'An insurance policy?'
'Kind of.'
I’d guessed the ploy when I’d spoken with Drew Manson, but it was good to have it confirmed.
'So neither of you could get a sudden urge to confess or grass the other one up without sticking yourself in it. I suppose it was a good plan until one of you died suddenly and you got greedy and decided to blackmail young Bill.'
Montgomery laughed.
'Is that what he told you?' He looked at me incredulously. 'And you believed him?' He laughed again and shook his head. 'Why not, I suppose?' His voice became serious, like an instructor explaining a basic point to a particularly dull student. 'The night you nicked it I had just paid a lot of money for that picture.' He repeated the phrase, stressing the point. 'A lot of money. All I wanted was to go home and do to that photo what I’d done to my own one as soon as I’d heard Bill’s dad had snuffed it: burn it and get shot of the whole sorry business. Thirty years with that hanging over me, never a day, an hour even, when I didn’t think of it. But Bill wanted to torment me. If he’d stuck me in it I would have understood.
She was his mother after all. But he didn’t want that. He wanted to torture me. A big party, the whole squad, strippers and me sitting with evidence of the crime that ruined my life and could still send me down, burning a hole in my pocket. Then…’ Montgomery started to laugh at Bill’s audacity, 'then he stole it back.'
'And you killed him and his boyfriend.'
'No, things got out of hand. His boyfriend dived in. Bill and I would have worked it out somehow, but his little nancy had got hold of a gun from somewhere. He aimed it at me, Bill went to stop him and the thing went off. He saw what he’d done and turned it on himself. It was nothing to do with me. There was blood everywhere, a fucking forensic man’s wet dream.'
I was certain that I could hear the lie in his voice but asked, 'So why didn’t you call the police? An ambulance?'
Montgomery was indignant.
'Be reasonable, can you imagine? That would have gone down a storm wouldn’t it?
Anyway, there was no point. They were dead already. I just wanted to get what I’d come for then get out. I tore that office apart.' Montgomery shook his head as if he was still amazed.
'He got his revenge all right. It was only later, when I thought through the night, that it became obvious what had happened. Then I knew I had to find you.' He smiled softly. 'It took a while, but I got you in the end.'
'Do you think so?'
'Look,' the policeman’s voice was reasonable. 'It was a long time ago. I’m a different man from the one I was then. I’ve made a different life. You can understand that. Everyone makes mistakes.' He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wedge of notes. 'I can pay, name your price.'
'Absolution.'
'What?'
I pointed up towards the balcony where the pair of mannequins stood.
'Up there.'
Montgomery shook his head.
'You forget, Wilson, I’ve been dealing with villains for thirty-five years.'
A soft whisper came from above.
'James.'
Montgomery birled round. A third figure had joined the Victorian couple. It stood silhouetted against the shadows, and then stepped down to the edge of the balcony. She was ghost-pale, her eyes set like stabs of jet, lips so bloodless they were almost absent. Her ash-gold hair seemed faded to white and she wore a loose cotton dress that could have been a shroud.
Montgomery’s voice was hoarse with dread.
'Gloria?'
Sheila Montgomery raised her head and stared out at us like vengeance made flesh.
'How could I be Gloria? Gloria’s dead.'
The policeman gasped for air. For a second I thought he might collapse, but then slowly his breaths grew longer and he regained his voice.
'He’s a crook, Sheila.' Montgomery looked at me. 'He’s trying to set me up.'
'In that case he’s done a good job. I saw the photograph, Jim, the one you’re so eager to buy. It was taken years ago.' She gave a bitter laugh. 'Setting you up in his pram was he?'
'No… he …'
The policeman faltered.
'I just heard you admit to standing by while Billy died, tell me what else you’ve done or I’ll think the worst.'
'I never wanted you anywhere near any of this.'
Sheila’s voice was faint.
'Near what?'
