woman!'
'And did you?' Horton asked quietly.
Edney looked appalled, angry, and then deflated in turn.
Horton remained silent. If he hoped for a confession he was disappointed. Finally, when it was clear that Edney wasn't going to break the silence, Horton said, 'Do you own a boat?'
Edney snapped out of his reverie. His eyes focused on Horton. Alarm was reflected in them. 'No.'
'Can you handle a boat?'
'I've been on a couple of sailing courses,' Edney admitted reluctantly. His hands clutching his spectacles were shaking.
'Where were you Thursday between seven p.m. and seven a. m?' pressed Horton.
Edney put his glasses on his desk, took a handkerchief from the pocket of his trousers and blew his nose.
'At home,' he said eventually.
'All night?'
With an effort Edney pulled himself up. 'For heaven's sake, you can't really suspect me of having anything to do with Ms Langley's death! I don't know why you're hounding me, when her killer is out there somewhere.'
It was bluster. Edney was covering up something. Horton was becoming increasingly convinced that he was looking at someone who was involved in the death of Jessica Langley. He didn't think Edney had the bottle to do it on his own. Maybe his lover, Janet Downton, had helped him. Now there was a thought. 'You haven't answered my question.'
Tight-lipped, Edney replied, 'I had a community board meeting at seven fifteen. I left here just on seven o'clock and went straight to it.'
'Where?'
'Jenson House. It's one of the nearby tower blocks.'
Horton knew that. It was where he had lived with his mother on the twenty-third floor.
Edney explained wearily, 'One of the conditions of getting our money from the government for the new building is that we involve the community. Jessica Langley wasn't interested in that sort of thing, not high-powered enough for her,' he added with bitterness. 'Our community board meeting was in the residents' room on the ground floor. I arrived home at eight forty-five that evening and didn't go out again, until I came to school the next morning at half seven.'
Horton rose. 'We'll need to check with the community board and speak with your wife.'
Edney's expression turned to one of horror. He shifted position as if he had piles. 'I don't want you disturbing her.' A stab at defiance, perhaps the last, thought Horton.
'I don't think you've got much choice.'
Edney looked as if he was about to faint.
'Is there something you'd like to tell me about Ms Langley's death?'
Edney licked his lips, cleared his throat and clearly with an effort forced himself to hold Horton's stare. After a moment he said, 'No.'
It was a lie and with a bit more pressure Horton knew he would get the truth. For now, though, he decided to let Edney stew. He'd check out his alibi and then bring Edney in for further questioning. In an interview room at the station Edney would crumble, but Horton had a feeling that the schoolteacher would confess to the murder of Langley before then.
Eleven
'My husband was here all Thursday night,' Daphne Edney said crisply, in answer to Cantelli's brief introductory question. With reluctance she had shown them into a lounge that was so crowded with furniture, and so fussily decorated in swathes of pink and green, that it made Horton feel positively nauseous. The lamps were lit because of the dank, depressing day outside. It was still two and a half hours until sunset yet it felt like evening. Instead of making the room cosy, however, the dim lights only served to make it more cloying.
Horton took a seat on the sofa and glanced at the photographs scattered around the room. They were all of a young man at various stages of his development, including one in a cap and gown edged with white fur. The Edneys' son, Horton guessed, and clearly the apple of his parents' eye.
Daphne Edney perched on the edge of a chair to the right of Horton and smoothed her tight black skirt over her thighs, exposing her bony knees. She thrust her head up, set her shoulders back and glared at them. Her whole body seemed so controlled that Horton thought she might snap if she moved impulsively. She didn't offer them any refreshment. Horton wasn't surprised at this; she looked the sort of woman who wouldn't offer a glass of water to a man dying of thirst in the middle of the desert. She pursued her thin lips together in a small, sharp face. She had been a surprise; Horton had expected someone more homely.
He said, 'What time did your husband get in from school on Thursday?'
'Just before nine.'
'Did he go out again during the evening?'
'No.'
He wondered how much reliance he could put on the alibi she was giving her husband. If what she was saying was true then Edney couldn't have killed Langley. But Daphne Edney had made no protest over their visit, nor had she shown the slightest surprise when she had found them on her doorstep. Horton guessed that her husband had telephoned to warn her they were on their way.
Horton caught something in her glance before she looked away: was it defiance? No, there was an air of cockiness about her. He had a feeling that she was telling the literal truth, but leaving out a whole lot more. He wondered if she and her husband had agreed to answer the questions put to them truthfully, but would not volunteer information. So, she thought she was smarter than them.
He said, 'Did you go out?'
She couldn't disguise the flicker of surprise and irritation that crossed her face. Come on, let's play the truth game, he felt like saying.
'No.'
She was lying. She smoothed her skirt, examined her nails briskly and looked up. Her bright blue eyes spat bullets at him. Her little ploy had backfired on her, and she'd had to resort to lying, but why? If she had been out, then how did she know what time her husband had arrived home? There was something going on here that he needed to know about.
He remained silent and held her stare, hoping to force her to continue. After a while she sniped, echoing her husband's words earlier, 'Why this interest in our movements? You should be out catching her killer.'
'How well did you know Ms Langley?'
'I didn't.'
'Surely you must have met her at school events!' Horton injected an incredulous tone into his voice.
'I don't go to any of them.'
'Why not?'
'That's none of your business.'
Oh, isn't it? he thought. 'Were you disappointed when your husband didn't get the headship?'
Daphne Edney glowered at him. Horton sat back and crossed his legs, signalling to her that he could wait all afternoon and evening if necessary, until he got the truth.
With an irritable sigh, she said, 'That stupid board of governors, they didn't have the sense to know a good man when they saw one. All Jessica Langley had to do was flash her cleavage, show a bit of leg and they were putty in her hands. Well, now she's dead and it serves them right, just don't expect me to mourn for her.'
I wouldn't expect you to mourn for the Queen of England, thought Horton cynically. Without betraying his dislike for Daphne Edney, he said, 'How did your husband feel about not getting the job?'
'How do you expect him to feel? He was angry and disappointed. And now they've overlooked him, yet again.'
