The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn
Page 17
Before the coroner could proceed, however, there was a slight commotion at the entrance door; and a series of whispered exchanges, which resulted in a bearded young man being admitted and taking his place next to Constable Dickson on one of the low benches. Lewis was glad to see him: he had begun to wonder if his letter to Mr Richard Bartlett had gone astray.
The coroner resumed: ‘Are you prepared to indicate to the court the present state of your investigations into this matter?’
‘Not yet, sir. And with your honour’s permission, I wish to make formal application for the inquest to be adjourned for a fortnight.’
‘Am I to understand, Chief Inspector, that your inquiries are likely to be completed within that time?’
‘Yes, sir. Quite shortly, I hope.’
‘I see. Am I right in saying that you have as yet made no arrest in this case?’
‘An arrest is imminent.’
‘Indeed?’
Morse took a warrant from his inside pocket and held it up before the court. ‘It may be somewhat unusual to introduce such a note of melodrama into your court, your honour; but immediately after the adjournment of this inquest – should, of course, your honour allow the adjournment – it will be my duty to make an arrest.’ Morse turned his head slightly and ran his eyes along the front bench: Dickson, Richard Bartlett, Mrs Evans, Mrs Jardine, Martin, Dr Bartlett, Monica Height, Roope, and Lewis. Yes, they were all there, with the murderer seated right amongst them! Things were going according to plan.
The coroner formally adjourned the inquest for two weeks and the court stood as the august personage reluctantly departed. Now there was a hush over the assembly; no one seemed to breathe or to blink as Morse slowly stepped down from the witness box, and stood momentarily before Richard Bartlett, and then walked on; past Mrs Evans; past Mrs Jardine; past Martin; past Bartlett; past Monica Height; and then stood in front of Roope. And stayed there.
‘Christopher Algernon Roope, I have here a warrant for your arrest in connection with the murder of Nicholas Quinn.’ The words echoed vaguely around the hushed court, and still nobody seemed to breathe. ‘It is my duty to tell you—’
Roope stared at Morse in disbelief. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ His eyes darted first to the left and then to the right, as if calculating his chances of making a quick dash for it. But to his right stood the bulky figure of Constable Dickson; and immediately to his left Lewis laid a heavy hand upon his shoulder.
‘I hope you’ll be sensible and come quietly, sir.’
Roope spoke in a harsh whisper. ‘I hope you realize what a dreadful mistake you’re making. I just don’t know—’
‘Leave it for later,’ snapped Morse.
All eyes were on Roope as he walked out, Dickson on his right and Lewis on his left; but still no one said a word. It was as if they had all been struck dumb, or just witnessed a miracle, or stared into the face of the Gorgon.
Bartlett was the first to move. He looked utterly dumbfounded and walked like an automaton towards his son. Monica’s eyes crossed the gap that Bartlett had left, and found Donald Martin’s looking directly into her own. It was the merest imperceptibility, perhaps; but it was there. The slightest shaking of her head; the profound, dead stillness of her eyes: ‘Shut up, you fool!’ they seemed to say. ‘Shut up, you stupid fool!’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
‘YOU HAD MIXED luck with this wicked business, Roope. You had a bit of good luck, I know; and you made the most of it. But you also had some bad luck: things happened that no one, not even you, could have foreseen. And although you tried to cope as best you could – in fact, you almost succeeded in turning it to your own advantage – you had to be just that little bit too clever. I realized that I was up against an exceptionally cunning and resourceful murderer, but in the end it was your very cleverness that gave you away.’
The three of them, Morse, Lewis, Roope, sat together in Interview Room No 1. Lewis (who had been firmly cautioned by Morse to keep his mouth shut, whatever the provocation) was seated by the door, whilst Morse and Roope sat opposite each other at the small table. Morse, the hunter, seemed supremely confident as he sat back on the wooden chair, his voice calm, almost pleasant. ‘Shall I go on?’
‘If you must. I’ve already told you what a fool you’re making of yourself, but you seemed determined to listen to no one.’
Morse nodded. ‘All right. We’ll start in the middle, I think. We’ll start at the point where you walked into the Syndicate building at about 4.25 p.m. a week last Friday. The first person you saw was the caretaker, Noakes, mending a broken light-tube in the corridor. But it was soon clear to you that there was no one else in the downstairs offices at all. No one! You concocted some appropriate tale about having to leave some papers with Dr Bartlett, and since he was out you had the best reason in the world for trying to find one of the others and for looking into their offices. You looked into Quinn’s, of course, and everything was just as you’d known it would be – as you’d planned it would be. Everything was cleverly arranged to give the clear impression to anyone going into his room that Quinn was there – in the office; or, at least, would be there again very soon. It was raining heavily all day Friday – a piece of good luck! – and there, on the back of Quinn’s chair, was his green anorak. Who would leave the office on a day like that without taking his coat? And the cabinets were left open. Now cabinets contain question papers, and the Secretary would have been down like a hawk on any of his colleagues who showed the slightest carelessness over security. But what are we asked to believe in Quinn’s case? Quinn? Recently appointed; briefed, doubtless ad nauseam, about the need for the strictest security at every second of every day. And what does he do, Roope? He goes out and leaves his cabinets open! Yet, at the very same time, we find evidence of Quinn’s punctilious adherence to the Secretary’s instructions. Since he took up his job a few months previously, he has been told, very pointedly told, that it doesn’t matter in the slightest if he takes time off during the day. But – if he does go out, he’s to leave a note informing anyone who might want him exactly where he is or what he’s doing. In other words, what Bartlett says is all the law and the commandments. Now, I find the combination of these two sets of circumstances extremely suggestive, Roope. Some of us are idle and careless, and some of us are fussy and conscientious. But very few of us manage to be both at the same time. Wouldn’t you agree?’
Roope was staring through the window on to the concrete yard. He was watchful and tensed, but he said nothing.
‘The caretaker told you that he was going off for tea, and before long you were alone – or so you thought – on the ground floor of the Syndicate building. It was still only about half past four, and although I suspect you’d originally planned to wait until the whole office was empty, this was too good a chance to miss. Noakes, quite unwittingly, had given you some very interesting information, though you could very easily have found it out for yourself. The only car left in the rear car park was Quinn’s. Well, what happened then was this, or something very like it. You went into Quinn’s room once more. You took his anorak, and you put it on. You kept your gloves on, of course, and you folded up the plastic mac you’d been wearing. Then you saw that note once more, and you decided that you might as well pocket it. Certainly Quinn wouldn’t have left it on the desk if he’d returned, and from this point on you had to think and act exactly as Quinn would have done. You walked out of the back door and found – as you knew you would – that Quinn’s car keys were in his anorak pocket. No one was around, of course: the weather was still foul – though ideal for you. You got into the car and you drove away from the building. Noakes in fact saw you leave as he sat upstairs having a cup of tea. But he thought – why shouldn’t he? – that it was Quinn. After all, he could only see the top of the car. So? That was that. The luck was on your side at this stage, and you made the most of it. The first part of the great deception was over, and you’d come through it with flying colours!’
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Roope shuffled uneasily on his hard wooden chair, and his eyes looked dangerous; but again he said nothing.
‘You drove the car to Kidlington and you parked it safely in Quinn’s own garage in Pinewood Close, and here again you had a curious combination of good and bad luck. First the good luck. The rain was still pouring down and no one was likely to look too carefully at the man who got out of Quinn’s car to unlock his own garage doors. It was dark, too, and the corner of Pinewood Close was even darker than usual because someone – someone, Roope, had seen to it that the street lamp outside the house had been recently and conveniently smashed. I make no specific charges on that point, but you must allow me to harbour my little suspicions. So, even if anyone did see you, hunched up in Quinn’s green anorak, head down in the rain, I doubt whether any suspicions would have been aroused. You were very much the same build as Quinn, and like him you had a beard. But in another way the luck was very much against you. It so happened, and you couldn’t help noticing the fact, that a woman was standing at the upstairs front window. She’d been waiting a long time, frightened that her baby was going to be born prematurely; she had rung her husband at Cowley several times, and she was impatiently expecting him at any minute. Now, as I say, this was not in itself a fatal occurrence. She’d seen you, of course, but it never occurred to her for a second that the person she saw was anyone but Quinn; and you yourself must have totted up the odds and worked on exactly that assumption. Nevertheless, she’d seen you go into the house where you immediately discovered that Mrs Evans – you must have had a complete dossier on all the domestic arrangements – as I say, Mrs Evans, by a sheer fluke, had not finished the cleaning. What’s more, she’d left a note to say she would be coming back! That was bad luck, all right, and yet you suddenly saw the chance of turning the tables completely. You read the note from Mrs Evans, and you screwed it up and threw it into the wastepaper basket. You lit the gas fire, putting the match you used carefully back into your matchbox. You shouldn’t have done that, Roope! But we all make mistakes, don’t we? And then – the masterstroke! You had a note in your pocket – a note written by Quinn himself, a note which not only looked genuine; it was genuine. Any handwriting expert was going to confirm, almost at a glance, that the writing was Quinn’s. Of course he’d confirm it. The writing was Quinn’s. You were hellishly lucky, though, weren’t you? The note was addressed to Margaret Freeman, Quinn’s confidential secretary. But not by name. By initials. MF. You found a black thin-point biro in Quinn’s anorak, and very carefully you changed the initials. Not too difficult, was it? A bit of a squiggle for “rs” after the M, and an additional bar at the bottom of the F, converting it into an E. The message was good enough – vague enough, anyway – to cover the deception. How you must have smiled as you placed the note carefully on the top of the cupboard. Yes, indeed! And then you went out again. You didn’t want to take any risks, though; so you went via the back door, out into the back garden, through the gap in the fence and over the path across the field to the Quality supermarket. You had to get out of the house anyway, so why not carry through with the bluff? You bought some provisions, and even as you walked round the shelves your brain was working non-stop. Buy something that made it look as though Quinn was having someone in for a meal that evening! Why not? Another clever touch. Two steaks and all the rest of it. But you shouldn’t have bought the butter, Roope! You got the wrong brand, and he had plenty in the fridge, anyway. As I say, it was clever. But you were getting a bit too clever.’
‘Like you are, Inspector.’ Roope bestirred himself at last. He took out a cigarette and lit it, putting the match carefully into the ashtray. ‘I can’t honestly think that you expect me to believe such convoluted nonsense.’ He spoke carefully and rationally, and appeared much more at ease with himself. ‘If you’ve nothing better to talk about than such boy-scout fancy-dress twaddle, I suggest you release me immediately. But if you want to persist with it, I shall have to call in my lawyer. I refused to do this when you told me of my rights earlier – I knew my rights, anyway, Inspector – but I thought I’d rather have my own innocence at my side than any pettifogging lawyer. But you’re driving me a bit too far, you know. You’ve not the slightest shred of evidence for any of these fantastic allegations you’ve made against me. Not the slightest! And if you can’t do any better than this I suggest that it may be in your own interests, not just mine, to pack in this ridiculous charade immediately.’
‘You deny the charges then?’
‘Charges? What charges? I’m not aware that you’ve made any charges.’
‘You deny that the sequence of events—’
‘Of course, I deny it! Why the hell should anyone go to all that trouble— ?’
‘Whoever murdered Quinn had to try to establish an alibi. And he did. A very clever alibi. You see all the indications in this case seemed to point to Quinn being alive on Friday evening, certainly until the early evening, and it was vital—’
‘You mean Quinn wasn’t alive on Friday evening?’
‘Oh no,’ said Morse slowly. ‘Quinn had been dead for several hours.’
There was a long silence in the small room, broken finally by Roope. ‘Several hours, you say?’
Morse nodded. ‘But I’m not quite sure exactly when Quinn was murdered. I rather hoped you might be able to tell me.’
Roope laughed aloud, and shook his head in bewilderment. ‘And you think I killed Quinn?’
‘That’s why you’re here, and that’s why you’re going to stay here – until you decide to tell me the truth.’
Roope’s voice suddenly became high-pitched and exasperated. ‘But – but I was in London that Friday. I told you that. I got back to Oxford at four-fifteen. Four-fifteen! Can’t you believe that?’
‘No, I can’t,’ said Morse flatly.
‘Well, look, Inspector. Let’s just get one thing straight. I don’t suppose I could account for my movements – at least not to your satisfaction – from, let’s say, five o’clock to about eight o’clock that night. And you wouldn’t believe me, anyway. But if you’re determined to keep me in this miserable place much longer, at least charge me with something I could have done. All right! I drove Quinn’s car and did his shopping and God knows what else. Let’s accept all that bloody nonsense, if it’ll please you. But charge me with murdering Quinn as well. At twenty past four – whenever you like, I don’t care! Five o’clock. Six o’clock. Seven o’clock. Take your pick. But for Christ’s sake show some sense. I was in London until three o’clock or so, and I was on the train until it reached Oxford. Don’t you understand that? Make something up, if you like. But please, please tell me when and how I’m supposed to have murdered the man. That’s all I ask.’
As Lewis looked at him, Morse seemed to be growing a little less confident. He picked up the papers in front of him and shuffled them around meaninglessly. Something seemed to have misfired somewhere – that was for sure.
‘I’ve only got your word, Mr Roope’ (it was Mr Roope now) ‘that you caught that particular train from London. You were at your publishers’, I know that. We’ve checked. But you could—’
‘May I use your phone, Inspector?’
Morse shrugged and looked vaguely disconsolate. ‘It’s a bit unusual, I suppose, but—’
Roope looked through the directory, rang a number, and spoke rapidly for a few minutes before handing the receiver to Morse. It was the Cabriolet Taxis Services, and Morse listened and nodded and asked no questions. ‘I see. Thank you.’ He put down the phone and looked across at Roope. ‘You had more success than we did, Mr Roope. Did you find the ticket collector, too?’
‘No. He’s had flu, but he’ll be back at work this week sometime.’
‘You’ve been very busy.’
‘I was worried – who wouldn’t be? You kept asking me where I was, and I thought you’d got it in for me, and I knew it would be sensible to try to check. We’ve all got an instinct for self-preservation, you know.’
Morse cradled the phone and turned towards Roope. ‘Look, sir. As I say, things like this do—’
Roope got to his feet. ‘Forget it! You’ve said enough for one day. Can I assume I’m free to go now?’ There was a sharp edge on his voice.
‘Yes, sir. And, as I say . . .’ Roope looked at him with deep contempt as the feeble sentence whimpered away. ‘Have you a car here, sir?’
‘No. I don’t have a car.’
‘Oh no, I remember. If you like, Sergeant Lewis here will—’
‘No, he won’t! I’ve had quite enough of your sickening hospitality for one day. I’ll bus it, thank you very much!’
Before Morse could say more, he had left the room and was walking briskly across the courtyard in the bright and chilly afternoon.
During the last ten minutes of the interview Lewis had felt himself becoming progressively more perplexed, and at one stage he had stared at Morse like a street-idler gaping at the village idiot. What did Morse think he was doing? He looked again at him now, his head down over the sheets of paper on the table. But even as Lewis looked, Morse lifted his head, and a strangely self-satisfied smile was spreading over his face. He saw that Lewis was watching him, and he winked happily.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX