Barry Maitland - The Malcontenta

‘Oh yes, he was very clear about it. He said, “I choked the living shit out of that greasy faggot.” Those were his exact words. I remember them very clearly.’

Kathy glanced at the others in the room. Penny was staring in blank horror at the bowed figure of the Deputy Chief Constable; McGregor was stony-faced; Brock was scowling and gripping the shoulder he’d hurt breaking through Long’s bathroom door.

Long drew a deep breath. ‘My head felt as if it were exploding and I found it very difficult to think. But Tanner was very calm. He explained there had really been no alternative and he would make sure there were no consequences. The investigation would find for suicide, and life for the rest of us would go on as before. He would like to think that if I went to London he would be accompanying me as part of my team there — with promotion, of course.’

Kathy frowned. ‘Did he say what position Petrou was in when he strangled him?’

Long shook his head.

‘You don’t know if he was lying or standing?’

‘No. He did say that he had intended to move the body, to make it look as if Alex had hanged himself. Only there was nowhere to hang him from in the gym.’

Kathy pictured the bare surface of the brick vaults.

‘He went out to see if there was a suitable place in one of the adjoining offices, and then he heard someone coming along the corridor and opening the gym door. He waited till they went — I don’t know who it was — and then he left quickly, thinking they would raise the alarm. He said he was as surprised as anyone when Alex turned up in the temple, but realized that someone else must have tried to cover the thing up just as he had been intending to do himself.’

‘Wasn’t he taking an extraordinary risk of being noticed, wearing outdoor clothes in the clinic?’

‘He took a dressing gown — he said anyone wearing a dressing gown was immediately invisible at Stanhope.’

Kathy nodded. ‘AH right.’ She suddenly felt tired, reluctant to move on. ‘There are things that I’ll ask you to expand on later concerning what happened last October, but now I’d like you to tell us about Rose Duggan.’

Long, too, seemed loath to continue, i don’t feel well,’ he complained hesitantly.

‘In what way? Do you want us to get a doctor?’

The thought of confronting new faces brought the nausea back to his throat. ‘No, no.’

‘Would a cup of tea help?’

He nodded, and Penny got to her feet and made a phone call from the secretary’s desk outside.

‘Why don’t we get this next bit over, then we can break for your tea?’ Kathy suggested. ‘How did it begin, with Rose?’

Long sighed. ‘One day Stephen Beamish-Newell rang me here. It must have been January or February. He made some general remarks about the Petrou case and the coroner’s verdict, which struck me as a bit odd. I asked if anything was wrong, and he said he was becoming concerned about one of his staff, Rose, who was still going on about the case. He said it was unsettling for everyone, and he wondered whether there was any possibility that Rose might be able to get the coroner to reopen the case. He was very worried about more bad publicity and so on. I explained that there was little chance of the case being reopened unless she had new evidence, and I asked him to try to find out if she did, and to keep me informed. I mentioned it to Tanner, of course.

‘Then Tanner found out about Rose’s letter to Sergeant Kolla and her meeting with you, David. You can imagine that this was the last thing we wanted. The nightmare was beginning all over again. I contacted Stephen and told him who you were, David, and about Rose’s letter. He was as worried as I was, and only too willing to do as I suggested, to try to keep Rose away from Brock and to keep me abreast of any developments. I explained that Brock’s visit was unofficial and that I might be able to dampen things down if Rose were able to get him interested in reopening the case. I must say that Stephen seemed absolutely terrified of that.

‘The weekend of that first week you were there, David, Stephen contacted me again at home. Rose was becoming very difficult.. Her fiance had tried to talk to her, as had Laura, but she was becoming quite hysterical. Stephen had learned she intended to talk to Brock when they had an acupuncture session on the following Monday, because she had discovered something about Alex’s death. I then phoned Tanner — I felt I had no choice. He told me to find out all about the arrangements for your acupuncture session, the time and place and what else would be going on in the basement at that time. He also suggested I propose to Stephen that he give you something at lunch-time, David, to make you sleepy.

‘I went through all this with Stephen. He gave me the information and agreed that all we could do was to try to delay Rose’s talking to Brock, and if possible persuade her against it. I gave Tanner the information he wanted, and he told me to get Brock’s acupuncture session brought forward an hour, when the place would be quiet, and to make a call to the clinic at two-thirty — I was to insist on speaking to Stephen about an urgent, confidential matter.’

‘Did he tell you what he planned to do?’

‘No.’

‘And you didn’t ask?’ Long shook his head.

Someone came into the secretary’s office with the tea, and Kathy stood up. Her skin felt grimy with perspiration and fatigue.

‘We’ll take a break there,’ she said, i have some things to arrange with Sergeant McGregor, then we’ll go downstairs.’

‘It just feels like an anticlimax,’ Kathy said. ‘I would really have liked to march into the canteen and arrest the bastard there, eating his bacon and eggs in front of his mates.’

Brock smiled, manoeuvring the car along the winding road back towards London. ‘Better that McGregor should pick him up, Kathy. In the long run you’ll feel better about it all if you distance yourself and don’t make it personal.’

‘But it is personal.’ She could see the glow of the orange street-lights of the built-up area in the night sky ahead, although here in the country the darkness was impenetrable. Soon the dawn would come, people would rise, taking up where they had left off. And Tanner, wherever he was, would rise too, and discover that his whole world had come to pieces while he slept.

‘It was a beautiful example of what that American was talking about at the conference, come to think of it,’ Brock said. ‘Chaos theory. A malcontented butterfly flutters her wings somewhere in the north of Italy, and in the south of England all hell breaks loose.’

‘Yes,’ Kathy yawned. ‘Bit ironic that the killer was the one person who wasn’t personally threatened by Petrou.’

‘The worst part of the whole thing,’ Brock said, ‘is that I’ve put my shoulder out again, breaking into Long’s bathroom.’ He glanced at Kathy’s face, her eyelids beginning to droop. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t rather I took you straight back to your flat?’

‘Oh …’ Kathy felt too tired to think. ‘No, I might as well pick up my car from your place and get it home. Once my head hits the pillow I’m going to crash.’

Brock turned on the radio and a voice cheerfully predicted rain. It was followed by an old recording of ‘Volare’.

A pale dawn was silhouetting the backs of the houses behind Warren Lane and picking out the young leaves on the horse-chestnut tree as Brock turned through the archway from Matcham High Street and swung to a stop in the courtyard behind Kathy’s Renault.

‘I’ll ring you when you’ve had some sleep,’ he said. ‘Drive carefully.’

She nodded and trudged over to her car, feeling for her keys in her shoulder bag. She pulled them out, dropped them, groped around in the half-light on the cobble-stones, picked them up, opened the door and threw herself in behind the wheel. Thankful that the engine turned over first time, she strapped herself in, giving a little smile of pleasure at being alone again on her own territory. She put the car into gear, glanced up at the back of Brock’s house as she rolled forward, and saw a light in his kitchen window snap off.