Ascension Day

33

Darrell Ayliss was sweating profusely as he paced back through the seemingly endless, cavernous grey corridors of Libreville. He was a large man with an awkward gait, and the sweat poured off him.

Testament to just how hot it was in Libreville, or perhaps equally it was from Durrant’s words still burning through his head from the session just finished with Greg Ormdern. Or the crushing reminder that had run through him like a red-hot pulse in time with the wall clock ticking down the minutes of the session: only six days left now to possibly save Durrant.

Ayliss inhaled deeply of the air outside just before he got in his rented Dodge Stratus, observed the 20 m.p.h speed limit for the two miles of shale road back towards the guard post, then gunned it once clear the other side. He let out a slow, heavy breath, as if blowing off the steam of the prison and the session, and hit play on the tape recorder on his passenger seat.

Ormdern’s voice drifted out, Durrant’s more muted timbre interspersed, the tinny tone of the recorder almost matching how he’d initially heard it through the small speaker in the observation room with Pete Folley at his side, looking on through the glass screen as Ormdern questioned Durrant on a camp-bed set up in the adjoining interview room.

Ormdern had been adamant that there should be no possible distractions in the room, and the sound feed and glass screen at the same time gave Ayliss what he wanted: not only to be able to hear every word, but watch every nuance and beat of Durrant’s expression. He wanted to feel the experience, not just hear it.

It had taken almost ten minutes to get Larry fully under, then another few minutes for Ormdern to set mood and place, put Durrant in the moment: Eighteenth of February, the Roche’s Garden District residence.

‘The night that everything went wrong with the robbery and Jessica Roche.’

Ormdern had said that he didn’t want to use overtly leading words like kill or murder. ‘There’s part of Larry Durrant probably still in denial, most likely why he’s never described actually pulling the trigger, and I don’t want to inadvertently draw that out… put up his defences.’

‘You’ve already broken in the house… and I want you to tell me what you see there in the rooms, before you’re disturbed by Jessica Roche.’

‘In…in what way? Which rooms?’

‘Let’s start with the library. You went there to rob the house, and that’s where you found the safe, I understand.’

‘Yeah, that’s where I found it. That’s where I was in fact when-’

‘That’s okay,’ Ormdern cut in sharply. ‘What happened with Jessica Roche has been covered many times already. It’s going back before that, I’m interested in. Before…’

Ormdern dragged the word out, giving it a soothing quality. Larry’s breathing had become agitated, irregular, and as Ormdern repeated himself, ‘Before… before…’ it gradually settled back down.

‘That room… the library itself, for instance… what did it look like?’

‘I don’t know… it was dark. I didn’t really pay attention.’

‘Okay, okay… the safe, then? You’d have concentrated on that, because you were about to break it.’

‘Yeah… yeah.’ Larry swallowing, a long pause as he applied thought. ‘Straightforward twist-tumbler lock, as I recall.’

‘And the colour?’

‘I don’t know… grey or green, I think.’ Another heavy pause. ‘But it’s difficult. As I say, it was dark, and I was disturbed pretty soon, before I’d really had a chance to — ’

‘That’s okay, Larry… that’s okay. You’ve done well.’ Now it was Ormdern’s turn to pause. ‘Anything else that stood out in the house or that room, however small or inconsequential?’

Only the sound of Larry’s steady breathing, a faint swallow. Then he started mumbling something indiscernible, and Ormdern lost him for a few moments at that point.

‘Try and focus again, Larry… focus… focus…’ repetitive, the voice fading softer each time, ‘….that’s it Larry… that’s it…’ Gently closing in, Ormdern getting the images to settle again behind Durrant’s flickering eyelids. ‘Tell me what you see?’

‘Noth… nothing that stood out that much, really. Lot of books in the room, obviously… along one side.’

Ayliss had to concentrate on the road for a moment. He reached over and turned off the tape as he came off Highway 12 and negotiated the turn on to the Causeway. Lake Pontchartrain spread each side like a dark, moody blanket, the only relief some faint moon glow one side and the reflected lights of New Orleans in the distance. Ayliss didn’t switch on again until he was a few miles into the Causeway.

‘Do you remember which side of the room they were?’

‘Uh… uh. Right-hand side as you walk in, I believe. Oh, and there… there…’

‘Yeah?’ Ormdern prompting as Larry paused heavily again. ‘Go ahead, Larry. Tell me.’

‘There was a large clock in the hallway, I seem to remember. One of those ornate grandfather clocks.’

Ayliss clenched a fist tight on the steering wheel. The sort of detail that would seal Durrant’s fate rather than save it. If his memory of detail in the house had been scant, they could have cast doubt on his recall of the murder itself, claimed that it had somehow been suggested or even implanted. Those few details could be enough to support that he was definitely there — unless those descriptions didn’t match what Ayliss discovered at the old Roche residence.

‘Okay. We’ve covered what you might have actually seen in the house. But I want to deal now with what you might have actually felt while you were there. Your fear and anxiety with what happened with Jessica Roche has already been dealt with in depth… but I wondered if at any time you had the feeling that someone else apart from her was there at the time. Someone watching that you probably didn’t see or know about… only felt their presence?’

I was there at the time.

Ayliss’s hands clenched back tight on the wheel as he waited out the long silence on tape, recalling Larry’s brow furrowing heavily. Finally:

‘No… I… I can’t say I did. Didn’t in fact hear any sounds in the house.’ Larry’s breathing steady, measured, then, after a brief swallow, falling shorter again, uneven. ‘Not even Jessica Roche upstairs — otherwise I’d have got out of there earlier. Only heard her footsteps approaching at the last minute when — ’

‘That’s okay, Larry — you don’t need to go there,’ Ormdern cut in sharply. ‘You’ve covered that more than enough in the past. Move on again to afterwards… afterwards.’ That drawn out, soothing tone again. ‘Afterwards… as you’re leaving the Roche house. Apart from the woman walking her dog, do you recall anyone else that might have seen you?’

‘No…’ Brief silence. ‘Not that I can recall.’

‘At a neighbouring house, perhaps… in their garden or looking out from a window. Someone that you didn’t notice before?’

Longer pause, then: ‘No, sorry… nothing. I was running hard by then, my mind set on just getting away from there. Perhaps wouldn’t have even noticed the woman with her dog if I hadn’t looked back.’

‘Right. I can understand that.’ Flicking of paper as Ormdern checked back through the notes Ayliss had handed him before the session. ‘I want to take you somewhere else now, Larry. Same week in 1992 — but a completely different place. The Bayou Brew bar and your regular pool game there with your buddies: Nat Hadley, Ted Levereaux and Bill Saunders.’ A moment’s pause as Ormdern let the new location and people settle in Durrant’s mind. ‘Now, I want you to try and recall, Larry — was your game that week before or after that night at the Roche house?’

‘Uh… uh… before, I think.’

Ayliss turned the tape off again for a moment as he came off the Causeway, and didn’t switch on again until after he’d made the turn on to Earhart Boulevard.

‘You think? Concentrate, Larry. It’s important. Can you place the day with any certainty?’

‘Yeah… yeah. Before, I’m pretty sure.’

Think. Pretty sure. Too easily argued as reflecting uncertainty, Ayliss considered. Wouldn’t get him past square one with Governor Candaret.

‘Okay, before, then. Do you remember how long — how many days?’

‘I don’t know. A day or two before, maybe.’

Don’t know. Maybe. More uncertainty. Heavy pause as Ormdern consulted Ayliss’s notes again, looking for the key point mentioned that would help nail the day down: Bill Saunders.

‘Okay. Let’s see if we can tie it down another way. What and who did you see there? Were all your playing buddies there that night?’

‘Yeah.’ Larry’s tone offhand, Ayliss recalled him giving a little shrug at that juncture. ‘They were all there.’

As Ayliss turned onto Louisiana Avenue, he checked his watch. Looked like he’d get there six or seven minutes earlier than he’d said. He’d had to lay on the Southern charm thick and heavy to get the new owners’ agreement to look through the house; though hardly surprising, given its past history.

‘Are you sure about that? Particularly Bill Saunders. Was he there that night?’

‘Yeah, Bill was there.’

‘Absolutely sure?’

‘Yeah. A hundred per cent.’

This time Ayliss banged one fist against the steering wheel, rather than the air-punch when he’d first heard those words an hour ago in the observation room.

Ormdern had looked up at the clock at that point, only four minutes remaining, then had brought Larry back out, explaining to Ayliss afterwards that he didn’t want to get deep into what else Larry might have seen in the Bayou Brew that night only to have to break his train of thought halfway through.

Ayliss slowed as he came to the first houses of the Garden District on Washington Avenue, taking the turn into Coliseum Street two blocks down.

At least they’d ended on a positive note. High chances that the pool game was that crucial Thursday night, because Bill Saunders had been there rather than running his daughter to dance lessons. Ayliss would know just how high once he’d spoken to Saunders.

Ayliss was counting numbers as he went along. He swung in and pulled to a stop as he came to the old Roche residence. A resplendent antebellum mansion with two-storey high Corinthian columns supporting a thirty-foot wide front portico.

Problem was, that coinciding pool game was at odds with the details Durrant had provided from the Roche house, if they’d been as he described: grey or green safe with a twist-tumbler lock, grandfather clock, books along the right-hand side. Because he couldn’t have been both places that night: playing pool and killing Jessica Roche.

Everything hinged on what Ayliss found out now. And what the new owners, the Mortons, might remember: ten years now they’d been in the house. Roche had put it on the market straight after the trial, but it had taken eleven months to finally find a buyer.

Ayliss closed his eyes for a second to compose himself. If this fact-finding now went the wrong way, in an hour he could be phoning Ormdern to cancel the second session. Something along the lines: ‘Those details Durrant gave match what I’ve been able to find out from the house itself. There’s no other possible explanation: he was there that night. There’s little point in us continuing, nor in fact do I even feel inclined — from a purely ethical point of view — to put in more time trying to save an obviously guilty man.’

A light wind outside ruffled the trees. A timeless district like this, early December, probably wasn’t that different to how it had been mid-February twelve years ago. Ayliss wondered just how much of the house inside might have also remained in a time warp.

He noticed a curtain moving on a downstairs window, the Mortons checking out if it was their expected visitor. With a resigned sigh, Ayliss got out the car and approached the house.

‘Follow him. See where he goes and who he might meet with.’

Roche’s predictable advice when he called back the next evening about Ayliss. Nel-M felt like ribbing, ‘And how exactly should I go about that? You know, after a month of doing fuck all else with McElroy, I might need some guidance.’ Not exactly that imaginative: simply swap one mark for another. But with the way those few words had been delivered, slowly and purposefully between pained breaths, as if they had real significance, Nel-M could tell that Roche was still in no mood for humour. So all he said was, ‘Okay. I’ll get right on it.’

Then, as if an afterthought, or Roche felt his instructions should be meted out separately in case Nel-M couldn’t cope with more than one at a time: ‘Oh, and get onto his ex-wife in Oregon, too. Tell her that her past dearly-beloved is back in town, and so she might want to take the opportunity to slap the rest of that old maintenance order back on his ass.’ Roche did actually manage a brief forced chuckle then, but it lapsed into a small cough as it caught an incoming breath the wrong way. ‘Should keep him on his toes and hopefully his eye off the ball with Durrant, with his wife hot on his tail again. Might even hi-tail it straight back to Mexico, if we’re lucky.’

‘If we’re lucky.’ A bit more of a plan, but Nel-M played it low-key, didn’t want to be too enthusiastic. She might just say that that was all history, she had no interest in chasing his sorry ass any more. ‘I’ll see if I can make contact with her.’

The next morning, Nel-M put a call through to Bateson and asked him to make a note of Darrell Ayliss’s car-type and registration when he arrived at Libreville that evening for the session with Ormdern. Then he started making calls to track down Melanie Ayliss’s phone number in Oregon.

Bateson’s return call came at 7.16 p.m., and thirty-five minutes later Nel-M left his apartment and drove out to just before the start of the Pontchartraine Causeway, made a hasty U-turn in a gap in the traffic and stopped at the first pull-in where he could watch cars coming off the Causeway.

He’d got there early, just in case, and had to wait over half an hour before Ayliss’s steel-blue Dodge Stratus went past him. Nel-M let one more car pass, then pulled out and followed.

Earhart… then Louisiana… LaSalle. As soon as Ayliss took the turn onto Washington Avenue, Nel-M suspected where he was heading; confirmed as Ayliss slowed the other side of St Charles, looking out for Coliseum Street.

Nel-M had spent little time in the area since that night in 1992. Driven past it several times and through it on a few occasions out of necessity — but never stayed for any time there.

He kept straight on as Ayliss turned into Coliseum Street, then took the next turn on Chestnut and again on 2^nd Street, effectively circling round the block; and, sure enough, as he nosed his car out enough to get a partial view, Ayliss was closing his car door and heading up the path towards the Roche’s old house.

For the first twenty minutes of waiting, Nel-M stayed calm, tried not to think too much about what Ayliss might be doing in there. But as the minutes ticked by, his thoughts started to multiply: maybe some vital clue from the session with Durrant that Ayliss was checking out, or something Ayliss had picked up on that nobody had before; or perhaps he was just familiarizing himself with the crime scene. Standard practice.

The atmosphere of the street also began to close in on Nel-M then: its quietness and isolation from the city close by, the shadows heavier, deeper from the large mansions and more abundant tree cover. The reminders of that night drifting back: Jessica Roche’s eyes staring back pleadingly just before that final shot… the woman walking her dog holding his gaze for a second as he’d looked back.

Nel-M’s pulse was still raised a notch, his hands gently trembling on the steering wheel, when almost an hour later Ayliss left the house. He pulled out again to follow him.

St Charles, Jackson, Simon Bolivar… finally stopping at a hotel two blocks from the main train and Greyhound bus terminals. Again, Nel-M drifted past and then turned around and parked a block away where he had a clear sight of Ayliss’s Dodge in their side car park.

Maybe Ayliss would head out later for dinner or another meeting, Nel-M considered, but after an hour of waiting — 10.43 p.m. by then — Nel-M began to think that Ayliss might be there for the night, had grabbed something to eat in the hotel. He left it another twenty minutes, then went into the hotel. He approached the reception desk.

‘I’ve got a business colleague staying here, Darrell Ayliss, and I promised to drop off some papers for him tomorrow morning. But I don’t want to miss him before he heads off, and he told me he was having an early night — so I didn’t want to disturb him now. But I wondered what time he might have an alarm call or breakfast ordered — might give me a clue as to when he’ll be heading out.’

The desk clerk’s brow furrowed. ‘Mr Ayliss has already left, sir.’

‘But his rental car’s still in the car park.’

‘I know, sir. He left the keys here for the car-rental company to pick up, and got in a cab forty minutes ago.’

Nel-M tried to recall the dozen or so cabs he’d seen pull up in that time, and the people he’d seen get in them. The only possibility had been a man shuffling in with a homburg hat pulled down. But it hadn’t looked like Ayliss — no horn-rimmed glasses, no dark lank hair in sight, different jacket — which Nel-M supposed had been the idea.

A muscle twitched sharply in Nel-M’s jaw. ‘Thanks,’ he said, and as soon as he was outside the hotel, he took out his cell-phone.

Perhaps Ayliss was moving around because of his ex-wife, or possibly Coultaine had whispered in his ear that — given what had happened to McElroy — it was advisable to remain shadowy and elusive.

Nel-M had phoned Melanie Ayliss’s number earlier and been told, ‘Mom won’t be back till late this evening. Shopping and then sociology evening class.’

Nel-M hadn’t planned to try her again until the next day — but if this was going to be the name of the game with Ayliss, Runaround City, the sooner his ex-wife was chasing his ass, the better. With two of them trying to find him, he wouldn’t find it so easy to slip away.

Darrell Ayliss’s cab took him deeper into the city — through the Warehouse District, CBD and French Quarter — to a smaller, more intimate hotel with a quaint Spanish courtyard and pool on the edge of Faubourg Marigny.

He glanced through the cab’s back window a couple of times, nobody following that he could tell — but then he hadn’t noticed anyone following earlier either. Just basic precautions: change his hotel and his rental car every day. Keep on the move.

He’d phoned to book the room under his name four hours back, and, as he checked in, the desk clerk informed him that his guest had already arrived. ‘About half an hour ago.’ The desk clerk handed him his key. ‘Room twenty-nine. First floor.’

Ayliss nodded with a tight smile and, despite it being only one floor, took the elevator. He felt as awkward as hell moving around, felt as if all that clammy heat and stale sweat from Libreville was still trapped against his skin.

Noises from the en-suite as he walked in: running water. He’d knock the door in a minute, but meanwhile he couldn’t wait any longer to get everything off. First his oversized jacket and shirt, then the padding strapped around his shoulders and waist that made him look seventy pounds heavier. He leant forward to shake and blink out the two brown contact lenses into his right palm, then finally, stripped to the waist standing in front of the dressing-table mirror, he started peeling off the skin-coloured prosthetic stuck tight to his cheeks and around his jaw.

The bathroom door opened, and, reflected in the mirror, he saw Alaysha Reyner leaning against the door frame in burgundy-red La Perla panties and matching bra. She smiled slyly.

‘My, my, Mr McElroy. I swear I only recognize you with your clothes off.’

He felt an ache of longing as he looked at her, but as he remembered Gerry’s words ‘…I’ll bet you she hasn’t told you one thing. Our dirty, sordid little secret…’ before he ran off into the night with her gun, it dissolved into something else in his stomach. Something sourer, more uncertain, but equally as painful.