Peter Robinson: When the Music's Over

When I first started out, my poetry was free, fanciful, shocking, with outrageous imagery and flights of jazzy rhythmic cadences. I couldn’t get it out quickly enough, tripping over my own feet to find out what the next metaphor would be. I hardly ever revised anything. Now, though, my verse seems crabbed, constipated, metaphysical, slow and hard to squeeze out. The critics like it. They tell me it has a certain stately grace. Is that what’s happened to me? Strange that it should flow so easily in my youth, after what happened, then seem to harden, to crystallise and insist on taking certain rigid forms and structures in my middle age. Stately grace is all very well, but sometimes I long for that free loping rhythm and ringing cadence of my youth, like I long for that carefree innocent young girl that was.

Linda closed the notebook and put down the pen. She could hardly see any more for tears. Darkness had fallen, and the last of the swallows were swooping and diving over the woods. The bats would be out soon. She rubbed her eyes, filled her wine glass to the brim and lit another cigarette.

‘Well, Paul, it looks like the end of the road for you, doesn’t it?’

‘No comment,’ said Warner. He was sitting nervously in the interview room beside his legal aid solicitor, who didn’t seem too happy at being woken up early on a Saturday morning. Warner had balked at Jessie Malton, perhaps because she was a woman and she was black, but he was quickly put in his place and told it wasn’t as easy as that to change legal aid representation, and you certainly couldn’t do it simply because you objected to the lawyer’s colour and gender.

‘I think your attitude might soon change,’ said Annie, opening the thick folder in front of her. While Annie and Gerry had been enjoying themselves at the Riverside Inn, they had managed to persuade Jazz Singh to work a late shift and Vic Manson to stay on an extra hour. Vic was married, so all he had to do was phone and say he’d be home a bit late, but Jazz had had a hot date that she wasn’t too pleased about cancelling. On the other hand, she knew what had been done to Mimsy Moffat, and she wanted to contribute her best efforts to putting her killer away, and if her girlfriend couldn’t understand that about her by now, she told Annie, there was no point going on with the relationship. Perhaps Annie and Gerry could have gone at him that evening, too, but they wouldn’t have had anywhere near as much ammunition as they had now — including Mimosa’s sketchbook and mobile — and he wouldn’t have had a night in the cell to probe his conscience, if he had one, or anticipate the worst, if he didn’t.

‘First off, we managed to recover Mimosa’s belongings from the van she was in on the night she died,’ Annie said, ‘and we found a couple of interesting things among them.’

‘What’s that got to do with me?’

‘There’s a little sketchbook, for a start. They were sketches of mostly people she knew — Albert, her mother, Jade, the other girls, Sunny and his pals. And you.’

‘I’ve seen that. So what? She always had a pencil and a sketchbook in her hands, even when you wanted her to do a bit of work.’

‘Then there was her mobile,’ Annie went on. ‘Calls to and from Albert, Jade, Sunny, home. And again, you. Mostly from.’

‘I told you she helped me and Albert out sometimes.’

‘So these phone calls were all work-connected?’

‘What else would they be?’

‘Most went unanswered. About fifteen over the past month. Couldn’t you get through to her?’

‘Obviously not. No doubt she was busy with her Paki friends.’

‘They weren’t friends, Paul. At least not towards the end. What was so important that you couldn’t pass on a message to her through Albert? You saw him often enough.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Fifteen unanswered calls. Your friend’s little sister. It’s odd, that’s all.’

‘I don’t see why.’

‘Did she tell you anything about her association with the Pakistanis?’ Gerry asked.

‘No. For Christ’s sake, I’ve told you, she agreed with us!’

‘Us?’

‘Me and Albert. I don’t understand this. Mimsy was always making disparaging remarks about Pakis. She even got in trouble for it at school.’

‘But you didn’t talk about her odd behaviour with Albert last Tuesday night, didn’t get him all het up?’

‘No. I told you. We watched DVDs and fell asleep.’

‘What about the fingerprint?’ Annie said.

‘What fingerprint?’

‘We found Albert’s fingerprints in Jim Nuttall’s van, as you’d expect. But why did we also find yours? The same van that Albert Moffat drove on a casual basis, the one that was parked in the lane at the back of your building on the night in question.’

‘No comment.’

‘You’ve already been told you don’t have to say anything,’ Annie reminded him, ‘so it’s well within your rights to say “no comment”, but as I’m sure Ms Malton will tell you, that bit about later relying on something in court is a deal-breaker. Should this case go to court, and I have to tell you the CPS think we have a good case, then you will almost certainly be asked this question, among others, and your “no comment” from today’s interview will be noted at the time. But we do have the fingerprint. Think about it, Paul.’

Warner looked disconcerted and turned to Jessie Malton, who whispered a few words in his ear. He clearly didn’t like what he had heard. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘It’s a simple enough explanation. I’ve been with Albert a few times on road trips.’

‘Including Sheffield, the day of Mimosa Moffat’s murder?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And the person who took delivery there will vouch for you?’

‘Well, I don’t know about that. I mean, I got Albert to drop me off in the city centre so I could do a bit of shopping, so he wouldn’t have seen me.’

‘What did you buy?’

‘This and that.’

‘Got the receipts?’

‘I threw them away.’

‘Pity,’ said Annie. ‘Did you use a credit or debit card?’

‘I paid cash.’

‘Right,’ said Annie. ‘Why did you head to the local recycling plant with a bin bag full of clothes and a pair of shoes as soon as you got home from your last interview here?’

‘I’d been meaning to take them for ages. I don’t know why I did it then, particularly. I just wanted something to do.’

‘Why not take them to a charity shop? They were in perfectly good condition.’

‘Never thought.’

‘Are you sure you weren’t feeling anxious about what they might reveal?’

‘I wouldn’t say I was anxious. I just felt like it. OK?’

He had raised his voice for the first time, and Jessie Malton tapped him on the arm and whispered in his ear.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘This is putting a lot of stress on me.’

‘Why is it stressful, Paul, if you’ve got nothing to hide?’ Gerry asked. ‘You were helpful enough before. Remember? You told us that Albert Moffat was with you the whole time after you got back home from the pub on Tuesday until eleven the following morning.’

‘Well, I thought he was. I mean, I suppose he could have slipped out if I dozed off or something.’

‘If?’ said Gerry. ‘Did you doze off?’

‘I might have done. I don’t remember. Like I said, we were drinking.’

‘Are you trying to tell us that Albert nipped out and murdered his sister?’

‘No. I’m not saying that. Just that I could have been mistaken. He might have gone out, if I was asleep.’

‘Were you asleep?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘How about if you went out when he dozed off?’ Annie said. ‘Is that a viable scenario?’