Down on Cyprus Avenue

by Paul Charles

  “So what were you doing on Saturday night and Sunday morning?” McCusker eventually felt compelled to ask.

  Julia gave him a large nervous smile.

  For a moment O’Carroll thought Julia was on the verge of admitting that it had been her who had murdered her brother. It had something to do with how well the American had bashed the knife around inside the freezer, making short work of difficult chunks of ice.

  Julia remained in her silence: either she was trying to make something up or considering whether or not to tell them the truth. “It’s difficult,” she began.

  “You are having an affair?” McCusker suggested.

  “How on earth did you find out?”

  “We know that Adam had a long-standing relationship with Angela Robinson,” McCusker offered, “so we have to assume that some, if not all, of your dinners with Adam, Angela, Craig Husbands, and yourself must have been a sham?”

  “So you were just guessing?”

  “Well yes,” he admitted, “but I figured if Angela and Adam were involved with each other most of the time that must mean that you and Craig…”

  “Oh,” she screeched. “Me and Craig, give…me…a …break!”

  “Sorry, so who is it you’re trying to protect then?” McCusker asked.

  “I can’t say.”

  “Don’t you realise that you might just be helping Adam’s murderer get away?” O’Carroll weighed in, hitting her where it should hurt.

  “I don’t understand...”

  “Okay,” O’Carroll continued, “if we can’t rule you out we have to spend time investigating you and that’s time that would be much better spent chasing the real killer.”

  “So you don’t think it was me then?”

  “No, I don’t as a matter of fact,” O’Carroll admitted.

  “Well is that not enough then?” Julia pleaded. “If you know it wasn't me then why do you need to know who I was with?”

  “Because we think it wasn’t you Julia,” McCusker said. “But we don’t know for a fact that it wasn't you and we really do need to rule you out.”

  “Even Adam didn’t know who he was,” Julia eventually said. “Can you promise me you’ll keep it 100 per cent quiet?”

  “Miss Whitlock, we just can’t make such a promise,” O’Carroll offered. “But we can tell you that we’ll be as discreet as possible.”

  “I was with Ross Wallace,” she eventually confessed.

  “Sorry…Ross…but surely he’s married with two children? Adam was the best man and Ross’ son’s godfather?” McCusker said, admitting to himself immediately he was sometimes too naïve for his own good.

  “Oh, it wasn't anything serious,” Julia said dismissively. “I met up with him one night by accident at the Merchant Hotel. Adam, Angela, Craig, and I had been out for dinner, a real dinner in fact.” She paused and glared at McCusker for a split second. “I’d had a few drinks and fancied another one before going home alone. Ross was already in the very masculine wood-lined bar, and he was quite a few sheets to the wind, as you would say. He admitted his wife was no longer interested in sex but he couldn’t find a way to allow himself to cheat on her. He felt it was all too sordid. I told him what he needed was to find a woman who wanted nothing more from him than sex. He said he wasn't interested in hookers. I said ‘That’s good to know, let’s get a room.’”

  “That must be the American equivalent to the local chat-up line ‘get your coat, you’ve pulled,’” O’Carroll offered, looking visibly shocked.

  “Oh he’s a nice man, he loves his family, he wasn’t looking for any emotional involvement, which suited me perfectly and…most importantly he’s clean!”

  “There’s something else you want to tell us, isn’t there?” McCusker asked.

  “Yes, I suppose so,” she said quietly, not even bothering to ask him how he knew. “The really sad thing is that I blew Adam out on Saturday night, just so I could see Ross. I keep thinking if I had seen Adam on Saturday this would never have happened.”

  “Tell me this Julia: What would you and Adam have done if you had met up on Saturday?”

  “Oh a pizza and a movie,” she said immediately, without thinking.

  “And what time would you have gotten home at?” McCusker continued with his line.

  “Oh 10.30, 10.45 at the latest...we like to get off the streets before the drinkers come out,” she said and then thought about it. “Okay, okay, I realise where you’re going with this, you’re suggesting I wouldn’t have been with him anyway…and it’s really very nice of you and the next time you ask me to get my hot water bottle I promise I won’t…” her voice trailing off into incoherence.

  McCusker strode across to the freezer and opened the door. There was good news and bad news. The good news was that Kermit had worked hard and performed as McCusker had predicted, and the freezer was de-iced. The bad news was that the green frog had taken a severe drenching in the process and was looking to be in a very sorry state.

  * * *

  After leaving The Arc, O’Carroll walked McCusker over to the water’s edge. “You admitted to Julia that you didn’t think she murdered her brother; how did you come to that conclusion?” she said as they looked to the opposite bank.

  “They were good friends, they hung out together, they dined regularly together, she followed him over from Boston for heaven’s sake just to be close to him, so she’s not going to murder him. But why do you think she didn’t do it?”

  “When I keep returning to the thought of her murdering her brother I start to think about my brother and about my sister and I know there’s no way it’s possible,” she said, staring deep into his eyes, making him feel very uncomfortable.

  “But sisters have murdered brothers before and sisters have murdered parents and brothers have murdered sisters and parents.”

  “Yes, but she’s clearly not unbalanced,” O’Carroll said, pausing for a moment before saying, “well, maybe that’s not strictly true.”

  “Sorry?” McCusker asked, thinking he might have missed out on something.

  “Well it appears she might fancy you, so I’d worry if I was her.”

  “Very funny,” McCusker said.

  “I’m not kidding, McCusker – I know about these things; I study them closely,” O’Carroll protested earnestly. “Your wee hot water bottle line worked a treat for you. Our American friend, Miss Julia Whitlock the first, is yours for the taking.”

  McCusker was basking in his newfound glory for all of, what…two seconds at most, when his partner screamed at the top of her lungs, “Oh shit, oh shit, look at the time, I’m outta here! Toodaloo!”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  McCusker strolled around the open space of The Arc trying to get a grasp of his case. Nothing revolutionary struck him, so he slowly walked back to the Custom House. He enjoyed the walk so much he resolved to get up early the following morning, Sunday, and go for a long walk along the Lagan side.

  Custom House Square, what used to be the local equivalent of Hyde Park Corner, was quite busy when he arrived, and so he headed to the opposite side of the square and took one of the seats overlooking it. He was watching the tourists or thrill-seeking locals – he could never work out which – dodge the water fountains, which shot up like sharp lasers of light and traced the original path of the River Farset, which had long since been culverted to help create the square.

  From the outside, the 155-year-old Italianate Custom House was such a magnificent building. On the inside with mostly non-descript box-style offices you really had no hint whatsoever either of the perfection of such architecture, nor such historic significance. The ever-cold basement, the splendid staircase, the glorious conference room, and the long room which housed Larkin’s team all still bore Charles Lanyon’s distinctive proud signature.

  Still he couldn’t get his mind into gear, so he walked across the square to the Custom House and nodded to a spot in the roof space to his left, as he always did, in the direction of the hou
se’s legendary ghost, who supposedly hung out two floors above where the novelist Anthony Trollope had once diligently gone about his work. On this fine March morning, McCusker wondered if perhaps there was a connection between the house’s two most famous inhabitants.

  From the reception he buzzed up to Barr on the second floor of the north wing. The conscientious Detective Sergeant was still there and McCusker invited him to lunch, adding that he would meet him over at McHugh’s in a few minutes.

  McCusker admitted to himself that perhaps he’d chosen McHugh’s on the off chance he might run into French Bob again. He resolved the next time he saw her to definitely initiate a conversation with her. He was wondering exactly how one should go about such an endeavour when Barr entered the restaurant.

  Barr, as ever, had no time for pleasantries and got right into it. “How did you get on with Julia Whitlock?”

  McCusker brought his DS up to speed on the interview he and O’Carroll had recently concluded with Miss Whitlock. Needless to say, he omitted the bits about the hot water bottle and O’Carroll’s thoughts on how favourably she felt Julia Whitlock was disposed to McCusker should he ever come calling. All the time, Barr made notes in his wee book.

  “So how do you think this changes things?” Barr asked, just as their food arrived. “Do you think it puts Julia or Ross Wallace, or even his wife Samantha Wallace, in the frame?”

  McCusker looked like he hadn’t considered this, even if it was in fact the first thing he’d considered.

  “I doubt it,” he admitted, tucking into his well-done steak.

  “Yes, I interviewed Mr Wallace,” Barr said, ignoring his appetising piece of salmon as he flicked back through the pages of his book quickly. “And he said he and his wife were at home that evening with his in-laws having dinner. He claimed the in-laws had stayed until 1.00 am and then Mr and Mrs Wallace retired to bed at 1.30. We checked with the in-laws and they reported that it was more likely to have been 1.20 by the time they left the Wallace’s home. Had you been hoping for more from Miss Whitlock?”

  “Not really,” McCusker admitted. “I just wanted to tie up the loose ends from my previous visit when she’d omitted to give me her alibi.”

  “Where does that leave us?” Barr asked, carefully finding a safe spot for his book and pen on the table.

  “Good question, WJ – you tell me.”

  “Well I think the line of investigation into Wesley Whitlock III’s enemies is by far our best bet.”

  “That’s what we’ll do then, WJ, and, thanks to your diligent work on the files, we’re off to a great start on that front.”

  Barr stopped eating, freezing knife and fork mid-frame. He stared at McCusker for a few moments before offering, “I must say, sir, you don’t appear to be all that worried over the investigation.”

  “Well, WJ, it’s a puzzle, and you know when it’s hardest to solve a puzzle?”

  “When you’re drunk?” Barr offered confidently.

  “Well, yes,” McCusker said smiling gently. “But that wasn’t the one I was thinking of. I always think it’s hard to solve puzzles when you’re stressed. When you’re stressed you never allow yourself the luxury of putting the full capacity of your brain to your task. So I always think I can best serve the innocent – and the guilty, for that matter – if I can just think of this as nothing more than a big puzzle. You know the best method of solving a puzzle?” McCusker asked. Then feeling perhaps he was coming across a little bit patronising, added immediately, “But of course you do; it is to first assemble as many of the pieces of the puzzle as possible. Of course we can solve the puzzle without actually having all of the pieces, but the more pieces we have the better a chance we have of solving the case properly.”

  Barr seemed to consider this for a time before offering, “Okay, so what do we do next?”

  “Well, I just nipped into the bar on my way here and noticed that Man United are due to kick off against Man City at 3 p.m. and I know you’ve a vested interest in that so if you leave now…”

  “I can always watch it on Match of the Day if you need me.”

  “No WJ – by my reckoning you’ve now put in a thirty-hour shift and all I’m going to be doing is reviewing the files for the rest of the afternoon, so enjoy the match and the rest of the weekend and I’ll see you first thing Monday, when we’ll get stuck into this again.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  McCusker returned to his office in the Custom House where he found on his tidy desk a foolscap manila envelope proudly bearing the Mason, Burr & Co. logo, front centre. He quickly but carefully opened the envelope which contained two pages of the minutes, listing Wesley Whitlock III’s assets while a partner at the firm. Paper clipped to the two-page memo was a comp slip from the desk of Kurt Wolf and a note saying:

  Please find info as promised. If you should require any additional background info you can get me on my mobile number (below) over the weekend.

  Sincerely

  It was signed flamboyantly in blue ink by Mr Wolf himself.

  McCusker couldn’t be sure, but maybe Wolf wanted to appear to be going beyond the call of duty in his efforts to help the investigation. He brewed himself a cup of tea, photocopied the two pages, removed his Magic Marker from his desk, and got to work.

  Helped, no doubt, by Barr’s diligent investigative work into the seven boxes of files, he honed in on familiar names.

  Samuel and Natalie Gilmour had bequeathed a staggering £1.7 million to Whitlock Senior and Dan Kidd had bequeathed £530,000 to the American, while Maud Stephens had invested £750,000 into WWIII’s hedge fund. McCusker spent about twenty minutes going through the remainder of the list but Barr’s trio were by far Whitlock’s biggest benefactors. The remaining twelve names had left him a minimum of £5000 and a maximum of £10,000 with a collective total of £91,500.

  Whitlock was a full partner in the Mason, Burr & Co. although it didn’t mention his shareholding. He also had local investments in UTV, Harland and Wolff, O’Electronics, and DMC—the DeLorean Motor Company. It was this in particular that caught McCusker’s attention. Had John DeLorean, a fellow American, been an acquaintance of Whitlock? He checked Whitlock’s client list and found no sign of DeLorean. Perhaps he’d been a client of one of the other partner’s in the firm? McCusker made a mental note to check this with Kurt Wolf.

  DeLorean had been a charismatic American who’d persuaded Maggie Thatcher to invest taxpayer’s hard-earned money into his company in return for his promise to base the company in employment-deprived Ulster in general and Dunmurry in particular. All seemed to be going well until DeLorean himself was caught on camera trying to pull off a rather large drugs deal. His plan was to smuggle $24 million worth of cocaine into the USA. Supposedly, he’d earmarked the proceeds of this particular venture for his ailing company. DeLorean was duly convicted, but got off due to his lawyers successfully arguing that he’d been entrapped.

  Perhaps, McCusker thought, DeLorean had spent most of his time in legal boondocks wishing that if only Stephen Spielberg’s hit movie trilogy Back To The Future had appeared even just three years earlier – DeLorean’s stainless steel-panelled car with its iconic wing doors being one of the stars of the series – it would have meant a very different and somewhat more successful end to his story.

  All of Whitlock’s other investments were in the international blue chip league. Frustratingly, the partner’s minutes didn’t mention whether or not Whitlock had actual shares in the company and if so, whether or not he had subsequently retained them upon leaving the company. McCusker reckoned his mental list of questions for Wolf was now hitting ten, and he found himself dialling the mobile telephone number written on the comp slip.

  “Ah Inspector, I’ve been expecting your call,” Wolf offered, in his perfectly spoken English.

  “I’ve got a few questions – could we meet?”

  “Yes, when would suit?”

  “Immediately?” McCusker said, chancing his arm.

 
“That would be fabulous,” Wolf replied.

  McCusker wasn’t sure that fabulous was exactly the right word, but he wrote down Wolf’s address and hurried downstairs.

  Herr Kurt Wolf lived in a beautiful hundred-year-old house on Sandhurst Drive overlooking the spectacular Botanic Gardens. McCusker hopped in a cab resolving to walk home the long way round once he’d completed the interview.

  McCusker admitted that he’d somewhat overlooked Wolf up to this point. The German was in his mid to late fifties, wiry framed, and 5’ 10”. He wore his black curly hair short and was fresh faced with a few wrinkles around the eyes. Today Wolf was dressed expensively in his comfortable brown cord trousers, green V-neck-but-collared jumper and with a reddish cravat tucked into his jumper. He wore what looked like genuine Native American moccasins.

  As Wolf showed McCusker through to his study, he had the feeling that the house was a lot like the lawyer, in that there were several rooms he was never going to see.

  Wolf left McCusker explaining that he wasn’t a detective but a freelance policeman employed by the PSNI, to go over and turn his very professional and hi-tech-looking stereo system off. McCusker liked the music – it sounded so melodic he thought it must be Mozart.

  “Will you join me in a drink?” Wolf offered, as he showed McCusker to one of the grand leather chairs guarding either side of the generously stoked fireplace.

  “Will there be enough room for both of us?” McCusker asked, repeating one of his father’s favourite lines but immediately regretting doing so, feeling it was perhaps a tad inappropriate.

  Wolf had a fit of laughter which nearly caused a seizure – tears literally ran down his cheeks.

  “That was so funny,” Wolf said, as he offered McCusker a couple of fingers of brandy.

  They settled in the extremely comfortable leather fireside seats. The large book-lined study had clearly originally been two separate rooms.