His brief nodded as Aubrey resumed, sourly, ‘Oh yes, we’d met alright. Isobel brought him to the house. He’d got a beaten-up car from somewhere, at least the neighbours across the road couldn’t see it behind the hedge. I’d already heard all about him of course, how much fun he was, how exciting, how she loved him.’
‘How did you get on?’
‘We hardly spoke. He wouldn’t give me the time of day. He had a horrible habit of skulking off and turning up in rooms he had no business being in. I had to check afterward that nothing had gone walkies. I did wonder after if he’d been casing the joint, but if so then he never had the nerve to follow it through.’
‘You didn’t like him?’
‘I could tell he was a bad’un — I expect you could too, Inspector? You must have a nose for it.’
Aubrey paused before adding, ‘You asked if Carman would know Thomas? Well, Thomas knew him all right. You see, the thing is Inspector…’
‘Help me out here, Grey,’ asked the Superintendent as his detectives arrived at his office and sat down. ‘My own staff are asking me what this pair are guilty of, and I don’t know myself.’
‘Nor do I exactly,’ answered the Inspector, lowering himself onto the sofa. ‘I just know neither of them are innocent.’
‘So what do we know?’
‘We know that Isobel had arranged to meet Anthony at the hotel on Tuesday,’ answered Cori. ‘Although she was shaky on the details of how they planned to get her away from Carman.’
‘And I have a theory about Thomas,’ added Grey. ‘I think Carman followed Isobel down here, but didn’t know why she came. Now we know how fiercely he guarded her, and we can guess how he would have reacted if he thought she had another man.’
‘So Carman thought Thomas was the other man?’ Rose was perplexed.
‘Perhaps not; but Aubrey did tell me Isobel brought Carman to his house once, and that he made sure he gave himself a good nose around — casing the joint, Aubrey thought. I reckon Carman clocked the car that day, and that was what he recognised Tuesday evening.’
‘When Thomas was standing next to it,’ Cori recalled.
‘So you’ve got to ask,’ Grey summed up. ‘If Carman didn’t know their secret, if Isobel had only introduced Aubrey to him as a family friend or whatever, but one she was obviously very fond of…’
‘…then Carman may well have asked why was she sneaking off now to meet him at a hotel?’ concluded Rose.
‘It’s a fair question.’
‘So it wasn’t about Thomas at all?’
‘No, Carman probably only called out to Thomas to find out what the bloody hell was going on. But Thomas was a bag of nerves by this point — don’t forget, he’d already had Larry Dunn shouting after him down the High Street that afternoon. I reckon he tried to dodge Carman’s questions too, only this time he didn’t have a bus to dash onto.’
‘So Carman chased him for answers…’
‘…and we saw what that led to.’
‘And all this because Isobel wanted to get away from her bullying boyfriend,’ lamented Rose.
‘But she didn’t did she,’ said Cori with a start. ‘I only mean she didn’t get away — we found her back in Nottingham.’
‘And you say Carman had followed her down here,’ asked Rose. ‘So did he also come by train?’
‘No, by car,’ answered Cori, ‘and five hours later.’
‘So how did Carman know where she was?’
Grey had been listening to them picking holes in his idea, ‘Okay, okay, we’ll just have to call it a theory in progress; but I’m sure I’m right about Thomas, and it’s still the best we’ve got.’
Rose sat back in his chair, ‘Well I’ll tell you what I think: I think that we have a working idea of what happened to Thomas, perhaps the best we’ll have. But it’s a theory that neither Isobel or Aubrey can confirm as they weren’t there, and which if anything only tells us that they weren’t involved. In fact, were they guilty of any more than planning a secret meeting? I have to say Grey, I don’t see that the pair have committed a crime here.’
‘There is more to learn sir, I’m sure of it. Just let me go at them once more.’
‘Okay, I’ll let you have another hour, but soon we’re going to need to have something concrete to pin on them. Get back at Isobel, try another angle, catch her off guard.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ve just the thing, a little detail Aubrey shared with me.’
‘I wonder, Isobel, if you knew that Anthony used Thomas to spy on you?’
‘What?’
Grey and Isobel at last had a chance to face each other.
‘Good lad, Thomas, she never rumbled you.’
‘What? What are you talking about?’
‘Aubrey used to send Thomas to buy CDs from the record store, while you were hanging out there. He didn’t trust Carman, you see.’
‘Why are you talking to me like this?’
‘Because your story doesn’t add up, Isobel. We’re having to ask a lot of questions. Such as why after being offered ten thousand pounds to leave that week we found you still in Nottingham.’
‘I changed my mind.’
‘Why?’
‘I bottled out, okay?’
‘But after all that planning, all those months of conversations?’
‘I told you — I lost my nerve.’
‘So you just went back?
‘Yes.’
‘And you weren’t worried about your boyfriend asking where you’d been for for nearly twenty-four hours, why your clothes had gone? This man who’d hurt you before and who you were bent on leaving?’
‘But he wasn’t there when I got back.’
‘And how were you to know that?’
‘I didn’t know.’ She looked up at him surlily. ‘I hated going back, but I knew his temper then would be nothing compared to if he ever tracked me down after running away.’
‘So tell us again who gave you your eye.’
Isobel gasped, ‘But I’ve told you what he was like.’
‘You forget, we’ve spoken to the officers who were watching your flat. The cut wasn’t there when you left on Tuesday, but was there when you came back on Wednesday. So I have to ask, how did it get there?’
‘What do you want? My medical records? You said there was someone who could help me, a support officer. Well I want them here, I’d like to see them.’ She looked to her brief who nodded.
‘And you maintain the fiction that you have no idea where Carman is now?’
‘Inspector, my client has made a request.’ This was the first thing Grey had heard either Isobel or Aubrey’s solicitors say today; hired by the latter, and as silent in interview as they must have been wise in private counsel.
‘But there are questions that need answers. A man has died!’
‘A death you know Miss Semple played no part in.’
‘Not directly.’
‘Inspector, of just what are you accusing my client?’
Grey didn’t know; as Isobel chipped in too, ‘You still can’t trust me, just because I snapped at you earlier? I thought we were over that.’
But the Inspector didn’t reply, only offering, ‘I believe the support officer we called this morning left after you
