I were being grilled for a murder. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replied.
“Are you sure you didn’t see a used condom in there, Mr Silkstone? The one that Peter Latham had discarded and tried to flush away after having sex with your wife, earlier that afternoon?”
“Inspector,” his brief said, interrupting. “You mentioned evidence. Will you be offering any, or is this another fanciful tale without any substance?”
I pulled the report from its envelope again. “I talked to someone,” I said. “A life-long philanderer, and he told me that when you deposit a French letter down the bog you have to be very careful to ensure that it goes right round the bend. He went into great detail on how to do it.” I smiled and said: “We meet some terrible people in this job.” I didn’t mention that I was talking about a fellow DI. “So,” I continued, “we did some tests. Last Thursday, while you were here, we dropped a condom down the toilet in your upstairs family bathroom and flushed it. Then we repeated the experiment a hundred times. To simulate used condoms we squirted a couple of shots of liquid soap into each one.” I slid the report across the desk. “That’s your copy. As you will see, it takes one minute and forty-three seconds for the cistern to fill again. That’s very good. Each of the condoms went out of site, round the bend, but then, lo and behold, a few seconds later thirteen of them popped back into view. Just like the one that Latham had used did.”
Prendergast looked across the table as if he’d just witnessed me kick an old lady. A very old lady. “Is this what you call evidence?” he asked, waving the report. “This!”
“It’ll do for the time being,” I replied.
“May we go now?” He rose to his feet. “Or have you some other fairytale to amuse us with?”
Silkstone blew another cloud of smoke across the table. I held his gaze and refused to blink, although my eyes were watering. “Sit down,” I said. “I haven’t finished.” Prendergast scraped his chair on the floor and sat down again.
“What did you do with it?” I asked Silkstone.
“Do…with…what…Inspector?” he asked, enunciating the words, chewing on them and enjoying the taste. He was growing cocky.
“The condom.”
“There was no condom.”
“I think you took it downstairs. After drying it off, of course. You wrapped it up in, say, cooking foil, and placed it in the fridge. At the back, behind the half-eaten jar of pesto and the black olives.” There was a flicker of recognition across his face as I recited the contents. I do my research. “At that stage all it meant to you was proof of your wife’s unfaithfulness. Maybe you were pleased to have the evidence or maybe you were devastated by it. Which was it? Pleased or devastated?”
“It didn’t happen.”
“But as the days passed,” I continued, “you thought of a better way to use it, didn’t you? And a week later, after Latham had gone home, you murdered your wife, did things to her that she wouldn’t let you do when she was alive — maybe you couldn’t do them while she was alive — and then went round and stabbed Latham to death. After, of course, leaving the contents of the condom on Margaret’s body. That’s what happened, isn’t it?”
Now he looked nervous, scared, drawing on the cigarette before deciding it was too short and fumbling in the ashtray with it. Prendergast said: “Your theories become more fanciful by the minute, Inspector. Now, if you have nothing to offer that bears the imprimatur of the truth, I suggest we bring this farce to an end.”
I gave Dave the slightest of nods and he leaned forward, elbows on the table, thrusting his face towards Silkstone. “Tell us about Marie-Claire Hollingbrook,” he said.
“Never heard of her,” Silkstone replied, switching his attention to his new adversary.
“She was murdered in circumstances remarkably similar to Margaret’s death. A month ago, on the Saturday before you did your sales conference.”
“I’ve read about it, that’s all.”
“Bit of a coincidence, though, don’t you think. Latham couldn’t have done this one; he was dead.”
“Sergeant,” Prendergast interjected. “The modus operandi of Mrs Latham’s murderer was in all the newspapers. As you know, certain sick individuals often emulate murders they have read about.”
“It’s constable,” Dave said.
“I’m sorry. Constable.”
“That’s all right. And as you know, Mr Prenderville, sex offenders rarely stop after the first time. They get a taste for it, go on and on until they are caught.” He turned towards Silkstone. “Is that what you did? Get a taste for it? It was good was it, that way? You strangle them, I’m told, until they lose consciousness, then let them revive and do it all over again. And again and again. Is that what you did to Margaret, and then to Marie-Claire Hollingbrook?”
Silkstone looked at his brief, saying: “Do we have to listen to this?”
Prendergast said: “Let them get it off their chests. It’s all they can look forward to.” He wanted to know how much, or little, we knew. And maybe, just maybe, he had a wife and daughters of his own, and was beginning to wonder a little about his client. Not that it would interfere with the way he handled the case. No chance.
“You’d done the perfect murder,” Dave told Silkstone. “Got clean away with it. OK, you might have to do a year in the slammer for killing Latham, but the nation’s sympathy was with you and it was a small price to pay for having all your problems solved.” He paused to let the situation gel in their minds, then continued: “But the urge wouldn’t go away, would, it? And when the application form from Marie — Claire plopped on your desk, it became too much to bear. What did it say? Name of applicant: Marie-Claire Hollingbrook. A lovely name, don’t you think. Makes you wonder if she’s as attractive as it sounds. Age: twenty-one; occupation: self-employed textile designer. Young and clever. It’s more fun humiliating the clever ones, isn’t it? Daytime telephone number and evening telephone number identical, so she must work from home. And then the same questions about her partner. Age: twenty-four; a student; and, would you believe it, not available during the day. You’d committed the perfect crime once, what was to stop you doing it again? Did you ring her at first, to see when her husband would be there? Or, hopefully, not there?”
“BT are checking all the phone calls,” I interjected.
“Or did you just visit her on spec? Which was it?”
“You’re mad,” Silkstone replied.
“She invited you in and you asked to see the letter you’d sent her, and the advert from the Gazette. You carefully folded them, placed them in your pocket, and then the fun started. Except it wasn’t much fun for that girl, because you were better at it by then, weren’t you? And when you’d finished, you left your trademark: the semen you’d collected the night before, from the brickyard.” Dave sat back and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
I said: “On the day of the murder none of your neighbours saw you leave home in the car, but you were seen out walking. There’s a bus route from the other side of the canal to near where Marie lived. We’re tracing everybody who used the route that day. Also, we’ve appealed for anyone who was at the locks to come forward. Prints of your tyres have been taken and will be compared with those we found at the brickyard. If you’ve ever visited there you’d be wise to admit it, now.”
They sat there in silence, Silkstone with one arm extended, his fingers on the table; Prendergast upright, hands in his lap, waiting. The smoke from his client’s cigarettes was layering against the ceiling, drawn there by the feeble extractor fan, and shafts of light from the little armoured glass window shone through it like searchlight beams.
“Is there anything you wish to say?” I asked him.
“Yes, you’re a fucking lunatic,” he snapped.
“Inspector,” Prendergast began, placing a hand on his clients arm to silence him. “These are very serious allegations you are making. My client admitted killing Mr Latham, as we all know, but now he is being accused of these other crimes. First of all the death of his wife, the woman he loved, and now a completely unrelated murder. Either you must arrest my client and substantiate the charges against him, or we are leaving.”
“No,” I said wearily. “We won’t be arresting him.” I turned to the man in question. “Do you remember Vince Halliwell?” I asked.
“Who?” he replied.
“Vince Halliwell. He was in Bentley Prison same time as you, doing ten years for armed robbery. Says you had a chat on a couple of occasions.”
