Thank God for Etta, who blew them out of the water with their victim’s last statement and eye-witness accounts. How could I possibly have murdered my dear friend and colleague Henry Solomon when I’d spent the entire evening with one Constance Bell and had arrived at my offices that night with her, meeting Louise Broomfield on the actual doorstep (she’d met my two companions outside in the police station’s waiting area and they had quickly filled in the sequence of events)? Did anyone actually see her client push the youth off the window ledge? Of course not, because he was trying to bring the poor boy back inside. And where was the murder weapon that had so cruelly mutilated Henry? Secreted away on Mr Dismas’ person? Hidden somewhere in the office? Where exactly was it? Nevertheless, the last repeated words of the dying youth remained ‘highly significant’ to the detective constables.
They could have held on to me for twenty-four hours, longer in fact, if so disposed, but the arrival of my old chum DCS Macaroon, who knew I was no killer, put paid to that. He advised them of my worthiness, ran through the evidence (or lack of) with them, complimented them on their keenness, then further advised them to have me released. By 3am the following morning, Saturday, Etta and I were making our way out into the sea-chilled, empty streets of Brighton.
‘They know who the boy was,’ Etta said as she led me to her car, which was parked in a side street, the nearest free space she could find when she had arrived earlier. The little racing-green Monza MX-5 now stood alone at the kerbside, cool white lamplight reflecting off its sporty bonnet.
I lit a cigarette, yearning for something a little more soothing. I was totally drained, my limp exaggerated, my hump even more humpish. In the course of the previous night I had declared my love, lost a good friend in the most horrific circumstances possible, been scared near to death, and had witnessed the death of a kid who might well have been my friend’s killer, or at least an accessory to the killing. And after this, I’d been grilled for several hours by the Law’s finest and thickest. Yet despite my exhaustion and aching spirit, I was interested in what Etta had to say.
Etta unlocked the two-seater’s doors, but instead of getting in, she leaned against the bodywork. ‘He was a local rent boy, originally from London. He’d worked Brighton for two summers now.’
I drew in on the cigarette as I rested against the car’s low bonnet. ‘You think Henry . . . ?’ I didn’t have to say more.
‘That would be my guess. Did he often work late at the office?’
‘Yeah, now that you mention it, quite a lot lately. Shit, I didn’t know.’ Sadness, disappointment, often has a release in anger. ‘You bloody fool, Henry!’
I could see why he’d done it, why he had brought the boy back to the agency yesterday evening. Where else would he take him? Henry’s mother was always at home and she certainly wasn’t the type of mother to understand her son’s sexual predilection. I guessed it wasn’t the first time Henry had used the office as a bedroom – it would account for all those early mornings he had put in, no doubt anxious to check out the place before anyone else turned up, making sure there was nothing amiss, no evidence of the previous night’s activities, even though, no doubt, he’d already done so before he had left and locked up! Bloody hell, Henry! You didn’t have to creep around like that, I’d have understood. And anyway, to use a rent boy when Brighton was the gay town of the South Coast! Safe sex was more than just using a condom, Henry! I thumped the metal behind me with the heel of my fist.
Etta put an arm around my shoulder. ‘He couldn’t help himself, Dis,’ she said. ‘I suppose he lived a lie so long he didn’t know how to pull out of it. Perhaps he couldn’t come to terms with his own sexuality himself, so revealing it to you was out of the question.’
‘We already knew.’ I was still seething.
‘Yes, and you kept quiet about it. That isn’t really acceptance, Dis, even though you meant it for the best.’
‘It was up to him, don’t you see? If only he’d opened up, confided in me . . . Maybe I could have convinced him that everything was cool, that it didn’t change him in our eyes in any way. Christ, things have moved on, we’re talking new millennium.’
‘From what you’ve told me before, Henry was terrified of upsetting his mother.’
‘She’s of another era, she wouldn’t have understood.’
‘He was her son. She would have accepted it eventually.’
‘I guess he didn’t want to take the chance.’ I gave a small groan. ‘I’ve just realized I should go and see her, let her know what’s happened.’
‘The police have already taken care of that. You can visit her later today at a more civilized hour.’ Etta took in a deep breath, as if savouring the fresh sea breeze that shivered through the lonely streets. Then she said: ‘Who was the girl, Dis? The crippled girl with the quite pretty face who was waiting for you at the police station?’
So much had happened that I’d completely forgotten about Constance. ‘Her name’s Constance Bell,’ I said.
‘I told her and the other woman – Louise Broomfield, the clairvoyant you told me about? – that it would be pointless for them to wait, the police might hold on to you for a long time. We had their statements, so there was no reason for them to stay.’ She looked at me under the harsh streetlight in an interested way. ‘Come on, Dis, you haven’t mentioned this Constance Bell before, so what gives with you two?’ There was a half-smile on her light-blanched face.
I tossed the remainder of the cigarette into the gutter and nudged myself off the car. Etta’s arm was still around my shoulder and she made no attempt to take it away.
‘I’d intended to walk back to the agency and pick up my car,’ I said, ‘but maybe you should run me home in yours. I’m beat and I’m sure you are too, but let me make you some coffee and tell you everything that’s been going on. Despite all the gabbing I’ve been doing to the police, I need to talk some more.’
She just nodded and climbed into the Monza, while I took one last look round, wary of the street’s shadows – and what they might conceal.
26
I noticed that my car, still parked on the double-yellow, had a parking ticket taped under the windscreen wiper. Great, all I needed on such a morning. The policeman stationed outside the agency’s front door looked down his nose at me as I approached, his hard face expressionless. He must have watched as the traffic warden slapped on the ticket, but I guess it would have taken an ounce of humanity to explain the circumstances to the illegal parking and the constable’s heart had no such measure.
‘Where d’you think you’re going?’ he asked when I tried to slip past him.
‘I’m Nick Dismas. It’s my company up there.’
He seemed to enjoy towering over me. ‘Yes, I know who you are and you’re not going up those stairs. It’s an SOC.’
‘I thought I might be able to help.’
‘It’s off limits, mate, ’specially to you.’
‘Is your lot up there?’
‘SOCO and CID.’
Scenes of crime officers, who would be photographing the area as well as dusting for fingerprints and searching for telltale marks, loose hairs, or anything else that might be useful in solving the case, together with a couple of detectives no doubt going through desks, diaries and files, generally snooping around.
‘Is Macaroon with them?’ I asked.
‘Detective Chief Superintendent Macaroon, yes.’
‘Would you let him know I’m here?’
‘It’s my job to keep people out, not run up and down stairs all day.’
There’s always one. In general, I got on pretty well with the local constabulary, most of whom, from CID to uniform, were a decent breed; but, as with any profession, you always seemed to come up against the mean-minded bastard of the bunch. Well, today I didn’t need it.
In front of him, I took out my mobile and tapped in my office number. ‘Is DCS Macaroon there?’ I enquired when the phone upstairs was answered. ‘Could I have a quick wor
d with him? Tell him it’s Nick Dismas.’
The policeman on the door watched me stone-faced.
‘Mac? Yeah, it’s Nick. Look, I’m down at the front door and the dickhead on duty won’t let me come up and see you.’ I winked my good eye at the dickhead.
The shout soon came down the stairs behind him. ‘Let him up, Collins!’
The policeman, who must have had ambitions to make it big-time as a nightclub bouncer, flushed red as he stood aside.
‘Carry on,’ I instructed him as I brushed by, the tiny venting of anger good for me: after the shock, sadness and depression of last night, I needed something to bite on.
He didn’t respond, but I felt his eyes burning my back all the way up the first flight of stairs.
There was blue and white tape across the open office door and I ducked under it. Oliver Macaroon, who was talking to the two zealot detectives who had grilled me at the station, turned towards me.
‘Nasty business, Dis,’ he said, holding out a hand in greeting.
We shook and the other two officers, by now fairly certain I wasn’t the villain of the piece, nodded in my direction. I nodded back and they went on about their business, rifling through open filing cabinets.
‘Hey,’ I said irritably. ‘You know, those files are supposed to be confidential.’
‘They should’ve had stronger locks then,’ came the surprisingly mild reply from the one I remembered was called Headley.
It was frustrating, but already too late to do anything about it. He continued to thumb through the client tabs, looking for who knows what?
The forensic officer, dressed in all-in-one white overalls, was dusting Henry’s desk with black powder, taking care to avoid the still-sticky blood and the drenched accounts book that had been half under the mutilated body, searching for ‘latents’, invisible deposits of natural skin secretions. Chalk outlined where my old friend and colleague had lain. I wondered if forensics had discovered any alien fingerprints yet – mine had been taken at the station and Ida’s and Philo’s would be taken later in the day for elimination purposes, if nothing else. The problem was that there would be scores of dabs, from the cleaning lady’s to the many clients who had visited the offices, so how could they all be identified? I shuddered at the bloodstains that were not restricted to the desk and the immediate area of floor beneath it, but splattered around the room as if some crazy artist had waved a red paint-covered brush around.
‘Anything yet?’ I asked Macaroon to distract myself.
‘Too early. Look, let’s go into your office and chat.’ The chief superintendent pointed the way, his words a command, not an invitation.
Macaroon was a tall beanpole of a man, six-two or more, his shoulders slightly stooped as if he were height-self-conscious. His huge ears stood at right angles to his head, like the open doors of a car, his nose strong, well-defined in a face that spoke of strength. His hair was a premature silver-grey and cut close to his scalp, a Grade Two at least. There wasn’t much humour in Mac, but behind the rather austere veneer there lay a quietly compassionate man dedicated to righting the wrongs on his manor. We had known each other a long time, since, in fact, we were both comparative rookies in our respective careers, and we had helped each other on numerous occasions, feeding bits of information that often put either one of us on the right path towards solving or resolving our own individual investigations (reluctant to become known as a ‘nark’ in the town, though, I was always careful as to the kind of information I passed on, and never once had any of it ever led directly to anybody’s arrest).
I went ahead and skirted my desk, which was still askew across the room. Mac followed me in, closing the door behind him.
‘Here,’ he said, placing his big hands on the edge of the desk, ‘let’s move this back to its original position. We’ve taken pics and video, and drawn a sketch, so we’ll know where it was.’
He shoved and I guided, and soon I was sitting behind the desk as though everything were perfectly normal. A soft breeze caressed the back of my neck, the window behind me still open. Mac brought over a chair and sat facing me.
‘Your men shouldn’t have broken into my private files, Mac,’ I complained.
‘We have a search warrant.’
‘That wouldn’t cover access to confidential records.’
‘We do what we deem necessary.’
That they certainly did, and whining about it would get me nowhere. I shook my head resignedly, an act rather than a reaction – I had to let him know my displeasure somehow. He took no notice though.
‘What else can you tell me about all this, Dis?’ he said, his scrutiny making me uncomfortable.
‘Honestly, nothing more than I told you and your officers last night. I came up here and found Henry lying across his desk, half-naked, dead, and mutilated. I heard noises from this room and when I entered I found the kid crouched in the corner.’
‘You told us he appeared to be frightened of you.’
‘If he were the killer he might have been afraid of what I would do to him. Besides, he was already in shock.’
‘We don’t believe he was the murderer.’
I leaned forward on the desk, pressing my knuckles against my chin. ‘How did you come to that conclusion? Apart from Henry, he was the only other person up here.’
‘With those injuries to the victim there would have been blood on the perpetrator, and plenty of it. Also, we found no weapon on the premises that could have caused such damage. We’ve searched the yards at the back and the road below your window, even the roof over our heads in case the boy threw anything up there when he was outside on the ledge.’
‘I didn’t see any murder weapon on him when he climbed out.’
‘We aren’t actually talking about a murder weapon as such. The victim was dead before any knife or instrument was used on him.’
I felt a huge relief that Henry had not been alive when those cruel outrages had been inflicted upon his body. ‘Then what did kill him?’
‘The first officer on the scene noticed that the victim’s tongue was protruding slightly from the mouth and on closer inspection he saw it was purplish, congested. Around the eyes – the parts not covered by blood, that is – there were numerous haemorrhaged capillary blood vessels. Your colleague was strangled, Dis.’
Once more, I felt relief that Henry had only endured strangulation. The thought of him being alive when his genitals had been cut away and his eyes torn out . . . I reached inside my pocket for a cigarette, the tenth, or possibly the twentieth of the day so far.
‘Our pathologist took an X-ray before carrying out the autopsy. He found damage to the thyroid and the cricoid cartilages, and most importantly the small bone just above the Adam’s apple was broken. All indications of manual strangulation, Dis, and that suggests immense force was used. You saw for yourself how puny the boy was. I doubt very much that he could have killed Henry Solomon.’
I thought it over as I lit the cigarette. ‘So who could have . . . ?’
‘The boy’s pimp, perhaps, if he had one. Another client, or even a jealous boyfriend. Or perhaps both Henry and the boy he’d picked up were followed here from the streets. This could have just been the work of some homophobic.’
‘Then why didn’t he finish off the rent boy as well?’
‘It could be that whoever the perpetrator was, he thought it was the older man, the predator, who should be punished.’
I closed the lighter and drew in on the cigarette, almost feeling the pollution nestling in my lungs, the sensation perfidiously comforting. Macaroon could be right, it might well have been a random killing. But somehow I knew it wasn’t. Some intuition – again – told me there was nothing at all random about Henry’s murder. I blew smoke across the desk.
The DCS now leaned forward. ‘What isn’t clear, despite what you told us last night, is what made you return to the agency so late.’
I explained yet again.
‘So you received a phon
e call from this Broomfield woman, who is supposed to be some kind of clairvoyant. You say she rang you and practically begged you to come here right away.’ Mac frowned. ‘I didn’t know you believed in that sort of stuff, Dis. Psychic sensing, talking to the dead, predicting the Lottery numbers? I thought you were much too grounded.’
It was difficult to reply.
‘And yet,’ the policeman went on, ‘at this woman’s request, you came to your offices straight away. Is there something you’re keeping from me, Dis? Has your company become involved with some dodgy customers, drug dealers, for instance?’
I almost laughed aloud. ‘Mac, our work is delivering summonses or writs, tracing people, surveillance, debt collecting and catching out cheating love partners or insurance fraudsters. And that’s just the “exciting” part of our job. Come on, you know how commonplace our work is.’
‘Nothing out of the ordinary recently, then?’
I was tempted to let him in on the Ripstone case, but two things stopped me: one was client confidentiality, and two was that Mac would have thought I’d finally flipped if I’d told him about celestial wings, disembodied voices, images in mirrors and every other goddamn thing I’d been through since Shelly Ripstone had walked through my door. Ollie Macaroon had always known me as a pragmatist, someone as down to earth as he was himself, and I wasn’t going to disappoint him now. What would be the point? Would it help him find the person or persons who killed Henry? I didn’t think so.
‘It’s all been routine stuff, Mac,’ I said.
‘You can’t think of a connection with any case past or present?’
I shook my head.
‘Henry Solomon had no enemies that you know of?’
I shook my head again. ‘None that I’m aware.’
‘Has anyone called you a monster before?’
That hurt. Christ, coming from Mac that really hurt. ‘No,’ I said flatly, ‘not directly to my face. You still think the kid was referring to me in the ambulance?’