by R.J. Ellory
Patrick led me out. We went back to the waiting room. He asked if I wanted to smoke a cigarette, if I needed a glass of water or a cup of coffee or something. I told him no, that I was fine, and that I was going to speak with Detective Maguire. It was then that Detective Maguire appeared in the doorway, and he told me that the killer’s brother would be coming through soon, as would the journalists, and if I didn’t wish to be assaulted with unwanted questions from the press, then we should leave now.
I had no wish to see the brother again, nor to deal with any questions from journalists, and so I thanked Patrick, and he said it had been a pleasure to meet me, that it was shame it had been under such circumstances, and then we shook hands politely and I followed Detective Maguire back toward reception and out of the building.
The detective seemed in a hurry, and at first I imagined that he was also eager to evade the journalists, but then I sensed that it was something else that was urging him on.
“I’m sorry,” he said when we were away from the jail by a good three blocks. “I just needed to get away from there. A terrible, terrible thing to witness . . .” His voice trailed off, and then he was rummaging through his overcoat pockets. He found his cigarettes, his lighter, and even as he lit one he remembered his manners and offered one to me. He smoked the same brand as Carole and I—the ones with the cellulose acetate filters—and so I took one and he lit it for me, and it felt very strange to be standing with a policeman on the corner of the street smoking cigarettes and saying nothing.
I told him thank you, and then he repeated himself, about how it was such a terrible thing to have seen.
“Relieved,” I said, unashamedly. “It may have been a terrible thing to see, but I am relieved.”
“I do understand, Ms. Shaw,” he answered.
“I don’t know that you do, Detective Maguire. That man murdered my sister. He took my sister’s life, and as far as I’m concerned what happened in there was the only just punishment.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Shaw, I really am—” he started, but I cut him off.
“I don’t think you have anything to be sorry for,” I said. “You did your job, you found him, you locked him up, and now we can all try and move past this. It was for the best, believe me.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Maguire said, and then I was starting to get irritated by him. I wanted to go home. I had done what I intended to do. I had seen it through. I had come here for Carole, and now I just wanted to go home and forget all about it.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated, and he seemed so agitated and restless, looking this way and that, and I started to wonder whether he was alright.
“Sorry for what?” I asked.
He just looked at me then—blankly, unerringly, as if I wasn’t there at all—and I felt this uneasy sense of disquiet in the air, and I took half a step back.
I dropped my half-smoked cigarette on the sidewalk, which I never do, and I just waited for whatever he was going to say.
“I think—” he began, and then he looked over his shoulder and to the right, as if he wanted to make sure no one was eavesdropping.
“You think what?” I prompted.
“I think we have just witnessed a tragedy,” he said. He shook his head. He ran his hand through his hair, and he closed his eyes, and he looked up at the featureless sky as if it would suddenly open forth and show him the words he could not find.
“I think, Ms. Shaw, that we just witnessed a tragic injustice.”
I frowned. I shook my head too. I had no idea what he was talking about.
“I think we just witnessed the execution of the wrong man . . .”
His words seemed to hold no weight at all, and they floated there in the air around us for a long time, and I watched them finally break up and float away into silence.
“The wrong man?” I heard myself ask.
“Yes, Ms. Shaw. I think the man that just died in there was not the man who killed your sister . . .”
About the Author
R.J. Ellory is the author of ten novels, including the bestselling A Quiet Belief in Angels, which was the Strand magazine’s Thriller of the Year, shortlisted for the Barry Award, and a finalist for the SIBA Award. He also the author of The Anniversary Man, A Quiet Vendetta, Candlemoth, and A Simple Act of Violence, winner of the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award.