'Of what I think of her work.'
'A symbol?' Lynn repeated carefully.
'Yes.'
'Perhaps you'd best explain.'
'Oh, if you'd read any, you'd know.'
'In fact, I have,' Lynn said.
'A little.'
'Then you'll know the awful things she does; little children tortured, abused, defiled.' His face was a mask of disgust.
'Do you have children, Mr Gooding? Yourself?' Lynn asked.
'I don't see what on earth…'
'I was interested, that's all.'
Well, no, then. No, I don't. '
'But it's something you feel strongly about?'
'Yes. Yes, of course. I mean, it's only natural. At least, that's what you would think. And the fact that she's a woman. That it's a woman, perpetrating these things…'
'Not exactly, Mr Gooding.'
'What do you mean?'
'I mean, Ms Jordan isn't actually doing any of these things. She isn't doing anything. Other than writing books. Isn't that so?'
'Yes, but…'
'Let me be clear here,' Naylorsaid, leaning forward for the first time.
'The business with the rabbit, that was to teach Miss Jordan a lesson, frighten her into stopping writing, what?'
'Huh, she's never going to stop, is she? Not with a formula like that. Raking it in. God knows what she must have earned, the last few years. Though, of course, she hasn't got the respect. Not from the critics, nor the affection of her readers. True affection, like Dorothy.'
'That was what you had for Ms Birdwell? Yourself, I mean. Affection and respect?'
'Of course, yes. Why I…'
'Then why this?' Lynn's finger hovered over the first of the photographs.
'Or this? Or this?'
Marius closed his eyes.
'I was upset. I…'
'You seem to get upset a lot,' Lynn observed quietly.
'I thought… I know it was stupid and foolish and very, very wrong… but I thought she didn't… Dorothy didn't… after everything that had happened between us, all the 240 time we had spent together…' His body was racked by a sudden sob.
'I thought she didn't love me any more. And I am deeply, deeply ashamed.'
The faint whir of the tape machinery aside, the clipped clicking of the clock, the only sounds were the contortions of Marius's ragged breathing as he struggled to recover himself, regain some element of control. Heather Jardine looked at the notepad on her lap and wished she could light up a cigarette; Kevin Naylor simply looked embarrassed. It was Lynn whose eyes never wavered. If ever anyone was in need of therapy, she was thinking, it's this poor, pathetic bastard and not me.
'These feelings you had about Cathy Jordan,' Lynn asked, 'about her work. Would you say that Ms Birdwell shared those? '
'Most strongly, yes.'
'But she didn't approve of the methods you used to express what you felt?'
'Grand guignol was the term she used. Over-theatrical. Too close for Dorothy's liking to the kind of thing you can imagine Jordan doing herself. Though, of course, that was the point.'
'She was happier with the letters, then, was she?' Lynn asked, making a leap of faith.
Marius's face was a picture.
Reaching down for the folder that was leaning against one leg of the table, Lynn extracted copies of the threatening letters Cathy Jordan had received and set them carefully down along the length of the table.
'The letters,' Lynn said.
'Have a good look. Remind yourself.'
Marius wobbled a little in his seat.
'I think,' Heather Jardine said, rising to her feet, 'my client is in need of a break. '
'This interview,' Lynn said, face angled towards the tape recorder, 'suspended at seventeen minutes past twelve. '
At four minutes to two, Alison and Shane Charlton rang the buzzer at the Enquiries desk below and asked if they could speak to somebody about the Peter Farleigh murder.
FR1; Forty-three 'We had a message,' Alison Charlton said, 'you wanted us to get in touch. We've been away, you see. The weekend. ' She smiled at her husband, who smiled, a touch self- consciously, back.
'We came in as soon as we heard.' The wedding rings, Resnick noticed, were shiny and new on their hands.
'The man who died,' Shane Charlton said,
'Alison's mother had saved his picture from the paper. She knew we'd been staying there that night. The same hotel.'
'It was Shane's firm's do,' Alison explained.
'I recognised him, we recognised him right off,' Shane said.
'Didn't we, All?'
'Oh, yes.' Her face, bright already, brightened still further.
'We were right facing him, him and her. Going up in the lift. Must have been1 was saying to Shane, wasn't I, Shane? – after that that it happened.'
'What time was this?' Resnick asked.
'Can you remember?'
'It would have been round eleven thirty,' Shane said.
'Nearer quarter past,' Alison said.
'You said, him and her,' Resnick reminded her.
'The woman…'
'The woman he was with…'
'Nice looking, she was. Well, quite…'
'Considering.'
'Like you say, considering. And I think she'd been drinking, don't you, Shane?'
'Didn't act drunk, though, did she? Not exactly.'
'No, it was what she said.'
Shane nodded, remembering.
'Come right out with it, didn't she? We might as well not've been there, might we? For all she cared. Well, I'd never've had the guts to have said it. Not the way she did. One hundred and fifty pounds, she said, just like she was talking about, oh, you know, the weather.
A hundred and fifty pounds, to spend the night. I said to Shane after, when we was in our room, would he, like, if he was off on business and on his own, without us being married, of course, would he ever spend that amount of money. And you said you might, d'you remember, but only if she looked like me. I thought that was really sweet. '
She giggled and Shane, embarrassed, fidgeted in his seat.
'Could you describe her?' Resnick asked.
'The woman.'
They looked at one another before Alison answered. 'She was, well, she wasn't young.'
'She was never old,' Shane said.
