was – then any cautious clown like Max is going to
be even cagier than usual about giving any categorical ruling on the time of death, because of the unusual room temperature. I’m not sure, myself, that it wouldn’t have been far more
sensible to turn the radiator on full and close all the windows. But, be that as it may, Wilkins clearly wanted to give the impression that the murder had taken place
as late as possible
.
Agreed?’

‘I can’t quite see
why
though, sir.’

‘You will do, in due course. Have faith!’

Lewis, however, looked rather less than full of faith. ‘It’s getting a bit too complicated for my brain, sir. I keep forgetting who’s dressed up for what and who’s
planning to kill who—’

‘“Whom”, Lewis. Your grammar’s as bad as Miss Jonstone’s.’

‘You’re sure he
is
the murderer? – Wilkins?’

‘My son, the case is over! There are bound to be one or two details—’

‘Do you mind if we just go over one or two things again?’

‘I can’t spell things out
much
more simply, you know.’

‘You say Wilkins wanted the murder to look as if it took place as late as possible. But I don’t see the point of that. It doesn’t give him an alibi, does it? I mean, whether
Bowman’s murdered at seven o’clock or after midnight – what does it matter? Wilkins and Margaret Bowman were there
all the time
, weren’t they?’

‘Yes! But who said they’d got an alibi?
I
didn’t mention an alibi. All I’m saying is that Wilkins had a reason for wanting to mislead everyone into believing
that the murder was committed after the party was over. That’s obvious enough, isn’t it?’

‘But going back a minute, don’t you think that in Bowman’s original plan – Plan One, as you call it – it would have been far more sensible to have committed the
murder – murder Wilkins, that is – and then to get out of the place double quick? With any luck, no one’s going to suspect a married couple from Chipping Norton – even if
the body’s found very soon afterwards.’

Morse nodded, but with obvious frustration.

‘I
agree
with you. But somehow or other we’ve got to explain how it came about that Bowman was found dressed up in identically the same sort of outfit as Wilkins was wearing
at the party. Don’t you
see
that, Lewis? We’ve got to explain the facts! And I refuse to believe that anyone could have dressed up Bowman in all that stuff
after
he’d been murdered.’

‘There’s one other thing, sir. You know from Max’s report it says that Bowman could have been eating some of the things they had at the party?’

‘What about it?’

‘Well – was it just coincidence he’d been eating the same sort of meal?’

‘No. Margaret Bowman must have known – she must have found out – what the menu was and then cooked her husband some of it. Then all Wilkins had to do was just eat a bit of the
same stuff—’

‘But how did Margaret Bowman know?’

‘How the hell do I know, Lewis? But it
happened
, didn’t it? I’m not making up this bloody corpse you know! I’m not making up all these people in their fancy
dress! You do realize that, don’t you?’

‘No need to get cross, sir!’

‘I’m
not
bloody cross! If somebody decides to make some elaborate plan to rub out one side of the semi-eternal triangle – we’ve got to have some equally
elaborate explanation! Surely you can see that?’

Lewis nodded. ‘I agree. But just let me make my main point once again, sir – and then we’ll forget it. It’s this business of
staying on after the murder
that
worries me: it must have been a dreadfully nerve-racking time for the two of them; it was very complicated; and it was a bit chancy. And all I say is that I can’t
really
see the
whole point of it. It just keeps the pair of them on the hotel premises the whole of the evening, and whatever time the murder was committed they haven’t got any chance of an
alibi—’

‘There you go again, Lewis! For Christ’s sake, come off it!
Nobody’s got a bloody alibi.
’

The two men were silent for several minutes.

‘Cup more coffee, sir?’ asked Lewis.

‘Augh! I’m sorry, Lewis. You just take the wind out of my sails, that’s all.’

‘We’ve got him, sir. That’s the only thing that matters.’

Morse nodded.

‘And you’re absolutely sure that we’ve got the right man?’

‘It’s a big word – “absolutely” – isn’t it?’ said Morse.

I
T WAS
,
IN
all, to be an hour or so before the interrogation of Wilkins was resumed. Morse had telephoned Max, but had learned
only that if he, Morse, continued to supply the lab with corpses about twenty-four hours old, he, Max, was not going to make too many fanciful speculations: he was a forensic scientist, not a
fortune teller. Lewis had contacted the Haworth Hotel to discover that one local call had in fact been made – untraceable, though – from Annexe 3 on New Year’s Eve. Phillips, who
had returned from Diamond Close with the not unexpected news that Margaret Bowman (if she
had
been there) had flown, now resumed his duties in the interview room, standing by the door, his
feet aching a good deal, his eyes idly scanning the bare room once again: the wooden trestle-table, on which stood two white polystyrene cups (empty now) and an ash-tray (rapidly filling); and
behind the table, the fairish-haired, fresh-complexioned man accused of a terrible murder, who seemed to Phillips to look perhaps rather less dramatically perturbed than should have been
expected.

‘What time did you get to the Haworth Hotel on New Year’s Eve?’

‘Say that again?’

‘What time did you get to the hotel?’

‘I didn’t go to any hotel that night—’

‘You were at the Haworth Hotel and you got there at—’

‘I’ve never played there.’

‘Never played what?’

‘Never
played
there!’

‘I’m not quite with you, Mr Wilkins.’

‘We go round the pubs – the group – we don’t often go to hotels.’

‘You play in a pop group?’

‘A jazz group – I play tenor sax.’

‘So what?’

‘Look, Sergeant. You say you’re not with
me
: I’m not with
you
, either.’

‘You were at the Haworth Hotel on New Year’s Eve. What time did you get there?’

‘I was at the Friar up in North Oxford on New Year’s Eve!’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really!’

‘Can you prove it?’

‘Not offhand, I suppose, but—’

‘Would the landlord remember you there?’