in his hand. It wasn’t bad. The police photographer had had a good selection to choose from. The Hopkinses had been hoarders of snapshots. There had even been a couple with a very youthful but instantly recognizable Peter Pascoe grinning merrily at the camera. But this he held in his hand was the face they were after. An intelligent face. Wide-eyed, a humorous mouth easily pulled into a smile or opened for laughter, yet something restless haunted those features. The picture of his wife gave a much greater impression of calm reliability. Perhaps he needed this in her. Had needed it. Was without it now.
‘You’ll have to ask me questions,’ said Ellie. ‘I don’t know where to start.’
‘Of course. It’s difficult, I understand. I’ll put the big question first. Have you any idea where Colin Hopkins might be?’
‘No, I haven’t. I’m sorry, but …’ she looked from Backhouse to Pascoe who sat, pale and withdrawn, staring through the window. She hasn’t caught on yet, thought Backhouse suddenly. She thinks Hopkins was called away unexpectedly last night, is going to appear full of horrified amazement at what’s happened, will need to be calmed, comforted, consoled. For God’s sake, what the devil has Pascoe been saying to her?
He remembered the atmosphere when he arrived. Strained, tense, there had been great hostility in the air. Any minute now, some of it was coming his way. He might as well get it over with.
‘Miss Soper,’ he said gently, ‘I think you should understand the position. Mr Hopkins was almost certainly with his wife and friends last night. He had had dinner with them. He had been drinking with them after dinner. We know this. There was a half-filled glass with his fingerprints on in the lounge.’
‘What are you saying, Superintendent?’ asked Ellie, pushing her hair back from her brow.
Pascoe interrupted from the window.
‘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.