Hedley had left nothing to chance. The gas ring on the floor – a typ-205

ical feature of rented accommodation – held a kettle, and two mugs had been placed next to it, not matching but brightly coloured and welcoming; there was an alternative to tea, too, in the form of a bottle of Guinness and a pair of tumblers, and Penrose was sure that if he were to move a little closer to the bed he would be able to catch the optimistic scent of freshly laundered sheets.

These first impressions of Hedley White were both an affirmation of what he had expected, and a surprise. He had thought of him as a frightened boy and fear was certainly written all over his face – fear, and the relief which Penrose often saw in people who had decided to confront the worst thing that could happen to them. But he had not anticipated someone quite as out of the ordinary as the young man in front of him. Hedley was remarkably good-looking, with the broad shoulders and narrow hips of an athlete and an open, spirited face which was devoid of all vanity and all the more handsome for that. If Penrose didn’t steer clear of such adjectives when questioning a suspect, he would have said it was an honest face. There was a strength, too, behind the fear, a resolve in his eyes to stick to the course he had chosen no matter what; whether that was to White’s credit or not, Penrose hoped now to find out. ‘Was Elspeth fond of daffodils?’ he asked.

For a moment, White seemed to think that Penrose was mocking him. When he realised it was a serious question, he just looked bewildered. ‘She liked all sorts of flowers.’

‘But no particular favourites?’

‘Not that I know of. She talked about rose bushes in her garden at home, but I’ve bought her violets and snowdrops as well as daffodils, and she said she liked them all.’

‘Why did you run away, Hedley? You must have known how that would look.’

‘Because I was scared,’ he said with disarming simplicity. ‘The papers were calling it a crime of passion, so I knew you’d be looking for me and I knew you’d think I killed Elspeth. Haven’t you ever been so frightened that you just wanted to get as far away as possible, even though you had nothing to hide?’

It was a rhetorical question, although Penrose could have cited 206

several salient examples. ‘When did you find out that Elspeth had been killed?’ he asked.

‘During the matinee. I didn’t know straight away that it was Elspeth but everyone backstage was talking about what had happened at King’s Cross the night before and how it was connected to the play. Then after the show I saw a newspaper in the Green Room. It didn’t give any names or a description or anything, but it said a young girl had been killed and the time, and I just knew it had to be her. I left the theatre at about five o’clock and went to a telephone box, and I kept telephoning her aunt and uncle, hoping they’d say she was with them and all right, but there was no answer. That confirmed something was wrong. They’d never leave the shop on a Saturday.’

‘So why did you go to the theatre last night?’

‘Because of the Boat Race.’ Penrose looked confused, so Hedley continued. ‘I suddenly thought that might be why no one was at home. Elspeth had mentioned it in one of her letters – they always go if she’s there because they live so close to the river, and I thought they might have stayed on to join in the celebrations after the race. So I waited outside the theatre in case it had all been some horrible mistake, hoping she’d turn up just like we’d arranged. I suppose I knew in my heart it was no good, but I so desperately wanted there to be another explanation.’

‘What arrangements had you made for the weekend?’

‘We were going to meet at the theatre, an hour or so before the show so we’d have time for a drink. Afterwards, we were going to have dinner at the Lyons on Shaftesbury Avenue. Her uncle works for them and he put in a good word for us. The staff there love Frank, so we knew we’d get a good deal.’

‘And afterwards?’

Penrose could see that imagining how the weekend should have gone was painful for Hedley, but the boy was making a big effort to hold himself together and he carried on. ‘I would have taken her home. On Sunday, we were going to go out for the day but we hadn’t made any definite plans. We thought we’d see what the weather was like.’

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‘How long did you stay at the theatre on Saturday night?’

‘We’d agreed to meet out the front, so I waited across the road.

I got there at about a quarter past six, I suppose – Elspeth was always early because she’d get so excited, so I didn’t want to miss her. I stayed until the house had gone in and they started to turn the queues away. By that time, I couldn’t pretend any more. I knew she wasn’t coming, and that I wouldn’t need the tickets, so I sold them.’

‘Where did you go after that?’

‘I walked about for a long time – it must have been hours. I couldn’t come home because I knew you’d look for me here, so I went in the opposite direction, round all the parks, and ended up at Paddington. I thought about getting a train and making a run for it.’

‘So why didn’t you?’

‘I didn’t know where to go, or what I’d do when I got there. The only person I could think of who would help me was Miss Beaumont, so I telephoned her and she told me to come here. She said if I didn’t, I’d be wasting your time when you should be trying to find the person who did this to Elspeth.’

Clever, thought Penrose, or true. ‘If you were so excited about the weekend, why didn’t you meet her at the station on Friday night? You would have had time before work, even if it was just a quick hello. She must have been looking forward to seeing you.’

‘Yes, but her Uncle Frank always met her. She brought loads of luggage down with her which needed his van, and anyway, I liked to give her time to settle in with her family. I didn’t want to get in the way, so I went for a drink with a friend before work. Rafe Swinburne – he lives across the landing and he’s on at Wyndham’s, so we often go in together. We arrived in town at six o’clock, had a beer or two upstairs at the Duncannon, and left there in plenty of time to get to work. You can check with him if you like. He’ll probably be home soon.’

‘We’ll do that,’ Penrose said. The alibi had been offered very readily, he thought, and with more detail than was natural. He didn’t yet know what to make of Hedley White. He was certain 208

the boy was lying about Friday evening but, if he was capable of killing at all, Penrose doubted that he could do so in such a cold and calculating way. In the heat of the moment, perhaps, but not with the careful planning that both murders had required. Then again, he remembered what Frank Simmons had said about Elspeth’s travel plans.

‘I understand that Elspeth wasn’t supposed to come down until after the weekend, but you brought her visit forward and sent her the train ticket?’

‘Yes, although I didn’t buy it, of course. I could never have afforded first class. It was a special treat for her. Mr Aubrey helped me sort it out. He knew how much Elspeth loved the play because I’d told him, and he was making arrangements for Miss Tey to come down for the final week, so he suggested getting Elspeth booked on the same train. It was supposed to be a lovely start to the weekend. Mr Aubrey thought it would mean a lot to her to meet her favourite author, and he fixed the seats so they were bound to bump into each other and get talking. Elspeth always found it easy to talk to people – it was one of the things I loved about her.’

So Josephine’s encounter with Elspeth had been carefully orchestrated after all. He had never entirely believed in the coincidental meeting, in spite of Josephine’s reassurances, and, significantly, the hand behind it all was Bernard Aubrey’s. But was it important to the crime that the two had met? Would Elspeth still have been killed if Josephine had not been on the train? There was no doubt that the murders were linked, but how could Josephine have any part to play in Aubrey’s past? Whether the explanation was innocent or not, he wished fervently that Aubrey hadn’t decided to involve Josephine in something that had ended so trag-ically, no matter how kind his intentions had been towards Elspeth.