Tuning to the local radio bulletin as I drove from the Metro-Centre, I heard the news confirmed. I drummed my fists on the steering wheel, certain that the law had tripped over itself. I had seen Christie close enough to punch him, and his lolling head and wandering eyes, a visible attempt to escape from himself, convinced me that he was guilty. Somehow I had to overturn this misguided and ludicrous decision. The large vacuum left in my life by my father’s murder had now been invaded by another vacuum.
I left the Jensen on a double yellow line, waving to the policeman who studiously said nothing when I walked past him. I was climbing the courthouse steps when I saw Sergeant Falconer emerging through the doors. She recognized me and began to turn away, pretending to adjust her hair. Unable to escape, she rallied herself and took my arm in a firm grip.
‘Mr Pearson . . . ?’ Her mind seemed miles away, but she steered me into the lobby, past three uniformed constables rocking on their heels. ‘You’ve heard? It’s quieter in here. The public . . .’
‘Don’t worry, they’ve all gone shopping. No one seems upset, or surprised.’
‘Believe me, it’s a complete surprise.’ Sergeant Falconer studied my face, relieved to find me on the edge of anger, an emotion with which her training had taught her to cope. She led me to a bench. ‘Let’s sit here. I’ll do my best to give you any details.’
‘Can’t we go in? Civic awareness, and all that. Everyone should observe a miscarriage of justice.’
‘The court is closed.’ She smiled in a sisterly way and touched my arm. ‘Mr Christie may be coming out soon. Is that all right . . . ?’
‘Fine. He’s innocent, isn’t he?’ I watched the constables sauntering about the steps, truncheons reluctantly sheathed, like salesmen deprived of their customers. Without thinking, I said: ‘The police sell violence.’
‘What?’
‘The idea of violence.’ I laughed to myself. ‘Sorry, Sergeant.’
‘You’re upset. It’s understandable.’
‘Well . . .’ I calmed myself, touched by her close interest. ‘Half an hour ago I was sure who had killed my father, and why. A mental patient with a grudge against a shopping mall. Now, suddenly, it’s a mystery again. Brooklands, the M25, these motorway towns. They’re damned strange places. Nothing is what it seems.’
‘That’s why people move here. The suburbs are the last great mystery.’
‘Is that the reason you’re leaving?’ I took her hand, surprised by its almost feverish warmth. There was an operation scar on the knuckle of her ring finger, the trace of an old tendon injury left by some hooligan with a beer bottle. Or had a tenacious engagement ring been surgically removed, her body holding on to a passion that her quirky mind repressed? Sergeant Falconer was wary and defensive, and not only about the confused police investigation into my father’s death. I knew that she wanted me out, safely back in central London, but I sensed that she wanted herself out, free from whatever web was spinning itself around her.
‘Mr Pearson? You fell asleep for a moment.’
‘Right. I’m sorry. These witnesses who came forward—who are they? Greens, hunt saboteurs, pot-smoking hippies? I take it they’re friends of Christie’s. How reliable are they?’
‘Totally. No greens or hippies. They’re all people of good standing. Respectable local professionals—a doctor at Brooklands Hospital, a head teacher, the psychiatrist at the secure unit who treated Christie.’
‘His own psychiatrist?’
‘All of them saw him in the South Gate entrance hall when they heard the shooting. He was only a few feet away.’
‘They recognized Christie? What about the earlier witnesses?’
‘Unreliable. One or two people saw him running across the car park, but by then everybody was running away.’
‘So . . .’ I leaned back in sheer fatigue and stared at the heavy ceiling. ‘If Christie didn’t kill my father . . . ?’
‘Someone else did. Brooklands CID are working twenty-four hours a day. We’ll find him. Go back to London, Mr Pearson. You didn’t really know your father. It’s too late to start creating a whole lifetime’s memories of him.’
‘That’s a little callous, Sergeant. There’s always been a space in my life, and now I’m trying to fill it. One last thing. I saw you in Geoffrey Fairfax’s office after the riot at the police station. He read my father’s will and took me through his estate. When I left, you were heating milk for Mrs Christie’s daughter.’
‘So?’ Sergeant Falconer watched me in the coolest way. ‘I was part of the child protection unit assigned to Christie’s next of kin.’
‘In Fairfax’s office?’ I raised my hands to the air. ‘He claimed that he no longer represented Christie. But he’s still giving shelter to a murderer’s wife.’
‘Mr Fairfax had helped her before. With pocket money, hotel charges. He paid for her to take her baby on holiday. It’s called charity, Mr Pearson. The better-off people in Brooklands still try to help the less fortunate.’
‘Decent of them. Though Geoffrey Fairfax doesn’t strike me as the charitable type. Territorial Army, riding to hounds, shotgun next to his desk. From what I saw, he’s a bit of a fascist bully-boy. How on earth did he represent someone like Duncan Christie?’
‘Solicitors represent the strangest people, Mr Pearson. There’s no conflict of interest.’
‘Exactly. Fairfax knew that Christie wouldn’t be charged.’
‘What are you suggesting?’ The sergeant lowered her voice. ‘A stitch-up involving the court?’
‘Not a stitch-up. But Fairfax was confident that the case against Christie would be dropped. Otherwise he would have passed my father’s estate to another firm of solicitors.’
‘So how did he know?’ Sergeant Falconer spoke in an offhand way, but with careful emphasis. ‘Mr Pearson?’
‘I can’t say. But something about all this strikes me as more than a little odd . . .’
Sergeant Falconer stood up as her mobile rang. She answered it briefly, then spoke to the constables by the door. Returning to me, she smiled and briskly beckoned me to my feet.
‘Go back to London, Mr Pearson. See your travel agent. I’m sorry about your father, but if you stir things up enough you’ll create a hundred plots and conspiracies. Mr Pearson . . . ?’
I watched her as she waited for me to reply. She was almost trembling with impatience for me to leave. Somehow I had unsettled the ramshackle construction that she had built around herself in Brooklands, a card castle of compromises and half-truths that threatened to collapse onto her. Already I sensed that she was as much a pawn as I was. Geoffrey Fairfax had wanted me to see her in his office pantry, just as he had wanted me to see Mrs Christie sitting in the reception area.
Snapping her fingers, Sergeant Falconer turned away from me as an unmarked blue van halted outside the courthouse. The driver signalled to the constables on the steps. Doors slammed in a nearby corridor, and a group of short-sleeved ushers moved swiftly down the hall, sheltering a man whom they propelled towards the entrance.
I recognized Duncan Christie, face still bruised and unshaved, tieless white shirt buttoned to the throat, arms gripped by the ushers. For all the urgency, Christie seemed relaxed, smiling around him with the good-humoured arrogance of a millionaire footballer acquitted of a shoplifting charge. Behind him was his wife, still in her red serge jacket, torn lapel held back by a safety pin. Sergeant Falconer dived into the scrum, held Mrs Christie and steered her down the steps.
But at least Christie had noticed me. As he approached the van he shook himself free from the ushers about to bundle him through the side door. Ignoring his wife, he seized Sergeant Falconer’s arm and pointed to me as I stood alone outside the courthouse.