Down on Cyprus Avenue

by Paul Charles

  “Ah no, not Mr Morrison,” McCusker continued patiently. “Can you tell me what Beatles song 57 Joe performed on Saturday night?”

  “ ‘Help!’ ” Robinson offered and then laughed heartily at his attempt at humour.

  “Can you tell me the title of one song that 57 Joe performed on Saturday night?” McCusker asked, setting up his trap. “Just one song title please?”

  “Of course, they did ‘What Shall We Give Back’, their Belfast City anthem.”

  “And whereabouts would that have been in the set?” McCusker said, trying to draw him in even further.

  “The end of the set of course, it’s always the end of the set,” Robinson boasted, smugly.

  “Yes you’re correct,” McCusker started. “‘What Shall We Give Back’ is usually the final song of the set…” McCusker paused again noting Robinson’s muscles relaxing. “However, on Saturday night, due to a malfunction on their laptop, they were unable to trigger the necessary sample required to perform that particular song, so they finished with their second Van Morrison song of the evening – a rousing version of ‘Gloria’.”

  McCusker’s perseverance with 57 Joe’s drummer had paid off and securing the set list for that night had been the crowning glory. At this stage in the “cop show,” the suspect would usually collapse and confess everything.

  “You know,” Robinson started, about to prove he wasn’t really that fanatical a follower of that type of show himself. “I do believe you’re correct in this instance, yeah, you’re spot on in fact – they did do an extended version of ‘Gloria’ on Saturday.”

  “Were the three Js all on the door on Saturday, you know, Jerry, Jerry, and Jimmy?

  “Augh yeah,” a relieved Robinson said, sensing another trick question coming up and this time being prepared for it. “They were all there, and don’t forget Kitt, hitting people on the head and knocking them out,” he laughed.

  McCusker nodded his head slowly from side to side, “Sorry Richard, caught out again – Johnny was missing from the door because he was down in Galway for the weekend to attend his sister’s wedding.”

  “So? Two Js, three Js – who gives a shit?” Robinson moaned, and again looked to his solicitor to save him.

  “Okay Richard, here’s the thing,” McCusker said, as Robinson gathered himself up again in preparation for another searching question. “Either you were at the Errigle Inn and my DS WJ Barr will verify that when he’s had a chance to go all through the discs from the front-door cameras, or you were where your wife said you were on Saturday night.”

  “Where did Angela say I was?” Robinson asked, looking totally thrown.

  “First, will you concede that you were not in fact at the Errigle Inn on Saturday night?” McCusker asked. This was not going as well as he had hoped. He’d always been mindful that, should Robinson turn out to be the murderer, this very interview would be analysed in great detail for years to come, and he’d done little to be proud of so far. Maybe, just maybe, he hoped, they’d reached a crucial point in the proceedings.

  McCusker wondered what was going through Robinson’s head at this point. There were two scenarios. One, Richard Robinson was the murderer, he was in the process of being caught out for lying and he was about to try and mend that damage. Or, he wasn’t the murderer and, at this point in the investigation, he was the only one in the world who knew he wasn’t. If that was the case, he’d probably be wondering why his wife had given him an alibi for the time of the murder. Maybe she wasn’t so much giving him an alibi as herself?

  If Robinson wasn’t the murderer, why had he said he was somewhere he wasn’t? Yes, the Errigle Inn on a Saturday night would have been crowded and he perhaps believed that to be useful to him.

  If he wasn’t at the Errigle Inn, and he wasn’t with his wife as now became apparent, where had he been? What had he been doing? The thing about lying is that people lie for a reason – usually have to. What was his reason? Why would his wife have initially given an alibi and not confirmed the alibi with her husband? Were they both worried that the other had carried out the murder?

  Of all the permutations of scenarios running through McCusker’s head, he was still taken back by Robinson’s next statement:

  “Do you think there is a chance my wife murdered this Adam Whitlock fellow?”

  * * *

  The interview wound down quickly after that with Robinson, on his solicitor’s advice, admitting that he had not been at the Errigle Inn the previous Saturday night. He still would not admit where he had been and refused to answer any more question until he had talked to his wife. McCusker felt he’d no option other than to remand Richard Robinson in Police detention and let the clock start running. He didn’t want to allow his chief suspect out so that he and his wife could compare notes and tie up their alibis. At the same time, with her husband in custody, Angela might feel more secure in whatever it was she had been up to with feeling the need to create a false alibi, murder or not.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “Let’s go back and see Angela again?” McCusker said, as much to himself as O’Carroll, as they exited the ever-cold basement of the Custom House.

  O’Carroll checked her watch.

  “Look, I’m okay to do it myself,” McCusker offered.

  “It’s cool – I’m good, I’ve got a big date tonight but I’m good on time.”

  A few minutes later they were on the steps of BBC Broadcasting House having a brief chat with the brothers O’Neill, both dressed very cool and on their way in to do yet another TV interview to raise the profile of Larry’s List. As they chatted, they met Angela Robinson, exiting the building.

  In spite of everything she still had a big smile for McCusker and O’Carroll, only this time it looked more of a nervous smile than one of friendship. On his walks around the city, McCusker was surprised how often strangers smiled at each other. Smiling seemed to be a precursor to saying hello.

  “Oh,” she said, continuing down the ramp to the left of the front door. “Do you need to speak to me again? How did you get on with Richard? Is he at home yet?”

  “He’s still helping us with our enquiries,” McCusker replied.

  “Is that really a euphemism for someone who has been arrested but has yet to be charged?”

  “Not at all,” McCusker replied, hoping he was sounding sincere, “and we would like to have another chat with you, please?”

  “In that case I need a drink. Do you mind if we nip into Deanes?”

  She brushed off all the heads turning in her direction, at her million dollar hairstyle with “What can I tell you? I’ve discovered the secret of staying young…lie about your age.”

  They found a quiet corner in the busy bar and McCusker said: “Bushmills for you, Mrs Robinson?”

  “No, actually I’ll have a vodka, please.”

  “Really?” McCusker repeated, genuinely surprised.

  “Yes, vodka is much cheaper than botox and paralyses more muscles,” Robinson deadpanned, flashing her trademark Princess Diana tilted-head.

  McCusker returned with the drinks just in time to hear Angela saying, “...Macca, he looks just like Ken Dodd these days, but without the sense of humour.”

  “Here’s to you Mrs Robinson,” McCusker toasted, when finally seated and drinks distributed.

  Robinson smiled. McCusker didn’t know why, perhaps about something she and O’Carroll had been discussing in his absence.

  “So, I think we have now ascertained that your husband was not where he claimed he was on Saturday night,” McCusker began, after the first sip of his white wine, which turned out to be a very pleasant little nail varnish remover. He would concede that the fault was all his because, unless he was having a meal, he had a taste for little else but Guinness.

  “So where was he?” Angela replied, showing she was having no such worries about her own drink.

  “Well, we haven’t discovered that yet, we now know two places he wasn’t, so by process of elimination and
deduction…”

  “…you still have Belfast’s 125 bars, 127 churches and 112 restaurants to check and just over 260,000 people – at last count – to ask whether they’ll give him a proper alibi for the time in question.”

  “Of course, that would be just 259,999 people to check,” McCusker offered with a smile. “You must have been concerned that he was involved when you gave him a false alibi?”

  “Or were you worried about where you’d been yourself?” O’Carroll pushed.

  Angela Robinson took another large sip of her vodka.

  “Where exactly were you on Saturday night between the hours of midnight and 3 a.m. on Sunday morning?” McCusker asked patiently.

  “As I said to you, I was at home,” she eventually countered. “But, as you now know, Richard was not at home with me.”

  “Where do you think Richard might have been?” O’Carroll asked.

  “I honestly don’t know,” she admitted.

  “Does he go out often without you?” O’Carroll continued.

  “Of course, he goes out a lot at night.”

  “And you’ve never wondered what he gets up to?” McCusker asked.

  “You mean…am I worried that he’s getting up to no good?”

  “Or he’s seeing another woman?” O’Carroll suggested.

  Angela laughed. She just laughed. “Look,” she eventually said, “it took Richard years and years to get it together with me and he was so keen, not to mention patient, he hung around while I was going with other boys, so, no – I don’t think he was getting it together with someone else. Besides, as I mentioned to you the other night – because I was feeling guilty about my relationship with Adam – I always made sure I never resisted Richard’s infrequent advances, so please believe me: I would have known. Men can lie but they can never hide their carnal attraction.”

  “And you’re convinced Richard was totally unaware about your relationship with Adam?” O’Carroll asked, revisiting this line once again.

  “Totally,” she said coldly. “Look, if I’d been in love with Adam maybe I’d have been more careless. I believe that the reason most women who are cheating on their husbands get found out is because deep down…they really just don’t care. Don’t you see? They have the insurance of the love they have for the other man. Maybe even a good percentage of them want to be found out, you know, just to bring it to a head. But with Adam, well as I said, he certainly wasn’t in love with me and I was in lust with him.”

  “But surely…” O’Carroll started.

  “But surely nothing,” Angela quickly interrupted. “Look, sadly – very sadly – Adam is dead and I’ll admit to you I really don’t miss him – I’m as surprised about that as you are, by the look on both your faces. But I’ll also admit to you that I most definitely do miss having sex with him. It’s like…it’s like I’m being forced to go through some cold turkey kind of thing to get over missing my regular fix.”

  O’Carroll visibly grimaced.

  “What?” Angela asked gently.

  “It’s just you’re missing out on the whole…”

  “The whole meeting someone, falling in love, and living happily after thing...is that what you’re referring to?”

  “Well yes,” O’Carroll admitted.

  “Let me tell you what comes after living happily ever after, shall I?” Angela said, and proceeded without waiting to see if any resistance would be offered. “What comes after happy ever after is nothing. You still need to eat, to sleep, to work in order that you can continue to eat, sleep, and work. The only thing we have that is bigger than that – and that is not chemically induced – is the joy we take from pleasuring each other’s bodies. It’s not making love, it is just pure unadulterated animalistic sex. Adam and I had that part of our lives off perfectly – it might have been the only thing that either of us did do perfectly.”

  McCusker wondered if this was the reason behind Adam’s spending so much time with Julia, with Angela spending the same amount of time with her husband. In Adam’s case, could Cindy’s untimely death have been a major factor in how his apparent loveless life had turned out? Was Angela in a marriage merely to facilitate her relationship with Adam?

  McCusker studied Angela as they sat in the wine bar. Yes, her hair was absolutely amazing, but he found none of her boyish features alluring. She wore black trousers that were very baggy around the bum, but tight around her ankles, and he couldn’t stand the look of them. She had some shapeless wrap-around jumper, also black and equally disagreeable, to his mind. Still, she probably felt exactly the same way about him and the suits he loved to wear.

  The biggest turn-off was her over-sexualised nature. But now that Adam was out of her life, would she find another man to obsess over? And if that man was prepared to give back just a little bit more than Adam, how quickly would her marriage disintegrate? Then again, if her husband was involved in Adam’s murder, he’d be out of her life for good anyway.

  And with that looking more and more likely, could Angela Robinson ever bring herself to play the role of the perfect jailbird wife, traipsing out to Maghaberry, the big and ugly modern prison near Aghalee in County Antrim, on monthly visits?

  For some strange reason a vision of Anna Stringer flashed into McCusker’s mind (he still always thought of his ex-wife by her maiden name.)

  McCusker wondered why he’d never considered divorcing Anna Stringer. Mind you it wasn’t as if there had ever been a queue of women looking to replace her. Not even one in fact. Name wise though he didn’t need to, they’d never really shared ‘McCusker’ as a name. At first it was as much his fault as hers, as he always, but always, referred to her as Anna Stringer. But then after a few years even she started to refer to herself again by her maiden name; she even went as far as changing the name on her passport from McCusker back to Stringer. He hadn’t questioned her over it. McCusker often wondered what it really meant to share a name, to share a life. He puzzled for ages over how you would/could actually physically share a life. How could people be there for each other; what did that even mean? Be where for them? He wasn’t hers and she wasn’t his. He didn’t own her and she didn’t own him. But McCusker also knew that wasn’t really the full story. On the other hand they hadn’t bickered, they hadn’t fought. In fact all things considered, they had coexisted quite successfully. But there was no chemistry, no magic and there was no love. Now McCusker certainly knew from his work how sometimes (but not all of the times) the existence of magic or chemistry could bring a relationship to a very sad end. This was the result when the magic was cast aside while one partner in the marriage or relationship mistook the novelty of newness of another lover for chemistry or magic. That’s when there was a distinct possibility of jealously coming into play from the discarded partner.

  McCusker wondered how would he have felt if he’d discovered Anna Stringer had been having an affair; would he have considered killing the other man, and in a way that would have been a clear sign for his wife. Or would he have just sought out the other man and asked him if he’d managed to solve the mystery of this woman, because he certainly hadn’t.

  “So you said that Richard goes out, late at night...” McCusker said, “are we talking about one or two nights a week?”

  “No, more like five or six nights a week,” Angela guessed.

  “And you never wondered where he was going?” O’Carroll asked.

  “Look, Richard is a writer…”

  McCusker grimaced, remembering what the member and manager of 57 Joe had said about Richard’s lyrics. He thought he was being inconspicuous but Angela picked up on his indiscretion immediately.

  “No, no, that’s unfair McCusker!” she immediately protested. “I’ve read a lot of Richard’s writing and, believe me, it is very good, and I’d be more critical than most. But his writing is very...visual. I’d also admit that it’s stylised, which I guess could also mean it can be very difficult to read, if you’re not in the right frame of mind. But Richard definitely ha
s a unique voice.”

  “You were about to tell us what you thought Richard went out for late at night?” O’Carroll asked, looking impressed that Angela had stood up for her husband. McCusker was equally impressed; Angela and Richard Robinson enjoyed one of the strangest relationships the Portrush detective had ever known, but there was something very heartening about her show of loyalty, especially in the current circumstances.

  “Oh yes, I was about to say that Richard is a writer, he loves to be alone with his thoughts and I assumed walking the streets late at night was where he found his muse.”

  “What time would he get back home?” McCusker asked.

  “Some nights he was so late he wouldn’t bother me when he came in – he’d go straight to the spare room and I wouldn’t see him ‘til teatime the next evening.”

  The detectives’ run of questions simultaneously came to an end, although McCusker now had a fair few more for Richard Robinson.

  As they were saying their goodbyes Angela asked: “When can I see him?”

  Neglecting the fact that the only visits Richard Robinson would be permitted would be those for either legal or medical reasons O’Carroll replied with, “It’s best you liaise with David Lewis, he’ll get you in quicker than we could.”

  * * *

  “Fancy a quick pint at McHugh’s?” McCusker asked when they were back out on the busy Bedford Street. “I need something to get the terrible taste of fermented juice of the grape from me mouth.”

  “Go on then,” O’Carroll agreed, checking her watch again.

  Ten minutes later they were nursing their pints of Guinness. “Oh jeez!” O’Carroll said. Her eyes were glued to a spot just over the top of McCusker’s left shoulder.

  “What? What O’Carroll?”

  “I’ve just lost you.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Don’t look now but the woman of your dreams, the one with the French bob, has just walked in by herself.”