‘Only if you want to tell me, Jamie.’
She focused on the road again. ‘Well, finally, one night at dinner in a restaurant, I told him I wasn’t going to marry him and that our relationship was over. I expected him to go ballistic but he didn’t. In fact, he hardly said a word. It turns out he’d saved it all up for the next morning when he showed up at the place where I work. He was waiting there for me, in the parking lot, when I arrived. I won’t try to describe what happened, but I couldn’t believe how someone who was supposed to love me could be so vicious. It was frightening. At one point, I was sure he was going to attack me physically. The garbage that came out of his mouth was—’
A quick glance and Kingston could see that she was clearly unsettled as the memory of it all rushed back. ‘Jamie, you don’t have to go on,’ he said.
Straightening up, she gave him a tight-lipped smile. ‘It’s okay.’ She paused, then gave an apathetic shrug. ‘That was the last time I saw him.’
‘By the sounds of it, you should consider yourself lucky. From everything you’ve said, the man was clearly psychotic. ’
‘Unfortunately, it didn’t end there, Lawrence.’
‘You said that was the last time you saw him?’
‘It was, but the next day I got a phone call from his partner saying that Dominic’s car had gone off the road—off a cliff on a treacherous stretch of coast road above Bodega Bay. His Mercedes ended up on a small beach. When the paramedics eventually got down there, there was no one in the car and no sign of a body. The seatbelt was undone, too.’
‘A suicide?’
‘It looked that way because there were no skid marks.’
‘Was there an inquest?’
‘You know, I’m not sure. The police questioned me about our relationship and I told them everything, of course. Some time later, Dominic’s partner told me that the police were keeping the case open but until they had further leads, they were listing it as a suicide.’
‘From what you’ve said, I’d say the odds are it was a suicide, ’ Kingston said. But he was thinking of the American watch.
They arrived at Wickersham mid-afternoon, just as it started to rain. Dot had lit a fire and had tea on the go when they stepped into the house. No sooner had Jamie stretched out on the sofa with a blanket and Kingston was lodged in his chair, than the phone rang. Kingston walked over and picked it up. It was Inspector Chadwick. He had read a copy of the accident report, he said. The officer in charge had followed up with calls to the hospital and to Larkin’s, who confirmed what Sean had told Kingston. Chadwick’s demeanour was markedly changed from their last conversation at the police station. It was as if Jamie’s accident had sparked a much greater interest in his investigation of Wickersham. In the past he had been politely tolerant of Kingston’s theories but now he was much more solicitous.
‘Lawrence,’ he said—it was the first time in Kingston’s recollection that Chadwick hadn’t addressed him as ‘doctor’—‘I’d like to get together with you and Jamie. Tomorrow, if it’s not inconvenient—ask you a few questions related to her accident. But while we’re at it, I’d like to revisit everything that’s happened at Wickersham since Jamie moved in. I know you’ve already told me most of it, but I want to make sure I’m not missing anything.’
Kingston cupped the phone while he told Jamie about Chadwick’s request, asking her what time would work best for her. In a few seconds he was back to Chadwick. ‘How’s three o’clock tomorrow afternoon?’ he asked. Chadwick agreed and the conversation ended.
Kingston returned to his chair, picked up the gold-rimmed china cup and took a sip of tea. ‘Chadwick wants a full report on everything that’s happened since you arrived here,’he said.
‘There’s not much that Chadwick doesn’t already know, is there? You said that you’d told him all about your investigations, didn’t you?’
‘I did, yes. But only things concerning Ryder and what Loftus had told me.’ Kingston frowned. ‘I don’t think he knows about Mainwaring.’
‘What about Fox? Chadwick should be told about him, too. Though I can’t imagine how he would be implicated.’
‘You never know. I would imagine that Chadwick’s going to want to know everything about everybody who’s set foot here from day one.’
‘Your friend, Ferguson. He’s another.’
Kingston nodded. ‘I have to call him. I think he might have been here yesterday, when I was with you at the hospital. From Gwyneth’s description, it sounded like him. I’m feeling a little guilty about him. He can’t wait to see the chapel.’ He thought for a moment, deciding that now was not a good time to tell Jamie about the key.