Hot Seat

Lap Thirty-One

A uniformed officer drove Huston and me into London. Neither of them spoke to me during the drive. Not surprising. I’d lost my status as a free person. Others now decided when I spoke and who answered.

When we reached the station, Huston put me in the same interview room as before and left me there with the officer who’d driven us. It was familiar surroundings in an unfamiliar scenario. I’d seen the inside of a police interview room many times, but the charges levelled against me had always been minor. Until now.

The door opened. Huston walked in with two officers carrying the whiteboards from the situation room. As soon as they leaned them against the wall, they left along with the silent officer.

‘You look nervous Mr Westlake. Actually, you look petrified.’

A murder charge did that to me. I couldn’t see how Huston could make it stick, but you could make anything stick if you presented the information correctly. The room seemed smaller than it was. If they held me, my rooms from now on would be getting smaller and smaller.

Huston laid her file and the razor, now in an evidence bag, on the table between us. She loaded a cassette tape into the recorder and started it.

‘Let’s get down to business,’ she said. ‘Things don’t look good for you, Aidy. I have the murder weapon and these odd jottings of yours. Do you want to talk about it?’

‘I know this looks bad, but that knife was planted.’

The look of disbelief on Huston’s face killed my will to continue with my defence. The truth sounded so weak. It always did when you had nothing but your word as backup.

‘I have your statement that we took the night of Jason’s murder. Is there anything you’d like to change?’

I foresaw myself stuck in this room for hours while Huston pounded me with accusation after accusation and picked away at my statement. I couldn’t let that happen. It would be a waste of time and, worse, it gave the killer even more time to frame me. At least Steve knew I was here. I hoped he was getting me a solicitor. I needed to get out of here. I was on the verge of hooking Jason’s killer. I couldn’t do it from a jail cell.

‘Look, I’m not going to change one word of my statement. What I told you is the truth. I want to talk about what you found.’

Huston held up her hands. ‘Good. I’m all ears.’

‘That razor. Assuming for one minute that it is the murder weapon, because at this point, you haven’t matched the blood, you won’t find my fingerprints anywhere on it.’

Huston smirked and nodded.

‘But the important question is, if that is the murder weapon and I’m the murderer, why the hell would I keep it? If I had any brains, I’d have binned the weapon ages ago.’

‘Is that a rhetorical question?’

‘No, it’s not. It’s a bloody serious question.’

I knew I should be keeping calm but I couldn’t help myself. Now that Huston had me she wasn’t letting me go.

‘You kept the knife because you’re a collector.’

‘Seriously? You’d think I’d come up with a better trophy case than my toilet tank.’

‘You’re not that imaginative. You wouldn’t be the first.’

‘You know what else makes a mockery of me still having the razor? The fact you didn’t find it on me the night of the murder.’

Huston only needed a second to come up with an answer. ‘You ditched it at the scene.’

‘And my gloves, because there won’t be any prints on it.’

‘And gloves. Thank you.’

‘So where did I ditch them? Because wherever I put them your people failed to find them at the scene. You see how none of this is making sense?’

Of course she didn’t. She simply turned to her notes and flicked through them.

‘I’m thinking you ditched the murder weapon in that drain with Jason’s mobile. It explains why you returned to retrieve it. Why did you take the mobile in the first place — more mementos? God, I feel like an idiot for balling you out for touching it and destroying anybody else’s prints. There were no other prints. Just yours. That was clever.’

Even dumb luck was conspiring against me. Unrelated and innocent events were fitting together to create a damning picture. My being covered in blood when the police found me just made that picture even worse.

‘As it stands now,’ Huston said, ‘I have you at the scene, I have you with the murder weapon, but what I don’t have is a reason. Care to shed some light on that?’

‘There’s no light to shed. I didn’t kill Jason.’

Huston got up and went over to my whiteboards. They’d been sealed in plastic. She read our findings.

‘Frankly, I find this disturbing. What the hell is this?’

I really didn’t want her reading the board, but it might be my ticket out of here. ‘What does it look like?’

‘A murder board. You’ve got suspects, a timeline, motives and suppositions.’

‘If I killed Jason, why would I have a murder board?’

‘I see a couple of sets of handwriting. Have you been talking this over with your friends?’

‘Yes.’

‘So you and your pals have been playing detective while all the time you were the one who did it? Christ, that’s cold.’

I was finished. It didn’t matter what I said, Huston would have an answer. I just dropped my head into my hands and a despair-filled laugh leaked out of me. If the situation weren’t so crazy, it would have been funny.

‘Something funny, Aidy?’

‘You’re making me out to be the greatest criminal mastermind since Jack the Ripper. Listen to yourself. Is any of this likely, let alone possible?’

‘You tell me.’

A knock at the door stopped me from answering. Huston suspended the interview and stopped the tape. O’Neal let himself in. I hadn’t seen him since the night of Jason’s murder.

‘Got a minute?’ he said to Huston.

She picked up the razor and her file and stepped out of the room. A uniformed officer replaced her. He stood by the door and dropped the weight of his gaze on me.

I offered a friendly smile. My babysitter didn’t return it.

After a couple of minutes’ silence, Huston’s angry voice penetrated the interview room’s walls. Both the uniformed officer and I whipped our heads around in the direction of the door.

‘You’ve got to be fucking joking!’ she shouted. ‘Shit.’

A second later, the door flew open. ‘You’re free to go.’

‘What?’ I said.

‘All charges have been dropped. Sorry for the inconvenience.’ The apology came out with frost clinging to each word.

I stood up. ‘I don’t get it.’

‘Seems like you have some very powerful friends. So powerful that they don’t even have to leave their name. Just one word from them and you are magically free to go about your business.’

The sudden rush of relief left me breathless.

‘Once we sign you out, you can leave and all your possessions will be returned to you.’ She nodded in the direction of the whiteboards.

‘You can keep the razor since it’s not mine. Hopefully, it’ll help you. By the way, what made you think I even had the murder weapon?’ I asked.

Huston said nothing.

‘An anonymous tip?’

‘Your freedom awaits, Mr Westlake.’

‘You might want to check out who tipped you off,’ I said, but Huston was already walking away.

‘This way, Mr Westlake,’ O’Neal said.

O’Neal saw me out. Steve was waiting for me in the reception area and I hugged him.

‘I’ll just get your possessions,’ O’Neal said.

‘Thanks for coming,’ I said to Steve. ‘Barrington?’

‘Yeah. I called him. He flexed his muscles and hey presto,’ Steve said.

‘At least he’s good for something.’

‘He says he hopes the same about you. He also said to remind you that you’ve got a job to do and you need to finish it.’