Stone Killer by Sally Spencer

discussion with the night-watchman. If the woman had been in as much of a hurry as the watchman said she was, she could be as much as fifty miles away by now.
    â€˜It’s probably a pointless bloody exercise, but alert all patrols to be on the lookout for this white van anyway,’ he told his bagman.
    â€˜But it wasn’t a pointless exercise at all, was it?’ Woodend asked.
    â€˜No,’ Baxter agreed. ‘It certainly wasn’t.
    It was a police car on a routine patrol of the main Dunethorpe–Huddersfield road which spotted the van. It was parked in a lay-by, and all the lights were off. The patrolmen pulled in behind it, and approached the van with caution.
    Their caution proved unnecessary. The van contained only one person – a woman – and she was slumped over the wheel.
    One of the officers tried the driver’s door, and discovered that it wasn’t locked. When he opened it, the first thing that hit him was the overpowering smell of whisky.
    The officer prodded the woman gently on the shoulder. ‘Are you all right, love?’ he asked.
    The woman raised her head slightly. ‘He’s dead,’ she moaned. ‘He has to be dead.’
    â€˜But she didn’t actually say she’d killed Clive Burroughs?’ Woodend asked.
    Baxter shook his head, then relit his pipe. ‘No, she didn’t say that. She
never
admitted killing him. Right up until the end of the trial, she insisted that he was already dead when she got there.’
    â€˜Did she give you any reason for why she had visited Burroughs so late at night?’
    â€˜She claimed it was nothing more than a business meeting.’
    â€˜What kind of business meeting?’
    â€˜She said Burroughs had called her, and told her he wanted her to cater his daughter’s birthday party.’
    â€˜Maybe he had.’
    â€˜His daughter had had a birthday only three weeks earlier. Besides, she’s only four years old, and Élite Catering is far too grand to even consider doing kids’ parties.’
    â€˜Even for a friend?’
    â€˜That’s just the point. Judith Maitland insisted throughout that Burroughs wasn’t a friend at all – that he really was no more than someone she did business with.’
    â€˜I’m going to have to ask you to step out of the van, madam,’ the patrol-car driver said.
    â€˜Go away!’ Judith Maitland said.
    â€˜I’m afraid I can’t do that, madam. If you require assistance, I will willingly provide it. But with or without assistance, you’re still going to have to get out of the van.’
    Judith Maitland tried to climb out of her seat several times – and failed. In the end, it was a combination of assistance and manhandling which got her out on to the lay-by, and once she was there it was immediately apparent that she could not stand unaided.
    â€˜Have you been drinking, madam?’ the constable asked.
    Judith did her best to focus her bleary eyes on him. ‘Well, of course I’ve been drinking. Wouldn’t you have had a drink, if your whole world had just fallen apart,’ she said, slurring her words.
    â€˜What, exactly, is that supposed to mean, madam?’
    â€˜Why did it have to happen?’ Judith asked, addressing her remark more at the dark night which surrounded them than at the constable. ‘When everything was going so well – when it was all going to work out – why did
that
have to happen?’
    And then she burst into tears.
    â€˜Not quite the admission of guilt you would have liked, though, was it?’ Woodend said.
    â€˜True,’ Baxter agreed. ‘There was no “You’ve got me bang to rights, Officer. Put the cuffs on me.” But what she
did
say was certainly enough to convince the jury that she was the one who did it.’
    â€˜Did you find any physical evidence to tie her in with the murder?’ Woodend