“You’re insane,” Oliver said thickly. (See how I’d reverted to “Oliver” in my mind. I still hated him for what he’d done to me with my wife and how he’d stolen the most precious thing in the world to me, my daughter Primrose, but he hadn’t killed me, he hadn’t quite sunk that low. Because of his predicament right then, I almost pitied him.)
“Not really,” Presswell replied. “Let’s say years of resentment and my hopeless financial situation came together at a crucial moment. You know, Jim didn’t make anything as much as a moan when I cleavered his head. I find that quite surprising, don’t you?”
Oliver was right: Presswell was insane. Nobody normal could speak of such a horrendous act in the matter-of-fact tones he’d returned to. I felt sick, not physically, because I was inside someone else’s body, but spiritually sick, sick in my mind. It had been Sydney Presswell, not Oliver, all along. Butchered by my own business partner and friend. I might have laughed if my sense of humour hadn’t left me some time ago. This was the deviant madman who’d cut off my genitals and left them in a pile. How sick was that? I shuffled even closer to the opening, my ruptured face almost at the edge of the door. My killer’s back was to me.
“Suitably,” he continued, as if enjoying his own confession, “the hotel was like a morgue when I arrived and, because I used a staff entrance at the back, not even the night porter saw my coming and going.”
“I don’t…” Oliver began with some difficulty. “I don’t understand why they immediately suspected it was me.”
“Because you were the last person to see Jim alive—always the first suspect, that person in this kind of case—and you’d been arguing with him in your suite—an extremely heated argument, they were told by the night porter. When they heard about the conflict between you two over the takeover by Blake & Turnbrow, they became even more suspicious of you. Then when I told DC Coates about your ongoing affair with Jim’s wife—well, I think that really clinched matters for them. You wanted your business partner out of the way because he objected to the takeover that would make you rich and also because you wanted his wife. Pretty strong motives as far as they were concerned. And by the way, I mentioned you were heavily into drugs.” Presswell was hovering over Oliver, the heavy rule held like a club. Threatening.
“You tried to make it look as if it was just another serial killing, but although you’d found out about the murder weapon, you were unaware of one other vital element in those crimes, something you could never have arranged even if you hadn’t been. How could you know of the victims’ crazy behaviour before they died? Only the police directly involved in the cases knew that the three previous victims had acted totally out of character before they were killed. They had degraded themselves after leading perfectly respectable lives. The Press never found out, it was a factor that was completely hushed up. Oh yes, I knew, because my ex-brother-in-law wanted me to think he was a very important policeman who worked only on A-list crimes, and he loved to let me in on inside stuff, things he thought made him a big man in my eyes. The copycat killer—you, Oliver—made an important mistake because he hadn’t full knowledge of the crimes. The previous victims were under duress, perhaps their families were under threat if the intended victim didn’t comply with the killer’s instructions. Or they were being blackmailed. Or hypnotized. All kinds of theories have been put forward, but the police cannot know for sure. What they are agreed on is that the killer is a very sick person with no apparent motive. But you, Oliver, you have a couple of motives for killing Jim, and as far as they’re aware, you might be scheming, but you’re not sick. Even chopping off Jim’s private parts had some peculiar logic—he was sleeping with the woman you loved. That’s what makes you different from their target and why this murder is not like the others. Even the murder weapons were used in the wrong order.”
There seemed to be more humour in his laughter now, but the hysteria that was only hinted at before had become more noticeable.
I saw Oliver try to rise to his feet, but Sydney struck him again with the rule, using only the flat side, bringing it down hard against Oliver’s scalp. Oliver yelped, groaned and collapsed once more.
He was still conscious though, because I heard him say, “I’ll… tell them… I’ll tell them about you…”
Still in view, Sydney leaned over him. “You won’t be around to tell them anything. Are you really so stupid that you think you’re going to live through the night? That I was confessing all this to ease my conscience? Huh! You really are a first-prize idiot, d’you know that? All brains and no sense, as my dear mother used to say.”
He straightened, and carried on talking as he did so. “I have to admit I’ve been working half on instinct all this week, improvising as things went along, but tonight you’ve given me the perfect ending. Tonight you die, you see? And you leave behind your confession. You knew the police were on to you, you were full of remorse over killing your best friend, so you took the only honourable way out.”
And your lover had thrown you out, I could have added but didn’t.
Oliver had grabbed the edge of the desk with both hands and was trying to pull himself up. Sydney ignored his efforts, although he now kept the steel rule raised over the struggling man.
“Let me give you the whole scenario, Oliver. You came here tonight, your last place of refuge, as it were. Nobody else was around. No, not even me. I was at home tucked up in bed—as I was that fateful Sunday night. Yes, I’d worked late, but had left before you arrived. You typed your confession on your computer and left it on the screen, no hard copy necessary. You’ve been screwing your best friend’s wife for years, you and he had business differences, and in a fit of rage you killed him. Naturally, I’ll type all of this for you and I’ll use my handkerchief over my index finger so the only fingerprints on your keyboard will be yours alone. I’m told computer suicide notes are popular these days. No handwritten signature necessary, which is particularly helpful to me in these circumstances.”
I could feel any power I had left over Moker’s body swiftly ebbing away. I had to make my move, but couldn’t just yet: Sydney’s exposition to a man he thought would shortly be dead was not quite finished.
“Why, Sydney?” I heard Oliver ask. “Why do this after all the years we’ve worked together? Surely nothing’s worth killing your friends for.”
“You still don’t get it do you? Neither of you ever realized the pressure I was under. Well fuck you!”
You know what? That shocked me. Hearing Sydney Presswell swear shocked me. Ridiculous, I know, considering he’d just confessed to years of embezzlement and, worse, my murder, and hearing Sydney—Presswell!—say “fuck” absolutely shocked me. You see, I’d never heard him curse like that before, not once, not ever, even when we argued over some company matter or other. In fact, I can’t recall Sydney ever getting angry before. Or cross. He’d always been mild-mannered. Not docile, I don’t mean that, but he’d always been the perfect gentleman, the most even-tempered person I’d ever known.