Echo

'That's one hell of a conspiracy theory, my friend.' This time Deacon ladled the sarcasm into his voice. 'You're saying these people worked out a year in advance of the event how they were going to murder a completely innocent man, irrespective of anything that might happen in the intervening period. And you feel happy with that scenario?' Ash dropped from the cigarette in his mouth, powdering the lapel of his jacket. 'Is your sister-in-law a monster, Mr. Streeter? She would need to be, I think, to share a house indefinitely with a man whose murder she'd already planned. So? Who are we talking about here? Medusa?'

Silence.

'And what sort of idiot would rely on a status quo existing indefinitely? James was a free agent. He could have walked out on his wife or his job at any time, and where would the conspiracy have been then?' He paused, inviting the other to speak, but went on when he didn't: 'The obvious explanation is the one the police have accepted. James was having an affair with Marianne Filbert, and Amanda put a stop to it by having him followed and photographs taken. She then brought pressure to bear which resulted in Marianne banishing herself, or being banished, to the States.'

'How could she tell the police where to find Marianne?'

'Because she's not stupid. Part of the deal for rescuing the marriage would be proof that Marianne was out of harm's way. And the only proof worth having would be something verifiable, like an address or a legal contract with a company's name on it.'

'Have you spoken to her?'

'Who?'

'Amanda.'

'No,' lied Deacon. 'You're my first contact on this, Mr. Streeter. I came across your press releases, and they interested me enough to make this call. Tell me,' he went on with the easy fluency of practiced deceit, 'what set you looking for a connection between Amanda and de Vriess in the first place?'

'She met James through de Vriess at some official function. De Vriess was married then but it was an open secret that he was planning to leave his wife for Amanda. He used to parade her around whenever his wife was away. It seemed logical, once we realized de Vriess was behind the fraud, that Amanda was involved, too, so we set out to find evidence that the affair was an ongoing one.'

'Except your evidence seems to be as flawed as your logic.' He pulled the relevant photocopies towards him. 'You have a hotel bill, signed by de Vriess and dated nineteen eighty-six, plus a description of a woman who might have been Amanda Streeter. Your nineteen eighty-nine witness account is even vaguer.' He moved the top copy aside and ran his pen down the one underneath. 'A waiter claims to have taken champagne to a couple in Room 306 whom he says were the same two people, but there's no signed bill to back it up. You can't even prove the man was de Vriess let alone that the woman was Amanda.'

'He paid cash the second time.'

'What name was on the bill?'

'Mr. Smith.'

Deacon stubbed out his cigarette. 'And you're surprised that no one's prepared to publish? None of your allegations is sustainable.'

'We've limited funds and limited influence. We need a reporter on a national newspaper to wield a bit of clout. We've been told there's more in the hotel files if we're prepared to pay for it.'

'It'll be an expensive ride with nothing at the end of it.'

'I'd back my brother's honesty any day against his wife's.'

'Then you're deluding yourself,' said Deacon bluntly. 'His wife's honesty isn't in doubt. He was cheating on his wife and she was able to prove it, and you've allowed your anger over that to cloud your judgment. Your starting point should have been a recognition that James played a part in his own destruction.'

'I knew this would be a waste of time,' said the other angrily.

'You keep firing at the wrong targets, Mr. Streeter. That's where you've been wasting your time.'

The line went dead.

Deacon's inquiries of the Isle of Dogs police about Billy Blake had produced little of value, despite his suggestion that Billy might have been a murderer. This elicited the surprising response that the police had investigated just that possibility at the time of Billy's first arrest.

'I went through his file for the Coroner,' said the uniformed Constable who'd overseen the removal of Billy's corpse. 'He was first arrested in nineteen ninety-one for a series of food thefts from supermarkets. He was starving even then, and there was a bit of a debate over whether to charge him or get him into supervised care. In the end, a decision was made to have him remanded for psychiatric reports because he'd burnt off his fingerprints. Some bright spark decided he'd done it on purpose to beat a murder charge, and people started getting twitched about whether he constituted a danger to society.'

'And?'

The PC shrugged. 'He was interviewed in Brixton, and was given the all-clear. The psychiatrist's view was that he was more of a danger to himself than to anyone else.'

'What was his explanation for the burnt fingerprints?'

'As far as I remember, he called it a morbid interest in mortification. He described Billy as a penitent.'

'What does that mean?'

Another shrug. 'Maybe you should ask the psychiatrist.'

Deacon took out his notebook. 'Do you know his name?'

'I can find out.' He came back in ten minutes and handed Deacon a piece of paper with a name and address on it. 'Is there anything else?' he asked, keen to get on with something more pressing than a dead and buried