‘A fair bet that it belonged to the old fellow,’ Jumbo Hastings said to him. ‘They haven’t made bats like that since what would have been his cricketing days. Had an old one meself, just like it, when I was a nipper. Funny him being a cricketer, though.’
‘No,’ he answered. ‘I’ve been reading the files sent over from the Advertiser. Professor Unwala was a Parsee, and apparently they’re great cricket players. The piece about him coming to the town even mentioned him playing. But what would be a sort of revenge for him, would be if this old bat of his has the killer’s prints on it. I’d like that.’
‘Know what you mean,’ Jumbo said. ‘But I very much doubt if Fingerprints’ll get anything. That grip’s so wrinkled and perished it won’t have held a thing, let alone it being out in the fog all night.’
‘You’re probably right. And in any case, if you think about it, whoever held that bat when he brought it down on the poor old fellow’s head would have hardly touched it with his fingertips, not gripping it the way he’d have to.’
But who had gripped it like that? They were no nearer knowing than they had been at the start.
Then, abruptly, a picture came into his mind of a young and agile Edul Unwala playing cricket somewhere - at Cambridge? - and nimbly scuttling from one wicket to the other, scoring run after run.
He must, after all, have been a dab hand at the crease to have treasured his ancient seamed and cracked bat for so many years. His seamed, cracked and now bloodstained bat.
So the weary hours continued to go by. Reports flopped down in front of him as he sat at the top of the Incident Room. Plastic cups of stewed tea accumulated beside him and half-filled the waste bin under his table. He read. He tried to think if anything he saw added something of value. He scribbled down his initials. Every now and again the Gill came hurricaning in, snapped out some questions, pulled a long face at the answers and disappeared again.
At last there came the final briefing of the day. The Gill, of course, conducted it. All the officers on the inquiry were present, looking for the most part pretty dispirited. The phosphorescent fire the Gill had put into things when he had taken over was almost visibly shrinking away. And his own attempt to rouse some new determination by adding to the Gill’s summing-up that the victim had been working on Alzheimer’s disease at the time of his death fell even flatter.
‘Questions?’ the Gill barked at last.
Silence. It began to look as if there would be none at all. But suddenly DS March bounced to her feet, cluster of curls bobbing.
‘Not a question, sir,’ she said in her characteristically loud tones. ‘But I’d just like to point out that if I’d been told what conclusions had been drawn from this report of a black-coated figure loitering near the house I could’ve pointed out straight off that every man in Brit-force was in the Town Hall. I watched Marcus Pennings making a big thing of calling the roll. So, sir, what are we to make of the black-coat sighting now? Has anybody thought of that?’
Cheeky bitch, he thought. I wouldn’t dare refer in that way to what was after all the Gill’s snatched-at mistake. I wonder if he’ll—
And then it came to him. He nearly burst out with it on the spot. There was another group in King’s Hampton who wore black coats. Not the long black macs that Britforce paraded about in but, answering equally to asthmatic Mr Jones’s description, the black jackets that were Harrison Academy regulation uniform. Jackets which, so Conor had boasted to him last evening, the boys prided themselves on not covering up even in fog-clammy November.
And Conor distinctly evasive, it came back to him now, when he had asked him why he had been in Sandymount on Monday evening. The murder time.
Chapter Seven
Oh, come on, he said to himself as he stood there. Come on, you can’t really believe Conor had anything to do with it. Why should he have? And, damn it, I know my son. He isn’t a murderer. Not possibly.
But then how many murderers are murderers before they commit their crime? A moment of sudden overwhelming rage, and in that instant their lives are changed. From ordinary human being to culpable killer. And which of us isn’t capable, given the right circumstances - the wrong, wrong circumstances - of flying into an unstoppable rage?
All right, the worst that such outbursts lead most of us into is no more than a hasty blow. But there are those who, in some particular situation, just don’t have the luck to prevent themselves going that one step further. From doing something that results in someone losing their life.
And Conor, could he have found himself in such a situation? He oughtn’t to have done. Yes, he has a temper. But we always checked him when it burst out. Nearly always, surely. Confronted at his present age by something or somebody that fired him with furious rage, he ought to have been able to stop himself lashing out.
But could he? Has he in fact been taught to control himself enough?
No, put it fair and square. Was I too lenient with him? Did I see too easily what the temptations were that faced him? Let him off too lightly? Was I too soft with him? Isn’t that what Vicky used to say to me? Often; and often by the time we’d got to the stage of unending rows? And has Conor, caught up in some hard to imagine circumstances, now actually gone that one terrible step too far?
Hard to think how it could have come about. But it might have done. It might, for some as yet inconceivable reason. Conor - who has better reason to know this than me? - is in a fraught state, however little he shows it. But, after fourteen, fifteen years of having his mother and father always there, whatever rows we had and tried to hide, suddenly, almost within the space of a month, to find the two of us propelled apart. To find himself removed to another home. Provided with another father, more or less. Oh, yes, Conor could well be in a state where, when something - What? - happened and he had let fly in fury. Yelled out You black bastard - could Conor have ever shouted that? - and then had snatched that ancient cricket bat and struck out.
It could be. In a way it could be. Because wasn’t Mrs Ahmed utterly sure the yell had come from a boy with an unbroken voice? And Conor’s voice is at the stage when he never knows how it will come out, a hoarse treble or an absurdly man-like bass. So it could have been him. It could.
And then, worse, worse, worse. When he said Dad, I’m sorry to me, just as I was leaving the cottage, I thought he was sympathizing with me because I would no longer have the case, now it was such a high-profile affair. I felt such affection for him at that moment. But was that I’m sorry said for a wholly different reason? Was he on the point of saying he was sorry the terrible thing he’d done was going to cause me far worse pain? Was he trying to say something like that, and not able to get out more than those two or three words?
Would he ever be able to say more than that? To confess? How can I possibly ever get him to be ready to do that? Me? No, it’ll have to be someone else. Another detective. Detective Chief Superintendent Fothergill determined to break the case, to take one more step in his no-holds-barred zoom to the top?
Christ, no. No, I see now, if it’s to be done it must be by me. I have to get Conor to tell me what he did before there’s any question of it being a police matter. But how? How can I break my own son?
But… But do I need to? Do I really need to? Isn’t this all just a nightmare construction in my own head? God, I’m beginning to hope now that the Gill’s right after all about Britforce. What a burden would suddenly be lifted from me then.
But the thought of a possible Britforce duffing-up that went wrong led immediately to another. What actual circumstances could have brought, not a young Britforce bully, but Conor into contact with Professor Unwala?
Simple answer. The Hampton Hoard. After all, if Conor’s as keen as he is about metal detecting, the prospect of being the one to find the Hampton Hoard … And, down in Sandymount regularly combing the dunes, he was bound to have heard the Hoard rumour. And quite likely, too, to have been told that Mrs Unwala before her final illness had actually pinpointed the place. T
hen … Then Conor could well be the person who tried to get the secret out of Professor Unwala. And, yes, had killed him.
I’ll have to see him straight away. Now. Find the right questions to ask about what he was doing in Sandymount then. Perhaps, though, he’d only been there for a short while straight after school. All this a terrible false alarm? A ridiculous false alarm.
But see him.
Then he looked at his watch.
Of course, gone half past ten. He’d lost count of time. Conor would be in bed by now. And, under the chair in his room with his clothes placed neatly on it - always neat and tidy, Conor - there would be his trainers. Size seven. Or, at least; I think that’s what they are. I think that was his size, at least till recently. Small feet, like mine.
Size seven trainers. And that lifted footprint from the garden.
But no point in waking Conor now. All this may really be no more than some nightmare brought on by tiredness and frustration.
And in any case how could I explain tonight to Vicky, and to her Mike come to that, what I think Conor may have done? The thought that’s come into my head? Vicky would explode. She’d never understand in a million years.
No, sleep on it. And in the morning look at it all calmly once again. Then, if it really does seem there’s a chance Conor was in that house and… Well, then I can get out to Frogs Lane early, lie in wait for him as he sets off for school and talk to him. In private.
He blinked and looked around. The Gill had left. And so had most of those who had been working on the case, some to pursue inquiries in the town, routing out more bad lads - would one of them strike gold? Remove this nightmare cloud from him? - others to the Recreation Area bar or to their beds.
Might as well go home myself. Someone in shortly to relieve Jumbo, and overnight nothing much likely to happen. Unless I’m woken with a call to say some door-stepped yobbo’s made a bolt for it.
If only…
Then, as he made his way out, he heard once again March’s loud voice. It was coming from round the corridor corner.
‘Yes, sir. I’ll do that. Go over there first thing. And I promise you I won’t let that bastard off the hook so lightly.’
What bastard is this? And who’s she talking to? Must be the Gill. But it hardly seems he’s bollocking her for what she said at the briefing.
‘Good, Sergeant. I wouldn’t like you to think the Britforce angle’s out of the question. I assure you it isn’t. Not by any means.’
Good God. The man’s still trying to justify that one impulsive action. And he’s enlisted March to help him. Trust him to turn her lack of respect to good account. Well, he’s right to this extent: March’ll strong-arm her way to seeing that poor devil’s bruised and beaten back all right. Hope she gets some pleasure from the sight. Because that’s all she will get. Marcus Pennings isn’t such a fool as to try to con us with totally fabricated evidence. Not when it could be checked out in a couple of minutes.
No, damn it, I’ll back my insight about Pennings against the Gill’s grabbed-up view any day.
A night of fitful wakefulness, and tormenting thoughts. And a morning where, he realized as he woke, the fog had at last lifted, though the sky above was dark with ominous clouds.
My fog hasn’t lifted though, he thought, as, rapidly shaved, washed and dressed, he hacked himself a slice of bread, buttered it and gulped a mug of instant coffee, half-warm.
Then, well before Conor was likely to leave to catch his bus for Harrison Academy, he was there, sitting in his car, at the end of Frogs Lane. Ten minutes later Conor came swinging into view, walking briskly along, self-contained, head up, with every appearance of steady cheerfulness. And wearing the long black Harrison Academy jacket, grey regulation trousers, no other protection from the cold, and - what else? - trainers.
Can it be? Can this be a killer coming towards me, however much he maybe a killer betrayed by a moment of frustrated rage? My son? My son, the killer. But there’s evidence. Enough evidence to make it a prima facie case.
‘Conor, hey. I’ll drive you to Harrison.’
The boy halted in surprise. And then came up at a half-run.
The guilty party? How can it be? Or are there depths to him, a deep-seated slyness, I’ve never so much as suspected? Or did the moment when he brought that old cricket bat down on Professor Unwala’s white-haired skull do something to him that could never now be changed? Give him a dense and devious protective covering?
No sign of anything different in him, however, as he went round to the passenger side of the car, flicked the door open, slid into the seat.
For some minutes they drove in silence.
Unable to stop himself, he glanced down every few seconds at Conor’s feet. Yes, one of those trainers could have left that footmark.
But is seven actually Conor’s size? Do I really remember? Should I? A father’s duty? Perhaps not.
Ask Conor to hand the trainers over? Send them to Forensic to check against the lifted footmark, examine for tiny traces of earth? But how to do that without alerting him, clamming him up?
No. No, I must do this myself. By putting the trick questions, sliding them in. The trick questions. To my own son.
But before he had found a word to say - why didn’t I prepare for this, he snarled at himself - Conor turned to him.
‘How’s the murder inquiry going, Dad? Did they let you stay in charge?’
Is he just being clever? My son I’ve always thought so open? Is it now anything to conceal from me what he did there in Sandymount? Or is he even trying to find out how much I, how much the police, know?
‘Detective Chief Superintendent Fothergill’s running the show,’ he answered tersely.
‘You’ve talked about him before, haven’t you? Bit of a prick?’
Did I say that? Perhaps I did. But it’s not altogether true. The Gill may be a prick, but he’s a bloody intelligent one. Ambitious all right, but hard too. No doubt about that. So what will you think, my son, when he has you on the other side of a table in an interview room? He’ll slowly split you open till your every last thought lies there for all to see.
‘Conor,’ he broke out at last, unable now to stop himself, ‘what were you doing in Sandymount on Monday?’
‘I - I wasn’t in Sandymount. Why should I have been?’
‘Oh, Conor, no. You were there. You were. You told me so when I came round.’
‘No, I didn’t.’
The flat denial. Poor lad, is he reduced to that? Christ, I’ve only to hammer away for a bit, way I would with any ordinary suspect, and hell spill.
And, oh God, do I want to hear what’ll come out?
‘Look, Conor,’ he said, seizing on a useful lie, just as he might have done across an interview-room table. ‘I know you were there. You were seen. Harrison Academy uniform’s unmistakable. A man with asthma, sitting at his open window in Percival Road, saw you round there.’
There. The direct accusation. Or not far from it.
What now?
‘But— Well, yes. If you do know … Yes, I was there.’
‘And?’
He dared not ask more.
Conor shifted further round in his seat till he was almost facing him directly as he drove.
‘Dad,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you why I was there. I just can’t.’
And he left it at that.
Impasse.
Had he had him in that interview room, tape machine running, statutory Appropriate Adult present as with any Juvenile, as the law called youngsters under seventeen, then he would have unhesitatingly gone on to press for an answer.
And would have got one, with all the consequences that would follow.
But here he was, Conor’s father talking to Conor as he drove him to school. All right, their talk had got on to sticky territory. But so did many conversations between fathers and teenage children. Sudden obstinate silences more or less par for the course.
So let that be the situatio
n now.
Anyhow, I need time to think. To think what I’m going to do. Offer up my son - my son - to police questioning, a charge of murder? Or…? Or could I possibly bring myself to be an accessory? See what I can do to get him off the hook? Out of the country even? Anything.
I must think. I must.
So in silence, a sulky silence that almost could be felt, they sat until he drew up outside the familiar tall black-painted gates of Harrison Academy.
He did not say goodbye. Without looking back, Conor tramped through the gates with other arriving pupils. He thought he saw Belinda Withrington, with a boy he recalled as one of Conor’s particular friends, tall, gangling Alec Gaffney, his bright red hair bobbing high over the others’ heads. But Conor seemed to be deliberately avoiding them.
Iron-bound under down-weighing guilt?
But back to the Incident Room. Whatever was happening between himself and Conor, the investigation of Professor Unwala’s murder was still continuing. And it was his duty to be taking part in it.
But how can I do more than appear to be taking part?
Yet the pace of the inquiry, it was obvious, had slowed almost to a standstill. The Gill had gone off, ‘scattering orders like confetti at a wedding’ as Jumbo put it, to re-interview wheezy Mr Jones. Presumably he hoped to persuade him to state the fog-dimmed black-coated figure he had seen was actually wearing a Brit-force long mackintosh. Doorstepping the ‘bad lads’ had produced nothing more. The house-to-house round the murder scene had finally been abandoned, its ever-widening circles exhausted. The report on the cricket bat had come in, and, as was expected, no fingerprints had been retrieved from its perished and sodden rubber handle, any more than usable prints had been found on the bolts of the french windows at the scene. Only the blood on the bat had been confirmed as being the same group as Professor Unwala’s. And whose else would it have been?
The Soft Detective Page 7
