Free Stone Killer by Sally Spencer Page A

is left over, when they’ve taken their share, belongs to the inmates who control the tobacco supply. You’d be amazed by what some women will do for a smoke. Well, not me. Not anymore.’
    â€˜You’d really like a cigarette, though, wouldn’t you, Judith?’ the Chief Inspector asked.
    â€˜I’d kill for one,’ Judith Maitland replied.
    What had made her use those particular words? Woodend wondered.
    Was it the kind of thing people said without thinking about it – just as he’d said smoking was bad for the health? Or had she done it deliberately – to provoke him?
    â€˜Have a cigarette,’ he coaxed. ‘I promise you, Judith, there’s no strings attached.’
    â€˜There’s
always
strings attached,’ Judith Maitland said firmly. ‘Can I go now?’
    â€˜If you want to. But if you do go now, what would have been the point in holding this interview in the first place?’
    â€˜None. I told you, there was never any point.’
    â€˜So why did you agree to it?’
    â€˜You think there was a choice in the matter?’ Judith Maitland asked, incredulously.
    â€˜There’s always a choice. You’re not obliged to talk to me if you don’t wish to.’
    Judith Maitland laughed. ‘Haven’t you been listening to a single word that I’ve said?’ she demanded. ‘This is a
prison
. There’s no such thing as free will in here.’
    â€˜I repeat, it’s your right not to talk to me, if you do not wish to,’ Woodend said.
    â€˜Do you have
any
idea at all of how things work in this bloody place?’ Judith asked. ‘Don’t you understand that there are a hundred ways – a thousand ways – that the warders could make my life even more unpleasant than it is already if I refused to co-operate with one of their own?’
    â€˜I’m not one of their own,’ Woodend pointed out.
    â€˜Oh yes, you are. Or, at least, you’re close enough for it to make no difference. Because you’re certainly not one of
my
own.’
    â€˜So you’re talkin’ to me because that’s the lesser of two evils?’
    â€˜Essentially.’
    â€˜If I were in your situation, I wouldn’t see talkin’ to me as an evil at all,’ Woodend said. ‘If I were innocent – as you claim to be – I’d
want
to talk to the man who just might get me off.’
    â€˜So that’s what you’re here for, is it? To get me off?’
    â€˜If you are innocent, then I’ll certainly do my damnedest to,’ Woodend promised her.
    â€˜Then listen very carefully,’ Judith said. ‘I
am
innocent. Clive Burroughs was
not
my lover, and I did
not
kill him.’
    â€˜But when you were arrested, you told the officers that you already knew he was dead.’
    â€˜Well, of course I knew he was dead. I was there, wasn’t I? I’d seen him lying in his office, in a pool of his own blood. I’d have to have been an idiot
not
to know that he was dead.’
    â€˜Why did you go to see him that night?’
    â€˜We had a business meeting.’
    â€˜The local police think otherwise.’
    â€˜That’s scarcely surprising, now is it? The local police have refused to believe anything I’ve said from the start.’
    â€˜And what about the other times you saw him?’
    â€˜They were business meetings, too.’
    â€˜Then why did he always seem to have his son with him?’
    â€˜I don’t know. You’d have to ask him about that. Only you can’t, can you? Because he’s dead.’
    â€˜Once you’d discovered the body, you got straight back into your van, drove to a lay-by which was less than a couple of miles from the scene of the crime, and got drunk.’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜Why not?’
    â€˜Most people’s reaction would have been to phone the police immediately. Didn’t it