The Perfectionist

'There’s a difference between finding something out and seeing the proof.'

'That won’t be easy.'

'It’s the rule.'

He tried another tack. 'Can I ask something? How did you get on to me?'

There were smiles all round. Winthrop said, 'You’re surprised that we succeeded where the police failed?'

'Experience,' Joe Franks explained. 'We’re much better placed than the police to know how these things are done.'

Pitt-Struthers-the strong, silent man who advised the SAS-said, 'We know you were at the scene on the evening it happened, and we know no one else had a stronger motive or a better opportunity.'

'But we must have the proof,' insisted Winthrop.

'The weapon,' suggested McPhee.

'I disposed of it,' Duncan improvised. He was not an imaginative man, but this was an extreme situation. 'You would have, wouldn’t you?'

'No,' said McPhee. 'I just give mine a wee wipe.'

'Well, it’s up to you, old boy,' Winthrop told Duncan. 'Only you can furnish the evidence.'

'How long do I have?'

'The next meeting is in July. We’d like to confirm you as a full member then.'

The conversation moved on to other subjects and then a lengthy discussion ensued about the problems faced by the Crown Prosecution Service

The evening ended with coffee, cognac and cigars. Soon after, David Hopkins said that the car would be outside.

On the drive back, Duncan, deeply perturbed and trying not to show it, pumped David for information.

'It was an interesting evening, but it’s left me with a problem.'

'What’s that?'

'I-eh-wasn’t completely sure which murder of mine they were talking about.'

'Do you mean you’re a serial killer?'

Duncan gulped. He hadn’t meant that at all. 'I’ve never thought of myself as one.' Recovering his poise a little, he added, 'A thing like that is all in the mind, I suppose. Which one do they have me down for?'

'The killing of Sir Jacob Drinkwater at the Brighton Civil Service Conference in 1995.'

Drinkwater. He had been at that conference. He remembered hearing that the senior civil servant at the Irish Office had been found dead in his hotel room on that Sunday morning. 'That was supposed to have been a heart attack.'

'Officially, yes,' said David.

'But you heard something else?'

'I happen to know the pathologist who did the autopsy. A privileged source. They didn’t want the public knowing that Sir Jacob had actually been murdered, and what means the killer had used, for fear of creating a terrorism panic. How did you introduce the cyanide? Was it in his aftershave?'

'Trade secret,' Duncan answered cleverly.

'Of course the security people in their blinkered way couldn’t imagine it was anything but a political assassination. They didn’t know you’d had a grudge against him dating from years back, when he was your boss in the Land Registry.'

Someone had their wires crossed. It was a man called Charlie Drinkwater who’d made Duncan’s life a misery and blighted his career. No connection with Sir Jacob. Giving nothing away, he said smoothly, 'And you worked out that I was at the conference?'

'Same floor. Missed the banquet on Saturday evening, giving you a fine opportunity to break into his room and plant the cyanide. So we have motive, opportunity…'

'And means?' said Duncan.

David laughed. 'Your house is called The Laurels, for the bushes all round the garden. It’s well known that if you soak laurel leaves and evaporate the liquid, you get a lethal concentration of cyanide. Isn’t that how you made the stuff?'

'I’d rather leave you in suspense,' said Duncan. He was thinking hard. 'If I apply to join the club, I may give a demonstration.'

'There’s no if about it. They liked you. You’re expected to join.'

'I could decide against it.'

'Why?'

'Private reasons.'

David turned to face him, his face creased in concern. 'They’d take a very grave view of that, Duncan. We invited you along in good faith.'

'But no obligation, I thought.'

'Look at it from the club’s point of view. We’re vulnerable now. You’re dealing with dangerous men, Duncan. I can’t urge you strongly enough to co-operate.'

'But if I can’t prove that I killed a man?'

'You must think of something. We’re willing to be convinced. If you cold shoulder us, or betray us, I can’t answer for the consequences.'

A sobering end to the evening.

For the next three weeks he got little sleep, and when he did drift off he would wake with nightmares of fingers pressing on his arteries or skene-dhus being thrust between his ribs. He faced a classic dilemma. Either admit he hadn’t murdered Sir Jacob Drinkwater-which meant he was a security risk to the club-or concoct some fake evidence, bluff his way in, and spend the rest of his life hoping they wouldn’t find him out. Faking evidence wouldn’t be easy. They were intelligent men.

'You must think of something,' David Hopkins had urged.

Being methodical, he went to the British Newspaper Library and spent many hours rotating the microfilm, studying accounts of Sir Jacob’s death. It only depressed him more, reading about the involvement of Special Branch, the Anti-Terrorist Squad and MI5 in the official investigation. Nothing he had read, up to and including the final pronouncement in the papers that the death had been ruled a heart attack and the investigation closed, proved helpful to him. How in the world would he be able to acquire the evidence the club insisted on seeing?

More months went by.

Duncan weighed the possibility of pointing out to the members that they’d made a mistake. Surely, he thought (in rare optimistic moments), they would see that it wasn’t his fault. He was just an ordinary bloke caught up in something out of his league. He could promise not to say anything to anyone, in return for a guarantee of personal safety. Then he remembered the eyes of some of those people around the table, and he knew how unrealistic that idea was.

One morning in May, out of desperation, he had a brilliant idea. It arose from something David Hopkins had said in the car on the way home from the club: 'Do you mean you’re a serial killer?' At the time it had sounded preposterous. Now, it could be his salvation. Instead of striving to link himself to the murder of Sir Jacob, he would claim another killing-and show them some evidence they couldn’t challenge. He’d satisfy the rules of the club and put everyone at their ease.

The brilliant part was this. He didn’t need to kill anyone. He would claim to have murdered some poor wretch who had actually committed suicide. All he needed was a piece of evidence from the scene. Then he’d tell the Perfectionists he was a serial killer who dressed up his murders as suicides. They would be forced to agree how clever he was and admit him to the club. After a time, he’d give up going to the meetings and no one would bother him because they’d think their secrets were safe with him.

It was just a matter of waiting. Somebody, surely, would do away with himself before the July meeting of the club.

Each day Duncan studied The Telegraph, and no suicide-well, no suicide he could claim was a murder-was reported. At the end of June, he found an expensive-looking envelope on his doormat and knew with a sickening certainty who it was from.

The most perfect club in the world