by Nicci French
‘Hello, is Chris Angeloglou there? Oh, Chris, hi. I was ringing… I wondered if we could meet for a drink. There’s something I wanted to talk to you about… No, I can’t do the evening. What about lunch-time? Fine… Is that the one in the square?… Fine, see you there.’
I replaced the receiver.
‘Stupid, stupid, stupid,’ I said to myself, consolingly.
Thirty-Three
A resource manager in a suit with strange lapels was trying to explain to me the philosophical difference between hospital beds as an accounting concept and hospital beds as physical objects that people can lie in, and by the time I half-understood it I realized I was running late. I tried to ring Chris Angeloglou but he was out. I conducted another meeting on the phone and another while walking along a hospital corridor. I cut even that short and ran to my car. I stopped to pick up a prescription for Elsie (as if there were any medicine which could cure lack of sleep in association with chronic naughtiness) and drove around the central Stamford car park, getting stuck for long periods behind people manoeuvring into tiny spaces when there were huge sections visibly free ahead.
By the time I puffed into the Queen Anne I was almost half an hour late. I immediately saw Chris seated in the far corner. As I drew closer, I saw he had made a complicated construction out of matches. I sat down heavily with a cascade of apologies and, naturally, it fell over. I insisted on getting drinks, and without waiting for any instructions I went to the bar and hysterically ordered two large gin and tonics, every flavour of crisps they had and a packet of pork scratchings.
‘I don’t drink,’ said Chris.
‘I don’t really, either, but I thought just this once…’
‘I mean I really don’t drink.’
‘What are you, a Muslim or something?’
‘An alcoholic.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really.’
‘Right. Can I get you a mineral water?’
‘This is my third.’
‘I’m extremely sorry, Chris. I know how busy you are. I got held up and tried to ring you but you were out. And now I’m babbling.’
Neither of us spoke for a moment and I tried to gauge how angry Chris was and whether this would do any good. He took a sip of his drink and attempted to give me a sympathetic smile.
‘You’re looking better, Sam,’ he said.
‘Better than what?’
‘We were worried about you. A bit guilty as well.’
‘There was nothing really to worry about. My ducking didn’t even give me a cold.’
He lit a cigarette.
‘Do you mind?’ I shook my head. ‘I wasn’t thinking of mat,’ he continued.
‘What were you thinking about?’
‘It was difficult for you, in different ways. We felt sorry for you.’
‘It was worse for other people.’
‘You mean the murder victims?’ Angeloglou laughed as if it required an effort. ‘Yeah. Well, it’s all in the past now. This new job must be good for you. We’re looking for that Kendall girl. You probably saw it on TV.’
I shook my head.
‘I don’t watch TV.’
‘You should. There are some good things on. American programmes mainly…’
Angeloglou tailed off and his eyes narrowed. He smiled inquiringly at me. This was the pause being left for me to explain why I had arranged this meeting.
‘Chris, what’s your version of what happened?’
The interest in his face slackened slightly, as if the dial had been turned down. He had a handsome face, dark, with prominent cheek-bones, a strong jaw-line, over which he sometimes ran his fingers as if he were surprised by its firmness. He was too neat for me. Too well groomed. He had been waiting for me to say that I had been wanting to get to know him better but had held back while the case was going on. But now, how about dinner some time and let’s see what may happen? After all, I was a professional woman and one of those feminists and had funny hair, all of which probably meant I was sexually adventurous. Instead I was still being neurotic about the case.
‘Sam, Sam, Sam,’ he said, as if soothing a child who had woken in the night. ‘You don’t have to do this, you know.’
‘I don’t have to do anything, Chris, that’s not the point.’
‘You had a terrible, terrible time. You were traumatized…’
‘Don’t tell me about trauma.’
‘And then you became a big heroine and we gave you lots of credit and were – still are of course – grateful to you. But it’s over. I know that you’re the expert and I shouldn’t be telling you this but you’ve got to let this go.’
‘Answer my question, Chris. Tell me what happened.’
He took a drag on his cigarette that was almost brutal.
‘I’m not interested in talking about this case any more, Sam. Everybody involved is dead. It didn’t go particularly well for anybody.’ I gave a sarcastic snort. ‘But we got away with it. I don’t want to think about it.’
I sipped deeply from one of the gin and tonics. Then I took a deep breath and said, more or less honestly, ‘Listen to me for five minutes and then if you’re not interested, I won’t mention it ever again.’
‘That’s the most promising suggestion you’ve made so far.’
I tried to put my thoughts in some sort of order.
‘You believe that Finn and Michael killed the Mackenzies, and then Michael cut Finn’s throat, even though it would have been easy for Finn to have been somewhere else with an alibi.’
Chris lit another cigarette.
‘For God’s sake, Sam, we’ve been through all this. I don’t have to justify these murderers’ behaviour to you. Maybe it needed two of them to do the murders. They’re sick, fucking psychos, who knows what they enjoy? Perhaps they got a sado-masochistic kick out of a fake murder.’
‘There’s the murder of Mrs Ferrer.’
‘Mrs Ferrer died from pulling a plastic bag over her head. It was a clear suicide.’
‘Perhaps. But that still leaves the murder of Danny and Finn. You were the ones who proved to me that Michael couldn’t have done it.’
‘I can’t believe I’m sitting here listening to this. Just concentrate for a moment, Sam. You made a statement to us saying that Michael Daley confessed to the murders. The forensic evidence from the boat-house clearly confirmed your statement. It is not reasonable to doubt that Daley and Fiona Mackenzie killed the Mackenzies and then that Daley, with or without Fiona Mackenzie, killed Danny Rees, and then Daley killed Fiona Mackenzie, disposing of any link with the crime. If he had managed the fake boating accident with you, then he would probably have got away with it.’
‘Can you think of any possible reason why Finn should have suddenly written a will leaving everything to Michael Daley?’
Chris was looking at me now with an expression close to contempt.
‘I don’t really give a fuck. Patients sometimes fall in love with their doctors, don’t they?’ He paused before resuming with cruel deliberation. ‘Women have been known to behave irrationally in times of great stress. Perhaps she was suffering from trauma, maybe her period was about to start. I’m afraid that this is the way that cases end up. If you’ve got the right people and not too many loose ends, then that’s good enough. Is this what you wanted to see me for?’
‘I thought you might be interested in hearing about a couple of funny things that happened to me in the last couple of days.’
‘Are you feeling all right, Sam?’
‘A couple of months ago I was out doing some shopping for clothes with Finn and I bumped into a woman I’d known at medical school.’
‘That’s fascinating. I think your five minutes are up…’
‘Wait. I met her again on Tuesday.’
‘Give her my regards if you happen to see her again,’ said Chris, raising himself from his seat.
‘Sit down,’ I said sharply.
Chris frowned, and I saw he was wondering w
hether to ignore me and walk out, but he gave a sigh and sat back down.
‘She had read about me in the papers. She told me it was a funny coincidence because she was a family friend of the Mackenzies. Yet when we had met before, she hadn’t recognized Finn.’
Chris’s face was impassive, still waiting for the punchline.
‘Is that supposed to mean anything?’ he asked.
‘Yes. Don’t you think it’s strange?’
He laughed harshly.
‘Had Fiona lost a lot of weight, Sam?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did she avoid meeting people face to face?’
‘Yes.’
‘So maybe your friend didn’t get a proper look, maybe she didn’t have her glasses on.’
‘And then, when I was reading through Finn’s guide to South America, I accidentally came across a passage, and it was the same – I mean exactly the same – as something she had said to me about her trip there. As if she’d learned it by heart.’
Now he was cracking his knuckles, a look of boredom and, almost, of contempt on his face. He didn’t bother to say anything.
‘And a funny thing happened to me yesterday. I was dashing out of the house and I grabbed a hat at random and it was laughably too small. It just bobbled on top of my head. It made Elsie laugh.’
‘I suppose you had to be there to appreciate the full humour of the situation.’
‘You see this trilby?’ I picked my hat off the table and put it on my head. ‘Fits nicely, doesn’t it? It was Finn’s.’
‘Shrank in the wash, did it? Well, I’m certainly glad that you shared that with me, Sam.’
‘You put your hats in the washing-machine, do you Chris? That explains one or two things. Did you do science at school?’
‘This is crucial to the inquiry as well, I assume. Yes, I did science at school, but I bet I wasn’t as good at it as you were.’
‘I bet you weren’t. Look, I know that reality is complicated, people act illogically, evidence is ambiguous. But…’ I drained my gin and tonic and slammed the glass so hard on the table that people looked around and Chris shifted uneasily.
‘I hope you’re not planning to drive home.’
‘But,’ I repeated. ‘This is not just messy. It’s impossible. Until the discoveries in Michael’s boat-house, it was possible that Finn and Danny ran away and then committed suicide. It may have been unlikely and uncharacteristic and deeply upsetting for me personally but it was possible. It may be likely and characteristic that Michael killed Finn and Danny and staged their suicide but it is totally impossible.’ I paused. Chris didn’t respond. ‘Well, isn’t it?’
He tapped his cigarette.
‘In the way that you’ve described it, maybe. But Michael is dead. Finn is dead. We don’t know what happened.’
I don’t know if it was the gin and tonic on an empty stomach or my anger but I felt as if the hum of the saloon bar had entered my head like tinnitus. Suddenly I felt in a rage.
‘For Chrissake, just pretend for a moment that you aren’t a policeman, just pretend for a moment to be an intelligent ordinary person who cares about what actually happened. I mean, don’t worry about it, there are no other policemen eavesdropping. You don’t have to seem big in front of the boys.’
‘You arrogant…’ With an obvious effort, Chris stopped himself. ‘All right, Sam. I’m listening. I’d really like to know. If we’re so stupid, tell us what we’ve missed. But before you start, I would like to add that you are in danger of becoming a serious embarrassment. To your employers, to us, to yourself, to your daughter. Is this what you want? To become famous as a crazy obsessed woman on the loose? But tell me, I’m listening.’
For a moment I seriously considered picking up the ashtray from the table and braining him with it. Then I cooled down and thought only of throwing the remains of the second gin and tonic over him. I counted to a large number.
‘I thought I was doing you a favour,’ I said.
‘So do me a favour.’
I felt as if I were going to burst.
‘I’m not going to do you a favour but maybe I can help you to think for yourself.’
‘I’ve got to go.’
‘One more minute. The burnt-out car was found on March the ninth. What was the original theory? They had killed themselves by setting fire to the car with a rag stuffed into the petrol tank, nozzle, whatever?
‘Yes.’
‘But since traces of both Finn and Danny’s bodies were found in the boat-house, it is clear that they were dead when the car was set on fire, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘And Michael couldn’t have done it. Right?’
‘Sam, as I told you, there are some loose ends, some inconsistencies. But try to understand this.’ He was speaking very slowly now, as if English was my second language. ‘We know as a matter of certainty that Michael Daley killed Danny Rees and Fiona Mackenzie. OK? We haven’t yet ascertained exactly how. OK ? He was a clever man. But we will find out, and when we do we will inform you. OK?’ His face was positively twitching with the effort to remain calm.
I spoke very slowly in response. ‘Michael was in Belfast at the time. Yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘So what is the only other possibility?’
‘There are various other possibilities.’
‘Such as?’
Chris shrugged.
‘Lots. Some form of incendiary device, for example.’
‘Was any evidence of such a device found?’
‘No.’
‘The car would need to have stood there with the dead bodies for two whole days. That’s not possible either. And what would have been the point of doing it anyway? Why go to all that trouble to start a fire?’
‘He was a psychopathic killer.’
‘Humour me for a moment, Chris, and stop talking like a fool. I’m not going to hold you to anything you say, I’m not going to embarrass you again, but just tell me how the car must have been set on fire.’
Chris mumbled something.
‘Sorry, I didn’t hear what you said.’
He lit another cigarette, blowing out the match with absurd deliberation and placing it in the ashtray before replying.
‘It is possible,’ he said, ‘that Daley had some sort of collaborator.’
‘No, Chris, you’re wrong. It is impossible that he didn’t have a collaborator.’
Chris looked at his watch and stood up.
‘I’ve got to go.’
‘I’ll see you out,’ I said.
He was gloomily silent as we walked back towards the police station. Only when we reached the steps at the main entrance did he turn and face me.
‘So you think,’ he said quietly, ‘that we ought to reopen the investigation and try and identify this mysterious assistant?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Why not?’
‘Because I know who it was.’
‘Who?’
‘It was Finn,’ I said, enjoying his gasp of disbelief. ‘In a way.’
‘What do you mean, “in a way”? What the fuck are you talking about?’
‘You find out,’ I said. ‘That’s your job.’
He shook his head.
‘You…’ he said. ‘You’re…’
He seemed completely at a loss. I held out my hand.
‘Sorry about being late. I’ll be in touch.’
He took it as if he thought it might give him an electric shock.
‘You… Are you doing anything tonight?’
‘Yes,’ I said, and left him there on the steps.
Thirty-Four
I could hear steps coming towards the door, see a shadow through the frosted glass, so I stood up straighter in the intimidating porch and put a polite and hopeful expression on my face. I suddenly realized how shabby I was looking. The door was opened a few inches and a woman’s face peered round it. I could see she was still in her dressing gown and had applied only half of her make-u
p. One eye was lined and mascara’d and ready for the day; the vulnerable other one wasn’t.
‘Laura?’ I said through the gap. ‘I’m so sorry if this is a bad time. I was wondering if I could have a few minutes with you.’ On her face, the expression of irritated politeness towards a stranger who’s called at the wrong time was giving way to surprised and, I thought, slightly appalled recognition. ‘I’m Sam Laschen,’ I added. The door opened wider, on to the wide hall with its polished wooden floor, the restrained sense of money and taste and a daily cleaner.
‘My dear, of course, you came to a party, didn’t you, with…’ Alarm and interest pursued each other across her features.
‘With Michael Daley. Yes. I’m sorry just to turn up like this. I need to find out something and I was wondering if you could help. I can come back later if that’s more convenient.’ She looked at me with narrowed eyes. Was I the gossip item of the year or a dangerous madwoman? The gossip item prevailed.
‘No, that is, I don’t have to get to the hospital till later today, I was just saying to Gordon yesterday… Do come through.’ I followed her solid chenilled shape into the room where a few months ago I’d eaten asparagus spears and drunk white wine. ‘I’ll just go and get some clothes on. Would you like some coffee? Or tea?’
‘Coffee.’
‘I won’t be more than five minutes,’ she said, and as she went up the stairs I could hear her calling urgently, ‘Gordon. Gordon!’
While she was out of the room, I pulled out the mobile phone which the hospital had supplied me with and which I still felt self-conscious using, and dialled.
‘Hello, yes, could you give me Philip Kale? No, I’ll hold.’
I gave my name and after a few seconds he came on to the line.
‘Dr Laschen ?’ He was obviously puzzled and, as before, in a hurry.
‘Yes, well, it’s just that I was wondering if you could tell me Finn’s – Fiona Mackenzie’s – blood type. From your autopsy report.’
‘Her blood type? Yes, of course. I’ll call you back.’
The prospect of a mobile phone bleeping in my pocket was too much.
