Marsh said, “What was it to you?”
But maybe he had the scent already in his nostrils too. Maybe I was giving it off in clouds, along with (I could see the phrase in his report) my “evident state of distress.”
“… witness in evident state of distress …”
An interview room. The smell of stale smoke. From down the corridor the muffled ring of a phone. How strange to be there, to be back.
“It looks pretty odd, you see. Our officers are barely on the scene and then a third party, a member of the public, turns up, in an agitated state, demanding to be let through. And, what’s more, saying he has a right because he’s really one of us. Meaning, as it turns out: was, once.”
A quick flinty stare.
Sandy-haired, greying around the ears. Grey, watery eyes—with the hidden flint. Late forties. The type who can look harmless and mild and then come on strong. The type that’s well placed for being a detective because he doesn’t look like one. He might be a schoolteacher. And he must have done his homework. A bell ringing somewhere—or he’d have chased it up, as soon as he knew I was ex-CID.
He leant back a little. A simple, tired expression. Had he finished with Sarah yet? He held his tie like a referee holds his whistle.
“This must be the first time that two DIs have sat down on either side of this table.” The soft approach that can suddenly bite. “And the last—so far as I’m concerned. I’m being let out in four weeks. My time’s up.”
So: this was his last case of any consequence. And only his because it looked wrapped up. Confession and arrest within minutes of the deed. Hardly four weeks’ work. But then—there was me.
Your last case. How would it work? You’d want it to be no bother, you’d want an easy ride? Or you’d want to make a meal of it? Chew every detail.
And he knew what my last case was. I could read it in his eyes.
“But it seems”—a quick smile at his own joke—“you want to be let back in.”
Had he finished with Sarah yet? What was it to him? She was just a case. And you don’t get involved.
But his last case. He hadn’t had to tell me that. Maybe he was proud. His last case, and it was a murder. Going out with a bang.
“You weren’t exactly ‘let out’ the first time, were you? You didn’t exactly just leave.”
So there it was. Another flash of flint. He might even be more interested in me (since Sarah was in the bag), in playing games with me. The way you needle a suspect (I remember) you already know is marked down. Your last case. Make a meal.
Grey, weary eyes. Soft then sharp, then soft again. A touch of the headmaster, a touch of the dad. A family man. A wife and kids (I guessed right), the kids grown up now. He’d made it through—and so had they. They didn’t see him in police mode: leaning on a suspect, stepping round a corpse. He’d come home and somehow make the switch. Soon he’d be home for good.
I might have been him (he might have been me). Two DIs. Except he had the seniority—by years of service—and I wasn’t even a real DI.
Though he had to call me “sir,” technically speaking. But didn’t that much.
And if I’d been him I’d have made DCI. He’d got where he was—which wasn’t so far—by graft and slog mostly. I could tell. He could tell I could tell. And if he’d made DCI he might have been talking to me differently, he might really have pulled rank. Instead of being so keen to let me know that in four weeks he’d have no rank at all.
“Eighty-nine, wasn’t it?”
This might have been me. Raking over old dirt and thinking of my retirement while some poor sad cow was in on a murder charge.
He let it drop, for now: ammunition he could bring out later.
“So—what was it to you?” he said.
“Mrs. Nash was my client.”
“But you’d done the job—more than done the job. The job was done when you watched Miss Lazic go through to Departures and you phoned Mrs. Nash to tell her.”
“Lazitch,” I said. He kept saying it wrong.
“Lazitch. That was all Mrs. Nash had asked you to do.”
“What she actually said was ‘Watch them.’ ”
Watch them, George.
“ ‘Watch them’? So you carried on watching just him. You followed Mr. Nash all the way back—to ‘make sure,’ so you’ve stated—till he drove into Beecham Close, then you turned round and drove home.”
“Yes.”
“But then, minutes later, before you reached home, you turned round again and drove back.”
“Right.”
“Why? Why should you have done that?”
Another flinty stare, as if he’d practised it over the years—and as if for a moment I’d become prime suspect.
And why not, why not? If it could have halved Sarah’s guilt, or taken it away: all my idea, my mad, murderous plan. Seeing Bob into the trap then making myself scarce. But I’d got cold feet. Driven back. Too late.
And I must have been giving it off in waves.
“An—intuition,” I said.
“Intuition?”
“I thought—I’ve stated this already—I thought something bad was going to happen.”
“You mean you thought Mr. Nash was going to be murdered?”
(Suppose I’d said, “Yes?”)
“I thought I might prevent it.”
“It? You didn’t.”
“How is she?” I said.
I heard the crack in my voice. I might have been saying to him: And here’s my motive, loud and clear.
“She’s not very happy. She’s in a state of shock.” His eyes flicked away for an instant. “The constable’s notes say”—he put a finger on his file—“that you said he should let you through because, quote, you ‘knew what you were doing.’ Do you remember saying that?”
“I suppose so.”
(Let me through, I’m a detective.)
“And did you—did you know what you were doing?” He hardly left a pause. “It seems to me you didn’t know what you were doing, you didn’t know what you were doing at all. Because if you knew what you were doing, that suggests you knew exactly what had happened.”
The eyes back on mine. Bad tactics. A full stretch of service and hadn’t he learnt to go easy on the fixing stare? Look away, get up, turn your back, let silence pass. Then they blab.
But they weren’t nerveless eyes. Flint not steel. Not in for the kill. Your last case: what do you do? Come on strong and extra tough, or show mercy?
“You didn’t know what you were doing”: like something held out, dangling.
And how he wrote his report, how he assessed, for example, the arrested party’s reactions—immediate confession (she herself had made the call), immediate submission to custody—might, just might, affect the sentence.
It must have been well past midnight.
“You’re ready to sign the statement you’ve made? That you followed Mr. Nash to Beecham Close, then drove away, then drove back. Those were your movements tonight?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t have a record of taking truthful statements. I wouldn’t want to take an untruthful one from you.”
So. He couldn’t help that. Ammunition. But fired over my head.
I might have said, “Phoney statements can be true, even if they’re not what the witness ever said.” And he might have said, “That’s what all the bent cops say.”
I didn’t say anything. Be the humble, scared Joe Citizen. Evidently distressed.
And maybe he’d been there too: close, near the edge, near the limit. Some other time, in an interview room.
“Nothing you wish to add?”
“No.”
“About ‘intuition’ …?”
“No.”
“A true account of your movements—which you even happened to time precisely.”
“Professional habit.”
“Of course—like one of us. Technically you committed the offence of impersonating a police officer. I shan’t press that.”
(But “I’m a detective” wasn’t a lie.)
“You ‘thought something bad was going to happen.’ That’s to stand as already stated?”
“Yes.”
“It could still read as if you had prior knowledge …”
“Then why should I have suddenly turned back?”
“Quite. Of course. And then there’s another point that hasn’t been mentioned. It’s my impression, it’s my distinct impression, from all you’ve said, that the thing you thought was going to happen—the bad thing—was going to happen to Mrs. Nash.”
“But it has, it did.”
I must have been giving it off in waves.