‘Anyone would,’ Simon agreed.
‘I’m sure you’d be the first to admit that I treat people fairly, you included. I bend over backwards to be fair to you.’ Proust shook his head. The puzzled look on his face appeared to be genuine. To which was he a great loss, Simon wondered: the acting profession or the specially-reserved-for-extreme-cases penthouse padded cell at the local nuthouse?
‘I’ve always put your fear of me down to some peculiar deficiency in you. One among many.’ The Snowman lunged across his desk to grab his new World’s Greatest Grandad mug. Simon flinched, remembering having its predecessor hurled at his head. ‘I’ll admit, there have been occasions when I’ve found your phobia useful as a means of controlling you, and times when it’s irritated me beyond measure because it interferes with your ability to listen to the many sound arguments I put forward, each and every working day. Either way, you can hardly blame me for noticing my new team member: Brave New Waterhouse. Brave and confused. You have no idea why your fear of me might have quit its post and strolled off into the sunset, hand in hand with your fear of unemployment. Well? Have you?’
No.
‘I’ll tell you why.’ Proust leaned in over the desk. His breath smelled of hot stewed tea. ‘Something new and daunting has entered your life. So petrified are you of it that, suddenly, all your trifling fears of old have been put into perspective: your doddery DI, your frail ageing parents. Have you been standing up to your mother as well? Refusing to drink the blood of the Virgin Mary or whatever it is that she and her oddball cult get up to, unfazed by recent proof that the whole outfit’s nothing more than a cover for a global epidemic of sexual perversion . . .’ Proust stopped. Frowned. ‘I’ve lost my thread,’ he said.
‘You were insulting my mother.’
‘I was not!’
A fist banging down on a desk, shaking it; tea sloshing in the air, spattering the floor. Simon was unmoved by the special effects; he’d seen it all before. He was trying to get his head round the Snowman’s battle tactics, struggling not to be impressed. Challenge an opinion and the holder of that opinion might put forward a counter-argument; contradict an uncontestable fact and, chances are, your audience will slink off in confusion to question their own sanity.
‘Act your age for once in your life, Waterhouse!’ Proust snapped. ‘Don’t try to turn this into a slanging match. I’m trying to help you, believe it or not.’
Tough choice, but I’ll go for ‘not’.
Proust exhaled slowly. ‘Your disrespect used to spill out in spite of your best efforts; now, suddenly, you’re sloshing it around like a tramp urinating on a . . .’
Another unscheduled break. Simon was unwilling to help a second time by suggesting things a tramp might piss on.
‘Pathetic, Waterhouse. That’s not me talking, it’s your inner voice. I’d attempt the accent, only I don’t speak low self-esteem. It’s a language I’ve never needed to learn.’
Simon weighed up his options. What was to stop him walking out? He was waiting for one thing only: to be told he was fired. Was it better to be fired at close range than remotely, from a distance? Simon couldn’t see how; still, he planned to sit tight until he heard the words.
‘Any idea what this new source of terror in your life might be?’
‘There isn’t anything.’
Proust laughed. ‘What, not even Charlie Zailer? Wedlock, Waterhouse. Hear that second syllable: lock. You’re trapped. You can’t get divorced. That would involve admitting you made a mistake, which you’re congenitally incapable of doing. Yet you’re cripplingly afraid of the demands marriage is bound to make, demands you’re too inadequate to respond to. Blown everything else out of the water, hasn’t it? If you stumbled upon a ticking bomb, you might sit down on it and put your feet up. No other fear can touch you now that you’re grappling with the big one.’
‘If I disagree, will it spoil your fun?’ Simon asked.
‘If you disagree, it’ll prompt me to wonder, and not for the first time, how a person can live for more than forty years without self-knowledge and fail to notice its absence. There’s not a drop of the stuff in you, Waterhouse; this is my attempt at a much-needed transfusion.’
‘Your need’s greater than mine, as evidenced by your fantasy that you’re a suitable donor,’ said Simon. Did that make sense? In his head it did. His words echoed in the silence that followed.
‘Insult me all you like,’ Proust said eventually. ‘You won’t convince me that your judgement is the trustworthy ally it used to be. Do you honestly believe Sergeant Zailer went for hypnosis because she wants to give up the bifters? Smoking is one of the few pleasures in her miserable life. Aren’t you itching to know what she’s really up to? I promise you, however much money flows from your and Zailer’s joint bank account into the tasselled purse of a tinpot wizard in Great Holling, it’s not going to solve the problem, whatever it is. And if you happen to know what it is already, or if you take my advice and find out, please don’t enlighten me. There are limits.’
‘Apparently there aren’t.’
Proust spun round, his face a mess of pink and white patches. ‘You think I want to kick you off the job? You’re wrong. Cast your mind back over the toxic wastelands of our many years together. I’ve had any number of opportunities to get shot of you. What did I do? Let them roll on by, each and every one.’
That was true. That and nothing else.
‘Trouble is, whether I want to lose you or not, I don’t have much choice. You’ve made it compulsory. If I were to let you carry on, business as usual, how would that look to the rest of the team? I’d be the DI who let an out-of-control DC trample all over him – everyone’d get to hear about it. I’d lose the respect of every single person in this nick, right down to the canteen staff and the cleaners.’
‘Culture shock might not be as bad as you anticipate,’ Simon muttered. He could cope with the abuse; what he couldn’t handle was the Snowman telling him he didn’t want to lose him.
That wasn’t what he said. Stop hearing things he isn’t saying.
‘It’s not about culture shock!’ Proust slammed his mug down on the windowsill and rubbed the sides of his skull with white-tipped fingers. Simon watched, inferred from the body language that the inspector cared about something. Since that thing was neither Simon nor basic human decency, it was hard to imagine what it might be. ‘It’s about hanging on to my own perishing job! It’s about having the gumption to recognise when one of my DCs crosses over from being a good bet to being a liability, and having the courage to point it out.’
‘You’ve never said I was a good bet.’
‘If I had, I’d have been wrong eventually if not straight away, which is why I didn’t bother. Listen to me, Waterhouse. Let me sit down, will you?’ Was the inspector asking permission? Something in his tone suggested an awareness that Simon was the younger and stronger of the two of them.
This isn’t a heart to heart, Simon told himself, trying not to notice his own thickening discomfort. This is me getting sacked.
They swapped places. Simon hoped that, once Proust was seated, normal interaction between them might resume. Then he realised what a twisted hope that was, and that getting out of here while he was still halfway sane might be the best thing for him, whether he wanted to go or not.
‘Look at you: oblivious to your own decline,’ Proust declaimed from the comfort of his chair. If Simon had been waiting to hear a charge that he’d be able to refute with conviction, this was surely it. He felt as if he’d spent his whole life witnessing his own decline, aware that his inner resources were depleting, and there was nothing he could do to halt the process.
‘You have nothing that gives your life meaning apart from this – quite literally nothing – yet you recklessly endanger your career, allowing yourself to believe the loss of it wouldn’t bother you. And for what? For the fun of being rude to me in front of your pals? You could have got the result you wanted, and risked nothing, by passing o
n Sergeant Zailer’s information about Ms Hewerdine to DS Kombothekra. You’d have ended up in an interview room with Hewerdine eventually—’
‘Someone set fire to her house last night,’ Simon interrupted. ‘If I’d followed the proper channels, we’d still be doing background checks.’
‘I asked you not to interrupt me.’
‘If Amber hadn’t got her husband and the two girls out in time . . .’
‘Which she did.’
‘. . . she could have been dead by now, before I’d had a chance to ask her anything at all.’
Proust’s eyes narrowed. ‘Once a person’s been interviewed by you, they can die happy – is that what you’re saying?’ He shook his head, made a church and steeple out of his hands. ‘Why do I bother, Waterhouse? Can you tell me that? You know so much. Why don’t you tell me why I bother trying to help you?’
‘Feel free to stop bothering at your earliest convenience,’ Simon said.
‘Open your ears and switch on your brain!’ the Snowman bellowed, lurching up out of his seat as if it had pushed him from underneath. ‘You’ve singled Amber Hewerdine out for special consideration. Why? For no good reason, you assume she didn’t kill Kat Allen, when she’s the only person we can link to the murder scene, albeit indirectly. Unless you’re looking to put a lined A4 notepad in the frame, Hewerdine’s all we’ve got! You insist her alibi’s sound, when everyone you’ve spoken to who was on that perishing course says they don’t remember her face! You tell us we ought to trust her, having listened to her brag about her lack of respect for the law. She expects to be able to drive at whatever speed suits her, and finds it inconvenient to have to pay the price when she—’
‘Oh, come on. Everybody—’
‘Not everybody! Not me. I don’t speed, and if I did and I got caught, I’d accept my punishment. Amber Hewerdine’s best friend dies in an arson attack – Hewerdine ends up with her daughters. I think we can call that a capital gain. Consensus at the time fingered a local pub landlord—’
‘Not everyone thought that. Only—’
‘Interrupt me one more time, Waterhouse, and I really will have your job.’
Did that mean what Simon thought it meant?
‘Hewerdine makes a big show of coming forward to help the police.’ Proust picked up speed as he ranted. ‘She disagrees about Terry Bond, doesn’t blame him for the fire. She’s Sharon Lendrim’s best friend since childhood. She’s in a unique position in relation to the crime, knows something no one else does . . . Is any of this sounding familiar? Think of Sergeant Zailer’s notebook. How many innocent people have you met who manage to be in a unique position in relation to two murders?’
Nothing irritated Simon more than the Snowman making a good point.
‘Hewerdine claims that Bond and Sharon Lendrim were the best of friends when Lendrim died. They’d had a little-publicised reconciliation . . .’
‘Sharon’s daughters knew they’d resolved their differences. So did Terry Bond’s daughter, according to Sam’s contact.’
‘Sergeant Kombothekra’s contact is Ursula Shearer. She couldn’t find a killer on a Cluedo board, even if you stuffed her head into the secret envelope.’ Proust ran his tongue over his lower lip. ‘I’m not saying Terry Bond or any of his henchmen started the fire. Amber Hewerdine did. She must have. She was the only one to gain from it: she got Sharon’s girls.’
‘Makes no sense,’ said Simon. ‘If her aim was to divert suspicion from herself, why not let everyone think Bond did it? Why come forward and say she thinks it’s someone from the residents’ association? It’s a pretty unlikely—’
‘For crying out loud, Waterhouse, I shouldn’t have to explain this to you! Pretty unlikely wins people over. It wins over idiots like you! Pretty unlikely makes an ambitious DC or DS want to prove his superiority by demonstrating his ability to think outside the box. Hewerdine’s a consummate actress. She comes forward with a theory that’s not quite as obvious as what everyone else is saying, and gets to look not only helpful but clever too: an original thinker. She flatters her way into the inner circle of detectives by showing that she’s on their level, she can think like one of them – exactly the tactic she tried with us. Gibbs and I saw through it; you lapped it up. She worms her way in, and she’s able to keep track. Now she’s set fire to her own house, and she’s confident she’ll know if and when we start to zero in on her, because her best buddy Waterhouse will tell her everything she needs to know.’
‘Why burn her own house down?’ Simon asked.
An overflowing look from Proust.
‘If you’re one of the victims, you can’t be the perpetrator?’ What are you doing, dickhead? If he’s got something to say, let him say it himself. Too late.
‘Ms Hewerdine is a victim of special distinction,’ said Proust. ‘The only one to survive, along with her nearest and dearest. Katharine Allen didn’t survive. Neither did Sharon Lendrim.’
Three crimes: two arson attacks, one in 2008 and one last night, and one bludgeoning a month ago. Same perpetrator? If so, why change the method for the second killing, then revert to arson for Amber Hewerdine? Katharine Allen’s murder didn’t fit the pattern.
‘Don’t forget that Ms Hewerdine’s house is still standing,’ said Proust. ‘A bit of redecorating in the hallway, a new front door . . .’
‘She’s guilty of nothing,’ Simon told him. ‘You’re barking up the wrong tree. If you were right, that’d have to mean she staged her meeting with Charlie outside Ginny Saxon’s clinic. It’s impossible. She’d have to have known Charlie would write “Kind, Cruel” in her notebook. How could she know that?’
Proust reached for a pile of papers, waved them in the air. ‘The Wizard of Great Holling told Sellers that Hewerdine referred to the prospect of her entire family dying as “a bonus”.’
‘She made a joke.’ And you’re shaking the wrong papers at me; those are expenses forms, not Sellers’ interview with Ginny Saxon.
‘Why did Hewerdine go and see Saxon in the first place? Insomnia!’ The Snowman said it triumphantly, as if inability to sleep and responsibility for two murders were much of a muchness. ‘What keeps people awake at night? Guilt. You heard Hewerdine talking about her mind splitting in two. You didn’t take that as paving the way for a diminished responsibility defence, in case she loses control of us and we end up charging her?’
‘No, I didn’t,’ said Simon. ‘I heard a woman trying to describe an unusual experience she’d had. Unusual and disturbing.’
‘No, that was Sergeant Zailer, the morning after your wedding night,’ Proust snapped. ‘Amber Hewerdine’s a lunatic – one who likes to play dress-up detectives. She’s a criminal. We know this; it’s not up for debate. She ran off without paying Ginny Saxon, she invaded Sergeant Zailer’s car without permission . . .’ Proust continued to dry-spit for a few seconds after his words had run out.
He was right. In the absence of other suspects, it made no sense to be convinced of Amber Hewerdine’s innocence. In different circumstances, Simon might have tried to unconvince himself.
‘Anything else you want to say before the others come in?’ Proust asked.
The others? Simon had been under the impression that Gibbs was booked in next; he didn’t know anything about anyone else.
He still hadn’t been fired. He wondered why not.
‘Let them in, then,’ said the Snowman.
Sam Kombothekra looked at his watch. Eleven minutes past nine. He’d given up trying to work, knowing he wouldn’t be able to concentrate. The Snowman no longer wanted to see only Gibbs in his office at quarter past; he’d extended his invitation to include all of them. Sam glanced over at Sellers, who was laughing at something on Twitter, working his way through a packet of Maltesers. Hadn’t it occurred to him that a mass sacking might be on the cards? Sellers was like a big kid, oblivious to the concerns of the adults around him. Gibbs’ apparent lack of nerves made more sense. He must have made peace with the possibility that he
’d lose his job when he decided to go rogue and follow Simon’s orders instead of the ones that came from Proust via Sam. There was something Zen about Gibbs, Sam decided, then wondered what the word meant. It was a branch of Buddhism, he knew that; was it also an adjective?
As the only apprehensive person in the room, Sam wondered if he was being paranoid. Perhaps there was nothing to worry about. He and Sellers had done nothing wrong; it was hard to see how Proust could get rid of them, or why he’d want to today, when surely even he could see that what he needed was a solid team working on the new information that might lead to the closing of three cases.
Or might not. Sam was anxious to know which it would be, needed to try for the better result. Where had this right-man-for-the-job feeling come from? Part of the problem was never knowing which world he lived in: the one defined by Simon or the one defined by Proust. On Tuesday and yesterday, Proust’s had been in the ascendant for Sam. Now, after Amber Hewerdine’s house fire, Simon’s was. It made Sam want to stay – made him want, above all, not to be forced to go. He prayed the Snowman wasn’t about to take the choice away from him.
The door of Proust’s office opened. Nobody came out. Sam saw Simon hovering, sensed his uncertainty about whether to stay or go. ‘Come on,’ he said to Sellers and Gibbs. ‘Let’s get it over with.’ He led the way, his mind full of images of soldiers going over the top to face an onslaught of bullets. This was one thing he wouldn’t miss: the despondent march towards an enclosed space in which nothing good was ever waiting for anybody.
‘Progress on the arson attack?’ the Snowman barked at him as he walked in. ‘Or, failing that, on anything?’
‘Last night’s fire at the Hewerdine house has been confirmed as arson . . .’ Sam began.
‘Progress on the arson attack beyond stating the obvious fact that it was an arson attack?’ Proust fired back. He took his eyes off Sam and moved them along the line. The four of them always stood in a line in his office, like skittles waiting to be felled by a rolling ball.
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