The murdered woman’s husband was returned to the interview room and his lawyer recalled. Adrian Wishart looked tense and wary, but more contained than afraid-as if he were expecting tedium, another session explaining his side of the story to a couple of slow thinkers. Sitting upright, a long-suffering expression on his face, he demanded, ‘What now?’
His lawyer, Hoyt, followed with, ‘Either charge my client or let him go.’
Challis gazed levelly at each of them, turned his attention to
Wishart, and said, ‘We’ve just come from a long talk with your Uncle Terry.’
The hesitation was no longer than a millisecond, but it was there. ‘So?’
‘Fought in Vietnam…’
Wishart eyed him. ‘So?’
‘He must have seen some pretty terrible things.’
The lawyer leaned forward. ‘Inspector Challis, I hope you’re not about to suggest that Terry Wishart isn’t a reliable or a credible alibi witness for my client, owing to his war experiences. He’s telling the truth.’
‘Truth,’ said Ellen. She looked tired, wilting in the stifling air, but still tense and focused. ‘I don’t think we’ve heard much truth from the Wishart boys. And they are boys.’
The lawyer ignored her, addressed Challis. ‘Terry Wishart was formally interviewed?’
‘Yes.’
‘Re-interviewed.’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘There are some anomalies,’ Challis said.
A nerve twitched at the corner of Adrian’s left eye. His veins stood out. He was tightly wound but otherwise inclined to be impatient and contemptuous. ‘What anomalies?’
‘We need to go back several years,’ Challis said.
Wishart blanched, but Hoyt frowned, looking for a trap. ‘Are you suggesting a family tiff? A falling out?’
‘No.’
The lawyer stared intently at her client. ‘Adrian, is your uncle competitive with you? Jealous? Envious?’
Ellen could see where this was going. Before Wishart could open his mouth to reply, she cut in: ‘Ade,’ she said, with a big, blokey smile, elbows on the table, ‘remember all those photos on Terry’s wall? His Army mates, excursions to the War Memorial, stuff like that?’
‘What about it?’
‘He served in Vietnam, didn’t he?’
‘Where’s this going?’
‘Your parents ever talk about that time, Terry going off to war?’
‘No, not really.’
‘No stories of waving him off, greeting him on his return?’
‘No.’
‘And what about Terry? Any tall tales from the trenches?’
‘It was pretty hush-hush, his Army work,’ Wishart said desperately. ‘He can’t talk about it.’
‘I wonder why.’
Faint alarm showed in the lawyer’s eyes, as though she sensed hidden shoals ahead. ‘Getting back to the matter at hand-’
Challis ignored her. ‘What your uncle can’t talk about,’ he said, ‘is the fact that he didn’t serve in Vietnam.’
Wishart’s mouth was dry. ‘Rubbish. He-’
‘He wasn’t even a soldier. He made it all up.’
‘He’s a sad, pathetic little man,’ said Ellen. ‘With emphasis on the words “sad”, “pathetic” and “little”.’ She paused. ‘A bit like you, really.’
Wishart glanced wildly at his lawyer, who’d thrown down her pen tiredly and apparently lost some of the will that had got her out of bed that morning. She examined a spot on the lapel of her blouse, ignoring him.
‘Your Uncle Terry has a desperate need to be loved and admired,’ said Challis, with a kind of gentleness that only a fool would underestimate, and Wishart was no fool.
‘A need to belong,’ Ellen said.
Still Wishart wouldn’t fold. ‘He has medals…’
‘Oh, cut the crap, Ade. He bought them on eBay, and you know it.’
‘I need time to be alone with my client,’ Hoyt said.
Challis continued to watch Wishart. ‘You knew the shame of being found out would kill him. You were counting on it.’
‘Of course, we haven’t told anyone his secret,’ Ellen said.
‘We’re not cruel.’
‘But he has agreed to stop the charade and tell the truth.’
‘The thing he fears more than anything is his mates finding out.’
‘He’d do anything to avoid that.’
‘All right!’ said Wishart, slamming his hand onto the table between them. His head slumped. ‘So he lied for me. So what.’
‘Emotional blackmail,’ Ellen said. ‘Families, eh?’
‘I want time with my client,’ Hoyt said.
Wishart turned to her. ‘Forget it, I need to say what happened.’
Hoyt made a broad gesture with her arms as if to say it was his funeral. Wishart nodded at her, turned to Challis and Ellen and said, ‘I admit I followed my wife.’
‘On Wednesday afternoon?’
‘Yes.’
‘In whose car?’
‘Terrys.’
‘Because yours is too conspicuous?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why did you follow her?’
Wishart bowed his head. ‘The tracking device had showed her regularly going to Bluff Road in Penzance Beach. Sometimes twice a day. I couldn’t stand it any longer, I had to know, so on Tuesday I followed her in my car. I’ve never done that before, I swear.’
‘And?’
Wishart said woodenly, ‘And I saw Mill with that fellow from the residents’ committee. I thought they were having an affair. But they spotted me, so on Wednesday I followed her in Terry’s car.’
‘And what did you see?’
‘Nothing. I mean, nothing suspicious. All they did was look at the site where that old house was.’ Wishart twisted his mouth. ‘I now accept they weren’t having an affair.’
‘Did anyone see you? Did your wife or Mr Vernon see you?’
‘No. I was careful about that.’
‘And then?’
‘I thought I’d attract attention if I waited too long in the vicinity, so I drove back to the city.’
‘You didn’t follow your wife to the murder site?’
‘On my honour, no.’
‘You weren’t in the habit of following her but you were in the habit of tracking her movements with the GPS device?’
‘Yes.’
Challis folded his arms, sat back comfortably and said, ‘I put it to you that you followed your wife to the house near Shoreham and murdered her.’
‘No!’
‘What, then? Are you saying she was murdered by someone else?’
‘Yes!’
‘Who?’
‘I don’t know. I’d tell you if I knew.’
‘What time did you leave the area?’
Wishart frowned, making a production of it. ‘Between four-thirty and five, I guess.’
Challis supposed that it could be true. A good defence barrister would add some definition to the hazy outline and make it seem probable. We need hard evidence, he thought.
‘Why didn’t you tell us this before? Didn’t you want us to find your wife’s killer? You know how crucial the early stages of an investigation are.’
‘I was ashamed,’ said Wishart with a burst of feeling. He turned to Ellen, eyes damp, and seemed to shrink before her. ‘You said I was pathetic. Well, it’s true, I am.’
‘How awful for you,’ said Ellen.