Faithful unto Death Read online

  “I thought at first that I’d simply been betrayed. That he and Simone had taken the money and gone off together. But then, in the sitting room next to my camera, I found the photographs. He’d obviously taken more than one at each stage and calmly chosen the most . . . the most . . .” Here Sarah broke down in a torrent of despair which completely overwhelmed her. She folded her arms on the edge of the desk and hid her face. There was little any of them could do but wait until the storm passed.

  When she finally became calmer, Barnaby asked if she felt ready to continue. And Sarah replied, with great weariness, “Why not?”

  “How long did you stay at the flat after this?”

  “I suppose until the evening.”

  “And you kept going back, even though you knew he had gone for good?”

  “Hope springs eternal.” Everything about her belied the words.

  “And then?”

  “I heard that Alan had killed himself—at least that’s what people were saying. I was devastated. I knew he’d paid the ransom so I thought it must mean he’d been told Simone was never coming back. Then, when you told me it was an unnatural death I—God, I couldn’t believe it. There seemed no sense in it. And then I realised that was probably why Tim had had to run away.”

  “You mean because he was responsible?”

  “Well, there must be some sort of connection. The coincidence is too great.”

  “I’d agree with you there,” said Barnaby. “But what reason do you think he’d have for killing Hollingsworth?”

  “All I could think of was that something had gone wrong when Alan handed over the money. That he’d tried to follow—Tim. Or recognised him.”

  “Recognised him?” This time it was Sergeant Troy quick off the mark.

  “I mean, would have recognised him if he’d seen him again. In a . . . what do you call them? A police line-up?”

  “I don’t think that’s what you—”

  “Look, Sergeant, my client is answering all your questions willingly and to the very best of her ability. And this in spite of being in an extremely distressed condition.” For the first time John Starkey spoke with some authority. In fact he sounded quite dynamic, as if he had been stoking up the few scraps of conviction he naturally possessed to let forth in one splendid salvo.

  Sergeant Troy was indignant. “We have a right—”

  “You have no right to badger people. Especially those who . . .” The imperious dialogue tapered off. Barnaby guessed that the man had been about to say “who have done nothing wrong” and then recalled the precise details of Sarah Lawson’s situation. Everything about Starkey suddenly deflated. He began to wobble, looking rather like a shabby jellyfish in his tight brown Terylene suit.

  Barnaby asked if they could please get on.

  “Yes, Chief Inspector, of course. Absolutely.”

  “Let’s recap for a moment, Miss Lawson. I’d just like to confirm that you have not seen or heard from this man, who for the moment we have decided to call Tim, since he telephoned you on Monday the tenth of June?”

  “That’s right.”

  “He did not come to your house late that night or during the early hours of Tuesday morning?”

  “No. I’ve just told you.”

  “You have no idea where he is at the moment?”

  “None at all.”

  “And you are not prepared to help us further in this matter?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “By giving us his home address, for instance.”

  “No.”

  “I’m wondering if you fully realise the gravity of your position. Apart from the part you have played in the kidnap and ransom of Mrs. Hollingsworth, you now appear to be shielding someone who may well be guilty of murder.”

  “I do understand how serious it is, yes.”

  “And do you understand that you could be looking at a very long custodial sentence? If you couldn’t cope with a couple of hours in the station interview room, how will you cope with ten years in a prison cell?”

  “I shall never have to.”

  “If you think you’re going to get off light,” Sergeant Troy was truculent, throwing in a sarcastic laugh for good measure, “on the ploy that you didn’t know exactly what he was up to, you can think again.”

  “That isn’t what I meant.”

  After this Sarah Lawson would not speak and, fifteen minutes of fruitless questioning later, Barnaby drew the interview to a close.

  Over the next two days both the flat in Flavell Street and Bay Tree Cottage were subjected to a scrupulous Scenes of Crime investigation. The results were disappointing.

  Only Sarah Lawson’s prints were found at the flat where Simone Hollingsworth had been held. And only she appeared to have handled the camera. This seemed to indicate, as Barnaby pointed out to his team at their next full briefing, a pretty cold-blooded and thorough clean-up by her lover before he moved out.

  The much more neglected interior of Bay Tree Cottage yielded a richer and more complex haul although, alas, no hint of the identity or natural habitat of the man still only known to the police as Tim. But there were many and various prints, all of which took some time to identify and disentangle. Sarah’s own, those of Avis Jennings and Gray Patterson, and several that had still to be identified. Some from a very small hand matched precisely those taken from toiletries in the bathroom at Nightingales and were thus presumed to be those of Simone Hollingsworth. Several strands of very fair hair were taken from an armchair cushion, carefully analysed (they proved to be dyed) and optimistically filed. The white-gold filaments would be useful should the body, for that is how everyone’s thoughts by now inclined, be discovered.

  But everyone was to be proved wrong, for on Saturday, 22 June, two weeks and two days after she had disappeared from her home in Fawcett Green, Simone Hollingsworth was found.

  Indeed it would have been hard to miss her for she was thrown out of a van, alive if not actually all that well, barely ten yards from the main entrance of Causton police station.

  Chapter Eleven

  It was not long before the identity of the woman was revealed, even though she was unable to give her name or even talk at all with any degree of sensibility. Famous only for fifteen minutes and that a whole fortnight ago, several people at Hillingdon Hospital immediately recognised Simone.

  And so it was that Barnaby and Troy found themselves hanging around reception. It was as depressing as such places always are. People sat about either with sluggish apathy or nervily on the edge of their seats, as if wired to receive dreadful news. Children ran about shouting with laughter. Others whined, begging money for the snacks machine. Old people, with little to gain and nothing to lose, glared about them, tutting severely at anything that moved.

  The staff, having barely a second to draw breath, remained efficient and cheerful. Mrs. Hollingsworth was in G ward, third floor. The two policemen were told to go first to the staff nurse’s office.

  “Turn right,” recalled Sgt. Troy in a subdued voice as they got out of the lift. He hated hospitals.

  Shown into a corner cubbyhole, it was some time before Staff Nurse Carter arrived, though the wait was far from dull. Nurses were in and out, the phone rang nonstop and the lift doors hissed. Through the top half of the glass door the two policemen could see people passing endlessly back and forth along the corridor as if on a concealed conveyor belt.

  “Sorry to keep you.” Jenny Carter hovered just inside the doorway, plainly on the wing.

  “Mrs. Hollingsworth?” inquired Barnaby. “In for observation.”

  “Ah, yes, our celebrity. Well, physically she’s not bad. Scratched and bruised—I understand this is due to being thrown out of a car on to the pavement.”

  “Partly. Fortunately it wasn’t moving but, according to witnesses, there was still a certain amount of force employed.”

  “But mentally,” Staff Nurse Carter shook her head. “That’s something else. She hardly seems to k
now who she is or what’s going on. The doctor seems to think the amnesia’s temporary. It happens sometimes after a severe blow to the head.”

  “Has she had any visitors?”

  “No. Not even a telephone inquiry.”

  “What about the press? Has anyone here talked to them?”

  “Certainly not. We’ve better things to do with our time.”

  “Quite. Well, being aware of Mrs. Hollingsworth’s story, Nurse Carter, I’m sure you appreciate that we’d like to interview her as soon as possible.”

  “I wish you luck. Perhaps,” she plucked a pen from the top pocket of her uniform and moved over to the desk, “you have the name of someone we could contact. She’s not ill enough to be kept here, you see, but we can’t discharge her in her present confused state except in someone’s care. And we desperately need the space.”

  “I’m sure you do.” Like everyone else, Barnaby was familiar with stories of lengthy waiting lists, patients on trolleys in corridors waiting for beds and dramatic dashes from one hospital to another trying to find a unit available for someone in need of intensive care. He wondered how long it would be before hospital administrators, tapping their feet, sucking their teeth with impatience and checking their watches, would be positioned at the bedside of the dying, silently urging them to get a move on.

  “She is married, I believe. Perhaps her husband—”

  “Mrs. Hollingsworth is a widow.”

  “Of course, I forgot. What about the name of her doctor?”

  “Now there I can help you.”

  “Excellent,” said Staff, writing it down then reaching for the telephone.

  “Oh, one more thing. We shall need to examine everything she had on when she was brought in. Someone from Forensic will call and collect the stuff.”

  “What on earth is she going to wear when she leaves?”

  “Whoever collects her will no doubt bring something.”

  As Barnaby and Troy left the office, Staff Nurse Carter was already punching buttons.

  “Mrs. Hollingsworth’s right at the end,” explained a probation nurse brightly over her shoulder. Her soft shoes squeaked slightly on the shiny composition floor. The ward, which was flooded with sunlight, fell silent as the two men marched along behind her. Everyone capable of sitting upright stared with avid interest changing rapidly to disappointment as the nurse drew the brightly flowered curtains round the patient.

  There was a single chair which Barnaby drew up to the bedside. Troy moved closer, looked down on the still, small figure in the bed. And fell instantly and wordlessly in love.

  What is there to say? It happens. It’s a fact of life. One could say it was the fact of life. But it had never happened to Sergeant Troy before.

  He had fallen into lust, oh yes. As easily and naturally (and almost as often) as he scored at snooker or washed the Cosworth. And, in his simplicity, he had thought that was it. The many-splendoured thing of which the poets sang. The stuff that was always just around the corner when I’m around you. How could he have been so blind?

  “Mrs. Hollingsworth?” Barnaby spoke very softly.

  “She’s asleep, sir.” Immediately defensive on behalf of the unconscious girl, Troy was not aware that his tone verged on the indignant. He gazed down in a passion of protective concern. How small she was. Her hands rested on the counterpane with the fingers, badly scratched, curling loosely inwards like a child’s. There was a dressing taped to her temple and the left cheek was badly bruised. Her white-gold hair, chopped and torn about, was dirty.

  Rage directed against the bastard who had ill-treated her swept over Sergeant Troy like a tidal wave. The volume and intensity of the experience alarmed him, for he could not bear to be out of control. It was as if someone had attacked Talisa-Leanne. He stepped back a little and took several deep breaths, averting his eyes from the girl in the hospital bed who was now opening her eyes.

  “Mrs. Hollingsworth?” said Barnaby again. And then, when she did not respond, “Simone?”

  “What is it?” Her voice was so faint Barnaby had to bend over the bed to make the words out.

  “I’m a policeman. From Causton CID.” He paused. When she did not respond he went on, “I realise that you’ve just been through a dreadful ordeal but the sooner you can bring yourself to talk about it, the sooner we’ll be able to get after the people responsible.” He paused again and with much the same result. “Do you understand what I’ve been saying, Mrs. Hollingsworth?”

  “Yes but . . . I . . . I can’t remember anything.”

  “Nothing at all? Even the smallest thing might help. Do you recall any names?”

  “No.”

  “Sarah for example?”

  “Sarah.” Though Simone repeated the word tiredly and without any recognition, the colour ran suddenly under her pale skin and her lips trembled.

  “Or the name of Sarah’s friend.” Sensing concealment, Barnaby began to push. “She calls him Tim. Did she call him something else when you were all together? Did she perhaps use his real name?”

  “I . . . I don’t know . . .”

  “You were planning to leave your husband and run away with this man.” He was leaning over her now. “Surely you remember something about him.”

  It was terrible. Like watching somebody bullying a child. Troy stepped forward, positioning himself directly behind his boss’s shoulder where he could see Simone and she him. He said, “Not to worry, Mrs. Hollingsworth. It’ll all come back to you, in time.” He smiled, received the faintest sketch of a smile in return and a sour look for the interruption from his chief.

  Then someone came up with a note from the staff nurse. She had explained the situation to Mrs. Hollingsworth’s doctor and his wife would be coming over to the hospital later that afternoon to collect Simone. They would be happy to look after her for the next few days or for longer should this turn out to be necessary.

  Barnaby had got to his feet when the message arrived. Troy promptly whipped the chair some distance away, hoping this might dissuade his boss from sitting down again. But the Chief Inspector had already decided that pressing ahead under the present circumstances would probably be counterproductive. Now that Simone’s immediate whereabouts when she left the hospital had been securely established he was happy to postpone any further interrogation until later.

  Once more outside in the busy corridor, Barnaby disappeared into the visitors’ toilet. Troy seized the opportunity to dash back to Simone’s bedside. He stood feeling awkward, uncertain what to say but determined to dispel any anxiety that the enforced interview had aroused.

  In the end they spoke together. Simone saying, “Thank you for—” Sergeant Troy, “You mustn’t worry—”

  “His bark’s worse than his bite.” Her eyes were lovely. Huge, grey-green, terribly sad. But seen now, without make-up, he would never have recognised her from the glamorous wedding portrait. Her pinched little face looked almost plain. Mysteriously, his feelings remained unaltered. “We understand what you’ve been through, Mrs. Hollingsworth. Obviously we’ll need to talk to you again but you mustn’t worry. Until you feel able to cope there won’t be any pressure.”

  Tears started to trickle down Simone’s wan cheeks.

  With the greatest difficulty Troy resisted taking the small hand in his. He said, “It’s not the victims we’re after.”

  Troy caught up with Barnaby at the front entrance.

  “You never give up, do you, Gavin?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That woman’s in no state for what you’ve got in mind.”

  “Actually, sir, I don’t have anything ‘in mind’ as you call it.” They strode off towards the car park. “And I can see for myself what sort of state she’s in, thanks very much. Anyone would suppose,” continued Sergeant Troy, angrily yanking open the door of the Rover and climbing in, “I was the sort of man who never thought of anything else.”

  That afternoon, in response to a request from DCI Barnaby, the pe
rson who had reported seeing Simone Hollingsworth wearing a wig, shades and a pink jacket on the Aylesbury bus called in at the station.

  She was a sensible body, not at all the sort to put herself forward for the sake of it and was pleased that her contribution had been of some help. They settled her down with a cup of tea and a biscuit and left her with a graphic artist describing, in as much detail as she could remember, the style of the wig and design of the sunglasses.

  Within a couple of hours a detailed sketch of Simone wearing both had been circulated by the press office to the newspapers and to the television programme Crimewatch. In both instances the public was asked to communicate with the police if they had seen the woman in question at any time within the last two weeks.

  Barnaby put a call in to Avis Jennings and asked that she keep in constant touch with the station once Simone was living at her house. He would be coming over himself to talk to Simone again within the next day or so. If her memory appeared to return or if she showed any signs of wishing to leave, even if it was only to return to Nightingales, he should be informed at once.

  He read through the statements of people who had been present at the incident with the van. One woman said Simone had “sort of rolled out.” Another that she had been pushed by the man behind the wheel. A third witness thought that she had been thrown with some force. All agreed that there had been no struggle. The person who sat with her until the ambulance arrived had the impression that she was unconscious even before she hit the pavement.

  So concentrated was the attention on Simone that hardly any attention had been paid to the driver. But a youth with quick wits and sharp eyesight, who described the van as dirty yellow and very rusty, had made a note of the number plates. On checking, these proved to have been stolen.