She got hesitantly to her feet.
‘But what are you going to do, Ches?’
‘I honestly don’t know for the moment. I’ve got to think about it. You have my promise to keep
you out of it if I possibly can. If things look as if they are going wrong, I’ll let you know. That’s as far as I can go for the moment.’
She studied me, her face tense.
‘What are you going to do about your car?’
‘That’s something else I’ll have to think about. I don’t know.’
‘And this man who telephoned?’
‘I’ll wait until he contacts me again. If you hear from him, let me know.’
‘But suppose he asks me for money? I’m sure that is what he plans to do.’
‘Let’s wait until he does,’ I said impatiently. ‘If he does want money, tell him you must talk to me first.’
‘Can I promise him some money?’ she asked, staring at me.
I looked at her and her eyes shifted from mine.
‘No, you can’t promise him anything. If he asks for money, tell him to contact me. I’ll deal with him. You know, Lucille, you seem most anxious for him to have money either from you or me.’
‘I’m not! I just want to know where I am!’ Her voice went shrill. ‘I know he is going to blackmail me! I haven’t any money! How would you like to be in my place? How would you like to know someone is going to blackmail you, and you can’t pay and everything that means anything to you will be taken away? How would you like that?’
‘For heaven’s sake!’ I exclaimed impatiently. ‘He hasn’t even asked you for anything yet. Will you stop working yourself up? If he does ask for money, let me know. I’ll deal with him. Now go home. I have a lot to think about, and I can’t begin to think until you have gone.’
She got to her feet. She looked suddenly very young and unhappy and desirable.
‘Then I just have to wait, Ches?’
‘Call me around ten o’clock tonight. I may have something to tell you.’
Then suddenly she was in my arms, her mouth soft and trembling against mine, her arms clinging to me, her body pressing against mine.
‘Oh, Ches…’ she whispered, her hands moving up the nape of my neck. ‘I’m so frightened. You will look after me? You will make this come right?’
I made the effort and pushed her away from me, then I turned and walked over to the window while I got myself in hand. The feel of her lips against mine had really got me going.
‘I’m relying on you, Ches,’ she said. ‘I’ll call you tonight.’
‘Do that,’ I said, not looking around.
I heard her move across the lounge, away from me, and again I had to make an effort not to turn around and stop her going.
I stood there, staring out of the window, long after I heard the front door click shut, telling me she had gone.
II
The time was now twenty minutes to eleven.
I sat in the easy chair and my thoughts were busy.
There was something phoney about this whole business. I had no doubt that Lucille had hit and killed a policeman, but the way it had happened as she told it and the way it must have happened from the evidence just didn’t coincide. For some reason she had lied to me. Why had she insisted on saying that O’Brien had overtaken her on her off-side? Why had she insisted that she hadn’t met any cars on the busy highway? I had a growing feeling that the story wasn’t to be trusted. She was frightened out of her wits and, like a trapped animal, she thought only of escape and she would stop at nothing to save herself.
I had an uneasy feeling that time was running out. Someone must have seen her on the highway, and for all I knew the police might be already concentrating on my district.
Then I suddenly remembered the bloodstains on the Cadillac’s wheel. That brought me out in a hot sweat. If the police found those bloodstains, I really would be fixed.
Locking up the bungalow, I went to the garage and collected a bucket and sponge. Amongst the junk I kept with my tools, I found a strong padlock and a hasp. I then got in the Pontiac and drove fast to Seaborne’s house.
In the hard light of the sun, I examined the damage to the Cadillac. The on-side headlamp was completely smashed and the metal work surrounding it was buckled beyond an amateur’s attempt to repair. The two deep scores along the side of the car would have to be handled by a coachbuilder. There was nothing I could do about them.
I went around to look at the bloodstains, and there I had a shock. There were no bloodstains. For a long moment I stood and stared, scarcely believing my eyes. I knelt down by the rear wheel and examined it closely, but there were no bloodstains. I straightened and, walking stiff-legged, I went to the other side of the car and examined the off-side rear wheel. There, I found the bloodstains.
For a full ten seconds I knelt there while I stared at the red sticky mess on the white rim of the tyre. Here was something that set my mind crawling with suspicion.
I stood up and went to the front of the car and again looked at the headlamp. Then I realized something else. Lucille’s story that the cop had come up behind her and she had been startled and had hit him with the side of the car couldn’t possibly be true. I was surprised I hadn’t realized this before. For the lamp to have been damaged in the way it was damaged, she must have hit the cop head-on, and that meant he wasn’t overtaking her when the accident had happened. He must have been coming down the road towards her. It meant I had caught her out in yet one more lie and a much more serious one. She had said she hadn’t seta the cop, but had only heard him shout at her, and she had been so startled she had swerved and that was how the accident happened. It was obvious to me now that it hadn’t happened like that at all. She must have seen the light from his headlamp as it came down the road. She had admitted driving fast. The road was narrow. She had lost control, and before he could get out of the way, she had hit him head-on. Her story that he had come up beside her and had startled her had been invented to make me believe the crash hadn’t been her fault.
Did she imagine any jury would believe such a story once they had examined the car? Then I remembered my promise to take the blame. If I admitted I had been driving the Cadillac at the time of the accident, a jury would immediately jump to the conclusion that I had been drunk to have had such an accident. The road was straight. I could have seen the approaching headlight. I would have had plenty of warning to slow down. My mouth turned dry as I realized what I had let myself in for.
Then there was this puzzle of the bloodstains on the off-side rear wheel. How could they have got there? She had hit the motor-cycle on her on-side. It wouldn’t have been possible for her to run the cop over with her rear off-side wheel.
I went back to the rear of the car and again examined the dull, sticky red marks on the tyre. They had to be bloodstains: they couldn’t be anything else.
This was a baffler, and on the spur of the moment, I decided to leave the bloodstains. They offered
the kind of evidence that could confuse a jury if handled by a clever counsellor, and I felt in my bones I would be asking for trouble to remove such evidence.
I turned my attention to the garage doors. With the aid of the tools I had brought with me, I straightened the lock and got the doors to shut properly. Then I screwed on the hasp and fixed the padlock. I felt fairly confident the police wouldn’t attempt to break into the garage. They would contact Seaborne first and ask for the key. That at least would gain me a little time.
I decided to go now down to the beach where Lucille and had bathed and examine the ground in daylight. I returned to the Pontiac.
By now it was a little after twelve o’clock, and I found the highway crowded with weekend motorists. I had
