The two cops exchanged a long look. It was the man who picked up the conversation next. He said, “You’re right. That wasn’t a particularly helpful direction. I think the superintendent merely meant that Frazer’s got something of an appeal for women.”
“What if he does?” she demanded. “It’s hardly his fault.”
“I wouldn’t disagree.” Lynley went on to ask could they just go back over what she’d told them about Frazer’s whereabouts on the day that Jemima Hastings died?
She said she’d told them. She’d told them and told them and telling them again was not going to change things. Frazer had done what he always did-
Which turned out to be their point. If one day looked exactly like another in the life of Frazer Chaplin, was there a possibility that she was mistaken, that she was merely telling them what she thought he’d done, that he had perhaps done or said something later on to make her believe or assume he’d been home during that time when he was usually home, while the truth of the matter was that he wasn’t at home at all? Did she always see him when he came home to shower and change between his two jobs? Did she always hear him? Was she always, in fact, here at that time? Did she sometimes go to the shops? Putter round the back garden? Meet a friend? Go out for a coffee? Become caught up in a phone conversation or a television programme or a commitment to something that took her out of the house or even to another part of the house, resulting in the possibility that she didn’t actually know, couldn’t swear to, hadn’t seen, couldn’t confirm…
Bella felt dizzy. They were spinning her round and round with all their possibilities. The truth of the matter was that Frazer was a good boy and they couldn’t see this about him because they were cops and she knew about cops, she did. Didn’t they all? Didn’t they all know that what cops did best was find a supposed killer and then massage the facts to pin guilt upon him? And hadn’t the newspapers shown that to the public time after time with the Met putting supposed IRA blokes away for years on spurious evidence and God, God, Frazer was Irish, God he was Irish and didn’t that make him guilty in their eyes?
Then Lynley started talking about the National Portrait Gallery. He mentioned Jemima and Jemima’s picture and Bella understood from this that the topic had changed, moving from Frazer to society photos and, frankly, she was only too happy to look at them.
“…something too coincidental for our liking,” Lynley was saying. He mentioned someone by the name of Dickens and he connected that person to Hampshire for some reason and then he said something more about Frazer and then Jemima and then it didn’t matter at all because, “What’s she doing there?” Bella demanded. She went quite light-headed, and her hands got icy.
“Who?” Lynley asked.
“Her. Her,” and Bella used her icy finger to point at the picture that was bringing reality home. It was coming at her fast, an express train from the truth. Its whistle blew fool, fool, fool and the sound was deafening as the train screamed towards her.
“That’s the woman we’re talking about,” the superintendent told her, leaning over to have a look at the woman in the photograph. “That’s Gina Dickens, Mrs. McHaggis. We’re assuming that Frazer met her that night-”
“Gina Dickens?” Bella said. “You’re both mad. That’s Georgina Francis large as life. I tossed her out last year for breaking one of my rules.”
“Which rule?” the superintendent asked.
“The rule about…” Fool, fool, fool.
“Yes?” the detective inspector urged her.
“Frazer. Her,” Bella said. Fool, fool, fool, fool. “He said she was gone. He said he never saw her once she left. He said she was the one who wanted him…but he didn’t want it at all…Not with her.”
“Ah. I expect he lied to you,” Lynley told her. “May we talk again about what you remember of the day that Jemima Hastings died?”
Chapter Thirty-Two
SHE WAS IN BIG TROUBLE, NO DOUBT ABOUT IT. SHE WAS already so late for work that Meredith knew she was going to have to come up with an excuse for her absence that was akin to an alien abduction. Anything less was unlikely to result in her continued employment.
And it was going to be absence at this point, not mere tardiness. That was certain. For once she saw Zachary Whiting in conversation with Gina Dickens, Meredith felt afire to take action, and the action she felt afire to take had nothing to do with driving over to Ringwood and sitting obediently within her cubicle at Gerber & Hudson Graphic Design.
Still, she didn’t ring Mr. Hudson. She knew she ought, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. He was going to be livid, and she reckoned if she could somehow sort out Gina Dickens, Zachary Whiting, Gordon Jossie, and Jemima’s death by the end of the day, emerging as a heroine who wrestles villains into submission would bring her enough glory to translate into a chance that she wouldn’t lose her job.
She felt a bit like a headless chicken at first, seeing the chief superintendent chatting with Gina Dickens. She hadn’t known what to do, what to think, or where to go. She crept back to her car and started off in the direction of Lyndhurst because that was where the police station was and one was meant to rely on the police. Only what was the point in going there, she realised, when the head of the Lyndhurst police was here, and he was obviously thick as thieves with Gina Dickens?
Meredith pulled to the side of the road, and she tried to sort through what she’d heard from Gina Dickens, what she’d discovered about her during her own investigation, and what she’d learned about her from Michele Daugherty. She tried to remember every statement made to her and from these statements she tried to sort out who Gina Dickens really was. What she ended up with was the decision that there had to be something somewhere about Gina, a piece of truth about her that Gina herself had not realised she was revealing. Meredith needed to find that truth because when she found it, it would tell her exactly what to do.
The problem, of course, was the where of it. Where was she supposed to find this piece of truth? If Gina Dickens did not actually exist, then what was she-Meredith Powell-supposed to do to sort out who she really was and why she was in cahoots with Chief Superintendent Whiting in the matter of…what? What, exactly, was the reason for their partnership?
It seemed to Meredith that any information about Gina, her purpose in Hampshire, and her true identity was information that Gina herself would keep quite close. She would keep it secreted on her person, or in her bag, or in her car, perhaps.
Except, Meredith thought, that didn’t make sense. Gina Dickens couldn’t risk it. For Gordon Jossie might well stumble upon it if she kept it nearby, and Gina would know that, so she’d want some place far more secure to keep the key to who she really was and what she was up to.
Meredith grasped the steering wheel tightly as she realised the obvious answer. There was one spot where Gina could be freely who she really was: within the four walls of her own bed-sitting room. For while Meredith had searched that room from top to bottom, she hadn’t looked everywhere, had she? She hadn’t looked between the mattress and the box springs on the bed, for instance. Nor had she removed drawers to look for anything that might be taped beneath them. Or behind pictures for that matter.
That damn bed-sitting room had to hold all the answers, Meredith reckoned, because when it came down to it, it had never made sense that Gina would be living with Gordon while maintaining her own digs, did it? Why go to the expense of doing that unless there was a reason? So the answers to every riddle about Gina Dickens were in Lyndhurst, where they had always been. For not only was Lyndhurst the site of Gina’s room, but it was also the location of Whiting’s police station. And how bloody convenient was that?