made him uncomfortable to realize that he was disappointed by the new developments. He didn’t want Brive to be guilty. He wondered whether his obsession with 59 Broadway and its occupants had warped his view of the case.
‘I’m positive he did it — have been from the first time I clapped eyes on the bastard,’ said Quaid expansively. ‘Some people have got a nose for a good wine; I’ve got a nose for guilt. You know me — I rely on my instincts, and they haven’t failed me yet.’
One thing Trave had to admit about his boss was that he was a skilled interrogator. It wasn’t just instinct that Quaid relied on to get results. He was an expert at pushing his questioning powers to the legal limit. He knew when to press a suspect hard and when to pretend to be his friend, and he was prepared to be patient if necessary, and flexible too. He adapted his tactics as he went along.
Trave was impatient to find out what Brive had to say, but Quaid insisted on waiting until after lunch to start the interview — enough time for Brive to have been softened up by the extra unpleasantness that Quaid had ordered to accompany the booking-in procedure. The strip search was humiliating; it undermined the suspect’s mental defences. And the wait in the windowless holding cell was calculated to induce panic.
‘First things first,’ said Quaid, rubbing his hands together in anticipation while he and Trave waited for Brive to be brought to the interview room. ‘We need to get our doctor friend to waive his right to counsel. That’s vital. We’ll never get anything out of him once he gets his solicitor here.’ Quaid sounded like a professor giving a master class to a specially chosen student.
‘This is an outrage. I’m innocent of all charges,’ said Bertram angrily, resuming his protest where he’d left off before as soon as he’d sat down, pushed into the waiting chair by Constable Twining. ‘I want my solicitor.’
‘Why?’ asked Quaid.
‘Why? Because I’ve got rights. Don’t tell me I haven’t.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of doing so, Doctor,’ said Quaid, sounding like the living embodiment of the voice of reason. ‘I just wanted to know why you feel you need a solicitor. I mean, if you’ve got nothing to hide …’
‘I don’t have anything to hide.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. But then I don’t quite follow why you need representation. You’ll be telling us the truth whether you have a solicitor here or not, won’t you?’
‘Of course I will,’ said Bertram. ‘What do you take me for?’
‘Well, then, wouldn’t it be simpler for you just to do that and then we can all go home?’ Quaid asked pleasantly. ‘I’m sure you’re a busy man, Doctor, and that you’ve got better things to do than sit around in that cell twiddling your thumbs while we wait for your lawyer to get here. Transport is very bad today after the bombing last night, but I think you already know that. It could take hours.’
‘Oh, very well,’ Bertram said crossly. ‘Let’s get on with it.’
Quaid showed no sign of excitement at having got what he wanted. He continued asking his questions in the same level, even-handed way that he’d adopted at the start of the interview, and Bertram didn’t seem to know how to respond. It was as if he’d expected rudeness and aggression from Quaid, following on from their encounters in Albert Morrison’s flat on the night of the murder and then in his own earlier that morning, and now didn’t know how to handle this new polite and reasonable version of the inspector.
Quaid began by summarizing the demands from Bertram’s creditors. He showed Bertram the dates on their letters and demonstrated how the pressure had built in the weeks leading up to Morrison’s death, and then he laid out the blackmail letters one by one on the table and held up the incriminating photograph that he’d shown Trave before the interview began. Bertram flushed and turned away, hiding his eyes with his hand. Trave could sense his growing desperation.
‘How old is the young man beside you on the bed?’ asked Quaid.
‘I–I don’t know,’ Bertram stammered.
‘Fair enough. I’m sure we can find out for ourselves if it should prove necessary,’ said Quaid.
‘What do you mean,
‘Well, the blackmail will be important prosecution evidence if there’s a trial. I’m sure you can understand that. The letters and the photograph explain your state of mind, and if the young man was under age, then that just makes it more likely that you’d resort to desperate measures to keep the blackmailer from going public-’
‘But I didn’t resort-’, Bertram began.
‘Hear me out, Doctor,’ said Quaid, holding up his hand. ‘There’s another side to the coin. If you plead guilty, then the letters and the photograph don’t need to come out. They could be our secret. If you like, I could even pay a visit to whoever it is who’s been persecuting you for the last twelve months. A few carefully chosen words of warning and that would be an end of the matter. I can be quite persuasive when I want to be. I can assure you of that.’
‘But I can’t plead guilty to something I didn’t do,’ said Bertram, squirming in his chair. There was a plaintive note in his voice now, almost a wail.
‘But you did do it, Doctor. Look at this cuff link your wife found in your desk this morning. It matches one found on the landing outside your father-in-law’s flat, just near where you pushed him over the balustrade.’
‘That’s not mine,’ said Bertram sharply.
‘Not yours! Then what’s it doing in your desk?’
‘I don’t know, someone must have put it there. I’m being framed,’ Bertram said shrilly. ‘That’s what’s happening here. You’ve got to listen to me — whoever put that cuff link in my desk is the one who killed Albert. You need to find out who’s been in my flat. You need to ask Ava.’
‘I don’t think that’ll be necessary,’ said Quaid. ‘It’s your desk, and your wife found the cuff link in the top drawer this morning. I assume you’re not suggesting she put it there?’
‘No, of course I’m not-’
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Quaid, cutting Bertram off even though he looked like he had more to say. ‘And what about your sudden appearance at the murder scene?’ he continued, piling on the pressure. ‘How do you explain that? No one called for your assistance.’
‘I was concerned about my wife …’
‘And yet you’d never gone over there to see if she was all right before. The Blitz had been going on for more than a week and she’d been over at least four times to check on her father when there were raids, without any sign of you showing up. Why did you choose that particular night to pay a visit?’ asked Quaid. ‘And why did you run up the stairs and try to interfere with the evidence in your father-in-law’s flat the first chance you got?’ he pressed when Bertram did not answer.
‘I was looking for the will,’ Bertram said. ‘I admit that. But I didn’t kill him. I swear it.’
‘Okay, so let me see if I’ve got this right: you needed his money and you got him to change his will to leave it to you, but then you had nothing to do with his death. That singular piece of good fortune just happened to fall into your lap at the very moment when you needed it the most. Is that really what you’re telling us?’ asked Quaid, his voice heavy with sarcasm.
‘Yes, you’ve got to believe me-’
‘But I don’t,’ said Quaid, cutting Bertram off. ‘I don’t
‘Listen, Dr Brive, I think you need to carefully consider your position,’ said Quaid, looking as if he had come to a decision. ‘If we can’t reach an accommodation, you and I, then you’ll be tried for murder — premeditated murder — and you don’t need me to tell you what the sentence is for that. Maybe you’ll get lucky and you won’t hang, but then again maybe you will. It’s a nasty way to die, Doctor, I can assure you of that. The noose is supposed to break your neck, but it doesn’t always work out that way. Strangling on the end of a rope, twisting around in mid-air, trussed up like a turkey … I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.’
Quaid paused, letting his words sink in. Bertram’s face had turned white as alabaster. He was gripping the table in front of him with both hands.
‘But it doesn’t have to be that way,’ Quaid continued. ‘If you’re man enough to own up to what you’ve done, then I’ll make sure you’re only charged with manslaughter. You’ll be sentenced on the basis that you didn’t set out to kill your father-in-law but that you pushed him over the balustrade during an argument that got out of hand.
