faint discoloration from dropped oil was still visible.
‘My God, you lot again!’ snarled Michael. ‘What d’you want this time?’
The superintendent jabbed a finger towards the concrete.
‘Your car leaks oil, by the looks of it.’
Prentice scowled. ‘Yes, it did, a little. I had my fitters tighten the sump bolts today, as it happens.’
‘A bit too late, I’m afraid, sir,’ said Evans easily.
‘What do you mean by that?’ demanded the other man, though he had a dreadful feeling that he knew where this was leading.
‘When we questioned you the other day, you said you walked almost to Pwlldu, when you were looking for your wife on the evening she disappeared.’
‘What about it?’
‘You said
‘Did I? I don’t really remember which it was. I was worried and confused,’ said Prentice, desperately trying to fudge the issue.
Ben Evans waited a moment before delivering his knockout blow.
‘If you don’t remember, why have you been down there since and used a wire brush to try to remove the oil stain you left?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ blustered Michael. ‘Scores of cars use this track, there are oil drips everywhere.’
‘Not ones with molybdenum sulphide in them, sir.’
Prentice looked like a stag at bay, but he made one final attempt. ‘That van that was stolen – it could have been that.’
‘You mean the thief was trying to return it to you at your home?’ suggested Lewis, sarcastically.
Prentice stared at him desperately. ‘It could have been one of my staff, they all have to test the stuff. Yes, that’ll be it, one of my engineers came out to see me not long ago, it must have been him.’
‘In that case, we’ll interview them all, and see if any went and parked half a mile away,’ replied Lewis remorselessly.
‘If it was your engineer, why do you think he came all the way back here with a wire brush to clean up the drip?’ asked Ben Evans. ‘Come on, sir, don’t play silly buggers with us, we all know you drove over to that cove where your wife’s body was found. What were you doing there?’
Ben had bet his inspector a packet of Gold Flake that Prentice would yell for his solicitor at this point, but he lost the wager. The new widower’s face became ashen and he seemed to crumple. A tall man, he suddenly became bowed, as he buried his face in his hands.
Then he recovered and groped in his pocket for his keys.
‘You’d better come inside, there’s something I must show you.’
Mystified by the turn of events, but still suspicious of the man, Ben Evans and his assistant followed him into the room on the left of the hallway. No one sat down and they watched him carefully as he went to a small table and pulled open a drawer.
‘You’d better read this,’ he said dully, handing the superintendent a folded sheet of paper. Lewis moved closer so that he could also see it. It was typed and quite short.
Evans placed the letter on the table, carefully avoiding touching it other than by the edge he had been gripping. If he had known what it was, he would not have handled it, to avoid adding to any more fingerprints.
‘Are you now trying to tell us that your wife committed suicide?’ he demanded, with incredulity in his voice.
Prentice nodded, standing head bowed and with his hands behind his back, like an errant schoolboy before the headmaster.
‘I found that in the typewriter when I came home that evening,’ he said in a low voice.
‘It’s all typed, there’s no signature!’ rasped Lewis. ‘You could easily have written it yourself.’
Michael looked up, then slowly shook his head.
‘But I didn’t, believe me. It was waiting for me when I came home.’
Lewis hauled out a notebook and a pen, as the senior officer began his questioning.
‘Start at the beginning, please. Tell us exactly what happened. You’ll have to make a full statement later, but that will be at the police station.’
Prentice gave a great sigh and rubbed his eyes with a handkerchief before answering.
‘I came home late, about ten o’clock and called out as usual, but had no reply. I looked in here and in the kitchen and called up the stairs without any response. Then I walked into the other room across the hall and saw that the cover was off the typewriter. This sheet of paper was still wound on to the roller.’
He spoke in a dull monotone, unlike his usual confident and often hectoring style.
‘Then what?’ prompted the senior officer.
‘I couldn’t take it in at first. I poured myself a drink and sat down in a daze. Then I thought it was some cruel hoax she was playing on me, to get even.’
‘Get even for what? The note says you physically abused her, which is confirmed by the pathologist.’
Prentice rubbed a hand fiercely across his mouth.
‘That was no big deal! I admit I grabbed her once and shook her, when she was ranting on to me about Daphne. She repeatedly refused to even consider a divorce and I lost my rag a bit, but I wasn’t beating her up, for God’s sake! It was just temper.’
Evans had his own ideas about that, but he carried on with his questions. ‘What did you do then?’
Michael sank down onto the nearest chair and sat on the very edge.
‘She said “the place that’s given me most pleasure” so I knew she meant the little beach below the house. I rushed out and though it was starting to get dusk by then, I went down the path opposite, to the edge of the sea. The tide was out and that little bit of sand was showing in the gully.’
He stopped and dropped his face back into his hands.
‘So what did you find?’ persisted Evans, whose heart was not softened by the man’s apparent distress.
‘She was lying there, rolling in the surf just at the water’s edge.’
‘Dressed in her bathing costume, was she?’ interposed Lewis.
Prentice nodded. ‘The blue one, she had several. Her hair was streaming back and forth, as the small waves pushed at her. I knew she was dead.’
‘So did you try to revive her?’ grated Ben Evans.
The widower lifted his head. ‘Of course I did!’ he said hoarsely, with a hint of anger in his voice. ‘I waded in and picked her up, but I could tell she was gone, as she was so limp. I carried her out and put her face down on the beach and started squeezing her back, though I knew it was pointless.’
‘Did you know how to give artificial respiration?’ asked Lewis. Prentice shook his head. ‘Not really, I’ve never been taught. But it was just a gesture anyway, she was long dead.’
‘Then what happened?’ demanded Evans, in a tone that suggested that he didn’t believe a word of it.
‘I gave up pumping her back, all I was doing was forcing up froth from her mouth and nose. I decided to carry her back up here to the house.’
‘Didn’t you think it better to run for help – send for an ambulance or a doctor?’ snapped Lewis.
Prentice raised his face to look up at the detective inspector. ‘What would be the point? I knew she was dead. I just wanted to get her home.’
‘Was there anyone about who could have seen you?’ asked Evans.
‘No, it was getting late and almost dark. I had a job stumbling back up the path, especially carrying her in my arms.’
‘It takes a big stretch of the imagination to accept that you could get back up that rough slope lugging your wife’s body,’ grunted Lewis.
‘I’m a big chap, officer – and Linda was very short and slim… and desperation lends strength.’
