The one who was asking the questions looked up at him irritably and that let me understand it had not been a statement aimed at me, but a question, ‘They’re sure?’
Now he stared down at me.
‘Possible,’ he said. ‘He’s a big fellow. But, Christ!’
That started them off on a new line.
What sports did I play?
Climbing? Had I done any climbing? In the University Mountaineering Club, wasn’t I?
‘I’m afraid of heights.’ The admission of something I had always been ashamed of angered me. Even watching those old movies where the comedian teetered on a ledge above toy cars and people scurrying like ants, I would tense up and have to look away.
In or out of uniform, they were all bulky men, beef to the heels, with a lot of beer bellies hanging out in front. The room wasn’t all that big and the temperature had climbed. Spreading patches of sweat darkened the shirts of those who had taken off their jackets.
A red misshapen face lowered over the table at me when I admitted my fear of heights. ‘You’ve been told,’ he shouted. ‘You’ve been warned about the funny stuff. You’ve had it easy. Don’t think this is the only way. Do it easy or do it hard. Open your mouth and get it over with. If you get turned over to the heavy squad, you’ll think we’re angels.’
He went on too long. Not that I didn’t believe in his heavy squad, just that he went on too long. I had been questioned and shouted at for hours.
‘Why don’t you,’ I said quietly, ‘go and play with yourself?’
After that I did not answer any more questions. To everything I shook my head. No more words. After a while, they stopped. People discussed in whispers; there was a general movement out.
Soon there were only two of them left. It was like when we had started so many hours ago.
‘. . . of that of that none of that none of.’
I sprawled and gasped, came up like a bad dive in the pool, ears sore, pain in my chest. Someone shook me by the shoulder.
‘None of that. This isn’t a fucking doss-house.’
I wrenched myself out of his grip.
‘Just keep awake.’ He had an unpleasant grin. ‘A guy like you shouldn’t sleep. I couldn’t sleep if I’d done what you did.’
‘I’ve done nothing.’
‘Hey!’ he said. ‘He’s found his tongue again.’ He leaned over me. ‘Why don’t you tell me all about it? Nobody here but us. All the big brass away. Tell me about it and we’ll get a statement. Then you can have a sleep.’
He had lowered his voice in an elephantine gesture towards friendly persuasion. I shook my head for the millionth time. Routine.
Except that he lost his temper – or was a natural actor. A hand like a bunch of rocks bunched the front of my shirt. What must have been his thumb pushed into the hollow of my throat until I choked. I writhed back but the chair swayed and I was held off-balance.
‘Nobody here but us,’ his voice said in the distance. It echoed in the dark that washed over me. I got both hands on his and tried to pull it away but could not move it. I had not eaten. Even if he was a strong bastard, it was also true that I had been weakened by lack of food.
The hand came away. Slowly the room settled. By the door, another man was standing. The one who had been massaging my throat swung round and then came to a kind of attention. His trousers wrinkled across his fat rump. The man by the door looked vaguely familiar as if he might have been one of the onlookers in the room earlier. He was in plain-clothes but wore them like a uniform; grey hair, a big beaky nose, about fifty; you could tell he was an officer and a gentleman.
‘Did I see correctly there?’
His voice was unexpectedly high and thin.
‘Sir! I was—’
‘Never mind all that! Was he trying to pull your hand away?’
My tormentor had lost the thread. He mumbled and stopped, finally offered, ‘I suppose so.’
‘I mean trying. Putting an effort in.’
More confidently the answer came fast, ‘Yes, sir. He was trying.’
‘No luck though?’
Complacently, ‘No, sir.’
The man paced closer.
And you’re not Tarzan, are you, sergeant?’
The fat sergeant was lost again.
‘So it would follow chummy here wouldn’t be the world’s strongest, eh? Big fellow,’ his eyes measured me, ‘plenty of muscle. But you’ve handled worse?’
‘Yes, sir. Plenty worse, sir.’
‘Well, then, sergeant,’ the voice squealed with frustration, ‘would that suggest anything to you? You did hear the technical boys’ opinion about what had happened? Does that sound like chummy? Or was he bluffing about fighting you off?’
The sergeant seemed to understand all of this. He looked at me thoughtfully. I hadn’t expected him to think as well; it seemed vaguely unfair.
‘He wasn’t bluffing, sir. I’m sure of that . . . Doesn’t mean he couldn’t be an accessory. If he knew the hotel, he could have given the inside plan.’
‘But we’d still be looking for the man we really want to find.’
They studied me together.
‘If this one knows . . .’ The sergeant let his voice die away.
‘You’d like me to take a walk. Come back in half an hour or so?’
‘If he knows, I’ll get it out of him.’
Above the beak nose was a pair of pale blue eyes: they looked not at me but at a sum of problems filling the space I occupied.
There was a gentle tap at the door. I had never imagined I would be glad to see Brond.
He smiled peaceably at the picture we made.
‘There you are, sergeant. I wondered where you had got to,’ he said, ignoring the other man. ‘I hope you haven’t been living down to your reputation.’
‘I don’t know what you’re hinting at, Brond,’ the officer’s thin voice sounded strangely subdued, ‘but what happens next if we don’t run this maniac down?’
From behind his back Brond produced a stick which I recognised as the one he had given me.
‘You left it in the car,’ he said, and passed it across the table to me.
‘What kind of tomfoolery is this?’
‘Our friend here had a broken foot,’ Brond said reasonably. ‘The stick supports him.’
Both the sergeant and his officer gaped at me. I was beyond surprise at anything anyone said or did.
‘Foot? Foot!’ the officer squealed. ‘Get up! Up!’
I got to my feet and almost keeled over. I had been kept in that seat since the questioning started.
‘Good God!’
‘Quite,’ Brond said. He sounded complacent.
‘But this is—’ He mastered his temper with an effort. ‘Not the world’s strongest man. And just to round it off he’s a bloody cripple. Why did no one say he was crippled?’
‘I’m not a cripple,’ I said. My tongue felt as if it had rusted. ‘I hurt my toes moving furniture.’
The officer jerked his clenched fist. He looked as though he wanted to strike me, the sergeant, somebody – anybody perhaps but Brond.
‘A monkey on a bloody stick!’
‘With respect, sir,’ the sergeant said, ‘doesn’t mean he isn’t an accessory.’
‘Charge him!’
‘Surely not,’ Brond said. ‘I’d leave the hotel side of things – for the moment.’
‘I take it that’s not meant to be anything more than advice,’ the officer said. I think despite himself, it came out sounding like a question.
‘I leave the details to you,’ Brond said sweetly. He began to laugh, ‘Take care of the ponce and the pounds will take care of themselves, eh, sergeant?’
They didn’t think that was funny. The officer said so. ‘Not funny. You know what happened at the hotel is all anybody is going to care about. But we don’t forget that the boy Kilpatrick’s father and his uncles – damn it, the whole family were policemen. The father John Kilpatrick was a well-respected man on this force. We don’t like it happening to one of our own.’
‘I disapprove of murder,’ Brond said, ‘as a general principle. That overrides its particular applications. If you feel so strongly about Kilpatrick, bring a charge. I still doubt if the other matter is ripe . . . Stick to Kilpatrick. It’s not certain anyway that the other business will have much to do with you by morning . . . You stick to Kilpatrick – if the two are connected it might give you a toehold in the big one. Keep the London boys from pushing you completely out of it.’