Caroline Graham - A Ghost in the Machine

“We have high hopes of Forensics.”

“Apparently the lock on Kinders kitchen door had been oiled only a couple of days earlier.”

Now that was entrapment. Because it simply wasn’t true. He’d been sure to check for anything that could transfer. On the handle too. And they wouldn’t be able to come up with a surprise witness either. After parking on the very edge of the village overlooking an empty field he’d sat on a bench opposite the house, sheltering behind The Times till the coast was absolutely clear. Then in like lightning and doubly cautious coming out.

“Not a complicated business, modifying the machine, Mr. Latham. You had, I understand, seen it before?” Silence. “But what I did find difficult is how on earth Dennis Brinkley was persuaded to pull on the rope and release the weight that killed him.”

“Yeah – that really puzzled us.”

“He must have seen the trebuchet had been dragged out of place—”

“Marks all over the floor.”

“A mysterious, one might even say a suspicious thing to happen. Yet before any attempt was made to investigate—”

“When the alteration to the ramp might well have been noticed.”

“He reached out and tugged on the rope.”

“Now what on earth would make him do that?”

Andrew sighed and solemnly shook his head. It was plainly just as mysterious and suspicious to him. If only he could help…

Actually the key to the whole stratagem was Dennis’s obsession with order, his compulsion to straighten and tidy. Andrew had left the rope caught up in a half-knot, the end hanging loose. Dennis would have been compelled to undo it. And to reach the knot he needed to lean directly over the machine and pull. It had been very precisely placed; just too high to get at any other way. Andrew was rather proud of this literally clever twist. The police would never work it out. And if they guessed, so what? When has a guess ever stood up in court? Solid evidence was what was needed and so far they’d got sweet FA. Which meant they’d either have to let him go, period, or release him on bail. In which case, Sorrento here I come.

There was almost another hour of this then they took a break.

His two interrogators having left the room, Andrew was offered something to eat. They had to do this apparently after a certain time. Sadly it was not brought by the gorgeous Abby Rose but by a spotty young constable who put the tray down and walked off, leaving the door of the interview room open. Andrew could just see him sitting on a chair in the corridor. The food was quite tasty: shepherd’s pie with garden peas and a custard slice. He asked to use the toilet, small and windowless. So much for the great escape. Then spent the rest of his time alone, recapping on the story so far and bracing himself for the questions to come.

The Brinkley side of things looked pretty watertight. His only possible connection with the case – that final late-night phone call – the police had already discovered and it had availed them nothing. But Ava Garret?

He could still remember with absolute clarity the moment in the radio interview when she started describing the death scene. The shape of the room, the tall narrow windows, the machines. She even knew what Dennis was wearing; the colour of his hair. If that child hadn’t started crying…

Until then Andrew, sitting on a stool sipping his Lavazza, had been having a good laugh at the woman’s expense. Then came the shock. So powerful it was as if a great fist had crashed into his chest. He fell backwards, gasping. Coffee flew; burning his legs, staining the floor. His fingers trembled so much they couldn’t turn the radio off.

He picked up the broken cup and put it in the bin, then stood helplessly amid puddles of brown liquid, unable to get his breath. It was as if something large and fierce had entered the room and was eating up all the air. Clearly drawn before him as on a map, he saw the end of everything. Goodbye money and sun and sex and sand. Farewell golden, shadowless landscapes and licentious living happy ever after.

A genuine medium. He had never believed there was such a thing. But a little while later, when he began once more to think coherently, Andrew started remembering all sorts of instances when such people had helped the police with their inquiries. Had even found bodies.

Filling the washing-up bowl, getting bleach out of the cupboard to scrub the floor, he tried to subdue the panic that shock had left behind.

As Andrew saw it, his hands, morally speaking, were clean. Yes, he had tinkered with the giant catapult and nudged Brinkley into a dangerous situation but the final step had been taken by the man himself. Even obsessives had free will and he had made the wrong decision. No reasonable person would call that murder.

Even so this woman could put him away, perhaps for years. Years he hadn’t got, thanks to the decade of spineless grovelling that Gilda’s father had purchased with his scrap metal swag.

Dennis’s death had taken place at one remove, as it were. Stopping Ava Garret would inevitably be more…the phrase “hands on” came horribly to mind and was immediately rejected. There was no way he could physically kill someone. He just hadn’t got it in him. He was not a violent man.

He sat and thought for so long he only just got clear before Gilda returned. It was while he was tucked away behind Bunting St. Clare parish church waiting for going-home time that he remembered the methanol. He’d had it for years. Someone in the iffy circles in which he once moved had hinted at its efficiency and given him what had darkly been described as “the leftovers.”

Andrew, interested and repelled in equal measure, had kept the unlabelled medicine bottle without ever asking himself why. Certainly he would never have slipped the stuff to Gilda. Taking risks for no financial advantage was definitely not his bag. Perhaps he was keeping it for himself. For when he got too old and tired to philander; too creaky to leave the house. Shut up with Gilda twenty-four hours a day might drive the most patient man to top himself. Anyway, whatever possible reason, it was still in the garden shed on the weed-killer shelf.

The strange thing was, no sooner had he thought of the stuff than various schemes on how to use it came tumbling into his mind.

Astonished and impressed, for he was not normally an inventive man, Andrew decided to regard this fecundity as a good omen.

The first step obviously was to get hold of this clairvoyant. Using the nearest call box he tried Directory Enquiries, giving her name and saying that he only knew she lived in the Causton area. No joy. He tried the Echo , who gave him the number of her agent, a Mr. Footscray. Even less joy there. Andrew had hardly opened his mouth before Mr. Footscray hung up on him. That left the studio.

Even as he wrote down the number he recognised the chances of them handing out personal details about a programme guest were pretty slim. Then on the point of dialling (141 first, naturally), he had a brilliant idea. Why not pretend to be working for that honourable and world-renowned institution, the BBC? Surely a hack radio station run by teenagers who’d never make it and has-beens who’d already lost it was bound to be impressed. And it worked. There was a brief, awkward pause when they asked his name until Andrew noticed a framed advertisement for computer tuition right under his nose. He said, “Chris Butterworth.” And the die was cast.

Having perceived Ava’s grandiosity, hunger for attention and blinding lack of self-awareness during the interview, Andrew had no doubts that she would agree to meet him. Getting her out of the house had been a doddle. Likewise redirecting her via the mobile, catching her just before she boarded the train.