‘The specials?’ Larry said. ‘We can’t find out who they are. The case has gone cold, and you’re the missing link in the chain.’
‘I told you before, more than once. An envelope, sometimes a parcel, money inside, and where to go. That’s all I know.’
‘An ex-police officer is inherently nosey; you know that as well as we do.’
‘So what if I was nosey? If someone wants to keep their identity confidential, who am I to worry? Good money, much better than the usual, and if their demands were perverted, what concern was it of mine?’
‘Perverted? How do you know this? Did Colin Young tell you this?’
‘Not him. He was always careful in what he said, but some of the others, they like to talk from time to time. Almost a badge of honour to some of them, what happened.’
‘Define perverted,’ Wendy said. The three were in Domett’s office, and for once, it was clean.
‘Whips, bondage, submission, that sort of thing.’
‘Is that it?’
‘Polite company. Do you want me to tell you more? You’ve both been around, you both know how far people can sink.’
‘We do,’ Larry said. He, for one, did not want Domett to recount tales of beatings, and bodily fluids, and carnal savagery. He had come across a place once before at his previous station, in the cellar of a Victorian terrace house, implements on the walls and hanging from the ceiling.
‘There was none of that with Colin Young, not in a cottage or a hotel room,’ Wendy said.
‘He wasn’t into that, not too much of it anyway. Tying up the client and humiliating him, he would have done that. It’s some of the other men I employ who are more willing.’
‘The same specials as Colin Young?’
‘Not that I’m aware of. If you’re trying to find out who they are through me, then you’re wasting your time. I just don’t know, and that’s the truth.’
‘And if you did, you wouldn’t tell us.’
‘I gave you all that I had. If you can’t find out who these men were, then either you’re not good police officers or they’ve covered their tracks well.’
Larry did not appreciate the slur on his and Wendy’s abilities, not from a man who by his own admission had failed as a police officer, concealed the fact by pretending that a company that hired out men for sex was more profitable. And judging by the look of the office and the man, that may not have been true.
Domett, Larry and Wendy agreed after they had left him to his phone calls and organising that night’s activities, wasn’t going to give them much more.
‘He’s smart enough to take his special clientele’s money, smart enough not to ask too many questions,’ Larry said.
Wendy had to agree and nodded her head, unable to speak as she took the first bite of a McDonald’s burger. Larry knew that his wife would have a few words if she knew that he was joining his sergeant, but it did not stop him ordering one for himself.
***
It wasn’t usual; in fact, Isaac couldn’t remember it happening before, but he was in a conference room at Challis Street and across from him were Gordon Windsor and Graham Picket.
‘I don’t appreciate your chief superintendent pulling rank,’ Picket said. ‘I’ve got an autopsy on this morning, a ninety-year-old man. You’d think they’d let him rest in peace, but his family are known tearaways, and he had plenty of money. No point opening me up when I’m gone, I can barely pay the bills as it is.’
Isaac had never seen the man so verbose. In his office or if he was bent over a cadaver in Pathology, he said very little, only answering questions when asked.
‘What’s the aim of this meeting?’ Gordon Windsor asked. An agreeable and competent man, he was also a friend of Isaac’s.
‘We need to decide if Stanley Montgomery murdered his son, and if not, then who did.’
‘Agreed, but where do Picket and I come into this? We conducted our investigations, filed our reports.’
‘We’re not convinced that Montgomery killed his son.’
‘Specifics,’ Picket said. ‘The man’s confessed, so I’m told, yet you want me and Windsor to give you a hitherto hidden fact to either validate the man’s claim or to disprove it.’
‘In a nutshell, yes.’
‘Stanley Montgomery was a robust man of sixty-three. He could have killed his son. Is that what you want?’
‘Can we prove it wasn’t him?’
‘How?’ Windsor asked. ‘We submitted our reports. The rock hit the man at an oblique angle. It also leads us to believe that the person was right-handed, and that force was applied.’
‘Enough to kill?’
‘If it had hit at the right place; if the dead man hadn’t pulled away.’
‘Too many variables, that’s what you’re saying?’
‘Isaac, we’re not sure where you’re going with this. The father could have killed the son, so could any number of other people.’
‘Amelia Bentham?’
‘If this is going nowhere, I need to leave,’ Windsor said.
‘I’ll be right behind you,’ Picket added.
There’s one possibility,’ Isaac said. ‘Matilda Montgomery.’
‘Wild speculation on your part, or is there any reason to bring her in as a possible suspect?’
‘She’s the one person we’ve not considered. Was she strong enough?’
‘She wasn’t a bodybuilder, nothing like that, but it was clear when I examined her that she was fit, as was her brother.’
‘She wasn’t a jogger, we know that.’
‘Swimming, walking, visits to the gym, that sort of thing.’
‘My apologies for bringing you both here today,’ Isaac said. ‘You’ve both helped a great deal.’
‘We said nothing new,’ Gordon Windsor said.
‘Neither of you did, but it helped to clarify the investigation for me.’
‘Matilda Montgomery?’
‘It’s a possibility. A tragedy if it was.’
