Angels in the Gloom_ A Novel - Anne Perry [62]
So much for illicit passion in the woods!
She walked slowly, thinking. For a romantic liaison you would have to go to a well-populated place where you could remain anonymous—and that meant Cambridge. Penny was there anyway, at her duties in the hospital. What about Theo Blaine? He would have had a car to drive to and from the Establishment. He could very easily have gone to Cambridge. The Establishment would have assumed he had gone home; Lizzie Blaine would have assumed he was working late.
Perhaps Dacy Lucas had even borrowed Penny’s bicycle to go along the back lane through the trees to confront Blaine, and they had quarreled. What if Blaine had refused to give up his affair, and Lucas had attacked him in fury? Or perhaps Lucas had threatened to tell Lizzie Blaine, and Blaine had attacked him, and Lucas had defended himself rather too well? Then, seeing what he had done, he had been horrified and run away. Who would believe he had not meant it?
Probably Inspector Perth knew all this. But what if he did not? He might still be convinced that it was a German spy. That thought was so horrible she felt suddenly as if her own home had been violated, someone dirty and violent had broken in and soiled everything. It would take months, years before it could be made clean again.
Perhaps she should tell Perth at least where to look! She had grown up with the code of honor that you did not tell tales on people, and if you were caught in something you owned up to it. Above all, you never ever let someone else take the punishment for what you had done. That was the ultimate cowardice.
But this was different. How much would everyone suffer if Perth stayed in the village and continued to awaken suspicions, even resurrect old feuds? There was more than enough grief already, and no doubt more to come. The first whispers of suspicion had started.
Without realizing it, Hannah had changed direction and was walking briskly toward the railway station.
Perth was not in when she arrived at the police station in Cambridge, and she had to wait over half an hour before he came. He looked hot and tired, as if his feet hurt, which quite possibly they did. His shoes were worn down at the sides and he limped a little.
“Yes, Mrs. MacAllister, what can I do for you?” He waited until she was seated, then lowered himself into the chair opposite her, taking his weight off his legs with visible relief.
Briefly and quite succinctly she told him what she had heard, and what she suspected.
“Really?” He was guarded, but certainly not without interest. “She was on a bicycle, you say?”
“Yes. Most people ride bicycles in Cambridgeshire, especially now. It’s the best way to get around.”
“I know that, ma’am. I’m local born and bred,” he said patiently. “A ladies’ bicycle that’d be?”
“Yes, of course!”
“You didn’t happen to notice her hands, did you?”
“Not particularly. Why?”
“She didn’t have a little cut or scratch, or a plaster, maybe? About here.” He indicated a small sticking plaster on his own hand, across the palm near the base of his forefinger.
“I don’t think so. I don’t remember. Why? You . . .” Her imagination raced. “How did you do that?”
“You don’t want to know that, ma’am.” He winced slightly.
“You picked up . . . the . . . fork!” She realized with a shiver why he was reluctant to tell her.
“Yes, ma’am. It’s just a little sort of nick. A screw sitting a bit too high. But it tore the skin and drew blood.”
“If she picked it up, couldn’t you tell?” she asked.
“No, ma’am. Whoever used it smeared it with so much mud there was nothing to see. No fingerprints at all, nor any blood. Could be they had gloves.”
“Why would she kill him?” she asked. “If she loved him . . .”
“In love, Mrs. MacAllister,” Perth corrected sadly. “It’s a very different kind of a thing, sometimes.