Troy asked himself why. He wanted the neatness of an answer. The last piece banged into the puzzle. The last square peg hammered into its round hole. Why did Percy Blood kill Paddy Fitz?
Blood was mad to begin with. Almost the only person who did not know this was Percy himself. When the chief police surgeon called him in on 19 September he had put Blood on sick leave. This was a body blow, the second such in a matter of months. First leaving the bosom of the Branch, then ordered to rest. Perhaps Quint had promised him a transfer back to the Branch when it was all over. Now, that was unlikely to happen soon enough. He was on sick leave. Worse he had been told to see a psychiatrist. Blood would bridle at this. The idea of psychiatry meant next to nothing to him. All he would know was the army use of the term as ‘trick-cyclist’, and only malingerers ever saw the ‘trick-cyclist’. His life was effectively in ruins. He was either mad or he was a malingerer and he did not care to be called either. Someone had to be to blame. It could not be Peggy Blood. Troy would bet a penny to a pound that she’d called the chief surgeon only in confidence, in fear of another beating. Blood looked at the coincidence of dates. The last day of the Fitz trial – his biggest case and it had not gone well – was the first day of his ‘madness’. There were too many things about this case he did not understand. Why had the Yard stopped him bringing in the girl Clover? Why had that bastard Troy suddenly turned up at the Old Bailey? It was obvious who was to blame. If he’d never got mixed up with that disgusting ponce Patrick Fitzpatrick he wouldn’t be in this mess now. Worse, it looked to Percy as though Fitz might get off. Justice and vengeance met in Percy’s mind. He shot Paddy Fitz for Percy Blood and blind drunk justice.