The Mammoth Book of Locked-Room Mysteries And Impossible Crimes

WAITING FOR GODSTOW by Martin Edwards

Martin Edwards (b.1955) is a practising solicitor and uses this background for his series of novels featuring Liverpool solicitor Harry Devlin. The series began with All the Lonely People (1991) in which Devlin’s wife is found murdered and he becomes the prime suspect. There has been roughly a book a year since then. The following story does not feature Harry Devlin but a new detective, Paul Godstow, who doesn’t even realize he has an impossible crime on his hands.

Claire Doherty practised her grief-stricken expression in the mirror. Quivering lip, excellent. Lowered lashes, very suitable. All that she needed to do now was to make sure she kept the glint of triumph out of her eyes and everything would be fine.

She glanced at the living room clock for the thousandth time. Time passed slowly when you were waiting for bad news. The call could not come soon enough, that call which would bring the message that her husband was dead. Then she would have to prepare herself for her new role as a heartbroken widow. It would be a challenge, but she was determined to meet it head on. More than that, she would positively relish playing the part.

If only she didn’t have to rely on Zack doing what he had to do. Zack was gorgeous and he did things for her that previously she had only read about in magazines, while having her hair done. But he was young and careless and there was so much that could yet go wrong. No wonder that she kept checking the clock, shaking her watch to see if it had stopped when it seemed that time was standing still. She readily admitted to friends that patience wasn’t one of her virtues. Besides, she would add, vices are so much more interesting anyway. Above all, she liked to be in control, hated being dependent on others. It was hard being reduced to counting the minutes until freedom finally came her way.

The phone trilled and she snatched up the receiver. “Yes?” she demanded breathlessly.

“Is that Mrs Doherty?” The voice belonged to a woman. Late twenties, at a guess. She sounded anxious.

“Yes, what is it?” If it was a wrong number, she would scream.

“I’m sorry to bother you, really I am.”

“No problem.” It was all she could do not to hiss: get off the line, don’t you realize I’m waiting for someone to tell me my husband is dead?

“My name is Bailey. Jennifer Bailey from Bradford.”

Oh, for God’s sake. Karl’s latest floosie. Suppressing the urge to give the woman a mouthful, Claire said coldly, “Can I help you?”

“It’s just that your husband left a few minutes ago. I’m afraid I kept him longer than expected. He was rather concerned, because he said he would be late home and his mobile didn’t seem to be working. So I offered to give you a ring to let you know he is on his way. He said he should be with you in about an hour-and-a-half if the road was clear. You live on the far side of Manchester, I gather?”

“That’s right.” Claire thought for a moment. “Thank you. It’s good of you to let me know.”

“My pleasure,” Jennifer Bailey said.

She said it as though she meant it. Indeed, she sounded so timid that it was hard to believe that she had probably spent the last couple of hours in flagrante with Karl. Perhaps he’d tired of the bimbos and was now taking an interest in the submissive type. Someone as different from herself, Claire thought grimly after she put down the phone, as he could manage to find.

Would the delay have caused a problem? Something else for her to worry about. Zack had refused to tell her precisely how and when he proposed to do what was necessary. He said it was better that way. Claire knew he could never resist a melodramatic flourish. She blamed it on all the videos he watched. It amused her, though, all the same. She’d gathered that he would be keeping his eye on Jennifer Bailey’s house, with a view to dealing with Karl when he emerged. So he would have had to wait for a while. Surely that wouldn’t have been too much of a challenge. She was having to wait. Was it so much to ask that her lover should also have to bide his time?

The phone rang again. Claire made an effort not to sound too wound-up. “Yes?”

“It’s done.” Zack sounded pleased with himself, relaxed. He liked to come across as cool, as comfortable with violence as a character from a Tarantino movie. “No worries.”

“Wonderful,” she said. The tension went out of her; she felt giddy with the sense of release.

“I know I am,” he said roguishly.

“How…?”

“Hit and run. Stolen Fiesta. No witnesses.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“Bradford’s pretty quiet at night, you know.”

“And he’s definitely…?”

“Believe me,” he said with a snigger. “I reversed back the way I’d come, just to make sure. The job’s a good ’un.”

How could she ever have doubted him? After saying goodbye, she hugged herself with delight. He might only be a boy, but he’d kept his word. He’d promised to free her and that was exactly what he had done. She uttered a silent prayer of thanks that she’d agreed to let him ring her, to prevent the suspense becoming unbearable. He’d said he would nick a mobile from somewhere and call her on it before throwing it away. She’d worried that the call might be traced, but he said the police would never check and, even if they did, so what? She had an alibi and besides, he meant to make sure Karl’s death looked like an accident. She should stop fretting and leave it all to him.

She’d gambled on him and her faith had been repaid. She could hardly believe it. Part of her wanted to crack open a bottle of champagne. Never mind waiting for it to be safe for Zack to come here and share in the celebrations. But it wasn’t safe. There was no telling when the police might turn up at her door with the tidings of Karl’s demise. She made do with a cup of tea. She would need to have all her wits about her, so that no-one would ever suspect there might be more to the death than met the eye.

Poor Karl. She wasn’t so heartless as to deny him a thought. At least it had been a quick end. Besides, he didn’t have too many grounds for complaint. He had died happy. Jennifer Bailey didn’t give the impression of being a ball of fire, but perhaps she’d simply been daunted by the need to speak to her lover’s wife on the phone. She’d certainly kept him occupied for most of the evening.

She smiled indulgently, remembering how Karl had downplayed his trip to see Jennifer. “I really tried every trick in the book,” he’d said. Protesting rather too much, she had thought. “I was desperate to cancel the appointment. I mean, you know what it’s like. A one-legger is hopeless, a complete waste of time.”

Karl was a salesman. It didn’t matter much to him what he sold. Kitchens, carpets, computers. He was good at it. Persuasive. No wonder he had charmed her into marrying him. He could talk for England. Trouble was, he wasn’t so hot when it came to performance. But that never seemed to bother him. Currently he was working for a firm that specialized in bespoke loft conversions. The commission was good, provided you made the sale – and that was the rub. No one with any nous ever wanted to bother with a one-legger. The object of a home sales visit was to get the punters to sign up on the dotted line. But people would do anything to avoid making a commitment to buy. When you were dealing with a married couple, it was vital to have them both there, listening to the pitch. If you had to contend with a one-legger, it was too easy for the decision to be dependent on the okay of the absent spouse. If that happened, then nine times out of ten, the sale would never be made. It was all about human nature, as Karl often said. He fancied himself as an amateur psychologist. In fact, Claire thought, he fancied himself, full stop. That was true of Zack too, of course. But with rather more reason.

“She’s married, then, this Mrs Bailey?” Claire had asked, a picture of innocence.

“Oh yeah. Husband’s away a lot, she says.”

Ibet, Claire thought. “What sort of age is she?”

Karl pursed his lips, considering. “Middle-aged, I’d say. yeah, that’s it. Fat, fair and forty.”

Lying bastard. The woman on the phone had been much younger than that. Oh well. It didn’t matter now. Zack had done the necessary. Now all she had to think about was whether she still looked good in black. It was a young colour, she thought, and you needed the figure to carry it off. But she had a few years left in her yet, that was for sure. And with the benefit of the pay-out on Karl’s life insurance, she meant to make the most of them.

Suppose it didn’t work out with Zack. She dipped into a box of After Eights and told herself she had to be realistic. He was a hunk, and he’d carried out his task more efficiently than she had dared hope, but he wasn’t necessarily the ideal lifetime soulmate. No-one so keen on motorbikes and football could be. Not to worry. She could play the field, look around for someone handsome who could help her to get over her tragic loss.

The doorbell sounded. Suddenly her mouth was dry, her stomach churning. This was the test, the moment when she would need to call up all the skills from her days in amateur theatre. She’d tended to be typecast as a dumb blonde, but now she must be shattered by bereavement. She took a deep breath.

The doorbell rang again, long and loud. She checked the mirror. Eyebrows raised, lips slightly parted. Understandable puzzlement at such a late call. A faint touch of apprehension. Perfect.

She remembered to keep the door on the chain. An important detail. These things mattered. The police must not think that she had been expecting them to turn up. In fact, they had moved quickly. Impressive efficiency. She had not thought they would be here so soon.

The door opened and she saw her husband Karl on the step. He was breathing heavily. Yes, despite Zack’s claim to have killed him, he was definitely still breathing.

Five minutes later, she was telling herself that it was a good thing that Karl was so obviously – and uncharacteristically – flustered. Flustered and, more typically, self-centred, concerned only with himself. He had not noticed how his arrival had shocked her.

“Here you are.” Her hands were trembling as she passed him the tumbler of whisky he had asked for. She poured one for herself. Both of them needed to calm down.

“Thanks, darling.” He swallowed the drink in a gulp. “Christ, I needed that.”

“Uh-huh.” She wasn’t going to panic, whatever the temptation. Faced with a husband who had died and achieved resurrection within the space of half-an-hour, the best course was to say as little as possible. He was obviously panic-stricken. And he needed her help. These days he only called her darling when he wanted something.

“Listen,” he said hoarsely. His tie was at half mast and his hair, normally immaculate, was a tousled mess. “I have – a bit of a problem.”

“What sort of problem?”

“I’m not going to bullshit you,” he said, in precisely the sincere tone he adopted when lying to her about his trysts with clients or young girls at work. “I’m in a spot of bother. If any questions are asked, I need you to say that I spent the evening here.”

“What?” She was baffled. “Who will be asking questions? Why do you need me to lie for you?”

He caught her wrist, and looked into her eyes, treating her to his soulful expression. “Darling, I’m asking you to trust me.”

“But why? I mean, none of this makes sense.”

“It – it’s not something I can talk about right now. Okay?”

No, she wanted to say, it’s bloody well not okay. But she chose her words with care and spoke more gently than she might have done. “It’s just that, if I don’t have a clue what has happened, I might just put my foot in it unintentionally. If it’s trust we’re talking about, don’t you think you should trust me enough to tell me what’s going on?”

He buried his head in his hands. Claire had never seen him in such a state. If she didn’t despise him so much, if she didn’t loathe him for not being dead when he was supposed to be, she might almost have felt sorry for him.

“I can’t!” It was almost a wail.

“You must,” she said, a touch of steel entering her voice.

“But…”

She folded her arms. “It’s up to you.”

He looked up at her. Distressed he might be, but Claire recognized the familiar glint of calculation in his eyes. After a few moments he came to a decision.

“I don’t want to say much about it,” he said. “But I suppose I do owe you some sort of explanation.”

“Yes, you do.”

He blinked hard. “It’s like this. I had a row with this girl – you know, it’s Lynette, who used to work in our office. We were going to go for a drink at this pub in Stockport. Oh, I know it sounds bad, especially after I swore that our little – flirtation – was a thing of the past. But I can explain. Our meeting up was innocent enough, but something happened. There was – an accident. She hit her head. When I tried to bring her round, I realized she was dead.”

Claire stared at him, unable to comprehend what he was saying. “You killed Lynette?”

“Oh, don’t say it like that. We were in this alleyway near the pub and we started arguing. I gave her a push – a tap, really. She fell over and smashed her head on a jagged stone, simple as that. It was all so sudden. She must have had a thin skull or something. Oh God, I didn’t mean this to happen.”

“In Stockport, you said? When was this?”

He shrugged, as if irritated by the irrelevance of the question. “Does it matter? Twenty minutes ago, I guess. If that. I broke every speed limit in the book on my way back over here.”

“But – your meeting with Jennifer Bailey…”

He waved his hand dismissively. “Forget about it. The police mustn’t hear about it. I was here at home with you. Watching the box all evening. Okay?”

“I don’t understand,” she said and it was no more than the truth.

“Oh God,” he said again. Tears were trickling down his cheeks. “It just happened. I can’t explain any better than that. Not right now.”

But he hadn’t given any sort of an explanation, so far as Claire was concerned. It wasn’t so much the mystery of why he had killed that silly little girl Lynette. Last year’s fling had evidently started up again, even though he’d promised he would never see her again after she left the company. No, what Claire could not get her head around was the sheer impossibility of it. How had her husband managed to murder someone in nearby Stockport, when according to Jennifer Bailey he was at one and the same time in Bradford on the other side of the Pennines, and Zack was convinced he’d been run over by a stolen Fiesta?

She wasn’t able to contact Zack until the middle of the next morning. Karl didn’t work nine-to-five hours and he didn’t have any calls to make first thing. But after a night of tossing and turning, he decided to visit the office and file his weekly report. He had managed to regain a semblance of composure and he thought it would be a good idea to be seen to act normally.

On his way out, he kissed her for perhaps the first time in a month. “I just wanted to say – thanks. You’ve been fantastic. I won’t forget that.”

Claire gave him a weak smile. It seemed the safest response.

“And you’ll remember, won’t you? If the police come, we were together all night. You never let me out of your sight for more than a couple of minutes.”

“But how do you expect to get away with it?” she asked. “You were with Lynette. Won’t someone have seen you?”

He shook his head. “We never made it to the pub. The streets were dead quiet. We both arrived in separate cars. There’s nothing to link me with that place. No-one saw us, I’m sure of it.”

“I still don’t follow,” she said. Already she regretted agreeing to help him out. He’d caught her at a bad time the previous night, when she was so shocked by his reappearance that he could have talked her into anything. “I mean, what about Jennifer Bailey? Why not get her to do your dirty work for you?”

His expression was one of genuine horror. “She was a customer. I told you. How could I ask her to give me an alibi? You don’t think we were having an affair, do you?”

“Well, I…”

“You did! Oh, Claire.” He took her hand in his. A romantic gesture; no doubt he employed it with all his conquests. “Listen to me. I realize things haven’t been great between us for a while. But we can try again, can’t we? I’ve come to my senses, honestly. You’re a wife in a million, I see that now. Will you give me another chance?”

She withdrew her hand. “You’re saying you haven’t got a thing going with Jennifer Bailey?”

“I told you. She’s a middle-aged frump. Last night, I was on my way over to Bradford and I suddenly decided it was a complete waste of time. You know what one-leggers are like. I don’t know what got into my head, but I decided to give Lynette a ring. See how she was getting on, for old times’ sake, that’s all. There was nothing in it. Zilch. She suggested meeting for a quick drink. But when we met, she made it clear she wanted us to get together again. I told her there was nothing doing, that I wanted to make a go of things with you. She became angry, hysterical. I didn’t know how to deal with it. She lunged at me and – and that’s when I pushed her.”

His voice was breaking. He had missed his true vocation, she thought. He was better at acting than she was; he might have made a fortune on the stage. Because he wasn’t telling her the truth, of that she was sure. His story didn’t begin to explain why his client, the frump, the one-legger, had called her to say that he was on his way home when he was out pubbing with his floosie. She thought about confronting him, telling him about the message from Jennifer Bailey, but decided against it. He obviously knew nothing about the call. She would keep that morsel of information to herself until she had more of a clue as to what he had really been up to.

As she made herself a snack lunch, Claire asked herself if it was possible that the whole story about killing Lynette was some sort of elaborate charade. She wouldn’t put it past him. Like most serial adulterers, Karl possessed a vivid imagination and a gift for telling fairy stories that the Brothers Grimm might have envied. Suppose he planned to resume his affair with the girl. The prospect of divorce held no appeal for him, she was well aware of that. Too expensive. Perhaps he had decided to concoct this extraordinary story of killing the girl by accident so that Claire would think she had him in her power and relax. If she thought Lynette was dead, she wouldn’t suspect him of continuing to sleep with her, would she?

No. It was too bizarre. Ridiculous, even by Karl’s standards of excessively ingenious subterfuge. There had to be some other explanation. She would need to undertake a bit of detective work. But first, she must find out what had gone wrong at Zack’s end. She had tried to phone him as soon as Karl had stepped out of the door, but there was no answer on his mobile. She pressed redial, but as the number began to ring, she heard footsteps coming up the path to the front door. Hurrying into the dining room, she saw through the window that a lean young man was standing on the step, pressing the bell. Quickly, she cancelled her call. Zack would have to wait a few minutes.

Her immediate impression when she answered the door was that the young man was almost as gorgeous as Zack. He didn’t have the same dark and dangerous eyes, or the muscular shoulders and chest. But he was smart to the point of elegance and his neatly scrubbed face was boyish and appealing. Very nice. Wholesome, you might say. It made a change.

“Mrs Doherty?”

She stared at him with only the slightest nod.

“My name’s Godstow. Sergeant Paul Godstow. I’m with the police.” He showed her his i.d. “May I come in?”

“Certainly, sergeant.” When in doubt, ooze charm. She treated him to a brilliant smile which she hoped would disguise her nervousness. What now? “Can I offer you a drink?”

“Thanks, but no.” He followed her into the living room. “You see, Mrs Doherty, it’s like this. I just need to ask you one or two questions about last night.”

He was checking up on Karl. They had already got wind of her husband’s past relationship with Lynette. She swallowed and launched into the tale that she had agreed with her husband. He’d been with her since coming home from a call at half past five. They had eaten together, watched a little television, discussed the need to redecorate the hall and first floor landing. She’d ironed a couple of shirts, he’d done a bit of tidying in the loft. They had retired to bed at about eleven o’clock to sleep, she strongly implied, the sleep of the just.

The policeman frowned. “So you were together all the time?”

“That’s right, sergeant.” She smiled again. He was dishy, there was no denying it. “Not a very interesting evening, but that’s married life for you. The excitement doesn’t last.”

He looked straight at her. “Depends on who you’re married to, I suppose.”

“That’s true,” she murmured. “Will – will that be all?”

“For the moment, Mrs Doherty. It’s just possible I may need to come back to ask you one or two more questions.”

“Any time, any time at all,” she breathed and was secretly entertained when his face turned beetroot red. “Actually, I was preparing lunch when you arrived. Nothing special, just a salad. I don’t suppose you’d care to join me?”

“Thanks, but no,” he said. “There’s a lot to do in connection with the enquiry.”

“Oh, well, another time perhaps.”

He handed her a card. “This is my number. If anything springs to mind, I’d be glad to hear from you.”

“Sorry I haven’t been able to help. Perhaps I ought to return the compliment anyway.” She found a slip of paper and wrote the number of the house and her own mobile in her flamboyant script. “Don’t hesitate to call me.”

He considered her carefully. “Thanks, Mrs Doherty.”

“Please call me Claire.”

“Thanks, Claire. I’m sure we’ll talk again.”

“Zack? God, I’ve been trying to get hold of you all day. What went wrong?”

“Nothing,” he replied. His voice sounded dreamy, as though he were living out a fantasy. “I went out for a ride on my Harley, that’s all. And I felt free as a bird. It’s amazing, you know, darling? You can snuff out a life just like that” – she heard him click his fingers – “and guess what? You carry on, same as before. You haven’t changed. You’re still you. You’ve murdered someone, but it’s not the end of the world. Not for you, at any rate.”

“Not for your victim, either,” she said grimly.

“What do you mean?”

“Karl’s still alive.”

She could hear his intake of breath. “This your idea of a joke? Don’t tell me you can’t cope with what we’ve done. You told me you were sick of him. I did it for you.”

“You didn’t do it at all,” she said curtly. Rapidly, she told him what had happened. The awestruck silence at the other end was eloquent. “Are you still there?” she demanded.

“I don’t get it. There must be some mistake.”

“Yes, and it looks like you made it.”

“But it all went according to plan.”

“Something went wrong with the plan, then.”

“No, no, you don’t understand.”

“That’s true, Zack. I don’t bloody understand a thing. I suppose it’s too much to hope that you can cast any light on this whole God-awful mess?”

“No, I…”

He was stammering, sounding like an overgrown schoolkid. He was so much less mature than the sergeant, she thought. Now there was a young man who was going places. Quiet, assured, effective. Everything that Zack was not.

“So tell me what really happened. Did you by any chance run over a bit of sacking that you mistook for my husband? An easy mistake to make in the dark, I suppose. A shop window dummy that seemed to have a bit of life? Or at least more of a brain than you?”

“No, honest. I did the business. He came out of the house, just like you said he would. I mean, I didn’t see his face under the streetlight, so it wasn’t easy to compare him to that photo you gave me. But he was a big bloke, muscular, walked with a bit of a swagger. It had to be your old man.”

Claire groaned. Zack coughed and kept on talking. She thought he was trying to convince himself, rather than her, that he hadn’t made the ultimate in fatal errors. “He’d been in there since before I turned up. I couldn’t see where he’d parked. I thought it was probably out of sight so the people next door wouldn’t twig that something was going on. I was following him down the road and then the pavement came to an end. I’d staked the spot out in the afternoon. Double-checked the address you gave me, the photograph of your old feller. Everything was planned down to the last detail.”

“Go on,” she said bleakly.

“He was forced to cross over. No choice. And that’s when I did it. Put my foot down and went for him. Tossed him up in the air like a pancake and then, when he hit the deck, reversed back over him just to make sure. I’m telling you, no-one could have survived that. I even saw the blood making a pool on the roadside before I drove away. Believe me, he was dead all right. The car was in a right state when I dumped it.”

“You’re sure about this?”

“I swear to you. On my mother’s life.”

“There’s only one more question, then.”

“What’s that?” He sounded bewildered. He’d been expecting her undying gratitude and now it had all gone wrong. “Hurry up, there’s someone at the door. They’re leaning on the buzzer. What’s your question?”

“Who exactly was it that you did kill?”

That was it, Claire said to herself as she pulled down the ladder that led up to the loft. Zack was finished, as far as she was concerned. She should have remembered her late father’s favourite saying. If you want a job done properly, do it yourself. How could she ever have believed that he would do what she wanted without a slip-up? She blamed herself, even though it wasn’t her habit. All her life, it seemed, she’d been seduced by men talking big. They always acted small. That nice sergeant would be different, she thought. He hadn’t worn a wedding ring: she noticed these things. If only…

She reached up to switch on the loft light. It was a large loft, running the length of the house, but so dusty that it made her want to sneeze. Telling the sergeant that Karl had been up here tidying the previous night was probably the biggest lie of all. Her husband thought that life was too short for tidying and he never bothered with their attic. Taking a job with Slickloft had not made the slightest difference. His argument was that if he’d wanted a fourth bedroom he’d have bought a bigger house on day one. Besides, he said that nine out of ten loft conversions were only any use for midgets who liked walking down the middle of a room, and he was six feet three. The loft was, therefore, an admirable hiding place so far as Claire was concerned and she often made good use of it. Amongst the bits and pieces she kept here was the note she had made of Jennifer Bailey’s name, address and telephone number: information she had needed for Zack’s briefing and which she’d managed to copy surreptitiously from Karl’s personal organizer.

In fact, there were two numbers. Home and work, presumably? The codes were different. She recognized one immediately; it was the code for Bradford, she had a cousin who lived there. Next to the other were the initials “AA” and a couple of exclamation marks. Karl had a tedious sense of humour and she could not imagine what had been in his mind. Alcoholics Anonymous? Automobile Association? Agony Aunt? Nothing seemed to make sense at the moment. However, she had more important things to worry about.

She hurried downstairs and dialled the Bradford number, having taken care to withhold her own. “Yes?” The woman sounded subdued, very different from the night before.

“Mrs Bailey? You may not remember, but you rang me last…”

“This isn’t Mrs Bailey,” the woman interrupted. Of course not: she was elderly by the sound of her, probably a pensioner. “My name’s Dora Prince, I’m her next door neighbour. I’m sorry, but she’s not able to come to the phone right now. I’m afraid she’s still in shock. You know what’s happened, do you?”

Iwish, Claire thought. “No…”

“It’s a terrible tragedy,” the woman said, lowering her voice. “Her husband went out last night to pick up some fish and chips and he was run over as he was crossing the road. The driver didn’t stop. The policewoman’s here now. She hasn’t even got round to asking me anything. She’s too busy comforting Jennifer, of course. You can imagine.”

Yes, Claire could imagine. “Oh dear,” she said.

“Awful, isn’t it? Such a lovely chap. And a dab hand at do-it-yourself, too. He’ll never finish that pergola now, poor fellow. Shall I tell Jennifer you rang?”

“Oh, it’s all right. Don’t bother. We – we hardly know each other. I don’t want to intrude.”

As she put the phone down, Claire’s heart was pounding. She had solved one mystery, only to be confronted with others. What on earth had possessed Jennifer Bailey to telephone her the previous night? Come to think of it, why had she lied about having seen Karl? And why had Karl said she was a one-legger when her husband – her late husband, thanks to bloody Zack, a real case of collateral damage, poor sod – had apparently been at home with her throughout the evening?

She sighed and looked for Jennifer Bailey’s second number, the one which Karl had marked with the initials “AA”. The code seemed familiar. Wasn’t it Crewe? Curiouser and curiouser. Why would a woman who lived in Bradford have a work number in south Cheshire? Well, it was possible, but it seemed strange. She was seized by the urge to find out what “AA” stood for. She rang the number.

“Hello?” The woman who answered sounded familiar.

“Who is that?”

“Who’s calling?” Definitely evasive.

The penny dropped. This was the woman who had rung the previous evening. Jennifer Bailey. Or rather, someone purporting to be Jennifer Bailey.

“Is that AA?” Claire asked in a hopeful tone.

“Yes.” The woman sounded less guarded. “How may I help you?”

“Well, I just wondered…”

“You’re interested in our services?” The woman seemed to recognize Claire’s hesitancy, and to regard it as natural enough.

Claire pondered. Was she calling some kind of brothel? She wouldn’t put much past Karl. “Could you give me some details?”

“Of course.” The woman became business-like. “It’s very simple. The Alibi Agency’s name speaks for itself. We provide excuses for people who need them. Most of our business comes by way of word-of-mouth recommendation, but you may have seen that feature article about us in The Sun. You want to be in one place when you’re supposed to be in another? We can help. Our rates are very reasonable and…”

“That’s all right, thanks,” Claire said faintly. “I’ve changed my mind.”

Well, well, well. She made herself a coffee after her evening meal and congratulated herself once again on solving the conundrum. Perhaps she had missed her way in life. She should have been a private detective. It was all so simple. Karl had never intended to visit Jennifer Bailey. She was a blind; he’d mentioned all that stuff about the one-legger simply to throw Claire off the track, lend a touch of verisimilitude to his tall story. He’d arranged to see Lynette and hired the Alibi Agency to impersonate his customer, so that Claire was none the wiser. He knew that their marriage, already on the rocks, could not survive if Claire found out that Lynette was still around. But he’d fallen out with Lynette – perhaps she had wanted him to get a divorce and move in with her and he’d fought shy of making the commitment. Something like that would be typical. Whatever. He’d lost his temper and she’d lost her balance and hit her head on something hard. End of Lynette. Claire smirked to herself. She’d always loathed Lynette.

It occurred to her that she might yet be able to kill two birds with one stone. Suppose she told the police that Karl had threatened her with violence so that she would back up his story? She might say that her conscience would not allow her to live a lie, that she’d decided Karl must pay for his crime. True, she was going to miss out on the life insurance, but she would at least be rid of her husband. And it would serve him right.

She rang the number that the nice sergeant had left with her and was quickly put through.

“This is Claire again. You remember our conversation?” she asked. Just the faintest seductive hint at this stage. Then see how he responded.

“I certainly do,” he said. Was it her imagination or was there a faint leer in his voice? She hoped so.

“I won’t beat about the bush. I lied to you about my husband. He was out last night, but he threatened what he would do to me if I didn’t back him up.”

“Ah.”

“I hope you won’t think too badly of me,” she said in her meekest voice. “I felt as though I was under duress.”

She told him the story, making no mention of the Alibi Agency. She didn’t want to draw attention to the existence of the recently bereaved Mrs Bailey. The policeman listened intently, murmuring his agreement every now and then when she insisted that life with Karl was hellish and that her only wish now was to do the right thing. He was sympathetic, a very good listener.

“I thought,” she said tentatively, “that you might like to come back here and take a statement from me. A detailed statement.”

“Yes, I’d love to do that.”

“You would?”

“Oh yes,” he said softly. “And perhaps when we’ve finished talking about your husband…”

“Yes?” she breathed.

“… I can introduce you to a couple of colleagues of mine from Bradford CID. They’ve just finished interviewing a young man called Zack Kennedy.”

She swallowed. “Oh yes?”

“It’s in connection with a death in their patch. A Mr Eric Bailey was killed in a hit and run incident last night. The vehicle was a Fiesta that was later dumped. What’s interesting is that they found a photograph in the car. It had slipped between the driver’s and passenger’s seats. A picture of a man standing proudly next to a Slickloft van, apparently parked outside his own house. Right next to the street name, the name of the street where you live, actually. On the back of the photograph was your husband’s name and a brief description. The handwriting is distinctive. As soon as it was shown to me, I recognized it from the note you gave me of your phone number.” He paused. “All rather puzzling. Mind you, once it turned out that Mr Kennedy’s fingerprints were on the photograph, things started to become clearer. He has a criminal record. Nothing big league, just a few burglaries and car thefts. Possibly you didn’t know that?”

Claire made a noise that was half-way between a sigh and a sob.

“No? Ah, well. By the way, the Baileys’ neighbour, Mrs Prince, saw the Fiesta yesterday afternoon. The driver was behaving suspiciously, and she gave a description which bears an uncanny resemblance to Mr Kennedy. He’s been arrested. The charge will be murder, I guess, but his lack of competence is equally criminal, wouldn’t you say? We can chat about it later. I’ll be with you in a quarter of an hour.”

Slowly, as if in a trance, Claire put the receiver back on the cradle. She couldn’t help glancing at the clock. She’d always been impatient, always hated having to hang around. The next fifteen minutes would, she knew, be the longest of her life as she sat helplessly on the sofa and waited for Godstow.