It came away the colour of rust.
“I didn’t do it.”
“I didn’t ask.”
Fraser picked up a grey bedsheet and began tearing off strips.
“Why’d they let me go?”
“I don’t know.”
The room was going black, Fraser’s shirt grey.
I stood up.
“Sit down.”
“It was Foster, wasn’t it?”
“Sit down.”
“It was Don Foster, I fucking know it.”
“Eddie…”
“They fucking know it, don’t they?”
“Why Foster?”
I picked up a fistful of foolscap. “Because he’s the link in all this shit.”
“You think Foster killed Clare Kemplay?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Why not?”
“Bollocks. And Jeanette Garland and Susan Ridyard?”
“Yeah.”
“And Mandy Wymer and Paula Garland?”
“Yeah.”
“So why stop there? What about Sandra Rivett? Maybe it wasn’t Lucan after all, maybe it was Don Foster. And what about the bomb in Birmingham?”
“Fuck off. She’s dead. They’re all dead.”
“No but why? Why Don Foster? You haven’t given me a single fucking reason.”
I sat back down on the bed with my head in my hands, the room black, nothing making sense.
Fraser handed me two strips of grey bedsheet.
I wrapped the strips around my right hand and pulled tight.
“They were lovers.”
“So?”
“I have to see him,” I said.
“You’re going to accuse him?”
“There are things I need to ask him. Things only he knows.”
Fraser picked up his jacket. “I’ll drive you.”
“You’ll be suspended.”
“I told you, I’m going to be suspended anyway.”
“Just give me the keys.”
“Why should I?”
“Because you’re all I’ve got.”
“Then you’re fucked.”
“Yeah. So let’s leave it at me.”
He looked like he was going to puke, but tossed me his keys.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
I went over to the sink and rinsed the old blood off my face.
“Did you see BJ?” I asked.
“No.”
“You didn’t go to the flat?”
“I went to the flat.”
“And?”
“And he’s either done a runner or been nicked. Fuck knows which.”
I heard dogs barking and men screaming.
“I should phone my mother,” I said.
Sergeant Eraser looked up. “What?”
I was standing at the door, his keys in my hand. “Which one is it?”
“The yellow Maxi,” he said.
I opened the door. “Bye then.”
“Bye.”
“Thanks,” I said, like I’d never see him ever again.
I closed the door to Room 27 and walked across the car park to his dirty yellow Maxi, parked between two Findus lorries.
I pulled out of the Redbeck and switched on the radio: the IRA had blown up Harrods, Mr Heath had missed a bomb by minutes, Aston Martin was going bust, Lucan had been spotted in Rhodesia, and there was a new Mastermind.
It was going up to eight as I parked beside the high walls of Trinity View.
I got out of the car and walked up to the gates.
They were open, the white lights on the tree still on.
I looked up the drive, across the lawn.
“Fuck!” I shouted aloud, running up the drive.
Halfway up, a Rover had hit the back of a Jaguar.
I cut across the grass, slipping in the cold dew.
Mrs Foster, in a fur coat, was bent over something on the lawn by the front door.
She was screaming.
I made a grab for her, my arms around her.
She lashed out in every direction with every available limb as I tried to push her back, back towards the house, back from whatever was on the lawn.
And then I got a look at him, a good look:
Fat and white, trussed with a length of black flex that ran round his neck and bound his hands behind him, in a pair of soiled white underpants, his hair all gone, his scalp red raw.
“No, no, no,” Mrs Foster was screaming.
Her husband’s eyes were wide open.
Mrs Foster, the fur coat streaked black with rain, made another rush for the body.
I blocked her hard, still staring down at Donald Foster, at the white flabby legs running in mud, at the knees smeared in blood, at the triangular burns on his back, at the tender head.
“Get inside,” I shouted, holding her tight, pushing her back through the front door.
“No, cover him.”
“Mrs Foster, please…”
“Please cover him!” she cried, thrashing out of her coat.
We were inside the house at the foot of the staircase.
I pushed her down on to the bottom stair.
“Wait here.”
I took the fur coat and walked back outside.
I draped the damp coat over Donald Foster.
I went back inside.
Mrs Foster was still sat on the bottom step.
