“Good God,” said Carole. “So it was Donal, after all.”
“We don’t know that. It could have been someone else.”
“For heaven’s sake, Jude! This is pretty incontrovertible evidence. The bloodstained garments that were worn when he killed Walter Fleet are found here in Donal’s hideaway-what more do you want?” Carole was irritated to see her friend was grinning at her. “And what’s that expression meant to mean?”
“Just that I thought you were meant to be the rational one, and what you just said did make quite a few major leaps of logic. For a start, we don’t know that these were the clothes worn by the murderer of Walter Fleet. And, on top of that, though there seems to be evidence that someone’s been squatting in this loft, we have no proof that that person is Donal Geraghty.”
“Now you’re just being picky.”
“Well, even if your theory’s true-say it is Donal who’s been camping in here, say these are the clothes worn by the murderer-what’re we going to do about it?”
“Obviously, Jude, we take the evidence to the police…or no, we don’t touch it. We call the police here and we-”
“Tell them that we just happened to be trespassing in the Dalrymples’ stables, and we just happened by chance to come upon these bloodstained garments?”
“Ah. I see your point. No, what we do is, we get as far away from here as possible, and then we send the police an anonymous tip-off, recommending that they take a look in the Dalrymples’ stables.”
“And how do we do that? Phone calls are traceable, so are text messages, faxes, e-mails…”
“We find a way to do it.” Carole was getting exasperated by Jude’s uncharacteristic assumption of the wet-blanket role, and even more exasperated because she reckoned Jude was only doing it to tease her. “That’s not what’s important. What is important is that we get away from here as quickly as possible.”
“Hm…Well, we’re not leaving till I’ve had a little look at what we’ve found.”
“But you can’t…you mustn’t…” Carole’s Home Office training once more asserted itself. “If you touch anything, you’ll probably get arrested for the murder yourself. You can’t risk leaving any DNA.”
“I think I’ll be all right,” said Jude, showing off her hands in the Florentine gloves. Carole watched, appalled, as her neighbour carefully inspected the bloodstained pair of gloves, almost turning them inside out to check for any marks of identification. But she was disappointed. Just cheap, ordinary woollen gloves that could be bought at any store or market in the country. And the one-size-fits-all expandable sort that gave no indication even of the wearer’s gender.
“What about the jacket?” Jude picked up the Barbour and looked at it. Old, well worn, average size. She held it up to the window. In better light, even more dull blood spatters were visible on the old waxed fabric. If this was not the garment worn by Walter Fleet’s killer, then there had been another recent bloody murder in the Fethering area.
Holding up the jacket by its collar, Jude checked the pockets. The inside ones yielded only a pencil stub and a crumpled tissue, the latter wonderfully revelatory to a police forensics team, but entirely useless to the unqualified amateur.
Jude moved on to the outside pockets. Just a few bits of lint and shreds of paper. A wizened stump of carrot and a few fluffy Polo mints, presumably intended as treats for some lucky horse.
Punctiliously, she returned each item to where she’d found it. Only the small upright slit pockets remained. Nothing in the left one. But in the right…her gloved hand closed round a scrap of slightly shiny paper.
She pulled it out. A scrumpled cardholder’s copy of an American Express transaction. On which the name of the signatory could be clearly read.
Alec Potton.
Jude wrapped up the gloves in the bloody Barbour, trying to reproduce exactly the previous creases and to set the bundle in exactly the same place under the makeshift bed.
Then, with Carole still looking like a finalist in the Miss Paranoia Competition, they went back down the ladder and left the Dalrymples’ stables.
They were well away from the house and on the tow path back into Fethering when they heard the approaching sirens. But they were still close enough to see the pair of police cars hurtle up the road and turn into Nicky and Sonia Dalrymple’s drive.