The interrogation started in earnest. Both officers took part and the rhythm was hard and relentless.
‘Why were you so determined to get Hadleigh on his own?’
‘Why was the murdered man afraid of you?’
‘He wasn’t—’
‘So afraid that he begged St John not to leave the house under any circumstances until you did.’
‘Everyone had commented on how tense he was.’
‘Hardly spoke.’
‘Wound up.’
‘Like a watch-spring.’
‘Been drinking.’
‘You can hardly blame me for—’
‘Why did you lie about the time you arrived home?’
‘I didn’t. It was a mistake—’
‘Why did you lie about going to Finland?’
‘I’ve explained that—’
‘When did you discover that this cottage, supposedly belonging to your mistress’s friends, would be available?’
‘The exact dates, Mr Jennings. When did you learn those?’
‘A while ago.’
‘How long a while?’
‘A couple of months.’
‘Before you accepted Hadleigh’s invitation?’
‘Well ... yes.’
‘Convenient.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘To just be able to vanish like that.’
‘After a murder.’
‘I’d call that handy.’
‘Very nice.’
‘Why did you take all the clothes you wore that night away with you?’
‘It’s an outfit I’m comfortable in. I wear it a lot.’
‘What happened to the brown suitcase?’
‘The brown ... ?’
‘Belonging to Hadleigh.’
‘Missing from his place. Not found at yours.’
‘Why on earth should it be—’
‘Where is it, Mr Jennings?’
‘Dump it on your way to “Heathrow”?’
‘What did you take from the chest of drawers?’
‘I don’t recall a chest of—’
‘In the bedroom.’
‘I was never in the bedroom.’
‘Is that a fact?’
‘I didn’t go upstairs at all.’
‘Why didn’t you get in touch with the police once you knew of Hadleigh’s death?’
‘I didn’t know—’
‘That’s your story,’ said Sergeant Troy. ‘Your girlfriend might be singing a different tune.’
‘My God!’ Jennings sprang to his feet with quick aggression, as if he had been physically invaded. ‘If anyone’s treating her like you’re treating me I’ll wring their bloody neck.’
‘Sit down.’
‘I feel like standing up. I assume I’m allowed to stand if I want to?’ He glared at the two policemen in turn, his eyes and hands in perpetual motion. Then he sat down again in a curious, stiff way, balancing on the very edge of his seat as if to underline the transitory nature of his presence.
‘Look at it from our point of view, Mr Jennings,’ said the chief inspector and although the words might have been construed as conciliatory there was no hint of appeasement in his voice, which was unemotional to the point of coldness. ‘Hadleigh was known to be afraid of you to a degree which led him to ask for what might well be construed as protection, albeit from a rather fragile source. In spite of this, and due entirely to your own machinations, he found himself in the very position that he wished to avoid at all costs. The following morning he is discovered dead and you, the last person to see him alive, have disappeared. And this after giving your wife false information about your whereabouts. By some freakish coincidence you then find yourself shut away in a cottage, miles from anywhere, which just happens to be minus all the usual lines of communication to the outside world. Really, you must think we were all born yesterday.’
Jennings received this dispassionate summing-up in silence and did not respond for some time. When he did speak he sounded nervy and uncertain.
‘I do realise how extraordinarily things seem to have fallen out against me. But that in itself, though unfortunate, is hardly a proof of guilt. Isn’t all of it what’s known as circumstantial evidence?’
He was right, but Barnaby who was not running a comfort station had no intention of saying so. Instead he offered a mildly encouraging smile and turned the conversation around once more to face the past.
‘Given that all these events could, by wildly stretching the bounds of possibility, have happened coincidentally, there is still the matter of your earlier connection with Hadleigh. I presume you’re no longer going to keep up the fiction that you knew him only slightly.’
‘Our past relationship has nothing to do with this case. I give you my word.’
‘I’m afraid your word isn’t good enough, Mr Jennings. And, even if what you say is true, the fact remains that you are the only person known to us with any knowledge of Hadleigh’s background. I’m sure you wouldn’t wish to deliberately obstruct a police investigation.’
‘Naturally not.’
‘Especially when it is so plainly in your own interests to help us in any way you can.’
‘Yes, I can see that.’ His face folded in on itself. Barnaby watched him weigh and balance, assess a chance here, a dead end there, all behind a frown of deepening uncertainty. It was like watching someone trying to read a map in the dark. Eventually Jennings said, ‘All right. But I need a smoke, a wash, something to eat and, if that was the best coffee you can produce, a cup of decent tea.’
It was almost half an hour later. Jennings had been escorted to the men’s lavatory, where he had washed and shaved and smoked a couple of his cigarillos. Troy had gladly accepted one when it was offered, but found it a sad disappointment. Bitter, with a fragrance rather like rotting leaves. He smoked half, then, minding his manners for once, flushed the rest discreetly down the loo.
Settled once more in the interview room a WPC entered with a tray holding two rounds of sandwiches, three cups of tea and a fresh jug of water. It was a large tray and obviously extremely heavy, but Troy made no move to take it from her. If equality was what they wanted - the tray descended with a crash to the table - equality was what they could have.
Jennings ate a little, drank his tea and settled back, arms folded, looking more relaxed. ‘So,’ he said, ‘where do you want me to start?’
‘From the beginning,’ said Barnaby, apparently not at all discouraged by his interviewee’s renewed insouciance. He moved his chair slightly so that the remaining sandwich was outside his line of vision, for he was extremely hungry and had no wish to be distracted. ‘From when you first met Hadleigh.’
‘Right.’ Jennings paused, his expression reflective and quite grave. Yet there was something anticipatory about it, too. He looked pleased that it was within his gift to unlock and unravel the mystery of another man’s life.
‘I met Gerald at my thirtieth birthday bash. A girl from Barts, where I was working at the time, brought him along.’
‘Barts?’ repeated the chief inspector. ‘You mean the hospital?’
‘Bartle Bogle Hegerty.’
‘Ah.’ He was none the wiser.
‘The advertising agency. I was one of their copywriters. Had a garden flat in Maida Vale.’
‘And you became friends.’
‘Not spontaneously. In fact I didn’t see him again for some weeks. Then we ran into each other - accidentally on purpose as I discovered later - in the booking hall at Warwick Avenue underground. I can see him now, feeding money into the automatic ticket machine. Knife-creased flannels, navy blazer, open-necked shirt and cravat. Barely forty and he looked like some retired colonel from central casting.
‘We discovered we were travelling in the same direction and started talking about writing. We’d touched on this at our first meeting but only briefly, parties being what they are. Gerald was attending Creative Writing classes at the City Lit. I, in common with just about everyone else in advertising, was wrestling with my first novel. Before he got off, at Kensal Green, he asked if we could meet and talk further.