‘Might he have stayed overnight somewhere? With friends, perhaps?’
But Edmund had never, to Lucy’s knowledge, stayed out all night. ‘He lives a very quiet life. Beyond the office and his clients he hardly has any social life at all – maybe the odd Rotary Lunch or a Law Society dinner, but nothing else. And even on the rare occasion he does go out in the evening I don’t think he stays anywhere much after half past ten.’
‘Is he likely to have gone out very early?’
‘I shouldn’t think so. He’s hardly the early-morning jogging type.’
‘What about friends? Do you know the names of any of them?’
‘I don’t think he’s got any – not close ones,’ said Lucy. ‘Just acquaintances and business associates.’
‘No ladies in his life?’
‘No.’ But this was all sounding so sad for Edmund that Lucy tried to qualify it by saying that Edmund was a bit of a loner.
‘We do want to find him fairly quickly,’ said Fletcher. ‘Just to check Mr Sallis’s story, you understand. I daresay it’ll turn out to be a misunderstanding.’
It would be a misunderstanding, of course. This was Edmund they were discussing, and it was simply not possible to think of Edmund skulking into a darkened house with the aim of killing another human being, or to imagine him on the run from the police. Lucy found this such a disturbing image that she said, ‘Inspector – would it be all right if I drove up there?’
‘D’you mean right away?’
‘Yes. I can set off more or less at once – I’ll tell Quondam there’s a family crisis and that I won’t be in for a couple of days. I’ve got some holiday leave owing, and I’ve just finished putting together a project so it won’t be a problem. I can get there in a couple of hours if there aren’t any snarl-ups – it’s practically motorway all the way and I know the roads.’ She hesitated, and then said, ‘I wouldn’t get in the way or anything, but he’s my cousin and we more or less grew up together. If he’s in trouble, I think I ought to be there. I don’t think he should be on his own.’
And there isn’t anyone else, said her mind. Edmund really hasn’t got anyone else. Was that why he had made that odd approach that night? ‘You’re footloose and fancy-free, Lucy,’ he had said. ‘It seemed an alluring idea.’ And his hand had curled around hers…And his body pressing against her…
‘All right,’ said the inspector, having apparently considered the idea. ‘You’d better come straight to the White Hart; I expect you know it, do you? Good. Mr Sallis is still there, and the manager’s let us have a little coffee-room as a base to work from. We haven’t divulged anything to the staff, of course: we’ve just said we’re involved in an investigation.’
‘Edmund will appreciate that when all this is cleared up,’ said Lucy, hoping that it would all be cleared up.
‘I hope he’ll also appreciate what a good cousin he has,’ said Jennie Fletcher rather dryly.
‘He won’t,’ said Lucy. ‘He never appreciates anyone. But I can’t help that.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
At eight thirty the traffic was pouring into London. Lucy battled doggedly through it, and finally got clear of the M25 and on to the northbound M1. At least this was a familiar journey; there was something reassuring about familiar things when your mind was in turmoil. An hour and a half of motorway, a brief stop at the usual Little Chef just before Nottingham for a break and a cup of coffee and to top up with petrol, then on again.