“Not straight away, no. I did have a quick word with one of the girls in Running Wardrobe.” The coins in his pocket jingled softly as he shifted position.
“How long a word, sir? Five minutes? Ten minutes? Do you remember what time you signed out with Danny?”
“Actually, Sergeant, I didn’t.” He ducked his head as sheepishly as an errant schoolboy. “Sign out, that is. Because I hadn’t signed in, and that’s quite frowned upon.”
“You hadn’t signed in? But I thought it was required of everyone.”
“In theory it is. But it’s not a high-security prison, my dear. I must admit I wasn’t feeling entirely sociable when I arrived on Thursday evening. The performance had already started when I came in through the lobby, so I just gave one of the ushers a wink and stood in the back.” He smiled at Gemma. “I’ve spent too much of my working life on my feet, I suppose, to feel comfortable staying in one position for very long.” As if to demonstrate, he left the drafting stool and came to stand near Gemma. Lifting a swatch of tartan satin from the table, he hefted it, then ran his fingers over its surface. “This ought to do nicely for
“Mr. Godwin. Tommy.” Gemma’s use of his first name caught his attention, and for an instant she saw again the stillness beneath his surface prattle. “What did you do when the performance finished?”
“I’ve told you, I went straight to Gerald’s—” He stopped as Gemma shook her head. “Oh, I see what you mean. How did I get to Gerald’s dressing room? It’s quite simple if you know your way around the warren, Sergeant. There’s a door in the auditorium that leads to the stage, but it’s unmarked, of course, and I doubt anyone in the audience would ever notice it.”
“And you left the same way? After you spoke to Sir Gerald and”—“Gemma paused and flipped back through her notes—“the girl in Running Wardrobe.”
“Got it in one, my dear.”
“I’m surprised you found the lobby doors still unlocked.”
“There are always a few stragglers, and the ushers have to tidy up.”
“And I don’t suppose you remember what time this was, or that anyone saw you leave,” Gemma said with an edge of sarcasm.
Rather contritely, Tommy Godwin said, “I’m afraid not, Sergeant. But then one doesn’t think about having to account for oneself, does one?”
Determined to break through his air of polished innocence, she pushed him a little more aggressively. “What did you do when you left the theater, Tommy?”
He propped one hip on the edge of the worktable and folded his arms. “Went home to my flat in Highgate, what else, dear Sergeant?”
“Alone?”
“I live alone, except for my cat, but I’m sure she’ll vouch for me. Her name is Salome, by the way, and I must say it suits—”
“What time did you arrive home? Do you by any chance remember that?”
“I do, actually.” He paused and smiled at her, as if anticipating praise. “I have a grandfather clock and I remember it chiming not long after I came in, so it must have been before midnight.”
Stalemate. He couldn’t prove his statements, but without further evidence she had no way to disprove them. Gemma stared at him, wondering what lay beneath his very plausible exterior. “I’ll need your address, Mr. Godwin, as well as the name of the person you spoke to after you saw Sir Gerald.” She tore a page from her notebook and watched as he wrote the information in a neat left-handed script. Running back through the interview in her mind, she realized what had been nagging her, and how deftly Tommy Godwin had sidestepped.
“Just how well did you know Connor Swann, Mr. Godwin? You never said.”
He carefully capped her pen and returned it, then began folding the paper into neat squares. “I met him occasionally over the years, of course. He wasn’t exactly my cup of tea, I must say. It baffled me that Gerald and Caro continued to put up with him when even Julia wouldn’t, but then perhaps they knew something about him that I didn’t.” He raised an eyebrow and gave Gemma a half-smile. “But then one’s judgment of character is always fallible, don’t you find, Sergeant?”
CHAPTER
8
The High Wycombe roundabout reminded Kincaid of a toy he’d had as a child, a set of interlocking plastic gears that had revolved merrily when one turned a central crank. But in this case five mini-roundabouts surrounded a large one, humans encased in steel boxes did the revolving, and no one in the Monday morning crush was the least bit merry. He saw an opening in the oncoming traffic and shot into it, only to be rewarded by a one-fingered salute from an impatient lorry driver. “Same to you, mate,” Kincaid muttered under his breath as he escaped gratefully from the last of the mini-roundabouts.
A holdup on the M40 had delayed him, and he arrived at High Wycombe’s General Hospital a half-hour late for the postmortem. Kincaid tapped on the door of the autopsy room and opened it just enough to put his head in. A small man in green surgical scrubs stood facing the stainless-steel table, his back to Kincaid. “Dr. Winstead, I presume?” Kincaid asked. “Sorry I’m late.” He entered the room and let the door swing shut behind him.
Winstead tapped the foot switch on his recorder as he turned. “Superintendent Kincaid?” He edged the microphone away from his mouth with the back of his wrist. “Sorry I can’t shake,” he added, holding up his gloved hands in demonstration. “You’ve missed most of the fun, I’m afraid. Started a bit early, trying to catch up on the backlog. Should have had your fellow done Saturday, yesterday at the latest, but we had a council housing fire. Spent the weekend identifying remains.”
Tubby, with a mop of curly, graying hair and boot-button black eyes, Winstead lived up to his sobriquet. Kincaid found himself thinking that his vision of Pooh Bear with scalpel in hand hadn’t been too far off the mark. And like many forensic pathologists Kincaid had come across, Winstead seemed unfailingly jolly. “Find anything interesting?” Kincaid inquired, just as glad that Winstead’s body blocked part of his view of the steel table. Although he’d grown accustomed to the gaping Y-incision and peeled-forward scalp, he never enjoyed the sight.
