But Lewis appeared completely unabashed. 'Have you lost your credit card recently?'
'Why do you ask that?'
'Because someone made a good job of signing your name, that's all. For twelve pounds of Unleaded Premium at the Burford Garage on the A4O at about three o'clock last Saturday.'
'What exactly are you suggesting?' The voice sounded menacingly calm.
'I'm suggesting that you drove here to Bath that day in your own car, madam-'
But she had risen to her feet herself now.
"You were right, Julian. We are not going to sit here a second longer. Come along!'
But she got no further than the exit, where two men stood barring her way: two dark-suited men who had been sitting for so long beneath the portrait of the bland Lord Ellmore.
She turned round, her nostrils flaring, her wide naked
eyes now blazing with fury, and perhaps (as Morse saw them) with hatred, too, and despair.
But she said nothing further, as Lewis walked quietly towards her.
'Angela Miriam Storrs, it is my duty as a police officer to arrest you on the charge of murder. The murder of Geoffrey Gordon Owens, on Sunday, the third of March 1996. It is also my duty to warn you that anything you now say may be taken down in writing and used in evidence at any future hearing.'
She stood where she was; and still said nothing.
Chief Inspector Morse, too, stood where he was, wondering whether his sergeant had got the wording quite right, as Detective Inspector Briggs and Detective Constable Bott, both of the Avon CID, led Angela Miriam Storrs away.
PART SEVEN
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
Twas the first and last time that I'd iver known women to use the pistol. They fear the shot as a rule, but Di'monds-an'-Pearls she did not - she did not
(Rudyard Kipling, Love-o'-Womtn)
(BEING THE tape-recorded statement made by Angela Storrs at Thames Valley Police HQ, Kidlington, Oxon, on the morning of 11 March, 1996; transcribed by Detective Sergeant Lewis; and subsequently amended - for minor orthographic and punctuational vagaries - by Detective Chief Inspector Morse.)
I murdered both of them, Rachel James and Geoffrey Owens. I'm a bit sorry about Rachel.
I was seventeen when I first started working as a stripper in Soho and then as a prostitute and in some porno flicks. Julian Starrs came along several times to the club where I was performing seven or eight times a night, and he arranged to see me, and we had sex a few times in the West End. He was a selfish sod as I knew from the start, especially in those early days, as far as I was concerned. Which was fine by
me. He was obsessively jealous about other men and this was something I wasn't used to. He wanted me body and soul, he said, and soon he asked me to marry him. Which was fine by me too.
I came from no family at all to speak of, but Julian came from a posh family and he had plenty of money. And he was a don at Oxford University and my mum was proud of me. She just wanted me to be somebody important like she'd never been.
I was unfaithful a few times after a few years, especially with some of the other dons who were about as pathetic as the old boys in the Soho basement who used to stick the odd fiver up your panties.
I enjoyed life at Oxford. But nobody took to me all that much. I wasn't quite in the same bracket as the others and I used to feel awkward when they asked me about where I'd been to university and all that jazz, because I couldn't even pretend I was one of them. I wanted to be one of them, though - God knows why! Ours wasn't a tight marriage even from the start. It wasn't too long before Julian was off with other women, and soon, as I say, I was off with other men. Including the Master. He needs his sheets changing every day, that man, like they do in the posh hotels. But he was going at last and that started things really, or is it finished things? Julian desperately wanted to be Master and only one person wanted that more than he did. Me!
In London I'd lived a dodgy, dangerous sort of life
TT .GO. *
like any woman on the sex-circuit does. I'd been mauled about quite a few times, and raped twice, once by a white and once by a black, so I can't be accused of racial prejudice. One of the other girls had a water-pistol that fired gentian-blue dye over anybody trying it on. I don't know why it was that colour but I always remember it from the paint-box I had when I was a little girl, next to burnt Siena and crimson Lake. But Julian had something far better than that. He'd kept a pistol from his Army days and after I had a bit of trouble late one Saturday night in Cornmarket with some football thugs, he said he didn't mind me carrying it around sometimes if it made me feel better. Which it did. I had a new-found sense of confidence, and one weekend Julian took me with some of his TA friends out to the shooting-range on Otmoor and for the first time ever I actually fired a pistol. I was surprised how difficult it was, with the way it jerked back and upwards, but I managed it and I loved it. After that I got used to carrying it around with me - loaded! - when I was out alone late at night. I felt a great sense of power when I held it.
Then came our big opportunity. Julian was always going to be a good bet for the Master's job, and we only had Cornford to beat. I always quite liked Denis but he never liked me, and to make up for it I detested his American wife. But this one thing that stood in the way suddenly became two things, because we learned that Julian would probably be
dead within a year or so although we agreed never to say anything about it to anyone. Then there was that third thing - that bloody man Owens.
He'd written to Julian not to me, and he'd done his homework properly. He knew I'd been a call-girl (sounds better, doesn't it?). He knew about Julian's latest floozie. And he knew about Julian's illness and guessed he was hiding it from the College. He said he'd be ringing and he did, and they met in the Chapters' Bar at The Randolph. All Owens wanted was money, it seems, and Julian's never been short of that. But Julian played it cool and he went back to the bar later on and had a bit of luck because one of the barmaids knew who Owens was because he'd covered quite a few functions there for the newspapers. We didn't need to hire a detective to find his address because it was in the phone-book!
I knew what I was doing that morning because I'd already driven round the area twice and I'd done my homework too. I parked on the main road above the terrace and got through a gap in the fence down to the back. I don't think I meant to shoot him but just frighten him to death if I could and let him know that he'd never be able to feel safe in life again if he kept on with his blackmail. Then I saw him behind the kitchen blind, and I suddenly realized how ridiculously easy it would be to solve all our problems. It wouldn't take more than a single second. I knew he lived alone, and I knew this must be him. His head was only a couple of feet away and I saw the pony-tail that Julian had told me about. I'd
planned to knock on the door and go in and sort things out. But I didn't. I just fired point-blank and that was that. There was a huge thud and a splintering noise and lots of smoke, but only for a second it seemed. Next thing I remember I was sitting in the car trembling all over and expecting to see people rushing around and police sirens and all that. But there was nothing. A few cars drove by and a paper-boy rode past on his bicycle.
It was all a bit like a nightmare I've often had -standing on top of some high building with no rail in front of me and knowing it would be so easy to jump off, and if I did jump off, that would be the end of everything. In the nightmare I was always just about going to jump off when I woke up sweating and terrified. It was the same sort of thing at that window. It was like somebody saying 'Do it!' And I did it. Julian knew what happened but he didn't have anything to do with it.
We planned the second murder together, though. Nothing to lose, was there?