Final Venture

Eventually the questioning ceased and I was led along a corridor. I still hadn't been arrested, and I was technically free to go, but Gardner Phillips wanted to have a few words with Pamela Leyser. I passed a small waiting area, and saw Lisa sitting there, a middle-aged man in a suit next to her.

'Lisa!'

She turned. For a moment she looked surprised to see me, but she didn't smile.

I moved towards her. 'Lisa-'

I felt some pressure on my elbow as Gardner Phillips pulled me away.

'But-'

'You don't think it's a coincidence you saw her here, do you?' he said. 'It's much the best thing if you say nothing to her, especially here. She's got a lawyer. I'll talk to him.'

I left her watching me, expressionless, as though I were someone she didn't know. It unsettled me.

I was put in a bare-walled interview room, with a table and a couple of chairs, while Phillips went off to talk to the Assistant DA.

It took a while. I was scared. Shut in this room, still free in theory to leave, I could feel my liberty slipping away from me. The process was starting. Arrest could not be far away. And with it jail, a hearing, a trial, a media feeding frenzy. Even if I was found not guilty, my life would probably be changed for ever. And what if they found me guilty?

I was glad Lisa had stood by me. But she was the one person I really needed to talk to about this, the person on whom I had learned to rely over the last couple of years. If I had felt she truly were on my side, all this would have been much more bearable. But she wasn't. Her reluctance to help the police stemmed from the last vestiges of loyalty to me, and scraps of doubt, rather than the total belief in me that I needed.

Eventually, Gardner Phillips returned.

'I've spoken with the Assistant DA,' he said. 'They don't have enough evidence to arrest you. It will be difficult to link the gun to you, provided you and Lisa say nothing. We can work on the witnesses who say they saw Lisa: one jogger looks like another in the dark. But they are close. Very close. I've agreed that you'll voluntarily give them your passport, and that I'll surrender you should they want to arrest you. That means I have to know where you are at all times.'

'Did you talk to Lisa's lawyer?'

'Yes. She's taken the Fifth Amendment, which means she has chosen to say nothing to avoid incriminating herself. Fortunately, she will also avoid incriminating you.'

'So what happens now?' I asked.

'The police will try to find more evidence against you. And believe me, they'll try hard. We just have to hope they don't find anything incriminating.'

'They won't.'

Phillips ignored my comment. I had the unpleasant feeling that he thought I had killed Frank. Or perhaps he just didn't care. His indifference was infuriating. What I wanted was for someone to believe that I was innocent. Only Gil had done that so far, and Diane.

Mahoney glowered as I followed Phillips to the entrance of the DA's office. 'You'll be back,' he said.

As I pushed out into the bright sunlight, I was surprised to see a small crowd of journalists waiting for me. Two bulky TV cameras were present.

'Simon, got a minute?'

'Mr Ayot!'

'Did you kill Frank Cook, Mr Ayot?'

'Sir Simon Ayot! Can you answer one question?'

'I don't know who told them about this,' muttered Phillips out of the corner of his mouth. 'Don't talk to any of them.' He pushed through the crowd, repeating the words 'My client has no comment,' until we reached his car. He bundled me in, and in a moment we were away.

He glanced at me as we slowed for a light. 'You did well.'

'So did you.'

He gave me a half-smile. 'Pammy Leyser hasn't given up, neither has Mahoney. I guess we'll be seeing a lot more of each other.'

'Do you think they'll arrest me?'

'If they find more evidence, most certainly. I didn't convince them that you were innocent. I just convinced them they don't have the evidence to arrest you.'

'And if they do arrest me, do you think I'd get bail?'

'We'd ask for it, of course. But in this case there would be no chance that you'd get it.'

'So I'd have to wait for trial in jail?'

'That's right.'

I suddenly felt cold. Jail scared me. 'I wish I could prove I didn't do it.'

Phillips smiled. 'You don't need to. All we need to do is make sure there's a reasonable doubt that you're guilty.'

I stared out of the window at the gas stations and shopping malls. That's all you need to do, I thought. But a reasonable doubt wasn't good enough for me. I was innocent, and I needed everyone to know it. In particular, I needed Lisa to know it.

I watched myself on television that evening, along with the rest of Boston. And I saw Pamela Leyser being interviewed. She said she was confident of an arrest in the next few days. An Assistant District Attorney wouldn't say that unless she was pretty sure, I thought.

Gardner Phillips had said that if they arrested me, I would have to wait for the trial in jail. Presumably that would be a local jail with other remand prisoners. I could just about handle that, I thought, provided I was let go at the end. But what if I wasn't? What if they found me guilty and sent me to one of those high security jails for convicted murderers? American jails scared the hell out of me. I had seen the films, read the magazine articles. The privations of my Sandhurst training would be nothing compared with what I would experience there. In a community comprising gangs of murderers, where violence, drugs, rape and suicide were everyday occurrences, I would stick out as an easy target.

And if I was sent away, I'd spend what was left of my youth, and presumably the better part of my middle age, in prison. Everything I'd aspired to, everything I'd lived for, would be gone. Lisa, my career, all those experiences that life had yet to show me. Gone.

I went to bed alone and miserable, and for the first time in my life, afraid.

Daniel acted surprised to see me the next morning. 'So you escaped. Shouldn't you be heading off to Bolivia or somewhere? The cops in this country are pretty smart, you know. They'll probably find you here.'

'They let me go,' I said.

'Why?'

'Technical problems with the evidence. They don't have enough to arrest me.'

'So you're not cleared, then?'

'Far from it,' I sighed. 'I'm beginning to think I might end up in jail.'

'So what? You'll be fine. A big guy like you. You'll make a whole bunch of nice new friends.'

'Yeah,' I said. 'I'm worried, Daniel.'

For a moment, Daniel was serious too. 'I know,' he said. 'Good luck. I guess you need it.' Then he tossed across a copy of the Globe. 'Here, have you seen this?'

There I was, on page four. They had a picture of Frank. Police are receiving assistance with their investigation into the murder of Frank Cook from a man identified as Sir Simon Ayot, 29, a British national who was Mr Cook's son-in-law and his colleague at the venture capital firm of Revere Partners. The article was very light on detail and long on speculation.

It turned out Daniel wasn't the only one who had read the paper. After about half an hour my phone rang. It was Connie, telling me Gil wanted to see me.

He was sitting behind his large desk, the buildings of the Financial District standing tall behind him. He looked grim. Spread across his desk was a copy of the Globe.

'I heard you'd been released, but I didn't expect to see you back here so soon.'

'I've got a lot of work to do,' I said. 'It'll help take my mind off things.'

'This doesn't look good, Simon,' he said, nodding down to the paper in front of him. 'Not for you or for Revere. And I understand you were on the TV news last night.'

'That's true.'

'I called Gardner Phillips. I asked him whether he thought you were innocent.'