“No,” he whispered.
“It’s a long time since she did any housework.”
“What happened to it?”
“I can’t remember. We threw out a lot of things before we moved.”
“How did you find the time to do that?” asked Roz.
“Mr.
Hayes said you upped and left one morning and a removal company turned up three days later to pack your stuff for you.”
“Perhaps I sorted through everything when it came here,” he said rather wildly.
“I can’t remember the precise order of things so long afterwards.”
Hal scratched his jaw.
“Did you know,” he murmured evenly, ‘that your wife identified some charred remains of a floral overall, found in the incinerator in the Martins’ garden, as being part of the clothing that Gwen was wearing the day she was murdered?”
Colour drained from Clarke’s face, leaving it an unhealthy grey.
“No, I didn’t.” The words were barely audible.
“And those remains were carefully photographed and carefully stored, ready to be produced at a future date if there was ever any dispute over their ownership. Mr. Hayes, I’m sure, will be able to tell us whether it was your wife’s overall or Gwen’s.”
Clarke raised his hands in helpless surrender.
“She told me she’d thrown it away,” he pleaded, ‘because the iron had scorched a hole through the front. I believed her. She often did things like that.”
Hal hardly seemed to hear him but went on in the same unemotional voice.
“I very much hope, Mr. Clarke, that we will find a way of proving that you knew all along that it was your wife who killed Gwen and Amber. I should like to see you tried and convicted of allowing an innocent girl to go to prison for a crime you knew she hadn’t committed, particularly a girl whom you used and abused so shamelessly.”
They could never prove it, of course, but he drew considerable satisfaction from the fear that set Clarke’s face working convulsively.
“How could I know? I wondered’ his voice rose ‘of course I wondered, but Olive confessed.” His eyes strayed beseechingly to Roz.
“Why did Olive confess?”
“Because she was in deep shock, because she was frightened, because she didn’t know what else to do, because her mother was dead, and because she had been brought up to keep secrets. She thought her father would save her, but he didn’t, because he thought she had done it. You could have saved her, but you didn’t, because you were afraid of what people would say. The woman at Wells-Fargo could have saved her, but she didn’t, because she didn’t want to be involved. Her solicitor could have saved her if he had been a kinder man.” She flicked a glance at Hal.
“The police could have saved her if they’d questioned, just once, the value of confession evidence. But it (was six years ago, and six years ago, confessions’ she made a ring with her thumb and forefinger ‘were A-OK. But I don’t blame them, Mr. Clarke. I blame you. For everything. You played at being a homosexual because you were bored with your wife and then you seduced your lover’s daughter to prove you weren’t the pervert you thought he was.” She stared at him with disdain.
“And that’s how I’m going to portray you in the book that will get Olive out of prison. I really despise people like you.”
“You’ll destroy me.”
“Yes.”
“Is that what Olive wants? My destruction?”
“I don’t know what Olive wants. I only know what I want, which is to get her released. If it means your destruction, then sobe it.”
He sat for some moments in silence, his fingers plucking shakily at the creases in his trousers. Then, as if reaching a sudden decision, he looked at Roz.
“I would have spoken if Olive hadn’t confessed. But she did, and I assumed like everyone else that she was telling the truth. Presumably you have no desire to prolong her stay in prison? Her release in advance of your book’s publication would improve your sales considerably, wouldn’t it?”
“Maybe. What are you suggesting?”
His eyes narrowed.
“If I give you the evidence now that will hasten her release, will you in return promise not to divulge my real name or address in the book?
You could refer to me by the name Olive called me, Mr. Lewis. Do you agree?”
She smiled faintly. What an unbelievable shit he was. He could never hold her to it, of course, but he didn’t seem to realise that. And the police would release his name, anyway, if only as Mrs. Clarke’s husband.
“I agree. As long as it gets Olive out.”
