Charles nodded.
‘Fine. I must just get a few personal details and then, if I may, I’ll ask a few questions about… what happened. Then Constable Renton will write it down as a statement, which you sign — if you’re happy with it. Okay?’
Charles nodded again.
‘It’s late, and I’m afraid this could take some time. Say if you’d like more tea. Or a sandwich or something.’
‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’
So it started. First, simple information, name, address and so on. Then details of how he came to know Mr. and Mrs Mecken. And then a resume of the last two days.
As he spoke, Charles could feel it going wrong. He told the truth, he told it without bias, and yet he could feel the false picture that his words were building up. Everything he said seemed to incriminate Hugo. The more he tried to defend him, the worse it sounded.
Detective-Sergeant Harvey was a good poker-faced questioner. He didn’t force the pace, he didn’t put words into Charles’s mouth, he just asked for information slowly and unemotionally. And to damning effect.
‘After your lunch on Monday you say that you and Mr. Mecken went on to a drinking club?’
‘Yes, a sort of strip joint in Dean Street.’
‘And what did you drink there?’
‘Hugo ordered a bottle of whisky.’
‘So, by the time you left there, you had both had a considerable amount to drink?’
‘I didn’t drink a great deal in the club.’ Immediately Charles kicked himself for prompting the next question.
‘But Mr. Mecken did?’
‘I suppose he had quite a bit by some people’s standards, but you know how it is with advertising people — they can just drink and drink.’ The attempt at humour didn’t help. It made it sound more and more of a whitewash.
‘Yes. But you then both returned to Breckton and continued drinking at the theatre club. Surely that made it rather a lot of alcohol, even for an advertising man.’
‘Well, yes, I agree, we wouldn’t normally have drunk that much, but you see Hugo was a bit upset and…’ Realizing that once again he had said exactly the wrong thing, Charles left the words hanging in the air.
‘Upset,’ Detective-Sergeant Harvey repeated without excitement. Have you any idea why he should have been upset?’
Charles hedged. ‘Oh, I dare say it was something at work. He was involved in a big campaign to launch a new bedtime drink — that’s what I was working on with him-and I think there may have been some disagreements over that. You know, these advertising people do take it all so seriously.’
‘Yes. Of course.’ The slow response seemed only to highlight the hollowness of Charles’s words. ‘You have no reason to believe that Mr. Mecken was having any domestic troubles?’
‘Domestic troubles?’ Charles repeated idiotically.
‘Worries about his marriage.’
‘Oh. Oh, I shouldn’t think so. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t think anyone can begin to understand anything about another person’s marriage. But I mean Charlotte is a — I mean, was a beautiful girl and…’ He trailed off guiltily.
‘Hmm. Mr. Paris, would you describe Mr. Mecken as a violent man?’
‘No, certainly not. And if you’re trying to suggest that — ’
‘I am not trying to suggest anything, Mr. Paris. I am just trying to get as full a background to the death of Mrs Mecken as I can,’ Detective-Sergeant Harvey replied evenly.
‘Yes, of course, I’m sorry.’ Blustering wasn’t going to help Hugo’s cause. As his interrogation continued, Charles kept thinking of his friend, in another interview room, being asked other questions. Where were Hugo’s answers leading?
‘You say Mr. Mecken is not a habitually violent man. Is he perhaps the sort who might become violent when he’s had a few drinks? I mean, for instance, did he show any violence towards you during your long drinking session on Monday?’
Charles hesitated. Certainly he wasn’t going to go back to Hugo’s bizarre outburst while an undergraduate and his instinct was to deny that anything had happened on the Monday. But Hugo’s second swing at him had been witnessed by a bar full of Backstagers. He couldn’t somehow see that self-dramatizing lot keeping quiet about it. He’d do better to edit the truth than to tell a lie. ‘Well, he did take a sort of playful swing at me at one point when I’ suggested he ought to be getting home, but that’s all.’
‘A playful swing.’ Detective-Sergeant Harvey gave the three words equal emphasis.
The questioning ended soon after and the information was turned into a written statement. Detective- Sergeant Harvey courteously went through a selection of the questions again and Constable Renton laboriously wrote down the answers in longhand on ruled paper.
Inevitably it was a slow process and Charles found his mind wandering. He didn’t like the way it was heading.
Previously he had been numb with shock, but now the fact of Charlotte’s death was getting through to him. The feeling of guilt which his initially casual reaction had prompted gave way to a cold sensation of nausea.
‘With it came a realization of the implications for Hugo. As Charles went through the details for his statement, he saw with horror which way the circumstantial evidence pointed.
There were so many witnesses too. So many people who had heard Hugo’s denunciation of his wife and his violent burst of aggression towards Charles. Unless Hugo could prove a very solid alibi for the time at which his wife had been murdered, things didn’t look too good for him.
At this point it struck Charles that he was assuming Hugo was innocent and he paused to question the logic of this. On reflection, it didn’t stand up very well. In fact the only arguments he could come up with against Hugo’s guilt were Hugo’s own denial that he would ever hurt Charlotte and Charles’s own conviction that someone he knew so well would be incapable of a crime of such savagery.
And those weren’t arguments. They were sheer emotion, romantic indulgence.
The thought of romanticism only made it worse. It suggested a very plausible motive for Hugo to kill his wife. Hugo was a romantic, unwilling to accept the unpleasant facts of life. He had built up his own life into a romantic ideal, with his writing talent supporting the professional side and his love-affair with Charlotte the domestic.
When it became clear to such a man that the twin pillars of his life were both illusions, anything could happen.
He finished the statement and was asked to read it through, signing each page. At one point he hesitated.
‘Anything wrong?’ asked Detective-Sergeant Harvey.
‘Well, I… it seems so bald, so…’ He couldn’t think of anything that didn’t sound like protesting too much. ‘No.’ He signed on.
He was amazed, to discover it was nearly five o’clock. Dully he accepted the offer of the lift home in a squad car. He gave his’ Hereford Road address.
He didn’t notice the drabness of the bedsitter as he entered. He homed in on the bottle of Bells straight away and sank half a tumblerful. Then he lay down on the bed and lost consciousness.
When he. woke, it was still dark. Or rather, he realized after looking at his watch, dark again. Quarter past six. He’s slept round the clock.’
He was still dressed. He left the house and walked along Hereford Road to Westbourne Grove. There was a newspaper seller on the corner. He bought and Evening Standard.
It didn’t take long to find the news. Hugo Mecken had been arrested, charged with the murder of his wife, Charlotte.
And Charles Paris felt is was his fault.
