surprised to find him wearing a hair net, but any embarrassment Richard might have felt was soon forgotten as Manfred described the events of the past fifteen minutes. When he was done, the questions began, rapid-fire: Did anyone at the yacht club know where you were going? Yes. Was there anyone else at Justin’s house? No. Was the girl killed? Yes. Did you take her pulse? No. How’s Lillian taking it? How do you think? Is Gayle back yet? No, I don’t think so.
Richard thought for a moment then said, ‘Move the car into the garage then pour yourself a large whiskey. I need a little time to think.’
A little time proved to be less than ten minutes, during which he made a call from his room, judging from the small ping given off by the phone in the drawing room. When he came downstairs he had swapped his silk pajamas for slacks and an open-necked shirt, crisp and clean as always.
Justin was seated beside Lillian on the sofa, his arm round her, comforting her. Richard deposited himself in a chair and waited for her to compose herself.
‘You said to Manfred that she stepped into the path of the car.’
‘Yes,’ said Lillian.
‘Deliberately?’
‘I don’t know. That’s how it seemed.’
Richard turned to Manfred. ‘You’ve been drinking, I assume.’
‘Yes.’
‘If you’d been sober, would it have made any difference?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’
‘Lillian?’
‘No. It all happened too quickly.’
Manfred suddenly saw it, Richard’s strategy. He was playing to Lillian, the weak link in the chain, steering responsibility away from them and on to the girl, planting the belief that their only error lay in being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
‘This will destroy you, you know that, Manfred, don’t you?’
The words were meant for Lillian’s ears and Manfred dutifully took his cue from them.
‘There was nothing I could do.’
‘That’s clear.’
‘They were racing,’ said Lillian.
‘And who was the one who told me to overtake in the first place?’ retorted Manfred.
‘I’m not sure you should be looking to blame each other,’ said Richard.
‘If we’re doing that,’ interjected Justin, ‘then I’m at fault, for making fun of your car in the first place.’
‘We’re all to blame,’ said Lillian. ‘A girl is dead!’
‘Maybe that’s exactly what she intended,’ said Wakeley.
‘We don’t know that.’
‘Lillian, listen to me.’ Richard’s tone was calm, measured. ‘You see a car hurtling towards you at night on a country lane, what do you do? You hug the hedgerow; you do not step out in front of it just when it draws level with you. Think about it. From where I’m sitting, I’d say you’re lucky to be here at all. She might have killed you both.’
It was clear from Lillian’s expression that he’d convinced her, for now at least.
‘Here’s what’s going to happen,’ said Richard. ‘And it’s going to have to happen fast.’
The mastery of the plan swiftly hatched in his bedroom only became clear at a later date; for now they just did as they were told. Justin was instructed to return home by a roundabout route. While Manfred and Lillian hurriedly packed their bags, Richard took himself off to the garage, where he examined the damage to the Chrysler and cleaned off the gore as best he could. Fortunately, the nearside headlight was intact, reducing the risk of being pulled over by the state troopers on the long drive back to the city.
The main danger now was that Gayle would return, catch them in the act, and have to be won over. Fortunately, as they later discovered, she had chosen to go home with the handsome but dull copyright lawyer who’d been making a play for her at the dinner dance.
As instructed, they kept to the back roads until clear of Southampton. Soon after, they telephoned Richard at the house. He gave them the address of the gas station in Jamaica Bay, where they were met by the two men.
Manfred waited a couple of days before informing the garage that housed and serviced the Chrysler that it had broken down on the outskirts of the city, by which time he had received details of where it could be found. The Chrysler was duly towed back into the city, its bodywork as new, but with a clogged carburetor.
As long as they all stuck to the story, there was no reason it shouldn’t hold up. No one could attest to Manfred and Lillian’s presence in East Hampton during the critical, incriminating early hours of Sunday morning; and the temporary absence of the Chrysler could now be convincingly accounted for.
That was pretty much the last they heard of the matter. A few weeks later, Justin was visited by a local cop following up on the case, working his way through the guest list for the Devon Yacht Club dinner dance. Justin confirmed that Manfred and Lillian had visited him a little after nine on the Saturday night in question, returning to their house on Further Lane less than an hour later—well before the time of the girl’s death.
And that had been that; at least until Lillian had started behaving strangely. Now the ghost of Lizzie Jencks was
