‘So I’m almost off the hook,’ Oliver mused. ‘No evidence against me.’
‘We know what happened.’ Carole’s tone was stern.
‘Yes, you do. And I’ve confessed. But have you done the proper Golden Age thing and set up some recording contraption to preserve my confession for posterity?’ He looked from one to the other and knew that they hadn’t. ‘Which means I might get away with it. Not that I would, of course, in a Golden Age whodunit. I would be found guilty and at my trial the judge would put his black cap on and …’ He grinned wryly. ‘This is rather like the end of a Golden Age whodunit. With very few of those, though the doughty amateur sleuths have solved the mystery to their own and their readers’ satisfaction, would the case stand up in court. Could you really see the Criminal Prosecution Service taking on a case in which someone was poisoned by a gas released from a glass receptacle which was shattered by a singer on a radio broadcast hitting a high C? I don’t think so.’
‘Are you saying you’re going to deny what you’ve done?’ asked Carole, concerned.
‘It’s a thought.’
‘There is a witness who saw all the comings and goings of Tuesday night.’
‘Is there? I’m not surprised.’ He did not ask for any further details. ‘As I say, rather far from the Perfect Crime, what I set up, wasn’t it?’
He grinned again. ‘No, I’m not going to deny anything. Mind you, I’m not going to confess anything either. Not to the police. I think going through the process of their trying to prove I did what I did might be rather fun. Not quite as much fun as committing the murder, but getting on that way.’ He yawned ostentatiously. ‘Anything to stave off boredom.’
There was a long silence in the nice middle-class Fethering sitting room. ‘Then Jude broke it by asking, ‘Why did you really do it, Oliver?’
‘Ah.’ He exhaled a slow sigh. ‘Why?’
‘It was something to do with Aileen, wasn’t it?’
‘You’re very perceptive, Jude.’ The next silence threatened to be even longer, but then Oliver Parsons said, ‘It goes back to Blester Combe. Yes, when I was making the film. I hadn’t met Aileen then, but she was on that crime-writing course. There was an immediate attraction between us, we exchanged phone numbers, but not much could happen while we were there. I was busy shooting the film, she was doing all those workshops and stuff. Anyway, I was only down there for a couple of days. But we both knew it was the real thing. We swore we’d keep in touch.
‘Then weeks went by, months went by, I didn’t hear from her. I tried ringing her number, always got voicemail, left messages, no response.
‘Eventually, three months later, she rang me. Explained that she couldn’t be in touch before because she’d been having an abortion.’
‘Burton?’
Oliver Parsons nodded. ‘He’d come on to her at the course’s last night party. Got her in one of the outbuildings. It was rape,’ he concluded briefly.
Neither woman could think of anything appropriate to say.
‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘Aileen and I agreed to put that behind us. We got married. We were very happy. But … Aileen couldn’t have children. Something had gone wrong during the abortion. And now she’s dead.’
Again, for Carole and Jude, the right words wouldn’t come.
Oliver Parsons smiled a grim smile. ‘In the words of G. H. D. Troughton – and many other proverbial wordsmiths before him – “Revenge is a dish best served cold.”’
TWENTY-NINE
Carole didn’t argue when Jude insisted that she should see Detective Inspector Rollins on her own. Carole hadn’t been involved in the witch-hunt of accusation which Jude had suffered the previous week. Jude was the one who should manage its resolution. The time was set for four o’clock that afternoon.
While she was waiting for the police to arrive, Jude had a phone call from Zosia.
Worried that the girl might be about to announce her uncle’s death, she was greatly cheered to hear that the old man was making good progress. He had been toughened by his years of manual labour and stood a chance of making a full recovery, though it was unlikely he would ever be able to work again.
But what made Zosia even happier was the news that Pawel’s sister was going to come over to Fethering for a few weeks to nurse her brother. The prospect of spending time with her mother had raised the girl’s spirits enormously. And then it was thought likely that, as soon as Uncle Pawel was fit enough to travel, he would be taken back to Poland, where his sister could look after him – and curb his excesses.
Zosia even thought that, if he could conquer the booze, there might be the possibility of a reconciliation between the old man and his ex-wife.
Jude said how delighted she was to hear the news, and how much she longed to be introduced to Zosia’s mother.
The interview, like their first one, took place in the sitting room of Woodside Cottage. They took the same seats as they had on the previous occasion. The Inspector had her iPhone on her lap, and Detective Sergeant Knight was still uneasy in her presence, uncertain when an intervention from him would be appreciated.
But that afternoon, although Rollins did not at first realize it, the dynamics between the three of them had changed completely.
Jude had agreed with Oliver that she should tell the police he was prepared to make a full confession, but it became clear at the beginning of their conversation that the police thought they had been summoned to hear a confession from her.
Of this illusion, she quickly disabused them. Marshalling the information with great efficiency, she told Rollins and Knight exactly what had happened, and what had caused the death of Burton St Clair. She also told them that Eveline Ollerenshaw had agreed to confirm what she had witnessed from her bedroom window that night.
By way of a bonus, Jude also suggested that whoever was investigating the attack on Uncle Pawel might do worse than check out the activities of Milosz Gadzinski.
At the end of her narrative, a somewhat shaken Inspector said that, of course, she would have to check everything with Oliver Parsons.
‘He will tell you exactly what I have told you.’
‘Very well.’ Rollins rose from her sofa. Mirroring her movements, Detective Sergeant Knight did the same. ‘We’d better go and talk to Mr Parsons.’
‘Very good idea, Inspector. He’s expecting you.’
‘Good. And, er, Jude …’
‘Yes?’
‘I regret any inconvenience you have been put to.’
Jude grinned. She knew that was the nearest she was ever going to get to an apology from Detective Inspector Rollins.
She was surprised how much time she needed to untwitch from the stresses of the previous week. Paranoia was not a natural state for Jude, and she hadn’t enjoyed her experience of it. Some days passed before she felt sufficiently focused to reschedule the healing sessions she had postponed.
But her mind did not readily recapture its usual serenity. Some issues resolved themselves, but the one that still felt incomplete was her relationship with Megan. Though it was her former friend’s lying testimony that had put her through such anguish, Jude did not feel any resentment. Pity for someone whose mind could make them behave in such a perverse way.
She and Megan needed to talk, ideally face-to-face. But an email was too easy to ignore; the initial contact needed to be made by phone.
‘Hello?’ Megan sounded theatrical, but guarded.
‘It’s Jude.’
‘Oh? What possible reason can you have for ringing me?’
‘I was ringing because I assume you’ve heard by now how Al actually died.’
‘They’ve told me their version of what happened, yes.’
‘Are you saying you don’t believe that version?’