by Mike Carey
Another silence.
‘This is my statutory phone call, Fix,’ Matt said at last, his voice unnaturally calm. ‘I’m at Cromwell Road police station. I’m under arrest for murder.’
15
The interview suite at Cromwell Road reminded me of the classrooms at the Alsop Comprehensive School for Boys, where I spent the years between changing up from short trousers and leaving home. The resemblance wasn’t immediately obvious, because the classrooms at Alsop mostly had windows whereas the Cromwell Road interview rooms are below ground and therefore don’t. And you never had to be swiped in through the doors at Alsop by a burly constable wearing a hundredweight of ironmongery at his belt. Moreover, the teachers at Alsop were for the most part saintly men and women who got little reward for plucking the flowers of higher learning and strewing them at our ungrateful feet: you’d be hard put to it to find a saint in a London cop shop, unless he’d just been done for resisting arrest.
So I suppose it was just the institutional thing: not quite ‘Abandon hope, all ye who enter here’, but the feeling that you’re handing over some portion of your life into someone else’s hands, to be tagged and bagged and given back to you later, maybe, if they can find it again and if it’s still identifiable as yours. Fatalism descends on you like a stifling woolly blanket as the door closes behind you.
Gary Coldwood was sitting in a tubular steel chair with a red plastic seat - some kind of Platonic archetype of cheap, nasty, totally disposable furniture. But he stood up as I came into the room.
The surroundings were sparse. Just a table and two chairs, a green plastic wastebasket and, for some reason that escaped me, a poster on the far wall advertising all the many benefits of using a condom. When having sex, I assumed, rather than, say, for piping crème de chantilly or impromptu party decorations.
‘Go and get Matthew Castor from the remand cells,’ Gary said to the cop with the keys. ‘Sign him in here for thirty minutes on my bounce code. Seven-thirteen.’
The uniform hesitated. ‘Can’t use these rooms for visits, sarge,’ he said, in a timid tone that sounded like it didn’t know what it was doing in his square-jawed, bushy-bearded mouth.
‘It’s not a visit,’ Gary said. ‘It’s an interview.’
The uniform still didn’t seem entirely happy. He shot a look at me that spoke twenty-seven volumes plus an appendix. ‘But, you know, for an interview,’ he said. ‘If there’s a civilian observer, you’ve got to fill in a—’
‘What civilian do you mean?’ Gary asked mildly.
The constable thought this through, and eventually got there. ‘Right you are, sarge,’ he said, in a nudge-nudge-wink-wink kind of voice, and he went on his way.
‘Thanks,’ I said to Coldwood.
‘You’re welcome.’
‘And thanks for the heads-up, too, you duplicitous bastard.’
Coldwood nodded. ‘Which is why we’re in here,’ he said, ‘and all on our lonesomes. Get it out of your system, Fix.’
‘You fucking knew she was going after Matt.’ I thrust a finger at his face. ‘You knew it, and you didn’t tell me.’
Gary nodded. ‘Right. I knew it. Did you?’
‘No!’ I exploded. ‘If I’d had the slightest fucking inkling, I’d have warned him. And I’d have kept my mouth shut in front of you and your better half, you back-stabbing little pig-farmer.’
‘I’m going to have to smack you,’ Gary admonished me.
‘On an interview?’
‘You had the marks when you came in. You’ve seen how reliable a witness PC Dennison is.’
‘Gary, why the fuck didn’t you at least give me a—’
‘Because it’s an open and shut case,’ Gary said. ‘And your best bet, if you really had nothing to do with it, was to stay well clear. Whereas if I’d told you we were about to arrest your brother, you’d have gone barging in like a fuckwit, probably got yourself seen tampering with the evidence and ended up on a bloody conspiracy charge. Because what you’re short on, Fix - what you do not have even a bastard trace of - is peripheral vision. You only see what you’re going for, and you walk right into every bleeding thing else.’
Gary had been talking in his usual voice when he started that little speech, but he was shouting when he got to the end of it. I opened my mouth to shout back, and - to my complete and absolute amazement - he was as good as his word. He clocked me a solid one on the mouth.
It wasn’t hard enough to knock me down, but it made me stagger. I blinked twice and shook my head. Licking my lips, I tasted blood. ‘Son of a bitch,’ I growled, and I started forward with my fists up. But Gary just stood there, staring me down, and after a moment I let my hands fall again.
‘Are you ready to listen to reason now?’ he asked.
I spat on the floor - a thick red gobbet - then met his gaze. ‘Have you got any?’
Gary breathed out heavily. ‘What I’ve got, Fix, is evidence. Which I’m about to share with you out of the goodness of my heart - unless you piss me off so much that I sign off early and forget you’re stuck in here until the morning. If you’re interested, sit down and shut up. Otherwise, say something really clever and sarcastic and I’ll be happy to leave you to it.’
After a moment’s painfully weighted silence, I sat down in the other chair, giving him a shrug and a wave.
‘The writing on the windscreen,’ Gary said.
‘Points to me,’ I observed.
‘No. It doesn’t.’
‘What, you know another F. Castor, Gary?’
‘We put the lab boys on it, Fix. The letters had been washed or smeared away, but the oil traces from Seddon’s fingertip were still there on the glass. He didn’t write “Felix Castor”. He wrote “Father Castor”.’
I opened my mouth to speak, but the words fled away into my hind-brain and my mouth just hung open, waiting for them to come back.
‘So then we looked at your brother’s movements,’ Gary said. ‘He was seen leaving that Saint Bon Appetit place around midnight, although he’d previously told a colleague that he was turning in for the night. We’ve got his car on CCTV twice, once in Streatham and once at Herne Hill. And - get this, Fix - the priest in the room next to his is woken up at four the next morning by the sound of someone crying. Loud, uncontrollable sobbing, in his own words, coming from Matthew’s room. And he’s prepared to go on record that it was Father Castor he was hearing.’
I found a word floating somewhere in the void that seemed as though it might be relevant and serviceable. ‘Circumstantial,’ I said. ‘It’s all circumstantial.’
‘Maybe it is,’ Gary allowed. ‘But it was enough to get us a warrant. And the Basilisk was careful to shake you first, before she went in, just in case the forensics didn’t play. She got your statement, which placed Matthew Castor at the Salisbury both before and after the fact.’
I shook my head in protest. ‘Not before. I couldn’t eyewitness him before. I just said he was with Gwillam, and Gwillam—’
‘None of it matters, Fix.’ Gary cut across me impatiently. ‘Because the forensics did play out. Matthew’s fingerprints and boot print match, a hundred per cent. And this just in - we shagged the phone records for the place where Matthew teaches. Him and Seddon were gabbing away every day for a week before the killing. They met up in that car, and your brother brought a straight razor with him. He brought an accomplice, too, and we’re still working on that. But we’ve got him, Fix. If he’s innocent, then this is a fit-up so immaculate that only God could have pulled it off.’
And that was out of the question, of course, because God loves Matt. He loves all His little children, of course, but Matt is actually on His team. I just sat there, not saying a word, and Gary sat there watching me, until PC Dennison swiped the door lock again and then leaned inside to hold the door open for Matt.
Matt was a mess: unshaven, red-eyed, his hair up in a tousled Stan Laurel peak. They’d left him his own clothes but had taken his shoelaces and his belt. Being p
ut on suicide watch must be particularly hard for a practising Catholic.
‘Felix,’ he mumbled. ‘Thank you. Thank you for coming. I’m - it’s all been a little crazy, since—’
He faltered into silence, blinking fast as he stared at me with pleading, bewildered eyes. I got up and crossed the room to him. Neither of us was ever very big on physical shows of affection - something we got from Dad - and Matt would have cringed if I’d tried to hug him, but I put my hands on his shoulders and squeezed: a clumsy, truncated gesture of solidarity that he didn’t even seem to notice.
‘It’s okay, Matt,’ I said, going against both the evidence and common sense. ‘It’s going to be okay.’
Coldwood made for the door. ‘Knock on the glass when you’re done,’ he said, brusquely. PC Dennison was still holding the door open: Gary swept through and he let it fall to again with the decisive clunk of a solid mortice lock that I could probably have identified just from the sound if my mind hadn’t been otherwise occupied.
‘I need to sit,’ Matt said, and I stood aside so he could get to the chair. He lowered himself into it a little too carefully for my liking.
‘Are you all right?’ I demanded.
‘I’m fine,’ Matt said. ‘But my side is a little sore, where one of the police constables kicked me.’
Indignation flared inside me like heartburn. ‘They worked you over?’
Matt shook his head emphatically. ‘No. I fought them. I panicked, I suppose. I punched one of them in the face. It was a disgusting thing to do. They had to . . . subdue me. I wasn’t really in control of my own actions.’
I closed my eyes and massaged them with the heel of my hand. It was too much to take in. ‘How long ago was this?’ I asked. ‘Have they let you see a lawyer?’
‘I haven’t asked for one, Felix. I don’t . . . I have no experience in these matters.’
‘Well, I do,’ I said. ‘Say nothing, Matt. Not until you’re behind a protective wall of sharks. I’ll call Nicky Heath and get him to recommend someone. In the meantime you just . . .’ I ran out of steam mid-sentence again. ‘How the fuck did this happen?’ I asked, lamely.
Matt looked at me briefly, then back down at his own lap. ‘They came to Saint Bonaventure’s,’ he said. ‘I was teaching, but they waited until the end of the session, for which I’m very grateful. Then they asked if they could speak to me, in private, and I took them into the clerestory, which is only used on Sundays. And then they - told me they were arresting me. For Kenny’s murder. It was about seven o’clock, I think. I don’t really remember. No, it must have been earlier if I was still in a lesson.’
‘Fuck!’ The invective was for Basquiat and Coldwood. They must have gone straight from me to Matt. Basquiat probably had the warrant in her pocket the whole time she was talking to me.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Tell me about it. You and Kenny hooked up. How? They’ve got you in the car, and that’s their strongest piece of evidence right there. Tell me what happened, and we’ll see what we can do to beat this - thing.’
This time Matt looked at me for a lot longer. ‘You haven’t asked me the obvious question, Felix,’ he pointed out.
I laughed without a trace of humour. ‘You mean whether or not you did it? I grew up with you, Matt. Remember? If I had to ask, I wouldn’t be here. Tell me what you were doing in the car.’
Matt finally lowered his eyes again. ‘I can’t,’ he said, simply. He folded his hands in his lap, like a saint accepting martyrdom. It was only a gesture, but it set alarm bells off in various parts of my skull: this really wasn’t the time to turn the other cheek. In my experience, that time doesn’t come very often.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked, angrily. ‘Why not?’
‘I just can’t.’
‘Then tell me how you and Kenny hooked up. What you talked about.’
‘Kenny . . . called me. Suggested that we should meet.’ Matt spoke slowly, as though choosing his words with care. A jury wouldn’t have been impressed.
‘Out of the blue?’ I said, falling automatically into the role of prosecutor.
‘Yes. No. Not entirely,’ Matt said, floundering slightly. ‘We’d met a year before, by chance, so he knew I was in London. I don’t know how he got the phone number of Saint Bonaventure’s, but I suppose it’s not that hard to find. The faculty lists must be online somewhere.’
‘So Kenny called you. Why did you say yes, Matt? You couldn’t have wanted to see him again. I thought we all got more than enough of him when we were kids.’
Matt drew in a long breath and then let it out again, shuddering audibly. ‘He said he could help me,’ he said. ‘With something—’ Abruptly he jumped to his feet and walked away from me. A few steps brought him to the far wall, where he had to stop. He put up his hands as though to support himself. His right hand happened to fall on the let’s-all-wear-condoms poster, and I thought incongruously of the oath they make you take when you give evidence, with your hand on the holy text of your choice. I solemnly swear . . .
‘Matt,’ I said urgently. ‘I’m on your side. What are you afraid of?’
He bowed his head, shoulders hunched. His voice was thick and barely audible, as though his mouth was full of something choking and hot and he had to try to speak through it. ‘I didn’t kill him,’ he said again.
‘I know that!’
‘But I think I did something - worse.’
The words made a space for themselves as they fell: made the dead silence that followed them seem like a police-incident barrier around their sprawled, unlovely outline. Nothing to see here. Keep moving. It’s all over.
‘Worse than murder?’ I said, as soon as felt like I could muster a detached, sardonic tone again.
Matt turned to look at me, a strained and terrible grin on his face as tears welled up in his eyes. ‘Worse than murdering Kenny? Yes. Oh yes. A lot worse than that. God help me, Fix. Oh God help me.’ He raised his hands to his face as though he was going to bury them in it, but instead he just clamped them on either side of his forehead and held them there, rocking slightly backwards and forwards in an autistic pantomime of grief and pain.
This time I did throw my arms around him, if only to stop that scary display. Violent shudders were running through him like peristaltic waves.
‘It will be all right,’ I said again, between my teeth. ‘But you’ve got to trust me, Matt. You think the room is bugged? They don’t do that, because it would shoot the case down as soon as they tried to use it in evidence. And Coldwood wouldn’t pull that shit on me in any case. What is it you think you’ve done?’
‘I can’t—’ Matt moaned. He lowered his head onto my shoulder, not for comfort but as though he was about to faint and couldn’t hold it upright any more. ‘I just - what I’ve done is—’
He didn’t seem able to make it any further. The next word couldn’t be ‘unforgivable’ of course: all sins can be forgiven if they’re truly repented of, and it’s never too late. For Christ did call the thief upon the cross, and offered him comfort.
Matt was far from comfort right then: he was host to some terrible secret that was ricocheting around inside him like a bullet, breaking everything it touched.
‘Tell me,’ I said again. But if there’d ever been a moment when he was going to do that, it seemed to have passed. He pulled himself away from me, raised up his hands to ward me off.
‘Don’t let Mum know,’ he choked out. ‘Don’t let anyone know.’
I threw out my hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘That a Roman Catholic priest has been arrested for killing someone with a straight-edged razor? Matt, it’s going to come out. It can’t be hidden. Gary may be able to run a bit of interference for us, but as soon as you show up on a court docket you’re front-page news. The only way you can help yourself is to tell me the truth.’
He was still crying, but the shuddering had stopped now: he was visibly getting himself under control, one piece at a time.
‘No,’ he said at last.
‘Why?’ I yelled, beyond all patience. ‘Even if you’re right - even if what you’ve done is worse than murder - you ought to confess it. That’s how the drill works, right? You confess, you do your penance, the world goes on. Whereas if you keep your mouth shut, you’re probably looking at twenty to life.’
Matt didn’t seem to have heard me. He went back to his chair and sat down, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. His expression had come back to something like calm, although it was a calm of balanced forces: the stillness of a man whose limbs are tied to horses pulling in opposite directions.
‘Don’t let her come here,’ he said, and I guessed he was talking about Mum.
‘I’m not making you any promises,’ I said grimly. ‘Not unless you let me in on this. What did Kenny want with you, Matt? And what did you want with him? What’s this really about? Gwillam? Did Gwillam set this up?’
‘I’m not with Gwillam,’ Matt muttered, and I could see from his face that he was telling the truth. ‘They approached me once. That’s how I knew Feld, and how I was able to call him off when he attacked you. But the Anathemata only wanted me because of my name. Your name. They thought I might have the same - skills - that you have. When they found out that wasn’t the case, they lost interest. This was years ago. I haven’t seen any of those people since.’
‘Then why—?’ I began, but Matt made a brusque gesture and cut across me.
‘No more questions, Felix. I appreciate you coming here. I - was glad to see your face, and you’ve given me strength to bear this. But you can’t help me now.’
He put the matter beyond debate by banging on the glass and summoning PC Dennison to take him back to his cell. Matt went without looking at me again, or saying goodbye. I don’t think he trusted himself to do either of those things with dignity.