Bickerstaff could feel sweat running down his back. He was relieved no one else was privy to what Lorraine was saying as all hell would have broken loose.
‘I never killed anybody,’ Lyall snapped, but his hands were shaking now.
Lorraine sipped her water. ‘I know that, Craig, but let me read you a section of Nula’s statement...’
Lyall was sweating even more than Bickerstaff, who couldn’t believe Lorraine’s audacity — the way she was lying.
She sifted through the dummy documents, and continued to talk quietly and calmly. She drew a page forward and started to read.
‘“It started as an argument between the three of us. Didi wouldn’t give the ring back, she said she couldn’t get it off her finger so then Craig said he would cut it off and she started to get hysterical.”’
‘That’s not true,’ he interjected. Lorraine held up her hand as if to tell him to be patient, then carried on reading in the same steady voice.
‘“Craig became more and more angry because Didi could get us all into trouble. We’d been selling Mrs Thorburn’s jewellery for years, bits and pieces. Art would find the buyer and we would just collect, but because of the killings it was dangerous for Didi to walk around showing off this big ring. It was a topaz with a row of diamonds around it and it was worth a lot of money.”’
Lorraine was making it up as she went along. All she had pieced together was that according to Janklow’s lists and description the ring belonged to Mrs Thorburn and it was possibly the ring Didi was wearing. She looked at Lyall. ‘I presume when she says Art she is referring to Art Mathews, is that correct?’
‘Why are you asking me these questions?’
‘I used to be a cop, now I’m freelance, insurance claims, that kind of thing. Before they charge you I want to get my facts straight and until your lawyer is available they can’t talk to you. There’s nothing illegal about it — there’s nobody else here.’
He was really sweating now. ‘You mean it’s true? They’re releasing Nula?’
She nodded, tapped the dummy file. ‘She’s given her statement and all I want to do is get onto her for my clients and before she skips the country. I don’t care who did what to whom just so long as I hold onto my job.’
Lyall tried to fathom how she was sitting in front of him. He knew she’d been dead drunk. How in hell had she got herself together?
Bickerstaff shook his head. Lorraine was giving to him, piece by piece, a section of the jigsaw puzzle, the stolen jewellery, the blackmail scam, but Lyall had not as yet implicated himself in any way.
Lorraine asked, ‘You took the photographs of Janklow, didn’t you?’
Lyall sighed. ‘Art did. Well, some of them, years ago when he had a studio in Santa Monica. Janklow had this thing about looking like his mother, you know, all dragged up. At first Art didn’t know who he was — he’d used some false name, they all do — and then he saw him at some society dinner with his mother, years ago, and started milking him. That’s all I know. I swear before God, I honestly had nothing to do with it. I didn’t even know it was going on...’ He trailed off. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ he said suddenly, helplessly.
‘Maybe tell me the truth. Then I’ll tell you what I think, as a friend, you should do, and in return, you tell me about the whereabouts of the stolen jewellery. I’m not interested in the murders. If you did them with Nula that’s your business.’
‘I didn’t,’ he said flatly. ‘I’m so confused, I don’t know who I can trust and I don’t believe a word you’re telling me.’
Lorraine snapped the file closed. ‘If that’s the way you feel I’ll walk. All I wanted to do was get my insurance claims sorted out. There’s more than three million dollars’ worth of gems missing. Mrs Thorburn’s son Brad asked me to look into it. They’ve let me talk to you because they aren’t quite ready to charge you.’ Bickerstaff’s mouth was bone dry. She was fishing in dangerous waters again: actually naming people — that could get him into real trouble.
‘They can’t charge me with anything,’ Lyall said shrilly.
Lorraine slapped her hand hard on the table and Lyall jumped. ‘Don’t be so fucking stupid. Nula’s named you as Holly and Didi’s killer. You’re crazy if you think they’re not going to lock you up for a very long time. Art Mathews is dead so she’s only got you to blame. Now, if you’re saying you didn’t have any part in those murders then you’d better have a good alibi because she’s given them evidence to prove you killed them both. Because you were in Didi’s apartment, weren’t you? If you didn’t kill her then Nula did, right?’
He sniffed. ‘I didn’t touch her.’
‘So who did?’
‘She did, of course. Nula.’
Lorraine felt as if she had been punched. She’d expected him to say Mathews, not Nula.
‘You saw her?’
Lyall put his head in his hands. ‘Yes, she said she pushed Didi and she fell and hit her head against the coffee table. We couldn’t find any pulse and she began to panic. Well, she had reason to.’
‘Because of Mrs Thorburn’s jewellery?’
‘Yes. And then I panicked, it was just all confused and terrible. We couldn’t get it off her finger, the ring... we couldn’t get it off.’
He broke down and started to sob.
‘So who decided to make it look as if it was one of the hammer murders?’
‘She did. She said no one would believe it if they just found her, especially not after Holly.’
He sobbed, muttered to himself that it wasn’t him, he hadn’t done anything.
Lorraine touched his hand. ‘Craig, what do you mean “after Holly”? What about Holly?’
Lyall flapped his hands wildly. ‘Oh, Christ, this is terrible, it isn’t right, I know it.’
‘Come on, Craig, get it off your chest, tell me.’
He steadied himself. ‘Holly had somehow found out about the blackmail — God knows how but she had. She’d been picked up by some john, taken back to his place and—’
‘Do you know who it was?’
Lyall chewed his lip. ‘I think it was — you said his name before — Brad Thorburn.’
Lorraine couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘Brad Thorburn? You mean he’s involved in all this?’
‘Yes, in as much as he picked up Holly and took her back to his house. I dunno what happened but she somehow knew what we were all doing — maybe she saw Janklow there — but she started pushing Nula and Didi for money. They got on to Art — they were really worried — and next thing I read she was murdered. I don’t know which one of them did it but they got away with it because they made it look like this serial killer had done it. I think Art was involved. I swear before God I don’t know. I was caught up in it all because I’d taken photographs of that Norman Hastings and he was a friend of Janklow’s but I didn’t know that. It was just, well, I knew they were doing it and it seemed so easy.’
Lorraine was trying to take on board what he was saying and then it clicked. ‘Were you blackmailing Norman Hastings?’
‘Yes, but then he went to Janklow and asked him what he should do about it. I suppose the two of them discussed it together. I’ve told you all I know. I had nothing to do with any of the murders. All I did was a bit of blackmail.’
Bickerstaff checked his watch, told one of his aides to bring in Brad Thorburn. He said he didn’t give a shit if he was still in France. He was feeling elated and couldn’t wait to get his own hands on Lyall. And he couldn’t wait to lay it all before the Chief for the sheer pleasure of seeing his face.