‘So you considered that a definite possibility?’ Brock said, just for the record, disappointed with the line Haygill was taking.
‘Only because the prospect was so appalling. I have a tendency to imagine the worst. Anyone will tell you. When we look at a new experiment, my first question is, what’s the worst that can happen? Well, this seemed to me the worst possibility. I would never have imagined it before that day, but then, I would never have imagined that Max Springer could die like that.’
‘Yes, but you did think it a realistic possibility?’
‘There have been times, over the past year, when some of my people have become very emotional, very angry, about racist and bigoted intolerance that they have encountered in certain quarters. You know some of it, I think. I wondered if perhaps Max Springer’s outrageous attacks upon our work had finally provoked a reaction that had gone tragically too far.’
‘I thought he was passionately opposed to bigotry and racism?’
‘So he said. The irony had not escaped me.’
‘So, what did you do?’
‘As I said before, I drove to UCLE that evening when I returned to London. It was true what I said about the papers I needed, but I also hoped to see Darr there and find out about developments, and hopefully put my mind to rest. Unfortunately he wasn’t there, and I wasn’t able to get him on the phone. I went up to the labs. It’s habit, I always do that, to get an idea of the progress of work. There was an Evening Standard on one of the benches, lying open at a spread on Springer’s murder. They’d obviously been discussing it. I looked at it, and read that the police were still searching for the murder weapon, and the horrible thought occurred to me that, if one of the team really had been involved, it might even be there, in our building. I even thought, for a moment, that I might search for it, just to reassure myself, until I realised how impossible that would be. If somebody wanted to hide something in that building, I might search for weeks and never find it. And anyway, I was ashamed of the thought. Standing there in the familiar surroundings of our laboratories, the very idea of one of my team being involved just seemed ridiculous.
‘I went back to my office to sign letters my secretary had left and sort out the papers I’d need for the next trip, and at some point I must have looked up and noticed that the volumes on the book shelves on the wall facing me were out of order.’
Haygill gave an apologetic little frown. ‘Sorry. That must sound unlikely. It was my bound volumes of the Journal of Medical Genetics, for which I was editor for several years. I was staring at them, thinking about something else, when I suddenly thought, “Why is 1990 in front of 1989?” So I got up, still thinking about this other thing, and walked over and pulled out the two volumes to switch them round, and then I saw a white plastic carrier bag rolled up in the space behind them.’
He stopped and took a deep breath. His colour had faded again, the gleam of sweat returned to his forehead. ‘I’m sorry. I realise this must all sound totally unlikely. It still seems like that to me, like a bad dream, but it is the truth you see.’ Another deep breath. ‘I picked up the bag… it obviously contained something solid. Inside I found a brown paper bag, and when I lifted that out…’
He came to a halt, and his solicitor looked at him in concern and half rose from his chair.
‘No, no… it’s all right.’ Haygill raised his hand to reassure him. ‘Inside was that gun.’
They waited while he took a gulp of water.
‘What were your thoughts?’ Brock said.
‘What could I think? It seemed to confirm all my worst fears. But then I tried to reason my way out of it. I didn’t know if it was the gun that had killed Springer-is it in fact?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh. Oh, God… Well, I couldn’t be sure. I thought, maybe if one of these characters owns a gun, and is afraid you might search their belongings after this murder, then they might want to find a hiding place for it. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more plausible that idea seemed, because surely the murderer would want to get rid of his gun completely-throw it in the Thames, for instance? Whereas whoever had hidden this gun obviously wanted to keep it, and recover it later.’
‘By “one of these characters” you mean your staff, do you?’
Haygill nodded reluctantly.
‘And why would they choose that place?’
‘Yes, that’s what I asked myself. I became quite angry thinking about how they had put me at risk. But then I reasoned that they had probably assumed that the boss’s office, behind the volumes that nobody ever looks at, was just about the safest place in the whole building. But clearly I couldn’t leave it there. I considered the options, and decided to dispose of it myself.’
‘You didn’t feel it your duty to bring it to us?’
‘I’m sorry. The implications, the consequences, were too… expensive. I felt we had too much at stake to allow this to derail everything.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘I thought of the river, but then I remembered the cameras on campus, and the possibility of someone seeing me, so I put it into my bag, with the idea of taking it as far away as possible. Well, you know where I finally threw it, into the pond not far from our house. I thought I had been careful. I had no idea that anyone had seen me do it.’
‘Did you discuss it with anyone? Dr Darr, for instance?’
‘No, no one.’
‘So you considered him as a possible culprit?’
Haygill opened his mouth as if to deny it, then changed his mind. He shrugged.
‘You had no theories? No specific suspicions? Who were the principal hotheads in the previous troubles?’
‘The two Iraqi chaps, probably, Sabri and Durak. Yes, I thought if anyone had smuggled a gun into the country it would probably have been them.’
‘Not Abu Khadra?’
‘To tell the truth, I never even considered him. He was the least militant, the least aggressive of them all. I was astounded when they said he’d been arrested.’
‘And even then you didn’t come forward and tell us where the gun was.’
‘What good would it have done? And anyway, Abu was never tried, never found guilty, was he? There hasn’t been an inquest yet, has there?’
‘Perhaps it might have cleared him, Professor, did you think of that? If that gun ever had the killer’s prints on it, your actions effectively removed them.’
Haygill looked stunned. ‘No… I didn’t think…’
‘And then, of course there’s the possibility that Abu didn’t act alone. Did you consider that?’
He hesitated, then nodded. ‘I considered it. But nothing anyone said after Abu was arrested gave me any indication that they had helped or encouraged him, nothing at all. I mean, who do you suspect?’
Brock stared at him balefully. ‘The obvious candidate is yourself, Professor Haygill. You’re the one who stood to benefit from Springer being silenced. You’re the one who attempted to dispose of the weapon, which, as you said yourself just now, is exactly what the killer would have done. And you’re the one who lied about it until you had no choice but to tell us the truth. Or a version of it, anyway.’ Brock looked at his watch. ‘I have to tell you that we have obtained warrants to search your home, your car and your offices. Is there anything else you want to tell me before I conclude this interview?’