Chapter Eight

6 October

It wasn’t right – morally, professionally, legally – to vent your frustrations on a suspect. But, sooner or later, every copper found themselves doing it. Rose drove into Oxford with Professor Matthew Brask squarely in her crosshairs.

This isn’t about your fucking feelings, Hume had said. Rose swung her car into a space, jerking the handbrake sharply. Bloody right it isn’t, she thought.

It’s about lying to the police.

It’s about the death of Katerina Zrinski.

It’s about the truth.

Oxford was quiet, sunk deep in October grey. A few tourists hung around outside the Radcliffe Camera. Two students in scarves and skinny jeans hurried across the square.

She was nearly too late – she saw Brask climbing on to his bike outside the gate of All Souls. He looked sullen, preoccupied.

No time for tact.

‘Professor!’ she yelled. A flock of pigeons, startled into flight, rose in a clatter from the flagstones. For a second they obscured her view across the square – for a second she wondered if Brask might take the opportunity to run.

A part of her wished he would. There’d be a certain clarity in that. Things were simpler when a case came down to hunter versus prey.

But when the birds were gone Brask was still there, leaning on his bike. His hair was unkempt, his eyes weary. A weight of guilt in his face.

As Rose approached, he stood his bike against the college railings and turned to her with an imploring look.

Yesterday Rose might have taken it to be sincere. Not today.

‘Inspector Rose –’ he began.

‘I could nick you right now,’ she snapped. ‘Have you chucked into the cells at St Aldate’s, how would that be? I could have you booted out of your cushy job. I could have you sent back to the States like that.’ She snapped her fingers sharply in front of his face. ‘You lied to me, Professor Brask.’

He nodded, his face pale.

‘I didn’t tell you the whole truth. And I want you to know, Inspector, I’m sorry.’

‘Sorry you lied to me, or sorry you got caught?’

‘Listen, Inspector Rose, I –’

‘Call after call, text after text, from your phone to hers, from hers to yours.’ She chopped the edge of her hand into her palm as she spoke. ‘Voicemails, seventeen bloody voicemails over three months. But you say you weren’t in a relationship?’ She felt her heart racing, bit down hard on her anger. ‘I think we need to have another talk, Professor.’

Brask nodded dumbly.

As they walked back through the porter’s lodge and up the stairs of All Souls to Brask’s office, Rose took careful note of the way the professor carried himself. His shoulders were hunched, his head lowered. He looked defeated – hopeless and helpless.

Grief could do that to a person, Rose knew. So could guilt.

In Brask’s office she took a seat uninvited and as Brask took off his jacket she quickly took in her surroundings: what had changed since her last visit – and what hadn’t.

He hadn’t moved the picture.

Rose had assumed he would have, after she’d left. She’d pictured him hurriedly snatching it from the shelf, cramming it into a drawer or file, thanking providence that the pushy detective hadn’t spotted it.

Instead, as he sank back into his office chair, he reached for it, took it down, considered it sadly – then passed it to Rose.

‘You can take this,’ he said. ‘It’s me and Katerina, with a group from the church. Five, six months ago.’

She took it from him, turned it over in her hands. Scrawled loopily on the back, Cardiff, 5/13. Again she looked at the image: the smiles, the sunshine.

When she glanced up at Brask his face seemed desolate, blasted by the weight of emotion. Again she wondered whether it was grief or guilt.

She didn’t see any need for kid gloves.

‘You look very happy together,’ she said.

Brask’s mouth tightened. He looked down at the floor.

‘We – weren’t.’

‘Weren’t happy?’

He looked up.

‘Weren’t together, Inspector.’ Brask ran a hand through his unkempt hair. ‘You asked me if we were in a relationship – and I promise you, we weren’t.’

Rose snorted impatiently.

‘Semantics, Professor. Twist it how you like, there was something between the two of you. You were close – closer than you let on.’ She crossed her legs, tilted her head. ‘Why did you lie to me, Professor Brask?’

He shook his head, grimacing as though struck by nausea.

‘I – I didn’t.’ He met her gaze. She saw in his expression how much that took – how much it cost him. ‘I loved Katerina,’ he said. ‘I loved her, and she loved me, but a relationship? No.’

‘Explain the difference.’

‘She was –’ Again the sickened expression. He wiped his thumb across his lips. ‘She was with that animal Rakić. She took that commitment seriously.’

‘Was that a sexual relationship?’

‘I don’t know – didn’t want to know. I never asked.’

‘You’d agree it seems likely, though.’

‘I – I guess.’

‘And how did that make you feel?’

Brask sighed.

‘It drove me crazy,’ he said. He leaned forwards in his chair, pressing his hands together between his knees. ‘Listen, I’m not going to lie to you –’

‘Again.’

‘– and I know what you’re asking me and what you want me to say. Did it make me mad that she was with Rakić, that she put him first? Yes. Of course it did.’

‘At Katerina?’

‘No. You didn’t know her or you’d understand. I couldn’t be mad at Katerina, not really. She was – she was wonderful. She only wanted what was best. What was right.’

‘Mad at Rakić, then.’

Brask’s eyes flashed momentarily.

‘My God, yes. I’m a man, after all. And that animal …’ He paused. ‘Sure, I was mad. But mad enough to kill? No. No.’ He shook his head firmly, said again: ‘No.’

And I’m supposed to nod my head and smile and simply take your word for it, Rose thought with a flicker of anger. I’m supposed to take you for a stand-up Honest Joe because you speak my language and you once wore a priest’s collar.

They always said on TV cop shows that a killer never looks like a killer – it’s never the guy you expect. That was bullshit, Rose knew. Most of the time the killer looks exactly like a killer, and it’s the guy you think it is nine times out of ten.

Dmitry Rakić looked like a killer. He had the profile, of course he did.

That was what Brask was banking on.

But it was a mistake to forget about that one time out of ten. That time the ‘normal’ guy was pushed too far. That time the ‘mild-mannered’ guy lost control for an instant. That time when someone – anyone – found something deep inside them that no one had ever dreamed was there. The time when an Everyman became a killer.

She looked at the professor, took in his long, firm jaw, his untidy dark hair, his downcast grey eyes. His jaw was shaded with patchy stubble – he’d shaved hurriedly that morning. The fine lines of his face bunched at the corners of his eyes and thickened where they creased his high brow. A smiler, then – and a worrier.

Killers nearly always looked like killers. Nearly always.

Rose stood up, pulled on her coat.

‘There’s no harm in telling you you’re no longer “helping us with our enquiries”, Professor Brask,’ she said shortly. ‘You’re a suspect.’

‘Inspector, I –’

‘The prime suspect, in fact, in the murder of Katerina Zrinski.’ She looked down at him coldly. Maybe he’s still lying, maybe he’s not. Only one way to find out. Rattle him, she thought. Keep up the pressure. Don’t give him an inch – don’t give him space to breathe. ‘You lied to me, Professor. I’m going to find out what else you’re not telling me. I’m going to dig out every dirty secret you have.’ With her hand on the door handle, she added: ‘I’m going to blow your life wide open.’

Didn’t wait for him to reply. Back out into the hall – back out into the square, the city, the teeming grey rain.