Caroline Graham - A Ghost in the Machine

You could say he had, decided Troy. In fact, you could pretty much count on it. All the clattering keyboards and murmuring voices in reception had become silent under the need to give full attention to the power and volume of the chief’s address.

Troy answered the telephone, listened, then said, “Jenny Dudley’s arrived, sir. Interview room three.”

“Miss Lawson?”

Kate, who had an arm round Polly, removed it and gripped her hand. Mallory, riven with doubt and fear, got up, then quickly sat down again. Kate started to cry. Barnaby had no patience with such emotional incontinence. Anyone’d think their daughter was going to the scaffold.

Polly didn’t know how they’d found out. She didn’t care. The discovery was all of a piece, somehow. Almost to be expected. Seduced by pride in her own cleverness and dazed by greed, she had flown too near the sun. And yet, even in the depths of mortification and misery a tiny shred of self-preservation still remained. So when during their brief private interview the solicitor advised her of her rights, including the right to remain silent, she decided to do just that. Guilty she may be but there was no need to hand herself over trussed up like an oven-ready chicken. So, when the older of the two policemen asked if she knew why she was there Polly said nothing.

Then the young one went through his notebook quoting dates. Stating that she had been seen entering the office premises of Brinkley and Latham on two separate occasions when said premises were closed. In both instances a witness was prepared to identify her and give evidence. As was the minicab driver who brought her from Chorleywood to Causton market place.

Then they wanted to know where she had got the keys, why she had entered first the building then Dennis Brinkley’s office especially. What was she looking for? What did she hope to accomplish?

Polly tried to work out what was going on. Where Dennis came into all this. Who was this “witness” prepared to give evidence? Surely not Dennis himself. He just wouldn’t do it – go to the police behind all their backs. Perhaps it was that awful man Latham. They were off again.

“Where did you get the keys, Polly?”

So it was Polly now.

“Where did you get the keys?”

“Did you steal them?”

“Did you steal the keys to his house as well?”

“At the same time, perhaps?”

“Do you come down to Forbes Abbot often?”

“Were you there on Tuesday the twenty-fourth of July?”

At least this question was specific. Was she there? A backward glance down an unspeakably dark memory lane and she was being sick in the gutter, raging in the marble vestibule of Whitehall Court, weeping and screaming in her bedroom. Polly spoke briefly to Mrs. Dudley and was reassured.

“No, I wasn’t.”

“Prove that, can you?”

“Definitely.” The hall porters wouldn’t forget her visit in a hurry.

“All day?”

“I didn’t wake till lunchtime. Shortly after that I went out. I saw…some people. Then I came home.”

“Who are these people?” asked Sergeant Troy.

“I’ve no idea of their names.” Polly explained where they could be found.

“Was anyone in the flat with you?”

“No.”

“Then we’ve only your word that you slept late.”

Polly, who had believed herself to be totally bereft of energy or any spark of gumption began to experience faint stirrings of resentment.

“So? What does it matter when I got up? What’s so special about Tuesday the twenty-fourth?”

Barnaby regarded Polly with disdain. He did not take kindly to someone insulting his intelligence. Or trying to play foolish games. His voice was deliberately aggressive when he said, “You’re surely not pretending you don’t know?”

Polly shrank from this harsh approach; from the vigorous accusing stare. It was rather frightening. And surely a bit extreme. Technically she had broken the law and no doubt would be duly charged but it wasn’t as if she had stolen anything that was not in the family, as it were. Or caused any damage.

“Polly?”

“I’m not pretending anything,” cried Polly. “I don’t know.”

Troy looked across at the chief. Noted the dark brow and tightening jaw. No wonder he was angry. Were they really supposed to believe that three weeks after Brinkley’s death with his body as good as discovered by this girl’s father she knew nothing of the matter? Given that it had slipped his mind to mention it, which frankly beggared belief, the bizarreness of the machinery responsible had ensured comprehensive coverage in the daily press. There had even been drawings of a trebuchet. The dramatic setting aside of the inquest verdict after Garret’s murder had also been widely reported. No, decided Sergeant Troy, genuine though her bewilderment seemed, Polly must be having them on.

“You appear to be puzzled by this whole situation,” suggested Barnaby. “Let me enlighten you, at least in part. One of the people who watched you enter the bank building on the night of the twenty-third was Brinkley himself.”

“ Dennis? ”

“You didn’t see him?”

“No.”

“Surely he followed you in. Daughter of old family friend, acting very strangely. Not to mention illegally. He confronted you. Probably not angry – just wanting to understand.”

“I didn’t—” Polly’s voice rasped in her bone-dry throat – “see him.”

“Stay down here that night?”

“I’ve already told you…”

“No matter. London’s not far. Plenty of time to nip down to Forbes Abbot in the morning, get into the house, do the necessary and back to the Smoke. All ready to ‘wake up,’” he poked two-fingered quotation marks directly at her face, “at lunchtime.”

“Necessary?”

“Take the keys off the garage board, did you?”

There’s a punch, thought Troy. Out of the blue, below the belt. The girl went even paler. The solicitor was solicitous, touching Polly’s arm, murmuring advice. Polly shook her head. She was tired and just wanted it over.

“Yes.”

“When did you do that?”

“I had a meeting with Dennis in Causton…”

“Early afternoon. We know.”

Polly bowed her head. She was not surprised. Was there anything they didn’t know?

“The bus back stops outside Kinders. No one was around so…”

“How did you know where the keys were?”

“I’d called there a few days earlier but he was out. I noticed them then. They had an ‘Office’ label.”

“And the house keys?”

“Why would I want his house keys?” Her voice, weak to start with, was getting duller and slower – like a battery running down.

“Because I believe,” said the chief inspector, “that on Tuesday, the twenty-fourth—”

“I’ve told you where I was then. How many more times? What does it matter anyway?”

“It matters,” said Barnaby, “because, as I’m quite sure you’re aware, that is the day that Dennis Brinkley was murdered.”

Polly recoiled at the sickening violence of his words. For a moment she seemed about to speak. Her mouth formed a strange shape, twisted to one side. Then she fell forwards, knocking the water jug over. The water ran everywhere, soaking her face and hair. Dripping off the table to form pools on the dusty floor.

Seated at his desk in the incident room, DCI Barnaby was getting outside his third cup of the very strongest, very best Bolivian coffee. He felt he needed it. More, he felt he deserved it. He was not a whiner or a shifter of blame. He felt the phrase “it wasn’t my fault” to be only a step away from “they started it,” and that both should be abandoned by adolescence at the very latest. But today, just for a brief moment, he had been sorely tempted to take refuge. Eventually he settled for the almost equally shifty, “How was I supposed to know?”