‘Well I certainly didn’t ask him to do that. Does he say I did?’
Kathy didn’t reply.
‘It’s a lie if he does. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if he did it so that he could keep a good part of the money for himself. He also has a financial weakness, in his case for the horses. Is there anything else I haven’t covered?’
‘I would like to see that memory stick.’
Warrender gave another of his easy smiles. ‘Oh would you? And why would I agree to that? It contains some very private correspondence.’
‘You want me to find out who killed Marion, don’t you?’
He gave her a bleak look. ‘Yes, I do.’ He reached a hand into the pocket of his jacket. ‘I could tell you I wiped it…’ He brought out the small device. ‘This is for your eyes only, and then I want it back. I don’t want this circulating around the Met for laughs.’
‘I shall have to show my boss, and report our conversation today.’
‘DCI Brock.’ He nodded. ‘No one else? You promise?’
‘That’ll be up to him.’
He hesitated, then shrugged and handed it to her. ‘Please get him to agree.’
‘Tell me,’ Kathy said, ‘what’s your theory about what happened to Marion?’
He frowned and turned away. The squirrel was now prancing in front of a group of laughing Japanese, showing off. ‘I was rather hoping you could tell me that. You now know much more about it all than I do. What I very much do not want is for my involvement to distract you from the real culprit.’ He turned back to her and his eyes dropped to the memory stick in her hand. He seemed about to add something, then changed his mind. ‘Surely you have some idea? Won’t you tell me?’
She said nothing, and he shrugged and got to his feet.
‘I won’t say it’s been an unalloyed pleasure, Inspector. Too uncomfortable for that. But I feel easier for having told you all this.’
Kathy stared at him but he just smiled. ‘Let me know if you get tired of policing. They are plenty of opportunities for talents like yours, in jobs that give Christmas bonuses.’
He walked off across the park towards The Mall, and as she watched him go, one of the missing thoughts came back into Kathy’s mind with a jolt: he had said, She picked the wild flowers. Not just wild flowers, but the wild flowers, as if he knew about how she’d been puzzling over that posy. And the timing of his confession was odd too, days after her conversation with his wife, which in itself had hardly been challenging enough to cause him to spill the beans about his relationship with Marion. It was almost as if he had known that she already knew about it. A sick feeling was growing in her stomach. He had known far too much.
•
It was mid-afternoon before Suzanne answered his call. He was at home, trying to concentrate on finishing Sophie Warrender’s biography of Edward Lear.
‘Sorry, David,’ she said. ‘We’ve been so busy in the shop. The fine weather has brought everyone out. How are you?’
‘Fine, fine. I thought I might pop down this afternoon. I booked a table at the Old Pheasant for us for tonight.’
‘Oh. That would have been lovely.’
‘You’ve got something on?’
‘Well, an old friend of mine, in Hampshire, has invited me to go over there this evening. I said I’d stay the night.’
‘Ah. That’s nice for you.’
‘We haven’t seen each other for years. I’m sorry, I should have mentioned it, but it only just came up. This is your first free weekend for ages, isn’t it? Are you at a loose end?’
Her words were hurried, he thought, her voice unnaturally bright. ‘No, no. Plenty to catch up on.’
‘Maybe next weekend, eh?’
‘Yes.’
They had a brief conversation, rather rushed at her end and desultory at his, before they hung up. Brock threw Edward Lear aside, thinking of the time he’d almost lost her once before. twenty-five
K athy eventually found him in Weatherspoon’s Bar in Terminal Four at Heathrow. It had taken a phone call to Scotland Yard to get her through security to the passenger-only departure concourse on the first floor. The place was crowded with travellers, anxious, excited or bored. His head was buried in a paperback, and he didn’t look up when she sat at his table. After a moment he reached out a hand to feel for his glass of beer, but she got there first and slid it away. He looked up, puzzled to see that it had moved, then blinked and focused on Kathy.
His mouth opened.
‘Kathy!’
‘Guy.’
She watched his expression go through several shifts as he took in the sombre look on her face. Then he sighed, and said, ‘Oh God. You know.’
Her first thought, seeing him sitting there, had been to whack him one and pour the beer over his head, but now she felt only very sad.
‘I want to know why.’
He sighed again. ‘Oh, a friend of mine got into a bit of trouble over a big loan he took out to buy a flat.’
‘A friend of yours.’
‘Yeah, his name’s Helmut. We work in the same office. Anyway, one day he got a phone call from this bloke who said he could sort out the problem, if he was willing to do a little job for him in return. He wanted Helmut to go to Prague for the weekend, all expenses paid, and make friends with an attractive woman. It sounded like a breeze. Only Helmut couldn’t go. He’s married, and his wife’s really sick. That’s what made it so important. I said I’d do it for him.’
Kathy took a deep breath. Spare me, she thought. But how the hell had he known about Prague? ‘When was this?’
‘Just the evening before we went. It all happened so quickly I didn’t have time to think of the consequences. I’m really sorry, Kathy. It just seemed, you know, something to do for a friend, and a bit of a laugh. I didn’t count on… on really liking you. I hoped you’d never know. How did you find out?’
‘I’m a cop,’ she said bitterly. ‘Sometimes we get to know more than we’d like.’
‘Yeah, he didn’t tell me that, or I’d have been more cautious. But by the time you told me what you did, we’d got to know each other and were having a good time, and I didn’t want to stop. When I got back from Prague I asked Helmut what it was all about. He said he’d been told you were working on the murder of a close friend of this other guy, and he wanted to keep an eye on how things developed. He said he wanted to know the truth of what had happened, because he didn’t trust the police and the lawyers not to stuff it up. Helmut got the impression he might be prepared to take matters into his own hands if that happened. The way he told it, I felt some sympathy for him.’
‘So when was the last time you saw War render?’
‘Is that his name? I only met him the once, first thing this morning, after I left you. When I finally got the word to go to the Gulf he wanted to meet me in person, to get a personal briefing. I didn’t want to go, but Helmut was insistent.’ He shrugged hopelessly.
‘And you told him about the flowers on my wall.’
He nodded. ‘Yes. He was very interested in that.’
His eyes went up to a monitor and he said quietly, ‘My flight’s boarding, Kathy. Are you going to arrest me?’
She gave a snort. ‘What for, screwing a police officer under false pretences? I don’t think that’s in the book.’
‘I’m sorry. I really am. I feel like a total shit. But it wasn’t all false pretences. I meant what I said about-’
‘Don’t.’ She got to her feet and walked away, pushing through the crowds without seeing them.
•
