at Chris Angeloglou’s desk. I looked at his jacket, draped over the back of his chair, at the photograph of a woman and lumpy child, played with his pens, and then Angeloglou himself appeared. He put his hand on my shoulder in a carefully rehearsed spontaneous gesture of reassurance.
‘Sam, are you all right?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m afraid Rupert’s busy.’
‘How’s the investigation going?’
‘All right. Last week’s raids went quite well. We’ve got some interesting stuff.’
‘About the murders?’
‘Not exactly.’
I sighed.
‘So charges are not imminent. Look at this letter. It was written by Danny to his sister just a couple of weeks before he died.’
Chris took it and pulled a face.
‘Don’t worry, you only need to read the last couple of pages.’
He leaned on the edge of his desk and scanned them.
‘Well?’ he said, when he was finished.
‘Is that the letter of somebody about to run off with another woman?’
Chris shrugged.
‘You’ve read it,’ I said. ‘Never met anyone like her before, I don’t want anyone else any more, I want to marry her and spend the rest of my life with her, I love her child, my only worry is whether she’ll have me.’
‘Yes,’ said Chris uneasily.
‘And there’s this.’
I handed him the letter of confirmation from the travel company. He scrutinized it with a half-smile.
‘Do you arrange to run away with somebody when you’ve planned something like that?’
Chris smiled, not unkindly.
‘I don’t know. Maybe you do. Was Danny the impulsive type?’
‘Well, sort of…’
‘The kind of man who might just get up and leave…’
‘Yes, but he wouldn’t have done this,’ I said lamely.
‘Is there anything else,’ Angeloglou asked gently.
‘No, except…’ I felt desperate. ‘Except for the whole thing. Have you thought about it?’
‘What?’
‘This young girl writes a will…’
‘How do you know about the will, Sam? All right, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.’
‘She writes a will and the next moment she’s dead. Isn’t that peculiar?’
Angeloglou thought silently for a time.
‘Had Finn ever talked about dying?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Had she ever talked about suicide?’
I paused for a moment and swallowed hard.
‘Yes.’
‘So,’ said Chris. ‘And, anyway, what were you suggesting?’
‘Have you even considered that they could have been murdered?’
‘For God’s sake, Sam, who by?’
‘Who stands to gain a fantastic amount from Finn’s death?’
‘Is this a serious accusation?’
‘It’s a serious nomination.’
Chris laughed.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I give in. Can I keep these pieces of paper?’ I nodded. ‘Out of compassion for everybody, including you, I’m going to make this little inquiry as discreet as possible. But I’ll ring you tomorrow. And now, doctor, go home and take a pill or have a drink or watch TV or all three at once.’
But it wasn’t the following day. At seven o’clock at the end of the same day, Chris Angeloglou rang me.
‘I’ve made some inquiries about your suspect.’
‘Yes?’
‘Let’s get this clear, Sam. The still-burning car was found shortly before six p.m. on the ninth.’
‘Yes.’
‘On the eighth, Dr Michael Daley flew to Belfast to attend a conference for fund-holding general practitioners. He spoke at the conference on the ninth and flew back to London in the late evening. Enough?’
‘Yes. Actually, I knew that. I’m sorry, Chris. Silly me and all that.’
‘That’s completely all right. Sam?’
‘Yes?’
‘We all feel bad that we let you in for this. We’ll do anything we can to help.’
‘Thank you, Chris.’
‘You’re the expert on trauma, Sam, but I think the truth is that we need to improve our investigation and you need to improve your grieving.’
‘Sounds good to me, Chris.’
Twenty-Eight
Six years ago my lover, the father of my unborn child, had killed himself. Of course, everyone had told me I mustn’t, not for one minute, blame myself. I said it to myself, in my doctor’s tone of voice. He was a depressive. He had tried it before. You thought you could save him but we can only save ourselves. And so on.
One week ago my lover – the only other man I’d ever really loved – had killed himself. People’s admonitions that I should not blame myself were beginning to sound a bit frantic. Danny’s funeral was the next day but I was not going to attend. He’d died in another woman’s arms, hadn’t he? He’d run away from me entirely. At the thought of Danny and Finn together, I felt hot, loose; almost excited and almost despairing. For a moment I was quite sick with jealousy and hopeless lust.
‘I’m off out now, Sally,’ I said a few minutes later. ‘I won’t be back before you leave so I’ve left the money on the mantelpiece. Thanks for making everything look so much better.’
‘Not going to work?’ Sally looked at my faded blue jeans, ripped at one knee, my beaten-up leather jacket.
‘I’m going sailing.’
She pulled a face. Of disapproval?
‘Nice,’ she said.
Finn’s two doctors, one her supposed protector, the other the sole beneficiary of her will, didn’t have much to say to each other on the short drive to the sea. Michael seemed preoccupied and I looked out of the window without seeing anything. When the car pulled to a halt he turned to me.
‘You forgot to put your wet suit on,’ he said.
It was in a carrier bag between my feet.
‘You forgot to tell me to put it on.’
We continued in silence. I looked for the sea. The day was too grey. The car turned off on to a narrow road between high hedges. I looked inquiringly.
