lip before continuing. ‘But then, I was not a faithful wife.’ She had clasped her hands now and Lorimer watched as she wrung them together, in an unconscious gesture of despair.
‘Frank Hardy?’ Lorimer asked quietly.
Catherine Pattison opened her mouth in an O of astonishment. ‘You knew?’ she said, frowning as though she had suddenly been tricked.
‘No,’ Lorimer replied. ‘But I did make an educated guess.’
‘Oh,’ the woman replied, suddenly at a loss for words.
‘And were you with Hardy on the night of your husband’s death?’
She had dropped her gaze now and was sitting, head bowed so that her nod was barely imperceptible.
‘So why did you tell me that he might be a candidate for killing your husband? I don’t quite understand,’ Lorimer continued.
‘We thought … ’ Catherine tailed off, sniffing into a handkerchief that she had found behind a cushion.
‘Mrs Pattison thought that if you knew about her affair with Mr Hardy then that might constitute a motive for murder,’ Belinda Joseph told him.
‘And it might still,’ Lorimer replied.
‘You see, giving you Frank’s name was Catherine’s way of distancing herself from him,’ the solicitor continued, but Lorimer hardly acknowledged her breathless interruption. He’d already come to that conclusion anyway and didn’t need anyone else to spell it out for him. Instead he hunkered down in front of Catherine Pattison, forcing her to look him in the eye.
‘What we need to know, Mrs Pattison, is where exactly you were with Hardy on the night Edward was killed and if you can provide alibis that place you both firmly elsewhere than Erskine woods.’
‘I … ’ The woman seemed caught in his gaze but she nodded her understanding. ‘We were together all night. Frank has a flat here in the city.’ She bit her lip once again. ‘I don’t think anyone knew we were there that night, though. You see, we try to be as discreet about going there as we can,’ she added, her face reddening.
‘Still, someone may have seen you?’ he offered.
‘I don’t know,’ she said sadly. ‘I always wear a scarf over my hair, pull my collar up, that sort of thing, you know?’
Lorimer gave her a nod. It didn’t take much imagination to see how they had conducted their clandestine affair here in this city with its watchful eyes everywhere.
‘One wrong move and the Press would have had a field day,’ Catherine muttered.
Sarah Cadell switched out the light but left Kim’s bedroom door half-open. The child was having night terrors as it was. Waking up to find her mother gone was not going to be easy. The old woman gave a sigh as she stood in the corridor, one hand against the wall as though for support. Would she be charged? That tall policeman had hinted that wasting police time was a serious offence. It had taken quite a long time for Catherine to untangle the web of deceit she had spun for herself. And, even now, Sarah Cadell was not completely sure if what she had heard earlier this evening had been the entire truth. Glancing at her daughter’s profile, Sarah had felt a frisson of fear. Was that lovely face hiding some darker, deeper secret? She’d been with the man, Hardy, Catherine had told them eventually. That much she had guessed already. Yet hearing her daughter’s words come tumbling out, Sarah Cadell had been amazed but not shocked. Little about human nature could shock her these days. And infidelity was so utterly commonplace nowadays, wasn’t it? she thought, a spasm of contempt crossing her fine features. Besides, she had known pretty much what Catherine had been up to, hadn’t she? Edward may have been a fool, but Sarah Cadell knew the sort of woman Catherine was much better than the man who had taken her daughter for better or for worse.
CHAPTER 28
‘Are you coming up to Blythswood Square?’
Barbara Knox spun round to see two of the detectives standing behind her desk.
‘Everyone’s going up. It’s the rally.’
‘What rally?’ Barbara asked, puzzled, then frowned as one of them gave her a pitying look.
‘Only the start of the Monte Carlo rally, love,’ he said. ‘History in the making. Thought you were a car buff? Or is it just Mercs that turn you on?’ he laughed.
‘Oh, is it today? I’d totally forgotten,’ she said, grabbing her jacket and following the two men as they left the room.
The day was darkening as they walked briskly up away from HQ and Barbara could hear the crowds before she saw them. Already the pavements