“So why didn’t he just disappear? Surely his masters would have taken care of him in Moscow or Prague or wherever.”
“More likely Belfast. But I don’t know. It’s not unusual for suicides to appear happy once they’ve decided to end it all.”
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“I know that. I’m just not sure that he was happy because he’d decided to kill himself.”
Burgess grunted. “What’s your theory, then?”
“That he was killed, and it was made to look like a suicide.”
“Killed by who?”
Banks ignored the question. “We won’t know anything for certain until the doc does his postmortem,” he said, “but there’s a few things that bother me about the note.”
“Go on.”
“It just doesn’t ring true. The damn thing’s neither here nor there, is it?
Cotton confesses to killing Gill, but doesn’t say why. All he says is, ‘I don’t know what came over me.’ It doesn’t square with what we know of him.”
“Which is?”
“Precious little, I admit. He was a closed book. But I’d say he was the kind who’d either not bother with a note at all, or maybe he’d explain everything fully. He wouldn’t come out with such a wishy-washy effort as the one we saw. I think he’d have used Gill’s number, too, not his name. And I don’t know if you had a good look, but it seemed very different from that business letter on the desk. The pressure on the characters was different, for a start.”
“Yes,” Burgess said, “but don’t forget the state of mind he must have been in when he typed it.”
“I’ll grant you that. Still… and the style. Whoever wrote that suicide note had only very basic writing skills. But the business letter was more than competent and grammatically correct.”
Burgess slapped the table. “Oh, come on Banks! What’s the problem? Is it too easy for you? Business letters are always written in a different style; they’re always a bit stuffy and wordy. You wouldn’t write to a friend the same way you would in a business letter, would you, let alone a suicide note. A man writing his last words doesn’t worry about grammar or how much pressure he puts on each letter.”
“But that’s just it. Those things are unconscious. Someone used to writing well doesn’t immediately become sloppy just because he’s under pressure. If anything, I’d have expected a
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more carefully composed message. And you don’t think about how each finger hits the keys when you’re typing. It’s something you just do, and it doesn’t vary much. Why leave it over in the typewriter, too? Why didn’t he put it on the bench in front of him?”
“And what I’m saying,” Burgess argued, “is that his state of mind could account for all your objections. He must have been disturbed. Contemplation of suicide has an odd effect on a man’s character. You can’t expect everything to be the same as usual when a bloke’s on the verge of slitting his bloody ankles. And remember, you said he’d tried that before.”
“That is a problem,” Banks agreed. “Whoever did it must have known about the previous attempt and copied it to make it look more like a genuine suicide.”
“That’s assuming somebody else did it. I’m not sure I agree.”
Banks shrugged. “Well see what forensic says about the note. But I’m not happy with it at all.”
“What about the bureau?”
“What about it?”
“He’d obviously just finished it, hadn’t he? The coat of varnish was still fresh. And he’d moved it to the corner of the workshop. Doesn’t that imply anything?”
“That he was tidying things up behind him, you mean? Tying up loose ends?”
“Exactly. Just like a man on the point of suicide. He finished his last piece of work, put it carefully aside so he wouldn’t get blood all over it, then he slit his fucking ankles. When he got weak and passed out, he hit his head on the vice, accounting for the head wound.”
Banks stared into the bottom of his glass. “It could have happened that way,” he said slowly. “But I don’t think so.”
“Which brings us back to the big question again,” Burgess said. “If we’re to follow your line of reasoning, if you are right, then who killed him?”
“It could have been any of them, couldn’t it? Zoe said as much.”
“Yes, but she might have said that to get herself and her 262
mates off the hook. I’m thinking of one of them in particular.”
“Who?”
“Boyd.”
Banks sighed. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
“I’ll bet you bloody were.” Burgess leaned forward so suddenly that the glasses rattled on the table. Banks could smell the Guinness and cigar smoke on his breath. “If we play it your way, there’s no getting around the facts. Boyd was missing all afternoon, unaccounted for. We only have his word that he was walking on the moors. I shouldn’t think anybody saw him. It would have been easy for him to get in by the side gate and visit Seth while
