John Harvey - Living Proof

"Course, if we could lay our hands on Kinoulton herself, ask her some questions direct, it might be a different picture."

Skelton nodded neat agreement and nicked out the sides of his suit jacket before sitting back down.

"Not to fret, Charlie; something'!! turn up. "

Once his panic and anger had subsided, Marius Gooding had apologised so abjectly, his tongue must have tasted of the interview room floor.

Over and over. You have to believe, I've never done such a thing in my life. Never struck anybody at all, never mind a member of the opposite sex, a woman. No, Lyim, had observed, but you have done other things.

"What? What other things?"

One by one, she showed him the Polaroids that had been taken inside Dorothy Birdwell's hotel suite. Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!

Without further hesitation, Marius had demanded a phone call and a solicitor. The call was to Dorothy Birdwell, who listened patiently to his pleading and then hung up without answering.

The solicitor who arrived was actually a solicitor's clerk. Heather Jardine; a forty-three-year-old Scot, divorced with two teenage children, who had abandoned a stuttering career as a playwright and enrolled in evening classes in law. She knew Lyiin Kellogg fairly well they had been through this and similar procedures before and the two women treated one another with more than grudging respect.

Jardine made sure her client was aware of his rights, had been fairly treated and asked if he might not have a cup of tea.

Lynn waited for Kevin Naylor to join her and set the tape rolling, identifying those present in the room and the time.

"All right, Marius, why don't we talk about the incident with the rabbit first off?"

After a less than ten minutes of prevarication, Marius asked if he could speak to Heather Jardine alone. This allowed, he admitted the incident with the breakfast trolley, said that he had got it ready the previous day and had intended to leave it outside Cathy Jordan's door; seeing the trolley there, waiting to be taken into the room, he had elaborated his plans accordingly.

"And what was the point?" Lynn asked.

"I mean, why go through all of this rigamorole?"

Marius didn't reply immediately. Instead, he swivelled his head and asked Heather Jardine if he had to answer, and she said, no, he did not. Another few moments and he answered anyway.

"It was a symbol," he said.

"Of what I think of her work."

"A symbol?" Lynn repeated carefully.

"Yes."

"Perhaps you'd best explain."

"Oh, if you'd read any, you'd know."

"In fact, I have," Lynn said.

"A little."

"Then you'll know the awful things she does; little children tortured, abused, defiled." His face was a mask of disgust.

"Do you have children, Mr Gooding? Yourself?" Lynn asked.

"I don't see what on earth…"

"I was interested, that's all."

Well, no, then. No, I don't. "

"But it's something you feel strongly about?"

"Yes. Yes, of course. I mean, it's only natural. At least, that's what you would think. And the fact that she's a woman. That it's a woman, perpetrating these things…"

"Not exactly, Mr Gooding."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, Ms Jordan isn't actually doing any of these things. She isn't doing anything. Other than writing books. Isn't that so?"

"Yes, but…"

"Let me be clear here," Naylorsaid, leaning forward for the first time.

"The business with the rabbit, that was to teach Miss Jordan a lesson, frighten her into stopping writing, what?"

"Huh, she's never going to stop, is she? Not with a formula like that. Raking it in. God knows what she must have earned, the last few years. Though, of course, she hasn't got the respect. Not from the critics, nor the affection of her readers. True affection, like Dorothy."

"That was what you had for Ms Birdwell? Yourself, I mean. Affection and respect?"

"Of course, yes. Why I…"

"Then why this?" Lynn's finger hovered over the first of the photographs.

"Or this? Or this?"

Marius closed his eyes.

"I was upset. I…"

"You seem to get upset a lot," Lynn observed quietly.

"I thought… I know it was stupid and foolish and very, very wrong… but I thought she didn't… Dorothy didn't… after everything that had happened between us, all the 240 time we had spent together…" His body was racked by a sudden sob.

"I thought she didn't love me any more. And I am deeply, deeply ashamed."

The faint whir of the tape machinery aside, the clipped clicking of the clock, the only sounds were the contortions of Marius's ragged breathing as he struggled to recover himself, regain some element of control. Heather Jardine looked at the notepad on her lap and wished she could light up a cigarette; Kevin Naylor simply looked embarrassed. It was Lynn whose eyes never wavered. If ever anyone was in need of therapy, she was thinking, it's this poor, pathetic bastard and not me.

"These feelings you had about Cathy Jordan," Lynn asked, 'about her work. Would you say that Ms Birdwell shared those? "

"Most strongly, yes."

"But she didn't approve of the methods you used to express what you felt?"

"Grand guignol was the term she used. Over-theatrical. Too close for Dorothy's liking to the kind of thing you can imagine Jordan doing herself. Though, of course, that was the point."

"She was happier with the letters, then, was she?" Lynn asked, making a leap of faith.

Marius's face was a picture.

Reaching down for the folder that was leaning against one leg of the table, Lynn extracted copies of the threatening letters Cathy Jordan had received and set them carefully down along the length of the table.

"The letters," Lynn said.

"Have a good look. Remind yourself."

Marius wobbled a little in his seat.

"I think," Heather Jardine said, rising to her feet, 'my client is in need of a break. "

"This interview," Lynn said, face angled towards the tape recorder, 'suspended at seventeen minutes past twelve. "

At four minutes to two, Alison and Shane Charlton rang the buzzer at the Enquiries desk below and asked if they could speak to somebody about the Peter Farleigh murder.

FR1; Forty-three "We had a message," Alison Charlton said, 'you wanted us to get in touch. We've been away, you see. The weekend. " She smiled at her husband, who smiled, a touch self- consciously, back.

"We came in as soon as we heard." The wedding rings, Resnick noticed, were shiny and new on their hands.

"The man who died," Shane Charlton said,

"Alison's mother had saved his picture from the paper. She knew we'd been staying there that night. The same hotel."

"It was Shane's firm's do," Alison explained.

"I recognised him, we recognised him right off," Shane said.

"Didn't we, All?"

"Oh, yes." Her face, bright already, brightened still further.

"We were right facing him, him and her. Going up in the lift. Must have been1 was saying to Shane, wasn't I, Shane? – after that that it happened."

"What time was this?" Resnick asked.

"Can you remember?"

"It would have been round eleven thirty," Shane said.

"Nearer quarter past," Alison said.

"You said, him and her," Resnick reminded her.

"The woman…"

"The woman he was with…"

"Nice looking, she was. Well, quite…"

"Considering."

"Like you say, considering. And I think she'd been drinking, don't you, Shane?"

"Didn't act drunk, though, did she? Not exactly."

"No, it was what she said."

Shane nodded, remembering.

"Come right out with it, didn't she? We might as well not've been there, might we? For all she cared. Well, I'd never've had the guts to have said it. Not the way she did. One hundred and fifty pounds, she said, just like she was talking about, oh, you know, the weather.