Down on Cyprus Avenue

by Paul Charles

  “Okay WJ; the Wallace interview was fine in as far as it went but I’ve got a few additional questions for you.”

  “Okay, fire away,” the chirpy DS replied.

  “What did Ross Wallace look like – how was he turned out?”

  “He was wearing a clean white shirt, blue tie, no jacket, dark-blue suit trousers and brown leather shoes.”

  “Were his shoes well-polished or scruffy?” McCusker asked.

  “Neither, he wore trainers,” Barr offered and then added, “but they looked like they were well looked after.”

  “Was he overweight? How about his hair? Did he look like he cared about his appearance?”

  “He was in good shape physically. I’d say 5’ 11”, 170 pounds, clean shaven, longish but clean, central-parted blonde-closing-on-brown hair.”

  “Good, good, well observed,” McCusker said in praise, “but please put these points in your report.”

  “Okay.”

  “Look, you’re going to have to humour me,” McCusker started, quiet and gently. “I know it’s probably more of a country police approach but everything you see and hear and sometimes even smell can be a clue. Tell me this: Did he appear happy in his work?”

  “Very much so,” Barr responded immediately. “Wallace volunteered that he’d fallen on his feet with Ulsterbus; he enjoyed the work and they paid well.”

  “Anyone that pays regularly in this climate, DS, pays well.”

  “You’re not kidding, sir – my brother got laid off just last week.”

  “Any other opportunities for him to follow up on?”

  “Well, he’d put a few bob aside and he’s still positive, but our auld man says ‘Get out there, get a job, any job’. He reckons it’s better to have a job while looking for a better job than to have no job at all.”

  “Your father is not wrong WJ,” McCusker replied, acknowledging the fact that the DS’s father came from a generation of Ulstermen who felt shame at being unemployed. “Tell me this: Did your man Wallace think a lot before he answered or did he answer off the cuff?”

  “All immediate answers.”

  “Thanks WJ, I’ve got a bit better an impression on him now,” McCusker replied. “Maybe just a routine check with the in-laws about the Saturday dinner date and then take a constable with you to interview Adam’s brother, Jaime. He’s at the Europa in the next room to the father. I get the feeling we’re still missing a lot on Adam. O’Carroll and I will interview his other friend, Richard Robinson – Angela’s husband – and then we’ll meet up back here at 3 p.m. to compare notes.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  McCusker hated chippy people. He didn’t know why he did, he just did, always had. Well, maybe hate would have been too strong a word; he tended not to waste time hating people or things, so he figured didn’t like chippy people would be a more accurate phrase.

  Richard Robinson immediately struck McCusker as such a type. In fact, he almost seemed to wear his chippiness as a badge of honour, to the extent that, if the makers of Grumpy Old Men were ever to do a follow-up programme, he could play a central character in ‘Chippy Middle-aged Men.’

  When he greeted McCusker and O’Carroll on the steps of his house on the once elegant Balmoral Avenue, he was wearing black Doc Martens, shapeless, grey-black, corduroy trousers and a two-button, long-sleeved polo shirt, in a slightly different shade of black to his trousers. He was thin but with a pot belly, with untidy, medium-length, brown hair and a five o’clock shadow. He had incredibly big hands with perfectly manicured nails.

  As befitted his personal appearance, the Robinson house was very clean and not-a-speck-of-dust-anywhere tidy. He’d been expecting the police and had set up three places at a small basketwork table in his conservatory. He seemed keen to get down to business; he quickly poured three cups of coffee and invited the officers to help themselves to milk, sugar, and chocolate digestive biscuits. He opened his half used pink WH Smith’s notebook, implying he was going to keep his own notes of the interview.

  “What do you do?” McCusker asked, the house being deficient of clues.

  “Actually, I write songs mate,” Robinson replied quietly, his Aussie twang ringing through.

  “Really,” O’Carroll said, displaying her first bit of interest in the case for a few hours. “Would I know any of them?”

  “No,” the man in grey replied, in a tone that belied an acceptance that very few would.

  “Right,” O’Carroll said, appearing to drop back into her reticent mood.

  “So have any of your songs been recorded?” McCusker asked, trying to get a bit of a conversation going.

  “Just demos,” Robinson replied, fidgeting as he rolled his pen around and around in the fingers of his right hand.

  “So am…” McCusker started back up again.

  “Look, I write lyrics for a few local musicians, and it’s something I’ve just started to do again recently. I used to write a lot when we were all at Queen’s. But you know what it’s like; we all tend to relinquish our lofty creative ambitions in order to fulfil our more basic ones. You know, like being able to pay off the mortgage, for instance.”

  “Right,” McCusker demured. “Okay...so what do you do to make money then?”

  Robinson scribbled something down in his notebook before replying, “I, you know…well…I’m perfectly qualified as a house husband,” he laughed nervously, noticing a look of quiet disdain from O’Carroll. “I was going into journalism. The plan was I would move to London and become a stringer for one of the Australian rags, but Angela’s career started to take off here with the BBC and so I’ve found myself being the supportive partner and dabbling in various things: handiwork; designing websites; cutting lawns; carpentry; writing lines for greetings cards; a script doctor; writing obituaries – but I’ll tell you that’s an extremely closed shop. A few months ago Angela and I made a decision that I would give all of that up and concentrate on my lyrics and poetry.”

  O’Carroll discretely flashed McCusker a knowing look as if to say “Jeez –we’ve got one here”, the first twinkle of the day visible in her eye. “So the BBC pays well then?” she asked.

  “Not when you count the hours,” Robinson claimed and laughed nervously as he had a habit of doing. “Sometimes she doesn’t get back here until after midnight.”

  It was O’Carroll’s turn to jot something down in her notebook.

  “So you and Angela met at Queen’s?” McCusker asked, trying to manoeuvre the conversation towards the subject of Adam Whitlock.

  “Yes,” Robinson replied drawing out the word with a large smile, “our student days; now they were the good old days. You know, I’d a lot of competition for Angela. There was certainly a lot of that feeling of ‘you Aussie’s over here, stealing our Sheilas’.”

  Robinson paused, appearing to drift off to a thought or maybe even to his student days in general. McCusker decided not to fill the space. O’Carroll immediately picked up on this.

  “It’s funny how things turn out,” Robinson eventually said, with a half laugh, “I mean, at the time I thought winning Angela’s hand…or should that have been heart...?” he paused to write a few words in his book. “Anyway, I thought that if I could just find a way to be with Angela then everything else would automatically fall into place for me…for us. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still happy with her but really, if I’m being honest, we haven’t moved on from then. Well, maybe if I wanted to be painfully honest, I haven’t really moved on from then. I seem to have trouble getting my life into any kind of gear career-wise.”

  McCusker wondered for the first time if perhaps Robinson was on some kind of medication or maybe he’d smoked a bit of dope to get in the mood for the interview.

  “It’s the basic problem with the education system, isn’t it?” Robinson suggested. “I mean, you do all you’re told to do in your school life, you get to university, and even though you come out with a degree, you still find yourself…”

  “Unemploya
ble?” O’Carroll suggested, uncharitably.

  Robinson wrote a single word in his book and flicked the pen successfully around his fingertips a few times. Maybe he should have added juggler to his list of failed careers, McCusker thought.

  “So maybe it would help if I told you how we all met up?” Robinson offered, seeming as frustrated with the interview as McCusker was.

  “That would be very helpful,” O’Carroll chipped in.

  “Well, when I arrived at Queen’s Craig Husbands was one of the first people I met and became friends with. I don’t remember how we hooked up, but Craig had always been very keen on going out and getting to know people. One of the people he befriended was Adam Whitlock and he, for some reason, succeeded me as Craig’s new best friend. I suppose even in those days an American still trumped an Australian.”

  “And then you met Angela?” McCusker suggested, hoping to avoid a spat of chippiness.

  “Actually, Adam was the first of us to spot Angela – he met her one night in the union bar and then dragged Craig and myself along the next night for moral support. I was immediately aware of Angela’s qualities, whereas people like Adam took advantage of her.”

  “How so?” O’Carroll asked. McCusker smiled to himself, seeing her interest resume as soon as the dating game was mentioned.

  “Well, let’s just say that she’s certainly a beautiful woman but she’s also a person.”

  “A person?” O’Carroll said, appearing confused.

  “Yeah mate, you know,” Robinson said, nodding furiously at O’Carroll, “there’s more to her than just the body.”

  “Oh, right,” the detective inspector agreed.

  “Did, ahm, Adam and Angela ever have a relationship?” McCusker asked.

  “You mean before we were married, don’t you?” Robinson said, in a nervous laugh.

  “Yes, yes, of course.”

  “Well, you know, there was something between them, like a matey kind of thing. We all shared a flat on Fitzwilliam Street at one point. There was the four of us: Angela, Craig, Adam and myself. It seemed the most natural thing to do; we were hanging out together all the time and…” Robinson stopped dead, thought of something, wrote a bit in his notebook and continued in a rush. “Of course, we all had our own rooms. That’s when we all became friends. Angela and Adam hung out a lot together, claimed there was nothing going on...oh, they’d fool around and laugh and joke a lot; I mean, we all did. A couple of years passed and we moved into better accommodation and Craig met his future wife and moved out. All the time Angela and I were becoming closer and closer. Nothing sexual, you know, just good friends –when ‘just good friends’ isn’t a regret.”

  O’Carroll noticeably shook her head from side to side.

  “What, you think it’s impossible for a boy and a girl to be just good friends?” Robinson snarled, taking exception to O’Carroll’s put-down.

  “Oh, a boy and a girl being just good friends? That’s certainly not impossible,” O’Carroll said through an insincere smile. “But a man and a woman, well, that’s another matter altogether.”

  “You were saying,” McCusker said, trying to get back on track again, “that Craig moved out leaving you and Adam and…”

  “…and Angela and myself,” Robinson replied, also choosing to ignore O’Carroll. “Time passed. After our finals Adam returned to America. There was talk at one point of us all moving to Boston and, although Angela denies this now, I felt she was quite serious about the adventure, but, you know, I felt more at home here than I felt I’d ever feel in America. Adam packed up and left. I expected Angela to want to move out. Let’s see now, we would have had a few romantic evenings at that point, or maybe just after; I find it hard to remember when all of these things happened in relation to each other. Anyway, Adam came back to Belfast to be best man at Craig’s wedding – he’s already had his first boy by the time he got married. Of course, he stayed with us. Angela, for the sake of appearances, moved back into her room for the week. Adam returned to the States. Then a friend of mine’s father died and he returned to Scotland to run the estate – he said I could have this place if I’d take over the mortgage repayments, and I jumped at the chance. I invited Angela to move in with me to help with the mortgage and she said if we were going to do that we might as well get married.”

  O’Carroll looked sad, even a little envious.

  “Fast-forward to today,” Robinson continued, “we got married, Adam came over, and as Angela’s father died when she was a kid, she asked Adam to give her away. He returned to Boston to live happily ever after. Angela secured a brilliant job at the BBC. Ross became Mr Ulsterbus. I started the first of my many jobs. Something happened in Boston, so Adam came back to Belfast and walked into an amazing highly paid job and he ends up…”

  Robinson didn’t finish his sentence.

  “Your wife had dinner with Adam quite regularly?” McCusker said, noticing O’Carroll had jotted something down in her notebook.

  “Well, you make it sound like a dinner date when in fact it wasn’t just Angela and Adam – there was always Craig and Julia as well, the four of them. Always the four together.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” McCusker agreed, “but you never went?”

  “No I didn’t,” Robinson admitted.

  “Did you see a lot of Adam?” McCusker asked, setting up his next topic.

  “You know, when you’re a student, different things and people amuse you. When you grow older and you realise that the four of you going out and getting drunk and staying out half or all of the night isn’t going to right the wrongs of the world you …you kind of…”

  “Grow up?” O’Carroll offered.

  “Exactly,” Robinson agreed. “Well, after I was married I realised I didn’t really have a lot in common with Adam, apart from the fact that he was a very good and loyal friend to my wife. And you know that was okay because I also have some good friends who my wife isn’t interested in. In fact, she can’t stand some of the musicians I write lyrics for. And that’s fine: it’s very healthy to have separate lives. It keeps us interested in each other, doesn’t it?”

  “When was the last time you saw Adam Whitlock?” McCusker asked.

  “Wow mate, now that is a hard one,” Robinson gushed, his Aussie accent ringing through. “Adam, Craig, and Julia would have come here about two months ago to pick up Angela and take her to a BBC night in Downpatrick. They were too drunk to drive back so they stayed the night at the hotel. But it was one of those ‘hello, goodbye’ meetings.”

  “What were you doing between the hours of midnight on Saturday night to 3a.m. on Sunday morning?” McCusker asked.

  Robinson looked at both detectives, wrote something in his book and said, “Now let’s see, Saturday…Saturday…oh yes, 57 Joe – one of the acts I write for – was doing a gig in the Errigle Inn and ah…it would have been a late one, I would have got back here somewhere between 2.30 and 3 a.m.”

  “And how were they?” McCusker felt compelled to ask.

  “Well, here’s the thing: the point of a confessional song is that it is certainly much more successful when the singer-songwriter has a profile worthy of embarrassment. For example, should Jackson Browne, Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen or Joni Mitchell confess that they too have been unlucky in the game of love, well, then that’s certainly going to grab our attention, but if 57 Joe tells you about his unlucky and unsuccessful adventures in love…”

  “Who’s 57 Joe?” O’Carroll asked.

  “Exactly – my point entirely.”

  * * *

  “Well, at last we have a suspect,” O’Carroll said, as they pulled away from Robinson’s house, leaving the Australian standing in his open doorway.

  “Or maybe even two,” McCusker offered, clicking his seatbelt, not as much following the rules as in preparation for O’Carroll’s unique straight-line style of driving, particularly at roundabouts.

  “Who, you mean Angela as well as Richard Robinson?” O’Carroll asked,
checking her watch.

  “We don’t yet know which one of them gave us the false alibi, but it won’t take us long to find out,” McCusker said, as the five o’clock news came on Radio Ulster. “But great to see you’re thinking about the case again O’Carroll – I thought I’d lost you there.”

  “Sorry McCusker. Look, here’s the thing; I’ve got a date with a new man tonight and, well, I’ll come clean and admit to you that a common complaint I get from men is the fact that I always seem distracted. Of course, my mind is usually on my current case, so what I’ve been trying to do since lunchtime is clear my head, free it up from the facts and theories that are rushing around so that I can give him my full attention.”

  “Right, okay, I think that make sense.”

  “I have a good feeling about this fella, McCusker.”

  “How so?”

  “I just have – he’s nice, clean, well groomed, well turned out, good manners, doesn’t turn into an octopus the minute he stops the car.”

  “You seem to know him well,” McCusker said, trying to recall if she’d mentioned him before. “How many times have you been out together?”

  “Well, tonight is our first proper date…”

  “But you just said he doesn’t try and maul you in the car?”

  “He dropped me home in a cab.”

  “Surely no one but an idiot would try it on for the first time with a taxi driver clocking every move in his rear-view mirror?”

  “You’d be surprised McCusker,” she said, adding, “you’d be surprised; but he really is nice. Wish me well.”

  “Oh I do.”

  “And then if he works out, all I’ll need to do is find a fella for our Grace.”

  McCusker grimaced in silence.

  “What?” O’Carroll asked, in annoyance. “What’s that look you’re pulling on me?”