It accounted for the awkward facts that spoke against it being a burglar. It covered the time gap between Sarah leaving the hospital and being found dead. It explained why the killer had taken the knife; she wouldn’t have been wearing gloves and for her there was less risk in taking it home, sterilizing it and dumping it in her own cutlery drawer. She’d probably been bloodstained, but it had been raining that night and she’d likely been wearing a mac or raincoat that she could simply take off and dispose of later.
Helen Maitland had done a good job of covering her tracks. Lucky for her that West Yorkshire Police are crap. But if the police did start to take a serious interest in her rather than doggedly chasing their mystery burglar, there would be proof for the taking. A voice print of the 999 tape would match hers. A new mac would be another circumstantial nail in her coffin. And, of course, she’d have no alibi. They might be short on motive, but if they started to push Helen Maitland, the truth might pour out. If that happened, it was only a matter of time before they started knocking on Alexis and Chris’s door. And that was what I’d been hired to prevent.
I sighed. It must have been louder than I thought, because the middle-aged attendant strolled casually into my line of vision, concern producing a pair of tram tracks between her eyebrows. ‘You all right, lovey?’ she asked.
I nodded. ‘I’m fine. Just something I’m trying to work out.’
She inclined her head. Now she understood. ‘We get a lot of that,’ she said. ‘Especially since Alan Bennett did that TV programme about the gallery.’
Like a character in one of Bennett’s screenplays, she walked on, nodding to herself, her shampoo-and-set hair as rigid as one of the Epstein busts next door. I roused myself and looked at my watch. Just gone four. Time to head for another confrontation. At least this time I could be fairly sure that I wouldn’t end up staring down the barrel of a gun.
I parked about fifty metres down the street from Helen Maitland’s house and settled back to wait. By six o’clock, I knew the news headlines better than the newsreaders. Seven o’clock and I was expecting Godot along any minute. As the numbers on the clock headed towards 20:00 I decided I’d had enough. I needed to eat, and Bryan’s was frying a haddock with my name on it not five minutes’ drive away.
When I returned nearly an hour later, there were lights showing in Helen Maitland’s house. When she opened the door to see me on her doorstep, she looked momentarily annoyed, then resigned. ‘The return of Sherlock Holmes,’ she said wryly.
‘I have things to say you should listen to,’ I said.
Her eyebrows quirked. ‘And they say etiquette’s dead. You’d better come in. Ms Branagh, wasn’t it?’
‘Brannigan,’ I corrected her as I followed her indoors. ‘Branagh’s the actor. I do it for real.’ Sometimes I hear myself and think if I was a punter I’d laugh at me.
‘Sorry, Ms Brannigan,’ Helen Maitland said. ‘Have a seat,’ she added as we arrived in the kitchen. I ignored her. She leaned against the worktop, facing me, one hand absently stroking a tortoise-shell cat sprawled on the draining board. ‘Well, you have my undivided attention. I presume this is to do with Sarah?’
‘I know you were lovers,’ I said bluntly. ‘I know you wanted children and she refused to go along with you. But after you split up, the technology was perfected that allowed Sarah to build babies from the eggs of two women rather than using sperm. But the immortality of being the first to do it wasn’t enough for Sarah. She wanted her genes to carry on too. So she started mixing her own harvested eggs in with the patients’. And one of those patients was so grateful that she broke the injunction of secrecy and sent a photograph with a lock of hair to the doctor who’d helped her make her dream come true. To nice Dr Helen Maitland. How am I doing so far?’
Her face had remained impassive, but the hand stroking the cat had stopped, fur clenched between her fingers. She tried a smile that came out more like a snarl. ‘Badly. I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Somewhere there will be a record of the DNA tests you ran on that lock of hair and on Sarah’s DNA. You can’t lose something like that. The police would have no trouble finding it. A lot of legwork, perhaps, but they’ll get there in the end.’
Her eyes were cautious now, watching me like a hawk’s, hardly blinking. ‘I’m sorry, I must have missed a turning somewhere. How did we get to the police?’
‘Don’t, Dr Maitland. Neither of us is stupid, so stop acting like we both are. I can imagine how distressed you were when you discovered what Sarah was doing, especially after she had denied you the chance to be the first to try the treatment. Even more so since your own operation. You went round to see her, to confront her with the outrage she’d perpetrated against you. And she dismissed you, didn’t she? She didn’t take your emotions seriously, just like before when she’d dismissed your desires for motherhood.’
Helen Maitland shook her head slowly from side to side. ‘I thought you said you were for real, Ms Brannigan. Sounds to me like you need treatment.’
‘I don’t think so. I think you’re the one with the problem, Dr Maitland. You might give the impression of being cool, smart and in control, and God knows, you’re good at it. But then you’d have to be, to kill your ex-lover and get away with it.’
She pushed off from the worktop and stood bristling at me, like one of her cats finding a strange tom on the front step. ‘You’ve gone too far. It’s time you were leaving,’ she said, her voice low and thick with anger.
‘I knew there was a temper lurking in there. It’s the same temper that flared when you confronted Sarah and she dismissed your pain. It’s the same temper that made you grab the nearest knife and thrust it under Sarah’s ribs right into her heart.’
‘Get out,’ she said, anger and incredulity fighting in her. ‘I don’t have to take this from you.’ She took a step towards me.
‘You can’t get away with it, Helen,’ I said, my hands coming up automatically, palms facing her. ‘Once the police start looking at you, they’ll find the evidence. It’s all there, once you accept that Sarah wasn’t killed by a burglar. As soon as they match your voice against that 999 call, you’re right there in the frame.’
‘That’s not going to happen.’ The voice wasn’t Helen Maitland’s. It came from behind my right shoulder. I whirled round, straight into fighting stance, poised on the balls of my feet.
It was Flora. And in her hand was a shiny long-barrelled revolver.
Chapter 24
Her small pale hands looked too fragile to wield a big cannon like that, but the barrel wasn’t trembling. Whatever was driving Flora, it was powerful stuff. ‘Flora,’ Helen said calmly.
‘It’s all right, Helen,’ Flora said, not taking her eyes off me.
Not with me it wasn’t. I’d had enough of people waving guns at me. And frankly, I didn’t think Flora was in the same league as Peter Lovell’s gunmen. I glanced over at Helen Maitland and let my jaw go slack.
‘My God!’ I exclaimed.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Flora’s hand jerk as her eyes swivelled towards Helen. On the instant, I launched myself, right leg jabbing up and out at shoulder height, my own voice roaring in my ears like Bruce Willis on heat. Everything suddenly seemed to be in slo-mo: my foot connecting with her shoulder, Flora toppling towards the floor, her gun arm flying out to one side, her finger tightening on the trigger as I landed on top of her, my body tensing against the expected blast of the gunshot.