Michael Dibdin: Dirty Tricks

I left the BMW at a cash-and-flash car park and walked to St Aldate’s police station, where I was led upstairs to an interview room on the second floor. A paunchy, balding bloke in his mid-fifties sat doing a crossword puzzle. As I entered, he started whistling a phrase which I recognized with some surprise as the Fate motif from Wagner’s Ring cycle. On the desk in front of him lay a number of folders bulging with typed papers.

Moss stared at me for some time as though considering how best to proceed.

‘Several months ago, Clive Reginald Phillips was tried and convicted for the murder of your wife,’ he finally said. ‘Due to various irregularities in the investigative procedure which have recently come to light, that conviction has been ruled unsafe and is about to be set aside.’

I started gasping, as though I’d just run all the way from North Oxford.

‘This will entail various practical consequences,’ Moss went on gloomily. ‘One, of course, is that Phillips will be released from prison.’

‘But he murdered my wife!’

‘I wouldn’t go around saying things like that if I were you, sir. You could find yourself facing charges for criminal libel.’

‘It’s enough to make you despair of British justice!’ I cried, writhing about tormentedly in my chair.

‘Another consequence is that the file on the case will have to be re-examined. Since the Force originally concerned is now the subject of disciplinary action, we in the Thames Valley Police have been asked to take on the task of reviewing the evidence and deciding what further action, if any, to recommend.

He lifted a file from the desk.

‘I have to say that one or two items here appear to corroborate the version of events which Mr Phillips gave at the outset. For example there’s this florist’s assistant who was collecting a Red Star delivery from Banbury station. He remembers seeing two cars parked in the forecourt, one of them a yellow sports car and the other a, quote, red Alfa Romeo, unquote. He was then shown a photograph of a BMW like the one you drive, and he said yes, that was it, he could tell one of those Alfas anywhere.’

I said nothing.

‘Another witness, who was meeting his aunt off the Oxford train, not only confirmed the presence of this second car, but also identified Clive Phillips from a photograph as one of the two men sitting in it having what he described as “a loud argument”.’

‘But none of this was mentioned at the trial!’

‘Quite so, sir. Transcripts of these interviews were communicated by us to our colleagues in Wales, but in the light of the overwhelming evidence of Phillips’s guilt they apparently didn’t consider them relevant to the investigation.’

The door opened to reveal a WPC pushing a trolley laden with styrofoam mugs of tea and coffee.

‘ “Ye blessed souls, that taste the something something of felicity!” declaimed Moss fruitily. ‘Tea for me, please Fliss, since there’s nothing stronger. How about you, sir?’

‘Coffee,’ I croaked.

‘ “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons …” ’

‘It’s a bit early in the morning for Eliot,’ I snapped.

‘A matter of taste,’ Moss replied, patting the woman constable’s bottom as she left. ‘Personally I have excellent taste in poetry, women, music, beer and crime. And I have to say that this business doesn’t do a thing for me. Ah!’

He swooped down on his newspaper.

‘The solution was staring me in the face all along. Simple, really.’

I’d had enough of this cat-and-mouse game.

‘Excuse me, Inspector, but what exactly was it you wished to speak to me about?’

Moss finished filling in his crossword and sipped his tea noisily.

‘Well, sir, the last thing we want to do is waste a lot of time reinvestigating this case when the identity of the murderer has in fact already been established beyond a reasonable doubt.’

He was inviting me to confess! I felt I was going to faint.

‘I’d like to call my solicitor,’ I muttered.

‘What we must remember,’ Moss told the ceiling, ‘is that just because Phillips is being released, that doesn’t mean he’s innocent.’

I stared at him open-mouthed.

‘It doesn’t?’

‘Of course not. All the review board has said is that he wasn’t given a fair trial. It’s entirely a matter of speculation what the outcome might have been if he had.’

‘But that’s ridiculous! You mean a guilty man could be set free because of some technical detail?’

‘Happens all the time. Unfortunately there’s nothing we can do about that, but we do try and prevent the innocent being persecuted as a result. Now if the case were to be reopened, it would of course be very distressing for everyone concerned, especially yourself. We fully appreciate that. And that’s why I just wanted to check that you’re absolutely sure there’s no one who could verify that you were in Oxford on the Saturday in question. If there was, you see, then I could virtually guarantee the matter would go no further.’

I finally understood. As far as the police were concerned, the significance of Clive’s release depended on whether or not the investigation was reopened. If it wasn’t, everyone would assume that Clive had been freed on a mere technicality, in which case the slur on the police would also remain purely technical. They’d got the right man, even if they’d used the wrong methods. So the boys in blue were pulling together. All Moss wanted to do was to bury the case discreetly, to write it off as a botched job with no moral opprobrium attached. If he was to do that, he needed me to have an alibi. So why didn’t I do us both a favour and go and get one, eh?

Fair enough, I thought. I can take a hint.

‘Actually, what I told the police earlier was not strictly true,’ I murmured. ‘I did see someone that day, but I didn’t like to mention it because … well, it was a woman.’

Moss nodded sympathetically.

‘To be perfectly honest, I had taken advantage of my wife’s absence to see a dear friend of mine who … There was absolutely nothing between us, but, well, you can imagine how it would have looked at the time.’

‘And the lady’s name, sir?’

‘Kraemer. Alison Kraemer.’

Moss noted it down in the margin of one of the papers.

‘I’ll need to speak to her in the next day or two. It won’t take long, just a formality really. Then we shouldn’t need to bother you again.’

He turned back to his crossword.

‘ “The iceman buyeth not his round.” Five letters starting with a C. A rather over-elaborate clue, I’d say. The trademark of an amateur.’

‘Fine, fine. And you? Really? Good. Super. Listen, I was wondering if we could get together some time soon. There’s something I need to ask you. It’s a bit urgent, actually.’

I was standing in a glass phone booth amid the roar of traffic in the Westgate one-way system. Alison’s voice reached me as though from a great distance. The air was milder there, the vegetation lusher. Somewhere in the background a piano was playing.

‘Can you come to lunch?’

The meal was the same as on the day we first met: omelette, salad, cheese and bread. The food wasn’t quite as good as it had been in France — the best money could buy, rather than just the best — but the real drawback from my point of view was that we were a threesome. It was half-term, and Rebecca was kicking her heels around the house. To try and break the ice which formed whenever she was around, I asked her if she was interested in crossword puzzles.

‘If they’re difficult enough,’ returned the pert gamine.

‘How about this? “The iceman buyeth not his round.” Five letters beginning with a C. I just can’t get it.’