Disordered Minds

he felt the same kinship for her as she did for him. Their friendship had had its lighter moments and there was a sort of recognition in his eyes as if he remembered them. No man was so evil, she thought, that he had no redeeming qualities, and Roy had been kind to her. 'He didn't think you'd talk in front of him.'

Roy watched her for a moment. 'Too damn right,' he said bluntly, 'but I'm not going to talk in front of you either, girl, so you've wasted your time coming. I should have given you your marching orders the first time I saw you.'

'Why didn't you?'

'Because that stupid old fool Jim Longhurst told you I knew Howard, and I thought you'd be suspicious if I didn't show some interest.' He propped his elbows on the table and stared belligerently from one to the other.

'Ms. Gardener's on your side, Roy,' said DS Wyatt mildly. 'She doesn't believe you killed Grace.'

'More fool her. If it wasn't me and Colley, then it was Howard, and she's been scraping the barrel for years trying to prove that little wanker innocent.'

Wyatt gave a faint smile. 'I've explained that to her, but I'm still interested to hear how you respond to her questions. This isn't a formal interview so you aren't obliged to talk to her ... but I suggest you do. You've nothing to lose by it.'

'I've got everything to lose if she twists my words so she and her tame author can claim Howard was innocent.'

'That's why I'm here, to ensure fair play.' The sergeant tapped his forefinger on the table. 'You're on remand because the magistrates agreed you pose a threat to a witness-Mrs. Fletcher. But that threat only relates to Grace Jefferies's murder.'

'She's lying through her teeth,' said Roy angrily. 'We never went near Grace's house after the Saturday evening.'

'Then persuade us of that and there's a possibility the remand order will be revoked. We wouldn't have opposed bail on Cill Trevelyan's manslaughter. You've already said you won't contest the charges, and your clean record since 1974 and the fact that you were a juvenile when the crime was committed work in your favor.' He paused for emphasis. 'But I need something more convincing than denials, and 'she's lying through her teeth,' if you expect a review on the Jefferies' murder.'

Roy stared him down. 'If I had anything more convincing, don't you think I'd have told you? How am I supposed to prove the bitch is lying when Micky's dead and Colley can't remember a damn thing? She can say what the hell she likes ... and you'll believe her.'

George leaned forward. 'Negatives are such difficult things to prove, Roy. In your favor is the fact that the police found no evidence that there was more than one person in Grace's house when she died. Against you are Louise's testimony that she engineered your access to Grace ... that you had a motive ... and that you'd already committed one murder.'

He refused to look at her, not out of anger or resentment, she decided, but out of shame. 'It was an accident,' he said. 'Mr. Wyatt's accepted we didn't mean to kill her.'

'The end result was the same,' said George.

'I'm not denying that,' he said curtly, 'which is why I'm holding my hands up to manslaughter.'

'Do you regret it?' she asked.

Anger sparked in his face again. 'Of course I bloody regret it,' he snarled. 'The poor kid would have lived if she'd listened to her father and steered clear of the likes of us.'

'You were quite happy to smear David Trevelyan when Jonathan and I spoke to you,' she reminded him. 'Why should any of us believe that you aren't doing the same to Louise? Her story holds water. Yours doesn't.' She watched his fingers clench involuntarily round his cigarette. 'Perhaps whoever killed Grace didn't mean to do it either, but she was still dead by the time they left ... and at the moment you and your friends are the only people apart from Louise and Howard who had any close connection with her.'

He took a breath. 'We-never-had-any-connection- with-Grace,' he said with painstaking emphasis. 'We knew her name from Howard, and we knew where she lived, but the only time we came anywhere close to her was when she shut the door behind Cill on the Saturday night.'

'Then help me prove it,' she urged. 'If it wasn't you who killed her, who was it?'

'Howard,' he said.

'What about Colley Hurst or Micky Hopkinson?'

Roy shook his head. 'We were always together. One of us couldn't have done it without the others knowing.'

'Then why is Louise saying you did?'

He raised impatient eyes to hers. 'To get me banged up in here and Colley confined to a loony bin. It's like Mr. Wyatt says, we'd rip her miserable heart out if we had the chance. She only came up with this stuff when I looked like making bail on Cill.'

George pulled a wry expression. 'So your only regret is being caught? As long as no one ever found out about Cill, you could pretend to yourself her death was just an unfortunate accident.'

He pressed his thumb and forefinger into the corners of his eyes. 'Don't lecture me,' he warned her, with a dangerous edge to his voice. 'You haven't lived my life. You don't know what I regret and what I don't.'

'Was Grace another unfortunate accident? Did it start as a joke and end up as a murder because Micky pricked her with his knife and she started squealing the way Howard did?' She moistened her mouth in face of his naked anger. 'You said it yourself,' she went on. 'If Howard didn't commit the murder, then it had to be the three of you. You were the only other people with a motive.'

Roy glared at Wyatt. 'I told you. She's stitching me up.'

'It's a reasonable inference,' the sergeant said. 'If Grace knew you were in her garden when Cill left, then you