Chapter Forty-Six

The LORD [is] King for ever and ever: the heathen are perished out of his land.

Psalm 10:16

Tuesday 13th November: "You can't be serious mother?"

"A car's a car as far as I am concerned."

Officer Donna White raised an eyebrow in exaggerated astonishment. "Parked right there, outside Westfield Health Club, where you work most everyday of the week. How could you fail to notice that monster?"

Alicia White flushed up. "You were the ones who were supposed to be looking for the thing. How come none of your boys in blue saw it? Anyhow, how did you know it was a Hummer?"

"We didn't. A neighbor saw a vehicle he thought might be a Hummer drive out of Cheryvale late that night. And then there were the tyre tracks in the blood."

The conversation conjured up graphic pictures in Alicia's imagination. She had that sort of mind, where if you said a thing she saw it. Troubled, she walked to the window and looked out onto the wind lashed garden. Autumn was tightening her grasp. Donna was still talking.

"We could tell, if it was a Hummer, and which model, from the tyre tracks."

Alicia turned to look at her daughter, "So you are convinced it was Trish Hartnett?"

"Personally yes. Though it is strange she persists in her claim to have had nothing to do with the vehicle."

Alicia frowned. "That's not strange if it's the truth."

"But it's not the truth. For one thing there was a postcard in the glove compartment; a postcard from Maine, from Summertown, where Trish Hartnett has a cabin."

Donna had always been a true American in the guileless, what-you-see-is-what-you-get tradition. The mother could read the daughter like a book. And Alicia could see her daughter keeping something back, her face tightening.

"And?"

"And there's stuff we're keeping to ourselves at the moment. You do that sometimes. Hold back stuff 'till the arrest."

"Like?"

"Like - and this is confidential Mom - there was a door key left in the vehicle. It fits Trish Hartnett's home. Plus a compact with her initials."

For a moment Alicia stood akimbo, wide eyed and open mouthed. "You're not serious?"

Donna nodded. "I am."

"Then she's guilty as sin."

"In my view yes. But it's all circumstantial. We can't actually prove that particular vehicle killed Bob Young. It's been steam cleaned. And too much time has elapsed. There's no physical evidence."

"So she gets away with it?"

Donna's face turned grim. "No. We arrest her. When we are ready. Then we sweat it out of her."

Alicia White frowned. "You're sure are you - that no one's framing her?"

Donna's grim face broke into a smile. "Oh for God's sake Mother . . . Really!"