I shake my head. "No, thanks."
"Right, Mr Colley," Inspector McDunn says in a getting-down-to-business sort of way. "We're carrying out an investigation into a number of serious assaults and murders, plus related crimes. We think you might be able to help and we'd like to ask you a few questions, if you don't mind."
"Not at all," I say, breathing deeply as the cloud of smoke from McDunn's cigarette rolls over the table towards me. Smells good.
"Sergeant, could you…?" McDunn says.
The sergeant takes an A4 manila envelope from his briefcase and hands it to the inspector, who takes out a single sheet of paper. He hands it over to me. "I assume you recognise this."
It's a photocopy of a piece of TV criticism I did for the paper about fifteen months ago. Not exactly my speciality, but the regular guy had come down with an eye infection and I welcomed the opportunity to editorialise a bit. "Yeah, I wrote this," I say, grinning. Hell, my name's at the top of the piece, beside the headline RADICAL EQUALISER?
Inspector McDunn smiles thinly. I read the piece while the boys in blue — well, black and blue — look on.
As I read, and remember, I feel the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. This hasn't happened for twenty years or so.
I hand it back. "So?" I ask.
The inspector looks at the A4 sheet for a moment.
""Perhaps,"" he quotes from it, ""somebody should make one of these programmes for those of us who're fed up seeing the usual suspects get theirs (corrupt landlords, substance-abusing youths and of course the inevitable drug dealers; reprehensible villains all, no doubt, but too predictable, too safe) and introduce a Real Avenger, a Radical Equaliser who'll take on some alternative hate-figures. Somebody who'll give people like James Anderton, Judge Jamieson and Sir Toby Bissett a taste of their own medicine, somebody who'll attack the asset strippers and the arms smugglers (ministers of HMG included — listening, Mr Persimmon?); somebody who'll stand up against the tycoons who put their profits before others" safety, like Sir Rufus Carter; somebody who'll punish the captains of industry who parrot that time-honoured phrase about their shareholders" interests coming first as they close down profitable factories and throw thousands out of work, just so that their already comfortable investors in the Home Counties and Marbella can make that little bit extra that always comes in so handy darling when you're thinking about trading up to a 7-series Beamer or moving the gin-palace to a more expensive mooring."" The detective inspector smiles briefly, humourlessly at me. "You did write that, Mr Colley?"
"Guilty," I say, then give a small laugh. Neither man laughs uproariously, slaps his thigh or has to wipe tears from his eyes. I clear my throat. "How is that nice Mr Anderton, anyway? Enjoying his retirement?" I sit back in my seat, feeling the carved wood against my back. I'm cold.
"Well, Mr Colley," the detective inspector says, slipping the photocopy of the article into the envelope and handing it back to the sergeant, "he's all right, I believe." McDunn clasps his hands on the table. "But Judge Jamieson and his wife were assaulted while on holiday in Carnoustie during the summer; Sir Toby Bissett was murdered outside his home in London in August, as I'm sure you're aware; and Mr Persimmon was murdered last month, at his house in Sussex."
I'm aware my eyes are bulging. "What? But I didn't know —! There's been nothing about Persimmon — he was supposed to have died peacefully at home!"
"There was a security aspect to Mr Persimmon's murder, as I'm sure you'll appreciate, Mr Colley."
"But you kept it quiet for a month?"
"Needed a D-notice on one of the London papers," the sergeant says, smirking. "But they were cooperative."
And it never got round the journo jungle-network. Shit. Must have been the Telegraph.
"And then on Friday night there, somebody blew up Sir Rufus Carter at his cottage in Wales. Burned to a cinder, he was; they only just identified the body."
I don't react for a moment. Oh my God. "Ah, sorry; what?"
He tells me again, then asks, "Mind if we ask what you were doing on Friday night, Mr Colley?"
"What? … Ah, I stayed in."
Sergeant Flavell looks significantly at the inspector, who doesn't return the look. He's watching me. He makes a strange sucking noise with his teeth, like he's straining something through them. I don't think he's aware he's doing it. "All night?" he asks.
"Ah?" I'm a bit distracted. "Yes, all night. I was… working." I can see he spotted the hesitation. "And playing computer games." I look from the detective inspector to the detective sergeant. "There's no law against playing computer games, is there?"
Christ, this is awful, I feel like I'm a child again, like I'm up before the headmaster, like I'm back being castigated by Sir Andrew for that botched Gulf trip. That was bad enough but this is ghastly. I can't believe they're actually asking me this sort of stuff. They can't really think I'm a murderer, can they? I'm a journalist; cynical and hard-bitten and all that shit and I do drugs and I drive too fast and I hate the Tories and all their accomplices, but I'm not a fucking murderer, for Christ's sake. The sergeant takes out a notebook and starts making notes.
"You didn't see anybody else that evening?" McDunn asks.
"Look, I was here, in Edinburgh; I wasn't in Wales. How on earth am I supposed to get from here to Wales?"
"We're not accusing you of anything, Mr Colley," The DI says, sounding mildly aggrieved. "Did you see anybody else that evening?"
"No; I stayed in."
"You live alone, Mr Colley?"
"Yes. I did some work, then I played a game called Despot."
"Nobody called round, nobody saw you?"
"No, they didn't." I try to remember what happened that evening. "I had a phone call."
"About what time would that be?"
"Midnight."
"And who was that from?"
I hesitate. "Look," I say. "Am I being charged with anything? Because I mean if I am, this is just ludicrous but I want a lawyer —»
"You're not being charged with anything, Mr Colley," the inspector says, sounding reasonable and slightly offended. "These are enquiries, that's all. You're not under arrest, you don't have to tell us anything, and certainly you may have a lawyer present."
Sure, and if I don't cooperate they might arrest me, or at least get a search warrant for the flat. (Gulp. There's a couple of quarters of dope, some speed and at least one ancient tab of acid in there.)
"Well, it's just, I'm a journalist, you know? I have to protect my sources, if —»
"Oh. Was this midnight phone call on a professional matter then, Mr Colley?" the inspector asks.
"Ah…" Shit. Decision time. Now what? What do I do? Fuck it; Andy won't mind. He'll back me up. "No," I tell the inspector. "No, it was a friend."
"A friend."
"His name's Andy Gould." I have to spell his surname for the sergeant, then give them the phone number for Andy's decrepit hotel.
"And he called you?" the inspector says.
"Yes. Well, no; I called him, left a message on his answer-machine and then he called me back a few minutes later."
"I see," the inspector says. "And this was on your home phone, correct?"
"Yes."
"The one that comes with your flat."
"Yes. Not on my mobile, if that's what you're driving at."
"Mm-hmm," the inspector says. He folds the last three centimetres of his cigarette carefully into the ashtray and takes out a little notebook and flips it open to where the page is held by an elastic band. He looks from the notebook to me. "And what about October the twenty-fifth, and September the fourth, and August the sixth, and July the fifteenth?"