Gone to Ground (40 page)

From his office, Will telephoned Helen and told her the news.

"I don't believe it," Helen said.

"Neither did I. But it looks as if that's what's happened. Killed him and then, later, when he'd calmed down, got a grip, did his best to make it look like a robbery."

"I don't bloody believe it," she said again, louder this time.

"Steady now," Will said, a smile in his voice. "Don't want you suffering a relapse."

"Fuck off, Will."

"That's what McKusick said, more or less."

"Who else is doing the interview?"

"I thought Nick."

"Lucky bastard."

"I'll keep you up to speed."

"Do that."

Will broke the connection. Christine Costello's BMW was easing into a parking space outside. For the first time in a long while, he wanted a cigarette. Swallowing down the last dregs of lukewarm coffee from his cup, he popped an extra-strong mint into his mouth instead.

Time to move.

The interview room was windowless, the slight hum of the air conditioner prone to break, at intervals, into a brief asthmatic stammer. McKusick sat upright, staring at a point somewhere above Will's head; his cream shirt was unbuttoned at the neck and at the cuffs, the sleeves rolled back above his wrists, his arms resting on the wooden table, fingers touching.

Alongside him, Christine Costello's leather jacket was the colour of dried blood. Her hair was in brittle reddish curls and her makeup sculpted into place. There was a silver ring superimposed with the head of a snake on the second finger of her left hand and a single earring in the shape of a crucifix, also silver, dangling from her right ear.

She might have stepped, Will thought, from the cover of one of those battered Hells Angels paperbacks he'd nicked from his older brother and read under the blankets as a kid. Mick Norman. Thom Ryder.

Will switched on the recorder and identified everyone present in the room. At a nod from him, Nick Moyles took an eight-by-ten coloured photograph from a manilla envelope and slid it across the table toward McKusick.

"Can you tell us," Will said, "how your fingerprints came to be on this length of wood that was recovered from the River Gam seven days ago, between Magdelene Street and St. Johns Bridge?"

McKusick tapped his fingers together and took his time in answering. "No comment," he finally said.

"You recognize it?"

"No comment."

"Part of a hockey stick, isn't it? A broken hockey stick?"

McKusick said nothing.

"Your game? Hockey?"

No response.

"Stephen's maybe? Bit of a hockey nut when he wasn't at the cinema? Mark, is that it?"

"No comment," McKusick said.

He said the same for the best part of thirty, forty minutes, either that or he said nothing, his eyes fixed on a scarcely visible mark near the midpoint of the table or on the line, beyond the top of Will's head, where the wall and ceiling met.

From time to time Costello nodded her approval; once she glanced across at Will as something close to a smile slid down her face.

Keeping his temper, level-toned, Will pegged away like a swing bowler trying for the channel just outside off stump. Line and length, line and length. A different sport to hockey, more patience required. All he needed was a snick, an outside edge.

Every once in a while, he sat back and let Moyles take over.

Still nothing. No comment. No comment. No comment. The same straight bat.

"My client..." Costello began.

"Your client wants a break?"

"Exactly. A drink and the opportunity to stretch his legs."

"All that talking," Will said. "His throat must be in danger of seizing up."

Costello's eyes were green, a deepish green Will didn't think he'd noticed before. A new pair of contact lenses, perhaps. "Shall we say fifteen minutes?" she asked.

"Why not?" Will said. They had more than twenty hours left from the permitted twenty-four and, as long as they came up with something else, there shouldn't be too much difficulty in applying to extend that to thirty-six if necessary. The officers searching McKusick's flat had failed to find anything relevant so far, but there was still plenty of time.

He was on his way back to the interview room when his phone rang. "All right," he said, listening. "Let me get back to you."

When he dialed Helen's number and she didn't answer on the fourth or fifth ring he thought she might be out or resting, but instead of her answer phone cutting in it was Helen herself, slightly breathless. "Just doing a little gardening," she said.

"I thought all you had was a couple of window boxes."

"So?"

"Lesley Scarman rang. She wants to talk to you. Something about the book her brother was working on."

"Fine. I'll give her a call. You got a number?"

Will had. "If it's anything important..."

"Don't worry, I'll let you know. How's it going with McKusick?"

"Slowly."

"I've got a pair of secateurs here, if you think that might help."

"If it gets that desperate, I'll be sure to call."

There was a pause during which he could clearly hear her breathing.

"Take care," he said, and hung up.

Helen listened to Lesley's account of her visit to Orkney with a mixture of fascination and disgust.

"At least it makes some kind of sense," Helen said, "of Prince's reluctance to let your brother go ahead. His wife being the product of an incestuous relationship. Not exactly the kind of thing you want broadcast if it can be avoided."

"I keep thinking about the state she was in that time that I saw her. Lily."

"You think she knew?"

"According to Irene she did. She reckons they told her the day of the accident."

"I wonder why?"

"Why what?"

"Why they told her then? After all that time?"

"Maybe they never intended to. Perhaps it just came out."

"Or they couldn't live with it any longer. One of them, at least."

Lesley hesitated, letting a thought run through her mind. "Natalie asked Irene pretty much the same thing. Why she was willing to show the paintings now, let it all out into the open. Irene said it was stifling her, stopping her from breathing. 'I had to let it go before I die,' that's more or less what she said."

"How was Natalie?" Helen asked. "She must have been devastated."

"Gobsmacked. Physically sick. And then ... I don't know. Stunned. Silent. I've never known her so quiet."

"Poor girl."

"She'll get over it. Come to terms. Under that flaky exterior, she's made of pretty strong stuff."

"I hope you're right."

"What you said earlier," Lesley continued, "about this being reason enough to explain Prince doing whatever he could to keep it all under wraps..."

"Yes?"

"You think it was reason enough for him to have had Stephen killed?"

Helen took a breath. "We've just made an arrest."

"Prince?"

"Mark McKusick."

"For ... for Stephen's murder? That's crazy. I don't believe it."

"That was what I said. But I'm afraid you're going to have to get used to it. There doesn't seem to be much room for doubt."

"But Mark ... I don't..."

There wasn't anything else she could say.

"I'd better go," Helen said and ended the call.

She made notes of the conversation so that she could pass them on to Will and was checking through them when there was a ring at the bell. A short woman in a smart green apron was standing at the door, holding a bouquet of flowers, predominantly yellow and purple.

"Yes?"

"Helen Walker?" the woman said.

"What of it?"

"These are for you." She held out the flowers, but instead of taking them, Helen reached instead for the attached card. One glance and she pushed it back from sight.

"Wrong address," she said.

"No, it's..." The woman began fumbling with her delivery book. I'm sure it's..."

"Take them. Give them to a hospital, an old people's home, anywhere. Just get them out of here. Go, go on, go." Stepping back inside, swiftly she shut the door in the woman's startled face.

Two hours later he phoned. "Hope you liked the flowers."

Slamming down the phone, she disconnected it at the wall, then switched off her mobile. Dar Williams was still on the stereo and she pressed play, the volume turned high. The last vestiges of gin were in the bottle, some slightly flat tonic and half a lime in the fridge. Helen made herself a drink, pulled the curtains closed, stretched out on the settee and closed her eyes.

***

"I want you to look at these," Will said.

This time the photographs that Moyles set carefully in front of McKusick were of Stephen Bryan's battered body in the shower, three showing him from the waist up, the remaining pair closeups of his head and face.

"Take a look," Will said again.

McKusick refused, his eyes focused once more above Will's head.

"Look," Will said. "Take a careful look. This is the man you loved."

With a flurry of hands, McKusick swept the photographs from either side of the table to the floor.

Lightly, Christine Costello touched his arm.

Nick Moyles retrieved the photographs and replaced them.

"I should tell you," Will said, "that before we came back into the room I had a call from the technicians who've been analyzing the piece of wood on which we found your fingerprints, and they say that it matches the splinters of wood that were found embedded in Stephen's skull."

"No!" McKusick shouted.

Reaching forward, Will gently tapped one of the photographs. "This is what the blows did to him," he said evenly. "This is what they did to his face, you see? His nose and mouth and eyes..."

McKusick jerked back in his seat, a harsh guttural sound choking from his throat as if he were about to be sick.

"You see?" Will said, in the same almost pleasant tone.

"Detective inspector," Christine Costello said, "I must protest..."

But McKusick had already slumped forward and the tears were beginning to slide down his face. His voice, when he started to speak, was so quiet they had to strain to hear the words.

"I called round, that evening. I know I shouldn't have. I'd promised Stephen I wouldn't, but I hadn't been able to stop thinking about him all day—you know, the way something sometimes gets into your head and won't let go. I had a couple of drinks after work and then went home but it didn't get any easier. I thought about phoning him, but I knew I'd probably get the answering machine, or he'd hang up, so in the end I went round. It was late I suppose, quite late by then, and I thought he wasn't even going to come to the door, and when he did he was in his dressing gown and he just stared at me, not saying anything, and then, after an age, he said, 'What is it?' and I said, 'I just wanted to talk,' or 'I needed to talk.' I can't remember exactly, and he said, 'You'd better come in.'

"And I almost didn't, he seemed so hostile, but he held the door open and I followed him through into the hallway and he said, 'I was just about to take a shower.' So I told him to go ahead and he shrugged and said okay, he wouldn't be long, so I went upstairs and waited in the study. I was really tense, I don't know why. I mean I was happy to be there, but at the same time it wasn't the same. Stephen, the way he was acting towards me, it was different."

"Detective inspector..." Christine Costello tried again to intervene, but to no avail. There was no stopping McKusick now.

"When he came out of the shower, I followed him into the bedroom and asked him what was wrong and he said, 'I thought we had an agreement.' And I told him I'd really needed to see him and he didn't say anything, and then I said, 'I shouldn't have come, should I?' and he said, 'No.' And then, I said, sort of making a joke of it, I said, 'Anyone would think you'd been expecting someone else.' And he said, 'Maybe I am.' Not serious, you know. But then he looked at me and said, 'I have seen someone, Mark, I think you should know. Just once so far, but I think I might see him again.'

"I was shaking, I remember, really shaking, and I asked him how it was, how it had been, with somebody else, and he smiled this gorgeous smile and said. 'Wonderful. It was wonderful.' And I hit him. With my fist. Punched him and kept on punching him till he managed to wriggle free and shut himself in the bathroom."

"I think you should stop," Christine Costello said. "I really think you should stop now."

McKusick gave no sign of having heard her. "Stephen's hockey stick was in the dressing room," he said, "leaning up against the wall. He'd hadn't played for years, not since he was at university. Just hung on to it for some reason. Used to keep it there, out of the way. I grabbed hold of it and followed him into the bathroom. He pleaded with me not to hit him anymore."

McKusick's breathing was wayward and harsh, broken now by sobs.

"I couldn't stop."

He buried his face in his hands.

"I loved him," he said. "I loved him so very much."

Helen woke with a start and pushed herself up from the settee. Her left shoulder was numb where she had been lying on it awkwardly, and there was a slight crick in the back of her neck. The digital clock on the DVD player read 23:17.

Easing back the curtains, she could see the car parked down at the curb, the vague shadow of a man behind the wheel. When he moved, she could see the white blur of his face. She let the curtain fall back into place, crossed the room, and went down the short hallway toward the front door, slid the bolt across, and double locked it with the key. Not anymore.

SIX WEEKS AFTER MCKUSICK'S ARREST, JUST A WEEK BEfore Irene Bast's exhibition of new paintings was due to open, a four-page piece about the show, illustrated with copious full-colour reproductions, appeared in the
Observer
magazine. Irene was, after all, a publicist's dream: a sudden, vivid flowering after years of silence; works of art with what could be termed sensational content. Add to that a father and sister who'd died together in a tragic accident and a film-star granddaughter with a reputation for wild behaviour, and placing the story was relatively easy. The
Observer
piece was followed up in the
Guardian,
the
Sunday Telegraph,
and—with much moral tut-tutting on behalf of middle England—the
Daily Mail.
BBC2's
The Culture Show
wanted to film a five-minute segment once the show had opened, and there were rumours that Tim Marlow was interested in doing something for Channel 5.