Doctor Who_ The Banquo Legacy - Andy Lane [69]
A tear escaped from my eye, though not from the physical pain. I brushed it away, hoping Stratford had not noticed; certainly he was tactful enough to show no sign of it.
‘I would, Inspector, but I’ve burnt it I’m afraid.’ I tried to be slightly more flippant, more than he would expect me to be. I hoped. ‘Sorry about that.’
‘Never mind. It’s you I want to see now.’
‘I see. Where’s Catherine?’
He did not seem at all surprised by my sudden question. ‘She’s in the study, with the sergeant.’
‘She’ll deny everything, of course,’ Kreiner said from the other side of the room.
‘Oh yes. Vehemently.’
Susan was looking bewildered still. ‘So,’ I said – mainly for her benefit rather than to show Stratford that I knew the situation as well as he – ‘she’ll say she didn’t try to kill everyone her brother was blackmailing, or who knew about it – as Beryl must have done if she found the notebook in Richard’s bedroom – so as to preserve his “good" name. What will you do then?’
‘It shouldn’t be too difficult to convince a jury that she’s the only person who could have killed Miss Green, and so she must have killed the Doctor as well.’
‘Are you sure?’ Kreiner asked.
‘You have a better hypothesis?’ Stratford enquired.
Kreiner shrugged. ‘I thought we agreed that whoever killed the Doctor surprised him at the edge of the cliff. There was a struggle, and the murderer succeeded in pushing him over.’
I could see where he was going. ‘You’re saying you don’t think Catherine was strong enough? Even with the element of surprise?’
‘There was a struggle,’ he pointed out. ‘We could see that. And the Doctor was stronger than he appeared, believe me.’
‘Nevertheless,’ Stratford intervened, ‘people can call on surprising amounts of strength when they are emotionally roused. Psychotic.’
‘Aren’t you overlooking something else, Inspector?’ asked Susan, and I saw that she too had realised that the explanations thus far had one large flaw in their framework.
‘Am I, Miss Seymour?’ Surely he could not have missed it. Could Ian Stratford have even less imagination than I had at first suspected?
‘She is hardly likely to have murdered her brother only to try to protect his honour, is she?’
‘She will have to have done, I’m afraid. Unless of course it really was an accident, which might be the other plausible explanation. Whatever, it certainly unbalanced her. You see,’ he went on, fixing me with a level gaze, ‘I cannot in any way prove that Richard Harries was killed by Mr Hopkinson.’
Kreiner gasped out loud. And I was aware of Susan’s gaze on me. Amazed? Horrified? I could not look to see. I stared at my feet, not sure what to do or say.
‘Besides,’ said Stratford, his voice seeming to be filtered through water, ‘knowing what sort of a man Harries was, I’m not positive that in his position I would not have been provoked into doing exactly what John did.’
I don’t know which surprised me most – his sentiments, his insight or the use of my Christian name. ‘You’re very clever, Inspector,’ I said quietly. ‘And also very generous. Thank you.’ I looked up at him, and thought I caught the faintest trace of a smile.
‘Now, I had better go and see Miss Harries.’ He turned and left the room.
‘This I have to see,’ Kreiner said as he followed. Whether through tact or by chance he closed the door behind him.
I realised that Susan was holding my hand between hers. Had it been worth it all? I thought back to the shooting star, and how it had finally decided me – an omen; how I had managed to unbolt the conservatory door into the garden while Harries obliviously explained his mad ideas – the part of the wall exposed: the door. Fortunate. Getting everything arranged in the few minutes I was absent from the drawing room and returning unobserved had been more than merely fortunate.
Susan squeezed my hand slightly and I was back in the present, a weight lifted at last from my mind.
* * *
THE REPORT OF INSPECTOR IAN STRATFORD (12)
Baker