The waiter returned with drinks for everyone at the table. While they waited for the man to move off, Adie’s mind was working overtime to process all she was learning.
“So she was going to take the train down to Lewes Saturday evening, is that right?” Adie checked, taking a sip from her diet coke.
“That was the plan. She was to tell no one where she was going, so her friends couldn’t be forced to reveal her location. Once at Lewes, she’d take a taxi out to my place. I would hide her away so no one knew she was there and then take her with me when I left on Monday. That was the plan. But she never arrived.
“To be honest, I didn’t even realize she hadn’t. Not until late Sunday afternoon when I began to sober up. I thought she’d changed her mind. Georgie was a little scatty, if I’m being honest. Unreliable. It was part of her charm. You can’t keep a butterfly to a schedule, can you?” He spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness.
“So you think Owen Jeffers had her killed?” Adie checked yet again, baffled beyond words by this latest turn of events.
It just didn’t make sense. What reason did Jeffers have to lie to them? Unless Winsley had found something Jeffers was willing to lie for. She remembered how he’d kept saying wild goose chase, as if taunting her. Had he been having fun doing exactly that, sending her on a wild goose chase, when he knew perfectly well that he was the one who’d had Georgie murdered?
“I do indeed. Of course I didn’t think anything of the sort at the time. I left for the French Riviera as planned the following week and was gone a couple of months. When I came home the papers were filled with stories about a missing actress and dancer, the ex-wife of a nobleman. The papers said it was either the ex-husband or the mobster who killed Georgie.
“Fredrickson was a bastard. The things he did to that poor lass when she was married to him don’t bear thinking about. If that mobster didn’t get her, then I expect her husband did. The poor woman didn’t have a chance.
“Although I was a good deal younger than she was, and she was quite the woman of the world, I felt protective of her. She was a little like Marylyn Munroe. Fragile and lost. Every man she met wanted to protect her, and yet she seemed to be drawn to the violent ones who tried to control her.”
“So you don’t really know if he killed her or not?” Cage said, speaking for the first time.
Roland looked surprised. “Well, no. But that was what everyone was saying at the time. It seems very coincidental, don’t you think, that the day after her boss threatens to make her disappear, she does? Clearly, she believed him. I heard it in her voice. Why else would she not make it to my place that night?”
Adie had to agree. The chances that something else happened to her seemed remote. Yet Adie had been so sure Jeffers had told her the truth. But if Georgie said he threatened her, then it must have been so. How would Roland have known about it otherwise?
“I always expected the police would come knocking at my door. But for some reason they never did. And for that I’m grateful. The last thing I wanted was to get embroiled in a murder. Things like that didn’t happen in our neck of the woods. Well, not then at least. And it wasn’t as if I had anything worthwhile to contribute. It was all hearsay, wasn’t it? I didn’t actually hear him threaten her.”
Now Roland sounded apologetic, as if he believed Adie was blaming him for not coming forward. Maybe he’d spent a great many years blaming himself.
If he was as innocent as he was making out. Who was to say she wasn’t killed at his house-party and Roland disposed of her on his estate? A jilted mobster would be the perfect cover-story.
Cage waved the waiter over and handed over his credit card for the drinks at their table. Adie used that as their cue to go.
She rose and offered her hand to Roland. “You have been very helpful. Thank you.”
“I wish I could have given you better news. I suppose Minerva thought Georgie ran away with me all these years ago,” he said, taking her hand between both of his.
“Yes, she did,” Adie answered with a sad smile.
“I doubt even a threat on her life would have kept that woman from her son. That’s how they realized she was missing, you know. She was supposed to take her son for the long weekend. When she didn’t arrive the headmistress reported her missing.
“That poor lad. He’d been taken from his mother by the courts, sent to a boarding school with boys he didn’t know, and then had his mother go missing. It would be enough to devastate a young, impressionable lad. Only ten, if I remember correctly.”
Adie nodded. “Yes. Poor Rory.”
For most of the drive home they sat quietly, separately mulling over what they’d learned. The whole interview had taken no more than half an hour, and yet it had totally scuttled their weeks of investigation.
“Do we go back to the prison again? See what Jeffers has to say about this piece of information?” Adie asked eventually, her tone dejected.
“I don’t think Jeffers did it. I can see why the media jumped on
