thing, did Wilford.’
Jess lay at Harry’s feet, her black coat gleaming, one eye turned apprehensively towards the visitors, sensing the atmosphere.
‘Are you saying he committed suicide?’
‘Obviously,’ said Harry.
‘And why would he do that, Mr Dickinson?’
‘Because he killed that girl. The Mount lass. It was the only way out. He couldn’t have faced prison, you see. Not being kept in a cell, out of the daylight. He couldn’t have stood that.’
‘He killed Laura Vernon. And you, Mr Dickinson — you helped him all along?’
‘It’s what you do, for a friend.’
Cooper perched on the edge of a hard chair. The Labrador
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stirred and lifted her head to studv shee as she moved rest! ess! v across the room. A low growl began in the dog’s throat, but Harry silenced her with a sound that was barely a hiss of breath.
‘Do you want to tell us about it?’ asked Cooper.
Harrv was silent for a moment, looking from one to the other.
* o
He seemed not to be considering his words, but weighing up what effect they would have.
‘I saw Wilford on the Baulk that night, that Saturday,’ he said. ‘He was upset, and he told me what had happened. I said 1 would help him, of course.’
‘So you delayed things.’
‘Aye, I left it for a bit before I found the body. And 1 hid the other shoe thing.’
Harry looked down to the side of his chair, where the small mahogany cabinet stood. The shoe polish, cloth and brush were no longer on the floor in front of it, but had been tidied away, presumably in the little cupboard. Cooper remembered that he had thought them incongruous and untidy in that well-ordered room when he had seen them there on Wednesday. He realized they had not been put away then because there was no room in the cupboard. The space had been taken up by a size-five Reebok trainer.
‘I chucked it in the garden of the Mount on Wednesday night. It was supposed to make you think it might have been Vernon who did it himself.’ He sighed. ‘It doesn’t always work like it does on the telly, though. It took you a long time to find it. And that other lass had stuck her oar in by then.’ He laughed sardonically. ‘That was a right turn-up for the books.’
‘You mean Becky Kelk. The girl who claimed you’d attacked her.’
‘Nasty bit of work, she is. Never been taught how to behave, if you ask me. Still — I suppose I ought to look on it as a compliment.’
‘Mr Dickinson,’ said Cooper, ‘the officers who came to your house said you seemed to be expecting them.’
‘I was,’ said Harry. ‘But not about that, you understand. It had come to my mind about fingerprints. The ones on that shoe would be mine. I knew you’d be coming for me again as soon as
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you found it. But I didn’t expert all that other business. I thought you’d be asking about the shoe.’
‘Instead, Becky Kelk made a false allegation against you, and you were treated as a rape suspect.’
‘It was a bit of an education, all right.’
‘And you went through all that for Wilford Cutts?’ asked Fry. ‘Even though you knew he’d killed Laura Vcrnon?’
Harry nodded. ‘Aye, because he was a mate.’ Then he turned to stare directly at Fry. ‘Besides, the girl was evil.’
Cooper heard Harry’s voice stumble into anger when he mentioned Laura Vernon. It happened every time, in every case he had ever seen. Every time that the life of a victim was turned over, they were revealed as a person of many facets in the eyes of those who had known them. Like Charlotte Vernon,
J ‘
some saw glittering diamond surfaces, precious and unflawed. Others, like Harrv Dickinson, saw only base lead.
‘ j j
Cooper became aware of Gwen in the background, a faded shape against the dark wall. Her eyes were fixed and unblinking, and her expression made him flinch with its intensity.
‘How did it happen?’ he asked Harry.
‘Wilford used to work at the Mount, you know. He created that garden up there. It was his skill. Not like young Lee Sherratt.
or j o
He was never a gardener. He can hump a wheelbarrow, but he knows nothing about gardening. But Wilford found out what was going on up there, you see. Those orgies and things. He said it was wickedness, and he gave ‘em a piece of his mind. So Vernon sacked him.’
‘Was this before your granddaughter went to a party there?’
‘Yes, it was,’ said Harry. He looked at Cooper closely. ‘If you
