02 Blue Murder (19 page)

“
I’m afraid that doesn’t say
much for Sir Raleigh’s character,” Hetheridge said.

“
I told Kate precisely the
same thing about the late Lord Hetheridge,” Sir Duncan laughed.
Something seemed to thaw within him, subtly altering his face and
carriage.

“
All kidding aside, Tony—may
I call you Tony?—I’m glad you came tonight, and not just because
you brought this astonishing creature along. Now—back to your
theory. By all means, tell me more about myself. You think I
masterminded the triple murder? That I talked my mates into
bloodying their hands in my service while I … what? Buggered off to
establish an alibi?”

“
You didn’t bugger off. You
wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” Hetheridge said. “At the
very least, you sat back and watched while your friends slaughtered
your father, brother and butler to your specifications. But I don’t
think so. I think you did all the major work yourself. Your friends
were merely needed to keep lookout, hold down flailing limbs,
ensure a smooth exit from the scene and so on.”

“
You wound me.” Sir Duncan
flashed that famous cannibal grin, the one the tabloids loved so
much. “But Lord Hetheridge, if you’ll recall, the jury not only
exonerated me. Those jurors seemed appalled, frankly, that I was
even accused. Why on earth would I commit such heinous
acts?”

Hetheridge didn’t answer. He merely kept his
gaze locked with Sir Duncan’s.

“
Am I mentally ill?” Sir
Duncan asked. “Do you consider me a psychopath?”

“
No.”

“
A sociopath?”

“
Indeed, I do
not.”

Kate was surprised. And to her chagrin, Sir
Duncan inclined his head toward her.

“
That’s was Kate’s first
thought,” he said. “Rather obviously, too, if you’ll forgive me for
saying so. But she’s not the first. It’s a nice modern catch-all
term for many a violent offender. Why not apply it to
me?”

“
In my experience,”
Hetheridge said, “speaking not as a psychiatrist, but merely a
detective, true sociopaths are tone deaf, as it were, to the
nuances of human relationships.”

Sir Duncan folded his arms across his chest.
His platinum cufflinks, each with a large G, flashed at Kate. “Tone
deaf?”

“
Yes. Mind you, sociopaths
experience many of the same needs we all do,” Hetheridge continued.
“They attend school, maintain jobs. I believe they can even love,
in the way little children love—a combination of wanting and
demanding. But sociopaths have no conscience, no innate sense of
responsibility toward others. They cannot believe other people have
separate lives beyond the sociopath’s own needs and expectations.
Sociopaths are incapable of empathy, though the more intelligent
ones are frequently able to fake it. And that’s the
key.”

Sir Duncan raised his eyebrows. “Is it?”

“
Yes. I’ve been a policeman
for a long time,” Hetheridge said. “This much I know. Keep a
sociopath off-balance long enough—put him in a complex social
situation with no time to work out his feigned responses in
advance—and he’ll inadvertently reveal himself.”

“
Is that so?” Sir Duncan
shot Kate a pleased look. “So Tony, do I understand you correctly?
You endorse my command of nuanced human relationships? You consider
me—normal?”

“
I do not consider you
normal,” Hetheridge said. He hadn’t moved from Kate’s side; he had,
in fact, moved fractionally closer. “I consider you exceptional,
Sir Duncan. Especially at offering flattery so well aimed, the
recipient barely suspects what you’re about. And when flattery
seems inapt, you use insults to probe for soft spots. As you did
with me a moment ago. And with that policeman’s effigy
downstairs.”

“
When you break down my
approach, it sounds terribly artificial,” Sir Duncan sighed. “How
can you be sure I’m not the cleverest, best-prepared sociopath
you’ve ever met?”

“
Because I’ve seen you in
extremis.” Hetheridge paused, allowing that to sink in. “Though I
doubt you had the slightest notion I was there. When Tessa Chilcott
was shifted from New Scotland Yard to Parkwood Psychiatric Hospital
for remand, I was there at the scene. I saw you cry out to
her.”

Sir Duncan’s smile faded.

“
You called her name,”
Hetheridge continued. “Tried to get her attention. Tried to speak
with her. But she wouldn’t respond. As they pushed Tessa into that
van, I saw you collapse. Crumple into an empty doorway and weep,
face against the bricks. No cameras to mug for. No jurors to
convince.” Hetheridge paused again, gaze locked with Sir Duncan’s.
“As I said, I am a detective, not a psychiatrist. Yet I believe I
know what I saw. Simple, garden-variety guilt. And no sociopath
alive feels that.”

“
What happened to Tessa was
a mistake. On her part, and on mine.” Before Kate’s eyes, Sir
Duncan’s demeanor changed subtly again, his voice roughening with a
new intensity. “I could tell you more, but you don’t seem to
require many answers from me. So please, Tony, do go on. Tell me
your version of how the triple murders occurred.”

“
Mind you, it’s only a
theory.” Hetheridge’s tone was mild. “But judging from what we
learned of your past, I think your mother, Lady Godington, died a
natural death. Or at the very least, one you weren’t involved in.
When your father took your governess as his new mistress, it struck
you as the very worst sort of betrayal. We know you were a
physically strong, remarkably intelligent young boy. Fully capable
of killing the governess for taking your mother’s place. Probably
you smothered her as she slept. And I doubt anyone ever suspected
you, or guessed a little boy might be capable of such an
act.

“
Once you graduated
university,” Hetheridge continued, “you went off to the third world
to do green activism and wildlife conservation. Statistics from
those countries proved virtually useless to us. But I noticed
something interesting during your final months in Borneo. A man was
found dead on the outskirts of Kuching. He had a reputation as a
successful poacher. He appeared to have been sawed in half, either
by sword or machete.”

Sir Duncan’s grin reappeared. “What a bloody
shame.”

“
Indeed. We know you made
two trips home before returning permanently to England. I think
during that time, you gathered your friends to you, told them your
plans for your father and brother, and enlisted their aid. The
triple murder went off almost without a hitch. A few traces of
forensic evidence here and there, but nothing your brief couldn’t
argue away. Your hair strands at the scene meant nothing—you
admitted to visiting the house that day. Blood tracked on the lawn
and splattered on a hedge didn’t point definitely to you. Even the
traces of blood found in your Range Rover didn’t move the jury.
They bought the defense’s theory, ridiculous as it was, that a
sloppy lab might confuse your own blood, from a small wound, with
the blood of your father or brother. Naturally, your brief knew all
this, and much more, ahead of time, because a detective foolishly
confided in his girlfriend, Tessa Chilcott. And she brought every
scrap of information back to you and your team.

“
Now here,” Hetheridge
paused. “Here is an area upon which I’m unclear. Did you go so far
as to send Ms. Chilcott to befriend, even seduce, a detective on
the case? Or did she undertake that seduction on her own, to help
you?”

Kate waited, determined to keep her face
blank. She didn’t know which answer Paul Bhar would have
preferred—or indeed, at this late date, if he still cared. But
remembering Tessa Chilcott as pictured beside Sir Duncan in that
long-ago society column—a painfully thin young woman with masses of
thick dark hair—Kate found herself wanting to know the truth.

Sir Duncan did not answer. He merely waited,
transparently expectant, for Hetheridge to finish. The fire that
flashed briefly at the mention of Tessa’s mental breakdown was gone
again, or safely under control.

“
I suppose the truth doesn’t
matter now,” Hetheridge said at last. “Ms. Chilcott’s early
contribution to your defense sealed your acquittal. Afterwards, you
were seen together, out on the town. Then she was arrested for
stabbing a woman to death—a perfect stranger, chosen at random on
the street. The police report said Ms. Chilcott appeared unable to
comprehend the gravity of her actions. I must tell you, there was
some talk in the Met that she put on an act of madness to avoid
conviction, but I never believed that. I think the truth was rather
darker.”

Hetheridge paused. Sir Duncan did not
interrupt. Kate sensed the pull of energy between the two men, felt
Sir Duncan’s unspoken warning. But if Hetheridge was aware, he
continued nevertheless.

“
I think Tessa Chilcott
loved you. Loved you enough to participate in the vengeance you
wrought against the three people you hated most. Perhaps as long as
you were under arrest, and thus in danger, she was able to put
aside the knowledge of what she’d done. But after your release, she
fell apart. Descended into true psychosis. I think she killed that
stranger to prove to herself she could be like you. A person for
whom murder is just another choice. When Tessa discovered it
wasn’t, her mind snapped. And to my knowledge, she’s shown little
progress toward recovery, even after years of custodial psychiatric
treatment.”

“
A person like me,” Sir
Duncan repeated softly. “But if in your estimation I’m not a
psychopath or a sociopath, what am I? What’s the clinical term
these days?”

“
A very old one,” Hetheridge
said. “In my early days on the job, I wouldn’t have hesitated to
apply that word to you. Nowadays … suffice it to say, I don’t know
what you are.”

Sir Duncan’s gaze shifted to Kate. She found
herself pinned again by the intensity of that stare, by his
physical presence. Intellectually, it was impossible for her to
find such a person attractive. Yet on some level, the man kept
forcing her body to react.

“
Will I tarnish myself in
your eyes, my dear Kate, if I reply to Tony’s accusations?” Sir
Duncan sounded amused.

Kate shrugged. She was furious with herself
for that visceral attraction. Furious, mystified and once again
questioning her own sanity—as she always did when a completely
inappropriate man provoked her familiar, self-destructive
response.

A cold breeze swept across the balcony,
reminding Kate of whose coat was draped across her shoulders.
Shrugging free, she held it out to Sir Duncan.

“
Where shall I correct you?”
Sir Duncan asked Hetheridge, sliding into his jacket with
effortless grace. “On only a few points. I did not kill a poacher
in Borneo. I killed eight poachers in Borneo. A minimal loss for
the human race, to be sure.

“
As for why Tessa killed
that stranger …” Sir Duncan lifted each sleeve, adjusting his cuff
links. “I’ve thought about it so many times. I don’t know. But I’m
certain she was psychotic before she did it, and therefore not to
blame.

“
But am I to blame, for
befriending her, for trusting her, for allowing her into my inner
world?” Sir Duncan, almost a head taller than Hetheridge, leaned
close, too close for polite society. “I would say—yes. Nothing can
help her. Not money, not solicitors, not doctors. Which means I
must live with my guilt. And I can honestly say that of all my dark
deeds, my role in Tessa’s disintegration is the only one that
causes me shame.”

“
As it should.” Hetheridge
stood his ground, unblinking. “It’s not every man whose association
can drive a normal woman stark raving mad. Tessa Chilcott strikes
me as terminally thick. Before you taught her how to commit murder,
you might have warned her not to try it at home.”

Sir Duncan’s upper lip curled back. His fist
went up almost faster than Kate’s eye could follow. Once again, her
body reacted differently than her mind—throwing herself in front of
Hetheridge, right arm shooting up to block the punch that never
came.

Sir Duncan stared at Kate. They both must
have looked completely ridiculous, each with an arm raised. Kate,
highly rated in martial arts and self-defense, slowly drew her arm
back to her side. She’d fought many times, in many ways, but never
in a rented ball gown and teetering high heels.

Sir Duncan stepped back. He was cold again,
perfectly composed. Putting his head to one side, he studied
Hetheridge, then Kate, then Hetheridge again.

“
What is this?” Sir Duncan
murmured. “Tony. I assumed dear Kate was merely your colleague. Is
she in fact … yours?”

Hetheridge gave a short, unpleasant laugh.
“Old wreck I may be. Yet I haven’t been reduced to dating plods off
the beat.”

“
I suppose
not. Roddy Hetheridge and his fox killers would have a field day.
Now,” Sir Duncan said. “This
conversation
has been
fascinating, but I really must
return to my other guests. Tell me, Tony, have I said or done
anything to allay your suspicion I had something to do with the
double murder in Chelsea?”

“
All in good time.”
Hetheridge sounded perfectly serene, as if the other man’s aborted
attack had never occurred. “I trust if the Met formally requests
your assistance with our inquiries, you shall make yourself
available forthwith?”

“
Only if my brief informs me
I have no other choice. I did not put the axe to those children’s
skulls. Believe me. Now have the good taste to get the hell out of
my sister’s house.” Without waiting to see them comply, Sir Duncan
turned, exiting the terrace without a backward glance.