“I can come to Ludlow, if that suits you. I imagine you’re a busy man. I also imagine you’d prefer to leave it until after the weekend.” He didn’t query the remark. We both knew what I meant. A discreet slot in his working day didn’t require explaining to Sophie, whereas… “What about Monday?”
“Impossible.”
“Surely not. Name a time.”
“Well… it would have to be very early.”
“No problem. I’ll drive up the night before.”
“You’ll stay at the Feathers?”
“If you recommend it.”
“It’s the best you’ll find. All right, Mr. Timariot. I’ll call at the Feathers at eight o’clock on Monday morning. Not too early for you, I hope?”
“Not at all,” I replied, determined to give no ground. “See you then.”
Manoeuvring Howard Marsden into meeting me was one thing. Gaining something of value from such a meeting was, of course, a different matter. I spent most of the long drive up to Ludlow on Sunday turning over in my mind how best to approach the subject of his affair with Louise. That they’d had an affair I didn’t seriously doubt. The tears I’d seen streaming down his face in Butterbur Lane hadn’t been the tears of a platonic friend. And Sophie’s story about Louise’s “perfect stranger” made no sense in any other context. The real question was: had the affair still been going on in July 1990? If not, Howard wasn’t going to be much help to Bella. Fortunately, though, she hadn’t been in touch with me since my return from Bristol. So, if it turned out I was wasting my time, at least she needn’t know.
Not that it was destined to be a complete waste, whatever happened. These days away from the office, arranged at short notice and without explanation, were beginning to prey on Adrian’s mind. He clearly suspected I was playing a deep and devious game. And with his trip to Sydney looming on the horizon, it was no bad thing to let him go on doing so. I felt he richly deserved just as much anxiety as I could contrive to generate for him.
The deep silence of a windless Sunday night was settling on Ludlow when I arrived. I instantly warmed to its steepling streets and cobbled alleys, its timber-framed jumble of old houses and ancient inns. The Feathers was an ideally if not idyllically comfortable hotel of the kind I’d thought English market towns long since bereft. If I’d been looking for a rest cure in a soothing backwater, I’d have chanced on the perfect location. Unfortunately, that wasn’t why I was there.
To prove it, I was still munching a slice of toast and sipping coffee next morning after an early enough breakfast to have caught the kitchen on the hop when word came that a visitor was waiting for me in reception. Howard Marsden evidently hadn’t got wherever he was in the world of agricultural machinery by being late for an appointment.
He didn’t look anything like as forlorn as I remembered. He’d put on a bit of weight and gone magisterially white at the temples. He was on his home ground too, which always bolsters self-confidence. Altogether, in his pin-stripe suit, cashmere overcoat and battered racing felt, he looked about as easy to move to tears as one of the wooden faces carved beneath the gables at the front of the hotel. But what I’d seen I’d seen.
“Shall we take a stroll?” I asked, donning my coat. He nodded in agreement. Neither of us seriously thought we’d do any talking where we could be overheard.
We went out into the empty street and headed towards the centre of town. It was a chilly bright autumn morning, a sharp breeze blowing trails of leaves across the pavements in front of us, sunlight glinting and glaring at us between the rooftops. A butcher arranging sausages in his window looked up and touched his boater at the sight of my companion. “Good morning, Mr. Marsden,” he called, getting little more than a grunt in response.
“You’re well known hereabouts?”
“It’s a small town. And we’re a big employer.”
“Have you always lived here?”
“No. I was in the Navy for twenty years before-” He broke off and looked round at me. “You’re not interested in my autobiography, Mr. Timariot. Why don’t you come to the point?”
“All right. I will. You know quite a lot of people think Shaun Naylor didn’t murder Louise?”
He snorted. “People like Nick Seymour, you mean. Mountebanks, the lot of them.”
“Perhaps. But it seems they may be right. A man’s come forward and confessed.”
“What?”
“The real murderer’s owned up-three years late.”
“Good God.” He pulled up sharply and turned to stare at me. “Surely not.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Who is he?”
“It wouldn’t be fair to name him until the police have investigated his claim.”
“His claim? You mean there’s some doubt about it?”
“Not much. But we’d all like to disbelieve it, wouldn’t we? If we could.”
His frown of astonishment melted slowly into one of utter confusion. “You’re saying Naylor’s innocent? And this… other man… committed the murders?”
“Apparently so.”
“My God.” He plucked thoughtfully at his lower lip, then squinted at me suspiciously. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I think you may be holding back valuable information about Louise’s movements that day. Information the police have no cause to suspect you possess. They don’t know you were in love with her, you see. But I do.” He flinched and took half a pace back, as if I’d made to strike him. “You had an affair with Louise Paxton, didn’t you?”
“I most certainly did not.”
“Come on. You nearly drove into me that day because you were so upset. And your wife more or less admitted-”
“What? What did she admit?”
“That she knew something was going on between you and Louise. But the state of your marriage is none of my concern. I’m only-”
“Damn right it’s none of your concern!”
“Listen,” I said, holding up my hands to placate him. “I’m not here to judge or condemn anybody. I simply want to know whether you met Louise in Kington the day she died.”
His anger seemed to subside. His hostile glare crumpled into an exasperated scowl. “You think she went there to meet me?”
“She’d walked out on her husband. Who else would she have been meeting?”
“She’d left Keith?”
“It seems likely.”
“Oh, bloody hell.” He sighed and started walking again, more slowly than before. “If only you were right,” he muttered. “If only I’d known.”
“Didn’t you?”
He shook his head. “Of course not.”
“But-”
“There was nothing between us. Never had been. She wouldn’t let there be. Sophie’s well aware of that, damn her.”
We came to the market-place, where traders were already erecting their stalls and setting out their wares amidst a cacophony of clattering poles, flapping tarpaulins and good-humoured banter. Marsden trudged gloomily down one side of the square, oblivious to the bustling scene. And I tagged along.
“Since you seem to know so much, you might as well know it all. At least then you’ll get it right. I was in love with Louise. Still am, in a way. She never gave me any encouragement, though. Nothing ever happened. I wanted it to, God knows. I’d have walked out on Sophie without a backward glance if only-” He sighed. “She’d have preferred that, I sometimes think. Louise’s rejection of me was more of a blow to Sophie’s pride than an affair or even a divorce would have been. The knowledge that her best friend had turned her nose up at me-at her husband-and must have realized as a result what a sick joke our marriage was…” A weary shake of the head seemed to sum up more years of discontent and dissatisfaction than he cared to count. “I worshipped Louise. I would have done anything for her. But she didn’t want to know. I was an embarrassment to her. Sophie found that humiliating and unforgivable. Which I suppose it was.”