Gone to Ground (10 page)

From Will's office window, the car headlights progressing along Gonville Place towards the Newmarket Road were like slow-moving blips of yellow blistering through the glass. The snow had started to fall with the failing of the light, slow flakes meandering down.

"This Rouse character," Will said, "he wasn't on the list McKusick gave us at all?"

"Uh-uh."

"You think he just forgot?"

"Selective amnesia, maybe," Helen said.

"He knew if Rouse told his story..."

"We were going to look at him in a different light."

"Another side of his character."

"One he'd managed to keep hidden."

"A violent temper."

"When provoked."

"The worm that turned," Will said.

"Something along those lines."

"What did Rouse quote him as saying?"

"'Do that again and I'll fucking kill you.'"

The words had an uncomfortable echo in Will's mind. "Do that again," he said, "meaning what?"

Helen shrugged. "Turn your back? Walk away?"

"Which is what Bryan did."

"A mutual decision not to see each other for a while, that's how McKusick described it. Some kind of trial separation."

"Do we believe that?"

"Not really."

"So when shall we talk to McKusick again?"

"First thing tomorrow?"

"Let's bring him in here," Will said. "Sit him down for a while. Let him stew. Lean on him a little. See if we can't shake something from the tree."

LESLEY CROSSED FLETCHER GATE TOWARD A PHALANX of tall hoardings, behind which yet another hotel or exciting mixed-use retail destination was doubtless under construction, cut down Bottle Lane and into Waterstone's.

Film books were on the third floor.

A quick riffle through the three histories of British cinema they had in stock came up with only two references to Stella Leonard, both brief. One listed her, along with Diana Dors, Jane Hylton, Susan Shaw, and others, as a graduate of the J. Arthur Rank Charm School, which had been set up in the nineteen fifties to mould and develop a new generation of British film actresses; the other briefly mentioned several films in which she'd appeared, notably the thriller
Shattered Glass,
released in 1956.

Not a lot to go on there.

She scribbled a couple of things in her notebook and headed back up through Hockley toward London Road.

When she arrived, the news editor was mid-rant. "Actresses, actors, whatever you're supposed to call them nowadays. Make a couple of movies no one bothers to go and see, spread their legs for the lads' magazines, make a name for themselves snorting cocaine off some Premiership player's backside, and they think they're God Almighty."

At least he's got the gender right, Lesley thought.

"So here's Natalie Prince," Alan Pike continued, "not so long ago, when all she could get were bit parts on the tele, more tarts in
The Bill
than in Gregg's front window, back then when she wanted all the publicity she could get, who gave her a hand up, more air time than David Blunket in his prime? But now, ask for an interview and anyone'd think you were begging her for a shag in the middle of the Old Market Square."

Pike slammed his office door, only to open it again moments later, waving a piece of paper in Lesley's direction. "Here. Get yourself out to Langar. Talk to this James Crawford. Reckons he's seen a Yank plane coming in to land, local airport. One of those rendition jobs, he says." Pike shook his head. "Six months back, it'd likely been a UFO. Now every crank and crazy sees phantom CIA flights every time they buckle on their binoculars. But use your wits, see what he has to say. Might be something we can use, get another slow day."

Lesley took a quick look at entries for CIA ghost flights on the Web before leaving: after skipping down the first few pages, the sheer volume deterred her from going further. Too much detail for a piece that would probably never be aired. And, besides, there were other things on her mind.

The room in which they'd finally put Mark McKusick was small and square, the air used and stale. Since the police had arrived on his doorstep early that morning—McKusick not even properly dressed, a mug of tea barely started, bowl of cereal scarcely touched—he had been moved from one part of the building to another, uniformed officers brushing past him as if he weren't really there, information as to what he was wanted for scant and unclear. Was he there to answer more questions, and, if so, why wasn't that happening? Was he about to be arrested, and, if so, what for? What charge? McKusick looked at his watch, looked at the walls, the ceiling, closed his eyes. No way he could have slept, but when the door opened suddenly, he jumped, as if jerking awake.

An officer he'd never seen before was standing in the doorway. "Got everything you want?"

"Yes. I suppose so. But look..."

"Right, then." The man stepped smartly back outside, and the door was firmly closed.

McKusick waited. He sat, legs crossed, legs straight, arms folded, elbows resting on the table in front of him, arms down by his side. He got up and paced the room. Looked into the high corners for cameras through which he was being watched, and, even though he could see none, couldn't quite believe they weren't there.

After what seemed an eternity, he tried the handle of the door and, with little resistance, it opened. McKusick looked both ways along an empty corridor, seeing nothing, nobody. He stepped out of the room and, as he did, a uniformed officer appeared at the far end of the corridor and stood there, staring in his direction.

McKusick retreated back inside and closed the door.

It was another forty-five minutes before Will and Helen finally arrived and by then McKusick could smell his own sweat, acrid yet sweet, like the residue of the previous night's cheap curry.

"Hope you haven't been waiting long," Will said, innocently. "Bit of a mix-up. Nobody told us you were here."

"I've been here bloody hours."

"Oh, well. Can't be helped."

"Here," Helen said, passing across a polystyrene cup with a small hole torn from the lid. "Have some tea."

"I don't want any tea."

Helen smiled sweetly. "Suit yourself."

They sat silently, looking at one another, a smile playing round the corners of Will's mouth.

"I don't see what's so funny."

"Nothing," Will said.

"Then what's the bloody joke?"

Both Will and Helen were smiling now, relaxed. "There's no joke," Will said.

"Then why have I been pissed around all morning? Why am I here?"

"We thought we needed," Will said, "a little chat. A little clarification."

"About what? Clarification about what?" McKusick's face, naturally lean, was taut and flushed. "I don't see what I'm doing here anyway. Stephen was robbed, wasn't he? A burglary. His laptop, for one. You think that was me? You think I know anything about that? Well, do you?"

Helen eased forward, one arm resting lightly on the table edge, waiting for him to calm down. "You gave us a list," she said.

"What list?"

"Friends of Stephen's."

"What about it?"

"We wondered if you'd like to look at it again? Reconsider?" She took a sheet of paper from her bag, reversed it, and slid it across the table toward him.

"So?" McKusick said, glancing down then away.

"We think you left someone off."

McKusick shook his head.

"One of Stephen's friends," Will said.

"I don't think so."

"It's easy enough," Helen said amiably. "I leave stuff off lists all the time. Shopping lists. People to send Christmas cards to. Birthdays."

"I'm sorry," McKusick said. "I don't..."

"Rouse," Helen said. "Jack Rouse. Not the kind of man to be forgotten easily, I'd have thought."

McKusick shook his head again, more emphatically this time. "He's no special friend of Stephen's."

Helen noticed the slip of tense and let it go. "It was no accident, then?" he asked.

"How d'you mean?"

"Not including him on the list."

"No."

"Funny," Helen said. "When I talked to him I got the impression he and Stephen knew one another rather well."

"That's not true."

Helen smiled and relaxed back against her chair.

"Not true?"

"No."

"The fact his name wasn't there," Will said, taking over, "that wouldn't be anything to do with the fact you didn't want us to talk to him?"

"Of course not." McKusick's throat was dry.

"Of course not?"

"Look, I don't know what you're implying..."

"You don't?"

"No."

Will laughed. "You didn't think if we talked to him, that conversation might leave us with a different impression?"

"Different to what? I don't understand."

"Different to the one you've been trying so hard to cultivate. The long-suffering boyfriend, hard done by, certainly, but not one to complain. At least, not too loudly."

"I'm sorry, this is..." McKusick was half out of his chair.

"This is what?" Will's voice was like steel.

McKusick lowered himself slowly back down.

"Aggrieved but accepting, that's you, isn't it?" Will said. "At least, that's what you'd have us believe."

McKusick was staring at the floor.

"Why don't you," Helen said, "tell us about it in your own words?"

"About what?"

Will's fist hit the tabletop with such force even Helen, who had been half expecting it, was jolted back with surprise, and McKusick cowered as if he'd been hit.

"You and Stephen Bryan were seen having a major argument in the early hours of the morning," Will said. "Seen and heard. An argument which rapidly became violent."

"That's..."

"Yes?"

"That's an exaggeration."

"You weren't violent?"

McKusick avoided Will's eyes.

"You hit him," Will said. "With both hands. From behind. You hit him with such force he fell to the ground. And then you carried on hitting him."

"No."

"You punched him in the face and the body. Hit him so hard he had a severe cut on his face."

"No."

"You lost it," Will said. "Lost it completely. If Jack Rouse hadn't been there, you could have killed him."

"No!" McKusick's voice was raised in a virtual scream. His face, flushed before, was deathly white and his lips were pulled back, bloodless and thin, over his teeth.

"Is that what happened last week?" Helen said. "When you went to visit Stephen? You lost your temper? Is that what happened then?"

McKusick slumped forward across the table, head in his hands, and started to sob. Short, inchoate sobs that shook his body.

Will and Helen looked at one another questioningly, both remembering what Helen had said before about McKusick's play acting, both wondering if this were the same again.

After several minutes, in which the frequency of the sobbing lessened but did not stop, Helen reached forward and shook McKusick gently by the upper arm.

"Mark, come on. Snap out of it."

Slowly, McKusick raised his head, took a crumpled tissue from his pocket and wiped his reddened eyes.

"Before I say anything else," he said in a perfectly even voice, "I want a lawyer."

Will and Helen stood out on the edge of Parker's Piece, on the far side of the road from the police station. Will had his North Face anorak buttoned but not zipped; the collar of Helen's coat was turned up, a scarf knotted loosely at her neck. No snow now, but rain, soft-falling. The ends of Helen's hair were dark with it, almost black.

Helen lit one cigarette from the butt of another.

"What is this?" Will asked. "A death wish?"

"You care?"

"Don't you ever read," he said, "the warning on the packet?"

Helen blew smoke from one side of her mouth. "It never does," she said, "to believe everything you read. Especially on packaging. They taught us that. Fourth year social studies."

"Aside from which," Will said, "the inside of your mouth must taste like an ashtray."

Helen smiled. "That need never bother you."

"You know how close we came?" Will said. "Back there?"

Helen held out her left hand, forefinger and thumb not quite touching. "This close?"

"That close."

"And now?"

"Now we wait."

"Do we know who for?"

"Christine Costello, no less. McKusick's lawyer."

Helen drew deeply on her cigarette. "Why her?"

"Because the Good Lord didn't want it to be easy?"

Helen raised an eyebrow. "Lorraine will have to watch out. Next thing you'll be sending Jake off to Sunday School. Getting him enrolled for confirmation class."

"I think he needs to be baptized first. And besides, confirmation? That sounds more like your religion than mine."

Helen shook her head. "I became an agnostic the day the priest tried to get me to sit on his lap after mass."

"He was just trying to be friendly. Make you feel at ease."

"That wasn't what he was trying to make me feel at all."

Will laughed and shook his head. "You're a terrible woman."

"I know. Now shouldn't we get back inside?"

Christine Costello was wearing a well-weathered black leather jacket, a black dress in some shiny material or other, and high-heeled boots. Anyone who didn't know her better might have assumed she'd left a Harley Davidson out in the car park and not a nearly new BMW sedan.

"Will," she said, holding out her hand. "Good to see you again."

"Wish I could say the same."

"Same old joker, eh, Helen?" the lawyer said. "Always likes to kid around."

Helen said nothing. Botox, she thought, was doing a reasonably good job at keeping Christine Costello's wrinkles at bay, a few hundred a year reasonably well spent. Helen wondered if, in Costello's line of work, it was tax deductible? Maybe that was only barristers.

"After listening to what my client has to say," Costello said, "you might almost consider the treatment meted out to him as harassment."

"Not really," Will said. "All we did was lock him in a darkened room. Whack him around the head a few times with a telephone directory. That kind of thing."