JP had to believe her. Did he?
“Honor, what you’re telling me is incredible.” He stared into his drink. He hadn’t even touched it – ice melting, bubbles almost gone. It was murky, she noticed, its surface oily from the gin.
She reached out to him as he raised his head. And she could see that he believed all of it. Every word. Relief washed through her. He’d never looked so angry, so in charge, and she rejoiced that he was older, wealthier and more powerful than other men. That he knew what was to be done, because she needed him, and need was the best kind of love of all wasn’t it?
“You’ve been to hell and back.”
As he slid his huge square hand over hers, she smiled at the touch of a man who thought about the consequences of his actions. Who knew right from wrong.
“Show me the notebook. Are there names in it?”
She picked up her new handbag, unzipped it, pulling out the plastic bag with the notebook in it. Except it wasn’t Peggy’s notebook, it was Advanced Mathematical Theorems by Thomas J Jackson. A black shiny cover, white font. How had she not noticed the difference? Because North had bought a book as close in size to Peggy’s notebook as he was able. The same shape and weight to make the switch that much easier. Michael Bastard North.
“He took it.”
Her brain did a rapid calculation as to the effect this would have on her credibility. Would JP take it as further proof of the insanity she was denying?
“He’s a criminal – of course he took it.”
But there was something else. Nagging at her.
“He’ll sell it or he’ll use it to bargain with.” JP shrugged. “Don’t worry. We’ll get it back.”
Armitage slid his hand over hers again, warm and dry, keeping her safe. An itch in her brain.
She hadn’t mentioned the notebook in her story, so how did JP know she should have it?
“Do you trust me, Honor?”
Did she?
Could she?
Ned’s voice. Trust no one. But he didn’t mean the man she was going to marry. He meant Michael North who stole the most important thing she had, Peggy’s notebook. She was exhausted. It was an easy enough mistake to get confused about what she had and hadn’t said. She must have mentioned it when she told him about escaping from the island.
She’d always known that a man could look like a husband and father and turn into a violent predator. But a man could look like a husband and father and be just that. A defender. A protector. A partner. JP’s face was so familiar to her. When this was over, she’d marry him. A huge white wedding in Westminster Abbey with 2,000 guests and vintage lace and satin and a diamond tiara. He’d like that. And maybe she would have a baby with him. Do that for him.
Do you trust me?
If she wasn’t willing to answer that question with an affirmative, she couldn’t marry him, and she wanted to marry him. A spring wedding with boughs of deep pink cherry blossom in the Abbey – she’d carry a sprig in a hand-tied bouquet. Her mother always loved cherry blossom.
There was a sharp pain in the back of her hand, as if a dozen wasps had stung her all at once. She made to pull away, but JP kept hold as if he was never letting go of her again. Happiness drained from his face. His expression darkened. Intent. Tormented. His brow furrowed. He didn’t understand. “I need to explain better,” she thought, but her mouth refused to work. Swaying in her seat as JP swam in and out of focus. Fighting it. She had to stay awake for Peggy. Her world tipped, the piano music discordant, crazy sharps and flats, and JP lifted her from the seat, waving away the waiter.
“It’s all good,” she heard. “One too many.” Her head against his broad chest, his heartbeat, his powerful arm around her, the muscles, his broad hand at her waist, as the buzzing, tinkling room dipped and spun. Too warm. A walk. Desperate for fresh air – he realised without her speaking the words. He took her key card, half-carrying her out of the bar, across the art deco foyer, but not towards the front door. She wanted the door and the green-coated porters with their stove pipe hats. The outside and the black cab. North. But it was JP holding her up. Not North. Holding her tight to him. Here comes the bride. For richer, for poorer. In sickness and in health into the elevator. Watching him. Blurring. His face distorted in the shining brass-plate of the elevator. Not who he should be.
And before she knew it, before she could speak, she was out again into the spinning, topsy-turvy world with its marshmallow floor and its numbered bedrooms with their spying eyes. The endless corridor, her hand reaching out – grabbing hold – but the wall slipped from her grasp. Resisting again at her doorway. Like an over-tired child who didn’t want to go to bed. Like a hopeless drunk wanting to stay at the party. Overcome. Feeling her weakness.
Pushed into her room where she staggered, half-turned, her eyes closing, feeling herself falling through space, spread-eagled, on to the bed.
Chapter 42
NEWCASTLE
7.40pm. Wednesday, 8th November
Detective Chief Inspector Slim Hardman’s hands rested on the steel desk – the wedding band cutting into the pink flesh. The fat man had an open attitude, a triple-chinned smile that said “Try me – I’ll understand, my friend.”
They’d taken North’s clothes for forensic testing. The white paper suit was cheap and noisy against his legs, his feet sweating in the tight white plimsolls. Under the desk, he rubbed at the ink from his fingertips.
Much good would the fingerprints do them – there was no sign of him on any criminal, or indeed military, database. Michael North worked as a hedge-fund manager for Chalfont Securities. There was a head and shoulders shot of him on the corporate website. He was very well-qualified. After all, he had an MBA from Harvard and there were Harvard academics willing to attest to his qualifications. He was pretty sure a Harvard man wouldn’t slit the throat of anyone but a Yale man.
And bizarrely, he was innocent. Bannerman was dead but Michael North hadn’t killed him. North was working it out in his head. Bannerman had to have been involved. When North showed him Peggy’s notebook, he’d barely been able to control himself. Then again, if he was working with the Board, if he was useful to them, surely he’d still be alive?
North’s mind turned to the man at the quayside. The figure in the riding coat. Standing waiting for the lifeboat to bring in the body of the young banker. Hunkered down. His face grim.
“I already told you, Inspector, I’m an old friend of Peggy Boland. I went to Peggy’s office – as I said I’ve known her for years and I’ve been to her office before.”
He had never been to her office, but try proving it.
“Bannerman was working there. He said she’d left but he didn’t have a contact number for her, so I asked the secretary if she knew where Peggy’s young student lived.”
When you tell a lie, you stick as close to the truth as you can. Snivelling, Mrs Craggs described the stranger who came looking for Peggy’s Chinese prodigy that morning. Tall. Very tall. Broad. Muscled. Close-cropped hair. Hard face. Good-looking if you liked that kind of thing. Which she didn’t. But mean – despite the smile. Dangerous, if you asked her.
And in the chaos of her filing, despite her snot and gulping misery, she found Fangfang’s address – the Oriental Dragon in the worst part of town.
Hardman sent two patrol cars into the city’s West End – prompted by the ear-to-ear slash across the corpse’s throat rather than Mrs Craggs’ instincts. They picked North up quarter of a mile from the takeaway.
“I’ve never met Professor Bannerman before today, Inspector.” North’s tone was that of a law-abiding citizen shocked by the distasteful business of violent death. “He wasn’t helpful and I may have pointed out that fact but when I left his office, he was alive.”
“You’re a witness then – like a Jehovah’s Witness?” Hardman smoothed his tie over his belly, enjoying his own joke. “Because I’m more of an atheist. Of course in court I’ll always swear on a Bible because juries like that, but really,
lad, between you and me I simply believe in the truth, the whole truth and you know the rest.”
They patted him down before they put him in the patrol car and found no weapon. The only thing he was carrying was the notebook. Hardman hadn’t yet mentioned the fact there was no ID, wallet or money.
“But you spent fifteen minutes with Walt Bannerman, we’re told by Mrs Craggs.”
The neon strip lighting behind its cage began to hum in sympathy with the buzz of the recorder.
“He gave me a notebook Peggy left behind. He said he found it in a drawer when he took over her office.” North spoke with deliberation, as if doing his best to be of help to the police. He was lying but Bannerman was dead, which made it hard to call him on it, and Peggy did leave the book behind – only in the sea rather than in her office drawer.
Hardman pushed over the book which was now in a plastic bag. “I can’t make head nor tail. What is it?”
North made the smallest shrugging motion. He was a fund manager not a physicist. He took it as a favour to his good friend Peggy, to pass on as soon as they met up. It can’t have been that important or she’d have taken it with her.
“You left Dr Bannerman’s office at 10, then you went to have a chat with Mrs Craggs.
The Professor’s body was discovered at 1.30pm. You’ve told us you were in Chinatown which checks out, but we can’t say for certain what time you went to Chinatown. I suspect we have at least 45 minutes to one hour which you can’t account for.”
North raised his eyebrows, lowered the corners of his mouth as if to say he understood Hardman’s problem but he shouldn’t let it worry him.
“‘Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.’” North smiled but instead of returning the smile, the policeman noticed a grease-spot on his tie – his immense fingers lifting the silk for inspection, dropping it down again, and there was a sudden smell of steak and kidney pie, the splintering of glaze and puff pastry. As they’d walked into the interview room, a passing sergeant had asked Hardman “How’s Mary?” Something in the tone of the sergeant’s voice. Sadness. Affection. Hardman’s wife made the steak pie from scratch, and she wasn’t well.
Breast cancer.
And Hardman worried about her on her own. Because he loved her.
He was the faithful type. The till-death-do-you-part kind.
North wondered how the policeman would react if his “person of interest” enquired about the state of his wife’s health. He was guessing not well. Especially if North had it right. He sighed. Not knowing the extent of your own sanity was exhausting.
Hardman’s blackcurrant eyes were on him. Cool. Appraising North’s size. The bulk. How he sat. Taking all of him in. “Were you ever in the forces?”
He couldn’t admit it, so he denied it, and Hardman let out a small hmmm noise.
“I’ve normally a good instinct for it. Ex-forces men – they carry themselves a particular way.”
North kept his face polite, listening. His chat to the police an “experience” to recount over metropolitan dinner tables.
“The thing is I’ve a dead body. Which is bad enough,” the policeman shook his head from side to side in sorrow, and seconds later, his jowls followed. “But the dead body is that of an astronomer.”
North focused on being a good citizen caught up in events and willing to go wherever the policeman was taking him.
“And as it happens, would you credit it, I also have a missing astronomer – that’s to say your would-be dinner date Dr Peggy Boland. Now that is, what we call in the policing business, ‘odd’.”
Hardman beamed as if he’d told a joke at the golf club bar and North smiled back as if he too played golf, as if he knew the rules of civilised behaviour and engagement.
“I say ‘missing’, but there’s confusion over that. Dr Peggy Boland was ‘reported missing’ by her friend. An MP no less. A real looker by the by. You’ll know her too, I imagine?”
“We’ve met,” North gave him that, keeping his voice steady though the mention of Honor, even indirectly, sent electricity surging through every part of him. Was she in London yet? Was she safe?
“But that very day, Dr Boland rings me and denies she’s missing. Explains she’s working in some desert. Atrocious line. It quite cheered me up though – the fact I could tell her friend to stop worrying – because she was distraught was the MP. Understandably. The strangest thing though, Mr North. My colleagues pulled in a no-mark a couple of days since. Smalltime, petty drugs dealer by the name of Jimmy the Sniff and he starts burbling to my colleagues about a missing woman. How if we overlook his little problem, he’ll help us out with information. He’s the chatty type. But, they explain, we don’t have a missing woman, so Chatty Cathy shuts his mouth pronto.”
Jimmy the Sniff?
The policeman’s voice was a confiding, sentimental baritone. North beat down the sudden urge to please the DCI, to win his approval and to be deemed honest. He could tell him about his medals – the Army, the bullet, and plead for help. Hardman would like him then, see him as a decent man in a bad fix.
“I’m not one for coincidences. I’m asking you does Dr Peggy Boland need finding all over again?”
There was silence between the interrogator and witness, as the second hand set off from one moment before landing on the next.
He was tempted.
But if he said Yes and told the truth, it couldn’t be the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The best scenario involved the police keeping him for hours with their questions.
He was tempted.
But he didn’t have time to waste when there was a man out there called Jimmy the Sniff desperate to tell what he knew about a woman no one knew was missing.
Sometimes a lie was the only way to go. He couldn’t tell Hardman about the Board which meant he couldn’t tell him anything. Honor was right. How did he explain himself in the civilized world?
Hardman waited.
“I’ve no idea, Inspector. As I say, I’d a few days so I stopped off en route to Edinburgh to take her out to dinner.”
He gave Hardman a smile one man gives another when he says dinner and means more.
The detective reached out his arm and turned off the tape recorder – white noise replaced by sudden silence, even the light above them quietening. Hardman sat back in his chair although his enormous belly still pushed against the table.
“If you need my help in something, Michael, this is the time to tell me.”
Hardman struck him as an honest man. Thoughtful. Sharp.
He was tempted.
He said nothing.
And across from him, the DCI’s face hardened. The arm going out. The recorder going back on. Noise starting up again.
A picture of Bannerman. His throat cut. Blood.
Behind the jokes, the avuncular smile, Hardman was a cold-to-the-touch lawman who wanted the guilty put away in a dank cell with its own facilities and for more years than there were numbers.
“Are you right-handed, Mr North, or left?”
“Right.”
“When we get your clothes tested, will there be blood splatter indicating you came back to the department and you stood behind Dr Walt Bannerman and cut his throat? What do you think Mr North?”
North hadn’t cut Bannerman’s throat. But it wasn’t beyond the Board to make it look like he had. He kept quiet. Even a good citizen might start thinking about a lawyer when asked a question like that.
Hardman leaned forward, crushing his enormous belly against the metal desk. His voice was cold. The favourite uncle routine over. That was for witnesses. North was sliding headlong into suspect territory.
“Fortunately, we have a witness who noticed a man leaving the department with blood on his right shoe. Unfortunately, the witness cannot recall the exact time of the suspect’s departure. You’ll be formally arrested and read your rights before the ID parade.”
There was a knock on the door as a skinny constable leaned his head into the room and the fat
man stood up. Hardman adjusted his trousers over the immensity of his stomach, his steely gaze still on North, before crossing to the door.
It was ajar but North couldn’t make out any words. He turned Bannerman’s murder over in his head. Bannerman was slimy and duplicitous. He’d hated Peggy and he wanted her notebook, but why would anyone kill him? North’s innocence was beside the point. If the Board killed Bannerman, Tarn might well decide North made for a convenient patsy. And if the police charged him with the murder and locked him up, chances were before any court case a guilty conscience would prompt him to throw himself down a twisting cast iron staircase, or hang himself with his own bed-sheet because his cellmate had a deviated septum and snored at night. All very unfortunate – especially for Michael North.
The door opened wide again, and the fat man beckoned – his pudgy forefinger rolling up and down. Show time.
North glanced at the clock – it was a minute before eight. The police could hold him for 96 hours if they got the go-ahead from a magistrate. The long hand moved to make it eight with a loud click. He wondered whether Honor would survive without him. He thought not.
Chapter 43
NEWCASTLE
9.30pm. Wednesday, 8th November
He stood at number 4 in the lineup. Hardman hadn’t rushed it, and the police hadn’t worked too hard to find anyone who looked like him. A swaying, puce-faced drunk they must have pulled from their cells stood on one side, a skinny, resentful Asian pizza-delivery guy on the other along with three meatheads who looked like they used the same barber – the biggest with the tattoo of a tarantula climbing up one side of his thick, razored neck, a Gothic “Bite me” on the other. North was the tallest by at least four inches.
A voice from a loudspeaker above the window instructed them to turn to the left and then to the right. North planted his eyes forward, legs foursquare at each turn. Sweating innocence. As if he were on parade, boots shined for inspection. As if he were a decent public citizen doing the police a particular favour by coming in for a line up. As if he was innocent which should have made it easy. But didn’t.
Killing State Page 20