And now she was gone. Snatched away in an instant.
Why?
It was me who should be dead, not her.
But why would anyone want me dead? There was no question that they did. Attempted strangulation on Friday, and now a hit-and-run in a darkened pub car park on Sunday. But why?
Everything in my head came back to Mitchell Stacey.
Who else was there?
That is what Detective Chief Inspector Perry had asked me just as soon as the doctor decided I was well enough to be interviewed by him and another plain-clothes policeman.
‘You told me I’d be perfectly safe,’ I’d said to him in an accusing tone.
‘I thought you would be,’ he had said in reply. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘How about Mitchell Stacey?’ I’d asked. ‘What did he have to say?’
‘Mr Stacey was interviewed by officers from Thames Valley Police early yesterday morning and he provided an alibi for his whereabouts on Friday evening. He could not have been the man who tried to strangle you.’
‘But he could have arranged it, and it might have been him in the pub car park tonight,’ I’d said.
‘That will now be up to the Cambridgeshire force to determine.’ He’d indicated towards the other policeman. ‘DCI Coaker here is dealing with the enquiry into the murder of Mrs Lowther. I’m assisting him only because of last Friday’s incident.’
I had spent the next two hours answering the two policemen’s questions in increasing frustration and anger.
‘Could you identify the car?’
‘No.’
‘Could you identify the driver?’
‘No.’
‘Do you know why anyone would want you dead?’
‘No — other than Mitchell Stacey.’
They asked me at least ten times about the sequence of events in the pub car park and, each time, I gave them the same answers.
I continually asked them how Emily had died and, in the end, they told me that her neck had been broken. She must have been rolled under the car for ten or fifteen yards. It would have been enough to break anything.
Now, alone at last, I grieved for her, and also for me, and for what we might have been together.
The morning brought little or no relief from my pain, or my misery, and Detective Chief Inspector Coaker came back soon after eight o’clock with more questions.
‘Who knew you would be at the Three Horseshoes pub?’
‘No one. Going there was a last-minute decision.’
‘Were you followed there from Huntingdon?’
‘We must have been but I didn’t notice. Emily was driving.’
Even I could tell that my answers weren’t very helpful. But that didn’t stop him asking the same things over and over and over again.
‘How about my phone?’ I said, during a lull in his questioning.
‘What about it?’
‘It’s in Emily Lowther’s car,’ I said. ‘Along with a leather bag containing my laptop computer, a pair of binoculars and a few other things. I need them for my job.’
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ said the chief inspector.
Eventually he had to leave while a doctor came into the room to examine me, placing his stethoscope all over my chest and back while I had to breathe in and out.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked finally.
‘Medically or emotionally?’ I replied.
‘Both.’
‘Considering I was convinced last night that I was dying, I’m feeling pretty well on the medical front. My side is still very sore down here.’ I placed my hand gingerly on my left lower ribs. ‘But I can breathe all right.’
‘How about deep breaths?’ he asked.
‘Very painful,’ I said. ‘As is coughing.’
He nodded. ‘But you must try to use all of your lung capacity if you can. It will help prevent complications.’
I didn’t like the sound of complications so I breathed deeply, trying my best to ignore the stabbing pain in my side.
‘How long do I have to stay here?’ I asked.
‘There’s no medical reason why you shouldn’t go home. Your left lung reinflated of its own accord and the function of both lungs is now good, and there has been no recurrence overnight of fluid build-up anywhere in your chest.’ He smiled at me. ‘But you must take things easy. No heavy lifting. It will take six weeks for those ribs to heal properly and they’ll give you some considerable discomfort for most of that time. I’ll prescribe you something for the pain.’
‘Can’t you strap them up to stop them hurting?’
‘We don’t do that any more. Strapping the chest is no longer advised because it’s constrictive and prevents you taking those necessary deep breaths. Let me tell you, a bit of pain is far preferable to pneumonia.’
It certainly was, I thought. I took yet another deep breath.
‘So I can go now?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But seek medical advice immediately if you become even the slightest bit out of breath.’ He paused. ‘How are you feeling in here?’ He tapped his head.
‘Pretty bloody,’ I said. ‘But staying in bed won’t help that.’
‘No. I’m sorry.’
So was I.
My sister Angela came to collect me from the hospital around ten thirty, and we were both in tears.
I’d called her earlier on a hospital pay phone to tell her about Emily but she already knew; it had been reported on the radio.
‘Where to?’ she asked.
‘Clare’s cottage,’ I said. ‘I need to collect my stuff.’
She drove in silence, too shocked even to ask me what had happened.
I was glad. I’d done enough answering questions for one morning. But I was sure none of my answers had been of any use to the police, or to me for that matter. Nothing helped to make sense of Emily’s death.
But I hadn’t said anything to DCI Coaker about blackmail. I couldn’t see how it might have been relevant.
Now I wondered if I should have done. But that would have surely opened a whole new can of worms and sent the likes of Austin Reynolds and Harry Jacobs running for the hills. Then they would, of course, deny everything and I’d be left with egg on my face. And did I really want to expose my sister as a cheat and a race fixer if I didn’t absolutely need to?
But why else did someone want me dead?
According to Chief Inspector Perry, Mitchell Stacey had had an alibi for Friday night, but he had also once threatened to have my legs broken, and he would have needed some help to do that. Did he have some ‘heavies’ he could call on for a bit of garrotting to order, or was I being just fanciful, and also guilty of confusing television drama with real life?
Oh, Emily!
How I wished this nightmare was nothing more than a fictional storyline from some screenwriter’s imagination.
‘I need to get the key from the stable office,’ I said to Angela as she turned into the driveway of Clare’s cottage.
But I was wrong.
The front door to the cottage was wide open, and a key hadn’t been used to open it. The frame had been splintered all around the lock and there were six overlapping two-inch-wide round impressions in the wood of the door. Someone had clearly used brute force and a sledgehammer to simply smash their way in.
‘Oh, shit!’ I said with feeling. ‘It’s been burgled.’
Angela stayed in the car while I moved forward warily to the door. I thought it unlikely that any burglar would still be in the cottage at eleven o’clock in the morning, but I didn’t particularly want to disturb some crazy knife-wielding drug addict who was searching for the wherewithal for his next fix.
‘Hello,’ I called. ‘Anyone there?’
I stood in the doorway listening for any movement, or for the sound of someone escaping out the back. There was nothing.