Longshot полностью

‘Of course not. I mean, not many people knew, and it gave Nolan a motive.’

‘Yes, it did.’

‘But he didn’t mean to kill her. Everyone knows that. If he’d attacked and killed Sam, it would have been a different matter.’

I said, frowning, ‘It wasn’t you, though, who said at the trial they’d heard him say he would strangle the bitch.’

‘No, of course not. Some other people heard him before he reached me, and they didn’t know why he was saying it. It didn’t seem important at that time. Of course, no one ever asked me if I knew why he’d said it, so no one found out.’

‘But the prosecution must have asked Nolan why he said it?’

‘Yes, sure, but he said it was because he couldn’t find her, nothing else. Extravagant language but not a threat.’

I sighed. ‘And Sam wasn’t for saying why, as it would further torpedo his shaky reputation?’

‘Yes. And anyway he didn’t believe Nolan meant to kill her. He told me that. He said it wasn’t the first time he and Nolan had bedded the same girl, and sometimes Nolan had pinched one of his, and it was a bit of a lark on the whole, not a killing matter.’

‘More a lark to Sam than to Nolan,’ I suggested.

‘Probably.’ She shook herself. ‘I’m getting no work done.’

‘You’ve done some of mine.’

‘Don’t put it in the book,’ she insisted, alarmed.

‘I promise I won’t,’ I said.

I retired to the dining-room and, since the shape of Tremayne’s passage through life was becoming more and more clear, I began to map out the book into sections, giving each a tentative title with subheadings. I still hadn’t put an actual sentence on paper and was feeling tyrannised by all the blank pages lying ahead. I’d heard of writers who leaped to their typewriters as to a lover. There were days when I’d do any chore I could think of rather than pick up a pencil, and it was never easy, ever, to dig words and ideas from my brain. Half the time I couldn’t believe I’d chosen this occupation; half of the time I longed for the easier solitude under the stars.

I scribbled ‘Find something you like doing and spend your life doing it’ at the end of the outline plan and decided it was enough for one day. If tomorrow it looked all right, maybe I’d let it stand, and go on.

Out in the woodland Detective Chief Inspector Doone looked morosely at Angela Brickell’s jumbled bones while the pathologist told him they were those of a young female, dead probably less than a year.

The photographer took photographs. The gamekeeper marked the spot on a large-scale map. The pathologist said it was impossible to determine the cause of death without a detailed autopsy, and very likely not even then.

With sketchy reverence for whoever they had been, the skull and other bones were packed into a coffin-shaped box, carried to a van, and driven to the mortuary.

Detective Chief Inspector Doone, seeing there was no point in looking for tyre tracks, footprints or cigarette ends, set two constables to searching the undergrowth for clothes, shoes, or anything not rotted by time; and it was in this way that under a blanket of dead leaves they came across some wet filthy jeans, a small-sized bra, a pair of panties and a T-shirt with the remains of a pattern on the front.

Detective Chief Inspector Doone watched his men pack these sad remnants into a plastic bag and reflected that none of the clothes had been on or even near the bones.

The girl, he reckoned, had been naked when she died.

He sighed deeply. He didn’t like these sorts of cases. He had daughters of his own.

Tremayne came back from the second lot in a good mood, whistling between his teeth. He wheeled straight into the office, fired off a fresh barrage of instructions to Dee-Dee and made several rapid phone calls himself. Then he came into the dining-room to let me know the state of play and to ask a favour or two, taking it (correctly) for granted that I would oblige.

The ditched jeep had gone to the big scrap heap in the sky: a replacement had been found in Newbury, a not new but serviceable Land Rover. If I would go to Newbury in the Volvo with Tremayne, I could drive the substitute home to Shellerton.

‘Of course,’ I said.

The racing industry was scrambling back into action, with Windsor racecourse promising to be operational on Wednesday. Tremayne had horses entered, four of which he proposed to run. He would like me to come with him, he said, to see what his job entailed.

‘Love to,’ I said.

He wished to go out for the evening to play poker with friends, and he’d be back late: would I stay in for Gareth?

‘Sure,’ I said.

‘He’s old enough to be safe on his own, but... well...’

‘Company,’ I said. ‘Someone around.’

He nodded.

‘You’re welcome,’ I said.

‘Dee-Dee thinks we take advantage of you,’ he said bluntly. ‘Do we?’

‘No.’ I was surprised. ‘I like what I’m doing.’

‘Cooking, baby-sitting, spare chauffeur, spare lad?’

‘Sure.’

‘You have the right to say no,’ he said uncertainly.

‘I’ll tell you soon enough if I’m affronted. As for now, I’d rather be part of things, and useful. OK?’

He nodded.