Dying in the Dark (28 page)

T
he rain had eased off slightly. Now it was no more than a slow persistent drizzle, the kind of rain it was almost possible to ignore, but which still managed to soak those exposed to it right through to the bone.

In Interview Room Three, which had no window to the outside, they didn't even know it was raining. But then, as Woodend often reminded himself, that was the point of the place.

An interview room was a world of its own; a world in which all the complexities of life were stripped down to a single issue; a world in which one man rained his questions down on another man until he was sodden with them – until he lost the will to resist.

When Woodend entered the interview room, Derek Higson was already sitting at the table. He looked perfectly calm, and perfectly in control of himself, but then many men before him had felt exactly the same at the
beginning
of the process.

Woodend sat down opposite Higson. He didn't speak. He didn't reach into his pocket for his cigarettes, though he desperately wanted to. The silence filled a full minute, then stretched to two. Higson was doing better than Woodend had thought he ever would, but then the man was a salesman – and all salesmen know the value of silence.

It was somewhere in the middle of the third minute that Derek Higson finally spoke.

‘Well, Charlie, here we are, two old mates from Sudbury Street Elementary, back together again,' he said.

‘Is that how you see it?' Woodend asked.

‘Isn't it how
you
see it?'

‘No. I see it as a chief inspector sittin' across a table from a man he'll soon charge with murder.'

Derek Higson laughed. ‘Come on, Charlie, we both know that's not really going to happen. I wasn't even in the bloody country when poor Pamela was murdered.'

‘You don't really think I'll buy that story, do you?' Woodend asked, almost sadly.

‘Why shouldn't you, when it happens to be the truth?'

‘When you drive to Europe, you do it in your bloody
Rolls-Royce
, for God's sake!'

‘I know I do, and there's a very good reason for that. It impresses the clients over there, you see. That's the trick to successful selling, Charlie. You must never let the customer know how eager you are to make the sale. So when the Germans or the Dutch see me arriving in the Roller, they say to themselves, “Here's a man who doesn't
need
to do business with us. Here's a man who'd almost
doing us a favour
by doing business with us.” Do you understand what I'm saying?'

‘Grow up, Derek,' Woodend said wearily.

But perhaps that was the problem, he thought. Perhaps Derek Higson had
never
grown up. Perhaps he'd learned early on – or, at least,
thought
he'd learned – that if you had a protector there was no need to take responsibility for your own actions.

And who had been one of the first people to teach him that lesson?

Little Charlie Woodend!

‘You still don't see the point about the Rolls-Royce, do you?' Woodend asked. ‘So maybe I'll explain it to you. Even if your foreign clients were prepared to lie for you, and say you were in Europe at a time when you weren't – and they won't, Derek, trust me, they won't – it doesn't really matter. Even if HM Customs and Excise at Dover have lost all the records of your disembarkation at the port – which they won't have – it makes no difference. And why is that?'

‘You tell me.'

‘Because people notice Rolls-Royces. People
remember
Rolls-Royces. Without even breakin' into a sweat, the Dover police should be able to collect a dozen statements on exactly when you landed.'

Derek Higson thought about it for a moment. ‘So perhaps I did come back to England earlier than I've previously claimed I did,' he said. ‘In fact, if it'll make your job any easier, I'm perfectly willing to
admit
that I did. But that's not to say that I killed anybody, is it?'

‘So what
did
you do when you got back to England?'

‘I wanted a little time to myself, away from all the responsibilities of the factory. I went touring in Cornwall.'

‘Touring? In
October
?'

‘The Cornish coastline can be very beautiful, you know, even in bad weather.'

‘So where did you stay? Do you have any receipts for the hotels you spent the night at?'

‘I slept in the car.' Higson chuckled. ‘You could almost
live
in a Roller, you know.'

‘You didn't dare drive all the way back to Whitebridge in the Rolls, because someone would have spotted it,' Woodend said, as if the other man had never spoken. ‘So my guess is that you left it somewhere like Manchester, an' made the rest of the journey by bus or train. That's why, when you got here, you had to use your wife's Cortina to get around.'

‘I was in Cornwall,' Higson said stubbornly.

‘But you can't leave a Rolls on the street, like you might an ordinary car,' Woodend continued. ‘You'll have to have parked it in a secure garage. It shouldn't take us too long to find where that is.'

‘Why are people always trying to fit me up for things I didn't do?' Higson asked, as if the question genuinely puzzled him.

‘Is
that
what they do?'

‘You know it's what they do. They were even doing it back in elementary school. Don't you remember what happened in the bogs?'

‘Remind me.'

‘Foxy Dawes and his mates grabbed me and pulled my pants down. Then they slipped a pair of girls' knickers on to me, and tried to say I'd been wearing them all along.'

‘You know, you said all that so convincingly that I could almost believe you,' Woodend told him. ‘But you see, Derek, when we searched your house, we found the dresses.'

‘What dresses?'

‘The red one an' the blue one.
Lulu's
dresses.'

‘My wife's name is Lucy. She's never called herself Lulu. She wouldn't dream of it.'

‘
You're
Lulu,' Woodend said. ‘It's the name Foxy Dawes an' his mates gave you back at Sudbury Street. I've been wonderin' why you started to apply it to yourself, an' I think I've finally worked it out. Would you like me to tell you what I've come up with?'

‘No!'

‘Well, I will anyway. There's two things you like about havin' a protector. One is obvious – he or she protects you. But by the same token, you have to put yourself in your protector's power to a certain extent – an' I think you rather enjoy that, too.'

Higson smiled. ‘Let me see if I've got this straight,' he said. ‘I always seek out protectors. Is that right?'

‘Yes.'

‘You protected me from Foxy Dawes's gang. And my wife Lucy protected me from …?'

‘From your business goin' under. New Horizons was on the verge of bankruptcy when you married Lucy. She ploughed money into the firm, an' now she runs the parts of it you can't be bothered with.'

‘And what about Pamela?'

‘What about her?'

‘Well, if I had the kind of relationship with her you seem to think I have with most people I come into contact with, she must have been protecting me from something herself, mustn't she?'

‘Yes.'

‘And what was that, exactly?'

‘She was protectin' you from ruinin' your marriage.'

‘What rubbish you do come up with sometimes.'

‘You daren't tell Lucy you were a transvestite, because she'd never have accepted it. But you
could
tell Pamela. An' as long as one of the women in your life knew your little secret, that was enough for you. But then things came to a crunch, didn't they? Pamela began insistin' that you had to leave Lucy. If you'd said you wouldn't, she'd have told your wife about your little quirks, an' Lucy would have left
you
.'

A tear slowly began to run down Derek Higson's right cheek. ‘I love my wife, Charlie,' he said. ‘It's not just her money I'm interested in. I truly do love her for herself.'

‘I believe you,' Woodend said.

‘If she could just have accepted that I liked to dress up now and again – that there was no harm in it – I wouldn't have needed Pamela at all. But I knew she never would.'

‘How could she accept that, when both the dad she worshipped, an' her first fiancé, who was a hero, would never have considered doin' such a thing?' Woodend mused, almost to himself.

‘What's that supposed to mean?' Derek Higson demanded.

‘Nothin',' Woodend said. ‘Or, at least, nothin' that should concern you. Let's get back to the way you killed Pamela Rainsford.'

‘I didn't kill her,' Higson insisted. ‘All right, I may have lied about not being in Whitebridge when she died, but I certainly didn't kill her. I was with my wife the whole evening. Lucy will confirm it.'

‘I can see how you might believe that,' Woodend said. ‘Why shouldn't she continue to lie for you, when she's told so many lies already?'

‘She hasn't told any—'

‘I don't know what cock-and-bull story you told her to explain your unexpected return to Whitebridge – and why she had to keep that return a secret – but she believed it. Because she
wanted
to believe. Because she
needed
to believe. But any power you once had over her has gone for ever.'

‘Has it really?' Derek Higson asked, making no attempt to hide his scepticism.

‘Yes, it has,' Woodend said firmly. ‘It's gone because she's seen Lulu's dresses for herself.' He paused for a second. ‘You know, I think we both might have been wrong about her never acceptin' your need to dress up,' he continued. ‘It would have been hard for her, but it's possible she might have come to terms with it. But what she'll
never
accept is that you shared a secret part of your life – a part that was vital to you – with another woman. She won't protect you any longer, Derek. She hates an' despises you. An' if we still had public executions for people like you, she'd queue up all night just to get a good view of you droppin' through the trap-door.'

It was as if the bones in Derek Higson's face had suddenly begun to crumble. His jaw fell, his skin slackened, and his eyes seemed to want to retreat into the back of his head.

‘Help me, Charlie,' he said.

‘I'll do what I can for you,' Woodend promised, ‘but you're goin' to have to be honest with me.'

Higson nodded. ‘All right.'

‘When Pamela issued her ultimatum, you knew you were goin' to have to get rid of her. She couldn't be bought off, because – in her own twisted way – she loved you just as much as Lucy did. So you decided you had no choice but to kill her. Am I right so far?'

‘Yes.'

‘You arranged to meet her down by the canal. You not only strangled her but you raped her with one of the upholstery instruments you'd brought with you from the factory. An' then you messed up her face so much that it didn't even look human any more. Now why did you do all that?'

‘You already know.'

‘Tell me anyway.'

‘I thought it would confuse matters. I thought it might make you think that her killer was deranged.'

He bloody well
is
deranged! Woodend thought.

‘An' then, as an extra refinement, you even suggested to me that the murderer might be a woman,' he said aloud.

‘Yes, I was quite proud of that particular touch,' Higson said, managing a weak smile. ‘I'm a salesman, Charlie, and as every salesman knows, you're not selling a product, your selling an
idea
– a feeling. You have to paint a picture in the customer's mind of what it would be like to possess what it is you want him to buy from you. I sold you the idea that the killer might be a woman, but you soon made it your own, didn't you?'

Oh yes, Woodend thought, with self-disgust. Oh yes, I most certainly bloody did!

‘Now you've heard my confession, I expect you'll want me to put all this down in writing, won't you?' Derek Higson said.

‘Not yet,' Woodend told him.

‘Why ever not?'

‘Because first I'd like to hear the rest of it.'

‘What rest of it?'

‘I want to know why you killed Maria Rutter.'

I
t's a grey October afternoon. They're walking in the park together. He has told Pamela this is a dangerous thing to do – that even being seen together is a risk for him. He has said it because it is what she likes to hear
–
because she thrives on danger
–
but he's not unduly worried himself. She is his secretary, he is her boss. They have a perfect right to be walking together, and anyone who sees them will probably deduce – from their serious expressions
–
that they must be talking about business. Why should they think anything else?

‘Have you decided when it's to be yet, Lulu?' she asks.

There are times when he regrets telling her his secret name, because he sometimes doesn't like it when she talks to him as if he really were a woman. But, then again, he sometimes does like it
–
sometimes positively revels in it. He wishes life were not so complicated
–
wishes
he
were not so complicated.

‘I'm waiting for an answer, you bitch,' she says.

‘It's not that easy,' he protests.

‘Of course it's that easy,' she says scornfully. ‘You just tell her you're leaving her. And if you won't tell her, then I will!'

They have drawn level with a bench. No one is sitting on it. In fact, there are very few people in the park at all. In this weather, most folk prefer to be indoors, warming their hands in the heat of a glowing coal fire.