number 116 to collect the package of my mother’s money.
She cried a lot.
We were still in her guest bedroom. I had thrown her the housecoat when I’d gone into the bathroom to put on my shirt and trousers and, when I’d re-emerged, she had been sitting up in bed wearing the coat with the duvet pulled right up. Somehow she didn’t look like someone up to their neck in a criminal conspiracy. She had even straightened her hair.
‘It was only a game,’ she said.
‘Murder is never a game,’ I said, standing at the end of the bed.
‘Murder?’ She went very pale. ‘What murder?’
My murder, I thought. Hanging on a wall in Greystone Stables.
‘Who was murdered?’ she demanded.
‘Someone called Roderick Ward,’ I said, even though I had no evidence that it was true.
‘No,’ she wailed. ‘Roderick wasn’t murdered; he died in a car crash.’
So she knew of Roderick Ward.
‘That’s what it was meant to look like,’ I said. ‘Who killed him?’
‘I didn’t kill anybody,’ she shouted.
‘Someone did,’ I said. ‘Was it Ewen?’
‘Ewen?’ She almost laughed. ‘The only thing Ewen is interested in is bloody horses. That and whisky. Horses all day and whisky all night.’
Perhaps that explained her sexually flirtatious nature – she couldn’t get any satisfaction in the marital bed, so she had looked elsewhere.
‘So who killed Roderick Ward?’ I asked her again.
‘No one,’ she said. ‘I told you. He died in a car crash.’
‘Who says so?’ I asked. She didn’t respond. I looked down at her. ‘Do you know what the sentence is for being an accessory to murder?’ There was still no response. ‘Life in prison,’ I said. ‘That’s a very long time for someone as young as you.’
‘I told you, I didn’t murder anyone.’ She was crying again.
‘But do you think a jury will believe you once they’ve convicted you for blackmail?’ She went on crying, the tears smudging her mascara and dripping black marks onto the white bed linen. ‘So tell me, who did kill Roderick Ward?’ I asked.
She didn’t say anything; she just buried her face in a pillow and sobbed.
‘You will tell me,’ I said. ‘Eventually. Are you aware that the maximum sentence for blackmail is fourteen years?’
That brought her head back up. ‘No.’ It was almost a plea.
‘Oh, yes,’ I said. ‘And the same for conspiracy to blackmail.’
I knew. I’d looked it up on the internet.
‘Where’s the money?’ I asked, changing direction.
‘What money?’ she said.
‘The money you collected yesterday from Newbury.’
‘In my handbag,’ she whimpered.
‘And how about the rest of it?’
‘The rest?’ she said.
‘Yes, all the packages you’ve been collecting each week for the past seven months. Where’s all that money?’
‘I don’t have it,’ she said.
‘So who has?’
She still didn’t want to tell me.
‘Julie,’ I said, ‘you are leaving me no alternative but to give the picture of you in Newbury yesterday to the police.’
‘No,’ she wailed again.
‘But I can help you if you will help me,’ I said softly. ‘Otherwise I will also have to send the other photos to Ewen.’ Both of us knew what the other photos showed. Set a thief to catch a thief, or, as in this case, set a blackmailer to catch a blackmailer.
‘No, please.’ She was begging.
‘Then tell me who has the money.’
‘Can’t I pay you back in a different way?’ she asked, pulling down the duvet and opening her housecoat to reveal her left breast.
‘No,’ I said emphatically, ‘you cannot.’
She covered herself up again.
‘Julie,’ I said in my voice-of-command, ‘this is your last chance. Either you tell me now who’s got the money or I will call the police.’ She wasn’t to know that I had absolutely no intention of doing that.
‘I can’t tell you,’ she said forlornly.
‘What are you frightened of?’ I asked.
‘Nothing.’
‘But you claimed it was only a game,’ I said. ‘Was it him who told you that?’ I paused. She gave no answer. ‘Did he just ask you to collect something for him from a mailbox each week?’ I paused again. Again there was no answer, but she began to cry once more. ‘Did he tell you that you wouldn’t get caught?’ She nodded slightly. ‘Only now you have been.’ She nodded again, tears flowing freely down her cheeks. ‘And you’re not going to tell me who it was. That’s not very clever, you know. You’ll end up taking all the blame.’
‘I don’t want to go to prison,’ she sobbed, echoing my mother.
‘You don’t have to,’ I said. ‘If you tell me who you give the money to, I am sure the