Ascension Day

both know the truth of what’s going on here. And if you don’t, now we’ve got Mr Ormdern’s report to tell us.’

Truelle looked at the envelope reluctantly, as if unwilling to accept its existence. He felt his stomach sinking deeper with every double-time pulse-beat, and wished the floor would open up. Detail? He’d embellished with quite a bit of detail, he thought, even covering elements after the event that he thought the police would question Durrant about. ‘The first thing you saw about the murder was in aTV shop window late the next day…You’d made sure to avoid all newspapers and early morning TV… but then there she was suddenly…’ That hadn’t even come up in police questioning, but it was there nevertheless, embedded in Durrant’s sub-conscious. No, he’d added more than enough detail.

‘You’re wrong or misguided, or simply not telling the truth. I implanted no false memory on Mr Durrant, and I don’t believe for a minute that Mr Ormdern’s report suggests that I did.’ Truelle briefly challenged Ayliss’s smile as best he could with his own.

Jac didn’t flinch for a second, his steady gaze boring straight through Truelle. Unmoved, unimpressed. Again he continued as if Truelle hadn’t spoken. ‘So, we’ve covered incidental detail — or rather lack of it.’ He nodded towards the file. ‘But the part of the equation that was always missing was opportunity. When might you have been able to implant all of this in Durrant’s mind? The esteemed Mr Ormdern reckons you’d have needed at least an hour-long session, maybe more, for all that mental conditioning. But the problem was that all of the sessions were sequential with diary entries to match. No gaps.’

Truelle adopted again his best nonplussed poker face, blinking slowly, the writhing snakes of nerves in his stomach coiling tighter. It was like watching an impending car crash. Knowing that you wouldn’t like what you saw, that it would turn your stomach, but remaining transfixed all the same in case the cars miraculously missed each other at the last second, or just to see how dramatic and gory it might be.

‘And then I discovered this…’ Jac took the cassette player from his pocket and pressed play. Truelle’s voice with the date and time of the session, then two faint clicks straight after, which Jac ensured Truelle heard by turning up the volume. ‘That’s it right there, you see. Those two faint clicks.’ Jac quickly slotted in another tape and ran the same segment with Truelle announcing the date and time, again turning the volume up for the two clicks. ‘And again there… and the same on five other tapes. And the background noises too are different to the session where Larry describes the murder… and on which there’s only one click.’

‘I… I did the introductions afterwards rather than before on those. It happens a lot.’

Jac twisted his mouth as if he’d tasted something sour. ‘On its own, that story might wash. But, combined with Ormdern’s findings about lack of incidental detail, it answers how you did it. The sessions were mostly two a week, and you used one of the later sessions in your diary, just before Larry’s murder confession, to mentally condition him. Then you shifted all the other session tapes forward to cover it by putting in new intro dates and times. The gap was then shifted back five or six weeks, before the month of tapes with diary entries to match requested at trial. The gap wouldn’t have shown.’

‘You’ve got quite a vivid imagination there, Mr Ayliss, I must say.’ Truelle pushed a tame smile, but inside the writhing tension in his stomach had wormed its way through every vein and nerve-end. He pressed his hand firmer on the desktop to kill any visible trembling. ‘But if you really felt you had something with all of this, you’d be at the DA’s office right now with it, not sitting here with me.’

‘That’s where I’m headed next. I came here first to see what you had to say, purely as a courtesy. You see, if you turn State’s evidence, you could probably cut a deal that would keep you clean and clear, or at least doing easy time — six months, a year tops.’ Jac held one hand out. ‘If not, you’re probably looking at five years.’

Five years? Truelle swallowed anxiously. Though that was nothing to what he faced from Nel-M: thrown off a high building after a tango, or, if he was lucky, quick and painless: two bullets in a back-street parking-lot, like Raoul Ferrer.

Jac watched intently every small tic and nuance of Truelle’s expression. Everything in the balance; the final gauntlet down, the tension crackled like raw electricity between them. Jac knew that he didn’t have enough to go to the DA or Candaret. Everything depended on how Truelle responded to the bluff, which way he jumped now.

Truelle let out a sudden snort, half-laughter, half-derision. ‘Do you really think I’d do something like this? Conspire to frame an innocent man?’ Truelle leant forward, his voice firming with each word. ‘If so, you’re deluded, Mr Ayliss. Because I’d never, ever have agreed to something like that.’ The second truth to pass between them: he never would have gone along with the scheme if he’d believed Durrant had been innocent.

Jac flinched fleetingly at the fresh conviction in Truelle’s voice, but hopefully covered well, feeling in that instant as if they were two poker players bluffing the hell out of each other. The game to see who crumbled and folded first. He kept his stare level and even on Truelle, laying on thick the Ayliss drawl.

‘Yes, I do believe that’s exactly what you did. Because I believe this man actually committed the murder.’ Jac took from Ormdern’s envelope one of the photos Stratton had taken of Nelson Malley and slid it towards Truelle. ‘Do you know this man?’

‘No… no, I don’t.’

Truelle had hardly glanced at the photo. ‘Are you sure?’ Jac pressed, sensing a niche of uncertainty again.

‘Yes, I’m… look, Mr Ayliss.’ Truelle’s red-faced bluster resurfaced. He pushed Malley’s photo back across the desk-top. ‘Forget this man, and any others you might wish to put in the frame. The DNA evidence puts Durrant at the murder scene. He was there that night, and he killed Jessica Roche. Get used to it.’

Truelle glared his words home hard, clinging to his belief in them: DNA! The final raft of moral justification he’d held on to all along. He was doing nothing wrong, because in the end Durrant had done it. Roche and Nel-M had been telling the truth all along: he was guilty.

But with each word and accusation of Ayliss’s, he’d found himself drifting further and further into a sea of doubt, with that raft all that was left to cling to. No, no, no… no! Durrant did do it! He killed her! And if Ayliss did finally prise his grip from that raft, there’d be nothing to hold on to… sailing free into the night air as Nel-M let him loose from his dance grip.

‘I hear what you’re saying,’ Jac said, and even if Truelle did finally break now, Candaret might say exactly the same when he laid it all before him: ‘This is all very well, Mr Ayliss, but the DNA evidence puts Durrant there. There’s no other possible explanation: he killed Jessica Roche.’ Jac took a fresh breath. ‘But if they can set Durrant up so perfectly with everything you’ve helped them with — then I’m sure they also worked out how to set up the DNA evidence. Only nobody’s worked out how yet.’

Further adrift… Truelle clinging so hard, his nails dug painfully into one thigh. He stood up abruptly. ‘I’d like you to leave now, Mr Ayliss. I believe we’ve discussed everything we have to.’ Get Ayliss clear of his office before he fell apart completely.

‘I know it’s hard to face.’ Jac grimaced tautly. ‘But deep down you know the truth of what’s happened here, Mr Truelle. And you’re probably the only person left now that might be able to save Larry Durrant.’

Last few fingers wrenched loose… sailing free. Truelle didn’t respond directly or even look at Ayliss, simply buzzed on his intercom. ‘Mr Ayliss is leaving now, Cynthia.’ And put the hand quickly back on his desktop, bracing as he felt himself sway slightly, as if he’d been drinking.

Jac wrote down his Ayliss cell-phone number and slid it across. ‘And remember, be careful where you call from with anything too juicy or incriminating. Your phones might well be bugged.’ He slipped Malley’s photo into the envelope and looked back from the doorway as Cynthia held the door open. ‘It’s not going to simply go away, or be any easier to face in front of the DA. Especially with five years hanging over your head.’ Jac smiled tightly and waved the envelope. ‘Twenty-four hours — again, purely as a courtesy. Then I go to him with all this.’

Nel-M had been tapping his fingers so incessantly against the steering wheel, he could feel them starting to go numb. Where the fuck was she? Already twenty-five minutes Ayliss had been in there, and still no sign of her.