1 see.
“I didn’t really hurt her,’ said Kemp.
‘Sorry?’
‘I mean, if I hit her at all, I would just have slapped her a bit. She wouldn’t have more than a few little bruises. But she asked for it. She was far too full of herself.’
Fry decided to change tack and come back to the assault later. His story would change in the details until eventually they would have the full account.
‘Did Marie tell you who the father of the baby was?’
Kemp blinked a little, then leaned forward across the table.
‘Oh, yeah. But she didn’t need to it wasn’t hard to guess.’
‘And who did she say it was?’
Now Kemp wanted to talk. He wanted to be sure that she understood. Like so many others, he was convinced that everybody would think he had done the right thing, if only he could explain it properly. Some of them talked for ever once they had started, baffled by their failure to communicate.
383
‘Look, you have to understand something about Marie/ said Kemp. ‘She thought she was cleverer than the rest of us, but she never had the education. She got obsessed with books. That house of hers was full of books before she’d finished.’
‘Yes, I’ve seen them.’
‘Well, she thought she was going to better herself by reading. As if reading those novels she had was going to improve anybody’s education. What a load of crap! But she thought because she could talk about novels she was an intellectual. She was easily influenced like that, always wanting to please some bloke. So she was round at the bookshop all the time. She thought she was moving in better circles, just because he took an interest in her. But he was after one thing from her, like everybody else.’
‘The bookshop?’
‘Eden Valley Books, of course. The ponce with the bow tic, Lawrence Dalcy. It was my fault she met him. And he’s no better than the rest of us, is he?’
‘Marie told you that Lawrence Daley was the father of her child?’ asked Fry.
‘That’s it. Daley. There’s only two things he’s interested in, when it comes down to it. And they’re the same things as the rest of us sex and money. All the rest of the stuff is just airs and graces. Books? Rubbish. Sex and money. Yes, I could tell you a thing or two about that bookseller.’
Two miles down the road, Cooper was still trying to thaw out his hands when he took the call on his mobile phone. ‘Ben. where are you?’
‘ V
‘AS7, near the Snake Inn. I’m on my way to Harrop to get a statement from George Malkin about the items he sold to Lawrence Daley.’ ‘Perhaps you’d better pull in.’
Cooper tucked the Toyota into the first gateway that he came to. The driver of a Transit van sounded his horn as he pulled out to go past him.
‘What is it?’ he said.
‘We’ve just interviewed Eddie Kemp again.’
‘Yeah. Get anything out of him?’
384
‘The name of the baby’s father.’
‘It wasn’t his?’
‘He says not. He says the father is Lawrence Daley.’
Cooper was glad he was no longer driving. He turned around in his seat. Lawrence’s blue Vauxhall should have passed him by now. There was no road to turn off the Snake Pass until the Harrop road, the other side of Irontonguc Hill.
o
‘I’ve not long seen him,’ said Cooper. ‘A couple of miles back, I helped to get his car back on to the road. He told me he was heading this way, but I think he might have turned round.’
‘I’m on my way. If you sec him again, just keep contact.’
Cooper manoeuvred the Toyota in the gateway with difficulty, forcing more traffic to swerve round him. Finally, he got back on the road heading east. He didn’t have to go far to find Lawrence’s Vauxhall. Only two miles back up the A57, it was parked in another lay-by, but on the opposite side of the road. This time, it had been taken off the carriageway deliberately and was parked neatly. There was no sign of Lawrence Daley.
Cooper got out and scanned the nearby landscape. There was nothing but blank snow everywhere. It was about the remotest spot on the A57, familiar only by the sight of Irontongue Hill to the cast. He checked the doors of the Vauxhall and found it locked. Then he looked in through the windows. He dialled
o
Fry’s mobile.
‘What is it, Ben?’
‘Lawrence Daley’s car is here at the roadside. There’s a length of plastic tubing and a roll of insulation tape on the passenger seat of his car.’
‘It’s a pity you didn’t notice that when you were giving him a helping hand.’
‘Do you think he drove out here to kill himself?’
