"I did. Her answer was: 'No, no, no. I stole it because I wanted to,' and then she turned the waterworks on again." He looked very rueful. "I've left the ball in Dr. Blakeney's court. I had a word with her on the phone this morning, gave her the gist of what Hughes has been up to and asked her to try and find out why none of the girls will turn QE against him. She may get somewhere but I'm not counting on it."
"What about the mother? Would Ruth talk to her?"
Cooper shook his head. "First, you'd have to get her to talk to Ruth. It's unnatural, if you ask me. I stopped off last night to tell her the Blakeneys had taken her daughter in and she looked at me as if I'd just climbed out of a sewer. The only thing she was interested in was whether I thought Ruth's expulsion meant she'd killed her grandmother. I said, no, that as far as I knew there were no statistics linking truancy and promiscuous sex to murder, but there were a great number linking them to poor parenting. So she told me to eff off." He chuckled happily at the memory.
Charlie Jones grunted his amusement. "I'm more interested in friend Hughes at the moment, so let's break this down into manageable proportions. Have Bournemouth tried getting the three families together so that the girls gain strength from numbers?"
"Twice. No go either time. The parents have taken legal advice and no one's talking."
Charlie pursed his lips in thought. "It's been done before, you know. George Joseph Smith did it a hundred years ago. Wrote glowing references for pretty servant girls, then found them placements in wealthy households. Within weeks of starting work they would steal valuables from their employers and take them faithfully to George to convert into ready cash. He was another one with an extraordinary pulling-power over women."
"George Smith?" said Cooper in surprise. "I thought he did away with women. Wasn't he the brides-in-the-bath murderer?"
"That's him. Started drowning wives when he discovered how easy it was to get them to make wills in his favour upon marriage. Interesting, isn't it, in view of the way Mrs. Gillespie died." He was silent for a moment. "I read a book about Smith not so long ago. The author described him as a professional and a literal lady-killer. I wonder if the same thing applies to Hughes." He rapped a tattoo on his desk-top with his knuckles. "Let's pull him in for questioning."
"How? Do I take an arrest warrant?"
Charlie reached for his phone. "No. I'll get Bournemouth to pick him up tomorrow morning and hold him on ice till you and I get there."
"Tomorrow's Sunday, Charlie."
"Then with any luck he'll have a hangover. I want to see his expression when I tell him we have reason to believe he murdered Mrs. Gillespie."
Cooper was sceptical. "Have we? The landlord's statement won't stand close scrutiny, not if his wife's claiming he was confused."
A wolfish grin spread across the Inspector's features, and the sad Pekinese became a Dobermann. "But we know he was there that afternoon because Ruth told us he was, and I'm inclined to be a little creative with the rest. He was using Mrs. Gillespie's granddaughter to extort money. He has a history of ruthless exploitation of women, and he's probably feeding a habit because his outgoings far exceed his income. If they didn't, he wouldn't have to live in squats. I'd say his psychological profile runs something like this: a dangerously unstable, psychopathic addict, whose hatred of women has undergone a dramatic change recently and taken him from their brutal manipulation to their destruction. He will be the product of a broken home and inadequate education, and boyhood fear of his father will govern most of his actions."
Cooper looked even more sceptical. "You've been reading too many books, Charlie."
Jones allowed himself a laugh. "But Hughes doesn't know that, does he? So let's try and dent his charisma a little and see if we can't stop him using other people's little girls to do his dirty work."
"I'm trying to solve a murder," said Cooper in protest. "That's what I want answers on."
"But you've still to convince me it was a murder, old son."
Ruth crept stealthily down the stairs and stood to one side of the studio doorway, watching Jack's reflection in her tiny hand mirror. Not that she could see him very well. He was sitting with his back to the window, working on a portrait but, because the easel was placed directly between him and the door, the canvas obscured all but his legs. From the bedroom window she had watched Sarah leave the house two hours ago, so she knew they were alone. Would Jack notice when she slipped past the doorway? She waited for ten minutes in panicky indecision, too afraid to take a step.
"If you want something to eat," he murmured finally into the silence, "then I suggest you try the kitchen. If you want someone to talk to, then I suggest you come in here, and if you're looking for something to steal, then I suggest you take Sarah's engagement ring which belonged to my grandmother and was valued at two thousand pounds four years ago. You'll find it in the left-hand drawer of her dressing-table." He leaned to one side so that she could see his face in her mirror. "You might as well show yourself. I'm not going to eat you." He nodded curtly as she came round the doorjamb. "Sarah gave me strict instructions to be sympathetic, patient and helpful. I'll do my best, but I warn you in advance I can't stand people who sniff into handkerchiefs and creep about on tiptoe."
Ruth's cheeks lost what little colour they had left. "Do you think it would be all right if I made myself a cup of coffee?" She looked very unattractive, damp hair clinging to her scalp, face puffy and blotched with crying. "I don't want to be a nuisance."
Jack returned to his painting so that she wouldn't see the flash of irritation in his eyes. Self-pity in others invariably brought out the worst in him. "As long as you make me one, too. Black and no sugar, please. The coffee's by the kettle, sugar's in the tin marked 'sugar,' milk's in the fridge and lunch is in the oven. It will be ready in half an hour so, unless you're starving, my advice is to skip breakfast and wait for that."
"Will Dr. Blakeney be here for lunch?"
"I doubt it, Polly Graham's gone into labour and as Sarah agreed to a home-birth, she could be there for hours."
Ruth hovered for a moment, then turned to go to the kitchen, only to change her mind again. "Has my mother phoned?" she blurted out.
"Did you expect her to?"
"I thought-" She fell silent.
"Well, try thinking about making me a cup of coffee instead. If you hadn't mentioned it, I probably wouldn't have wanted one, but as you have, I do. So get your skates on, woman. This is not a hotel and I'm not in the best of moods after being relegated to the spare room."
She fled down the corridor to the kitchen and, when she returned five minutes later with a tray and two cups, her hands were shaking so much that the cups chattered against each other like terrified teeth. Jack appeared not to notice but took the tray and placed it on a table in the window. "Sit," he instructed, pointing to a hard-backed chair and swinging his stool round to face her. "Now, is it me you're frightened of, the boyfriend, men in general, Sarah not coming home for lunch, the police, or are you worried about what's going to happen to you?"
She shrank away from him as if he'd struck her.
"Me then." He moved the stool back a yard to give her more room. "Why are you afraid of me, Ruth?"
Her hands fluttered in her lap. "I'm-you-" Her eyes widened in terror. "I'm not."
"You feel completely secure and at ease in my presence?"
"Yes," she whispered.
"You have an odd way of showing it." He reached for his coffee cup. "How old were you when your father died?"
"I was a baby."
"Since which time you've lived with your mother and your grandmother and, latterly, a bevy of women at boarding school." He took a sip of coffee. "Am I right that this Hughes character is the first boyfriend you've ever had?"