‘Oh, is that what you thought! You mean, anybody but Guillam, isn’t that what you thought? Well, you guessed right; I didn’t take it to Guillam. You got me bang on with that, Denton. I didn’t see it right off; then it was too late. You knew I’d keep it away from Guillam so I wouldn’t stir him up — and that’s exactly what I did.’ Munro looked at him bitterly. ‘You didn’t even tell me it was Mulcahy.’
‘I couldn’t know it was Mulcahy.’
‘Straight below his window and you didn’t know it was Mulcahy! What do you take me for, an idiot?’
‘What makes you think I was inside that room?’
Munro pushed his hands so deep into his trouser pockets he seemed hunched. ‘You’re too good an old copper not to have been.’
‘Two padlocks on the door. No keys.’
‘You went over the roof, don’t guy me.’
‘I’m afraid of heights, Munro.’
‘Yeah? Show me the physician who’s treated you for it.’
‘Heights terrify me.’
‘You went over the roof! Look me in the face and deny it — go on! Will you lie in my face, man?’
Denton looked at the exhausted, angry eyes and couldn’t hold them. He glanced away; Munro gave a sigh of disgust. Lamely, Denton said, ‘Guillam doesn’t care rat’s piss about Mulcahy.’ He turned back, almost pleading. ‘Guillam tossed aside a list I paid people to drag out of the directories of all the R. Mulcahys like it was, was — trash!’
‘This isn’t Guillam, Denton. This is me.’
‘Guillam’s the police.’
‘I’m the police.’ He pointed a thick finger. ‘You had no business going in that room!’
Again, Denton couldn’t face him. After several seconds, he got out of his chair and paced up the room to get away, then went on and fetched himself a brandy from the alcove and a bottled ale for Munro. He felt bone-weary now, hardly able to haul himself back up the room.
Munro opened the big bottle with a tool from his pocket and watched a mushroom of foam rise to the lip and subside. He sat down, poured ale into a glass. ‘You should have gone to a police station.’
‘I went to you.’
‘You sent a bloody note!’ Munro’s voice had risen and he knew it. ‘You look like death. Where’s your sling for that arm?’ Before Denton could answer, he growled, ‘It must have been hell going down the last pitch of that roof. No wonder you look bad.’ He sipped the beer, repressed a sigh of satisfaction, but he was over the worst of his anger now. In a voice more weary than enraged, he said, ‘You could be up on a charge, Denton.’
‘For what?’
‘Trespassing. Destroying evidence, if somebody like Guillam got hold of it. And if you come up on a charge, you can kiss living in England goodbye! If Guillam doesn’t see to it, I bloody well will!’
‘Hasn’t Guillam got it by now?’
‘I went direct to N Division and got a not very bright detective named Evans up to Mulcahy’s place with a couple of constables, and so far it’s an N Division matter. I told Evans we had an informer who said there was a body — now, that won’t last past Evans’s first report, and it won’t make it to the coroner, because N Division aren’t simpletons — but it’ll do for tonight and maybe tomorrow morning. By that time, if you’re lucky, Evans will have his jaws tight around the case and he won’t give it up to Guillam or the devil himself. Guillam’ll hear about it like everybody else in a day or two, and that’ll be that.’
‘Thanks.’
‘There’ll be nothing to thank me for unless you tell the truth. Tell me and then tell Evans.’
‘What’s the truth?’
‘Goddamnit, Denton, don’t try that! Your buttock’s in the crack in the privy seat, and I’m not entirely out of it myself, thanks to you. Look — I didn’t tell Evans that a gentleman author sent me a note about this body he found, but if I had, you’d be at N Division right now explaining all the hows and whys and wherefores.’ Munro took a gulp of beer. ‘I’m giving you a chance to tell them to me first.’
‘Concoct a tale?’
‘I’d punch another man for saying that to me. I don’t concoct tales and I don’t help other people concoct them. No, I want the truth. And the truth is what’ll go into the case file.’ He heaved his bulk up and stood facing Denton. ‘You and I’ve been square with each other, haven’t we? We seemed to hit it off.’ He was embarrassed by this revelation. ‘Don’t make things worse — get it?’
‘I looked through a crack in a wooden fence that runs alongside that tall brick building. I saw a body.’
‘You can’t see the body through the fence. I tried.’
‘I’m taller than you are.’
‘Don’t do this, Denton!’
Denton sipped the brandy and, finding it too much, set it down. ‘What is it you think I did?’
‘You broke the lock on a trapdoor to the roof and climbed down to Mulcahy’s window and saw him and then went into his room.’
‘I broke no lock.’
‘Denton, two people will testify they saw you in the building. I can put you there, man.’
‘I was in the building — of course I was. And, yes, I found the stairs to the roof. But the padlock on the trap was already broken. I didn’t break it.’ He crossed the few feet to the window.
‘And you went out on the roof!’
Denton, his back still to the policeman, was fingering a green cord that held back the velvet curtain. The cord was twisted like a rope, the surface shiny, but as his fingernail ran over it, individual fibres separated: the green silk was a kind of sheath that surrounded a stronger, more prosaic fibre. ‘Did your Evans go over the roof?’ he said to Munro.
‘He broke the locks. He’d sent a constable over that gate — it didn’t take a bloody genius to see he’d come out of that open window.’
‘Then you don’t need anything from me.’ Denton was holding a shiny green fibre up to the gaslight and studying it. ‘I didn’t push the dead man out the window, and I didn’t destroy any evidence anywhere, so I don’t see what you’re on about.’ He turned to face Munro. ‘Was it Mulcahy?’
‘Of course it was.’
‘And was it suicide?’
Munro gave him a shrewd look, then shook his head, perhaps in disgust, perhaps in disbelief. ‘Evans likes the suicide idea. So does Willey; Evans called him in as soon as I told him about the dead woman in the Minories. If there’s no other evidence, Evans will go for a coroner’s verdict of suicide while temporarily insane.’ He stared up at Denton. ‘Is there any other evidence I should know about?’
Denton dropped the green cord. ‘Munro, I swear — if I was even in that room, I touched nothing and removed nothing. I have no evidence.’
‘The coroner will sit on this on Saturday. You’ll be called, and you’ll by God testify. Under oath!’
‘Fair enough.’ It was Tuesday. ‘You’ll get your truth. Under oath.’
Munro shook his head again. ‘You’ve got something; I know you’ve got something; and you won’t tell me because you think it’ll get to Georgie. Well, I’ll admit he’s behaved like a right ass, but that doesn’t justify you withholding anything, Denton — all right, you don’t have evidence! — any idea, any suspicion!’
‘Do you believe Mulcahy killed himself?’
‘Do you?’
Denton took two steps to the bookcase and back. ‘Will Guillam?’
‘Georgie’ll be pleased as peaches and cream. Another crime that isn’t the Ripper.’
‘Mulcahy confessed in a suicide note?’ He knew perfectly well what the note in the Inventorium said, but he wanted to see what Munro would say. Munro screwed his mouth up, looked up at Denton through shaggy brows and shook his head.