Stallings stared up at him, her mouth slightly agape. ‘Jack,’ she murmured, ‘you have made my morning. Let’s go and talk to PC Weekes.’
‘And will we do his lawyer the courtesy of telling her what we’ve got?’
‘Nah, I’m out of courtesy. She can find out at the same time as he does. Come on. They’re both waiting for us in the interview room. The custody officer told me that Weekes is in a foul mood after his night in the cells. Let’s go and make it worse.’
She led the way downstairs, to the interview room at the back of the building.
Theo Weekes was seated at the table, beside a fair-haired woman, power-dressed in a pin-striped trouser suit. He glared up at the two detectives as they entered: his eyes were bloodshot and the dark outline of an incipient beard covered his chin.
‘You’re fucked,’ he said, glaring directly at McGurk, ignoring Stallings. ‘This is going all the way when I get out of here. The Federation’s going to crap all over you, pal, and so am I.’
‘If that was a threat,’ the sergeant replied, ‘I would think better of it, if I were you. Remember Byron? I’m even bigger than him, so Lisanne tells me.’ Weekes started out of his chair, but his solicitor seized his arm in a surprisingly strong grip. ‘Morning, Frankie,’ he continued. ‘Long time no see. What do you think of your client so far?’
‘I think he’s standing up to his ordeal very well, Jack,’ the lawyer said. ‘I know what’s going on here. You’ve got another dead artist on your hands, and you’re desperate for a quick result, so desperate you’re prepared to throw one of your own to the lions.’
‘Trust us,’ McGurk told her, ‘we didn’t throw this guy anywhere. He jumped into the den, aided only by his blind stupidity.’
‘Let’s get on with it.’ Stallings switched on the tape, as she and the sergeant took their seats. ‘It’s nine twenty, this is interview room two in the police office at Torphichen Place, I am Detective Inspector Rebecca Stallings, accompanied by DS Jack McGurk, and we are about to interview Police Constable Theodore Weekes, represented by Ms Frances Birtles.’
‘Fine,’ said Birtles, ‘that’s the formalities over. Now maybe you’d tell us for the record why a serving police officer with an exemplary record has been held overnight in these atrocious conditions.’
‘Because he’s a murder suspect,’ the inspector snapped, ‘and before we go any further, let me tell you something. I’m new to this force, so I don’t know your ways, but this is my interview, this is my nick, and we’re playing by my rules. Those say that you’re here to advise your client, and that’s all. That means that I ask the questions and he answers them.’
‘I’m answering fuck all,’ Weekes growled.
‘Okay.’ She glanced to her left. ‘Jack, charge him.’
‘Hey, wait a minute!’ Birtles exclaimed.
Stallings shrugged her shoulders and began to rise. ‘That’s what’s going to happen anyway. I’m not going to waste time on him.’
‘My client will be co-operative. Won’t you, Theo?’
As Weekes nodded, fear replaced ebullience in his eyes.
‘On that basis,’ the inspector went on, ‘I’ll tell you what we’ve got. Last night we recovered clothing from the home of PC Weekes’s ex-wife. This included a canvas jacket, which, we believe, he was wearing when he arrived there on the day of Sugar Dean’s murder. From that jacket we recovered hair samples that match the victim’s. You don’t deny you were wearing the jacket that day, do you, Theo?’
‘No, but. .’ Frankie Birtles laid a hand on his arm, then leaned close to him and whispered. He nodded again.
‘My client points out,’ she said, ‘that he owned the jacket in question during his admitted relationship with the victim, and that he had not worn it regularly since. Is that the extent of your forensic evidence?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Then will you please stop auditioning for the role of Widow Twanky, cancel this pantomime, and let my client return to his duty as a police officer?’
‘We would do,’ McGurk drawled amiably, ‘if it wasn’t for this.’ He took the necklace, in its packet, from his pocket and held it up between two fingers. ‘Sugar Dean’s father identified it this morning as his daughter’s. It was the one thing she ever had from your client that she valued, and she was wearing it when she died. Later that day, Theo gave it to his ex-wife, as a present.’ He paused. ‘And by the way, Frankie: wrong pantomime. From where I’m sitting, Becky’s Cinderella, and you are most definitely one of the Ugly Sisters.’ He switched his gaze to Weekes. ‘Okay, Buttons,’ he said, ‘talk your way out of this one.’
The effect was dramatic. The man slumped back in his chair, his eyes fixed on the tiny trinket. His eyes filled with tears and, slowly, they began to run down his face.
‘Can I have a minute alone with my client?’ Birtles asked quietly.
‘You can have all the time you like,’ Stallings told her. ‘It gets deadly serious from here on in. We don’t have the gun, but with that thing there, I don’t reckon we need it. Let us know when you’re ready, but be in no doubt about this. When we come back in here, we won’t accept anything less than a full and truthful account of what happened that morning.’
Forty
Since stopping work in the second half of her pregnancy, Maggie Steele had come to realise that many of the things she had taken for granted in her youth, in the days before she left for work early and returned late, had gone for good.
The one that annoyed her most was the unpredictability of the postal delivery service. Once she had been able to count on her mail being in the hall before breakfast. Latterly she had become used to finding it waiting for her in the evening. This was unacceptable, since she was used to an ordered life, to a daily timetable in which specific things happened at specific times. Thus she found it frustrating that her mail seemed to arrive at the whim of the postman or postwoman who happened to be on duty on any given day.
That morning she was lucky. It was five to ten, and she was loading the washing-machine, when she heard the thud of envelopes and packages from the entrance hall below, and the rattle of the closing letterbox flap. She threw in a detergent capsule, started her chosen cycle, then rushed downstairs.
When she carried the delivery into the kitchen, she saw that most of it was unsolicited, from computer companies, supermarkets and someone offering to cut the cost of her home insurance in half. Apart from those, there was a phone bill, a letter confirming her next dental appointment, and a large packet, with her address handwritten on the front and the logo of Levene and Company on the back. She tossed the rest on to a work surface and tore it open.
The annual report and accounts of Fishheads.com plc had been published almost four months earlier, when Dražen Boras, under his business pseudonym, David Barnes, had still been running the company, and when Stevie, her husband, the man he killed, had still been alive. For a few seconds, that thought overwhelmed her, but she pushed it away and focused on the document.
It was a thick, glossy publication, undoubtedly produced by a high-powered design house, with the aim of making a statement of success to shareholders, to bankers and to the financial world in general. She scanned the index. The accounts were of no interest to her, and so she went straight to the section headed ‘Directors’ Report’.
The text was sketchy, giving only headline descriptions of the company’s activities throughout the year. She guessed that the consultancy that had drafted it had taken the annual press release output and edited it into a single story. Most of the space was filled with photographs of the directors, out and about, at business meetings in Europe and further afield, in Asia and the United States. . or, rather, of two of the directors. Most of the captions began ‘Chairman David Barnes and director Ifan Richards. .’ The few in which Godric Hawker was seen were set in the firm’s London head office, confirming Maggie’s information that the finance director was the corporate equivalent of the footballer, Dennis Bergkamp, who never flew during the last ten years of his career. The counterpoint to this seemed to be that Barnes/Boras and Richards never seemed to travel separately.