"The ultimate sanction-what’s that?" Duncan huskily enquired.
No one answered, but the Scot beside him grinned in a way Duncan didn’t care for.
"The skene-dhu…?" said Duncan.
"… or the pressure point," said Joe Franks, "or the allergic reaction, or whatever we decide is tidiest. But it won’t happen in your case."
"No chance," Duncan affirmed. "My lips are sealed."
The starters were served, and he was pleased when the conversation shifted to murders in fiction, and some recent crime novels. Faintly he listened as they discussed The Silence of the Lambs, but he was trying to think what to say if someone asked about the murder he was supposed to have committed. They were sure to return to him before the evening ended, and then it was essential to sound convincing. If they got the idea he was a mild man who wouldn’t hurt a fly he was in real trouble.
Towards the end of the meal, he spoke up. It seemed a good idea to take the initiative. "This has been a brilliant evening. Is there any chance I could join?"
"You’ve enjoyed yourself?" said Joe Franks. "That’s excellent. A kindred spirit."
"It will take more than that for you to become a member," Winthrop put in. "You’ve got to provide some evidence that you’re one of us."
Duncan swallowed hard. "Don’t you have that? I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t found something out."
"There’s a difference between finding something out and seeing the proof."
"That won’t be easy."
"It’s the rule."
He tried another tack. "Can I ask something? How did you get on to me?"
There were smiles all round. Winthrop said, "You’re surprised that we succeeded where the police failed?"
"Experience," Joe Franks explained. "We’re much better placed than the police to know how these things are done."
Pitt-Struthers-the strong, silent man who advised the SAS-said, "We know you were at the scene on the evening it happened, and we know no one else had a stronger motive or a better opportunity."
"But we must have the proof," insisted Winthrop.
"The weapon," suggested McPhee.
"I disposed of it," Duncan improvised. He was not an imaginative man, but this was an extreme situation. "You would have, wouldn’t you?"
"No," said McPhee. "I just give mine a wee wipe."
"Well, it’s up to you, old boy," Winthrop told Duncan. "Only you can furnish the evidence."
"How long do I have?"
"The next meeting is in July. We’d like to confirm you as a full member then."
The conversation moved on to other subjects and then a lengthy discussion ensued about the problems faced by the Crown Prosecution Service
The evening ended with coffee, cognac and cigars. Soon after, David Hopkins said that the car would be outside.
On the drive back, Duncan, deeply perturbed and trying not to show it, pumped David for information.
"It was an interesting evening, but it’s left me with a problem."
"What’s that?"
"I-eh-wasn’t completely sure which murder of mine they were talking about."
"Do you mean you’re a serial killer?"
Duncan gulped. He hadn’t meant that at all. "I’ve never thought of myself as one." Recovering his poise a little, he added, "A thing like that is all in the mind, I suppose. Which one do they have me down for?"
"The killing of Sir Jacob Drinkwater at the Brighton Civil Service Conference in 1995."
Drinkwater. He had been at that conference. He remembered hearing that the senior civil servant at the Irish Office had been found dead in his hotel room on that Sunday morning. "That was supposed to have been a heart attack."
"Officially, yes," said David.
"But you heard something else?"
"I happen to know the pathologist who did the autopsy. A privileged source. They didn’t want the public knowing that Sir Jacob had actually been murdered, and what means the killer had used, for fear of creating a terrorism panic. How did you introduce the cyanide? Was it in his aftershave?"
"Trade secret," Duncan answered cleverly.
"Of course the security people in their blinkered way couldn’t imagine it was anything but a political assassination. They didn’t know you’d had a grudge against him dating from years back, when he was your boss in the Land Registry."
Someone had their wires crossed. It was a man called Charlie Drinkwater who’d made Duncan’s life a misery and blighted his career. No connection with Sir Jacob. Giving nothing away, he said smoothly, "And you worked out that I was at the conference?"
"Same floor. Missed the banquet on Saturday evening, giving you a fine opportunity to break into his room and plant the cyanide. So we have motive, opportunity…"
"And means?" said Duncan.
David laughed. "Your house is called The Laurels, for the bushes all round the garden. It’s well known that if you soak laurel leaves and evaporate the liquid, you get a lethal concentration of cyanide. Isn’t that how you made the stuff?"
"I’d rather leave you in suspense," said Duncan. He was thinking hard. "If I apply to join the club, I may give a demonstration."
"There’s no if about it. They liked you. You’re expected to join."
"I could decide against it."
"Why?"
"Private reasons."
David turned to face him, his face creased in concern. "They’d take a very grave view of that, Duncan. We invited you along in good faith."
"But no obligation, I thought."
"Look at it from the club’s point of view. We’re vulnerable now. You’re dealing with dangerous men, Duncan. I can’t urge you strongly enough to co-operate."
"But if I can’t prove that I killed a man?"
"You must think of something. We’re willing to be convinced. If you cold shoulder us, or betray us, I can’t answer for the consequences."
A sobering end to the evening.
For the next three weeks he got little sleep, and when he did drift off he would wake with nightmares of fingers pressing on his arteries or skene-dhus being thrust between his ribs. He faced a classic dilemma. Either admit he hadn’t murdered Sir Jacob Drinkwater-which meant he was a security risk to the club-or concoct some fake evidence, bluff his way in, and spend the rest of his life hoping they wouldn’t find him out. Faking evidence wouldn’t be easy. They were intelligent men.