Gary had wanted to deal with good, clean solvable murders, but
there had been so many unanswered questions in the Finch cases that he wondered
how he was ever going to pack it all into the official report.
Cleo Hartley was partly to blame, he thought ignobly. In the
old days he found the culprit or the person reckoned to have committed the
crime, and left the rest to the public prosecutor, who could decide whether to
bring the case to trial and on what level. But the Hartley Agency had opened
his eyes to the importance of motives. Dorothy Price was heavily involved in
the mission to find out why someone committed a murder and Cleo refused to go
by the age-old adage that if someone looked like a felon, he probably was.
There were then too many exceptions to the rule that someone
killed someone else out of hatred, greed , envy, or another of the reasons for
committing murder that the movie producer Alfred Hitchcock had defined through
his movies.
In Gary’s view, the radius of possible suspects could be
kept small by avoiding intellectual reasoning, Cases then became easier to
solve, but unfortunate miscarriages of justice were not uncommon.
A suspect had to be proven guilty if possible, but once
safely behind bars, a prisoner also had to find a way of proving his innocence,
though that angle was seldom spoken about publicly. It also left a gap for the
guilty to be proven innocent if there were crafty lawyers and enough cash
available, the one often going hand in hand with the other.
***
“We have to get twins standing side by side and then
interrogate them together,” said Cleo, referring this time to the Norton
brothers.
“But they will have agreed on what to say,” said Gary.
“Sure, but by the time you hauled them in again, they’d have
done that anyway. We don’t even know if Julie and her friends saw one woman or
two in London,” said Cleo, referring to the accounts of the woman who had been
seen with Jason at the house in London.
“But the clothes…”
“Clothes can be swapped,” said Cleo.
“I give up,” said Gary. “You’ll have to manage this part of
the case but let’s have a pizza first.
This is supposed to be a business lunch after all.”
“I will, if you will get someone to go back to Jason’s
London apartment and bring whoever is hiding out there to your office. Let’s
get that pizza!”
“How do you know that someone is in that flat?”
“There was light in one of the windows. Julie reported on
that days ago.”
“What is she doing in London, Cleo? I thought she lived here
with Colin.”
“She commutes, Gary, and is still having the flat watched –
on my instructions! If the second twin is not there, we can forget all about it
because that would mean she has absconded or maybe doesn’t even exist, or worst
of all, is lying murdered in that flat,” said Cleo. “You wouldn’t want to pass
on that, would you?”
“Jessica, or rather Rebecca said she does not know the fate
of her sister,” said Gary.
“And you believed her.”
“At the time, I did,” said Gary.
“Where’s the harm in takin a look, Gary?”
“OK. It’s a long shot. I don’t want you saying I didn’t use
the powers at my disposal. I’ve no idea what you hope to gain from the strategy.”
“Let’s wait and see.”
“What do you hope will happen, Cleo?”
“That depends on whether we have two Jessicas, or one
Jessica and a Rebecca; or one Rebecca posing as Jessica. All I want to do is
find out if the story Rebecca alias Jessica told us is true, and whether she is
the person, or who is the person who met Betjeman and persuaded or encouraged him to kill Jason.”
“I can’t see that it matters.”
“It matters if we can get evidence that Jason threatened
both sisters and was possibly violent or even killed one of them”
“OK. Can we take a siesta now? I’m burnt out.”
“No pizza?”
“Later, Cleo.”
“I thought we came up here to talk things through.”
“We’ve done that, haven’t we?”
They were in Romano’s guestroom. Romano had given Gary the
key immediately. It would be unfriendly to refuse, Gary had argued. He also
needed to stretch out for a moment. He’d had a hard week.
Cleo kicked off her shoes and stripped off.
“You don’t need much persuading, do you Cleo?”
“I don’t need any persuading, Gary. Are you going to take your clothes off or
shall I put mine back on? It’s quite chilly in here.”
“I’m glad we can forget work and get to know one another
better,” said Gary, “and I think Robert knows about us.”
“So what?”
“I think that as long as he can marry you he’ll leave the
rest to me.”
“It sounds like you made a bargain with him.”
“Not yet, but it’s a good idea.”
***
On Gary’s instructions, a team from the Metropolitan Police
went to Jason’s flat a couple of days later and opened up. What they found
there shocked them to the core. They
took photos of a female corpse to send to Gary for identification and called in
forensics. The photos were duly sent by email accompanied by a short report.
“The photos showed the body of a woman sprawled on a bed.
She was lying on her back. Her eyes were open wide and she had an expression of
horror on her face. She had been stabbed. A pair of household scissors lay on
the floor next to the bed. It was covered in blood presumably from the gash in
the corpse’s chest that had bled copiously. The attack looked brutal, but the
police thought it was probably not premeditated. She had been dead for some
days, possibly longer than a week. Decay had set in to add to the horror of
finding the corpse.
Cleo was working in her office.
“It’s either Jessica or Rebecca,” Gary told Cleo over the
phone.
“You’ll have to ask the other one,” said Cleo.
“Can you do that, Cleo?”
“Sure. Today?”
“If you have time.”
“I’ll be right there.”
“Get a cab this time.”
“I will. Robert has no time anyway.”
“I’m going to get you a car, Cleo. You need to be mobile.”
“Thanks, but what about you praising me for persuading you
to go to Jason’s flat?”
“Words fail me. Cleo.”
“I thought they might.”
***
Rebecca, or was it Jessica, was brought to Gary’s office
from the cells.
“We have found a corpse in Jason’s flat,” Cleo told the
young woman. “Do you know what happened?”
“She was stabbed in a struggle.”
“Whoever you are, who is the dead woman in Jason’s flat?”
“Rebecca.”
“And why did you stab her?”
“I didn’t stab her. It was an accident.”
“Are you sure?”
“Not really.”
“What kind of answer is that?”
“A truthful one.”
“Who did I meet in Laura’s Bungalow?
“Rebecca.”
“Wait a minute. I have to get this straight. You are Rebecca.
Impersonating Jessica, aren’t you?”
“No. I am Jessica.“
“So Rebecca had been to see Laura and left before you got
there.”
“That’s what Jason told me later.”
“But you had not arranged to see Jason, had you?
“No.”
“Was it you in Laura’s bungalow when Dorothy and I went
there and found someone very like you there?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you go after that?”
“To Jason’s London flat.”
“Why?”
“To find out if he had killed Laura. He met me outside the
house and did not want me to go in. But I did, and Rebecca was there.”
“And then?”
I was happy at first and then shocked. We were complete
strangers though we looked so alike. Rebecca was aggressive. We got into a
discussion about Laura’s past and Rebecca grabbed a pair of scissors and
threatened me. Jason came between us and tried to prise the scissors off her. Rebecca
struggled and the scissors went into her chest.”
“Do you think Jason wanted to kill your twin?
“I said it was an accident and they are both dead now. What
does it matter?”
“We need the truth,” said Gary.
“I can’t tell you what I don’t know. Jason was trying to
separate Rebecca and me when it happened.”
“Do you know how Rebecca came to know Jason?” Cleo
continued.
“He didn’t tell me. All he told me after she was dead was
that they were married.”
“That would be incest, Jessica,” said Gary.
“Why didn’t you tell us straightaway, Jessica?” Cleo asked.
“Because Jason said I could go the way Laura had gone. I was
terrified.”
“Did he kill Laura, Jessica?”
“He said he had seen Betjeman do it.”
“Did Betjeman see him?”
“No.”
“Did you believe Jason?”
“Not really though Laura Finch had treated him very badly
and he had a good motive.”
“But you also had a good motive for killing Jason, after he
had kept his marriage to your twin a secret and threatened you.”
“Miss Hartley, I had to get Jason before he got me.”
“So you did persuade Betjeman to do the killing.”
“Betjeman sees murder as a kind of sport. I promised to
sleep with him often if he got rid of Jason for me. I told Betjeman about
Jason’s threats.”
Cleo wondered if Betjeman had even understood Jessica. He
had her blessing to kill Jason and could get a thrill from doing it. Cleo gestured
that she was not going to ask any more questions for the moment.
“Talk about Grimm’s fairy tales,” said Gary. “How am I
supposed to compile a report on that kind of questioning?”
“Ask Jessica to sign a statement and use that. I’ll get it
written.”
“Would you do that for me?” said Gary.
“I’d do almost anything for you, Gary.”
“Point taken.”
***
After Jessica had been returned to the cells, Cleo and Gary
sat wordless for some time. Finally Cleo could not resist asking Gary if he
thought Jessica had been telling the truth.
“Some of the time, I expect, but does it matter now?”
“The truth always matters,” said Cleo.
“If you can get at it, it does,” said Gary. “But it also has
to be logical and make sense. I’m having a hard time sorting out the lies from
the truth. We have a collection of characters who could all be guilty of one
murder or even two. We also have a suicide confession that turns out to be
misguided. I wonder what Dorothy would make of it all?”
“Ask her!”
“She’ll tell me to lock them all up.”
“You’ll probably have to, Gary.”
...
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