So obviously not a sitcom or even a variety or chat show, Jac thought. They would normally have some laughter.
‘And how long did it go on for… how long was Mack Elliott watching?’
‘Maybe twenty minutes or so… half-hour, max.’
That ruled out a sporting fixture, too.
‘And anything else you might recall about what Mack was watching then? Anything you might have heard or he mentioned?’
‘No… that’s it. Just remember some cheering and shouting… and him telling off the chicken guy.’
Already two minutes over the session time. Nothing else that Ormdern was going to find out. But if Larry couldn’t remember what Mack Elliott was watching that night, maybe Mack himself could. Although it was twelve years ago, they now had some strong guideposts: cheering and shouting, guy in a chicken suit that he threatened with a Billy-club.
Having thanked Ormdern, ‘I’ll look forward to reading your final report tomorrow,’ Jac paced back through the endless corridors with that cauldron of conflicting thoughts from the session still burning through his head. He opened his car window and breathed deeply of the outside night air, trying to lose the heat and claustrophobia of the prison, and the second he was clear of the final guard-post, took out his cell-phone and dialled Mack Elliott’s number.
Outside the prison gates, the crowd had swelled to eighty strong. One group, with long hair and long white flowing robes, as if they were a flock of angels or modern-day Messiahs, held up a large placard:
STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN
Go Larry, go…
Then you can get your own back on Candaret!
Don’t let him in when he shows there!
…Though unlikely that’s where he’s headed.
The Devil claimed his soul years ago!
To one side they’d set up large speakers blasting the song out, the display no doubt inspired by Larry’s strong religious beliefs.
‘Come on…’ Jac muttered impatiently as he sped away from the prison. Last chance… last chance.
But as Mack Elliott’s line continued ringing emptily in Jac’s ear, all that reached him was Robert Plant’s voice sailing hauntingly on the night air, singing about the feeling he got when he looked to the west, his spirit crying for leaving.
36
‘Have you heard from Jac at all?’
‘No, not a thing,’ Catherine McElroy said. The truth, but even if she had heard from her son, the last person she’d tell was her sister Camille. Family allegiances would hold for no more than twenty-four hours before Camille’s ‘Citizen’s duty’ wrestled advantage and she phoned the police.
‘Terrible business… terrible,’ Camille aired, though she was probably thinking more of the shock impact to her society set than to family, Catherine thought. ‘It would probably be a lot better if the police had found him. At least then you’d know where he was, know that he was safe… and be able to see him and talk to him. Find out what happened.’
‘Yes… I suppose so.’ Some sense in that, Catherine supposed; but still she remained guarded, unsure whether Camille was just fishing to see whether she might know more than she was letting on.
‘God knows what I’m going to say to Tobias Bromwell… if I ever speak to the man again. His number has come up twice now on my call minder, but I just don’t have the stomach to phone him back. Don’t know what to say. Too embarrassed.’
Now they were getting to it, Catherine thought; the condolences and niceties out of the way, now they were getting to what really made Camille’s world turn. ‘I understand,’ Catherine said numbly. That’s practically all she’d felt since hearing the news about Jac: numb.
‘And you had absolutely no inkling of what was going on, what might be about to happen?’
‘No, of course not.’ The first edge to Catherine’s voice; a ridiculous suggestion even by Camille’s normal thick-skinned, lame-brained standards: “Mom, I’m going out with a lap-dancer and we’re planning to murder her ex-boyfriend.”
‘So you didn’t even know about this other girlfriend? This… this lap-dancer?’
Catherine half-smiled to herself at Camille’s difficulty in even saying the word. ‘No, I didn’t,’ she said, hoping that Camille didn’t read the half-lie. All she knew, from Alaysha directly while Jac had been in the hospital, was that she did some ‘modelling’. Perhaps Alaysha didn’t know what Jac might have already said, and they’d have both got around later to telling her more.
Camille sighed heavily. ‘That’s where it all starts to go wrong, don’t you see? That initial deception. Two-timing poor Jennifer like that. And, for reasons that now become obvious, not telling anyone about this other girl.’
‘What, you think one might lead to the other?’ Normally, Catherine wouldn’t have said anything, but she could feel her blood boil as Camille had continued: her society-circle embarrassment over Jac’s two-timing and dating a lap-dancer put before the fact that he was being hunted like a rabbit by the police, might not even be still alive, with herself and Jean-Marie worried out of their minds. ‘Like some sort of prelude: date a lap-dancer… next step murder.’
Only a split-second pause, but Catherine could practically hear Camille’s flinch of surprise that she had dared to answer back. ‘No, of course not. But you can bet your bottom dollar that this girl had more than a little to do with putting Jac up to it.’ Camille snorted derisively. ‘Types like that.’
‘Like what, Camille?’ Maybe Camille had been grating on her nerves for a while, but now, with everything with Jac, her patience levels were exhausted.
‘Like, you know… I surely don’t have to spell it out.’ Again that reluctance to even say it, as if it would somehow soil her lips. ‘But one thing’s for sure: she’s certainly an entirely different kettle of fish to a girl like Jennifer Bromwell.’
‘She only takes her clothes off for money… no doubt to put groceries on the table for her little girl. There’s no sin in that.’
‘Please… spare me.’
‘And do you really think the likes of old-man Bromwell built up their fortunes by being squeaky clean? I hear he was involved in some messy low-rent housing early on. Complaints about rats, damp and unsanitary conditions, and strong-arm guys busting doors down and kicking whole families out in the dead of night when they complained too hard. Not exactly what he’d like to be quizzed about at one of your little dinner soirees.’
This time the surprise was clear at the other end; an audible gasp. ‘Sometimes, Catherine, you’re so… so French.’
Catherine wasn’t sure whether the comment was due to her laissez-faire attitude about people taking their clothes off for money, or her socialist-slanted dig at Tobias Bromwell — but she decided to take it as a compliment. ‘Thanks.’
‘And while we’re on the subject of low rents — don’t forget whose house you’re in!’ Camille hung up abruptly.
Catherine took a fresh breath, feeling strangely invigorated. Camille might soon put in the thin edge of the wedge about her and Jean-Marie moving on, finding their own place — one more problem she didn’t need now on top of all else — but all she knew was that at that moment, despite everything, she suddenly felt better. Freer.
‘And as… as I looked back, there was this woman. Don’t know even what made me look back at that point, maybe the sense of her eyes on me… but there she was suddenly, this woman with her dog. Her eyes meeting mine for a second before I ran on.’
‘How far away was she?’
‘Maybe eighty yards the other way from the Roche house. A hundred or so from where I was then.’