Friends to Die For

Fourteen

When my work was done, I dissolved into the night. It was something I had always been able to do. I knew how to cover my tracks, how to disappear without trace. My feet were winged. My soul was free. There would be no blood-covered, raincoated murderer on the streets of London, no easy target for the CCTV cameras to focus upon.

I was the Houdini of death. I was the messenger from Hell, and after I had wreaked my vengeance it was as if I evaporated into thin air, leaving little more than a ghostly presence.

Everything had gone according to plan. Moreover I had found a strength and a will beyond my own expectations. I’d wondered if I might falter, but even though the blood and gore exploded from her living body with far greater force than I had anticipated, I did not waver. Quite the reverse. As I watched her face twist in agony, as her life’s blood washed over me, my resolve grew ever stronger, so that the power of my arm achieved greater magnitude with every stroke, and the thrust of the knife grew ever bolder and more incisive.

I had a memory, of course, a kind of gene memory, of how to cause great pain without myself being consumed by it. I knew what I was capable of because of what I had done before. Because of all that had been forced upon me. In childhood and beyond.

But this had been a step further. An extraordinary new experience. From the moment I had learned the truth, my entire being had been focused on this ultimate act of revenge. I had lain awake at night, imagining what it might be like to carve into a living body and feel it tense and try to escape the agony I was inflicting, to be able to stare into the eyes of my victim as the life slowly ebbed from them...

The reality had exceeded my imaginings.

On his arrival back at the station, Vogel was summoned to DI Forest’s office. This was no more than he had expected. After all, he had blatantly disobeyed orders.

‘I’ve had DCI Clarke of the MIT on the phone,’ began Forest, glowering at Vogel. ‘Apparently you went behind my back and blundered into her crime scene.’

‘Sorry, sir,’ said Vogel, keeping his voice level and his face as expressionless as possible. He’d assumed Clarke would make a formal complaint about his unauthorized appearance.

‘I’ve supported you, Vogel,’ continued Forest, quivering with rage. ‘I’ve given you a free hand, let you do things your own way. And this is how you repay me.’

Only because of the results I’ve delivered, only because of what I do for your crime figures, that’s why you support me, you pompous prat, thought Vogel.

‘Yes, sir, sorry, sir,’ he said.

Forest grunted. ‘However, it seems you must have been blessed at birth.’

‘What, sir?’ Vogel wasn’t following this.

‘DCI Clarke tells me she was impressed with your knowledge of the case and with your suggestion that there could be a link with two unsolved crimes. “The man’s a thinker,” she said.’

Forest continued to glower at Vogel, as if he had delivered a thoroughly damning insult rather than passing on a remark most people would take as a compliment. ‘Anyway, she wants you on her team as Assistant SIO.’

Vogel’s jaw dropped.

‘Seems her usual number two’s just taken early retirement.’ Forest sniffed. ‘Not bloody surprised.’

Vogel waited to see if any further explanation might be forthcoming. It wasn’t.

‘I haven’t got the rank, sir,’ he said eventually.

‘You have now,’ replied Forest with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. ‘As of this moment, you’re Acting Detective Inspector Vogel. Clarke’s already fixed it with the top brass at the Yard. Moves fast, that one. And what she wants, Nobby Clarke gets. She is the golden girl, after all. Wonderful crime figures...’

Forest’s eyes glazed over for a moment, before he came to and shook his head somewhat sorrowfully.

‘I see, sir,’ said Vogel, who wasn’t entirely sure that he did.

He did know that an inspector’s salary, even if it didn’t prove to be permanent, would be extremely useful right now. Although Vogel had never actively sought promotion, nor even known whether he really wanted it, his personal financial responsibilities had been rising of late. He couldn’t wait to tell his wife. He was only human.

‘Right then, get on with it,’ continued Forest, his usual bluster restored. ‘Clarke wants you hands on, Vogel. She’s given orders for Bertorelli to be arrested straight away, and she wants you to lead a team of the MIT chaps and bring the bastard in. A squad car’s outside waiting, Vogel. Oh, and from now on you report to her. Right?’

‘Right,’ said Vogel.

Alfonso Bertorelli was not at his grandmother’s home in King’s Cross, as Vogel had hoped he would be. Instead the arresting officers found merely a frightened old woman who spoke poor English but managed to tell them that her grandson had gone to work.

‘My boy, he say he just want to carry on as normal...’

Clarke had simultaneously arranged for a CID man and two uniformed officers from Dagenham nick to go to Bertorelli’s mother’s address. They found nobody at home, perhaps backing up by default the grandmother’s claim.

Unless Bertorelli had done a runner, thought Vogel. Leaving two officers to search the premises, he asked for more back-up to meet him at the Vine.

It was by now nearly four in the afternoon. As this was a Sunday, the restaurant was still full. Most of the remaining lunchers were on puddings, coffee, and in some cases brandy or liqueurs, when they became aware of police activity around them.

Alfonso was delivering iced Scandinavian berries with warm chocolate sauce to table fifteen when two uniformed PCs relieved him of the dish and steered him towards the door.

Chocolate sauce slopped onto Alfonso’s pristine white shirt and several berries fell to the floor, which the waiter only wished would open up and swallow him. He tried to shake himself free of the grasp of the officers.

‘What am I supposed to have done now?’ he asked. ‘I’m an innocent man, do you hear?’

‘Just step outside, please, sir,’ instructed Detective Constable Jones, who was right behind the two PCs. They had positioned themselves on either side of Alfonso and had each firmly grasped him by the upper arm.

‘At least will you let me walk out of my restaurant without being manhandled?’ asked Alfonso. ‘I’m not going to try to run, am I?’

The two uniformed officers looked at DC Jones, who glanced around the busy room. Outside, several more police officers waited. DC Jones nodded slightly to the PCs, one of whom released his grip on Alfonso while continuing to steer him to the door. The second officer kept one hand lightly resting on Alfonso’s arm, just in case.

Vogel had remained outside, letting the woodentops and DC Jones do the dirty work. He stood on the pavement opposite the door to the Vine, watchful as ever. When Alfonso emerged, Vogel stared at him with impassive eyes. Jones and the two PCs stepped away from Alfonso, allowing Vogel to confront him one to one.

‘Alfonso Bertorelli, I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Miss Marleen McTavish,’ Vogel began. ‘You do not have to say anything—’

Vogel stopped abruptly. He could see he wasn’t going to get to finish the caution until later.

Alfonso looked as if he’d been hit by a truck. His face turned ashen, his eyes glazed over.

‘Marlena,’ he murmured, his voice little more than a whisper. ‘Marlena...’

Alfonso’s body began to sway.

Vogel stepped forward, arms outstretched. Other officers also reached out towards the arrested man. All of them were too slow and too late.

Alfonso dropped like a stone onto the pavement.

They took him to UCH for a check-up. Alfonso came round almost as quickly as he had passed out, and his only injuries appeared to be a grazed hand and a sprained wrist, but Vogel was taking no chances. Whatever the outcome of the next couple of days, he didn’t want the result undermined by some technicality that would create a legal loophole through which a killer could escape.

While waiting to be given the all-clear to detain Alfonso for interviews, Vogel learned that the officers searching the grandmother’s home at King’s Cross had found a pair of bloodstained Adidas trainers in one of the bins outside the back door of her block. Size nine. The same size apparently as the small collection of shoes in Alfonso’s bedroom.

This was a potentially highly incriminating discovery. Vogel had little doubt that the blood on the shoes would prove to be Marlena’s. He did, however, as when Alfonso had previously been arrested, have doubts about the location and manner of the discovery of the trainers. Alfonso Bertorelli didn’t strike him as unintelligent. Would anyone, having committed murder, dump a pair of incriminating bloodstained trainers in the bin at his place of residence? Or one of his places of residence. It would seem to be an act of total stupidity. Particularly when the perpetrator in question had already been arrested on suspicion of previous, doubtless connected, offences.

On the other hand, Vogel was well aware how those responsible for criminal acts could panic when the enormity of their actions overwhelmed them. Particularly where crimes of violence were concerned. And most particularly when it came to murder. Any murder. But surely all the more so when the murder had been as brutal as this one.

However, to question Bertorelli’s guilt for no other reason than the sheer weight of evidence against him would be perverse, even by Vogel’s standards.

Nobby Clarke and her MIT had installed themselves at Charing Cross police station and a cell had been made ready for Alfonso by the time Vogel was able to return there with the arrested man.

Alfonso was processed in the custody suite, his personal possessions and his clothes taken from him as before, even though this time Vogel did not expect them to necessarily provide evidence. He was then offered a cup of tea. Everything by the book, said Vogel, who countered his eccentricity in certain areas by acting with almost obsessive adherence to regulations in others.

While this was going on, Clarke summoned Vogel to the office which had been temporarily assigned to her. The DCI had a real presence about her, Vogel thought, emphasized by her height and her stylish appearance. Her dark blonde hair, its length pushing the limit of Met regulations, fell nearly to the collar of her sharply tailored jacket. Her manner was confident and authoritative without being imposing or domineering. She welcomed Vogel to MIT, told him she was looking forward to working with him as her number two, then cut to the chase.

‘Everything does now point to Bertorelli,’ she said. ‘But the more we can interview out of him the better. And you should know what the search team have found at Marlena’s apartment.’

Vogel looked at her enquiringly.

‘There was a suitcase under her bed containing memorabilia from her time in Paris. Back then, she was known as Madame Lola. And it appears she ran an upmarket brothel.’

‘Wow!’ said Vogel.

‘Indeed,’ Clarke agreed. ‘There were photographs both of her and various clients. A very elite clientele, from the look of it. We’ve been on to the French police. As you’d expect, they knew all about Madame Lola. They lost track of her twenty years ago after she fell foul of the mob. Word had it she’d got overambitious, decided to try her hand at a bit of blackmail. Only she chose the wrong victim. When she suddenly disappeared, the gendarmes weren’t sure whether she’d gone to ground or been buried six feet under it. Turns out she must have fled the country.’

‘So is it possible someone from her past has caught up with her, ma’am?’

Clarke nodded. ‘Must be a possibility, I suppose. But she came back to the UK, reinvented herself, has lived in Covent Garden ever since, and there seems to be no question of her having set herself up as a madam again. Made plenty of dosh before, apparently. No, why would anyone from her Paris days come after her twenty years after the event? It must be Bertorelli. We already have hard evidence, don’t we? I just wanted you to be aware of what we’ve learned about Marlena, that’s all.’

‘Thank you, ma’am.’

Vogel stood up to leave. When he reached the door, DCI Clarke called after him. Vogel turned to face her.

‘Listen, Vogel,’ she said. ‘Would you stop calling me bloody ma’am. This is MIT, we’re not a bunch of provincial wooden-tops, and you’re my assistant SIO. Call me Nobby, for Christ’s sake.’

Vogel gulped. He could not imagine calling any woman Nobby, let alone his rather impressive superior officer.

Clarke seemed to be waiting for him to respond. He didn’t know what to say.

‘Oh, all right, then,’ she continued eventually. ‘Boss will do. Anything but bloody ma’am.’

‘Yes, ma— I mean boss,’ said Vogel.

DC Jones was hovering in the corridor ready to take the first interview shift with him.

‘Pam, do you know why the boss calls herself Nobby?’ Vogel asked.

‘Isn’t it to do with the clerks in the City wearing top hats in the old days? People took to calling them nobby and it stuck. So if your surname’s Clarke, you’re liable to get called Nobby. Thought you’d know that, guv.’

‘Yeah, but I thought it was just men. I’ve never come across a woman called Nobby. What’s her real first name?’

‘Nobody knows,’ replied Pam Jones. ‘Apparently she hates her given name and won’t let it be used.’

‘Dear God,’ said Vogel, his thoughts immediately turning to a famous fictional detective. ‘Hasn’t anyone tried to find out?’

‘Carlisle and Wagstaff have a real thing about it. They’ve checked her out big time — the electoral register, everything. She’s always Nobby Clarke. They even managed to get hold of her driving licence. Nobby Clarke.’

Vogel found himself smiling. His new superior officer was certainly different.

He turned his attention to the matter in hand as he and Pam Jones approached the interview room where Alfonso Bertorelli was waiting for them. The Italian had tried to get Christopher Margolia, the criminal lawyer previously called in via Billy, to be by his side, but it seemed Margolia had jetted off to Prague for the weekend. A duty solicitor had been duly provided.

Nothing Clarke had told Vogel made him any happier about the Bertorelli situation. Quite the reverse, in fact. But neither did he believe that Marlena had been the victim of some mobster hitman. He just hoped, as he sat down opposite Alfonso, that the ensuing interview would prove to be fruitful. Who could tell, the man might even confess, and that would solve everything. But Vogel didn’t think so, somehow.

‘To begin with, Mr Bertorelli, could you please take us through your movements after you were released from police custody yesterday?’ he asked.

Alfonso looked a wreck. His eyes were red-rimmed as if he’d been crying. His response took Vogel by surprise. He made no attempt to answer the question, instead he took off on a tangent.

‘I loved Marlena, she was probably the most important person in the world to me, after my mamma and my nan,’ he said. ‘How dare you accuse me of murdering her? I wouldn’t have harmed a hair on her head.’

‘Mr Bertorelli, I have merely asked you to account for your movements—’

‘Yes, on the day Marlena was murdered. You’ve arrested me, for God’s sake, for murdering her. Me! I can’t even think straight.’

‘You must try, Mr Bertorelli. If you are innocent, then help me prove that. I’m going to ask you again. Would you please take us through your movements on the day that you were released from police custody?’

Alfonso took a deep breath.

‘I don’t know my movements,’ he said. ‘After you lot released me I walked for a bit and then I went into a pub. I think I had a bit too much to drink. I must have done. I lost most of the day. I just wanted to blot everything out.’

‘What was the name of the pub?’

Alfonso held his hands out in a despairing gesture.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I didn’t look. I just wanted to drink.’

‘Well, do you know where the pub was, the street perhaps?’

Alfonso shook his head.

‘OK. Do you remember what direction you were walking?’

Alfonso shook his head again.

‘Not really, towards Soho, I think, but I can’t be sure. I was trying to clear my head. I just walked around for a bit, without taking any notice of where I was.’

‘Right. Do you have any idea how long you walked for before going into this pub?’

‘I’m not sure of that either. A while. Twenty minutes. Maybe more.’

‘And you were on your own?’

‘Yes.’

‘So you were drinking alone?’

‘I didn’t have anyone with me, did I? Of course I was drinking alone. Who would have wanted to drink with me? Me, the prime suspect.’

‘Did you speak to anyone?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t remember. Maybe. I’m not sure.’

‘What about the landlord, or whoever was serving behind the bar?’

‘Well, I ordered drinks, so I must have spoken to someone behind the bar, I suppose.’

‘But no conversation?’

Suddenly Alfonso mustered a bit of attitude.

‘Oh yeah,’ he said. ‘I had a chat about my morning. “I’ve just come out of the nick. They think I’ve mugged a young woman police constable.” You know the sort of thing. Oh yeah, I had plenty to chat about.’

Alfonso put a heavily sarcastic emphasis on the word ‘chat’.

Vogel studied him wearily. This wasn’t helping, and he suspected Alfonso knew it. He ignored the sarcasm and continued.

‘And after that, after you left the pub, what did you do then?’

‘I don’t know. I suppose I was drunk.’

‘You don’t remember anything else that you did that day?’

‘No.’

Alfonso looked as if he didn’t care. As if he had given in.

‘Do you remember returning to your nan’s place?’

Alfonso shook his head. ‘I remember waking up there though, in the early hours of this morning.’

‘And then what?’

‘What do you mean, then what? I felt like shit, obviously. Because of what had happened and because I’d got wasted. But I decided the best thing was for me to carry on as usual. I was on lunchtime shift at the restaurant, and on Sundays lunch is always extra busy. I thought going to work might keep me sane and I was pretty sure nobody there knew I’d been arrested. Not the first time. I’d asked my nan to call me in sick, hadn’t I.’ He paused. ‘They bloody know now though, don’t they? The rest of the bloody world, too, I expect. And this time I’m facing a murder charge. I didn’t bloody do it, do you hear? I didn’t bloody do it.’

Alfonso’s voice rose to a near hysterical shriek.

Vogel carried on, keeping his own voice calm and level.

‘So you decided to go to work as usual. But from what you have told us, if you really were so drunk that you couldn’t remember what you did yesterday, then you must have had one heck of a hangover this morning, didn’t you?’

Alfonso nodded.

‘I just said that.’

‘Yet you went to work?’

‘Best thing to do with a hangover — work through it. Besides, I didn’t have to be in till almost midday,’ said Alfonso.

‘Are you a big drinker, Mr Bertorelli?’

Alfonso shook his head.

‘Only on special occasions,’ he said, his voice heavy with sarcasm again.

Again Vogel ignored it.

‘I didn’t think you were, you don’t have the look of a drinker.’

He paused. Sometimes if you left a silence interviewees would feel obliged to fill it. You could learn a lot that way, Vogel believed. But Alfonso made no attempt to fill the silence.

‘So, you are not a big drinker and yet you got so drunk that you remember nothing from the moment you entered a pub you do not remember the name of until you woke up at your nan’s place in the early hours of this morning, is that right?’

Alfonso nodded. The man looked ill. It was hard for Vogel to think of him as a cold-blooded murderer. And whoever had killed Marlena would have had to be cold-blooded in the extreme. Lacking any normal human feelings, Vogel thought. But if Bertorelli was innocent he was doing nothing to help himself.

Vogel terminated the interview and told Alfonso he would be taken to a cell to await further sessions, and would almost certainly be detained overnight. The other man seemed to sway slightly in his seat. Vogel hoped he wasn’t going to pass out again and made a mental note to remind the custody team to keep a close eye on him.

Of course, Alfonso had already spent a night in a cell, following his earlier arrest. The first time, for someone who’d never been near a police cell before, was always a nasty shock. Now he faced another night in police custody. And he now knew all too well what it was like. Vogel had been told the smell was the worst thing. The mix of disinfectant and sweat and urine. That and the total lack of privacy. En suite, the regulars were inclined to joke. But there was really nothing very funny about a toilet in full view of the slot in the cell door.

Wagstaff and Carlisle, the two DCs Vogel had first met when they’d arrived at the scene of Marlena’s death with DCI Clarke, were sent to check out the pubs within a thirty-minute walk of the nick. It was another cold wet day. As MIT officers, Nick Wagstaff, a bespectacled and prematurely grey young man, and Joe Carlisle, who would have been darkly handsome if he didn’t almost always look moody, both considered themselves rather above such routine foot-soldier activity. They were not best pleased.

‘Dunno why they couldn’t have put a couple of woodentops on this,’ grumbled Wagstaff.

‘Bastard’s probably lying through his teeth, anyway,’ muttered Carlisle. ‘And even if he did go in a pub, he could have been walking in bloody circles from what he said. How many pubs do you reckon we’re going to have to check out?’

Wagstaff had a computer printout of local public houses in his hand.

‘At least twenty,’ he said.

‘And we can’t have a single bloody drink,’ responded Carlisle.

The tenth pub they visited was the Dunster Arms, which seemed to them a rather insalubrious hostelry in need of a deal of TLC. As they were only temporarily based at Charing Cross the two officers were unaware that it was a regular haunt of a number of their police colleagues. And it was actually a busy and curiously popular little place, with relatively low overheads, which provided a fair income for its landlord who escaped from it to play golf in Portugal as often as he could. He was currently away. His stand-in, Jim Marshal, a retired landlord himself, was behind the bar. Wagstaff showed Marshal a mugshot of Alfonso.

‘Have you ever seen this man in here?’ asked the detective.

‘Don’t think so,’ responded the stand-in.

‘It would have been yesterday, lunchtime, and perhaps through the afternoon,’ persisted Wagstaff. ‘Were you behind the bar then?’

Jim Marshal nodded, looking down at the picture.

‘Definitely not seen him, not yesterday anyway,’ he said.

‘How can you be so sure?’ asked Carlisle.

Marshal jabbed a stubby finger at Alfonso’s black goatee beard. ‘Pretty distinctive, isn’t he?’ he said. ‘Anyway, I never forget a face.’

‘How many times have you heard that?’ muttered Wagstaff as he and Carlisle continued down the street to the next pub on their list.

‘Not for the last time, that’s for sure,’ said Carlisle. ‘Come on, let’s get this over with. Then perhaps we can have a pint or two ourselves.’

During the course of that evening the two officers dutifully visited every one of the twenty pubs on their list, and drew a complete blank. No one remembered seeing Alfonso Bertorelli at any time on the previous day.

‘Just what I bloody expected,’ said Carlisle. ‘We’ve been handed this Bertorelli on a plate, trussed up like a chicken with all the trimmings. Trust our new assistant SIO not to be satisfied though. Typical of the nit-picking bastard, from what I’ve heard.’

‘Yeah. No wonder they call him the Geek. He prefers problems to solutions. And if there aren’t any he invents them.’

The two men continued to grumble cheerily as they made their way back to the station.

Meanwhile, at the Dunster Arms, Jim Marshal was hoping he would never see either detective again. Because the stand-in landlord had not been behind the bar the previous day. He had deliberately lied to the police officers.

Marshal, something of a serial philanderer, was in the middle of an extremely messy divorce. The previous morning his neighbour at the marital home in Ealing, from which Marshal had been barred for several months, had phoned to say that his wife was in the process of dumping all his personal belongings into a skip on the driveway. Clothes, books, his stamp collection, and his fishing gear. The missus had warned him that was what she was going to do if he didn’t move his stuff out pronto, but Marshal, reduced to sleeping on the sofa of an old friend whose patience was beginning to run out, had nowhere else to keep it. In any case, he still owned half the marital home, and he hadn’t really believed his wife would carry out her threat.

More fool him, he reflected. Anyway, upon getting the bad news he had called on a Dunster Arms regular, already in attendance as usual, to step behind the bar while he rushed to Ealing in an attempt to salvage his belongings. He’d promised the man double money if he would run the bar until his return. The man knew what he was about, having managed a number of pubs in his time. He had also been sacked from at least two of them for putting his hand in the till. Marshal knew that the Dunster’s landlord would never leave him in charge again if it were revealed that he’d let such a character run the bar, however pressing his reasons. Particularly on a Saturday. And Marshal needed the money, desperately. He was unlikely at his age ever to get a proper full-time job again, and he had lawyers to pay.

Marshal, basically an honest man except in his dealings with women, didn’t feel comfortable about what he’d done. But he’d not had a choice, he told himself. He’d had to lie.

The first results obtained from forensic examination of the trainers found in the rubbish bin outside Alfonso’s nan’s house, which had been fast-tracked in view of the seriousness of the crime, came back the following day just before noon. They were much as expected. Alfonso’s fingerprints were all over the shoes. There were no other prints. And the size and tread of the trainers matched exactly the footprint that Vogel had spotted at the crime scene.

The DNA results from the blood spattered on the shoes would not be delivered for several days, but Vogel had little doubt that it would prove to be Marlena’s blood.

Vogel had decided not to mention the bloody shoes to Alfonso until he’d received the fingerprint results. Then, along with DC Jones, he interviewed Alfonso for the second time, and challenged him strongly.

This time Alfonso, appearing even more agitated after a night in the cells, was accompanied by Christopher Margolia, his lawyer of choice, who had returned late the previous night from his trip to Prague.

‘It seems certain that the trainers found in the bin at your nan’s are yours. They match a footprint found at the murder scene, and we are confident that the blood on them will prove a match with that of the victim,’ Vogel said.

Alfonso looked bemused.

‘I didn’t put any trainers or shoes of any kind in the bin,’ he said. ‘At my nan’s? Why would I? If I were guilty of anything I’d dump the shoes I’d been wearing as far away as possible from my nan’s or anywhere else I stayed, wouldn’t I?’

There were obvious similarities with the circumstances of Alfonso’s earlier arrest. And his last remark echoed Vogel’s own thoughts, but that wasn’t nearly enough to prevent what was fast becoming inevitable. Vogel said nothing. This time Alfonso did fill the silence.

‘What makes you think they’re my shoes anyway?’ he asked.

‘They’re the right size, and they were found at your place of residence,’ Vogel recited patiently.

He placed a photograph on the table at which Alfonso was sitting.

‘But why don’t you tell me,’ he said. ‘Are these your trainers?’

Alfonso looked down at the picture. His face had been pale before, now it was like parchment.

‘They l-look like mine,’ he said eventually. ‘An old pair of Adidas I’ve had for years. I don’t wear them very often. I should have thrown them out really...’

Vogel put another photograph on the table. This time a shot of the footprint clearly marked in the blood on the floor of Marlena’s sitting room.

Only the side of the woman’s head was in the picture. Nonetheless Vogel saw the other man flinch away from the image before him.

‘You may or may not be aware that this is a footprint from an Adidas trainer,’ said Vogel. ‘It’s rather distinctive, is it not?’

‘Is it? I don’t know. I don’t go around looking at the bottom of people’s feet too often.’

Again a flash of what Vogel was beginning to realize was Alfonso’s natural sharpness. His customary mild wit and deftness of speech had been pretty much stamped out by then, but Vogel could still detect something remaining of the more usual Alfonso Bertorelli.

It was time to fire the next broadside.

‘You should also know that we’ve had the results of the fingerprint check made on these trainers,’ Vogel continued. ‘They are covered in your prints.’

‘B-but, if they’re my trainers they would be,’ Alfonso stumbled. ‘Somebody must have stolen them. I’ve told you: I’m being framed. You have to see that now. Whoever dumped all that stuff on me before — the bike, the hoody, Michelle’s bag — they must have taken my trainers then returned them. I’m being set up again. Someone’s out to get me. It’s obvious...’

Alfonso’s bottom lip began to tremble. For one awful moment Vogel thought the man was going to cry. He so hated it when that happened.

‘I think my client needs a break,’ interjected Margolia.

Vogel addressed the lawyer directly. ‘Look, let’s just see if we can clear all this up as quickly as possible, for everybody’s sake, shall we?’ he asked.

‘Please proceed with care, then, Mr Vogel,’ murmured Margolia.

Vogel inclined his head very slightly. He didn’t want any more interruptions. He had further questions to ask, to which answers were urgently required. He made his voice as gentle as possible.

‘Mr Bertorelli, when you were previously arrested at your grandmother’s home you were asked to check if anything had been stolen, either belonging to you or your grandmother, were you not?’

‘Well, yes, but...’

‘And you said that nothing was missing, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, but I’d forgotten about those old trainers. I didn’t even know they were at my nan’s. I can’t remember when I last wore them even.’

‘It would seem that you wore them on Saturday evening, Mr Bertorelli, when you visited your old friend.’

Alfonso’s lower lip was trembling again, and this time he lost control. He began to cry, his shoulders shook, an animallike wail filled the room. Briefly, Vogel looked away.

‘For the record, you do not know that, Mr Vogel,’ said Margolia.

Vogel ignored the lawyer and made himself stare straight at Alfonso, trying to keep his face expressionless.

‘Mr Bertorelli, how do you feel about women?’ he asked, remembering the man’s reaction when he’d suggested he was gay.

Bertorelli stopped crying. ‘I like women,’ he said.

‘Do you?’ A sudden thought had occurred to Vogel.

‘Yes. I’d never hurt a woman, if that’s what you’re getting at.’

‘I was rather more interested in your relationships with women. Have you ever had a real relationship with a woman, Mr Bertorelli?’

‘What? Of course I have.’

‘Have you ever actually had sex with a woman?’ Vogel continued mercilessly.

‘That’s enough, Mr Vogel,’ thundered Christopher Margolia.

Bertorelli looked horrified. Shocked to the core. But in spite of his lawyer’s intervention, he answered the question.

‘Of course I have,’ he said again, and once more started to weep hysterically.

Vogel was not convinced. Could Bertorelli be the oldest virgin in town? Was that one of his secrets? And, if so, how relevant was it? Had the man grown to hate women because he’d never had a woman of his own, never had an intimate relationship? Was that what had led him to kill? But why Marlena?

There could be no doubt that Marlena had invited her killer into her home. And she’d been drinking champagne with him, or her; champagne which the murderous visitor almost certainly brought along as a gift. A fatal gift.

Forensics had reported that substantial traces of gamma hydroxybutyrate had been found in Marlena’s almost empty glass at the crime scene. GHB is a central nervous system depressant, not unlike the more common date rape drug Rohypnol, but it comes in a clear liquid form, thus making its presence in a translucent drink like champagne less detectable, in spite of its slightly salty taste.

Alfonso Bertorelli was not a big man. Vogel considered that he would not be a particularly strong man. But a dose of GHB would render a much younger and fitter woman than Marlena incapable of resisting assault. She would have been unable to do much more than watch as unspeakable atrocities were committed on her, until, mercifully, her life finally ebbed away...

Vogel realized that he had drifted off. He turned his attention back to the present, and to the man sitting opposite him, who had started to weep again.

Alfonso had no verifiable alibi for the approximate time, or for any time after 11.30 a.m. on the day Marlena had met such a vicious and violent death. The team had been unable to confirm that he had visited a public house, and even if it were to be proved that he’d been drinking in a pub he may well still have had time to murder Marleen McTavish. He may not have been as drunk as he’d suggested, or indeed, not drunk at all.

The evidence against Bertorelli in connection with this and the other incidents seemed to be growing day by day. Vogel might still think some of it a little too neat, a bit too convenient, but if someone was framing Alfonso Bertorelli then they were making an extremely good fist of it.

And Bertorelli, who’d lived in London or thereabouts all his life and might well have been staying in King’s Cross with his nan at the time of the two murders there fifteen years earlier, really wasn’t helping himself. He just kept repeating that he had no idea where he’d been during the period when Marlena was killed.

Vogel could no longer prevent the inevitable. DCI Nobby Clarke was very different to his previous boss, DI Tom Forest. She did not bluster. It was hard to imagine that she would ever rush proceedings or cut corners in order to obtain a conviction that might later prove to be unsafe. Clarke was thoughtful and highly intelligent. It was no accident that she was the golden girl of the Homicide and Serious Crime Squad. But she had, understandably, started to push Vogel. The evidence against Bertorelli was substantial and further forensic reports were likely to add more weight. Indeed, Vogel could not even explain to himself why he was still reluctant to charge the man. Ultimately, Clarke told Vogel she could see no reason for further delay. Unless Vogel could come up with a damned good reason why not, she wanted Bertorelli charged.

Wearily Vogel got to his feet and looked down at the quivering wreck of a man before him. A man for whom, whatever the outcome of the chain of events Vogel was about to put into motion, life would never be the same again.

‘Alfonso Bertorelli, I am charging you with the murder of Marleen McTavish,’ he began, his voice very soft.

Alfonso stopped crying again for a moment. He focused red-rimmed eyes on the policeman.

‘I didn’t do it,’ he said. ‘I’m innocent.’

Then he collapsed onto the table, his shoulders heaving, great noisy sobs filling the room.