A Match Made for Murder by Iona Whishaw (top 10 best books of all time txt) 📗

“Certainly you could phone the inspector. Even if he remembered, though, I’m not sure it would help,” Terrell said. “We already know Miss Van Eyck went to the station and got insulted for her troubles. It doesn’t answer the question of who was in the car with Watts making him sniff rat poison, or why he went around to the garage to see if Miss Van Eyck had revealed the rape to anyone.”

“True enough. I think I just want to find out which policeman it was so I can beat the bastard senseless.”

Terrell smiled. “I know what you mean. Bad police work is infuriating. It reflects on all of us. Let me tell you, I know that only too well.”

“How so?” Ames asked. “I can’t see you ever doing shoddy work. You seem meticulous to a fault.”

“Thank you, sir. In my case, if I were dishonest or bungled things, it would reflect on my whole race.”

“Oh,” Ames said. “I never thought of that. I remember Tina saying once that she had to be twice as good as a man to get half the credit. It must be something like that.”

“Just like that,” Terrell answered. “Can I get you another?”

“Sure, thanks. It makes you think. There’s that business of walking a mile in someone else’s shoes. I mean, I don’t think most people walk that mile. Or maybe I mean I don’t, not as much as I should. I just see the world from my perspective and assume everyone else sees it the same way.”

“I think we’re all capable of doing that,” Terrell said. “But being born coloured, I don’t have much of a choice. I sometimes feel like my whole world is dependent on other people’s points of view.”

Ames nodded. He thanked the waiter for the beer and looked around the room. All men. The women, he knew, had a lounge next door, with a separate entrance, where they could go with their escorts.

“This case is all about the women, isn’t it?” he said. “Either he was killed by an angry woman from his past, or by an angry father, brother, or even husband of one of those women. It’s still hard for me to imagine women committing murder even after the cases I’ve seen, but that’s because I really do see them as the ‘fairer sex.’ But what if I tried to see the world from the point of view of a Tina or an Ada Finch? Or even a Mrs. Watts, hearing her husband was planning to run off with a teenager. Maybe when they get angry, they want to beat people up as well.”

“I bet they do,” laughed Terrell. “I’ve seen women kill with a look! But the real question is why now?” he said, serious again. “What happened just now, why did he suddenly come around asking Tina if she’d said something? As you said, he’s been relatively happily married for ten years except for perhaps a few affairs, but something changed that unleashed everything that led to his death. Something or someone spooked him about the past.”

“And why be running after Ada? It’s unsavoury. He’s nearly forty years old. Maybe he thought this was his last chance,” Ames mused. “And which happened first, Ada or the warning about the past?”

“And he never gets to her. That’s the part I find puzzling. He sets out, his clothes packed and hers too, only he ends up dead by the Harrop ferry.”

“Wait,” Ames said, “Wait. The clothes. We’ve been assuming those are Ada’s clothes, when we found out they weren’t his wife’s. Why wouldn’t Ada bring her own clothes?”

Terrell nodded. “I see your point, but what if he says, ‘I’ll buy you lovely new frocks, you don’t have to worry about a thing’?”

“Yes. They are brand new. So first we have to see if they are Ada’s . . . something new she bought for her big escape and handed off to him so she could just go to school as usual with her books and nothing else so as not to raise suspicion. Then if they aren’t, we’ll have to look into where he got them.” Ames looked at his watch. “We can interview her this afternoon. Her parents will never let us interview her without them, so I imagine her dad will leave work to be there. And, do we believe that Mrs. Watts knew nothing, didn’t see any change in him? I thought she was a bit all over the map with her response when we told her it was murder.”

As much as he was disinclined to talk to Galloway, Darling knew he would have to share that Chela might have seen Meg Holden with a man who might have been James Griffin. Consequently, an hour after breakfast, he was at the police station with Martinez, sitting in Galloway’s office.

Martinez was taking notes, but Galloway, Darling thought, seemed distracted, resistant even.

“So this maid, Chela, is certain about it being Griffin?” Martinez asked.

“I don’t see how we can take the word of a Mexican maid, no offence, Martinez. Did you talk to her yourself?” Galloway said.

“No, my wife did.” Darling avoided glancing at Martinez to see if he’d taken any offence at Galloway’s remark and instead looked steadily at his old mentor

Galloway threw his hand up in a dismissive gesture. “Well, there you are then! A couple of women chattering. Nothing in it.”

With infinite effort, Darling suppressed his fury at Galloway’s dismissal of women in general and Lane in particular. With the studied calmness he used with recalcitrant witnesses, he asked, “Can you show me a picture of Griffin or describe him? I’m wondering if the man we saw her with in town the other day might be the same man.”

“Suit yourself. Martinez, go get the mug shot.” This order was delivered in so peremptory a manner that Darling glanced at Martinez, but the sergeant’s face was expressionless as he got up to do his boss’s