A Question of Guilt(95)

‘Oh!’ I was too startled to say more, but suddenly things were falling into place. The very things that had made me suspicious of Josh when I found Dawn’s diaries in his cottage were pointing now in exactly the opposite direction.

‘I’m really sorry I had to deceive you, Sally, but I absolutely couldn’t blow my cover. Too much depended on it – not to mention the best part of a year’s work,’ Josh went on. ‘And now, I’m afraid I’ve got a full day’s work, and the rest, ahead of me tying up my side of things. I’ll see you just as soon as I can – OK?’

I nodded. ‘OK.’

The paramedics were hovering, anxious to get me to A & E.

‘Off you go then. See you soon.’ He gave my hand a quick squeeze.

As I climbed into the ambulance I glanced back. Josh was still standing there, watching me. ‘I love you,’ he mouthed. Then the doors closed, and though I could no longer see him the look on his face as he said it remained with me.





Twenty


‘You’ve no idea the trouble you caused me, Sally,’ Josh said. ‘Quite apart from worrying me half to death, I was afraid you were going to blow the whole job wide apart with your investigations.’

‘Well, that’s nice!’ I said, mock-sarcastically.

It was early evening. It was some hours now since I’d been sent home from A & E with a clean bill of health, but only twenty minutes or so since Josh had arrived to see me. He’d been kept busy all day working on his case and still had to go back to the police station to complete yet more paperwork, but he’d snatched a break of an hour or so, and now he was sitting at the kitchen table with me and Mum.

‘You just wouldn’t be warned off, would you?’ Josh chided. ‘Wouldn’t accept the danger you were in, even though you were convinced Dawn had died because of what she knew. At least Alice had the sense to realize the gravity of the situation. When I learned she was about to talk to you I had a word with her, and she agreed straight away to let me get her to a safe house until it was all over. But you . . . no, you had to go right on, ploughing in deeper and deeper. If I hadn’t found you when I did, I dread to think what might have happened.’

I shuddered. I didn’t want to even think about that.

‘How did you find me?’ I asked.

‘When I realized you’d gone I went out looking for you. I passed your car heading for Stoke Compton, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t you driving it, so I called for reinforcements and turned around myself. By the time I caught sight of it again I guessed it was heading for the warehouse and radioed in. The local officers and I arrived at more or less the same time and the rest you know. It was a bit of gamble to come in with all guns blazing, but it paid off. We caught the man behind the operation and one of his goons red-handed, and there’d been a shipment just a couple of days ago – art and curios worth a king’s ransom that had been stolen to order on the continent and were stored in the warehouse awaiting delivery to the collectors in this country who had placed orders for them. Result. Though I have to say at the time we barged our way in I was thinking more about you than the job. Jeremy Winstanley would have had no more scruples about dealing with you than he did in disposing of Dawn when she became a threat to the operation. There was just too much at stake.’

I closed my eyes briefly. I knew all too well how close I had come to ending up as Dawn had.

‘I just can’t believe the Jeremy I knew could be so evil,’ I said. ‘To dispose of anyone who got in his way without a second thought . . . risking Dad’s life by stampeding the cows, having Dawn killed . . . I know he was squeamish about actually doing the deeds himself, but that thug was acting on his instructions, which is just as bad.’

‘And what about the fire?’ Mum put in. What wickedness is that – trying to have her burnt in her bed and then getting Brian Jennings blamed for it! Or was it Brian Jennings all the time? He used to work for Lewis Crighton, Sally said . . .’

‘He did, yes, but it wasn’t him who set the fire, and it wasn’t directed at Dawn,’ Josh said. ‘In fact, at the outset, the fire was totally unconnected to Jeremy Winstanley’s operation. He simply hijacked it for his own ends.’

‘You mean it was local louts all the time?’ Mum asked.

‘Not unless you count Paul Holder in that category,’ Josh said.

‘Paul Holder. Lisa’s husband.’ It had occurred to me when I’d sensed Lisa was hiding something that he might have been responsible – it had, after all, been very convenient that he had been on the scene so quickly with a ladder, and that Lisa had been jumpy all evening, and awake when the fire started, but, unable to see a link, I’d dismissed it.