Brock scanned the file on Eddie Testor that had been couriered down, and watched Lowry interviewing him on the video screen for some time before he joined them. The man seemed very alert, almost eager in his manner, answering Lowry’s questions rapidly and without hesitation. He admitted misrepresenting his background to his present employer, but said he’d been forced into it in order to get a job, and had been helped to massage his CV by a professional employment consultant, whom he named. His record at work had been described as very satisfactory by the management of the leisure centre. He had one caution on his employee’s file, a note of a verbal warning from a supervisor that his behaviour with some small boys in the surf-‘larking about’-was inappropriate.
His manner changed somewhat when Brock came into the room. Brock noticed the shift, an avoidance of eye contact, a small hesitation at the start of each reply, and then a developing surliness whenever Brock spoke.
‘Tell us again,’ Brock said, placing Kerri’s enlarged portrait photograph on the table between them, ‘about the man you saw talking to her.’
‘May not have been her. Lots of girls look like that. Could have been anyone.’
‘Yes, all right. Recently?’
A shrug and a scowl.
‘Try to picture them talking together,’ Brock said softly. ‘Never mind the girl, concentrate on the man. Picture the man. Does he look a bit like you, Eddie?’
‘No! Not like me at all. He’s a smoothy.’
‘A smoothy? What does that mean?’
‘Smooth. Slippery smooth.’
Later, outside the interview room, Brock rubbed his palm backwards and forwards across his jaw, scratching his beard, thinking.
‘He claims he was working between five p.m. and nine p.m. on the Monday, after an hour meal break. We’re waiting to hear from the manager at the leisure centre.’
‘Did you get a chance to look at his file, Gavin?’
‘A fairly quick scan, chief, during our last break. But I’ve met him before, this one.’
‘Did you read the parole psychologist’s final report?’
‘Not in detail.’
‘Worth a look.’
‘He’s a nutter, chief.’
‘Yes, but they come in different shapes and sizes. This one doesn’t seem to have any interest in women. He doesn’t hate them, or like them, or respond to them in any way. Remarkable, eh?’
‘He’s got bits missing in his head.’
‘Did you notice the way his mood changed when I came into the room?’
‘Yes. I wondered if you two had met before.’
‘No, never.’ Brock turned the pages of the file until he came to a photograph of the car that Testor had attacked. It was spectacularly beaten flat, a crumpled metal pancake, like a cartoon car that a cartoon elephant had sat on.
‘Like what happened to Kerri,’ Lowry said.
‘Mmm.’ Brock rubbed his chin again. ‘A Jaguar, almost vintage, British racing green. It’s the same type and colour as the car that was owned by the man who ran the home he spent five years in when he was a little boy. He didn’t mention that at his trial. It came up almost by accident when the prison psychologist was interviewing him for the parole board. And the man driving the flattened car was elderly. He had grey hair, like the man who ran the home. Like me. It was at the home that he had the accident to his head.’
A uniformed man looked round the door with a message for Lowry, who read it and cursed softly under his breath. ‘The manager has confirmed the times of Testor’s shifts. He was at work from five p.m. all week. Hard to see how he could have fitted it in.’
Brock closed the file and handed it to Lowry. ‘I really wonder whether Testor isn’t more of a danger to me than to girls like Kerri, Gavin.’
‘Fine,’ Lowry muttered as Brock turned to leave. ‘I’ll let the bastard loose.’
Towards five that afternoon, seated again at his table in unit 184, Brock received, not a summons exactly, but an invitation, firmly couched, to meet with Bo Seager and some of her senior management team at six, to report on progress. There was a hint of coolness in the way the invitation was delivered that suggested all was not well. There were times, Brock reflected, when a potentially hostile committee could be best handled by a lone figure, vulnerable and outnumbered, but also, for that very reason, at an advantage; there were other times when a show of manpower worked better. He thought about that and about the formidable Bo Seager, and asked Kathy and, when he checked in soon after, Gavin Lowry to accompany him.
Finger food had been sent up from Penelope’s Pantry, and a couple of bottles of chilled chardonnay opened for the occasion. Harry Jackson had reported back to hear the briefing and pour the wine, and there was another man there also, a thin-faced unsmiling man with rimless glasses and a tumbler of mineral water who was introduced as Nathan Tindall, finance manager. For a fleeting moment as they sat down, Brock was reminded of a medieval court, the queen flanked by her ministers, the ascetic chancellor and the bluff knight.
‘Are we to expect Chief Superintendent Forbes?’ Bo asked silkily, raising her glass.
‘He’s otherwise engaged at present, Ms Seager,’ Brock said. ‘I’m sure he would have wanted to be here if he’d had more notice.’
‘That’s nice. I’ll look forward to meeting him one day. Harry tells me he’s actually running the investigation, is that right?’
‘He’s the senior investigating officer, yes.’
Bo sipped her wine. She sounded amused rather than antagonistic. ‘Hmm. Well, so how-’
‘Excuse me,’ Tindall interrupted. ‘Sorry, Bo, but just before we leave that point, can I be absolutely clear about this. I’m not really familiar with police ranks, but I take it that a chief superintendent is much more senior than a chief inspector.’
Brock nodded.
‘Considerably so?’ Tindall pressed. He had an angry nasal Lancastrian accent.
‘Two steps above,’ Brock replied. ‘Although the rank has actually been abol-’
‘Well, why isn’t he here then, if this is the focus of your investigation?’
Brock stared at him for a moment before replying. ‘We’re running this investigation as we think best, Mr Tindall.’
Tindall stared right back, gave a little shake of his head, and said, ‘But is that good enough, Chief Inspector?’
‘If you have any problems with what we’re doing, I hope you’ll let us know.’
‘Well we do have problems, as it happens.’ He turned away with a dismissive shrug, as if he had no intention of spelling out what they were.
Brock waited, and the bluff knight leant forward to take up the point.
‘Several problems this afternoon, in point of fact, Mr Brock,’ Harry Jackson said gravely. ‘An accusation of racist harassment by one of our tenants, a black gentleman, against two of your officers. I have the details here.’ He handed a sheet of paper across to Brock. ‘Also a general complaint from a number of our tenants that the presence of your officers in their premises has been disruptive and has generally interfered with the carrying on of their business. I’m surprised, as a matter of fact, that we haven’t had a deputation already from our Small Traders’ Association. Their president, Mr Verdi, whom you met last night, is usually jumping down our throats at the slightest hint of trouble.’
‘The accusation of racism is a serious matter,’ Brock said calmly. ‘I can assure you that it will be taken very seriously. As for the other business, this is a murder inquiry, not a sales promotion. Your tenants have an obligation to help us, and I haven’t heard of any of them wanting to do otherwise. Have you, Gavin?’
‘No, sir.’
Now Bo Seager took charge of the discussion. ‘I’m sure they’re anxious to see this thing resolved as soon as possible, Chief Inspector, as we all are. Why don’t you bring us up to date? I take it you have the authority to do that? We don’t need Chief Superintendent Forbes here for that?’
And that, Brock assumed, was what the opening skirmishes had all been about, to put him in a position where he would feel obliged to tell them exactly what was going on. All in all, not much of a plan.