The Scribbler by Iain Maitland (a court of thorns and roses ebook free TXT) 📗

she looked at the photo of Challis. “I’ve seen him somewhere. No idea where. Who is he … who are they?”

Gayther shook his head. “We’re just trying to establish who was with Karen Williams last night.”

Mrs Chapman nodded. Her husband did too. “Come back tomorrow, show the girls. They may recognise one or other of them.”

They both looked back towards the screen. “There,” said Mrs Chapman. “We think that’s her going.”

Gayther and Carrie both watched as, at 9.32.32pm, what looked like Karen Williams was leaving.

“She’s in a hurry,” Carrie said. “Pushing that old man aside.”

Gayther nodded, but did not add anything. “Wait,” he said, as Mrs Chapman went to fast-forward the footage, “I want to see …”

“No one leaves straight after her,” Mr Chapman said. “We sat through it this morning. Two bikers came in, about three or four minutes later. A couple left, two minutes after that. Dan and Shirley. Locals. Live over the way. Then another of our old boys who comes in sometimes and sits at one end of the bar nursing half a Guinness for hours. He left. He lives over the road. And that was it until the man she came in with went.”

Mrs Chapman wound the footage on … by the two bikers … the middle-aged couple … the old boy … and then stopped it at 9.44.22. “There … we think that’s him.”

Gayther and Carrie watched closely.

Saw the man pulling his hood up as he came on to the screen. “Stop,” said Gayther, louder than he meant to. “Rewind and freeze it, please.”

Gayther and Carrie looked at each other. They both spoke the same word at the same instant.

“Aland.”

“That’s very interesting,” Gayther added. “Carrie, take a shot of that with your phone … Mr and Mrs Chapman, thank you. You’ve been very helpful.”

* * *

“Your opinion, guvnor?” Carrie asked a distracted-in-thought Gayther as he accelerated the car back up the A12. “Are we now going to the care home again?”

He nodded his agreement and then spoke.

“I can’t help thinking this Aland has something to do with all of this. He ran from me … why did he run, really? I’m not scary. And he’s been with Karen Williams just before her death. That’s too much of a coincidence, surely? Is he The Scribbler?”

She looked as his angry face and then answered calmly.

“I don’t see how he can be. He has the look and is about the right age, but that’s all. He’s only been here, what was it, four months? He hasn’t been here thirty years. And he doesn’t have a Suffolk accent, which The Scribbler was said to have. So, it’s not him, is it, guv? It can’t possibly be.”

He shook his head. “I guess not, but … I don’t know … something doesn’t feel right to me. None of this does. It all feels wrong.”

“He ran from you because he was scared. That’s understandable given his background. And why shouldn’t he see Karen Williams if they’re both single? Maybe they had an argument of some kind – so what? People do. It doesn’t have to end in murder. Why would he run her over? It’s just a tragic coincidence. And … come on … why would The Scribbler, whoever he is, even come back and kill Karen Williams so long after the event?”

“Because Karen Williams was the only person who really saw him and talked to him when he came to check out the care home and discover which room was Lodge’s. The only clear witness who could look at a photo and say, without a shadow of a doubt, yes, that’s the man … I don’t believe she’d be on a date with this Aland anyway. She was pie-eyed about her dead husband yesterday, not looking forward to a date night.”

“For f…” Carrie stopped and composed herself. “Well it’s not Aland then, is it, guvnor? Aland can’t be … John bloody Smith … The Scribbler, can he, the man who came and met Karen Williams and said he was John Smith? The man she’d never met before. I mean The Scribbler can’t be two people, can …”

Her words tailed off as she sat back and got her phone out of her pocket.

He could sense her frustration.

Knew, deep down, that what she said was correct.

“Okay,” he answered after a few minutes’ silence, “let’s look at this rationally. There are two strands to it. First, has The Scribbler, let’s assume it’s this Smith, come back and killed Karen Williams?”

“I’d say no. I can buy that the vicar somehow saw him at the fete and he returned the next day pretending to be someone’s nephew … that’s quite clever … and then the following evening to commit murder. That’s quite risky, but if he was scared and thought he was about to be exposed somehow, well, yes, maybe I can accept that. But why would he kill Karen Williams … how would he find her … why would he wait so long?”

“Because he knows we’re investigating Lodge’s death and he’s panicked and decided to kill Karen Williams, too. And because … maybe, somehow … he has some other sort of link with the care home we don’t yet know about?”

Carrie sat there thinking as Gayther turned the car off the A12 on to the road back to the Kings Court care home.

They drove along in silence as they approached the home.

Both edgy, both tetchy. Trying to work through the ifs, buts and maybes in their heads.

“I don’t see it, guvnor, really I don’t. I mean The Scribbler took a calculated gamble going back into the care home to find Lodge. There may have been cameras up recording him coming and going. All sorts of people would have seen him. He bluffed them with the Mrs Smith’s nephew line, so they’d not link him to the vicar’s death. He got away with that. But why come back for Mrs Williams … so long after. We’re … quite honestly, guv, we’re clutching at straws.”

Gayther eventually