Mortal Taste

by J M Gregson

  The cue dropped on to the slate bed of the snooker table with a noise like a pistol shot. Clive Boby stood up and looked at the two men standing on the other side of the table. ‘There’s no tape to pin me down, Lambert. Even if I’d ever spoken to this man Lawson you spout about, I’d never have given you anything useful.’

  Lambert smiled. He had often found himself beset by shafts of sympathy when arresting murderers, who were too often ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances. For this man he had not a shred of sympathy. He felt only exultation in the rare arrest of that most elusive of murderers, the contract killer. He said, ‘How about, “I told Sheene he’d get what I gave Logan if he opened his mouth about anything”? I don’t see a prosecuting counsel letting that go. Of course, by then you’ll probably be pleading guilty, I should think.’

  He nodded to Hook, who stepped forward and pronounced the formal words of arrest: ‘I arrest you on suspicion of the murder of Peter Logan. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say will be recorded and may be given in evidence.’

  Hook had taken care to get between table and player, so that the snooker cue was no longer available as a weapon. Boby said nothing, but for the first time he had a hunted look, like a cornered animal. Lambert said calmly, ‘As well as my own car, there are two police vehicles outside. An Armed Response Unit is covering the rear of this house as well as the front entrance. There is no way out for you.’

  Clive Boby eventually moved out to the car in handcuffs, walking between two uniformed policemen with that slight limp which had helped to identify him. He did not look like a man who had killed at least eight men in his career.

  Lambert walked slowly round his garden in the soft gold of a still October sunset. He had the familiar flat feeling of anticlimax that he had now come to expect after an arrest and the conclusion of a murder case.

  Christine watched the tall, slightly stooping figure through the kitchen window with a mixture of affection and irritation. Her husband sniffed a rose, flicked earwigs from the flowers of dahlias which were still awaiting the doom of the first heavy frost, inspected the buds of the chrysanthemums he would move into the greenhouse at the weekend. He became more relaxed as she watched, moving contentedly from bed to bed, surveying his handiwork, appreciating the ripeness of autumn, planning what he must do during the winter.

  John Lambert enjoyed his garden, would protest to visitors that, even with his wife’s devoted help, he never had enough time to bring it to perfection. But at this moment, he was full of a silent delight that he would be able to go on making that complaint.