The reaction of the parents troubled Homicide.
However, despite an apparent lack of sensitivity, both parents were peripheral to the investigation. Mike Hampton was not.
Chapter 5
‘I hated the man, glad he’s dead.’ Mike Hampton, confined to a wheelchair, bearded and earringed, was not sparing in his appraisal of the man he blamed for his current condition.
‘Your position is clear,’ Isaac said, staggered by the intensity of Hampton’s venom.
After all, he and Larry had only just met the man, having made the trip down from London to Kent.
‘So that you know, I didn’t kill him. How could I, stuck in this goddamn chair day and night, barely able to feed myself?’
However, Hampton’s misfortune on a mountain in South America was not the pressing issue; it was Simmons’s subsequent death.
‘We’re not accusing you, Mr Hampton,’ Isaac said. ‘Apart from your dislike of the man, the general opinion is that Angus Simmons was well-liked.’
‘Maybe by others, but not me,’ Hampton said, grabbing hold of a bottle of water and taking a long drink.
‘Your wife?’
‘She let you in the door, not that she’s here every night, got herself a fancy man.’
‘Did your accident render you incapable?’
‘That’s about the only part of me that works, but she wants to party. She told me the night before we left for South America that she and Simmons were involved. She said it to rile me, to get me to divorce her, but she knows what she’ll get.’
‘What will that be?’ Isaac asked.
‘We had a prenup, clear that my money was sacrosanct, and her only entitlement was what she earned, a portion of the increased value of our assets.’
‘Mr Hampton, pardon my being blunt, but you don’t appear to be financially sound, not enough assets for her to worry about.’
‘You can be as blunt as you like. It’s not much this place, but it’s functional, and Kate thought that once she had her claws into me, I’d indulge her whims, dig into the money I’ve got invested.’
‘Are you saying her marriage to you was mercenary?’
‘We had a few good years, and then this,’ Hampton said, looking down at his withered legs.
‘Her attitude changed?’
‘Over time, and before I broke my back, we drifted apart. I can’t say that I helped, but what was the point? Angus and me, we were like brothers.’
‘‘You fell. Tell us about it.’
‘‘It was Patagonia, down the bottom of South America. Mountaineers, we’re never finished. After you’ve climbed Everest, the Matterhorn and the Eiger in the Alps, a few more in the Himalayas, then you’re challenged to look for more difficult climbs. Patagonia’s got plenty of technically challenging climbs, not the highest summits, though. Cerro Torre, part of a four-mountain chain in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, is not that high but was regarded as the world’s most formidable mountain, with constant high winds, a mushroom of rime ice overhanging at the top. Some reckon the ice isn’t part of the mountain, so it’s not the summit, and they get up to it, claim they’ve conquered the mountain, but not Angus and me. After all, we had climbed the other three peaks in the chain; we weren’t going to accept a compromise.
‘I was leading, just below the ice overhead. The wind was intense, the temperature was dropping fast, snow clouds coming in. Only a handful of climbers have made it to the top, but we were determined. Angus slipped, hanging in mid-air, held by a bolt rammed into the mountain during a previous attempt. I’m trying to get down to him; Angus is struggling, his judgement impaired. The bolt weakens, gives way, puts his weight onto me. I can’t hold him, not for long. It’s up to him; we’re compromised, and it’s either him or me, but Angus, he claimed afterwards that he was confused, disoriented, made a mistake, but I don’t believe it. After dangling for what seemed an eternity, probably no more than twenty seconds, I can’t hold on.’
‘You could have cut his rope.’
‘It’s not the movies up there. It’s a real life-and-death situation; people don’t make magnanimous gestures, dramatic music in the background. I wasn’t going to condemn my friend. It was up to him to do what I would have.’
‘Would you?’
‘I would have, but Angus – all those years of friendship, the trust we had placed in each other when climbing, and his courage failed him. He chose his life over mine.’
‘You fell?’
‘We both fell, only there was a ledge thirty feet below. He managed to land on fresh snow; it winded him, but he was out of danger, a safe place to descend from.’
‘And you?’
‘I caught the ledge at an angle. Angus managed to hold on to me, but I couldn’t move, in agony, screaming for him to let me go, to plummet to my death.’
‘An unusual reaction,’ Isaac said.
‘The only reaction. I was incapacitated, beyond help. It’s a decision that an experienced climber must be prepared to make.’
‘What happened?’
‘Angus propped me up against a rock overhang, secured me to the mountain with bolts and rope and left me, promising to be back within eight hours.’
‘Was he?’
‘The weather set in, but he made it back in fifteen. I was stretchered down, then airlifted to a hospital, spent six weeks in traction, then flown back to England.’
‘Angus saved your life.’
‘It was his life that was forfeit, not mine. He failed us both on that mountain.’
‘The mountaineering community?’
‘They lauded him for what he had done, but they never knew the truth.’
‘You didn’t tell them?’
‘Regardless of the truth, Angus had condemned me to purgatory. I
