Echoes of Lies

by Jo Bannister

  “Brodie, I’m not! You don’t understand. This isn’t about money - at least, not the way you think. You know I wouldn’t lie about that.”

  “I don’t know anything about you, Daniel! I know you say you don’t lie - and then I find this.” She gestured furiously at the printouts. “You said you didn’t want anything from the Ibbotsens. So what am I supposed to make of it? And incidentally,” she added in her teeth, “I noticed that was another of those not-quite-denials. It’s not about money, at least not the way I think. Well Daniel, I don’t know what to think. I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve misjudged you completely. I thought you were a decent man who got caught up in terrible events.”

  “What do you think now?” His voice was low.

  Brodie waved at the paperwork again. “That this isn’t the act of someone who genuinely wants to put the matter behind him. There’s one honourable way of getting even with the Ibbotsens, and this isn’t it. What do you want? Tell me, and I’ll tell them. But don’t skulk round like a thief.”

  “I didn’t. I mean …” His voice ran up thin; he swallowed and tried again. “I was worried. Something you said, that I kept thinking about. I thought, maybe I was imagining it. I wanted to be sure. I didn’t want to do something stupid. Say something stupid. I didn’t want this to happen: that we’d end up shouting at one another.”

  “Something I said?” Confusion was undermining her anger. She went on looking at him, taking in the earnest nodding, the pale eyes, the gentle unremarkable face. A glimmer of understanding flickered in the fog. “Daniel - is this about us?”

  “Us?”

  “You and me. We’ve spent a lot of hours together this last week. We helped one another through some difficult times. It’s been an emotional roller-coaster; there were moments it felt like you and me against the world. In those circumstances you can’t not get close to someone.”

  Daniel nodded fractionally. “I suppose.”

  Brodie let her eyes fall shut for a second. So that was it. She really hadn’t seen it coming. But she should have done. He’d had a close encounter with death: he’d come back to her voice and her face, and not much else. He had no family that she knew of, no friends who cared enough to find out what became of him. He had a job he enjoyed and an absorbing hobby; and one of them had got him into this, and the other was now a emotional minefield.

  She was all he had left. She’d taken him into her life because he needed a friend and she needed to repair some of the damage she’d done. And he’d thought it was more than that.

  “Oh Daniel,” she sighed, sitting on the bed beside him, “I’m sorry. This isn’t your fault, it’s mine - I should have realised what you were thinking, how it must have seemed to you. I wanted to help, and instead I’ve managed to confuse you.

  “What I said before: I didn’t mean it. I hope we are friends. I hope we’ll stay friends whatever happens between me and David. If anything does: dear God, I’ve known him even less time than I’ve known you!”

  “Then, be careful,” he murmured. “That’s all I’m asking.”

  Her gaze was astute. “No, it isn’t. You’re asking me to make a choice: David or you. You’re saying I can’t enjoy his company and stay friends with you. Or - no, that’s not quite it, is it? You think it’s more than friendship. You think of you and me the way I think of me and David - not an item yet but with the potential to become one.

  “I’m sorry but you’re mistaken. I’m not in love with you; I’m never going to be in love with you. I looked after you because I felt responsible. My relationship with David can’t come between us because there is no us, not in that sense. I’m sorry if anything I said or did misled you. I felt guilty about my part in all this and tried to make amends. I’m sorry if you took that for something else.”

  His voice cracked with distress. “Brodie, please - listen to me - !”

  “No. Daniel, I understand that your emotions are in tatters: I keep telling you what to do about that but you won’t do it. You won’t talk to a counsellor, you insist on handling it your own way - but your way involves hacking into private sources of information and driving a wedge between me and a man I like! I won’t be manipulated like that - not by you, not by anyone.

  “Get a life, Daniel. Stop trying to live mine.” With that she turned on her heel and left.

  Daniel went on sitting where he had been all along, cross-legged at the top of his bed, fighting back tears. He knew, if he was to have any kind of a future, he was going to have to master this tendency to break down when anything upset him. Being understandable didn’t make it all right. He was tired of it, never mind anyone else. He clenched his jaw and shut his eyes, waiting for the weakness to pass.

  When he heard footsteps and a knock at the door, he thought she’d got as far as her car, found herself regretting what she’d said and come back to hear him out. Still barefoot, he sprang from the bed and hurried to the door, flinging it wide. “Brodie -”

  “Sorry,” said Jack Deacon woodenly, stepping inside before the welcome could be withdrawn, “close but no coconut. Can I have a word?”

  “Er - of course.” Wondering, Daniel closed the door behind him. “Sit down.”

  Inspector Deacon did as he was bid. He made a considerable presence: it took a brave man to try and move him when he was standing in an open doorway. Seated, he had the same air of permanence as the Rock of Gibraltar.

  He looked around him. “When did you come back here?”

  “Last night.”

  “Got tired of being nannied, did you?”

  “I thought it was time to start getting back to normal.”

  “Mm.” Deacon nodded like a plush Alsatian on a parcel-shelf, giving as much away. “Any problems?”

  “Problems?”

  The policeman raised an eyebrow. “The first time you tried you stuck it just long enough for me to drive away. If Mrs Farrell hadn’t given you a bed you’d have had to doss down with the drunks under the pier.”

  Daniel smiled faintly. “No. No problems.”

  “Mm,” said Deacon again. “And so, emboldened by success, you thought you’d go back to work. How did that work out?”

  Daniel regarded him for some moments before answering. “Inspector Deacon, you obviously know what happened at school this morning. I expect Mr Chalmers called you; I know he thought somebody ought to be looking after me.”

  “I thought somebody was. I thought Mrs Farrell had appointed herself to the task. Then five minutes ago I watched her stalk out of here radiating righteous indignation as if you’d goosed her. You didn’t, did you?”

  Daniel breathed steadily. “We - there was - It was a misunderstanding.”

  “What kind of a misunderstanding?”

  “It was personal.”

  Under the tented eyebrow Deacon’s pupil held a little red spark. “Sonny, this is a criminal investigation. There’s no such thing as personal.”

  “It was nothing to do with your investigation.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.”

  They faced one another in a silence that lasted almost a minute. Neither man backed down or looked away. Finally Daniel said quietly, “No, Inspector, I will.”

  Deacon hid his surprise in a sniff. “You know, Danny, when this is over I’m going to have somebody behind bars. If it has to be you, so be it.”

  “You’ll have to find something you can charge me with first. I don’t think dislike is enough.”

  The policeman grinned wolfishly. “I don’t dislike you, Danny. I just don’t think you’re being honest with me.”

  “I’ve told you the truth.”

  “Ah, but have you told me the whole truth?”

  “You’re the detective.”

  Deacon returned his smile, without the gentleness and also without much humour. “Funny thing about that. People who say it never go on to add, ‘So I’ll give you all the help I can.’”

  “Then I’ll make your day,” said Daniel. “Inspector Deacon, I�
��ll give you all the help I can. Why are you here? Has something happened?”

  Deacon pursed his lips and answered obliquely. “Being a detective isn’t what people imagine. It’s not often about fast cars and gunfights and leaping on suspects from a great height. Mostly it’s about observation. You gather all the information you can about a crime and the people involved in it, and you look for things that don’t fit. Things that could have happened the way you’re being told they happened, but actually never would.

  “There’s a certain inevitability about events. People do things the obvious way unless they’ve some reason not to. Nine times out of ten what happened is what looks to have happened. There’s always the chance that a one-armed man killed Mrs Kimble, but nine times out of ten it’s going to be her husband.”

  “And you’re observing me.” It was a statement rather than a question.

  “I am, Danny, I am. Any way you cut it, you’re the key to this. You know more than you’re telling me. The question is, how much more. Do you know who tortured you and tried to kill you? Do you know why? Have you worked out who Sophie is?”

  “It’s a common enough name, Inspector. Check the school register: it’s one of those names that’s been fashionable in recent years.”

  “Sophie’s a little girl?”

  Daniel felt himself flush. “I know of several Sophies under the age of about fifteen. One’s a Rottweiler. I don’t know any women of the same name. That doesn’t mean there aren’t any.”

  “And of these several Sophies, which one went AWOL?”

  “I believe the Rottweiler did, once or twice. Inspector, why are you treating me like a suspect? If I could cast light on what happened to me, don’t you think I’d want to?”

  “You would think so, wouldn’t you?” mused Deacon. He was patting his pockets, looking for something. Daniel watched with a kind of fascination. He had no idea what was coming next, only that Jack Deacon wasn’t a man to waste time on meaningless gestures. Everything he said and did was significant.

  Finally he found the right pocket and pulled out a packet of cigarettes and a lighter. “You don’t mind, do you?” It was clearly a rhetorical question: his thick fingers moved with a dogged determination that no amount of protest would have interrupted. He opened the packet, drew out a cigarette and tapped it slowly on the back of his hand. He put it between his lips and picked up the lighter. All the time his eyes were on Daniel’s face.

  Daniel’s eyes were locked on the end of the cigarette, the snout of the lighter. When Deacon’s thumb made the little flame shoot he started visibly. Even so, it wasn’t the sight of the policeman lighting up that made the blood drain from his face. It was the smell. Hot and fragrant. The only thing missing was the scent of his own burning flesh.

  Of course, he knew what Deacon was doing. It was only a cigarette. No one was going to hurt him. He leaned his head against the back of the chair and shut his eyes. “I don’t have any ashtrays. There’s a saucer under the plant-pot you could use.”

  Deacon drew on the cigarette and exhaled slowly in Daniel’s direction. When he leaned forward for the saucer, Daniel shrank back.

  Deacon smiled unkindly, but behind that was more respect than Daniel could have guessed. There was nothing casual about Deacon’s cruelty: it was calculated and purposeful, but it hadn’t achieved anything because Daniel Hood was a stronger, braver man than anyone ever gave him credit for. Deacon had met all sorts of people, both villains and victims, in the course of his professional life, and he still couldn’t pigeon-hole Daniel Hood. It tasked him, as the whale tasked Ahab. He needed to understand, and he believed now that Daniel was deliberately thwarting him.

  Yet still he recognised that he was dealing with a basically decent human being, and it bothered him that they always ended up like this, fencing with words and gestures until someone - no, to be honest, until Daniel - got hurt. It worried him that another kind of police officer could have gained his trust and got at the truth that way. But the only way he knew was head on, like a bull at a gate, and though it worked on thugs and cowards it didn’t work on Daniel, only served to entrench the differences between them. Deacon regretted that, but couldn’t seem to find a way round it.

  He leaned back with a sigh and returned to what he’d been saying. “But then, you’d also think that someone who’d survived what was done to you would keep out of sight until those responsible had been caught. Instead of which you turn up at the general hospital and the school where you work: two places that anyone wanting to know if you were dead would be sure to look. And now you’ve come home. Danny, you’re not behaving like someone whose life is in danger from unknown assailants. You’re behaving like someone who knows the danger has passed.”

  “We talked about that.”

  “I know we did. You said you weren’t prepared to spend the rest of your life running scared. It sounded pretty convincing at the time. Now I’m not sure. There’s getting quietly on with your life and hoping for the best, and there’s making a public spectacle of yourself.”

  Daniel’s gaze dropped. “I lost it. I thought I could handle it, and I was wrong. Someone said - the wrong thing - and I lost it. Mr Chalmers had to knock me down and sit on me.”

  “That’s how I heard it,” admitted Deacon. “Not exactly discreet behaviour, you’ll agree.”

  “Discretion wasn’t my top priority right then.”

  “No. But you see, it should have been. You shouldn’t have gone anywhere near that school. And if you had, you shouldn’t have done anything to draw attention to yourself.”

  “It wasn’t planned.”

  “Not the panic attack. But you deliberately exposed yourself to the circumstances which provoked it, and I still don’t understand why.”

  Daniel shook his head wearily. “I’m sorry if you think I’m behaving oddly. You’re probably right. But I still can’t tell you anything you don’t already know. If we’re finished, I’d like to rest now.”

  Deacon went on watching him, his expression planklike, the thoughts condensing in his head battened down behind it. Of all the suppositions, possibilities, suggestions and inferences surrounding this case, he knew only two things. Daniel Hood had been the victim of an horrific attack; and he needed to rest now.

  He stood up. “All right, I’ll leave you in peace. I can’t guarantee everyone else will do the same.”

  “Time’s getting on. I think it’s over.”

  The policeman eyed him in exasperation. “Danny, whoever these people were, at least one of them was a professional. I thought that before: now I know it. I’ve seen his portfolio.

  “You weren’t the first living canvas he’s worked on. I’ve come up with three previous masterpieces I can definitely attribute to him, and four more that have everything but the signature. If we don’t get him soon he’ll die of lung cancer.”

  Daniel swallowed. Despite living with the memory for eleven days he still found it difficult to talk about. “Cigarettes?”

  “Not invariably. Sometimes it’s cigars, sometimes it’s lighters; he’s used a poker, and once it was a miniature blow-torch. You know, the kind that cooks use to finish off a créme brulée and put a nice crackling on pork. But always something hot and domestic. Innocuous. You carry a gun or a knife, even a pepper spray, and you’ll have a lot of explaining to do if someone opens your briefcase. But cigarettes and a lighter? Even the blow-torch: drop in a white hat and a copy of Mrs Beeton’s Cookbook and nobody’ll give them a second look.”

  He didn’t want to ask; he didn’t want to know. Except that part of him did. “What - happened - ?”

  “To the others? Dead, Danny, every one of them. The three definites and the four probables. He gets around, him and his smoker’s compendium. One was in Aberdeen, another on the Isle of Wight. At least, that’s where she floated ashore. She may have come off a boat. I say come off: I mean of course they threw her off. It was as good as shooting her. The shock of salt water on that many burns killed her befor
e she could drown.”

  Daniel said faintly, “She …”

  “Oh yes,” said Deacon briskly, “he’s an Equal Opportunities torturer. A professional, like I said. And as far as we know, you’re his only failure. Apart from those who paid him, the only living witness.”

  “I never saw his face.”

  “I dare say you’d recognise the voice again, though. I don’t think you’ll forget that in a hurry. He must know you’re alive by now, and he won’t be happy about that. It’s the thing about professionals: they don’t like leaving loose ends.”

  “I’m sure he has more to worry about than whether I’ll ever hear his voice again. Unless he does a bit of television on the side, it isn’t very likely.”

  “No,” allowed Deacon. “But unlikely isn’t the same as impossible. I think he’d be happier with impossible.”

  “Tell you what, Inspector,” said Daniel, finally losing patience. “If he comes back here, you’ll be the first to know.”

  Deacon shook his head grimly. “No, Danny, you will. I might be the second, but it’ll already be too late. Your only defence against this man is to tell me who he is.”

  “I don’t know who he is!”

  “Who hired him, then.”

  “I can’t tell you that either.”

  Deacon didn’t believe him. He was still shaking his head as he tramped heavily down the iron steps. When he heard the door close above him he glanced back, and then he took the cigarette from between his lips and tossed it onto the shingle. He’d never got a taste for the things, even when he was young enough to want to.

  Chapter 23

  By the time she got back to the office Brodie had stopped fuming, was beginning to feel uncomfortable about things she’d said. She knew she’d over-reacted. So Daniel was behaving strangely: after what he’d been through it was no wonder. Her obligation to him didn’t end because the mystery was solved, or because he’d developed a schoolboy crush on her. The fact that she now had more tempting demands on her time didn’t change anything either.