‘And is that what you think happened to Felix?’
‘I fucking well hope so, lady, I fucking well hope so.’
Chapter Thirty-Two
By the time I left Isaac Little and returned to the world of light, I’d seen enough of him to last a lifetime, and I wasn’t sure I could face the prospect of another visit.
Besides, I figured I’d got as much out of him as I was likely to get, meagre though it was. Was I prepared to put myself through the ordeal of another six, ten, a hundred sessions breathing the same air as him just in the hope that he might come up with something, some nugget, which would make it all worthwhile?
Little, needless to say, was eager for me to return, and I forced myself to make enough of the right noises to keep him happy without disgusting myself totally.
He knew I despised him, and that I wouldn’t have cared if he’d spontaneously combusted in front of me, but still he wanted my attention. I despised him all the more for that, as if there wasn’t enough to be contemptuous of him for already. My one hope was that I was only raising his hopes of release in order to dash them. Nothing was more guaranteed to destroy a long-term prisoner’s spirits. If I was lucky, I’d get the balance just right and the wiry little bastard would succeed in hanging himself from the bars on his window.
My fear, however, was that I’d find something that proved he was indeed innocent, and then what? He was too much of a danger to children to feel any cosy liberal satisfaction about overturning a miscarriage of justice. I only needed to remember his charge sheet to know what I might be helping to let out on the street again. And there’d be other offences to add to the list if he ever got out, because someone like Little never stopped, they were addicted to corrupting innocence. I wasn’t sure I could have that on my conscience.
It wouldn’t have lost me any sleep to keep someone like Little in prison for something he didn’t do – keeping him inside was what mattered – but what if that meant keeping the killer of Lucy Toner on the outside?
Wasn’t that just as bad?
My thoughts grew progressively darker as I made my way back across town, taking a short cut down towards Bridge Street only to find that it wasn’t so short as I’d hoped and some hold-up had that part of the city by the throat and showed no signs of letting go.
To pass time, I called Boland on my hands-free set.
‘Hello?’
No one ever seemed to pick up their own phone any more.
This time it was a woman.
And she didn’t exactly sound delighted to hear my voice.
‘Who?’ she repeated when I told her who I was.
‘I only want to speak to Boland a moment.’
A sigh.
‘Hold on.’
She passed the phone over with a cold whisper: ‘It’s a woman.’
‘This is Boland,’ came Boland’s puzzled tone.
‘Boland, it’s me, Saxon.’
And I heard his muffled tone on the other end of the line as he covered the mouthpiece with his hand and murmured: ‘It’s not a woman, it’s Saxon.’
Thanks, Boland.
I really needed that vote of confidence.
‘Who’s that anyway?’ I said to him.
‘Cassie. Who did you think it was?’
‘She’s living with you now?’
‘Not for long once she hears you on the other end of the line.’
‘She’s nothing to worry about from me. I’m not even a woman.’
‘You heard that?’ said Boland.
‘Every self-esteem-boosting word.’
‘Well, you know what I meant. It’s an awkward time.’
‘Serves me right for calling at an awkward time then. Though,’ I said, glancing at the clock on the dashboard, ‘this is the first time I ever heard midday called awkward.’
‘Did you get in to see Isaac Little OK?’ he sidestepped.
‘That’s what I want to ask you about.’
I told him what Little had said about Felix and Alice being his best buddies.
‘I don’t know about Alice,’ Boland said in reply, ‘but you’re way off on Felix. He never made any representations on behalf of Little. He was interviewed as part of the investigation and he said nothing about his suspicions. Not then, not afterwards.’
Why was nothing ever straightforward?
‘You dug out the records?’ I said.
‘Soon as I knew you were going into Mountjoy to see him. There’s nothing in the case notes or interview files about Felix saying one word about Little. Not to say he was innocent, nor that he was guilty. In fact, he claimed he didn’t know him at all.’
‘Alice certainly knew him if Little’s to be believed.’
‘That’s a big if,’ Boland pointed out. ‘The guy’s a child abuser. Those men are accomplished liars. They’re worse than politicians. You can’t believe a word they say.’
‘But what would be the point of spinning me a line about Felix?’
‘You’re asking me? I don’t know. To make his case for wrongful conviction look stronger, to make you feel sorry for him . . .’
‘He’s a shock coming if he thinks I’ll feel sorry for him,’ I said.
Then again, why hadn’t he asked me why I was so interested in his case, since I made no attempt to hide my contempt for him? It wasn’t like I was fussing over him like he said Felix and Alice had been, fretting like anguished liberals about his bruised civil rights.
Was Little playing some game with me too?
‘What about the other people in the house?’ I said. ‘Paul Vaughan? Paddy Nye? Did they say anything at the time about knowing Little?’
‘Paul Vaughan was never interviewed. At first he wasn’t available, and by the time he was, Little had been charged, and it was all just formalities. Nye’s only statement was to confirm Felix Berg’s story that they were together at the time of the killing.’
‘So if Nye killed the little girl, then Felix covered up for him?’ I said.
No reply came.
‘Boland, are you there?’
But somewhere over Dublin, the signal had obviously fizzled out.
It was probably snarled up in traffic too.
I leaned on my horn and joined the chorus.
It was another hour before I got back to my empty apartment.
First thing I did when I got in – second thing, actually; the first thing was to check that the place hadn’t been turned over again in my absence – was listen to my messages.
Fitzgerald was first, checking how I’d got on with Little. Next was Fisher to tell me where he was staying, since he’d agreed, he explained, to hang around for a few days longer and try to help the police make sense of last night’s message (and see some more of Miranda Gray too?). Then came Miranda Gray herself to say how much she’d enjoyed dinner and we should do it again sometime. And finally . . .
It took me a second to recognise the voice.
Gina.
Felix’s former girlfriend.
And she was crying.
********************
‘I feel such an idiot now,’ she said as she stepped back and let me inside. The room was in shadow. A fan on the desk was blowing out cool air, and the pages of a book fluttered quietly like a dying bird. ‘It was probably nothing. Really. You needn’t have come round, I’m fine.’
‘Is that why you have the drapes drawn? Because you’re fine?’
She smiled faintly.
‘I just felt . . . felt as if I was being watched.’
‘Can I see it?’
She crossed to a dresser and pulled open a drawer, reached in, took out the envelope which had arrived at her house that morning.
‘I didn’t know who else to call,’ she apologised, ‘and I remembered you being here, and how you gave me your number . . . and I went and dug it out and . . .’
‘It’s OK,’ I said, because I was afraid she was going to start crying again, and crying always made me uncomfortable.
&nb
sp; ‘Just let me see it.’
She handed the envelope to me.
Gina.
That was all it said.
‘It wasn’t posted then?’
‘It was dropped through the letterbox whilst I was out. The mail had already arrived. I’d gone to get milk. When I got back . . .’ She couldn’t finish. Her hands were shaking.
‘Whoever it was must have been watching me,’ she concluded in a whisper.
The envelope was crumpled and torn at the top; I pulled the edges apart and fished inside with my finger. There was a photo, a single snapshot, like the one that had fallen out of Felix’s cuttings file and the one that had been attached to a hook on my wall.
This one showed Gina, dressed exactly as she was now, emerging from the gate at the top of her steps, a bag slung over her shoulder, sunglasses pushed up her head. The vision was partly obscured by a motorbike parked outside the gate, but there was no mistaking it was her. It had to have been taken right across the road, next to the phone booth.
‘Whoever it was must have been waiting for me to come out, taken the picture, waited for it to develop and come out of the camera, then put it in the envelope, crossed over the street and dropped it through the letterbox for me to find when I got back.’
Only pausing, I thought but didn’t say, to slash the front of the photograph with a knife.
Right across Gina’s face.
‘How long were you out?’
‘It couldn’t have been more than five minutes. Ten at most. The shop’s only at the end of the street,’ she said.
Plenty of time.
‘And you didn’t see anything as you walked back?’
‘I wasn’t looking, but no, no, I didn’t.’
‘No strangers? Strange cars?’
‘You can see for yourself, it’s a busy road. People coming and going. There are always strange cars and bikes parked up here. It’s only supposed to be for residents, but no one takes any notice of signs. I wouldn’t have spotted anyone. Anyone I didn’t know, I mean.’
I put the photograph back into the envelope and made to give it back to her.
Gina moved her hand away.
‘I don’t want it,’ she said. ‘You take it. Burn it. I don’t care.’
She look up suddenly, and flinched as the window started rattling violently as a truck went by.
It was, as she said, a busy road.
‘I’ll pass it on to the police if you like,’ I said.
‘Do you have to?’
‘Threatening letters . . . photos . . . Of course they should be told.’
Because it rarely ends there, I could have said, but what would have been the point? She was frightened enough as it was. Besides, it wasn’t like I took my own advice.
And she wasn’t listening anyway.
‘Who is doing this?’ she pleaded, still staring at the window.
‘What do they want?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘but I heard Strange was sent one like it.’
‘Was his cut up too?’
‘I didn’t see it,’ I said. ‘I only heard about it. I heard it was defaced, so I guess it was the same. He thought it was me who’d sent it to him.’
‘You? Why would you do such a thing?’
‘Why would anyone?’
Gina was thoughtful for a moment.
‘You know,’ she said, ‘it’s almost a relief to know other people have been getting them too. I thought it was only me.’
Though would she feel so relieved if she knew this photograph might be only the first? According to his lawyers, Strange had been getting them regularly.
And now I’d started too. Felix, Strange, Gina and me: there was a pattern there. Initially I’d thought it had something to do with the Marxman, because of Felix’s obsession, but what if the link was something else entirely? Something much closer to us all?
And then I thought about Alice, who wasn’t taking her telephone calls.
Who wasn’t answering when I called round.
Was she afraid too? Was she getting these pictures?
‘I should try Alice again,’ I said without thinking, and felt Gina bristle immediately.
‘Alice,’ she said scornfully.
‘I know you two don’t get along, but this could affect her, she deserves to know. . .’
‘Maybe she knows plenty about it already.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘Nothing. Nothing. Oh, you know what I’m saying. I can’t deny it crossed my mind that it was Alice who did this. She’s the only person I can think of who hates me enough. Who would want to make me suffer. And you know. . .’
‘What?’
‘Well, it just seems such a woman thing to do,’ she said.
And she was right.
Spiteful letters.
Anonymous hate mail.
Women were masters of the art.
All I could think of suddenly was Fitzgerald glimpsing what she thought was Alice in the crowd of onlookers opposite St James’s Hospital the previous night.
And there was something else.
Something that had been bothering me.
I felt for my cellphone, before remembering I’d left it in the apartment.
‘Can I use your phone?’ I said to Gina.
If she was surprised, she didn’t let it show.
‘Of course,’ she said, ‘it’s right there.’
‘I see it.’
She retreated to another room whilst I picked up the receiver and dialled.
‘Tell me something, Strange,’ I said when he picked up.
‘Who did take all those charming sado-masochistic shots you have on the walls of your gallery?’
‘Who’s this speaking?’ he demanded.
‘Surely you haven’t forgotten me already? And after I got such a charming letter from your lawyer too.’
‘This is Saxon, I presume.’
‘I’m touched. You remember. There’s hope in our relationship yet.’
‘You’re making a big mistake,’ Strange said. ‘I warned you to stay away from me.’
‘You warned me to stop harassing you, is what I remember. Since when does a friendly phone call constitute harassment?’
‘I’m putting the phone down.’
‘No you’re not. You’re going to tell me who took those pictures in your store.’
‘Gallery. And as I believe I told you before, the artist wishes to remain anonymous. I do not discuss my artists’ private affairs with anyone. And certainly not with you. How dare you call me and—’
‘It’s Alice, isn’t it?’
Silence.
‘Alice Berg took the photographs,’ I said.
‘You’re cracked,’ said Strange. ‘I’m putting the phone down right now.’
‘Is that so you can call her and warn her that her secret identity has suddenly become a bit less secret?’
There was no answer. Our voices hadn’t got tangled up in the signal-crowded skies above the city this time. This time Vincent Strange really had hung up.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Could Alice really be mixed up in all this somewhere? Could she be sending threatening photographs to Strange and Gina? Could she have been involved in the death of her brother?
She was certainly holding out on me, on Strange, on everyone.
Changing her story.
Telling Fitzgerald that she wanted her brother’s body released as quickly as possible, and telling me she wanted his death investigated as murder. Keeping back the existence of Gina. Stonewalling Boland when he tried to find out more about Felix. Then there was her appearance outside the hospital last night when the latest victim of the Marxman was brought in.
What had she been doing there?
I had no evidence even that the file she had showed me of cuttings on the Marxman case had belonged to Felix at all.
What if the file were hers? What if it was a catalogue of her own strange obsessions? The photographs
sent to Strange and Gina reminded me too of the taunting mail Paddy Nye said he’d received for years. He’d always believed it was Felix behind it, but Felix couldn’t be behind the slashed photographs now, because Felix was dead.
He couldn’t have broken into my apartment.
What if it had been Alice all along?
Hadn’t she befriended Isaac Little? Hadn’t Miranda Gray said how Alice read all the ‘right books’ on psychology? Who better to play these sorts of mind games?
Hadn’t she turned up at my apartment when I hadn’t even given her my address?
I recalled Nye’s bitterness about her too. How he’d said he wouldn’t be surprised if she and Felix had killed off their aunt for the house and legacy.
And the more I thought about it, the more another suspicion whispered at me.
Could she even be the Marxman?
That idea was so incredible I could scarcely put it into words for a long time; but it made a mad sort of sense. If Alice had been the Marxman all along, it would certainly explain why Felix had been so obsessed.
Why also he’d been willing to cover up for her.
Until that final night, when maybe he’d decided to bring the game to an end, to tell me what he knew – and she’d found out about it. Where had Alice been that night? She’d never given a satisfactory explanation. Had the police ever checked out her story?
But then why would they check it out? Felix wasn’t murdered, according to Butler’s autopsy report, he killed himself. She didn’t have to prove where she was.
Besides, was this all I had on her – that she’d acted suspiciously?
Acting suspiciously wasn’t a crime.
Acting suspiciously wasn’t the same as murder.
And yet, I wondered, was I now just dismissing the possibility because she was a woman? I remembered a case Fitzgerald had worked on last year. Some thuggish drunk had been beating his wife for years: knocked out her teeth, branded her with a hot poker, kicked her so badly once that she lost the child she was carrying. One night he picked up a glass of beer and smashed it against her face. By the time she got to hospital she needed eighty-three stitches and had lost the sight in one eye. Between being smashed in the face with the glass and getting to hospital, however, she’d responded by picking up the nearest kitchen knife and sticking it so far into her husband’s throat that it came out the other side and skewered him to a cupboard door.
The Dark Eye (The Saxon & Fitzgerald Mysteries Book 2) Page 22
