‘When was this?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What did she do?’
‘She took the rope off the beam, and put another one in its place. What was wrong with the first one? Was it worn?’
Maggie Maitland was so obsessed with the fact that Mark Cotton had died that she hadn’t even begun to think about how he died or who might have killed him, Paniatowski told herself.
‘Are you sure it was a woman?’ she asked.
‘Yes, she had long hair.’
That wasn’t much help, since all the women who could have killed Mark Cotton had long hair.
‘What colour was her hair?’ Paniatowski asked. ‘Was it auburn? Platinum? Light blonde?’
‘I didn’t notice.’
‘Could you describe her to me?’
‘I’ve already told you – she had long hair,’ Maggie said, getting a little irritated.
‘Was she tall? Short? Fat? Thin?’ Paniatowski pressed.
‘I don’t know. She was just a woman.’
Of course Maggie didn’t know. The way other people looked was of no interest to her. All she cared about was Mark Cotton.
Sergeant Parry is walking down the High Street when, through a cafe window, he sees Ruth and Sarah Audley sitting at one of the tables and drinking coffee. Ruth is talking earnestly – with a great many hand gestures – and Sarah is listening to her with a bored, sullen look on her face.
Parry enters the cafe. He takes a seat behind a pillar, and waits.
The woman and the girl finish their coffees, and get up. Parry watches the table, praying that some overzealous waitress will not clear it before they leave the cafe.
None does, but it a close-run thing, and a waitress has almost reached the table when Parry steps in front of her, holding out his warrant card.
‘I need to take one of those cups away,’ he says.
Back at the police station, the cup is dusted for fingerprints, and those fingerprints match the ones found on the plant-pot holder from which the cat was dangling.
‘So you filed a report, did you?’ Beresford asked.
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘I used to talk to my Ellen,’ Parry said, and his face became suffused with a grief so deep that it almost broke Beresford’s heart. ‘I mean, I knew she was dead, but I talked to her anyway, and sometimes – in my mind – it seemed as if she was talking back.’ He sighed. ‘That sounds crazy, doesn’t it?’
‘No,’ Beresford assured him, ‘it doesn’t sound crazy at all.’
‘So I asked Ellen what I should do about what I’d discovered, and she said, “What would be the point of getting the girl locked up? How would that help her?” So instead of filing a report, I went to see Mrs Audley again.’
This time, Mrs Audley doesn’t even let him get past the front door.
‘I consider this to be police harassment,’ she says.
‘This is important, so please listen to me,’ he begs. ‘Sarah has a real problem, and it should be dealt with now, before it gets any worse.’
‘You’re insane!’ Mrs Audley tells him.
‘She killed that cat, and I can prove it. I think she needs to see a psychiatrist, because what she did simply isn’t normal.’
Mrs Audley slams the door in his face, and when he gets back to the station, he is summoned to the chief inspector’s office.
‘What were you doing causing trouble for Mrs Audley?’ the chief inspector demands.
Parry explains about the cup and the fingerprints.
‘It will never stand up in court,’ the chief inspector tells him. ‘The chain of evidence is corrupted. You could have produced that cup from anywhere.’
The chief inspector is an intelligent man, and Parry is surprised that he has not grasped the point.
‘I don’t want Sarah Audley to be charged, sir,’ he explains. ‘I want her to be helped.’
‘No,’ the chief inspector says angrily, ‘what you want to do – for some twisted reason of your own – is to bring the Audley family down.’
‘That’s not true, sir,’ Parry protests.
‘I served under Lieutenant Colonel Audley in Italy,’ the chief inspector says. ‘He was a very brave soldier and a superb leader of men. He was killed in action, and awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross. Do you understand that, Sergeant Parry – he was awarded the highest decoration that any soldier serving this country can ever be awarded.’
‘But I don’t see what that’s got to do with—’
‘And now that he’s dead, now he can no longer protect his family, along come people like you – men who are not even worthy to lick his bootstraps – to try and exploit the situation. What does it matter to you if you destroy a family, as long as it results in another arrest being added to your record?’
‘But I don’t want her arrested. I just want—’
‘Well, let me tell you this, Sergeant Parry. There are a number of men who served under Lieutenant Colonel Audley in this force, and as long as any of us are alive, his family will never go unprotected. That’s all I’ve got to say on the subject. Now get out of my sight!’
‘And that was it,’ Parry said. ‘I received an official reprimand and there was a black mark against my name from that day onwards. I suppose that in time – through hard work and extraordinary devotion to duty – I might have lived it down, but my heart just wasn’t in it any more. I served out my time quietly, and when I’d got enough years in, I retired and – God knows why – took up golf.’
Beresford stood up and held out his hand.
‘It’s been a privilege to talk to you, Sergeant Parry,’ he said. ‘You’re a good man – a very good man.’
‘That’s what I try to tell myself,’ Parry replied, shaking Beresford’s hand. ‘But when I look back over everything I’ve done, I can’t help feeling that I’ve been a bloody idiot.’
If she’d thought about it, Paniatowski would never have turned on her car radio on the journey back from the hospital, but it was a reflex action, and, with her mind firmly fixed on Maggie Maitland, she was not even aware of what the newsreader was saying until she heard her own name.
She listened, grimly, as the scant available details of Bradley Quirk’s murder were milked for all they were worth, and though the newsreader did not actually say it was all her fault for not arresting the murderer before he could strike a second time, that was clearly what was being suggested.
‘The man’s a fool,’ Paniatowski told the radio. ‘We don’t even know it is the same murderer.’
‘Sir Charles Thurrock, the local Member of Parliament, had this to say,’ the newsreader announced.
There was a slight pause, and then a richer – possibly port-laden – voice came through the speaker.
‘I do not blame DCI Paniatowski for this failure,’ the MP said. ‘Rather, I blame her chief constable for putting her in a situation which is clearly beyond her current capability.’
After what Hitch the Bitch had said at the press conference, she should have been expecting this, Paniatowski thought, but it was still a shock.
And one thing she was certain of – if she hadn’t made significant progress by the end of the day, she would be off the case.
There were three camera crews and a dozen reporters waiting for her in the police car park, but – she saw with some relief – there were also four constables to keep them at bay. Even so, the walk from her parking space to the back door of the station – under a barrage of questions – felt like an ordeal.
‘Have you got any leads, Chief Inspector?’
‘Will you be making an arrest soon?’
‘Have you heard what your MP’s been saying about you?’
Once she was safely inside the building, she found herself wondering if she still had the necessary strength to reach her office.
Maybe she should ask to be taken off the investigation before she was ejected from it, she told herself. Perhaps it really was t
oo late in her pregnancy for her to be able to do a good job.
‘Bollocks to that!’ she said aloud – and headed for the lift.
Meadows and Crane were waiting for her in her office.
Meadows read the look of despondency in her eyes, and said cautiously, ‘We think we might finally have some good news, boss.’
Paniatowski gingerly lowered herself into her chair.
‘What kind of good news?’ she asked.
‘The post-mortem on Bradley Quirk,’ Meadows said, handing the report across the desk to her.
Paniatowski quickly scanned the report, and then read it through a second time more carefully.
‘It doesn’t actually prove anything,’ she said.
‘No, but it tells us what the murderer was doing in Quirk’s room last night before the thought of murder even entered his head,’ Meadows replied.
‘Unless Quirk had two visitors last night,’ Paniatowski countered.
‘That’s not likely, is it?’
‘No,’ Paniatowski agreed. ‘That’s not likely.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Now all we have to do is get him to confess.’
‘Are you going to take over the interviewing again, boss?’ Meadows asked.
Paniatowski shook her head. ‘No, I think we’ll let DC Crane conduct this particular one.’
Crane almost choked. ‘Me, boss?’ he said. ‘But I … but I …’
‘You’ll do fine,’ Paniatowski assured him.
It had to be Crane, she thought, because while the man being interviewed might simply refuse to talk to her or Meadows, he would find it much harder to resist a handsome boy like Jack.
Tony Brown was surprised to find that DCI Paniatowski was not there to question him, and that the rather good-looking detective constable had been the one selected to take her place.
The detective constable smiled at him.
‘I’m DC Crane, I don’t think we’ve ever been properly introduced, Mr Brown,’ he said. ‘Would it be all right if I called you Tony?’
‘That would be fine,’ Brown said.
‘You’re a teacher, aren’t you?’ Crane asked.
‘That’s right.’
‘I thought of going into teaching myself – I went to Oxford, you know – but teaching is not that well-paid, is it, especially in private schools like the one you work at?’
‘I don’t earn that much,’ Brown admitted, ‘but my needs are simple, and there are compensations other than money.’
‘I’ll just bet there are – for somebody like you,’ Crane said.
The expression on his face changed to one that Brown could almost have mistaken for a leer, but it only lasted for a second, and then Crane was once again the pleasant young policeman.
‘We might have to question you for some time, Tony,’ Crane said. ‘In fact, I can’t guarantee we’ll get through all we need to ask you today, so …’
‘Why should I have a longer interview than the others had?’ Brown demanded.
‘Maybe you can be of more help to us than they were,’ Crane said. ‘But what I was going to say, before I was interrupted, was that if you want us to contact anyone to explain that you’re helping us, we’ll be more than willing to do that.’
‘There is nobody,’ Brown said.
‘Not a single person who’ll care if you suddenly seem to have vanished into thin air.’
‘No.’
‘Not a wife?’
‘No.’
‘Not a girlfriend?’
‘I’ve told you, there isn’t anybody.’
‘How strange,’ Crane said. ‘Oh well, let’s get down to business.’ He leaned back in his chair. ‘So tell me, Tony, why did you kill Mark Cotton?’
‘I … I thought I was being interviewed about Bradley Quirk’s murder.’
‘Just answer the question, please – why did you kill Mark Cotton?’
‘Why would I want to kill him?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Crane said easily. ‘Perhaps you were afraid he’d tell your headmaster your guilty little secret. It is quite a conservative school, isn’t it? And while the law of the land may have changed a few years back, I’m sure the attitude of its board of governors hasn’t.’
You’re not an actor any more, are you? You’re a schoolteacher – and, because of that, all I need to do to destroy you is to pick up the phone. Cotton had said.
But this young detective constable couldn’t know that – it was all guesses and bluff.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said.
‘I think in your situation, I’d have been inclined to ask what guilty little secret you thought I had,’ Crane said. ‘But we’ll put that aside for the moment. Next question – if you didn’t kill him, who did? Was it Bradley Quirk?’
‘How would I know?’
‘I thought he might have told you if he had. After all, you were very close, weren’t you?’
‘No, not particularly.’
‘Oh, come on now,’ Crane said. ‘He’s the only reason you came back. He’s the only thing that would make you – a struggling teacher with leather patches on his elbows – take two weeks’ unpaid leave.’
‘You’ve got the wrong end of the stick,’ Brown protested.
‘Your nasty little friends may enjoy you employing sexual innuendo like that,’ Crane said harshly, ‘but I don’t.’
‘But … but it’s just a common colloquial expression. I wasn’t trying to imply anything.’
‘We’ve read the pathologist’s report on Bradley Quirk,’ Crane said. ‘She found recently ejaculated sperm in his anus. Now how do you think that got there? Was it a gift from the spunk fairy? And if it was, are you the spunk fairy in question?’
‘Apart from Bradley, there were three men in this house last night,’ Tony Brown said.
‘Phil McCann is a married man with kids …’
‘That doesn’t necessarily preclude him from having homosexual affairs.’
‘… and Jerry Talbot went out to the pub last night and got as drunk as a skunk. In fact, he was still a long way from sober this morning, so I think we can pretty much rule him out.’ Crane paused. ‘You went to the pub yourself, didn’t you, Tony?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you go alone?’
‘You know I didn’t.’
‘So who went with you?’
‘You know that, too.’
‘Tell me anyway.’
‘I went with Bradley.’
‘So you did.’ Crane paused again. ‘We’ll have no trouble proving you were in Bradley Quirk’s bedroom – and Bradley Quirk’s bed. There’ll be hairs – from both on top and down below – which, of all the people locked in the house last night, could only have been shed by you.’
‘Sleeping with him is one thing, and killing him is quite another,’ Tony Brown said.
‘I quite agree with you,’ Crane conceded. ‘But we’ve only to find a speck of Quirk’s blood on your clothes and you’re done for.’
‘You won’t find any blood on my clothes,’ Tony Brown said firmly.
‘Ah – of course – the reason you think that is because you were naked at the time.’
Crane reached down and picked up the cardboard box which had been at his feet. He opened it, and took out several pieces of doll’s house furniture.
‘I suppose these are what people in your line of work call visual aids,’ he said with a smile.
He placed a doll’s bed on the table, followed by a wardrobe, a dressing table and a chair. He arranged them in a pattern, frowned, then rearranged them a couple more times. Finally, he seemed happy with his work.
‘This is roughly what Bradley Quirk’s bedroom looked like, wouldn’t you say, Tony?’
‘I don’t know.’
Crane reached into his pocket and produced a small doll, which he laid face down close to the wardrobe.
‘So where were we?’ he asked ‘Oh yes, you were naked when you killed Quirk. But where were your clothes?
On the floor? No, I didn’t think so. You’re a tidy person by nature, and before you surrendered yourself to passion, I’m sure you found time to fold them neatly over that chair.’
Tony Brown said nothing.
‘Have you ever dropped a glass tumbler, Tony?’ Crane asked.
‘What are you talking about now?’
‘You drop the tumbler, and it seems to shatter into a million pieces. You spend half an hour sweeping it up, and you’re sure you’ve got it all. Yet for days afterwards you’re finding tiny pieces of glass in places you’re amazed they ever reached. Well, blood’s a bit like that – especially when it’s spurting out of a gaping wound in the head. You think you know where it’s all gone, and then you’re surprised to find the odd drop of it in the most unexpected places.’
‘I don’t—’
‘Look at the chair, and look at the body,’ Crane said, pointing. ‘And then tell me just how unlikely you think it is that we’ll find a speck of Bradley Quirk’s blood on your clothes.’
‘I want a lawyer,’ Brown said.
‘That’s certainly your right,’ Crane told him, ‘but what would be the point? Come on, Tony,’ he continued, in a much softer voice, ‘we know you didn’t plan to kill him, but, sooner or later, you’re going to have to admit that that’s exactly what you did do.’
‘You’re right,’ Tony Brown said – because what was the point of pretending any more. ‘I never planned to kill him. I thought things were going to turn out so very, very differently.’
They are lying in bed together.
‘I almost didn’t come back,’ Tony says. ‘I was afraid to come back. But I’m so glad I managed to muster my courage in the end.’
‘So am I,’ Bradley Quirk says, ‘because if you hadn’t, we’d never have had this jolly evening.’
‘I want more than a jolly evening,’ Tony says. ‘I love you. I think I always have.’
Beside him, he feels the other man’s leg tense.
‘Oh dear,’ Quirk exclaims.
‘I’ve just opened my heart to you, Bradley, and that’s all you can say?’ Tony demands.
‘Look, this is rather embarrassing …’ Quirk begins.
‘I don’t expect you to be faithful to me – not all the time,’ Tony says desperately. ‘You can have affairs, as long as I know you’ll come back to me in the end.’
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