Devereaux shrugged. ‘Vicious double homicide,’ he said. ‘Sitting here doing nothing doesn’t seem that productive.’
Neither of them replied. Bowen looked down and watched his fingers knit tightly. At length McCarthy said, ‘Don’t you think the sergeant’s aged recently?’
Bowen didn’t answer. He said, ‘Is there anything at all you wish to disclose at this stage?’
‘I don’t know.’
Bowen shook his head gently. His lips dipped at the corners. ‘I can’t see that the question could have been much clearer.’
Devereaux shrugged. ‘It’s the sort of question that implies you’re anticipating something specific. I’m not quite sure what you’re expecting to hear.’
Bowen didn’t answer. McCarthy just looked at him.
Devereaux said, ‘What exactly is the purpose of this meeting?’
Bowen said, ‘This afternoon you attended a crime scene in Otara.’
‘You’re referring to the home of Doug Allen?’
‘I am.’
Devereaux nodded. ‘I did.’
‘You weren’t informed of the call. I’m just curious as to how you knew to attend.’
‘I saw Frank Briar receive a message that looked urgent. I called Comms and asked what was happening.’
‘You seemed very eager to get down there.’
‘I was. It’s my job.’
McCarthy shifted in his seat, laid an ankle across one knee.
‘Sergeant,’ Bowen said. ‘Don’t get short with me.’
‘I’m sorry. I’ll endeavour to use longer sentences.’
Bowen didn’t flicker. McCarthy smiled, but it looked more like contempt than humour.
Devereaux said, ‘I think the biggest mystery is why nobody alerted me to the fact something had happened.’
Bowen smiled thinly, like a slice of moon. He stretched his arm in front of him and rolled his shoulder, checked his cuff roll. He said, ‘Sergeant, as you can imagine, the purpose of this little get-together is to discuss the fact that less than forty-eight hours after you paid a visit to Leroy Turner, he ends up dead.’
‘The tone you use makes it seem so much less innocent than happy chance.’
Bowen’s eyebrows hiked. ‘Happy chance?’
‘Poor choice of words. Pure coincidence.’
Bowen didn’t reply. The lighting cut out, blinked itself awake after a short lapse.
Devereaux said, ‘If you want to talk alibis, I’m rock-solid.’
Bowen shook his head. ‘I don’t think you killed anyone. I just think there’s information you’re not giving me.’
Devereaux’s heart skipped a beat. He hoped they didn’t sense it break stride. ‘What gives you that impression?’
‘You visited Turner’s address on Tuesday morning for no apparent reason.’ He pouted gently; knitted fingers rose and then fell. ‘You’ll have to forgive me for thinking it seems a little strange.’
‘I object to the “no apparent reason” part.’
Bowen spread his hands. ‘So go ahead and justify.’
‘I got Turner’s name from Howard Ford. You had him in custody Monday night.’
‘I seem to recall instructing you not to speak to him.’
‘I’d dealt with Ford previously. I knew he’d been associated with Turner, and that Turner had been involved in robberies from time to time.’
‘Okay. And you felt the need to visit him at one a.m. on a Tuesday morning?’
‘I’m a light sleeper.’
Bowen cracked a grin, razor-edge cool. Devereaux remembered Hale’s description from Monday: sharp as a paper cut, and just as unpleasant. ‘So what did you talk about?’
Devereaux’s phone sounded. He braced for a long lament before the voicemail kicked in, but the tone was short-lived. He rolled sideways on his chair and the phone slid from pocket to cupped palm. He checked the display. Text hogged the screen:
Duvall’s file note says: Informed by Const. Charles Easton that Leroy Turner assaulted by Det Frank Briar during Q&A
.
So Leroy hadn’t lied. He had third-party corroboration of his assault tale.
Devereaux laid the phone on the table, face down. Bowen and McCarthy glanced at it in unison. The sudden reflexive tug of curiosity.
Devereaux said, ‘I spoke to Turner, but it was a waste of time.’
Bowen looked up from the phone. He clenched his teeth. Jaw muscle swelled and faded. ‘Why?’ he said.
‘I questioned him about the Savings and Loan robbery on October eight; he told me he’d been in prison at the time, and knew nothing about it.’
Bowen was quiet a long time. His gaze was steady, but Devereaux could see something battling to leave the cage. It looked like excitement. It looked like the thrill of entrapment. McCarthy had tipped his chair up on two legs. The sense of something waiting to drop.
‘Did you push him?’ Bowen said.
Devereaux shook his head. ‘Not my style.’ He looked at McCarthy. ‘I leave the arm-bending to others.’
McCarthy didn’t budge. Not even a dent.
Devereaux said, ‘He was apprehensive of me. I think even if he did have useful information, I would have struggled to get him to divulge it.’
Bowen nodded and looked down at the little triangle of table corralled by his forearms, as if consulting notes. ‘Your description of events to Inspector McCarthy on Tuesday when he found you at the address was that you’d found the house empty. Is that correct?’
‘That’s what I told him, yes.’
‘So in fact you lied to him?’
‘Yes.’
McCarthy let his chair down soundlessly. Devereaux didn’t look at him.
Bowen said, ‘You realise the gravity of that admission?’
Devereaux nodded. ‘It was necessary, based on what Turner had told me.’
Bowen’s eyes went back and forth a couple of times, clock-like. ‘Elaborate for me.’
‘Turner told me he had been questioned in relation to robberies dating back to October. He claimed he was assaulted by one of the officers interviewing him.’
‘I struggle to see how that entitled you to provide a false verbal report to a senior officer.’
‘If you could indulge me a few moments longer, I’m hoping I can alleviate your confusion.’
The thin smile again. Bowen spread upturned palms: please continue.
Devereaux said, ‘Turner couldn’t name the officer who assaulted him. The description he gave was vague. We were seated in his kitchen, and heard a car pull in off the street. Obviously, it was a police vehicle. Turner saw it and panicked, told me not to let anyone inside.’
‘Which is what you did.’
‘Which is what I did.’
‘Okay. So your contention is that Turner was so traumatised after being interviewed, he couldn’t face further contact with the police?’
‘It wasn’t the interview that bothered him. It was the physical assault that came with it.’
‘And knowing you’re a police detective, why was he prepared to talk to you?’
‘I told him I knew Howard Ford.’
‘And he believed that?’
‘He recognised my name. Ford had told him about me.’
Bowen smirked. ‘So you came highly recommended.’
‘I think he described me as an “okay dude”.’
Bowen’s face didn’t change: not even an eyebrow waver. ‘Sergeant, I’ll be honest with you. This all sounds like total bullshit.’
Devereaux didn’t answer.
Bowen said, ‘What? And because the guy’s dead, I’m meant to say, “Well, there’s no way to find out now so I guess we’ll have to take your word for it.”’
‘The postmortem might confirm whether he was recently assaulted.’
‘Yeah. Keep your fingers and toes crossed.’
Devereaux didn’t reply. He flipped his cellphone over, slid it across the table to Bowen with a flick.
Bowen looked down. He smiled. ‘I think it’s meant to be you that’s offered the phone call.’
‘Read my last received text.’
Bowen’s eyes took a long time to drop. He looked down and picked up the phone. Dampened keypad clicks seemed amplified in the quiet. He paused. He read.
Devereaux pictured it:
Duvall’s file note says: Informed by Const. Charles Easton that Leroy Turner assaulted by Det Frank Briar during Q&A
.
Bowen licked his lips and slid the phone left, to McCarthy. The Don leaned forward, skimmed the message, leaned back.
Bowen folded his arms. He looked at the table and ran a thumb down a sideburn. ‘Did Turner mention the name Charles Easton when you spoke to him?’
‘Here I was expecting an apology.’
Bowen didn’t reply.
Devereaux said, ‘No, he didn’t mention the name.’
The room was quiet. McCarthy’s face had lost a little blood. Bowen cocked a loose fist and checked his nails. ‘What did you do when you saw the unmarked car arrive?’ he said.
‘I went outside to meet it.’
‘Why did you not stay indoors with Turner and get him to confirm whether or not the officer who had arrived had been involved in this alleged assault?’
‘He was panicked. Whoever it was, he didn’t want anything to do with them, irrespective of whether or not they’d attacked him.’
‘Right. So after Inspector McCarthy left, why did you not go back inside to confirm whether he had been involved in the assault?’
Devereaux smiled. ‘I didn’t even consider that Inspector McCarthy could have been responsible. Clearly, you know him a little better than I do.’
‘Glibness won’t win you points, sergeant.’
‘Turner wouldn’t let me back inside, so I left.’
The pair of them shared a glance. Bowen turned back and laid on a minatory stare. A pause strained, long and tight. ‘We’re done,’ he said.
W
EDNESDAY
, 15 F
EBRUARY
, 8.13
P.M.
H
is phone rang again as he left the room — the Herne Bay number. Devereaux didn’t answer. He called Pollard, but it went through to voicemail. He left a message: ‘I’m out of the interview, call me back ASAP.’ He hoped he didn’t sound too curt.
A mug on his desk held a finger of cold coffee. He downed it and found pad and pen, sketched the Turner address in plan.
What happened, Leroy
?
Something made him feel pushed for time. His heart held a high tempo, urged on by some illusory deadline. He checked his phone again and re-read Pollard’s message.
Whoever Charles Easton was, Duvall had obviously felt compelled to verify the claim. But the chronology lacked clarity: had the killer walked in on Duvall and Turner, or had he arrived first and struck when Duvall arrived?
One thing was almost certain: Turner knew the assailant. The house showed no signs of forced entry. Plus Turner had been paranoid. He wouldn’t risk admitting strangers if he could avoid it. Which raised the question of how Duvall had gained admission. Maybe proof of PI status had been sufficient. Or maybe he confessed knowledge of Turner’s interview session with Frank Briar.
I know who beat you up, sonny. Now let me in
.
He realised he was still standing, hunched there above the desk as if conducting some furtive search. He hooked his chair in and sat down, dropped his face into waiting hands.
If Pollard was right, Bowen had already pegged Douglas Allen for the deaths. The timing seemed compatible: he could have fled to Turner’s address following his run-in with John Hale. Turner lets him in. Doug’s wired on adrenaline. He spills his story in a breathless panic:
There’s some private investigator after me
.
He ambushed me in my own house
.
I took a shot at him
.
I’m in deep shit
.
Douglas would have stayed on edge. The shakes take a long time to fade. A knock at the door would have re-twisted tortured nerves. Devereaux pictured it. Hale hadn’t thought Douglas got a good look at him; if someone showed up claiming they were a PI, Doug’s survival instinct would have snapped the leash.
Mitchell Duvall, mistaken for John Hale.
Devereaux looked at the floor sketch and saw theories crystallising. He pictured Douglas poised in the living room entry as Turner opened the front door. Duvall entering. Douglas Allen smashing the back of the guy’s head in with the butt of a shotgun. Turner awestruck, Turner screaming. Douglas silencing him with a blow to the face.
His desk line rang. He forgot to check the ID screen to vet the number, and picked up without thinking. It was Ellen.
‘Sean, where are you?’
A strange question: she’d had to dial his desk to reach him. ‘I got a call,’ he said.
‘What? And just up and left? You said you were going to stay for dinner. You didn’t even say goodbye to anyone.’
He strained for background noise: was that guest chatter, or just a bad connection?
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It was urgent.’
‘You can’t just vanish.’
The line went quiet. He couldn’t pick whether she was fuming or just sad. He sensed crying on the horizon.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘Dinner’s at nine, like I told you. I would really, really love you to make it. Everyone would. So can you?’
I can’t do this right now
.
‘Ellen. Look.’
She cut him off: ‘No, come on.’ She paused, and he could hear her breathing. ‘It’s eight-thirty. If you leave now, you can get here and not be late.’
He had his eyes closed, one hand buried in tufts of hair, both elbows on the desk.
‘Ellen.’ It sounded weak and contrite. He was oddly conscious of his own voice, like a quiet bystander to his own private moments.
‘Please, Sean. It’s just one dinner. It’s just one goddamned dinner. Please just come. It’ll only be an hour. Nobody’s going to keep you late.’
‘Ellen.’ He grimaced as he said it. ‘I really can’t.’
‘You really can’t.’ A heavy waver: here comes the crying. He gnashed his molars, braced for some shouting. But she just said, ‘Well, I’ll see you then, Sean.’
She ended the call. It felt a little more final than he would have preferred. The farewell a little too firm, the hang-up a little too gentle. But she’d probably call back. He sat with his elbows on the desk and the dial tone in his ear a moment, then placed the handset in the cradle.
He leaned back in his chair and turned on the desk light. Interesting how things deteriorate: his evening had slipped from
wine and sunshine to thoughts of murdered men. Was there something tragic in the fact it didn’t bother him? Maybe it was a symptom of something. Preferring the dead to the living.
You have no life
.
No, that wasn’t right: he had a life, he just liked work better.
The phone rang again.
Second time round he was more prudent: a caller ID check showed Don McCarthy’s office. Tempting just to let it ring through, but that wouldn’t stop McCarthy visiting in person. Devereaux picked up.
McCarthy said, ‘Come through. We need to talk.’
‘Now’s a bad time.’
‘Don’t give me cheek, boyo. I want to see you.’
Devereaux hung up. He gave it a minute, and then walked through to The Don’s office. McCarthy was standing in front of the desk, back to the door. Ceiling lights splayed his shadow in weak triplicate. A bottle of Jack Daniel’s Black Label stood beside the computer monitor, an inch of whisky in a tumbler hanging in one hand.
‘Close the door,’ McCarthy said. He tipped his wrist back and forth. The whisky rolled side to side.
Devereaux closed the door to the hallway. The tongue gave that clean little click, reminiscent of his interview.
McCarthy nodded at the Jack. ‘I’m off the clock so don’t say anything sanctimonious.’
‘I was hoping not to say anything at all.’
McCarthy didn’t answer.
Devereaux said, ‘What do you want?’
‘Who was that you were on the phone to?’
‘It’s none of your business.’
McCarthy’s mouth downturned, and he shrugged. ‘I didn’t mean anything by it. Just wondering.’
‘My apologies. I thought it was just casual intrusion.’
McCarthy showed no response, like he’d been deaf to the jibe. He said, ‘My wife left me, I think it was almost the phone calls I missed the most. Those little domestic intrusions, you know?’
He saw something in Devereaux’s face and laughed, humourless, scraped off the back of the throat. ‘Don’t worry; I wasn’t listening in.’ He paused for a moment. ‘I see a hunched, elbows-on-the-desk phone conversation, I know it’s probably wife trouble. Or something similar. Anyway.’ He winked. ‘I hope it all works out hunky-dory.’
‘What do you want?’
He took a small sip and smiled on the swallow. He set the glass on the desk and topped it up with the bottle, head sideways to gauge the level. ‘What makes you think you can walk in here and use that tone with me?’
‘It’s probably a respect thing.’
The photographs on the desk presided over a mess of paper: arrest sheets, photocopied handwritten notes. McCarthy took another hit off the whisky, set the tumbler down again. Creamy ellipses where his fingers had imprinted the glass. He turned around and stepped close. Near enough they could have waltzed.
‘I don’t give a shit what you say to Bowen,’ he said. ‘I know there’re things you keep to yourself.’
A long spell of cold quiet. For once he actually looked worn out: eyes bagged and half-lidded, crowning hairs swirled. Devereaux said, ‘Is there anything else?’
McCarthy smiled. ‘I just get the feeling that when all of this is wrapped up, we’re going to find you knew more about certain things than you let on.’ He sucked his top lip gently, waved the fingers of one hand, watched their far-off trajectories.
‘I see little personal motives flitting about, but God knows what they mean.’
Devereaux kept his face empty. He said, ‘Have you spoken to Frank Briar about why he’s been accused of assaulting a suspect?’
McCarthy’s mouth curved upwards at one edge. ‘Someone will chat to him in due course,’ he said. ‘But that’s not for you to concern yourself with.’
‘Chat sounds a little informal. I think the seriousness of the allegation would merit a pointed discussion.’
McCarthy didn’t answer. He stepped back to the desk and knocked back the tumbler contents. He sucked a hissing breath and set the glass down beside the bottle, appraised the framed accolades as if taking the measure of his own life.
‘Don’t ever lie to me again,’ he said. ‘You have no idea how much it pisses me off.’
He stepped to the door and disappeared into the corridor, leaving Devereaux alone in the office.