‘And I suppose your husband killed her as well.’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake.’
‘Just wait, let me take you through it properly.’ Now he thought I was insane.
‘Mrs, er, I’m very busy. I’ve got…’ He pointed vaguely at the piles of paper on his desk.
‘Look, I know this is difficult,’ I said, trying to suppress a feeling of panic that was rising in me, like a flood about to engulf me entirely. My voice came out in a gasp. ‘I really appreciate you listening to me. If you could just give me a few more minutes and I can take you through it. After that, if you want me to, I’ll just go away and forget about the whole thing.’
There was a visible expression of relief on his face. That was evidently the most hopeful news he had heard since I had arrived.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘But briefly.’
‘I promise,’ I said, but of course I wasn’t brief. I had the magazine with me and with all the questions and repetitions and explanations the account lasted almost an hour. I took him through the details of the expedition, the arrangements involving the coloured lines, the non-English-speaking Tomas Benn, the chaos of the storm, the repeated descents and ascents made by Adam while Greg and Claude were disabled. I talked and talked, gabbling against my death sentence. As long as he was listening, I would be alive. As I told him the final details, fading away into unwilling silence, a slow smile spread across Byrne’s face. I had his attention at last. ‘So,’ I said at the end, ‘the only possible explanation is that Adam deliberately arranged for the group with Françoise in it to go down the wrong side of the Gemini Ridge.’
Byrne gave a broad grin. ‘Gelb?’ he said. ‘That’s German for yellow, you say?’
‘That’s right,’ I said.
‘It’s good,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to give you credit. It’s good.’
‘So you believe me.’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know about that. It’s possible. But, then, maybe they misheard him. Or maybe he really did shout, "Help."’
‘But I’ve explained why that’s impossible.’
‘It doesn’t matter. It’s a matter for the authorities in Nepal or wherever that mountain was.’
‘But that’s not my point. I’ve established a psychological pattern. Can’t you see that, on the basis of what I’ve told you, it’s worth investigating the other two murders?’
Byrne had a hunted, cornered look by this time and there was now a long silence as he considered what I’d said and how to answer me. I clung to the desk as if I were about to fall.
‘No,’ he said finally. I started to protest but he continued, ‘Miss Loudon, you must agree that I’ve done you the politeness of listening to what you had to say. The only thing I can recommend to you is that if you wish to take these matters further you should talk to the police forces concerned. But unless you have anything concrete to offer them, I don’t believe there’s anything they can do.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said. My voice sounded flat, drained of all expression. And, indeed, it didn’t matter any more. There was nothing left to do.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Adam knows about it all now. This was my only chance. You’re right, of course. I’ve got no evidence. I just know. I just know Adam.’ I was going to stand up, say goodbye, leave, but on an impulse I leaned across the desk and took Byrne’s hand. He looked startled. ‘What’s your first name?’
‘Bob,’ he said uneasily.
‘If, in the next few weeks, you hear that I’ve killed myself or fallen under a train or drowned, there’ll be lots of evidence that I’ve behaved madly over the last few weeks so it will be easy to conclude that I killed myself while the balance of my mind was disturbed or that I was having a breakdown and was an accident waiting to happen. But it won’t be true. I want to stay alive. All right?’
He delicately removed my hand from his. ‘You’ll be all right,’ he said. ‘Talk it over with your husband. You can sort it out.’
‘But…’
Then we were interrupted. A uniformed officer beckoned Byrne away and they talked in low voices, occasionally looking across at me. Byrne nodded at the man, who went back the way he had come. He sat down at his desk once more and looked at me with an expression of great solemnity.
‘Your husband is at the front desk.’
‘Of course,’ I said bitterly.
‘No,’ said Byrne gently. ‘It’s not like that. He’s here with a doctor. He wants to help you.’
‘A doctor?’
‘I understand that you have been under pressure lately. You’ve been acting irrationally. I gather there’s some suggestion of pretending to be a journalist, that sort of thing. Can we bring them through?’
‘I don’t care,’ I said. I had lost. What was the point of fighting it? Byrne picked up the phone.
The doctor was Deborah. The two of them looked almost glorious as they walked across the seedy office, tall and tanned, among the pale, sallow detectives and secretaries. Deborah gave a tentative smile as she caught my eye. I didn’t smile back.
‘Alice,’ she said. ‘We’re here to help you. It’ll be all right.’ She nodded at Adam then addressed Byrne. ‘Are you the officer of record?’
He looked puzzled. ‘I’m the one to talk to,’ he said warily.
Deborah spoke in a calm, soothing voice as if Byrne, too, were one of her patients. ‘I’m a general practitioner and under section four of the Mental Health Act of nineteen eighty-three I am making an emergency application to take charge of Alice Loudon. After discussion with her husband, Mr Tallis here, I am convinced that she urgently needs hospital admission and assessment for her own safety.’
‘Are you sectioning me?’ I asked.
Deborah looked down, almost shiftily, at a notebook she held in her hand. ‘It’s not really that. You mustn’t think of it like that. We only want what’s best.’
I looked at Adam. He had a soft, almost loving expression. ‘My darling Alice,’ was all he said.
Byrne looked uncomfortable. ‘It’s all a bit far-fetched but…’ he said.
‘It’s a medical call,’ said Deborah firmly. ‘In any case, that’s for the psychiatric assessment. Meanwhile, I ask for Alice Loudon to be released into the care of her husband.’
Adam put out his hand and touched my cheek, so tenderly. ‘Sweetest love,’ he said. I looked up at him. His blue eyes shone down at me, like the sky. His long hair looked windswept. His mouth was slightly open, as if he were about to speak or to kiss me. I put my hand up and touched the necklace he had given me, long ago in the first days of our love. It was as if there was nobody in the room except me and him, everything else was just blur and noise. Maybe I had been wrong about it all. Suddenly the temptation seemed irresistible just to give myself up to these people and be cared for, people who really loved me.
‘I’m sorry,’ I heard myself say, in a feeble voice.
Adam bent down and took me in his arms. I smelt his sweat, felt the roughness of his cheek against mine.
‘Love’s a funny business,’ I said. ‘How can you kill someone you love?’
‘Alice, my darling,’ he said, soft against my ear, hand on my hair, ‘didn’t I promise that I would always look after you? For ever and ever.’
He held me close and it felt wonderful. For ever and ever. That was the way I had thought it was going to be. Maybe it could still be like that. Maybe we could turn the clock back, pretend he had never killed people and I had never known. I felt tears running down my face. A promise to look after me for ever and ever. A moment and a promise. Where had I heard those words? There was something in my mind, blurred and indistinct, and then it took shape and I saw it. I stepped back, out of Adam’s arms, and I looked clearly at Adam’s face.