Ruling Passion

‘He’s saying that they’re not searching for Colin so they can give him the bad news. They want him as the chief – in fact, the only – suspect,’ he said.

Ellie froze, her hand still at her brow.

‘Of course,’ she said after a while. ‘I’ve been silly. It must be those bloody pills they gave me. That’s what you would think, isn’t it? It’s nonsense, of course, but that’s how your minds would work.’

At least she’s taking it quietly, thought Backhouse. Too soon. She turned towards Pascoe.

‘So while I’ve been sleeping, you’ve been helping them hunt down Colin?’ she uttered vituperatively. ‘And now they’ve pumped you dry, they want to see if I can put them on to any other scents!’

‘For a would-be novelist you do mix your metaphors,’ said Pascoe coldly.

‘Please, please,’ said Backhouse soothingly. ‘Let’s keep things calm. Miss Soper, if it’s any consolation to you – though, as an intelligent and no doubt public-spirited woman, I don’t see why it should be – Sergeant Pascoe has been most unco-operative, even antagonistic, with regard to our search for Mr Hopkins. In fact, I had to intervene to prevent him from physically assaulting one man who talked critically of your friend. Such loyalty, I hasten to add, I do not find touching but foolish. The circumstantial evidence against your friend is strong. But now if it turns out to be misleading, he’s got to be found. Now, will you help?’

Ellie nodded, her eyes on Pascoe.

‘Yes. If I can,’ she said quietly.

‘Right. Tell me about Colin Hopkins then.’

‘We were all at university together,’ she began. ‘Colin, Rose, Timmy, Carlo. And Peter and me. We were pretty close. There were plenty of others, of course, but we were close.’

‘You all went on holiday together,’ prompted Backhouse.

‘That’s right. So we did. In Eskdale.’ She smiled at the memory. ‘Life seemed fairly cut and dried then. In the nicest way. Rose and Colin. Peter and me. And …’

‘The other two men were homosexual,’ said Backhouse neutrally.

‘Yes. That’s right,’ said Ellie challengingly. Backhouse ignored the challenge.

‘Things seem to have worked out as you anticipated,’ he said. ‘But you seem uncertain?’

‘I didn’t anticipate this,’ she snapped, relenting instantly. ‘Sorry. No, after we all finished, it was only Colin and Rose who stuck together. They got married about a year later. I don’t think they’d have bothered, but Colin had joined a publishing house and they thought it was worthwhile observing the conventions till he got stinking rich. Timmy was a linguist and got a job in the Common Market HQ in Brussels. Carlo went to work for some firm in Glasgow. I finished my research.’

‘Research?’ interrupted Backhouse.

‘That’s right. I was a graduate research student. I just condescended to mingle with the children. I’m a couple of years older than the others,’ she added defiantly.

Backhouse studied her slim figure, held the gaze of the grey eyes set in the finely-sculpted head with its close-cut jet black hair.

‘You carry your burden of years very well,’ he murmured.

‘Thanks.’ She smiled, the first time he had seen her do so. ‘I got an assistant lectureship in the Midlands. And Peter, of course, put on the helmet of salvation and became a policeman. I think the only time we all met together again was at Colin and Rose’s wedding.’

‘Not Timmy,’ interjected Pascoe. ‘He couldn’t make it.’

‘That’s right. He couldn’t. Well, we all kept intermittently in touch and saw something of each other. Except Peter. Within a couple of years or so he’d fallen almost completely from sight.’

‘I was very busy. Besides being poorly paid with very limited vacation periods,’ said Pascoe.

‘A policeman’s lot,’ said Backhouse.

‘Of course, he got a bit of a complex too. Felt that he would be a bit of a nuisance, perhaps even a butt, in the liberal academic and cultural circles his friends inhabited,’ said Ellie mockingly. But her tone was light.

‘But you saw the others?’

‘Sometimes. A couple of years ago, Timmy returned from the Continent. I think Carlo had already been working in London for six months or so. They took a flat together. Colin meanwhile had been going from strength to strength and had become the darling of his bosses to such an extent that he got them persuaded a few months ago to give him a year’s sabbatical so that he could write his book which would make everybody’s fortune. Brookside Cottage was where he decided to settle for the period. And he planned to keep it on as a week-end retreat after his triumphal return to London.’

‘I see,’ said Backhouse thoughtfully. ‘And did you know all this before you met him in London recently?’

Ellie shot a quick glance at Pascoe.

‘It was in the letter of invitation which the sergeant showed me,’ explained Backhouse.

‘I knew vaguely about it,’ said Ellie. ‘But it wasn’t till I met him that I got all the details.’

‘A chance meeting, was it?’

‘That’s right. Chance. Oh hell, no. Not chance. I’ve been trying to flog a book of my own, a novel. Without much success. I laid an ambush for Colin. I thought he might be able to help.’

‘You never told me that,’ said Pascoe, surprised.

‘No,’ said Ellie sheepishly.

‘Peter had told me to get in touch with Colin from the start,’ she added to Backhouse. ‘But I was too proud. And I don’t like putting my friends on the spot. But when things didn’t go too well with the book …’

‘You laid an ambush,’ said Backhouse. ‘Any luck?’

‘I didn’t even mention it,’ sighed Ellie. ‘He’d just got everything organized for his own move and was bubbling over. It didn’t seem fair to take advantage. And when I told him that Peter and I had re-established contact, he was genuinely delighted, took his address, said we’d be the first to sample his rural hospitality. Here we are.’

‘So he was a man who had everything going for him at the moment?’

‘Everything,’ echoed Ellie.

There was a knock at the door which opened almost simultaneously.

‘Cup of tea,’ said Mrs Crowther, coming into the room with a tray and the expression of one with whom superintendents cut very little ice.

She put the tray down in front of Ellie and took a small bundle of typewritten sheets out of her capacious apron pocket.

‘Here. These are for you,’ she said to Backhouse. ‘I’ve been typing them for Crowther. If you take them now, it’ll save him a journey later. Not that I’d pay them all that much attention. It’s his job to hear things, but they were a nice young couple, the Hopkinses. That’s what counts, not a lot of malicious gossip.’

She left with the shadow of a wink at Ellie.

‘Interesting woman,’ commented Backhouse, riffling through the papers. ‘We could do with her on the strength.’

‘I think you’ve got her,’ said Pascoe drily.

Backhouse folded Crowther’s report carefully and slipped it into his pocket.