‘If there’s a murderer on the loose they’re bound to question everyone.’
‘Certainly they are. With particular attention to lone females who take holiday cottages in the middle of nowhere in November. But too many policemen suffer from extreme tunnel vision. They go hotfoot for the likeliest prime suspect.’
‘You think Antonia Weston would be their prime suspect?’
‘Don’t you?’
‘But look here, she wouldn’t kill Greg Foster,’ said Godfrey. He was so incensed he very nearly forgot about feeling ill at the memory of that poor young man’s body sprawled on the music-room floor. ‘She hardly knew him.’
‘I don’t think she killed him. But you can see why Curran might?’
‘Yes,’ said Godfrey unhappily. ‘Yes, I can.’
It was hard to believe Oliver’s story, but Godfrey knew he would not have made up such a tale. Antonia had been convicted of murdering a young man who had killed her brother, and had been sent to prison. Prison. Locked doors, barred windows and exercise yards.
Godfrey, hunting out his best silk pyjamas to wear tonight in case there was some new crisis that hauled them all out of bed, could not stop thinking about Antonia. He kept seeing the sudden smile that lit up her eyes, and remembered her quick bright intelligence and sensitive hands and voice. He found it impossible to believe she had actually killed someone. Doctors did not kill people–at least not intentionally.
But Godfrey knew it was not the possibility that Antonia really had committed a murder that would keep him awake tonight. It was the nightmare images about how life might have been for her in prison.
‘Sleep as well as you can, Miss Weston,’ said Inspector Curran standing outside the cottage. ‘I’ll just come inside with you to take a look around if that’s all right.’
He made a quick tour of the house, going into each room. Antonia, standing at the foot of the stairs, heard him opening the wardrobes, and she thought he drew back all the curtains.
He came down the stairs and smiled at her. ‘All serene,’ he said. ‘We’ll be around for a few hours yet.’
‘Then you do believe what I’ve told you?’ said Antonia. ‘About someone getting in? And the music and the hanging rope and all the rest of it?’
‘I don’t precisely disbelieve you,’ he said slowly. ‘Not yet, at any rate.’ He paused, and then said, ‘It was obvious that finding that boy’s body gave you a massive shock.’
‘Yes. The music was–it was the music my brother was playing when he died. The music was next to his body. And the method was the same…the stabbing…’ She sent him a covert look, unsure how much he knew about her.
But Curran merely said, ‘You’ve got a phone, have you?’
‘A mobile.’
‘I’d better have the number. Has anyone else got it?’
‘Only my ex-boss. That’s Dr Saxon–I gave him as a sort of reference to your sergeant.’
‘So you did.’ He wrote the mobile number in a pocketbook, and then scribbled another number, and gave it to her on a torn-off page. ‘That’s my direct number. Just in case you need it tonight.’
‘To confess or to call for help?’ said Antonia angrily.
‘You never know. Make sure to lock all the doors after I’ve gone, won’t you.’
‘That won’t do much good if he’s got a key, which clearly he has.’
‘We’ll be within call for most of the night,’ said Curran noncommittally. ‘Shall you be able to sleep? Have you got any pills you could take?’
‘No.’
‘The police surgeon’s still around somewhere. I could ask him for a sedative.’
‘Thanks,’ said Antonia. ‘But if the prowler does come back…’
‘Revisiting the scene of the crime, were you thinking? That’s very unlikely–tonight at any rate.’
‘I suppose you’re thinking I should know that anyway?’
‘Because you’re a psychiatrist, or because you’ve been convicted of murder?’