Close Call (19 page)

When he came in, John Lambert said, ‘I think we'll just record this, if you've no objection.' He leaned forward, pressed a button, set the cassette turning silently and went on, ‘There's nothing official about this, of course: you haven't been cautioned or anything like that. It's just that it's useful for us to have a record of what you say. You would be surprised how often people recall things differently at a later time.'

He sounded as if he expected Philip Smart to change his story, to be trying to wriggle off the hook in a few days' time. That, at any rate, was how it sounded to Phil, who said weakly, ‘This is a bit over the top, you know. I can't see that anything I have to say will be worth hearing, never mind recording.'

‘Really? Well, I think you'll find you're underestimating yourself there. What you have to say will form part of a much larger picture. We shall see whether it fits into the pattern of what we are hearing elsewhere. We try to put whatever everyone tells us together, then see if there are discrepancies in the pattern, and in people's impressions of what happened. Then we follow up these discrepancies. It's surprising how often the discrepancies lead us to the solution in a criminal investigation.' Lambert found that he enjoyed watching the tension mount in the face opposite him as he voiced the familiar ideas.

‘I've already told you what happened on Saturday night.'

‘Yes, you have. And we've compared it with what other people remember of the occasion.'

‘And found none of your “discrepancies”, I'm sure.' Phil gave a nervous laugh, which brought no response from the two grave faces opposite him.

Chris Rushton said stiffly, ‘I have already recorded on our computer files what you told our officers about the events of Saturday night. Do you wish to change anything?'

Phil had already revised his opinion and decided that he preferred the rubicund Bert Hook to this unsmiling young automaton. He said, ‘There is nothing I wish to change. Nor have I recalled anything further to add to what I told the detective constable who took my statement on Monday.' He switched his attention to John Lambert and said abruptly, ‘I understand my wife was in here yesterday. What was it she told you?'

Now Lambert did smile at him. This was never an easy situation. ‘I'm afraid that remains confidential, Mr Smart. We never divulge what anyone tells us: it only becomes public if it becomes evidence in a murder trial.'

‘But we're husband and wife.'

‘That is a line of argument you must take up with Mrs Smart, not with us.' Lambert smiled again, trying to relax the tension, to suggest that nothing of great moment was involved here. ‘Similarly, whatever you have to tell us this morning will not be revealed to your wife, unless you choose to relay it to her yourself. You must surely see that this is the only way for us to proceed. People will only reveal what is potentially embarrassing to them if they know that we will respect their confidences.'

Phil eased his position on the hard seat, raised his hand unconsciously to make sure that his plentiful, greying hair was still in position, then made himself fold his arms and look straight at Lambert. What the man said made sense: he certainly wouldn't want Carol to hear some of the things he might have to say here. But he didn't want to concede anything, at this stage; he might get out of this without revealing anything more, if he was lucky. ‘I understand that. I just don't see what I can have to tell you.'

‘We'd like to hear what you thought of the dead man, without any of the tact you might think appropriate. We've heard from a lot of people about him now. We'd like to know how you saw him and compare that with what other people remember of him.'

‘I hardly knew him. We'd only been living in the close for two or three weeks when he died.' Phil found that his resolution to look his questioner fully and frankly in the eye hadn't lasted very long. He wished now that he hadn't dressed so formally. His tie felt tight on his neck, and before he knew it he was running his forefinger round the inside of his collar, feeling the dampness of his neck in this airless place.

‘You're telling us that you didn't know Robin Durkin before you met him as a neighbour.'

Phil found himself trying to work out what they knew. He couldn't afford to be caught out in a direct lie at the beginning of this, but Lambert's tone was even and unrevealing. Phil was sure now that he was sweating, that there was a sheen of damp about his temples which he could not wipe away. Some other unfortunate who had sat on this seat had tried to scratch his initials into the shiny top of the table; Phil found himself trying to decipher them as he said, ‘I did know Durkin. From years back. And I didn't like him.'

It sounded like a confession – was a confession, of sorts, an acknowledgement that he had just tried to deceive them. Phil wanted to shout that it wasn't a confession to murder. Lambert said quietly, ‘Don't you think that it's time that we had the full details of that? I shouldn't need to remind you once again that this is a murder enquiry, but I'm now doing so.'

‘He was a nasty piece of work, Durkin.' The latest of his clichés, and one they had heard before about the dead man. ‘He made plenty of money, and not much of it from that garage of his, if you ask me.'

‘Which is what we are doing, Mr Smart. Asking you for everything you can tell us about the man and your dealings with him.'

‘He was into drugs. Selling them, I mean. But not dealing himself, not him. He wouldn't be on the streets taking the risks, would he, Robin Durkin?'

‘I don't know, Mr Smart. I'm looking for you to tell us.'

‘I can't give you any details. You asked me for my impressions of the man, and I'm giving them to you.'

‘Were you one of his dealers?'

‘No! I've never been involved in the drugs business.'

‘So if we get a search warrant and go through your house, we won't find any illegal substances?'

Phil tried not to show the panic in his face. Part of his salesman's training was to keep a smiling, untroubled face when things were going wrong, but this was different. This was for real. He fancied he could feel a vein throbbing in his temple; wondered if it was apparent to these men who watched him so carefully. ‘Of course you wouldn't find anything.' But his mind was opening and shutting drawers, racing through the house as if he were in some manic farce. ‘What is it you want to know?'

Lambert smiled now, acknowledging that the man had been softened up, was ready to make concessions, was going to cooperate with them. And letting his opponent know that he expected all of this. ‘We need everything you know about Robin Durkin, Mr Smart. It's as simple and as comprehensive as that.'

And as hazardous and complex as that for me, who is determined that you shall not know everything, thought Phil. He returned his own, more sickly, smile. ‘It won't take long to tell you that.'

‘Take as long as it needs, Mr Smart. You weren't completely frank with our officers on Monday; it's important that you hold nothing back today.'

‘I've already told you that Durkin was into drugs. That he was making big money from coke and horse and LSD and E.' Phil had a desperate and ridiculous hope that by listing all these drugs he could convince them that he was being frank and honest. ‘I should think he was into the rape drug, as well. Rohypnol, isn't it?'

‘Do you know that he was supplying that?'

‘No, of course I don't. Not for certain. It's just that—'

‘Confine yourself to what you know at this moment, please. We are interested in your speculations, as I've said, but we need to be clear about what is fact and what is merely your informed opinion.'

Phil didn't think he liked the use of the word ‘informed'. It seemed to make him more of a player in this than he wished to be. ‘I don't know any of the details of his dealing. A few years ago, I knew a few users, that's all. I picked up things from them. No more than rumours, but enough to make me think that Durkin was becoming a big player in the drugs game.'

Rushton leaned forward and said, rather prissily to Phil's mind, ‘It isn't a game, Mr Smart. It's an evil and criminal business which makes billions of pounds for a few and leads to death for many thousands. So tell us everything you know. We have been in contact with the Drugs Squad and already know quite a lot about Robin Durkin and his activities.'

It was a warning and he took it as one. ‘I don't know very much, actually. I didn't like the man, so I suppose I was prepared to listen to gossip about him, especially gossip which wasn't to his credit.'

Rushton flicked rapid, almost silent fingers over the letters of his keyboard to record this. Philip Smart was looking earnestly at the detective inspector, trying to convince him he had yielded everything about this, when John Lambert said quietly, ‘Blackmail was Durkin's other criminal interest. Were you one of his victims?'

It was like a lateral blow, thrown at him from the edge of his peripheral vision. Phil's senses reeled for a moment. He tried desperately to marshal his resources, to decide how much they already knew, whether this devilish superintendent was merely inviting him to compromise himself by lies which would then be truculently exposed. He found himself staring again at those ineffectively scratched initials on the table as he said, ‘I was one of the people he had a hold over, yes.'

Lambert was unexpectedly quiet, almost supportive. ‘You need to tell us the nature of that hold, I'm afraid. The information won't go any further, unless it proves to have a connection with this death.'

The words were said sympathetically, but they sounded in Philip Smart's ears like a knell of doom. He found that his mouth was very dry as he said, ‘He knew things about me. Things which he threatened to reveal to my family and my employers.'

‘What kind of things, Mr Smart? Things about the women in your life?'

He looked in alarm from one to the other of the two very different faces on the other side of that silently-turning cassette. Like many serial philanderers, Phil was absurdly optimistic about keeping his bed-hopping secret. It came as a surprise to him that these men seemed to know all about his weakness for the ladies. ‘No, not that. Well, not just that.'

‘What, then?'

He was ashamed, now it came to it. He had convinced himself that with Durkin's death he would never have to reveal this to anyone. But these people might be playing cat and mouse with him: he couldn't afford to lie about it to them. ‘Something at work. I fiddled a few figures, made my sales seem a little higher than they were. It was easy enough. Acolleague had left and gone to a new post in Canada. I appropriated a few of his sales to me. It made no difference to company profits, but it made my own performance look pretty good. And I couldn't see it was doing any harm to the man who'd gone. He'd got his big job, moved on to become a bigger fish in a bigger pond.' This time a little of his envy of the younger man's success flashed out on the cliché, as the confident, handsome features of his departed colleague flashed momentarily across his memory.

‘But stealing these sales made a difference to you.'

It sounded like a statement to Phil, drawing him on to reveal everything, to confirm what they already knew. ‘It gave me a bigger bonus. And the Sales Manager's post was coming up. It helped to get me that.' The admission was drawn from him like a painful tooth.

‘And Robin Durkin knew about this. Used this.'

‘Yes. I don't know how he got to know; perhaps he knew someone in Accounts. He took the bonus I had obtained from me, down to the last penny. He threatened that he was going to take the rise I got with the promotion from me, but that only happened in the first year.' Confession was almost a relief: he must be careful that he did not tell everything about himself to this persuasive man. ‘What I paid Rob must have been peanuts, compared with what he was making from drugs in the last year or two. But he enjoyed having a hold over me, I think. Enjoyed the feeling that he held my destiny in his hands.'

Lambert knew as he heard the words that this was a phrase Durkin had used to this abject man. He said quietly, ‘No doubt he kept coming back to remind you of what he knew. To taunt you and tell you that there would be further demands.'

Phil found himself nodding eagerly, seizing on this chance to explain himself and the awfulness of the position in which the dead man had placed him. ‘Yes. It wasn't just the threat of further extortion. He kept reminding me that he could have me sacked at any time he chose. That he could cause a major local scandal for me and my family.'

‘You must have felt quite desperate.'

Phil found that he couldn't stop nodding, even though he felt he must be looking ridiculous. ‘I did.'

‘Desperate enough to kill Robin Durkin?'

‘No!' He heard himself shout the word, appalled at the unfairness of this. The man who had been talking like a therapist had now turned on him and thrown the logic of his confession back into his face.

‘People who are blackmailed do kill people, Mr Smart. When they get desperate, they do things which are out of character.'

‘And blackmailers deserve to die.'

‘Did you take the law into your own hands, Mr Smart?'

‘No.' He wanted to embroider the simple negative, to say something which would emphasize to this relentless man that the idea was ridiculous. But no words would come into his brain, which seemed to be preoccupied with the problems of a dry tongue against the roof of a dry mouth. He found that his finger was running round the inside of his collar again.

DI Rushton looked at him steadily for a moment, seeming to Phil to savour his discomfort. Then he said, ‘The statement you gave on Monday claims that you left Mr Durkin's house at the same time as everyone else on Saturday night. Is that correct?'