‘This is Detective Inspector Considine, from Brent CID.,’ I explained. ‘And Constable Harrison. Detective Inspector Considine has been investigating the death of João Zarco at Silvertown Dock on Saturday.’
I didn’t call it murder; I figured we had more chance of securing a full confession now if I tried to play down the gravity of what had happened.
‘Which I think you know about, Mr Cruikshank.’ I was speaking to the man who had been watching the television. He was about thirty-five years old, six feet tall, stocky, with light brown hair and green eyes, and he was wearing jeans and a thick blue woollen pullover that looked as if it had been knitted by his mother-in-law.
‘It is Mr Cruikshank, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ he said dully. He sighed and then closed his eyes for several seconds. ‘It was an accident,’ he added. ‘Please believe me when I say that I didn’t mean it to happen.’
‘I think you’d better tell us exactly what did happen,’ I said.
He nodded. ‘Yes, I think I had,’ he said.
‘Do you mind if we sit down?’ I asked.
‘No, please, go ahead.’
He pointed at the vacant sofa on which Louise, Constable Harrison and I now arranged ourselves, and then turned off the television.
‘Would you like something to drink?’ he asked.
We shook our heads.
‘Do you mind if I do?’ he said. ‘I think I need one.’
‘Go ahead,’ I said.
He helped himself to a large whisky from a bottle of Laphroaig, emptied the glass and poured himself another.
‘Dutch courage,’ he said, sitting down in front of us.
‘It’s a pity you didn’t have some of that on Saturday,’ I said.
‘Yes, isn’t it? By the way, how did you—?’
‘You were on Mr Zarco’s guest list of complimentary tickets, Mr Cruikshank,’ I said. ‘On its own, of course, that wouldn’t have been evidence that you killed him. But the piece of ceiling moulding you gave him when you met was still in his pocket when his body was recovered.’
I glanced up at the ceiling, and then from my coat pocket took out a photograph of the chunk of ceiling moulding photographed by someone at the East Ham Mortuary.
‘It matches the piece missing from this ceiling. The piece that you gave him when you were complaining about his builders next door. It was them who caused the damage, wasn’t it?’
Cruikshank nodded. ‘You’ve no idea the distress this building work has caused my wife’s parents,’ he said. ‘Day in, day out. They’re old. They’ve a right to the quiet enjoyment of their retirement.’
Mr Van de Merwe went and sat beside his wife on another sofa, and together they gave every impression of two old people who were trying to enjoy their retirement, quietly.
‘I can understand that,’ I said.
‘Can you?’ said Mariella, bitterly. ‘I doubt that very much. This whole sorry saga has driven us bloody mad, I don’t mind telling you.’
‘Please, Mariella,’ said her husband. ‘Let me handle this. By myself. The way I should have handled it before.’
‘So, Zarco gave you tickets,’ I said. ‘For Saturday’s match and tonight’s match, too. As a sign of good faith, perhaps. A little token to help continue the dialogue you’d already had in the hope of resolving your dispute.’
‘Something like that,’ said Cruikshank.
‘As if,’ snorted Mariella. ‘Trying to fob us off with some tickets, more like.’
‘That’s not fair,’ said her husband.
‘Isn’t it?’
‘Please, Mariella. You’re not helping. I liked him, Mr Manson. Well, most of the time, I did. He knew I was a City fan — have been for a while, actually — and, well, as you say, he thought that if we kept on talking we could sort out our differences. Hence the tickets. And perhaps we would have sorted something out, I don’t know. Anyway, he told me to come along to one of the hospitality suites on Saturday, before the match, so that we could talk. Number 123. It belonged to some Qatari businessmen who weren’t using it, he said. He also said that he was going to make an improved offer — for my parents-in-law to get away from the square until the building work was complete. So I went along. And we talked. We were in the kitchen, having a coffee. At first it was all very amicable. Then I mentioned that this house was going to need redecorating after his builders had finished. As you can see for yourselves, the place is covered with dust, because of the vibrations from the constant drilling. I gave him a piece of ceiling moulding that had fallen on my mother-in-law’s head last week as evidence of that. I mentioned a price — an estimate we’d had from a painter and decorator. Twenty thousand pounds. This was on top of the ten he’d already offered us. That was when he accused me of trying to cheat him. He said that he thought we were talking about a sum to enable Marius and Ingrid — that’s Mr and Mrs Van de Merwe — to get away on holiday. And now here I was asking for three times as much to include redecorating as well.
‘Anyway, I’m afraid things got a bit heated. He swore at me in Portuguese. Well, I can speak a bit of Portuguese — I used to work in Brazil. He called me a cadela. And a cona. I won’t translate that but I think you can imagine the sort of thing it means. Anyway I got angry and so I shoved him. Just shoved him, that’s all. I didn’t even hit him. He fell against the window and the whole window just pivoted open behind him for no good reason that I could see, and he went straight out, head first. I mean the window just bloody opened as he fell against it. I tried to grab him — I think I got hold of his tie — and maybe he grabbed me, I’m not sure. As his tie slipped out of my hand I lost my footing and then he was gone.
‘I heard an almighty clang as he hit something on his way down, but when I looked out of the window I couldn’t even see him. But it had to be near enough sixty or seventy feet to the ground. And it was immediately obvious that he couldn’t have survived a fall like that. At the time that’s what I told myself, anyway. Because I panicked and ran away. I got home and thought about it and I was on the point of calling the police to explain what had happened when it said on the news that he’d been murdered. And then I lost my nerve to say anything. But for that I think I would have handed myself in. Really I would. I’m not a murderer, Mr Manson. As I said before, I liked the man. I’m so, so sorry.’
‘I understand that, Mr Cruikshank.’
‘What’s going to happen to me?’ he asked Louise.
‘That’s not for me to say, sir,’ she said.
‘But what I find a little harder to understand,’ I said, ‘is why you broke into Silvertown Dock and dug a grave for Zarco in the centre of my pitch and left his photograph in it. That really wasn’t very nice at all; and hardly an accident. You want me to tell you how I know about that as well? Unfortunately you left some tools behind, Mr Cruikshank. One of them had the initials LCC on the handle. For a while I thought that meant London County Council, the forerunner of the Greater London Council. But that all seems a long time ago, even for a spade. Then I saw the name of Mr Zarco’s builders on the mural next door: the Lambton Construction Company. I was actually speaking to one of the workmen the other day and he told me they’d had some tools stolen. That was you as well, wasn’t it?’
Cruikshank nodded. ‘It was meant to be a sort of poetic justice, if you like,’ he said. ‘I just wanted him to know what it was like to suffer the kind of disruption we’d suffered here: to have someone turn your whole life upside down. Frankly I was amazed when you managed to repair the pitch as quickly as you did.’