Scold's Bridle

*12*

DS Cooper's car had barely drawn to a halt in Mill House driveway later that evening when Jack wrenched open the passenger door and folded himself on to the seat. "Do me a favour, old son, reverse out slowly with as little noise as possible and drive me a mile or two down the road." He nodded approval as Cooper eased into gear. "And next time, phone first, there's a good chap."

Cooper, apparently unconcerned by this somewhat disrespectful behaviour towards an officer of the law, manoeuvred backwards through the gate, pulling the wheel gently to avoid crunching the gravel. "Doesn't she trust me?" he asked, changing to first gear and driving off in the direction of Fontwell.

"Not you personally. The police. There's a lay-by about half a mile ahead on the right. Pull in there and I'll walk back."

"Has she said anything?"

Jack didn't answer and Cooper flicked him a sideways glance. His face looked drawn in the reflected light from the headlamps, but it was too dark to read his expression. "You're obliged by law to assist the police in their enquiries, Mr. Blakeney."

"It's Jack," he said. "What's your name, Sergeant?"

"Just what you'd expect," said Cooper dryly. "Thomas. Good old Tommy Cooper."

Jack's teeth gleamed in a smile. "Rough."

"Rough is right. People expect me to be a comedian. Where's this lay-by of yours?"

"A hundred yards or so." He peered through the windscreen. "Coming up on your right now."

Cooper drew across the road and brought the car to a halt, placing a restraining hand on Jack's arm as he switched off the engine and killed the lights. "Five minutes," he said. "I really do need to ask you some questions."

Jack let go of the door handle. "All right, but I warn you there is very little I can tell you except that Ruth is scared out of her wits and extremely reluctant to have anything more to do with the police."

"She may not be given a choice. We may decide to prosecute."

"For what? Stealing from a member of her family who didn't even bother to report the few trinkets that were taken? You can't prosecute Ruth for that, Tommy. And anyway, Sarah as legatee would insist on any charges being dropped. Her position's delicate enough without forcing a criminal record on the child she's effectively disinherited."

Cooper sighed. "Call me Cooper," he said. "Most people do. Tommy's more of an embarrassment than a name." He took out a cigarette. "Why do you call Miss Lascelles a child? She's a young woman, Jack. Seventeen years old and legally responsible for her actions. If she's prosecuted she will be dealt with in an adult court. You really shouldn't allow sentiment to cloud your judgement. We're not talking just trinkets here. She took her grandmother for five hundred pounds a month ago and didn't bat an eyelid while she was doing it. And on the day of the murder she stole some earrings worth two thousand pounds."

"Did Mathilda report the money stolen?"

"No," Cooper admitted.

"Then Sarah certainly won't."

Cooper sighed again. "I guess you've been talking to a lawyer, told you to keep your mouths shut, I suppose, and never mind what Hughes does to anyone else." He struck a match and held it to the tip of his cigarette, watching Jack in the flaring light. Anger showed itself in every line of the other man's face, in the aggressive jut of his jaw, in the compressed lips and the narrowed eyes. He seemed to be exercising enormous self-control just to hold himself in. With a flick of his thumbnail Cooper extinguished the match and plunged the car into darkness again. Only the glow of burning tobacco remained. "Hughes is working to a pattern," he said. "I explained as much of it as we have been able to find out to your wife this morning. In essence-"

"She told me," Jack cut in. "I know what he's doing."

"Okay," said Cooper easily, "then you'll know how important it is to stop him. There'll be other Ruths, make no mistake about that, and whatever he's doing to these girls to force them to work for him will get more extreme as time goes by. That's the nature of the beast." He drew on his cigarette. "He does force them, doesn't he?"

"You're the policeman, Cooper. Arrest the sod and ask him."

"That's exactly what we're planning to do. Tomorrow. But we'll have a much stronger hand if we know what to ask him about. We're stumbling around in the dark at the moment."

Jack didn't say anything.

"I could get a warrant for Miss Lascelles's arrest and take her down to the station. How would she stand up to the psychological thumbscrews, do you think? You might not have realized it but she's different from the other girls Hughes has used. She doesn't have parents she can rely on to protect her."

"Sarah and I will do it," Jack said curtly. "We're in loco parentis at the moment."

"But you've no legal standing. We could insist that her mother was present during questioning and if it's of any interest to you the only thing Mrs. Lascelles was concerned about last night was whether her daughter's expulsion had anything to do with Mrs. Gillespie's murder. She'd break Ruth for us if she thought it would help her get her hands on the old lady's money."

Jack gave a faint laugh. "You're all piss and wind, Cooper. You're too damn nice to do anything like that, and we both know it. Take it from me, you'd have it on your conscience for life if you added to the damage that's already been done to that poor kid."

"It's bad then."

"I'd say that was a fair assumption, yes."

"You must tell me, Jack. We won't get anywhere with Hughes if you don't tell me."

"I can't. I've given my word to Ruth."

"Break it."

Jack shook his head. "No. In my book a word, once given, cannot be taken back." He thought for a moment. "There's one thing I could do, though. You deliver him to me and I'll deliver him to you. How does that grab you as an idea?"

Cooper sounded genuinely regretful. "It's known as aiding and abetting. I'd be kissing goodbye to my pension."

Jack gave a low laugh. "Think about it," he said, reaching for the handle and thrusting open the door. "It's my best offer." The smoke from Cooper's cigarette eddied after him as he got out. "All I need is an address, Tommy. When you're ready, phone it through." He slammed the door and loped off into the darkness.

Violet Orloff tiptoed into her husband's bedroom and frowned anxiously at him. He was swathed in yards of paisley dressing-gown and reclined like a fat old Buddha against his pillows, a mug of cocoa in one hand, a cheese sandwich in the other, the Daily Telegraph crossword on his knees. "She's crying again."

Duncan peered at her over his bifocals. "It's not our business, dear," he said firmly.

"But I can hear her. She's sobbing her heart out."

"It's not our business."

"Except I keep thinking, suppose we'd done something when we heard Mathilda crying, would she be dead now? I feel very badly about that, Duncan."

He sighed. "I refuse to feel guilty because Mathilda's cruelties to her family, imagined or real, provoked one of them into killing her. There was nothing we could have done to prevent it then, and as you keep reminding me, there is nothing we can do now to bring her back. We have alerted the police to possible motive. I think we should leave it there."

"But, Duncan," Violet wailed, "if we know it was Joanna or Ruth, then we must tell the police."

He frowned. "Don't be silly, Violet. We don't know who did it, nor, frankly, are we interested. Logic says it had to be someone with a key or someone she trusted enough to let into the house, and the police don't need me to tell them that." The frown deepened. "Why do you keep pushing me into meddling, anyway? It's almost as if you want Joanna and Ruth to be arrested."

"Not both of them. They didn't do it together, did they?" She grimaced horribly, screwing her face into an absurd caricature. "But Joanna is crying again, and I think we should do something. Mathilda always said the house was full of ghosts. Perhaps she's come back."

Duncan stared at her with open alarm. "You're not ill, are you?"

"Of course I'm not ill," she said crossly. "I think I'll pop round, see if she's all right, talk to her. You never know, she might decide to confide in me." With an arch wave she tiptoed off again, and moments later he heard the sound of the front door opening.

Duncan shook his head in perplexity as he returned to his crossword. Was this the beginnings of senility? Violet was either very brave or very foolish to interfere with an emotionally disturbed woman who had, quite clearly, loathed her mother enough to murder her. He could only imagine what Joanna's reaction would be to his wife's naive assertions that she knew more than she'd told the police. The thought worried him enough to force him out of his warm bed and into his slippers, before padding downstairs in her wake.

But whatever had upset Joanna Lascelles was destined to remain a mystery to the Orloffs that night. She refused to open the door to Violet's ringing and it wasn't until the Sunday at church that they heard rumours about Jack Blakeney returning to his wife and Ruth being so afraid to go home to Cedar House and her mother that she had chosen to live with the Blakeneys. Southcliffe, it was said, had asked her to leave because of the scandal that was about to break around the Lascelles family. This time the furiously wagging tongues centred their suspicion on Joanna.

If Cooper was honest with himself, he could see Dave Hughes's attraction for young middle-class girls. He was a personable "bit of rough," handsome, tall, with the clean, muscular looks of a Chippendale, dark shoulder-length hair, bright blue eyes and an engaging smile. Unthreatening was the word that leapt immediately to mind, and it was only gradually in the confined atmosphere of a Bournemouth police interview room that the teeth began to show behind the smile. What you saw, Cooper realized, was very professional packaging. What lay beneath the surface was anyone's guess.

Detective Chief Inspector Charlie Jones was another where the packaging obscured the real man. It amused Cooper to see how seriously Hughes underestimated the sad Pekinese face that regarded him with such mild-mannered apology. Charlie took the chair on the other side of the table from Hughes and sifted rather helplessly through his briefcase. "It was good of you to come in," he said. "I realize time's precious. We're grateful for your co-operation, Mr. Hughes."

Hughes shrugged amiably. "If I'd known I had a choice, I probably wouldn't've come. What's this about then?"

Charlie isolated a piece of crumpled paper and spread it out on the table. "Miss Ruth Lascelles. She says you're her lover."

Hughes shrugged again. "Sure. I know Ruth. She's seventeen. Since when was sex with a seventeen-year-old a crime?"

"It's not."

"What's the hassle then?"

"Theft. She's been stealing."

Hughes looked suitably surprised but didn't say anything.

"Did you know she was stealing?"

He shook his head. "She always told me her granny gave her money. I believed her. The old bitch was rolling in it."

"Was? You know she's dead then."

"Sure. Ruth told me she killed herself."

Charlie ran his finger down the page. "Ruth says you told her to steal silver-backed hair brushes, jewellery and valuable first editions from Mrs. Gillespie's library. Similar items, in fact, to what Miss Julia Sefton claims you told her to steal from her parents. Small bits and pieces that wouldn't be missed but could be disposed of very easily for ready cash. Who sold them, Mr. Hughes? You or Ruth?"

"Do me a favour, Inspector. Do I look the sort of mug who'd act as a fence for an over-privileged, middle-class tart who'd drop me in it quick as winking the minute she was rumbled? Jesus," he said with disgust, "give me some credit for common sense. They only take up with me because they're bored out of their tiny minds with the jerks their parents approve of. And that should tell you something about the sort of girls they are. They call them slags where I come from, and thieving's in their blood along with the whoring. If Ruth says I set her up to it, then she's lying to get herself off the hook. It's so bloody easy, isn't it? I'm just scum from a frigging squat and she's Miss Lascelles from Southcliffe girls' school. Who's going to believe me?"

Charlie smiled his lugubrious smile. "Ah, well," he murmured, "belief isn't really the issue, is it? We both know you're lying and that Ruth is telling the truth, but the question is can we persuade her to stand up in court and tell the whole truth? You made a bad choice there, Mr. Hughes. She doesn't have a father, you see, only a mother, and you probably know as well as I do that women are far harder on their daughters than men ever could be. Mrs. Lascelles won't protect Ruth the way Julia's father protected her. Apart from anything else, she positively loathes the girl. It would have been different, I suspect, if Mrs. Gillespie were still alive, she would probably have hushed it up for the sake of the family's reputation, but as she isn't I can't see anybody championing Ruth."

Hughes grinned. "Well, go ahead then. Prosecute the thieving little bitch. It's no skin off my nose."

It was Charlie's turn to look surprised. "You don't like her?"

"She was okay for the odd screw, no great shakes but okay. Look, I told you, they only make out with me because they want to get back at their folks. So what am I supposed to do? Tug my forelock in gratitude for the use of their very ordinary bodies? I can get as good if not better down the nightclub of a Saturday." He grinned again, a captivatingly wicked grin, guaranteed to melt female hearts but totally lost on Jones and Cooper. "I do the business for them, give them their thrills, and I only complain when they try and lay their fucking thieving on me. It really gets up my nose, if you want the truth. You're such bloody suckers, you lot. A pretty face, a posh accent, a sob story, and, bingo, get Dave Hughes down here and give him the works. You just won't accept that they're slags, same as the prozzies on the streets in the red light district."

Charlie looked thoughtful. "That's the second time you've called Miss Lascelles a slag. What's your definition of a slag, Mr. Hughes?"

"The same as yours, I guess."

"A vulgar, coarse woman who sells her body for money. I wouldn't say that was a description of Miss Lascelles."

Hughes looked amused. "A slag's an easy lay. Ruth was so bloody easy, it was pathetic."

"You said she was no great shakes as a screw," Charlie carried on imperturbably. "That's a very revealing admission, don't you think?"

"Why?"

"It says more about you than it does about her. Didn't she fancy you? Did you have to force her? What is it you like doing that she didn't like you enough to go along with? I find that fascinating."

"I've had better, that's all I meant."

"Better what, Mr. Hughes?"

"Lovers, for Christ's sake. Women who know what they're doing. Women who handle themselves and me with more fucking finesse. Screwing Ruth was like screwing blancmange. It was me had to do all the work while she just lay there telling me how much she loved me. It pisses me off, that, it really does."

Charlie frowned. "Why did you bother with her then?"

Hughes smiled cynically at the all-too-patent trap. "Why not? She was free, she was available, and I get horny like the next man. Are you going to charge me with doing what comes naturally?"

Charlie thought for a moment or two. "Did you ever go into Cedar House?"

"The old biddy's place?" He shook his head. "No way. She'd have done her nut if she'd got wind of who Ruth had hitched herself to. I don't go looking for trouble though you'd be amazed at the girls. Half of them think their parents are going to welcome me with open arms." He mimicked the clipped diction of the upper classes. "Mummy, Daddy, I'd like you to meet my new boyfriend, Dave." The boyish grin again. "They're so bloody thick, you wouldn't believe."

"There've been a lot of these girls then. We thought there might have been."

Hughes tilted his chair back, relaxed, complacent, unbelievably confident. "I appeal to them, Inspector. It's a talent I have. Don't ask me where it comes from, though, because I couldn't tell you. Perhaps it's the Irish in me."

"On your mother's side, presumably."

"How did you guess?"

"You're a type, Mr. Hughes. Probably the illegitimate son of a whore who screwed anything for money, if your extreme prejudice against prostitutes is anything to go by. You wouldn't have a clue who your father was because he might have been any one of fifty who shafted her during the week you were conceived. Hence your contempt and hatred for women and your inability to conduct an adult relationship. You had no male role model to learn from or emulate. Tell me," he murmured, "does getting it free make you feel superior to the sad, anonymous little man who paid to father you? Is that why it's so important?"

The blue eyes narrowed angrily. "I don't have to listen to this."

"I'm afraid you do. You see, I'm very interested in your pathological dislike of women. You can't speak about them without being offensive. That isn't normal, Mr. Hughes, and as Sergeant Cooper and I are investigating an extraordinarily abnormal crime, your attitude alarms me. Let me give you a definition of psychopathic personality disorder." He consulted the piece of paper again. "It manifests itself in poor or non-existent job performance, persistent criminality, sexual promiscuity and aggressive sexual behaviour. People with this disorder are irresponsible and extremely callous; they feel no guilt over their antisocial acts and find it difficult to make lasting relationships." He looked up. "Rather a good description of you, don't you think? Have you ever been treated for this type of disorder?"

"No, I fucking well haven't," he said furiously. "Jesus, what is this garbage, anyway? Since when was thieving an abnormal crime?"

"We're not talking about thieving."

Hughes looked suddenly wary. "What are we talking about then?"

"The things you do to the girls."

"I don't get you."

Charlie leaned forward aggressively, his eyes like flints. "Oh, yes, you do, you filthy little nonce. You're a pervert, Hughes, and when you go down and the rest of the prisoners find out what you've been banged up for, you'll learn what it's like to be on the receiving end of aggressive behaviour. They'll beat the shit out of you, urinate on your food and use a razor on you if they can get you in the shower alone. It's one of the oddities of prison life. Ordinary prisoners hate sex offenders, particularly sex offenders who can only get a hard-on with children. Whatever they've done themselves pales into insignificance beside what you and people like you do to defenceless kids."

"Jesus! I don't do kids. I hate bloody kids."

"Julia Sefton had just turned sixteen when you did her. She could almost have been your daughter."

"That's not a crime. I'm not the first man who's slept with someone young enough to be his daughter. Get real, Inspector."

"But you always pick young girls. What is it about young girls that gets you so excited?"

"I don't pick them. They pick me."

"Do older women frighten you? That's the usual pattern with nonces. They have to make out with children because mature women terrify them."

"How many times do I have to tell you? I don't make out with children."

Abruptly Jones switched tack. "Ruth stole some diamond earrings from her grandmother on Saturday, November the sixth, the same day that Mrs. Gillespie killed herself. Did you take Ruth there that day?"

Hughes looked as if he was about to deny it, then shrugged. "She asked me to."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why did she ask you to take her? What did she want to do there?"

Hughes looked vague. "She never said. But I never went in the frigging place and I didn't know she planned to steal any frigging earrings."

"So she rang you at your squat, asked you to drive all the way out to Southcliffe to pick her up, take her from there to Fontwell and then back to Southcliffe, without ever explaining why."

"Yeah."

"And that's all you did? Acted as her chauffeur to and fro and waited outside Cedar House while she went in?"

"Yeah."

"But you've admitted you didn't like her. In fact you despised her. Why go to so much trouble for someone you didn't like?"

"It was worth it for a screw."

"With blancmange?"

Hughes grinned. "I felt horny that day."

"She told my Sergeant she was absent from school for upwards of six hours. It's thirty miles from Southcliffe to Fontwell, so let's say it took you forty minutes each way. That leaves some four and a half hours unaccounted for. Are you telling me you sat in your van in Fontwell village for four and a half hours twiddling your thumbs while Ruth was inside with her grandmother?"

"It wasn't that long. We stopped on the way back for the screw."

"Where exactly did you park in Fontwell?"

"Can't remember now. I was always waiting for her some place or another."

Charlie placed his finger on the crumpled page of paper. "According to the publican at the Three Pigeons your van was parked on his forecourt that afternoon. After ten minutes you drove away, but he saw you stop beside the church to pick someone up. We must presume this was Ruth unless you are now going to tell me you took a third party to Fontwell the day Mrs. Gillespie 'killed herself'."

The wary look was back in Hughes's eyes. "It was Ruth."

"Okay, then what were you and Ruth doing for four and a half hours, Mr. Hughes? You certainly weren't screwing her. It doesn't take four and a half hours to screw blancmange. Or perhaps it does for someone who suffers from a psychopathic personality disorder. Perhaps it takes you that long to get it up."

Hughes refused to be needled. "I guess there's no reason for me to protect the silly bitch. Okay, she asked me to drive her to this backstreet jeweller somewhere in Southampton. I didn't ask why, I just did it. But you can't do me for that. All I did was act as a taxi. If she stole some earrings and then sold them, I knew nothing about it. I was just the patsy with the wheels."

"According to Miss Lascelles she gave the money to you as soon as she sold the earrings. She said it was six hundred and fifty pounds in cash and that you then, drove her straight back to school in time for her physics lecture."

Hughes didn't say anything.

"You profited from a crime, Mr. Hughes. That's illegal."

"Ruth's lying. She never gave me any money and, even if she did, you'd have to prove I knew she'd thieved something in the first place. She'll tell you it was all her idea. Look, I don't deny she funded me from time to time, but she said the money was hers and I believed her. Why shouldn't I? The old granny was rolling in it. Stood to reason Ruth would be as well." He grinned again. "So what if she did give me cash from time to time? How was I to know the silly bitch was stealing it? She owed me something for the petrol I wasted acting as her frigging chauffeur in the holidays."

"But she didn't fund you that day?"

"I already said no, and no's what I mean."

"Did you have any money on you?"

'"A fiver, maybe."

"What was the name of the backstreet jeweller in Southampton?" Charlie asked abruptly.

"No idea. I never went in the place. You'll have to ask Ruth. She just told me to go to a road and stop at the end of it."

"What was the name of the road?"

"Don't know. She had a map, told me right, left, straight on, stop. I just did what I was told. You'll have to ask Ruth."

"She doesn't know. She says you drove her there, told her which shop to go into, who to ask for and what to say."

"She's lying."

"I don't think so, Mr. Hughes."

"Prove it."

Charlie thought rapidly. He had no doubt that Hughes was telling the truth when he said he hadn't entered Cedar House or the jewellers', not in Ruth's company anyway. The beauty of his scam was that he didn't handle the stolen goods himself, merely transported the girls and the goods to someone who would. That way, the only person who could ever implicate him was the girl, and she wasn't going to because, for whatever reason, she was too frightened of him. "I intend to prove it, Mr. Hughes. Let's start with an account of your movements after you dropped Ruth back at school. Did you go to this nightclub you mentioned? It'll be expensive, they usually are, and coke and ecstasy don't come cheap, both of which I suspect you're on. People will remember you, especially if you were throwing money about."

Hughes saw another trap and giggled. "I already said I hadn't got any money, Inspector. I drove around a bit and then went back to the squat."

"What time was that?"

He shrugged. "No idea."

"So if I find someone who says a white transit van was parked in the vicinity of a Bournemouth nightclub that night, you'll say it couldn't have been yours because you were just driving around."

"That's about the size of it."

Charlie bared his teeth in a predatory smile. "I have to inform you, Mr. Hughes, that you will be transferred shortly to Learmouth Police Station where you will be questioned at length about the murder of Mrs. Mathilda Gillespie." He gathered his notes together and thrust them back into his pocket.

"Shit!" said Hughes angrily. "What crap are you trying to lay on me now? You said she killed herself."

"I was lying. She was murdered and I have reason to believe you were involved in that murder."

Hughes surged aggressively to his feet. "I told you I never went in the fucking place. Anyway, the publican's my alibi. He saw me in his car park and watched me pick up Ruth. How could I murder the old lady if I was in my van the whole time?"

"She wasn't murdered at two-thirty. She was murdered later that evening."

"I wasn't there later that evening."

"Your van was. The publican says you returned that evening and, as you yourself have just told us, you and your van have no alibi for the night of November the sixth. You were driving around, remember?"

"I was here in Bournemouth and so was the van."

"Prove it." Charlie stood up. "Until you do, I'm holding you on suspicion of murder."

"You're really out of order on this one. I'll get my brief on you."

"Do that. You'll be allowed your phone call at Learmouth."

"Why would I want to kill the old cow anyway?"

Charlie lifted a shaggy eyebrow. "Because you have a history of terrorizing women. This time you went too far."

"I don't bloody murder them."

"What do you do to them?"

"Shag 'em that's all. And I don't short change 'em neither. I've never had a complaint yet."

"Which is probably what the Yorkshire Ripper said every time he came home with his hammer and his chisel in the boot of his car."

"You're way out of order," said Hughes again, stamping his foot. "I didn't even know the old bitch. I didn't want to know her. Jesus, you bastard, how could I kill someone I didn't even know?"

"You got born, didn't you?"

"What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

"Birth and death, Hughes. They happen at random. Your mother didn't know your father but you still got born. The not-knowing is irrelevant. You were there that day, you were using her granddaughter to steal from her and Mrs. Gillespie knew it. You had to shut her up before she talked to us."

"I don't work it that way."

"How do you work it then?"

But Hughes refused to say another word.