Lynn ducked again under a nailing arm and tightened her grip on Marius's opposite wrist, forcing it high towards the middle of his back.
Marius gasped with sudden pain.
"Go on, duck," someone called admiringly.
"You show 'im right and proper."
Releasing one of her hands, but not the pressure, Lynn caught hold of Marius's hair, just long enough at the back to give her leverage.
Marius cried out as first one knee, then the other struck the concrete platform.
"Nesh bugger!" a voice came dismissively.
"Be scraightin' next, you see if he ain't."
And, in truth, there were tears in the corners of Marius's eyes.
"Marius Gooding," Lynn said, a little short of breath, "I'm arresting you on suspicion of threatening behaviour…"
"That's ridiculous! When did I ever threaten…?"
"For assaulting a police officer and resisting araest."
The socks matched: a perfect fit. The youth with the earrings and the shaved head had remembered finding the second sock, the one that Naylor had triumphantly discovered in the kitchen, but not exactly where. Somewhere on the stairs, he thought? Out in the yard? Anyway, he had assumed it belonged to one of the other lads (knowing it not to be his, his came from a stall in the market or at Christmas and birthdays from Marks and Spencer, via his parents) and had stuffed it in the washing machine along with an accumulated load. How it had ended up wedged where Naylor had found it, he had no idea, except, socks, well, almost as if they had a mind of their own.
The Coke can still contained minute traces of what Resnick was certain would prove to be crack cocaine.
And the blood on the silk blouse? If blood indeed were what it was?
Forensic tests would be carried out with as much haste as urgent calls from Resnick himself and Jack Skelton could engender. If the blood proved to match that of the late Peter Farleigh, they were as good as there, home free. If not. "So, Charlie," Skelton said, turning away from the window behind his desk, clear blue sky beyond the edge of the building outside.
"Are we there, do you think, or what?"
"Nudging close. Got to be. Business with the sock, could be coincidence, but that's asking a lot. Circumstantial, though, at best."
"This, er, friend of hers Doris Duke. She'd give evidence about seeing the blood on Kinoulton's clothing, as well as her deteriorating mental state?"
Resnick shifted his weight in the chair. Close and yet still far.
"Maybe, though what credence the jury give to her, I don't know.
Something concrete, that's what we need. Positively linking Kinoulton with the attacks, any one of them. That's what we still don't have.
IfFarieigh's hotel room had given up a clearer print that'd be a start, but no. Smudge and fudge. I can lean on McKimber again, but he's got his own reasons for not wanting to get dragged in too far.
Desperate to get back with his wife and kids, poor bugger. "
Skelton coughed, a sudden, sharp attack and Resnick waited while it subsided.
"Course, if we could lay our hands on Kinoulton herself, ask her some questions direct, it might be a different picture."
Skelton nodded neat agreement and nicked out the sides of his suit jacket before sitting back down.
"Not to fret, Charlie; something'!! turn up. "
Once his panic and anger had subsided, Marius Gooding had apologised so abjectly, his tongue must have tasted of the interview room floor.
Over and over. You have to believe, I've never done such a thing in my life. Never struck anybody at all, never mind a member of the opposite sex, a woman. No, Lyim, had observed, but you have done other things.
"What? What other things?"
One by one, she showed him the Polaroids that had been taken inside Dorothy Birdwell's hotel suite. Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!
Without further hesitation, Marius had demanded a phone call and a solicitor. The call was to Dorothy Birdwell, who listened patiently to his pleading and then hung up without answering.
The solicitor who arrived was actually a solicitor's clerk. Heather Jardine; a forty-three-year-old Scot, divorced with two teenage children, who had abandoned a stuttering career as a playwright and enrolled in evening classes in law. She knew Lyiin Kellogg fairly well they had been through this and similar procedures before and the two women treated one another with more than grudging respect.
Jardine made sure her client was aware of his rights, had been fairly treated and asked if he might not have a cup of tea.
Lynn waited for Kevin Naylor to join her and set the tape rolling, identifying those present in the room and the time.
"All right, Marius, why don't we talk about the incident with the rabbit first off?"
After a less than ten minutes of prevarication, Marius asked if he could speak to Heather Jardine alone. This allowed, he admitted the incident with the breakfast trolley, said that he had got it ready the previous day and had intended to leave it outside Cathy Jordan's door; seeing the trolley there, waiting to be taken into the room, he had elaborated his plans accordingly.
"And what was the point?" Lynn asked.
"I mean, why go through all of this rigamorole?"
Marius didn't reply immediately. Instead, he swivelled his head and asked Heather Jardine if he had to answer, and she said, no, he did not. Another few moments and he answered anyway.
"It was a symbol," he said.
"Of what I think of her work."
"A symbol?" Lynn repeated carefully.
"Yes."
"Perhaps you'd best explain."
"Oh, if you'd read any, you'd know."
"In fact, I have," Lynn said.
"A little."
"Then you'll know the awful things she does; little children tortured, abused, defiled." His face was a mask of disgust.
"Do you have children, Mr Gooding? Yourself?" Lynn asked.
"I don't see what on earth…"
"I was interested, that's all."
Well, no, then. No, I don't. "
"But it's something you feel strongly about?"
"Yes. Yes, of course. I mean, it's only natural. At least, that's what you would think. And the fact that she's a woman. That it's a woman, perpetrating these things…"
"Not exactly, Mr Gooding."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, Ms Jordan isn't actually doing any of these things. She isn't doing anything. Other than writing books. Isn't that so?"
"Yes, but…"
"Let me be clear here," Naylorsaid, leaning forward for the first time.
"The business with the rabbit, that was to teach Miss Jordan a lesson, frighten her into stopping writing, what?"
"Huh, she's never going to stop, is she? Not with a formula like that. Raking it in. God knows what she must have earned, the last few years. Though, of course, she hasn't got the respect. Not from the critics, nor the affection of her readers. True affection, like Dorothy."
"That was what you had for Ms Birdwell? Yourself, I mean. Affection and respect?"
"Of course, yes. Why I…"
"Then why this?" Lynn's finger hovered over the first of the photographs.
"Or this? Or this?"
Marius closed his eyes.
"I was upset. I…"
"You seem to get upset a lot," Lynn observed quietly.
"I thought… I know it was stupid and foolish and very, very wrong… but I thought she didn't… Dorothy didn't… after everything that had happened between us, all the 240 time we had spent together…" His body was racked by a sudden sob.
"I thought she didn't love me any more. And I am deeply, deeply ashamed."
The faint whir of the tape machinery aside, the clipped clicking of the clock, the only sounds were the contortions of Marius's ragged breathing as he struggled to recover himself, regain some element of control. Heather Jardine looked at the notepad on her lap and wished she could light up a cigarette; Kevin Naylor simply looked embarrassed. It was Lynn whose eyes never wavered. If ever anyone was in need of therapy, she was thinking, it's this poor, pathetic bastard and not me.