Reckless Endangerment(78)

‘Did you ask Mrs Reed where she’d been when she came home that evening?’

‘Yes. She said she’d been to the Dorking swingers’ party with Adrian and Donna. But I thought that was unlikely; she usually insisted on staying the night whenever we went there together. I’ve never known her to leave as early as she said she had.’

‘Did Sharon say what she was going to do after you left her at the Dickin Hotel?’

‘No, she said she’d be flying most of the time. She mentioned visiting her parents in Basildon to tell them of our engagement.’

I knew that that was unlikely. We’d interviewed Kevin and Helen Cross and knew that they’d been on holiday at the time. But perhaps Sharon didn’t know; the Crosses had told me that they didn’t see their daughter very often. However, it didn’t matter what Sharon had told Julian Reed; she was dead within a few hours of talking to him.

‘But then, of course, you brought the dreadful news that she’d been murdered,’ continued Reed.

‘I don’t think there’s anything else, Mr Reed. You will remain on bail for the time being, but I’ll arrange for the requirement to report daily to Chelsea police station to be lifted. We’ll advise you if and when your bail is rescinded altogether.’

I’d come to the conclusion that Julian Reed had not played any part in the murder of Sharon Reed, and recalled what Muriel Reed had said when we’d first interviewed her and her husband. ‘To be quite frank,’ she’d said, ‘he hasn’t got the guts for that sort of thing.’ But it seemed that what Julian lacked in that sort of twisted resolve was more than compensated for by his wife.

I escorted Julian Reed to the door of the police station and watched as he wandered aimlessly down Agar Street towards Trafalgar Square, hands in pockets. I’d come to the conclusion, all things considered, that he was quite a decent man, but now doubtless a very sad and broken one. It was rare, but probably not unique in the annals of crime, for a man to have contemplated divorce from one murderess in order to marry another one. Not that he knew that Sharon had killed her husband; he probably hadn’t even known that she was married. He was that naive.





NINETEEN


Kate Ebdon had already arranged for Muriel Reed to be brought into the interview room that her husband had just vacated. She was an entirely different character from Julian Reed. Whereas he was naive and had a tendency to gaze at the world through rose-tinted spectacles, his wife was cold, calculating and avaricious for anything upon which she set her mind.

When we had spoken to her earlier, Muriel Reed had vehemently denied any involvement in the murder of Sharon Gregory. I had already obtained the chief superintendent’s authority to take an intimate sample from her to determine her DNA, but the results would take time.

‘Muriel Reed, I put it to you that on the twenty-ninth of July this year you murdered Sharon Gregory at the Dickin Hotel near Heathrow Airport.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Muriel, her steely gaze switching from me to Kate Ebdon and back again.

‘I have the authority of a senior officer to take a sample of your saliva, Mrs Reed.’ I had decided on a saliva sample to avoid the necessity of involving a medical practitioner. But if more were required, that could be dealt with later.

‘Well, if you must, you must, I suppose,’ she said resignedly.

I took that statement to be one of tacit consent.

‘And I am quite satisfied that once that sample has been analysed and compared with evidence found at the Dickin Hotel, it will prove beyond all reasonable doubt that you murdered Sharon Gregory.’

‘That’s it then, I suppose.’ Muriel paused for a second or two and glanced up at the barred window of the interview room. Then she lifted her chin slightly and finally gave in. ‘Of course I murdered the little slut. You don’t really think that I was going to stand by and see that tramp take everything away from me, do you? Can you imagine that Essex trollop flaunting herself as a countess and having everyone bowing and scraping and addressing her as “Lady Dretford”?’

And that was that. Nevertheless, I had to admire her vocabulary; she possessed a mastery of English that was capable of deploying three different adjectives with which to denigrate her victim.

‘You will now be charged with that murder, Mrs Reed,’ I said, ‘and will be detained here until your remand appearance at court tomorrow morning.’

‘I haven’t finished yet,’ said Muriel Reed, as I stood up.

‘You’re not obliged to say any more,’ I reminded her.

‘She was a pushover, you know, Chief Inspector,’ she continued, ignoring my words of caution. ‘I went up to her room and knocked, but I have to admit that I was surprised she was still at the hotel. When she opened the door she was stark naked except for a pair of black nylons. I imagine that she thought Julian had come back for seconds.’ She laughed, a grating, humourless laugh. Now that she had confessed, she seemed to be enjoying relating her account of how she had murdered Sharon and continued with spine-chilling deliberation. ‘I told her who I was and that Julian had sent me because he’d said that she liked to have fun with women as well as men, and that’s why I was there. She was more than willing and I spent a happy half hour making love to her. And then I strangled her. I expect you remember Julian telling you that I had a good forearm smash. Well, with that and my daily swimming, that little hussy was physically no match for me. I got dressed, picked up my mobile phone and went home.’