The student released the girl and collapsed with a roar of pain. The old farts before him were suddenly replaced with familiar faces, and he saw that he was surrounded by members of the Peculiar Crimes Unit.
The centre of the group slowly opened to reveal the crumpled face of Arthur Bryant, closely followed by John May. The most humiliating moment came when a woman, the big blond detective sergeant they called Longbright, twisted the silver skewer from his grip and removed it from the victim, confiscating his beloved weapon.
From the day he watched the burning match tumble down the side of the escalator, a part of him had always prayed for this moment to arrive. With delicious anticipation, he waited to hear the words that would finally seal his fate.
Instead he saw Arthur Bryant look past him and announce, “Theodore Samuel Fontvieille, I am arresting you for the murders of Gloria Taylor, Matthew Hillingdon and Cassandra Field.”
? Off the Rails ?
49
Charismatic
“Two arrests before six o’clock,” Raymond Land was excitedly telling Leslie Faraday over the phone. “They’ve done it! No, I’ve no idea how. Nobody ever tells me anything. Oh, really? Oh, I thought you’d be pleased.” Land found himself looking into the receiver, a dead line burring in his ear.
This time, Mr Fox found himself locked in a cell at Albany Street police headquarters, and there was no way for him to escape – not that he wanted to. On the contrary, he seemed almost relieved to be behind bars, as if somehow the memory of those painful years between his destruction of the tube station and his return to killing had finally been laid to rest.
He refused to speak to anyone, and flinched when his features were recorded, fearful that his true face might be placed on display for all to gawp at. And gawp they would, for even as he lay curled in the corner of his cell, his jacket thrown over his eyes to shield them from the overhead cell lights that were never dimmed, the Home Office was leaking the story to the press.
Having been so protective of his true identity, Jonas Ketch, alias Lloyd Lutine, alias Mr Fox and a dozen other names, would now face his greatest fear – exposure of his most horrific, shameful secret. Thinking back to the moment when he ran sobbing up the escalator with the burning match in his hand, he buried his face ever more deeply within the cloth of his jacket, savouring these last few moments of darkness, knowing that the blaze of publicity would soon obliterate him, as the braying clamour of morons began.
¦
The PCU had dragged all the members of the Mecklenburgh Square household back to the Unit’s headquarters for a final showdown, and this time batteries of police recorders and cameras were there to cover the event. Theo Fontvieille had been stitched and bandaged, and was seated with plastic ties binding his wrists. The others found chairs or spaces on the floor where they could sit. The two Daves had been sent away, despite their protestations that they hadn’t had time to repair the hole in Bryant’s floor, but everyone else was in attendance, and it was Arthur Bryant, of course, who chose to take the centre stage.
“Well, it’s been quite a week for all of us,” he said, looking around, his blue eyes shining, “but tougher for some than others. Now that we’re all together, I think we should dispense with formalities for a while and talk about what happened.”
“We should be taking separate statements from each of them, sir,” said Renfield, “to prevent corroboration.”
“No, I think the only way to put this together is to hear everyone out,” Bryant contradicted. “They’re not in the mood to provide alibis for each other anymore.” He turned to the students. “So, let’s imagine we’re playing a game. I’ll be the Bank. Although strictly speaking, Mr Nicolau, you should be the Bank, shouldn’t you?”
Nikos stared awkwardly at the others, wondering how much he should say.
“Come, come, Mr Nicolau, this is no time to be shy. I imagine you were very excited when you came up with the idea for the game, weren’t you? All those nights spent online could finally be put to some use.”
Nikos cleared his throat and edged forward in his seat, conscious of the police cameras recording him. “Yeah, it was me who came up with it, but it was never meant to end up like this. I don’t know what Theo’s been up to because I had no part – ”
“Let’s just stick to the facts for now. We’ll have plenty of time later to ascertain everyone’s levels of involvement. Why did you come up with the game? When did you first think of it?”
“It began in the Karma Bar,” he mumbled. “A bunch of us were sitting around, and we were all complaining that we were broke.”
“We were talking about our student loans, and the rent and all the bills,” said Ruby. “I was always having to lend the others – ”
“Please, let’s stick to the point,” warned Bryant. “We’ll get to you in due course, Miss Cates. Go on, Mr Nicolau.”
“I said I thought we should try to make some money with online gambling. I knew a lot about statistics and had a few ideas for beating the odds. What I didn’t know was that
“Who came in on the game?” asked May.
“There were seven of us at first. But Cassie dropped out because she didn’t want anything more to do with Theo. He had started sleeping with Ruby.”
“That’s not why she dropped out,” said Theo quietly. “She couldn’t raise her share of the stake.”
“So there were six players,” Bryant prompted.
“Yeah. We each put five grand in, but it still didn’t seem like enough if we were going for one winner.”
“You were all broke, yet you managed to raise five thousand apiece,” said May. “Obviously the definition of ‘broke’ has changed a little since my day.”
“My dad’s brother owns a chain of Greek restaurants,” Nikos said. “He’s a complete idiot. On the same day of every month he takes a suitcase containing around sixty thousand pounds to his bank in Paris, all cash. He goes on the Eurostar. So on Monday morning I set up a flash mob in St Pancras station to create a diversion, and while that was happening Theo robbed him.”
“It was like taking sweets from a very stupid child,” said Theo. “He kept the bag attached to his wrist with plastic binders.” He held up his own tethered wrist: “I just cut them with kitchen scissors while he was standing there watching everyone dance.” He sniggered, looking to the others for approval.
“So then we had a decent stake to work with,” Nicolau continued. “Ninety grand in all. I wanted to find two more players to make it an even hundred thousand, but Theo wouldn’t let me. He really wanted to keep his odds of winning high.”
“Yes, this image you perpetuate of the bored rich kid isn’t quite accurate, is it?” said Bryant. “You’d run up some serious gambling debts, your last business venture – property, wasn’t it? – had failed spectacularly, your car was repossessed – not stolen – and your family had cut you off without a penny.”
“You have no idea,” said Theo. “I’d surrendered my savings, I sold my watch, my pen, everything I owned, and replaced them with fakes. You have to keep up appearances. Some thugs in Shoreditch were going to come round and break my arms if I didn’t pay them by the end of the week.”
“Tell us what happened next.”
“Well, now that we’d raised a decent stake, we started playing in earnest,” said Nicolau. “Toby had been the previous week’s winner – six players, six days of the week – we drew straws to see who would get which day.”
“And it was my turn to play again on Monday,” said Theo.
“How long had you been playing?”
