Swift spent almost six hours in Moreton’s study where he found several dog hairs, but none of them were a match. It was when combing the back seat of Moreton’s Land Rover that he finally found one, late at night.
*
Cross came back into the interview room with Ottey. He laid his folder carefully on the table, opened it and studied a document carefully. It was the lab report from Swift.
‘Mr Moreton, a dog hair we found in the boot of your car is a match for the dog hairs found around the bites on your father’s legs. These bites were inflicted at the same time as the fatal stabbing,’ Cross began.
Moreton said nothing.
‘The fingerprint on the chisel which was used to stab your father matches the prints we took from you when you were booked in. Why did you kill your father, Mr Moreton?’
Moreton seemed to be processing all of this. Trying to work out how the ground now lay. Finally, he sighed. A long sigh of despair, surrender. Acknowledgement, perhaps, that it was all over. But he needed to explain. Needed to put such a horrific act like patricide in an emotional context.
‘I loved him. I idolised that man. It was hard. But I did. I even commissioned an oil painting for his seventieth birthday to commemorate his time as a teacher. He was against the idea right from the start. Practically refused to sit for it. Then when he finally did, he was so objectionable the artist almost walked away. When it was finished, he refused to take it. Said it was dreadful. That’s why it’s hanging in my study in the country. You’ve seen it. It’s not dreadful at all, is it?’ he asked rather pathetically.
‘I would say it’s a good likeness,’ replied Cross.
‘He despised the City, the financial institution, that is. When I went into it he told me I didn’t have a proper job. Called my salary and commission “theft”. Can you believe that? He was scathing when I bought the country house. Called it pretentious and nouveau money. There’s a lovely cottage in the grounds, part of the reason I bought the bloody place, which would have been ideal for him. But he wouldn’t hear of it. I told him he could free up the little capital he had and live with me rent free. He told me I was just after his money. When I became an MP things became even worse. He despised politicians and reminded me at every available opportunity.’
‘So, you decided to kill him.’
Moreton thought about this for a moment.
‘No, it wasn’t like that. I hadn’t gone there to kill my father.’
‘Explain Kwekwe to me then. Why did you take Kwekwe there that night?’
‘The dog wasn’t as bad as Meghan made out. Not aggressive. Just confused.’ Moreton sounded almost sympathetic, as if the dog had been misunderstood. ‘When I heard he was a Rhodesian Ridgeback I leapt at the chance of having him. I wanted to take him over to the Cotterells.’
‘Did you think they might adopt him?’
‘No, not at all. They already had two. I just thought the dog might be common ground. That I could appeal to their vanity, present him as a problem dog and ask for their advice. I wanted to appease the situation with my father. It wasn’t doing him any good. He wasn’t going to back down, even though he’d won. I just thought Kwekwe might be a kind of an ice breaker. But I was delayed by the press that day. The news of the successful recall petition had hit the news that morning. I had all that shit to deal with.’
‘So, what happened that night? The Cotterells had already left?’
‘Yes, there was no one else there. I was pretty tired after the day I’d had. I almost didn’t go. God, how I wish I hadn’t, now. But I needed to see him. I thought, I don’t know. I thought… well, the truth is I didn’t have anywhere else to go. Animals are extraordinary, aren’t they?’ he said, almost changing the subject. ‘Kwekwe could sense something was up. He was very calm. Affectionate even. My father’s reaction to the recall was of course predictably awful. No sympathy. He told me what a pitiful specimen of a man I’d become. Whose fault was that? I asked. But he was drunk and incoherent. I told him he should ease up on the whisky which he was chucking back. I didn’t even know about the painkillers. He suddenly started talking nonsense. I actually wondered if he was having a stroke. Slurring his words and making absolutely no sense. And so violent.’
‘In what way?’ asked Cross.
‘With what he was saying and the way he was saying it. It wasn’t like him at all. Even at his worst. This was something else. On an altogether different level to what I’d seen before. The more agitated he got the more confused he became. He became almost incomprehensible. Ranting and raving. He completely lost it.’
‘A mix of whisky and opiates,’ suggested Ottey.
‘He started asking me and my friend to go. I assumed he meant Kwekwe. But it felt like he was actually talking about someone else. Another person. He’d had enough of us being in the house. We were abusing him. He wanted his house back. We couldn’t live there anymore.’
Ottey looked at Cross.
‘I refused to leave, so he went upstairs. I followed him. Thought maybe he was going to bed. But he came raging out of the bedroom with a cane, slashing it about like a sabre. He kept hitting me, again and again. Around my head, my back, my legs. It was so painful. I tried stopping him, but he was beside himself. Kwekwe then attacked him, biting his legs. Ricky went after Kwekwe. The noise was terrible. Dad came at me one final time, swinging at me. He hit me round the head so hard I swear I saw stars. Then I saw the chisel on the top of the banister. I wanted to get him to just back off. But he lunged at me and instinctively I just stabbed him. He fell backwards against the wall. He made the most sickening noise. Blood was bubbling in the corners of his mouth. It was so terrible.’ At this point Moreton broke down completely. Cross realised the beating would account for Mackenzie’s mistaken observation that he had a love bite on his neck on his first visit to the MCU. It was obviously a fading bruise from his father’s assault.
‘What happened then?’ asked Cross, pushing on.
Moreton pulled himself together a little.
‘I heard someone approaching the back door. I got hold of Kwekwe and took him into the sitting room. We waited while someone came in, presumably looked at Dad, then legged it.’
‘That would be Cotterell,’ said Ottey.
‘So it would seem,’ Moreton muttered. ‘I didn’t mean to kill him. Despite everything, I never wanted to kill him. It just happened in a second.’
‘Why didn’t you tell us, Mr Moreton?’ asked Cross.
‘I was going to. I thought about it for a few days. Then when you arrested Cotterell. Well, I suppose I saw a chance of at least delaying the inevitable, if not the chance of getting away with it.’
Cross looked at Moreton for a while then back at his folder. He ticked off a couple of things, and left the room.
*
Sandy Moreton was charged and remanded in custody. The media interest was immense. It was all over the papers and on all television news channels. Ottey thought it was a desperately sad outcome. Despite her innate dislike of Moreton his father had had a devastating effect on his life, made him the man he was. By killing him Moreton had just completed the project.
*
‘If I was Watson to Cross’s Sherlock, I would write this story, make Moreton an alcoholic and call it The Hair of the Dog,’ said Michael Swift to Alice that night as they reflected on the events of the last few days.
He was rewarded with a long low groan of complaint from Alice. Something he was getting quite used to of late. It wasn’t just a reaction to the poor quality of his joke. She’d been to a counsellor that day and was talked out.