Still Waters (Charlie Resnick #9)(81)
“Jane was almost at breaking point with Alex. There was no way she could carry on like that forever, something had to happen. And I think helping to organize this day school helped, gave her an impetus. But she was still scared of telling him to his face. So what we arranged was she would write to him, post it that day, and just go. I’d drive up and collect her in the middle of the day school and we’d simply leave. Stay in a hotel. Anywhere. As far as Louise was concerned, I was off on business, East Anglia, Hull, it’s a trip I make every few months. She wasn’t expecting me back till the end of the week.” He folded his hands, one over the other. “That would be that.”
“Except,” Resnick said, “that it wasn’t.”
Spurgeon sighed. “She hadn’t written the letter. That was what we argued about that day. She promised she’d do it once we were away, but every letter she wrote, she’d tear up. She even dialed his number, but then didn’t go through with the call. By Wednesday, she was saying she had to go back and face him. She thought she could do that now, after being with me. I tried to talk her out of it, but she’d made up her mind. She would go and see him, tell him she was leaving him and why, and then come back to me.”
“This was Wednesday, you say?”
“Wednesday morning, yes.”
“And she went back that day?”
“Yes.”
“You drove her?”
“Only as far as Grantham. She wanted to make the rest of the journey on the train. She said it would be best, give her a chance to think over exactly what she was going to say, clear her mind.”
“You didn’t think you should be with her?” Lynn asked. “That maybe you should face him together?”
“Well, of course. But it wasn’t what Jane wanted. She wouldn’t hear of it. She wanted me to stay in Grantham and wait for her there. I booked a room in a hotel; she was going to catch the train back that evening. She never came.”
“So what did you do?” Lynn asked.
“What could I do? I waited and waited. Went to the station and met every train the next day.”
“What did you think had happened?” Resnick asked.
“At first, I thought Alex must be keeping her there by force, against her will. But then, when I still didn’t hear, I thought, one way or another, he’s persuaded her to change her mind. So I went home. I couldn’t think what else to do. Then when I switched on the TV and it was all over the news, I didn’t know … there was no one I could talk to, I didn’t even have any way of knowing whether anyone—whether you, the police, would ever connect her back to me. And then when I saw you coming down the path …”
Resnick nodded, paused. “What do you think happened?” he asked. “What do you think happened to Jane?”
Spurgeon didn’t hesitate. “He killed her, didn’t he? Alex. Killed her and threw … threw her into the canal.”
No way to stop the tears returning now and neither did they try.
A uniformed officer was keeping an eye on the interview room while Resnick and Lynn bustled off to the canteen.
“After the best part of an hour with him,” Lynn said, “I can understand the attractions of a bloke like Peterson. Something about him, at least.”
“Even if it means taking yourself off to Accident and Emergency once in a while?”
She shook her head vigorously. “No, not that. But Spurgeon … It’s all too easy, telling yourself you’re in love with some fantasy. Especially one you almost never see. A sight simpler than knuckling down to what you’ve got, a difficult wife and a bunch of mardy kids in need of a good sorting. No, he’s nothing. A failure, through and through.”
“You don’t fancy him for it, then?”
“’Less I saw it, I’d not fancy him for tying his own shoe.”
Resnick was still laughing as Khan came hurrying toward them, photograph of Spurgeon in his hand. “Him, sir, without a doubt.”
Resnick nodded. “He’s not denying that part of it, at least. But there’s a sight more to do, so don’t waste the effort sitting down. There’s a hotel reservation to check in Grantham, we need to know how many days Jane Peterson was there with Spurgeon. Anything else you can dig up. Lynn and I’ll drop Spurgeon off to his wife’s tender mercies, nothing we can really hold him on and I doubt he’ll do a runner anyway. Then we’ll get back and see what Peterson’s got to say for himself.”
“Right, sir.” Khan was already wondering when he’d next get the chance to phone Jill, get a bite to eat; thinking also that for all the talk there’d been about Lynn applying for a transfer because she was up to here working with Resnick, he couldn’t say these past days it had showed.
Forty-five
Eddie Snow unfolded his paper napkin, wiped his fingers, folded the napkin again, and picked up what remained of his quarter pounder, medium rare with bacon and Swiss cheese. They were in Ed’s Diner, not the one in Hampstead, which Grabianski often walked past and sometimes walked into, but this one on Old Compton Street in Soho, maybe the original, Grabianski didn’t know. The style was fifties—early sixties retro, school of American Graffiti, red and chrome, padded stools, rock ’n’ roll on the jukebox, apple pie.