This Body of Death (42 page)

Meredith wasted no time in telling the investigator what she wanted: any information to be uncovered about one Gina Dickens. Anything at all, she said. She didn’t know what the investigator would be able to find but she was looking for as much as possible.

“The competition?” The investigator’s tone suggested this wasn’t the first time a woman had come seeking information about another woman.

“You might say that,” Meredith said. “But this is for a friend.”

“It always is.”

They spent a few moments on the fee and Meredith brought out her chequebook because on the telly there was always a retainer given. But Michele Daugherty waved this away: Meredith would pay once services were rendered.

That was that. It hadn’t taken long. Meredith walked back to Gerber & Hudson, feeling as if she’d taken an appropriate step.

She began to doubt this almost at once, however. Gina Dickens was waiting for her. She was perched on a chair in the square of space that went for reception, feet flat on the floor and shoulder bag in her lap. When Meredith entered, she rose and approached.

“I didn’t know where else to turn.” She spoke in an anxious whisper. “You’re the only person I actually
know
in the New Forest. They said you were gone for a bit but that I could wait.”

Meredith wondered if somehow Gina had made a few unwelcome discoveries: that she’d been in her digs above the Mad Hatter Tea Rooms, that she’d answered the ringing of the mobile phone there, that she’d removed what had been hidden beneath the basin, that she’d only just now hired a private eye to look into the whats and wherefores of Gina’s entire existence. She felt an immediate surge of guilt, but then she quelled it. Despite the look on Gina’s face, which seemed to blend importuning and fear, this was not the moment to let one’s conscience get the better of one. Besides, what was done was done. Jemima was dead and there were too many questions that needed to be answered.

Meredith looked across the room to the little alcove in which she did her work. This was meant to convey that she did not have a moment to spare, but Gina apparently wasn’t going to read anything into Meredith’s actions that she didn’t want to read just now. She said, “I found …Meredith, what I found …I don’t know what to make of it but I
think
I know and I don’t
want
to know and I need to talk to someone …,” and the mention of finding something hooked Meredith at once.

“What is it?”

Gina winced, as if Meredith had spoken too loudly. She glanced round the office and said, “C’n we talk outside?”

“I’m just off my break. I’ve got to—”

“Please. Five minutes. Less, even. I …I phoned Robbie Hastings to find out where you were. He didn’t want to tell me. I don’t know what he thought. But I told him you and I had spoken and that I needed another woman and as I’ve no friends yet …Oh it’s
stupid
ever to tie oneself to a man. I knew it and I did it anyway with Gordon because he seemed so different from other men I’ve known …” Her eyes filled but no tears spilled over. Instead, the moisture made them luminous. Meredith wondered, ridiculously, how she managed that. How did any woman manage to look attractive so close to tears? She herself got all red in the face.

Meredith gestured towards the doorway. They stepped into the corridor. It seemed that Gina meant to go down the stairs and out into Ringwood High Street, but Meredith said to her, “It’ll have to be here.” She added, “Sorry,” when Gina turned back and looked a little taken aback by the abruptness of Meredith’s declaration.

“Yes. Of course.” Gina smiled tremulously. “Thank you. I’m grateful. You see, I just didn’t …” She began to fumble with the straw bag she was carrying. She brought out a simple envelope. She lowered her voice. “The police from London have been to see us. From Scotland Yard. They came about Jemima and they asked Gordon—they asked us both—where we were the day she was killed.”

Meredith felt a piercing of pleasure. Scotland Yard! A triumphant
Yes!
shot through her brain.

“And?” she asked.

Gina looked round as if to see who might be listening. “Gordon had been there,” she said.

Meredith grabbed her arm. “
What?
In London? The day she was murdered?”

“The police came because there was a postcard they found. It had her picture on it. Meredith, he’d put them up all round London. At least round the area where he thought she was. He admitted this when the police showed it to him.”

“A
postcard
? With her picture? What in God’s name … ?”

Gina stumbled through an explanation that Meredith scarcely followed: the National Portrait Gallery, a photograph, a competition of some sort, an advertisement, whatever. Gordon had seen it, had gone to London months earlier, had bought God only knew how many postcards and had put them up like wanted posters. “He put his mobile number on the back,” Gina said.

Meredith felt ice run down her arms. “Someone phoned him because of the postcard,” she whispered. “He found her, didn’t he?”

“I don’t know,” Gina said. “He
said
he didn’t. He told me he was in Holland.”

“When?”

“The day. That day. You know what day. When Jemima …
You
know. But that’s not what he said to the police, Meredith. Instead, he told
them
he was working. I asked him why did he tell them that and he said Cliff would give him an alibi.”

“Why didn’t he just tell them that he was in Holland?”

“That’s what I asked him. He said he couldn’t prove it. He said he’d thrown everything away.
I
said they could phone the hotel he stayed in and they could phone the farmer he’d talked to but …Meredith, that wasn’t the point, really.”

“What do you mean? Why wasn’t it the point?”

“Because …” Her tongue came out and licked her lips, pink with a lipstick that matched one of the colours in the sundress she was wearing. “I already knew, you see.”

“What?” Meredith felt her head was spinning. “
Had
he been to London? On the day she died? Then why didn’t you tell—”

“Because he didn’t know—he
doesn’t
know—that I’d found him out. He’s been avoiding certain topics for ages, and whenever I’ve got close to whatever he doesn’t want to talk about, he just avoids. Twice, even, he’s gone a bit wild, and last time he did that, he …he frightened me. And now I’m thinking, what
if
he’s the one? What if he … ? I can’t stand to think he might be but …I’m afraid, and I don’t know what to do.” She shoved the envelope into Meredith’s hands. She said, “Look.”

Meredith slid her finger beneath the flap, which didn’t seal the envelope but merely folded inward to contain the contents. There were just three items: two rail tickets to and from London and a hotel receipt for one night’s stay. The hotel bill had been paid by credit card and Meredith reckoned the date of stay was the same as Jemima’s death.

Gina said, “I’d found these already. I was taking out the rubbish—this was the day after his return—and they were tucked into the bottom. I wouldn’t have seen them at all had I not dropped an earring into the wastepaper basket. I reached in to find it and I saw the colour of the ticket and I knew what it was, of course. And when I saw it, I reckoned he’d gone up there because of Jemima. I thought at first that it wasn’t over between them, like he’d told me, or
if
it was, they had unfinished business of some sort. And I wanted to talk to him about it at once, but I didn’t. I was …You know how it is when you’re afraid to hear the truth?”

“What truth? God, did you
know
he’d done something to her?”

“No, no! I didn’t know she was dead! I mean I thought it wasn’t
over
between them. I thought he still loved her and if I confronted him, that’s what he’d have to say. Then it would be over between
us
and she’d return and I hated the thought of her returning.”

Meredith narrowed her eyes. She could see the trick, if trick it was: For perhaps Jemima and Gordon
had
mended their fences. Perhaps Jemima
had
intended to return. And if that was the case, what was to prevent Gina herself from making the trip to London, doing away with Jemima, and keeping the ticket and the hotel receipt to pin the crime on Gordon? What a nice bit of vengeance from a woman scorned.

Yet something wasn’t right in all this. But the various possibilities made Meredith’s head pound.

Gina said, “I’ve been afraid. Something’s very wrong, Meredith.”

Meredith handed the envelope back to her. “Well, you’ve got to turn this over to the police.”

“But then they’ll come to see him again. He’ll know I was the one to turn him in and if he
did
hurt Jemima—”

“Jemima’s dead. She’s not hurt. She’s murdered. And whoever killed her needs to be found.”

“Yes. Of
course
. But if it’s Gordon …It
can’t
be Gordon. I refuse to think …There has to be an explanation somewhere.”

“Well, you’ll have to ask him, won’t you?”

“No! I’m not safe if he …Meredith, don’t you see? Please. If you don’t help me …I can’t do it on my own.”

“You must.”

“Won’t you … ?”

“No. You’ve got the story. You know the lies. There’d be only one outcome if I went to the police.”

Gina was silent. Her lips quivered. When her shoulders dropped, Meredith saw that Gina had worked things out for herself. Should Meredith take the rail tickets and the hotel receipt to the local police or to the Scotland Yard cops, she would only be repeating what someone else had told her. That someone else was exactly the person the police would seek next, and Gordon Jossie would likely be right there when the detectives arrived to put questions to Gina.

Gina’s tears fell then, but she brushed them away. She said, “Will you come with me? I’ll go to the police, but I can’t face it alone. It’s such a betrayal and it might mean nothing and if it means nothing, don’t you see what I’m doing?”

“It doesn’t mean nothing,” Meredith said. “We both know that.”

Gina dropped her gaze. “Yes. All right. But what if I get to the station and lose my courage when it comes to going inside and talking and …What will I do when they come for Gordon? Because they
will
come, won’t they? They’ll see he lied and they’ll come and he’ll know. Oh God. Oh God. How did I
do
this to myself?”

The door to Gerber & Hudson opened, and out popped Randall Hudson’s head. He didn’t look pleased and he made the reason clear when he said, “Are you coming back to work today, Meredith?”

Meredith felt heat in her cheeks. She’d never been scolded at her work before. She said in a low voice to Gina Dickens, “All right. I’ll go with you. Be here at half past five.” And then to Hudson, “Sorry, sorry, Mr. Hudson. Just a small emergency. It’s taken care of now.”

Not quite true, the
taken care of
part. But that would be settled in a very few hours.

B
ARBARA
H
AVERS HAD
made the phone call to Lynley earlier, out of Winston Nkata’s presence. It wasn’t so much because she hadn’t wanted Winston to know she was phoning her erstwhile partner. It was more a matter of timing. She’d wanted to get in touch with the inspector prior to his arrival at the Yard that day. This had necessitated an early morning call, which she’d made from her room in the Sway hotel.

She’d reached Lynley at the breakfast table. He’d brought her up to speed on the goings-on in London, and he’d sounded guarded on the topic of Isabelle Ardery’s performance as superintendent, which made Barbara wonder what it was that he wasn’t telling her. She recognised in his reticence that peculiar form of Lynley loyalty that she herself had long been the recipient of, and she felt a pang that she didn’t want to name.

To her question of, “If she thinks she’s got her man, why d’you think she hasn’t recalled us to London?” he said, “Things have moved quickly. I expect you’ll hear from her today.”

“What do you reckon about what’s going on?”

In the background she heard the clink of cutlery against china. She could picture Lynley in the dining room of his town house,
The Times
and the
Guardian
nearby on the table and a silver pot of coffee within reach. He was the sort of bloke who’d pour that coffee without spilling a drop, and when he stirred it within his cup, he’d manage to do so without making a sound. How did people
do
that? she wondered. “She’s not jumping to a wild conclusion,” he settled on saying. “Matsumoto had what looked like the weapon in his room. It’s gone to forensics. He also had one of the postcards tucked into a book. His brother doesn’t believe he harmed her, but I don’t think anyone else will go along with him on that.”

Barbara noted that he’d avoided her question. “And you, sir?” she persisted.

She heard him sigh. “Barbara, I just don’t know. Simon has the photo of that stone from her pocket, by the way. It’s curious. I want to know what it means.”

“Someone killing her to get it?”

“Again, I don’t know. But there are more questions than answers just now. That makes me uneasy.” Barbara waited for more. Finally, he said, “I can understand the desire to sew the case up quickly. But if it’s mismanaged or botched altogether because of someone rushing to judgement, that’s not going to look good.”

“For her, you mean. For Ardery.” And then she had to add because of what it meant to her and to her own future with the Yard, “You care about that, sir?”

“She seems a decent sort.”

Barbara wondered what that meant, but she didn’t ask. It wasn’t her business, she told herself, even as it felt like her business in every way.