AM02 - The End of the Wasp Season (32 page)

Thomas sat on the sofa in Ella’s sitting room, facing the big window. A brutal shaft of light was coming over the lawn. He thought sometimes of moving. Getting up, getting a drink. He was hungry too. But there was so much to do that he couldn’t move. He should go into the bedroom and speak to Ella. There must be something he could say to her, something that would make her snap out of it, beg her to get up, shout at her to stop loafing around. There had to be some single phrase that would help but he couldn’t think clearly enough to work out what it was. And he needed to talk to Moira, apologize for knowing about Theresa, make her get a lawyer to protect them. He should call Squeak as well, find out what he was doing, telling Sholtham. He should chase up Dr. Hollis and ask when he was coming back to see Ella. He couldn’t stand guard outside her bedroom for the rest of his life. And he was hungry.

Small tasks all, but they seemed insurmountable to him. He couldn’t focus hard enough to identify the first action towards either of them.

Please don’t kill yourself, Ella. That wouldn’t work. It’ll hurt Moira. No, that wouldn’t do either. The phrase came to him, abrupt and heartfelt:
please don’t leave me here
. He started to cry, his face yawned open, silent.
I can’t do this anymore
.

He ordered himself to think other things.

He sat, blinking into the blinding light from the lawn, listening to the gentle burble of the television in Moira’s rooms. Adverts.

She knew about Theresa now. And she knew that he knew as well. She’d be in there, in front of the telly, crying, gouging her scalp with her nails, feeling let down by Lars and him and everyone. Smoking certainly, maybe even holding a bottle of antidepressants. It was going to get worse. Theresa was smart and nasty. She’d sue Moira and get all the money. Other people must have known too, not just him. Lars must have taken Theresa to formal receptions and they’d feel the same as he did: he preferred Theresa.

He looked through the door to Ella’s bedroom. She was on the bed, pinned to her back, her bare feet visible through the doorway.

The minute he went to the toilet or fell asleep Ella’d creep downstairs and get the gun and shoot herself. Lars had shown them all where the safe key was. She probably wouldn’t do it right, either, just blow her eye out and bleed to death, shoot her nose off or something. Then people would laugh about it and say they couldn’t even get that right, this family, couldn’t even shoot themselves in the fucking face. Stander.

People emigrated at his age. It was up to him. Indignant self-disgust propelled his head up until he was looking straight into the sunshine. He stared into it until his eyes flashed white and ached. It was up to him. He stood up and walked out of the room.

Vision blurred from the brightness of the sun through the window, he ran his hand along the dado rail to guide himself to the top of the stairs, and stepped down, holding the banister until he got to the bottom. He blinked hard to restore his sight.

Lars’s office was a cushion of quiet. Thomas stepped inside, looking left to right, which was silly because he knew exactly where the safe was. He walked halfway across until he was just past the desk, and stopped to brush his fingers over the desk top, where Lars’s hands had been just before he walked out to the lawn. He felt better. As if Lars had given his approval or something.

He stepped over to the bookcase, to the phony book that looked no different from the real books because they were just as likely to be read. He pressed the sky-blue leather with gold writing on it and the spine of the book sprang towards him. The keys sat in a small, green felt insert.

Two keys, not big, old-fashioned, shackled together with a ring. Thomas took them out and found that he was sweating, for no reason really, and his mouth was filling up with saliva, as if he was going to be sick. He wondered if this was what Lars felt as he unloaded his wallet to the desk drawer and wrote his nasty suicide note, blaming Moira for what he was about to do, laying the blame at her door for him choosing to excuse himself from the coming years of humiliation.

Thomas shut the spine, hiding the fact that he had taken the keys, in case Moira glanced in and saw that he had been in the safe. He stepped over to the desk, crouched down to the footwell underneath and lifted the edge of the rug, revealing a brass handle fitted flush to the parquet. He flipped it up, lifted the small section of floorboard out and set it to the side.

There, the beige metal lid with red plastic finger holes. He slipped his fingers in and lifted it off like the lid on a cookie jar and found the safe lid. More beige metal, a cheap-looking brown plastic handle and the keyhole in the middle, like a navel. He fitted the key in, turned it and took the lid off. He dropped down, snaking his hand in through the narrow neck to the two-square-foot space underneath. Papers. A book. Some jewelry in suede envelopes. Thomas reached further down, leaning in so that his whole arm was swallowed by the floor, and felt the sharp edge of a box. He pulled the box out and, reverently using two hands, took off the lid: the snub Astra Cub, a solid, heavy handgun, the handle and barrel a single molding. Next to it, like bridesmaids, two spare magazines to match it.

A silly gun. Girl’s gun. He looked at the barrel: Guernica, it said, Made in Spain. He saw Picasso’s horse screaming at the sky, seen it in a book at school, Beany showed it to them but Thomas wasn’t really listening. What he did remember was the image of the horse and he knew that the horse with the cartoon eyes was dying, that it didn’t live to see the horrors of the Second World War, and that seemed relevant somehow, a mercy.

He sat back on his haunches and looked at the gun. Guernica.

Playing a part, he stood up, put the gun in his back pocket and adjusted his stance. Wide legged, sneering, taller. He reached back and pulled the gun slowly—because he didn’t know if it was cocked—pulled it slowly out of his pocket and held it in two hands, pointing it at the door to the hall.

“Ptchew,”
he said, lifting his hands in a slow-motion recoil. He smiled to himself. Felt better. He did it again.
“Ptchew.”

Still smiling softly he looked at the small black gun. Weighed a ton. A solid little friend. He put it on the desk and bent down, shutting the safe door but not locking it, leaving the keys sticking out and stacking the lid and floorboard panel under the desk.

He shouldn’t leave the spare rounds lying around though, in case there was another gun somewhere. He put one in each front pocket of his jeans. Heavy. Maybe six rounds in each? Maybe eight in each, plus what was already in the gun. The gun. He lifted it, looked at it closely.

The trigger was silver and as solid as a knife. He squeezed it a fraction, felt it come to the point, graze the firing mechanism and let it fall back.

Do not,
he remembered from somewhere, a film or a documentary or something,
do not
lock your elbows or the recoil will shatter the bones. Was it a sci-fi film? Maybe that was laser guns that did that. He should keep his elbows soft anyway, if he fired it, which he wouldn’t.

He stopped suddenly and gave a small surprised laugh at himself. Why would he fire the gun? He only had it to keep it from Ella. He shook his head at the floor. What was he thinking?

His gaze bounced around the crescents and dots of the poplar-burr desk top. He was thinking about shooting someone. Part of him was thinking about it. A bad deep-down part. He didn’t even know how to shoot.

It couldn’t be that hard. In Uganda kids were soldiers in the army. They handled guns, shot people, cut arms and legs off, and they were drunk or on glue. Couldn’t be too hard.

He was getting stuck here, the way he’d been stuck on the sofa upstairs. His eyes came to a rest on an inverted comma on the desk top. He was getting stuck.
I can’t do this
. But he was doing it. He had saved Ella from this gun. He was doing it.

He looked at the gun in his hand.

Solid. It had one button on it, a sliding button right next to the trigger, and he guessed that was the safety lock. He pushed it up and felt it click, pushed it down and up again, and down and up and down and put the gun in his back pocket.

Better. He felt better. His trousers were heavy now though. He took a few steps towards the door and found that the weight was comfortable to walk with. Better actually. He felt tethered to the ground, as if he was sinking into the earth.

He stood by the study door, hands gunfighter-wide at his thighs, elbows bent so recoil couldn’t shatter his bones.

From upstairs, a whisper of sound, the voices and music from Moira’s TV.

I am doing it,
thought Thomas, and he walked off up the stairs.

When she arrived at the station she was called straight into Bannerman’s office. McKechnie wanted to brief her about the investigation into Grant Bannerman.

McKechnie wanted to make it clear that nothing had been proved against her boss. He had been found with the laptop in his home but they couldn’t show intent to steal. The other claims against him were more serious though: bullying, mistreatment of junior officers, sending staff out to get him his lunch…Morrow lost her patience at that.

“Who?”

“Who what?” asked McKechnie keenly, hoping for a clue, she suspected.

“Who did he send out for his lunch?”

He looked at his papers. “Doesn’t say.”

“He brought in sarnies, every day. He’s a drawer full of health bars, for f—” She caught her breath. “Look, sir, I’ve got two upstairs needing grilled and I don’t believe any of this. Can we talk about it later?”

He slapped the folder shut. “Yes.”

“Where is he now?”

“Suspension.”

“He’s sitting at home watching telly and I’ve got to do all this myself?”

McKechnie widened his eyes. “We have legal obligations, Morrow.”

“I need to go back to London to question the other accused as well.”

“People have a right to work in safety—”

“Safety? He’s guilty of nothing but being unpopular, sir.”

“Well, we have to investigate these things, the complaints—”

“With respect, sir, the complaints are bollocks. He’s not coming back here, is he? After this. Even if he’s innocent of everything, he’s not coming back here. And unless you can get someone in, I’m the only senior officer and I’m about to go on maternity.”

McKechnie knew all that already. She stood up, feeling reckless. “I’m gonnae”—she stopped herself—“get on with my job.”

McKechnie stood up to meet her, a glint of an apology about him. “Morrow, this is the world we live in now.”

“Aye.” She opened the door and stepped into the briefing room. Everyone was there. The night shift were gathering, the day shift hanging on to get the gossip. Everyone looked at her and most of them were smiling, thinking they’d done her a favor.

Morrow looked around at them. “You cowardly shits,” she said, imagining her words being read out before a disciplinary committee, tempering them, keeping it vague. “You’ve no compassion for the bosses because you’ll never be us.” She saw them continue to smile but hide it under hands and cups. “We’ll be an army of nothing but soldiers ’cause none of you’ll step up.”

She looked around to see if she’d gotten through to them and knew that she hadn’t. Something snapped inside her. “Harris?”

He stood up at the back. “Ma’am.”

“Get upstairs,” she said, and a sudden flare of anger made her add, “you fucking arsehole.”

Although Jonathon Hamilton-Gordon had asked for Doyle, his family had intervened and sent a friend to sit with him, just a friend, someone Jonathon knew personally. The man was ringing all sorts of alarm bells in Morrow. His clothes were too neat, he didn’t make eye contact with the boy. Though they sat next to each other at the table, their body language was cold. She felt sure he was a lawyer. The appropriate adult’s job was to tell the person they were with what was going on, explain what the big words meant or read out things they couldn’t if they had a learning disability. It was not to hand them slick legal advice, or give them tips on how to avoid charges.

She watched them on the remote view, worried about going in there with Harris. Leonard stood behind her; she looked worried too.

“That jumper is cashmere,” she said, looking at the neat man’s jersey.

Morrow looked at the jumper. It looked ordinary. It was green and had a crew neck. He had a shirt on underneath it. “Have you got X-ray vision or something?”

“It’s the way it hangs,” she explained. “It’s thinner. I bet that cost about two hundred quid.”

“No! Jerseys can’t cost two hundred quid.”

But Leonard was nodding, certain.

Morrow looked again. “They said he’s a family friend. I don’t think they’ve ever met before, what do you think?”

The boy and the man could have been strangers sitting next to each other on a bus. In London.

Harris appeared behind them, his mouth pinched, avoiding her eye. Morrow, still angry, turned and squared up to him. “Yeah?”

He looked past her to the screen. “We going in?”

“Aye,” she said. “Come on.” She swept past him and led the way down the corridor.

This interview room was big and clean.

The man was next to the wall and the boy on the outside. They stood up as Morrow and Harris came in, shook hands. Jonathon’s hand was dry and he seemed very calm.

She let Harris take the inside seat, put her folder down in front of her chair and they fitted the cassettes, started the recording, drew their attention to the video camera. Neither of them asked for anything else to be explained to them, not for time frames or what was happening next. The man asked for no clarification on the charges as she read them out and the boy barely listened to the caution.

Then they all sat in silence for a while until Morrow looked across at the man as if she’d just realized he was there. “Sorry, what is your name again?”

“Harold.”

“Whereabouts are ye from, ‘Harold’?”

He blinked and cut her off. “Stirling. I live in Stirling.”

“That’s right, we have your address downstairs, don’t we?”

Again he blinked and cut her off.

“Nice part of the world, out there, nice. What is it you do for a living?”

Harold sighed at this, and glared a prompt at Jonathon, who responded, “Aren’t you supposed to be questioning me?”

She cocked her head at him. “Really?” She turned back to Jonathon. “Can you really have more to say after all that you said in front of Mr. Doyle? All that stuff you told us and physical evidence you gave us…”

Harris smirked next to her and she could see it made the boy angry.

“I do want to get this over and done with,” he said, trying to appear helpful.

Morrow looked languorously through her notes. “Son, see whatever happens here?
Whatever
happens here, this is not going to be ‘over and done with’ anytime soon—”

“I didn’t mean that,” Jonathon said, “I meant these questions. I want to get these over and done with.”

“What do you think is going to happen when these questions are over and done with?”

He shrugged carelessly, glanced at Harold’s hands, which were folded one gently over the other. Harold looked straight at her, defiant, proud. He genuinely thought he was getting bail for Jonathon. He’d told him he was too, which seemed unprofessional. Jonathon hadn’t told him about the car or how much he’d said already, she realized.

“Hmm.” She continued looking through her notes. “D’you watch a lot of cop shows on TV?”

He checked with Harold and Harold nodded him on. “No. I’m at boarding school, we don’t get to watch much TV.”

“You don’t get to have a car either.” She smiled at him. He didn’t smile back. “No, the reason I’m asking is because I wonder if you’ve ever heard of ‘the prisoner’s dilemma’?”

“Is that a cop show?”

“No.”

Jonathon looked quite amused by this train of conversation and pushed himself away from the table, swinging on the back two legs of the chair. “What is it then?”

“Two guys in two rooms being questioned about the same events. Yeah?”

He nodded.

“Both want to keep it a secret. Suppose, for example, they’ve done a bad thing.” She gave him a hard look. “If you can imagine that scenario.”

He sucked his cheeks in as though killing a smile.

“These two guys in the two rooms have done a bad thing together. And they’ve been caught—”

“Or given themselves up,” he said.

“What’s the difference?”

“Well, in one scenario they’re sneaking off,” he smirked. “In the other they’ve—you know—done the deciding.”

“I see.” She nodded at Harold. “An interesting distinction. So the two guys are in two different rooms and neither of these guys knows what the other one is saying about what happened. They give different versions. I was out of the room the whole time, say stuff like that.” She dropped her voice and smiled, conspiratorial, as if she was sharing a family receipt: “We work out what happened from the contradictions.”

He let his chair drop forward onto all fours. “Don’t they just blame each other?”

“Well, that can happen, yes, sometimes, classic episode.” She nodded happily. “They give each other up. One says ‘he did everything, I’m innocent,’ the other one says, ‘no, it was him, I’m the innocent party.’ Quite the conundrum for the police. Then we have to fall back on our physical evidence, try to piece it together. Work out what happened. Course, it costs more because the case goes to court, everyone pleading innocence and that, but ye get that pay-off, you know?” She smacked her lips. “Sentences are much longer. The feeling that everything’s been looked at and looked under, cross-examined, pulled apart…”

Jonathon smiled and licked his lips, pushed back, rocked his chair again. “Is that what’s happening here?”

“No. Here you’re saying he did it and you happen to have lots of physical evidence that he did it. In your version you did nothing and all the physical evidence about what you did is missing. Isn’t that a stroke of luck? Apparently you were off saying your prayers while it happened.”

He sat forward and nodded seriously. “OK.”

She looked at him and at Harold and found them both looking smug. She turned a page of her notes. “Oh.” She looked closer at the page. “Oh, dearie me. Two sets of footprints are stamped all over Sarah’s soft face.” She looked up and smiled. “What kind of prayer is that? I’m not religious so—”

Jonathon shot forwards. “No—”

“OK.” Harold stood up. “We’re stopping here for a comfort break.”

Morrow looked confused.

“That,” he said, “is aggressive, intimidating questioning of a minor.”

She stood up very slowly, holding her stomach and giving him a wolfish smile. “Harold, are you a lawyer?”

Harold snorted indignantly through his nose. “We want a comfort break.”

Morrow slapped shut the folder on the desk. “Take as long as you like. I’m finished. You’ll be taken downstairs now and charged.”

Jonathon stood up. “Then can I go home?”

Morrow widened her eyes at Harold. “No, Jonathon, you’ll be taken to court and they decide.”

“And they’ll let me go home?” Suddenly panicked, he looked tearfully from Harris to Morrow to Harold.

No one answered. In the pause Morrow saw something die in Jonathon Hamilton-Gordon’s eyes.

She slipped his gaze, ashamed of the glee she felt at the death of hope in a child. She picked up her folder. “You’ll be taken downstairs now and charged with Sarah Erroll’s murder…”