Upright Piano Player (27 page)

“Let me tell you what the situation is. The police can hold you here for twenty-four hours—then they must either charge you or release you. If they want to make further inquiries, or to consult the Crown Prosecution Service, they can release you on police bail on condition that you return at a set date.”

Henry nodded, but did not ask a question. Walter continued, deliberately impersonal and matter of fact. He wanted Henry to be aware that he was now in the land of due process—that every utterance had a consequence—that no question would be casual and no answer should be unguarded.

“In my opinion, in the light of your previous encounters with Bateman, release on bail pending further inquiries is possible, but we’ll see.”

Henry looked up. “It was self-defense.”

“Yes, I have no doubt that it was.” Walter’s tone was warmer. They were entering the crucial stage of their session.

“However, it isn’t straightforward and before we go in for the interview, I want you to understand what in law justifies a plea of self-defense. I mean, really understand, for there is only one justification and if you stray from it, we have no case.”

Walter paused to let the words sink in.

“Your only defense is that you perceived a threat to yourself and then took reasonable steps to defend yourself.”

“Well, I was threatened. He had the saw in his hand.”

“Yes … but there will be a question of whether he intended to use it.”

“What was I meant to do—wait until my throat had been cut, just to be certain?”

Walter was patient. “This is where the concept of reasonable behavior applies—the law would agree that it would be unreasonable for your swing of the bat to be posthumous.”

“I took the same view.”

“Nevertheless, I want you to be prepared for the kind of questions you’ll get. Some of them will sound hostile, but they will not be inappropriate. The police will be interested in your state of mind when you swung the bat. If they believe you acted in anger, or with a sense of revenge, they will probably charge you.”

“What should I say?”

“Tell them the truth. I’m not coaching you—I’m just pointing out that it’s no defense in law to be angry or vengeful, but it is a defense to feel threatened and fearful.”

Henry looked troubled. “What if there are mixed feelings?”

“There often are, but there’s always a predominant one. Would you have hit him if he had dropped the saw?”

“No.”

“The rose would still have been destroyed? There would still have been the months of persecution? You would have still been angry?”

“Yes, but …”

“But you wouldn’t have felt under threat.”

“I see.”

“They will also be interested in whether your degree of self-protection was reasonable. A baseball bat is classed as an
offensive weapon and they will make a judgment on whether its use was excessive.”

“Jesus, I’m the victim here. He attacked me.”

“A man is dead, Henry. There have to be questions.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

“It would also be helpful to have on record your regret at the outcome of the evening, that is, if you feel it. Which I am sure you do.”

“I wanted him gone, not dead. I hit him on the shoulder. I didn’t aim for his head.”

For the first time, Henry looked upset. The adrenaline rush had subsided and he hung his head to hide his tears. He had killed a man, not intentionally, but it had happened.

Walter talked on, repeating some of his earlier points, giving Henry time to recover.

Two detectives conducted the interview. Cautions were issued and the session was recorded. Henry had seen the scene so often on television that he found it hard to take the proceedings seriously.

The leading questioner was Detective Inspector Harkness, a young man with a Birmingham accent and gelled hair, cut just too long to be spiky. He was soft-spoken and insistent. Henry assumed that he had entered the police force as a graduate and spent very little time in a helmet. He was wearing a black suit and was buttoned up in more ways than one.

“Mr. Cage, could you tell us again what actual damage the victim had done to your property before you challenged him earlier this morning?”

“He had destroyed a rose at the front of my house.”

“A rose bush?”

“Strictly speaking, it’s a climber, not a bush.”

“But it is just a plant, is it not? Not particularly uncommon or valuable?”

“No.”

“Do you consider that arming yourself with a baseball bat and wielding it with fatal consequences was a reasonable response to the loss of a rose?” He paused. “Be it bush or climber …?”

“I didn’t strike him because of the rose. I hit him because he was about to attack me with the saw.”

“Quite. How high had Bateman lifted the saw when you hit him?”

“I don’t know. I saw the movement and reacted. As I said, I thought he was going to strike me.”

Unexpectedly, Harkness stood up, pushing back his chair.

“How would he have done that with a nine-inch blade? Lifted it high and brought it down on you, like a saber?”

He mimed the action.

“I don’t think so, do you? Not much momentum—not with a nine-inch blade—and he would have to have been very, very close to you to cause any damage. More likely, if he had intended you harm, he would have thrust the saw at you as with a dagger—like so.”

He pushed his arm forward in a series of fast, jabbing movements before sitting down.

He was out of breath and waited a few moments before continuing.

“You might have been in danger from a forward movement of his arm but there was no forward movement, was there? You say he only
raised
his arm, is that correct?”

“I saw his arm move upwards. I didn’t know whether it was a prelude to a thrust or a slash. I was alarmed and swung the bat.”

Walter was pleased. Henry was staying on strategy.

Harkness picked up a file and began turning the pages. The silence was stagy, an obvious attempt to ratchet up the tension.

“I see you have quite a history with Bateman, Mr. Cage. Undoubtedly, an unpleasant man who has been persecuting you for many months. From the records it seems, sadly, we have not been able to give you the protection you deserved. You must have felt frustrated about that?”

“At times, yes. But I accept that the police need proof before they can act.”

“It must have made you angry?”

“I was angry with Bateman, not the police.”

“And were you still angry in the garden this morning? You said in your earlier statement that you were angry that he had killed a rose that you and your ex-wife”—he looked down at the paper to get the name right—“Nessa had planted thirty years ago. I understand that she has recently passed away. I’m sorry to hear that.”

He closed the file.

“So how did you feel when you saw what he had done to something that obviously meant a lot to you—had meant a lot to both of you?”

The ploy was obvious—a cheap attempt to unsettle him, to play on his emotions—and Henry knew the appropriate response.

“Upset” was the word he should use; a passive, reasonable, woolly-cardigan kind of a word, but it did not describe what Henry had felt. Even anger did not do justice to his feelings; he had felt rage—a searing, vindictive rage. The destruction of the rose had seemed like an attack on Nessa, on their history together.

“I was very angry.”

“Were you still angry when you struck him?”

“I thought he was going to attack me with the saw.”

“Were you still angry when you swung the bat into his head?”

“I didn’t swing the bat at his head. I hit his shoulder, the bat bounced up and hit his head.”

“You have not answered my question, Mr. Cage. Were you still angry when you hit him?”

Henry hesitated. He was one word away from safety, but to say it would have been an oversimplification. He had to be accurate.

“I wasn’t particularly self-aware at the time. It was not a moment for introspection.”

Henry had not quite kept the sneer out of his voice.

“I repeat the question, Mr. Cage. Were you angry when you hit him? All I need is a yes or no.”

“It’s not that black and white. Of course, I was angry, but I wouldn’t have swung the bat if he had not raised the saw. I thought he was going to attack me. I knew he was a violent man.”

After the breakfast rush and before the lunch crowd arrived, Jack usually had a cup of coffee at one of the outside tables. It was the time of day when Nessa used to drop by and every day he missed her company. Not that he was ever alone for long. His regulars, seeing the empty chairs at the table and ignoring the newspaper spread out before him, would often sit down and join him.

“Jack, thank God you’re still here—everyone at the hotel is new. Nobody knows me!”

He looked up, the croaky voice familiar.

“I hear you’re still smoking, Joan. How you doing?”

He pulled out a chair for her. Every summer, Joan and her husband came to the Ritz-Carlton for three weeks, and every day they crossed the boulevard for a late breakfast at Jack’s.

“Where’s Warren—getting the newspapers?”

“I guess he’s in New York.” She hesitated. “We’ve split up.”

He looked at her for signs of damage, but everything seemed as normal. She wore her silver hair cropped close to the skull and it suited her. She was a pixie of a woman, in her early sixties and still trim. He assumed she had been the one to pull the plug.

“I’m sorry to hear that. You guys were together for a long time.”

“Thirty-four years.” She shook her head in wonder.

“We separated last month. We flew back from California and I asked him to move out. But life goes on, and here I am, business as usual.”

Arlene brought over coffee and a smoked salmon bagel for Joan.

“Good to have you back.”

They air-kissed and Arlene, sensing some seriousness in the air, moved off.

“So what happened?” Jack was curious.

“We had a row.” She paused. “About Scrabble.”

“Scrabble?”

“I know, I know—everyone laughs. But listen to this and tell me if I’m wrong. The man’s not all there, believe me.”

She took a bite out of her bagel and Jack had to wait. She would not talk with her mouth full.

“Before Warren would play a game, he had to empty the bag and count all the Scrabble letters—every last one of them. For years he’s been doing it. I said to him in the hotel, ‘Why do you do that? It’s driving me nuts. You put them back in the bag yourself just three hours ago—you think there’s a Scrabble thief in the Bel Air?’ ”

She took a gulp of coffee.

“So he says, ‘When I play, I like to play with a full set of letters. I like to be sure, that’s all. What is it? A crime?’ So I let him have it. Yes, you shit, it is. It’s the crime of obsession. It’s the crime of being a jerk. I’m as mad as all hell, and he
just goes on counting and explaining. ‘Let’s say I’m holding a Q and I know there are four U tiles and three of them are already in play, then I know there’s a fourth U in the bag, so I hang on to the Q in the hope of getting the remaining U, but if the fucking U is on the carpet, then I make the wrong fucking decision, see?’ ”

Jack is laughing and she smiles.

“Don’t tell me.”

“So, it’s over?”

“He’s coming down at the weekend. He wants to talk.”

“Bring him over for breakfast. I don’t like to think of you two apart.”

She put her hand on his arm.

“Anyhow, that’s enough about me. How have you been? How’s my friend Nessa?”

He was just about to tell her when his cell phone rang. He excused himself, glad to put off the moment.

He took the call on the move, walking away from the tables and into the car park. When he came back to the table, he looked stunned.

“A friend of mine in London has been arrested for murder. Some guy came at him with a knife and he was just defending himself. Jesus, it doesn’t make sense.”

“That’s dreadful,” Joan said, thinking not of Jack’s friend, but of Warren, alone in New York, and perhaps in peril.

Henry’s arrest did not entirely surprise Walter, but he remained confident that the charge would be dropped when the Crown Prosecution Service had gathered more evidence. He had hoped that Henry would have been granted bail pending further investigations, but it was not unreasonable for the CPS to treat the evidence at this stage as prima facie. He could understand their reasoning.

Henry had killed a trespasser, not a burglar. Colin Bateman had made no attempt to enter Henry’s house, and it was reasonable to assume that he would have left the garden after destroying the rose had he not been discovered. It was self-evident that he had brought the saw to cut through the trunk of the rose and not as an offensive weapon. The enterprise had been carried out at night. He had not expected to meet Mr. Cage, let alone attack him. There had been no intent to harm. In contrast, Mr. Cage had armed himself with a baseball bat before leaving the house, and presumably had been prepared to use it. By his own admission, he had been angry when striking Bateman. Since there had been no witness to the events in question, there was only Henry’s word
that Bateman had threatened to use the saw as a weapon. On the face of it, a man had been bludgeoned to death for tampering with a rose bush. Walter conceded that there was a case to answer.