Maxim Jakubowski - The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries 6

“Oh.”

“They never had any more luck. Phil and his wife had many good things in their lives, but I don’t think they ever considered them adequate compensation. I look at Phil and I see a lovely man who’s as crippled as effectively as if he were paraplegic.”

It was the tone as much as the words that impressed Sam. He asked with a slight smile that hid concern, “Have you got a thing for him, Hannah?”

She laughed. “There’s no need for jealousy, Sam.”

For Sam’s liking, this was altogether too public a place for such sentiments. “Not so loud. I thought we were being discreet. You know what this place is like. There’s always someone listening.”

“Oh, of course.” She lowered her voice to a stage whisper. “Mustn’t have a D.I. sleeping with her sergeant. The world might end.”

“It might… for us.”

She stopped quite abruptly so that he had to turn slightly to face her. She asked, “Would that bother you?”

“Of course it would.”

“I’m not just another conquest?”

He looked around, as if the painted stone walls might hide camouflaged eavesdroppers. “Of course not!”

She examined him for a brief moment, twitched a smile, then sighed, “Good.”

He stepped toward her and said in a low tone, “I mean it, Hannah.”

A nod, but one that was not as certain as it might have been. “Good.”

She began walking again and he fell into step. “So why are you so convinced about Phil Reed’s innocence?” he asked.

She had to think about that one. Eventually, all she could produce was: “I’ve just known him a long time. He’s not a killer.”

“Wasn’t maybe. He is now.”

“Is that steak okay? It certainly looks good.”

Her mouth full, Kate nodded at once. “Mmm… delicious.”

He thought, You’re beautiful. Even a blind man would be able to tell that.

“And the wine? You like the wine?”

“I certainly do.”

Reed smiled. “So I should hope, considering the price.”

He hadn’t really been able to afford the restaurant-if truth be told, he felt out of place in it-but he had things to say tonight.

“Well it’s very good… mmm… very good indeed.”

“I thought so.”

The couple at the table next to them were in their late sixties and would not have looked out of place at an imperial ball; he suspected that they were looking secretly askance at the whippersnappers so uncomfortably close to them, perhaps unable to believe that they had let people in who were not related to the Lord Lieutenant of the County.

“So what’s the excuse for such extravagance?”

“Do I need an excuse?”

“Well… it’s hardly in character.”

He pretended outrage. “How dare you! I’ll have you know, I’ve been known to spend three pounds on a bottle of wine.”

“And the rest!” Her smile gilded a lily and somehow improved it.

“Anyone would think I’m a cheapskate.”

She leaned forward conspiratorially. “Wouldn’t they just?”

“Oh! So that’s what you think, is it?” He turned his face away, corners of his mouth turned downward. If he hoped for sympathy, it was a hope that was doomed from the off.

“Me and a few thousand others…”

There was no background music in the restaurant, no violins. As he let the silence between them grow, the chattering around them intruded.

His timing was good, though.

“So you wouldn’t want to marry me?” The tone-hurt innocence-was also good.

“What?”

Feigned surprise. “You wouldn’t want to marry me. What with me being a cheapskate.”

As she realized what he had said, her face erupted with bright delight. “Oh… Oh, God…”

“Fair enough,” he went on, apparently oblivious of her reaction. “I’ll strike you off the list and then move on…”

“You mean it?”

He shrugged. “It was only an idea. It doesn’t matter.”

She reached out, grasped his hand, as if to make him realize that she had something to say. “Of course I do! My God! Of course I do. I thought you’d never ask.”

He continued in the same slightly distracted tone, “Only, now that I’ve got a consultant’s job…”

“You what?” Her voice rose appreciably, and Lord and Lady Muck next door did not like it.

“Didn’t I tell you? I’ve been appointed as consultant pathologist at Saint Benjamin’s. I start in three months.”

“That’s fantastic!”

“Is that a ‘yes’ to marriage, then?”

“Of course it is!”

He shook his head. “You just want to marry a doctor. You’re a gold digger.”

At last he smiled, and after a moment’s pause, she sighed huge relief.

“You bet,” she said.

“Interview commencing at eight twenty A.M., Friday, the seventh of June 2006. Present are Dr. Philip Reed, Detective Sergeant Sam Rich, and Detective Inspector Hannah Angelman. Dr. Reed has been cautioned but has declined to take up his right to have a solicitor present.”

Hannah smiled at the man across the desk. “Hello, Phil.”

He bowed his head. His demeanor was one of exhaustion, but his smile was genuine. “Hannah.”

I’m only the pathologist, the one who has to come face to face with whatever atrocity someone has brought upon another.”

“You know Sam?”

“I think we’ve met a couple of times.”

She relaxed back in her chair as if she were in a coffee shop, as if this were a meeting between old mates from university. “I must say, I never expected to find us in this position.”

His head bobbed from side to side. “A life without surprise would be a poor life indeed. It might, though, be marginally better than one that contains too many of them.”

“Or ones that are too big.”

He acknowledged this graciously. “Indeed.”

“How long have we known each other, Phil?”

“Oh, I suppose it must be seven, maybe eight years.”

She nodded. “I thought I knew you.”

“No human being ever truly knows another.”

“But I think I can usually tell the killers. God knows I’ve known a few.”

Reed closed his eyes. Sam thought that he looked ready to sleep for a thousand years. His jacket was creased and looked tired, his shirt collar grimed. He said slowly, didactically, “Killing and killers aren’t a specific type, Hannah. Even I know that, and I’m only the meat man, the poor blood infantry, the pathologist. I’m only the one who has to come face to face with whatever atrocity someone has brought upon another.”

“So what happened last night?”

He explained with brutal simplicity, “My wife died.”

“That we know. It’s what we don’t know that I need you to tell me, and you’re the only one who can.”

Sam thought for several seconds that he was showing no emotion at all, but then he realized his mistake. Reed’s eyes were aqueous, sparkling despite the gloom of the surroundings. “No one on the outside knows what goes on between four walls.”

“But you were on the inside.”

He sighed, and with perfect timing a single tear tracked down his right cheek. “Yes.”

“So tell me what happened.”

Now he drew in breath, a ragged, almost juddering sound. “I thought it would all be straightforward. I thought that it would be an ending.”

“And isn’t it?”

“No.”

Sam said in a low tone, “It was for your wife.”

Reed seemed surprised that anyone else was in the room. “Yes,” he agreed.

Hannah asked, “How do you feel about that, Phil?”

“How do you expect me to feel? My wife’s dead.”

“Who’s fault is that?”

He even managed to smile. “On the face of it, mine.”