Disordered Minds

*20*

It was like watching a battery-operated toy run down. Whatever had stimulated Louise to come to Andrew's house and tell her story was rapidly being neutralized by the wine and exhaustion. She rested her head against the back of the chair and stared at the ceiling.

'Did you go inside the house?'

'I was too damn scared.'

'Why?'

'Everything was on the floor.'

'Where?'

'In the kitchen ... in the sitting room...'

'What sort of things?'

'Everything. Drawers, broken bottles, plants. It looked like a bomb had hit it.'

Andrew flicked her a sideways glance. 'How could you see into the sitting room? I thought the curtains were pulled.'

'Not at the back they weren't. There were some French windows onto the garden. I looked through them.' She flicked ash onto his carpet before taking another drag on her cigarette. 'It did my head in as a matter of fact. I knew something bad had happened. There was blood on the pane ... right in front of my eyes. I thought it was Cill's.'

'Why?'

She turned her head toward him. 'Because Grace was a loony,' she said flatly, 'and I always knew she'd turn nasty one day. Cill used to tease her something chronic about the way she spoke and I reckoned she'd gone too far and made Grace flip.'

'So what did you do?'

'Ran home, kept my mouth shut and refused to go out for weeks.' She gave a faint smile at his expression. 'I thought the cops'd come down on me like a ton of bricks for not telling them where she was on the Saturday. I should have done ... would have done if my stupid mother hadn't stuck her oar in first.'

'Which day was this?'

She thought for a moment. 'It had to be the Tuesday. I ducked in on my way back from school because I was hacked off with everyone asking questions about Cill. Come the Wednesday I had a fit, and the folks kept me back till we moved to Boscombe.'

Andrew filed that piece of information away. 'Why didn't you tell your mother what you'd seen?'

Louise didn't answer immediately but returned to staring at the ceiling as if wisdom could be found in its matte white paint. 'What makes you think I didn't?' she asked then.

'There's no record of her going to the police.'

'That doesn't mean I didn't tell her.' She bent forward abruptly to kill the cigarette. 'She went off like a rocket, so did my dad. How could I let the family down? What were the neighbors going to say? Didn't I understand what a dreadful position I'd put them in? First a rape ... then keeping quiet about where Cill was ... now telling stories about blood on Grace's windows...' She gave a hollow laugh. 'They never liked me much so I'm sure they thought I was involved in some way.'

Andrew placed his glass on the floor to avoid looking at her. 'Were you?'

'Course not,' she said without heat. 'I hadn't a clue what was going on. Even when they arrested Howard, it didn't make any better sense. I kept asking Mum what had happened to Cill, till she boxed my ears and told me never to mention her again. It was a weird time ... I couldn't make head or tail of anything. In the end I worked out that Howard'd killed Cill, too, as being the only thing that made sense ... but it was way too late to say anything. The cops would've crucified the folks for keeping quiet.'

She was very believable, thought Andrew. Everything dovetailed neatly until he thought about the questions she hadn't answered. 'He couldn't have done,' he said evenly. 'He didn't have a car and there was only one body in the house. So how did he get rid of her?'

'Who knows?' she said glibly. 'Promised to take her home? Took her for a walk? He was a right little pedophile ... if he'd got away with Grace's murder, he'd've been picking kiddies off the street. It suits you to think he was innocent, but it doesn't mean he was. I was there, I knew him.' She flashed him another contemptuous look. 'He was a slimeball.'

Andrew propped his elbows on the arms of his chair and steepled his hands under his chin. 'Except there was no evidence anyone else had been in Grace's house,' he told her. 'Why weren't Cill's fingerprints all over the place? Why weren't yours? Even if the police couldn't identify them, they'd have questioned why two unknown sets were in there. Grace was a known recluse. The first thing everyone said about her was that she didn't have visitors.'

'Not my problem,' she said again. 'You explain it. I can only tell you what I know. She was always cleaning up after us.'

It was a clever tack-a challenge of belief-and he wondered fleetingly why her headmistress had thought her stupid. 'Howard couldn't have killed anyone on the Monday or Tuesday, Louise. His movements were accounted for all day ... which is why the prosecution pathologist argued strongly that the murder took place on the Wednesday.' He lifted a cynical eyebrow. 'But that's not your problem either, I suppose?'

She flashed him a mischievous smile. 'Right.'