A Reconstructed Corpse (22 page)

‘I'm just thinking round the case. Asking, really, whether, when you were with Chloe Earnshaw looking at the severed arms, it ever occurred to you for a moment that they might belong to someone other than her husband?'

‘Of course not. Look, the investigation was under way. We'd got the public's interest through
Public Enemies
– finding those arms was just the breakthrough we needed.' The pale blue eyes sparkled as she became caught up in the excitement of recollection. ‘And the way we broke the story on that week's programme . . . now that was really something.'

It could have been Bob Garston or Roger Parkes speaking. Charles realised just how much her instincts as a member of the police force had been swamped by the values of television.

‘So . . .' he hazarded gently, ‘if Chloe Eamshaw hadn't identified the arms as belonging to her husband . . .?'

‘Well, it would have screwed up bloody everything, wouldn't it!' Sam Noakes realised this was a bit indiscreet and hastened to cover up. ‘Anyway, she identified him from his watch.'

‘A fake Rolex? Plenty of those about. And presumably you had descriptions of all the stuff he was wearing when he disappeared?'

‘Of course we did.' A hard, resentful light came into the pale blue eyes. ‘Mr Paris, what are you suggesting?'

‘Just that if someone in the police force wanted Chloe Earnshaw to identify those limbs as her husband's, it wouldn't have been very difficult to fix it so that she did.'

‘But they
were
her husband's! Nobody needed to fix anything. And I may tell you, Mr Paris, that the kind of allegations you seem to be making against the police are not –'

‘The arms don't belong to Martin Earnshaw,' said Charles Paris calmly.

‘
What
!'

‘I spent lunch-time today in a Brighton pub, drinking beer with Martin Earnshaw.'

This revelation completely winded her. The inspector gaped at Charles, incapable of speech. He took advantage of the silence to press on. ‘I also know what's happened to Greg Marchmont and Ted Faraday. I'm afraid it's not good news in either case.'

‘What do you mean – what's happened to them?'

‘I know they were both your lovers.'

‘So bloody what!' Her eyes blazed. ‘I'd like to know what my private life has to do with you.'

‘Greg would have done anything for you, anything you asked . . .'

‘So . . .'

‘Did you ever ask him to do anything . . .?'

‘Like what?'

‘Anything illegal?'

‘No! Listen, Greg and I lived together for a while, but it didn't work out – end of story.'

‘Then you joined up with Ted Faraday.'

‘So? What business is that of yours?'

‘And is that relationship still going on?'

She smiled now, a superior smile of sexual confidence. ‘We still see each other from time to time. We're both grown-ups, you know. We see other people and when work and what-have-you permits, maybe we'll spend the odd night together. There are other friends with whom I have similar relationships.'

‘Is Bob Garston one of them?'

She gave him a feline smile. The attraction of boasting about her sexual power overcame her instinct for discretion. ‘You don't have to be a man to have control over your own sex life, you know.'

Her mood changed. She realised how much she was allowing herself to be side-tracked by vanity. ‘Come on, you said you had some information. If you have, tell it to me. Otherwise, get the hell out of here!'

‘One more piece of information I want you to tell me, then I'll tell you mine.'

‘What?' she asked sullenly.

‘Greg Marchmont nearly got kicked out of the force a little while back, didn't he?'

‘Yes.'

‘For being drunk on duty?'

‘That's right. He'd really gone to pieces over the last year.' She gave Charles a stubborn look, daring him to make any accusations. ‘And it wasn't my bloody fault. If he couldn't cope with us splitting up, then that was his problem, not mine. I needed to move on.'

Story of your life, thought Charles. You'll always need to move on. And up. And if a few Greg Marchmonts get washed up in your wake . . . well, that's just their bad luck.

But all he said was, ‘So why wasn't Greg Marchmont kicked out?'

She shrugged. ‘I don't know. It was odd. He seemed all set to get the boot, then suddenly he was staying on. Guess someone interceded for him. Must have a friend in high places.'

Yes, thought Charles Paris, he must.

He looked across at Sam Noakes and thought again how beautiful she was. How beautiful and how completely heartless. And he replied to the insistent enquiry in her pale blue eyes.

‘The solution to this case – or at least part of the solution to this case – is in Greg Marchmont's flat. You'd better send someone over there right away.'

‘But is Greg all right?' she asked, suddenly anxious.

‘No,' said Charles Paris. ‘He's dead. And so, I'm afraid, is Ted Faraday.'

The news caught her like a slap in the face. Moisture gathered in her eyes.

In the brief instant before she regained control, Detective Inspector Sam Noakes looked human.

CHARLES TOLD her more about what to expect in the flat, but Sam Noakes's brief moment of vulnerability was past. The fact that both dead men had been her lovers had become irrelevant. She appeared to have no problem stomaching the most gruesome details.

‘You should have reported this immediately you found it,' she reproved him. ‘You have a duty to –'

‘I think there have been duties inadequately fulfilled on both sides,' said Charles evenly.

She held his gaze with defiance, but after a moment looked away and let it pass. ‘You say you think Sergeant Marchmont's death was suicide?'

‘Looks that way to me. It also makes more sense in the logic of the whole case that he did it himself.'

‘Would you care to expand on that?'

Charles Paris shook his head. ‘I'm sure the last thing you want at this point in your investigation is to hear the theories of an amateur.'

With a little nod of her head, she acknowledged the point scored. ‘So you have no idea who committed the original murder, Mr Paris?'

He shrugged deferentially. ‘I always leave that stuff to the police, Inspector.'

She picked up a phone on her desk. ‘I'm sure you can find your way back to the lift.' Charles rose and she ignored him as he walked to the door of her office. ‘Hello, Noakes here,' she barked into the telephone. ‘I need a car – like fast!'

Charles made his way slowly to the lift, knowing he had no intention of leaving the building yet. He asked a uniformed policewoman for directions.

There was no one in the outer office. A typewriter shrouded by a dusty cover suggested there hadn't been a secretary there for some time. Compared to the bustle of the rest of the building, the area was very still. It wasn't where the department's action happened.

Charles Paris knocked on the inner door, and a startled voice told him to come in.

Superintendent Roscoe was sitting by the window, and the movement of his swivel-chair suggested he'd been looking out of it before Charles's arrival. The office he occupied was large and might in time be luxurious, but the decorations were half done. There seemed to be no air of urgency about finishing them. The superintendent would be gone in a couple of weeks, after all. No point in making an effort for someone just working out his time.

Roscoe recognised Charles immediately, and seemed pleased to see him. The intrusion of anyone into his solitude was welcome.

He gestured to a seat. ‘So to what do I owe this pleasure, Mr Paris? You haven't been doing your own amateur investigations again, have you?'

‘I have found out a few odd things, yes. Been talking to Greg Marchmont.'

‘Ah, poor Marchmont. He's been off sick for the last few days. Pressure was getting to him a bit.'

‘I'm not surprised.'

‘What do you mean by that?' Roscoe asked sharply.

But Charles Paris wasn't quite ready to go into the attack. ‘I just meant that it's a stressful job, being a policeman, isn't it?'

‘Yes. You have to be pretty tough to get through.'

‘But you have, Superintendent – got through – all the way through to retirement.'

‘Nearly.'

‘Which is something Greg Marchmont won't do.'

‘I don't see why not.'

The reaction was so instinctive that Charles now knew Marchmont's death had been suicide. The Sergeant couldn't cope any more with the pressure that had been put on him. But, even as he shot himself, he must have known that his death would also destroy the person who had imposed that pressure.

‘Greg Marchmont won't make retirement, Superintendent,' said Charles in a level voice, ‘because he's dead.'

‘What?'

‘He didn't mind sending anonymous faxes about the whereabouts of the body parts. He even coped with cleaning up the flat in Trafalgar Lane . . . where you had butchered Ted Faraday. He wasn't keen on arranging the packaging and delivery of the torso, but he did it. The head, though . . . the head was too much.'

Superintendent Roscoe was staring at him with horrified fascination. ‘Marchmont isn't really dead,' he murmured. ‘He can't be. It'd ruin everything.'

‘I'm afraid everything is ruined already. So, unless you tell someone, we'll never know how you were intending to spring the revelation of the head on to the great British public.'

There was a sudden movement as Roscoe reached to one of his desk drawers. Charles found himself looking down the barrel of an automatic pistol, very like the one that had killed Marchmont.

‘I could still make the arrangements myself. I can get rid of you, Mr Paris, with no problem, and if you're the only person who knows about Marchmont's death, then –'

‘Ah, but I'm not.' Charles sounded considerably more laid back than he felt. ‘No, I'm afraid Sam Noakes is on her way to Marchmont's flat – even as we speak.'

A spasm of anger crossed the superintendent's face and the gun wavered dangerously in his hand. Then, listlessly, he dropped it on to the desk. ‘If I don't get to the payoff, to the final act of the drama, then the whole thing's been a waste of time.'

‘Why did you do it, though, Superintendent?'

‘To prove that I could.' A spark of energy glinted in his eye. ‘To show all those smug young bastards that I could run circles round them. You may imagine I don't know how they think of me, but I do. Boring, incompetent old Roscoe. He can do bugger all as a policeman and won't it be a bloody relief for everyone when he finally retires. But I showed them. By God, I showed them! They all agreed that they were up against a criminal with a brilliant mind, but they didn't know just how brilliant.'

As he spoke, the glee of his self-regard mingled with the bitterness of an entire career spent without respect or affection from any of his colleagues.

‘And, of course, it enabled you to get rid of Ted Faraday.'

‘Yes.' Roscoe nodded with relish. ‘The smuggest of all the young bastards. Thought he knew it all, thought he could do it all, thought he could mix with crooks and get away with it . . . kept saying he “understood the criminal mind”. Well, he didn't understand my criminal mind. You should have seen the expression in his eyes when he realised I'd got him, when he realised I was going to kill him. That made the whole bloody thing worthwhile.'

‘You killed him in Brighton?'

‘In the flat, yes. Made him suffer for an hour or two, after I'd told him I was going to do it. Then I strangled him.' The superintendent let out a little giggle at the recollection. ‘Beautiful job, sweet as a nut.'

‘And you planned the whole
Public Enemies
thing, feeding the bits of the body to them.'

‘Yes . . .' Roscoe nodded proudly. ‘It's my job, after all. “Television and Media Liaison”. The job they all said I couldn't do. But I bloody showed them. Produced the best set of “Video Nasties” ever.'

‘And you
intended
that everyone should think the body was Martin Earnshaw?'

‘Oh yes, you bet. And it was wonderful how willing everyone was to believe it. Those two tarts – Chloe Earnshaw and our brilliant little sexpot Sam Noakes – oh, they lapped it up. I only had to plant the idea in their heads and they were away, like a pair of bitches on heat. Anything to ensure they got another appearance on precious bloody television. Bob Garston and the
Public Enemies
lot were just as easy to convince. They didn't give a shit about the truth, so long as they got something to make the public switch on. It's amazing how easy it is to make people believe what they want to believe.'

‘And meanwhile you controlled the investigation – stopped it going into too much depth when you didn't want it to, limited the amount of forensic examination, all that?'

‘Yes, I'd do that and they'd all say, “Bloody Roscoe – always putting the dampers on everything – boring old fart – God, he's so thick.” And all the time I was making them dance to my tune like a bunch of bloody puppets.'

He chuckled again at his own remembered cleverness. ‘And I kept saying things to them, like “I've a feeling you're very close to this murderer”, stuff like that . . . and they never bloody knew how right I was!'

‘When we were going down to Brighton, you told me the criminal was an exhibitionist.'

‘Exactly! I remember. And I told you that the case was going to be the triumph of my career. And . . .' He giggled on the edge of hysteria ‘. . . oh, I was sailing close to the wind then. Do you remember what I had in the boot of the car that day?'