should or shouldn’t have said, debated whether she should or should not have ever gone near that pub. The only positive thing was that she could now put a face to the man, but in some ways that only made it worse, more drab, more sordid.
She forced herself off this track by thinking about work. Distracted by Leon, she had been unable to finish her report for Brock, which now seemed pointless anyway, with her theories of Spanish plastic surgery disproved. Why was Brock so reluctant to close the case? Did he really think it possible that Clarke’s suicide might have been staged? Who would have had a motive? No one in the Verge Practice, surely, for the scandalous death of the third senior partner would be the final blow to their chances of recovery. Someone, then, with an interest in restoring Charles Verge’s reputation, perhaps? The thought of Verge’s mother and pregnant daughter trying to drag a comatose Clarke into his car to stage a suicide brought a grim smile. Or what about Charles Verge himself, lurking somewhere in the shadows?
But no, it made no sense. She remembered Tony’s words to Brock: ‘No one knew all that about Clarke apart from Clarke himself-and us, of course.’ The idea of one of ‘us’ being responsible produced another flicker of a smile in the darkness, cut off by the sudden thought that it wasn’t really funny. After all, if Kathy herself hadn’t spotted the discrepancy in the forensic reports, Clarke would probably still be alive. Should she put that in her report to Brock? It certainly wouldn’t do Paul Oakley any good, she thought maliciously, to underline the mistake he’d made on his last job with the Met, especially if he was now hoping to get work or a recommendation from them.
Maybe Paul Oakley murdered Clarke, she thought, aware that her mind was meandering into fantasy now, at the outer perimeter of sleep. Hard to see a motive, though. Oakley had done Clarke a good turn, after all, by overlooking the forensic test on the pillow. The oversight had been extraordinarily damaging to the investigation as it turned out, and almost inexplicable, given the checks in the system. But suppose he hadn’t overlooked it-suppose he’d deliberately hidden it?
Kathy’s eyes snapped open. Now that was an interesting idea. There had been a case the previous year, of a civilian scene of crime officer who had supposedly approached a thief with an offer to lose the fingerprints he’d found at the site of a robbery. Oakley had been on the point of leaving the force; suppose he’d seen the opportunity to make a bit of extra cash by offering to bury an embarrassing bit of evidence that placed Clarke in Miki Norinaga’s bed? And when it finally came to light, what would Clarke’s reaction be? Would he contact Oakley? Threaten him with exposure?
Kathy sighed and turned over again. It was nonsense, of course, but a satisfying fantasy. Maybe sleep would now be possible.
21
By eleven on Sunday morning, Suzanne Chambers had decided that enough was enough. Brock had arrived at lunchtime the day before, and it was soon clear that all was not well. Her grandchildren had picked up the signs quickly, and made themselves scarce after the first few threatening growls. She didn’t regard him as a moody man, nor especially self-indulgent, though living on his own was bound to have its effect. So she put his current behaviour down to exhaustion after the climax of his big case, and lack of sleep compounded by an inevitable sense of anticlimax. Yet that night she was aware of him twisting and turning, sleepless in the bed beside her. Overtired, she thought, and tried not to be disappointed by his perfunctory and preoccupied gestures of affection.
Over Sunday breakfast things were no better. He brightened briefly over bacon and eggs, and produced a couple of comics that he’d bought for the kids and forgotten to give them when he’d arrived. But when Stewart, encouraged by this, asked him eagerly about the Verge case, he was met with an ominous silence. Suzanne didn’t like the hurt look in the boy’s eyes. Then later, when they were reading the Sunday papers together, he abruptly threw the pages aside and jumped to his feet, marching out into the back garden with a muttered comment about fresh air. She picked up the page that had apparently provoked this, and saw the articles on Charles Verge, detailing the triumphant restoration of his reputation, the excitement in architectural circles over the revolutionary design of his last great building, and the latest rumours about the death of his partner.
She looked out the window at Brock’s back, his shoulders stooped as he poked disconsolately at the ashes of a camp fire the children had made the previous day, and was at a loss. There was nothing contentious about the articles. The police were not attacked. On the contrary, he himself was mentioned in positive terms. There was even a suggestion that if he had been in charge of the case from the beginning, it might have been resolved long ago. She put the paper down and followed him outside. A light southeasterly breeze was clearing the clouds from the sky, and sunlight was beginning to sparkle on the glossy leaves of an old rhododendron bush.
‘I think it’ll be fine by lunchtime,’ she said. ‘Shall we go to The Plough?’
He grunted a yes.
‘On the condition that you talk to me in words of more than one syllable, and don’t frighten the children.’
He turned to face her, a look of puzzlement on his face. ‘Is it that obvious? Sorry.’
‘What’s the matter, David? No one’s sick or anything, are they?’
‘No, no. It’s the case, that’s all.’
‘But it’s a triumph for you, isn’t it? Everyone says so. Your boss is pleased, isn’t he? And the papers say the timing was perfect, saving everyone’s face over the prison opening.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well then, will you tell me why you’re so unhappy? Not now-at The Plough, when you’ve got a pint in your hand.’
He smiled and put an arm around her shoulders, and they walked back inside.
The principal attraction of The Plough was a menagerie of ancient animals-a horse, some mangy rabbits, a cantankerous goat and two peacocks-for which the landlord’s aged mother had provided refuge in the back garden, possibly as an object lesson to her family on the care of the elderly. While the children renewed their acquaintance with the beasts, Brock and Suzanne took their drinks to a bench in a sunny corner.
‘It’s his body,’ Brock said at last, wiping beer froth from his whiskers. ‘We can’t find Verge’s body.’
Suzanne misunderstood. ‘Yes, that must be upsetting for the family.’
‘No, I don’t mean that. I think…’ He paused, as if hesitating to put his thoughts into words. ‘I think there may not be one. I think the whole thing may be a sham.’
She was startled. ‘Oh… But everyone is so sure. Did you read the interview with the Prince about the opening of the prison?’
‘Yes. As you said, the timing was perfect. That’s one of the things that worries me.’
Suzanne said nothing for a while, thinking. She understood about worriers, never satisfied unless there was some disaster to anticipate. She was a bit of one herself, though she’d never thought of Brock in quite those terms. ‘You really think he might still be alive?’
‘Yes.’
‘But, David…’ She stopped. The notion seemed preposterous. ‘Have you discussed this with the others?’
‘I can’t. The case is closed. I can’t start spreading rumour and doubt. I just hope I’m wrong, that’s all.’
‘You think he’s that devious?’
‘I thought that from the beginning. I had an image of a clever and devious man, evading his pursuers, and everything I learned about him seemed to confirm it. Now we’re asked to believe that he was a helpless victim, duped and murdered by a colleague who struck me as fairly transparent.’
‘You’re not just disappointed that your reading of the situation was wrong?’
‘There’s that, I suppose.’
‘And no one else has had any doubts?’
‘Kathy thought she’d picked up some kind of a trail in Spain, but the suicide and confession of Verge’s partner put an end to it. The problem is, you see, that to explain it the other way, you have to believe that Verge didn’t just act impulsively last May. You have to accept that he was planning the whole thing for a year or more beforehand, setting up companies and milking funds from his own firm, constructing the whole damn story. And more than that, that he’s probably been here all the time, in England, pulling the strings, while we combed the rest of the globe for him. And there’s no motive for it. Why would he do such a thing? He was at the height of his success. Why would he deliberately blow it all away?’
