by Oliver Tidy
‘She didn’t have to. She went in to retrieve the Spain, 2011, CD.’
Romney was suddenly very interested. ‘How do you know?’
‘She was in and out in four minutes. She had to know exactly where it was to be so quick. She couldn’t have been looking for anything else.’
‘I thought you said you were passing by.’ Marsh made no reply. ‘Well, she must have been disappointed not to have found it. How can you be sure that she was specifically after the CD?’
‘She showed it to me.’
Now, Romney was confused. ‘I thought you said it was safely locked away in your desk.’
‘The original is.’
He laughed. An unusual event it occurred to Marsh. ‘DS Marsh have you been hiding your light under a bushel? Maybe I’ve been underestimating you.’
‘There’s a lot of it about, sir.’
‘Eh?’
‘Nothing.
‘So what did she have to say for herself?’
‘Her story was that Emerson had confided in her that he was using the images to apply some pressure to someone captured on it.’
‘You sound like you don’t believe her.’
‘She lies naturally.’
Romney pushed back in his chair, the better to think. ‘Blackmail is a strong motive for murder. Who was it?’
‘She claims not to know. I pressed her hard.’
‘It would be very convenient for us, serendipitous even, if this CD proved to be the reason Phillip Emerson was murdered.’
‘With respect sir, if the CD is something to do with it, it won’t be the reason he was killed. It was what he was trying to do with it.’
‘Fair point. So, why was she so keen to get her hands on it?’
‘Said she wanted to destroy it, make sure it didn’t fall into the hands of anyone who might be tempted to do something ‘wrong’ with it. She said some of the people on it were her friends. She also said she and Emerson had disagreed strongly about his intentions for it.’
‘How noble of her. Doesn’t have a very high opinion of her fellow Man does she?’
‘Perhaps she just judges everyone by her own standards.’
‘Meow. Maybe we should have Mrs West in for a more formal chat.’
‘Like I said, I pushed her pretty hard, but she might have just been spinning me a line.’
Romney checked his watch. ‘What time is the meeting with Kenneth Lane?’
‘Half an hour.’
‘And what does he know about our visit?’
‘I made it with his secretary. I said it was a legal issue I needed to discuss with him.’
‘And you didn’t mention you are police?’
‘No.’
‘Good. Better to catch him cold. It’ll be worth it just to see the look on his face. I don’t like solicitors, especially those who seek to profit from defending scumbags.’ Marsh found herself wondering if there was anyone Romney did like. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I’ve just got time for a smoke.’
Marsh trailed him out of his office and they made their way across the CID floor. A computer technician was leaving carrying a computer tower. Wilkie was staring forlornly after him.
‘Problem?’ said Romney.
Wilkie avoided all eye contact with Marsh. ‘Virus, sir. Corrupted everything. Can’t open any of my files. All the car vandalism data is on the hard drive.’
‘The Parking Medal Man?’
Wilkie tensed, ‘Yes, sir.’
‘But you back everything up, don’t you?’
‘Should all be somewhere and we’ve got it in paper form,’ said Wilkie, with what Marsh interpreted as false optimism.
‘Any developments?’
‘No sir, not yet.’
Romney grunted and continued on out of the squad room. Marsh didn’t even look back.
Wilkie flopped down into his seat and stared at his useless monitor. He was exhausted and the prospect that all his digital documentation regarding the lunatic car vandal had been irretrievably corrupted and wasn’t backed up, despite his repeated best intentions to do so, deepened his depression and darkened his mood. Not only had Marsh fucked him up with his work, but she had hurt his pride and his ego in a way that made him squirm to contemplate. He had actually pleaded with her, virtually begged her, not to grass on him. He despised himself for what she’d reduced him to. She had degraded him. To ice the cake of his misery, she’d deceived him into giving her audio testimony of his guilt. It might be nothing that could ever be admissible in any court, but it wouldn’t need to be. If it ever got out, he’d be a laughing stock. If Romney ever got wind of it, he’d be finished.
On top of this, he’d spent from eight at night till one in the morning for the two nights since his chat with Romney watching his illegally and obtrusively parked car from bushes waiting for the bane of his life to materialise and thump it with a hammer. It was a desperate tactic of a desperate man and there had been many times in the quiet, uncomfortable, still hours of his self-imposed vigil that he’d wondered what the hell he was doing. As if this wasn’t enough, the baby wasn’t sleeping well and he could find no sanctuary within his modern rabbit hutch, with its plaster-board-thin walls, from its constant crying for the few fruitless hours he was managing to spend in his bed.
He would not be able to keep his night time activities up indefinitely. Regardless of the effect they were having on his temperament, his wife was complaining at the ‘overtime’ that he’d been doing. For being stuck in with the infant on her own without help all day and all night, she was at least expecting to see something extra in his bank account because of it. She thought they might be able to afford a new sofa for the lounge. The thought of owning up to her that his extra-curricular activities were unpaid wasn’t something Wilkie wished to dwell on. Wilkie yawned expansively, rested his head on his folded arms and before he appreciated what was happening, fell asleep.
*
The secretary from the front desk led them up the contemporary metal and glass staircase towards the solicitors’ offices on the first floor.
Romney shared his opinion of the building with Marsh during their ascent. ‘More like a poncy architects’ office than a legal practice.’
Kenneth Lane’s office was located at the front of the building overlooking the main road. His name was impressed upon a letter-box-sized strip of metal screwed to the door. The secretary knocked lightly and opened it standing aside for them to go in. They were expected. Or rather Kenneth Lane had been expecting a professional appointment, not a couple of police officers, one of whom he’d had several unpleasant encounters with. The smile, which he’d fixed to his face to welcome his visitor, faded quickly to be replaced by a look of annoyance. His eyes went between the two of them as the door was gently closed.
‘Detective Inspector Romney. I have an appointment scheduled with a client now.’
‘Nice to see you, too,’ said Romney, acting injured and making himself comfortable in one of the two chairs the visitor’s side of Lane’s impressive desk.
‘I made the appointment to see you,’ said Marsh.
Lane looked further annoyed. ‘Why didn’t you say you were the police?’
‘No one asked.’
‘That’s neither a funny nor a clever answer Miss?’
‘Detective Sergeant Marsh. We have met.’
‘Really? I don’t remember. What do you want?’
‘Sit down,’ said Romney. ‘And you Sergeant.’ They sat. Romney picked up a silver framed photograph from the corner of the desk nearest him. ‘This the wife and kids?’
‘Yes.’
‘Very nice.’ He showed it to Marsh who nodded approvingly.
‘What do you want, Inspector? I don’t believe that we have any outstanding cases between us, do we?’
‘I don’t believe that we do,’ echoed Romney. ‘We’re actually here on a more personal matter. Wonder if you can help us with our enquiries. Phillip Emerson.’
Lane visibly relaxed
. ‘Oh, yes. Terrible business. Pretty gruesome, I heard.’
‘You could say that.’
‘You’re here because we were both members at the golf club, I suppose.’
‘You could say that,’ repeated Romney. ‘How well did you know him?’
‘Not terribly. He was club captain so of course I knew him for that. We played in a couple of foursomes and a couple of club tournaments together. I saw him around the club house and the course.’
‘That it?’
‘I believe so.’
‘So not great friends then?’
Lane’s manner had softened noticeably. ‘Sorry, no.’
‘You’re sure about that?’
A germ of suspicion edged into Lane’s look and reply. ‘If you’ve got something bothering you, Inspector, I’d appreciate it if you just got on with it.’
‘Fair enough.’ Romney removed the buff A4 envelope from his jacket pocket and briefly enjoyed, once again, the effect that such an innocuous thing could have on a man with secrets. Kenneth Lane’s eyes locked on to it and the muscles around his jaw tightened up. Romney put the envelope on the table between them.
‘You want me to look in it?’ said the solicitor.
‘That’s the idea.’
Slowly, Lane withdrew the set of photographs. He went through them carefully, his confidence and colour seeping away with each change of image. He laboured over one in particular. Romney could guess which it was. They waited.
‘Where did you get these, Inspector?’
‘Never mind that just now. What have you got to say about them?’
Lane looked up sharply. He wasn’t cut from the same cloth as Masters. ‘What do you mean? I do hope you haven’t come here to moralise with me, Inspector. There’s nothing illegal here.’
‘No, just immoral.’
‘Who the hell do you think you are talking to me like that?’
‘I’m the man who’s investigating a murder and these sordid little snap shots could have something to do with it.’
‘Would you care to explain that?’
‘All in good time. First of all, you do admit that is you in the photographs?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you confirm for us that these were taken in Spain and that you and the other gentlemen featured are engaged in visiting a brothel?’
The use of the term brothel seemed to hit Lane like a slap. He was silent for a long moment.
‘I was hoping you might be able to help us off the record for now,’ said Romney. ‘Perhaps it could stay that way. It really depends on how relevant these turn out to be in our investigations. Of course, if you’d rather have some legal representation, we don’t mind if you want to call in a colleague. Or we can take a trip down to the station.’
Perhaps, thought Romney, there was something that reminded him of Masters in Lane’s reaction to this. Some shared way of dealing with their shame deep down in the primitive cores of their brains.
‘Oh dear.’ Lane, let out a long breath and stared disconsolately at the photograph which had taken his attention. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. There’s no fool like an old fool, is there?’
Kenneth Lane allowed himself a look into the future. He saw that, even if by some chance the photographs never became public knowledge, Romney, a professional adversary, would always have something over him – some leverage for the time he needed it and the time after that and the time after that. Because Kenneth Lane realised in that instant that he would do anything, forever, to keep them secret. Because if they found their way into the public domain the effects on his private and professional lives would be devastating. And, say Romney, by some further miracle, managed to suppress them entirely, keep them buried – although why would he? – would he expect consideration in future dealings as a mark of his gratitude? Would he, Kenneth Lane, countenance such a thing? Would he be prepared to compromise himself professionally? Of course, he would. He’d do it to protect his family from the fallout and shame of his stupidity. He’d do it to protect himself and his vanity. He’d do it because the disgrace and consequences of the alternative didn’t bear thinking about.
Romney read something of these thoughts in the man’s eyes when he looked up to meet his own and it gave the policeman cause for some small sense of remorse for the situation he had engineered and arrived at prepared to gloat and enjoy. He felt momentarily shabby. He wondered if there wasn’t a way through it all without creating a wake of broken lives and destruction.
‘Listen,’ said Romney. ‘Believe it or not, I have no great desire to be a human wrecking-ball, not of families anyway, not over something which is probably essentially nothing more than the regrettable behaviour of a group of drunken men let off their leashes away from home for a few days. There but for the grace of God and all that. I just need to know if these have anything to do with the death I’m investigating. Be straight with me and I promise you that I’ll do all I can to contain them.’ Romney waited while Lane, like a Mr Hobson famously before him, considered his options.
‘It would appear that you have me well and truly by the short and curlies, Inspector,’ said Lane, bravely mustering a smile. ‘Do I have a choice?’
‘Do you have anything to hide?’
‘Only these,’ said the solicitor, gesturing towards the images. He collected them up, carefully replaced them in the envelope and handed it back to Romney.
‘Then you don’t really have a choice,’ said Romney.
Lane told them more than Masters had been able to, but that, he hastened to point out, was because he was certainly less drunk than Masters on the evening in question.
The excursion to the club in the hills which overlooked the surrounding countryside, after hitting a few bars in town, had been Emerson’s idea. In fact, to Lane, with hindsight it seemed part of an agenda. No one knew what was waiting for them. It didn’t even occur to them at first that it was a brothel. But as the night wore on and the hostesses’ clothes began to come off, as they cavorted around with each other and guests and then they started to disappear upstairs with the gentlemen visitors, it became all too evident. But by then each and every one of them, according to Lane, was in a state of unrestrained arousal. He had wondered afterwards, he half-jokingly told them, whether the drinks had been spiked with some sort of aphrodisiac.
Some while after they had returned and it seemed that all had been repressed, if not completely forgotten, Emerson had visited Lane to speak with him about bringing some influence to bear on his behalf with designs he had on some property that the golf club owned. Lane was on the board of club trustees and the committee. Coincidentally, so were three of the other men who had been invited away and gone and taken full advantage of everything on offer. All were family men with plenty to lose.
‘Was he blackmailing you?’ said Romney.
‘No. Not then, he wasn’t. He hadn’t shown me the pictures. He would gently remind me of the secrets we shared. He wanted me to consider helping him. He began by telling me that he’d make it worth my while. I imagine he was using the same tactic with the others, but it was never something I discussed with any of them. I like to think that blackmail would have been a last option for him. We were friends, do you see?’
‘And did you?’
‘What? Favour him? No, Inspector. I do have some scruples.’ He smiled thinly.
‘What if he’d threatened you with exposure?’
‘I don’t know. Probably I would have succumbed. I’ve too much to lose.’
‘But it didn’t get that far.’
‘No. Somebody killed him before it could.’
‘You realise that all you’ve told me makes you a suspect?’
‘I do, but possibly less of one because you heard it from my own lips. Or maybe that’s just what I’m counting on, eh Inspector? Sorry, shouldn’t be flippant. I didn’t kill him and I don’t know who did. I’m genuinely sorry that he’s dead. We were friends, even if he did cheat at golf. I like to think that Phill
ip wouldn’t have stooped to blackmail. I can forgive him his deviousness and opportunism regarding our stupidity, but I couldn’t have forgiven him that.’
Lane identified the three other men who were on the board of trustees. Romney assured him of confidentiality regarding that.
‘What are you proposing to do now, Inspector?’
‘Continue our investigations. Of course, I’ll be calling on these three,’ he waved the piece of paper that Lane had written the names on. ‘I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention any of what we have discussed to anyone, especially any of these.’
‘Don’t worry on that score. I have no wish to implicate myself in any of it. I just want it all to go away.’
‘When was the last time you saw Emerson?’
Lane thought. ‘Last week at the club.’
‘And spoke to him?’
‘Same.’
‘No phone-calls going to show up on his mobile phone records?’ Lane shook his head. ‘I’ll need your mobile number.’
Lane dictated it and Marsh wrote it down.
‘And where were you on the night he was murdered?’
‘Ah, I wondered if we’d get to that. At home with my family, Inspector. Will you need to verify that?’
‘Not yet.’ Romney stood indicating the meeting was over.
‘Thank you for what you’ve offered,’ said Lane.
Romney said, ‘I can’t make any promises, you understand?’
As they reached the door, Romney turned and said, ‘One thing you can do for me. Speak to Masters. Let him know that none of this Spanish business will come out unless it proves unavoidable. I was a bit hard on him yesterday.’
‘Really?’ said Lane, a hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth. ‘You do surprise me, Inspector.’
*
Exiting the little private car park attached to the law practice Romney said, ‘Now that’s what I call a productive consultation, Sergeant. I’d have happily paid his fat hourly fee for that. I can’t tell you how long I’ve dreamed about getting something on that stuffed shirt.’
Marsh looked at Romney with a mixture of wonderment and sad resignation. ‘And there’s me actually believing that somewhere under that armoured exterior beat a human heart, sir.’
