Severed

'No. I got in round the back, and I was wearing different clothes to the ones I was arrested in.'

'What about leaving?'

'There were a lot of people out watching the fire, but I was smoke-blackened, bleeding and all sorts. I doubt if anyone would be able to pick me out in an ID parade.'

'That's good,' she says, nodding slowly. 'When you and Lucas found Snowy, Lucas panicked. So did you. The two of you parted company, with Lucas apologizing for getting you involved.'

I'm beginning to feel sick. After everything that's happened, this feels like the final act of betrayal.

But Adine's on a roll. 'You didn't hear from him again until earlier this evening,' she says, 'when he told you that he intended to go to the house of the man he believed had had Snowy killed, and he wanted your help in case things went wrong. He identified the man as a gangster called Eddie Cosick. You were kept in the dark about what Lucas's involvement with Cosick was, and you tried to dissuade him from going, particularly when he suggested taking guns, but again you felt that you couldn't say no. You bitterly regret the fact that you accompanied him to Mr Cosick's house, but in your defence you say that you insisted the guns you took were for show only, and were unloaded. Are you getting all this?'

I'm having difficulty keeping up with the lengths Adine is willing to go to get me off the hook, but I reply that, yes, I am getting it all.

She reminds me that I have to remember every single word. 'Make one mistake in the story and they'll be on to you immediately. They're trained to pick up any inconsistencies.'

'I know. I was trained in anti-interrogation techniques myself.'

'Good,' she says with a cool smile. 'So, when you turned up, going in through an open door at the rear of the property, you discovered the bodies of three men who Lucas identified as Cosick and his bodyguards. But while you were in the room with Cosick, an unidentified assailant stabbed Lucas and escaped before you could either see or apprehend him. You immediately dialled nine-nine-nine to summon assistance and made strenuous but ultimately unsuccessful efforts to save Lucas. Only when you were sure he was dead did you leave the scene, the way you came in, afraid of being caught with the bodies, and that's when you were apprehended by the police. Which is exactly what happened, isn't it?'

'Yeah,' I sigh, 'that's what happened.'

'Good. Now we've got a plausible story.'

She makes me go through it again twice, and when I finish successfully for the second time she looks satisfied and vaguely pleased with herself.

'I think we might be able to get you out of this,' she says. 'There's still a long way to go, but at least we're on the right track.'

I tell her that's good, remembering that years ago Adine once told me she'd wanted to become a lawyer because she had a keen interest in the pursuit of justice. Those were her exact words: a keen interest in the pursuit of justice. I realize, somewhat belatedly, that she must have been bullshitting.

'OK,' she says, standing up with her notebook, 'I think we're ready to face the music.'

36

Two detectives are doing the questioning, although a camera mounted on the wall suggests that other people are probably watching and listening in. They sit at the opposite end of a formica table to Adine and me. The senior of the two, who introduces himself as DI Mike Bolt of the National Crime Squad, is tall and broad-shouldered with short, neatly cropped hair that's undergoing the transformation from blond to grey. He's a good-looking guy in his late thirties, with a lean, angular face and twinkling blue eyes that look like they don't miss much. He also has a deep S-shaped scar on his chin, and two more on his left cheek, giving him the appearance of a vaguely glamorous soap opera gangster. His colleague, DS Mo Khan, a little Asian guy with a barrel body and a very big head, is about the same age, possibly a year or two older, and from the beginning, his dark, heavily lidded eyes watch me with a constant mild scepticism.

They start off by asking me to tell them in my own words what happened at the Cosick house. I tell them the truth, and they appear to accept it. They then ask me to describe my day, and I'm momentarily caught out. I wasn't at the showroom today, so I can't say that. I can't tell them anything that can be proved wrong.

Adine buys me breathing space by intervening and asking, with a nicely refined tone of incredulity, what relevance this could possibly have.

'We're just trying to build up a picture,' Bolt answers, smiling affably at Adine, as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.

By this time, I've got a story. It's not a very good one, but it'll have to do. Trying to do my own line in affable, I explain that I wasn't feeling too great this morning, so I stayed in bed. I'd recovered by lunchtime, and that was when I got a call from my old army colleague and friend Lucas, saying he needed help. From there, I keep to the story I agreed with Adine, finishing up with me back at Cosick's place. It all sounds quite believable to my ears, and again, both men appear to accept it, although there's still a faint light of scepticism in DS Khan's eyes.

'Did Mr Lukersson tell you what was in the case?' asks Bolt.

'No.'

'You didn't ask?'

'I did. He told me it was best I didn't know.'

'And you accepted that?'

'I didn't like it, but yes, I accepted it. The thing is, Lucas was a very good friend of mine. I trusted him not to get me involved in something that would get me into a lot of trouble.'

The lie comes easily, and I experience a nasty twinge of guilt at the extent of my betrayal. I wish I wasn't doing this.

Bolt nods sympathetically. He looks like he understands, but I'm not fooled for a moment.

'And what was Mr Lukersson's relationship with Eddie Cosick?' he asks.

'He was very vague. I got the feeling that they must have had some kind of business dealing.'

'But Mr Lukersson was a private detective,' says Mo Khan, leaning forward in his seat. 'What kind of business dealing could he have had with a Bosnian gangster?'

'I don't know.'

Bolt looks puzzled. 'And you didn't ask any of these kinds of questions when you discovered the body of Ben Mason, the man you describe as Snowy? When clearly you must have realized that Mr Lukersson was involving you in something that was going to get you into a huge amount of trouble?'

'Yes I did, but Lucas was panicking. He said he had to get out of there. I tried to talk to him, but he left in a hurry.'

'How did he leave?'

'In his car.'

'You didn't go with him?'

I know what they're doing because I've told them this already. They want to lull me into a false sense of security, then trip me up. I'm ready for them, though, and once again I answer the question, telling them that I left on foot.

'Which way did you go?' asks Mo.

I give Adine's high-heeled, black leather court shoe a barely perceptible tap under the table – a sign we've agreed to use when I need a couple of seconds to think.

'Why's this relevant, DS Khan?' she asks.

'We're trying to build up a picture, Ms King,' he says, giving the same stock answer as Bolt did earlier. He pronounces the Ms mzzz, then looks at me.

I have to be careful here. It's got to be a route they can't check easily.

'I walked,' I answer, 'up the Kingsland Road. I got a cab near the top and got it to drop me off home.'

'What were you wearing?'

'Sorry?'

'What were you wearing today when you left the scene of Ben Mason's murder?'

'A pair of jeans and a shirt,' I answer casually.

Khan asks me to describe the shirt, and I tell him it was white, which might have been true when I went into the brothel but definitely wasn't by the time I came out.

'And you didn't see Lucas again until when?'