The Malcontenta

26

It took Bernard Long an age to answer the doorbell. Eventually the porch light came on and the oak front door opened a crack.

‘Who’s there?’ The voice was muffled and indistinct. Kathy answered, it’s DS Kolla, sir, with DCI Brock. We’d like a word.’

‘Brock?’ The door opened more fully and the Deputy Chief Constable stared out at them. He was wearing a scuffed pair of leather slippers, and the collar of his dressing gown was half turned in at the neck. It wasn’t the white monogrammed outfit he’d had at Stanhope, but an old tartan item that was coming close to being recycled in the dog’s basket.

‘What the devil?’ He coughed, his throat gummed up with sleep. He adjusted a pair of gold half-rimmed glasses on the beak of his nose and stared at them each in turn in the pool of light cast by the reproduction coach lantern hanging overhead, then past them to the car.

Kathy spoke. ‘We’d like you to get dressed and come with us to Division, if you don’t mind.’

‘What time — ?’

The question was interrupted by a woman calling from inside the house. ‘Who is it, Bernard?’ The voice managed to sound both imperious and frail.

He turned and called back, it’s police officers, Dorothy. Go back to sleep, darling.’

‘Don’t be long.’

He turned back to them. ‘You’d better come in.’ They followed him into a study off the panelled hall, distracted by the way he shuffled because his slippers were too loose. It was only when they were seated in the light that Kathy noticed the tremor in his hand.

‘Who was that in the car?’ he asked, looking at Brock.

Kathy replied. ‘Mr Bromley from Stanhope Clinic, sir. He’s also accompanying us to Division to make a statement. We’ve just come from the clinic. Dr and Mrs Beamish-Newell have been helping us with our inquiries into the murders of Alex Petrou and Rose Duggan.’ She watched the worry lines which had formed around the angles of his face stretch into a taut, pale mask.

Long stared across the room for a moment, then seemed to rally himself. He took a sharp breath and straightened his back. ‘I see.’ He turned to face Brock, and said, ‘You’re not saying anything, David?’

Brock shrugged, without taking his eyes off him. ‘This is a County matter, Bernard. I shall be giving Sergeant Kolla a statement myself in due course.’

Long nodded. ‘I’d better get dressed. Give me ten minutes.’

They sat in silence for a while until Kathy said, ‘In the temple this evening, Laura asked the same thing — for me to give her ten minutes.’

Brock looked at her sharply, and then a muffled crash from upstairs brought them both to their feet.

The thick carpet pile absorbed the sound of their running feet. At the top landing Kathy hesitated, uncertain which door to try. The one in front of her opened abruptly and they were faced by a grey-haired woman, surprisingly large for the reedy tone of her voice. ‘What on earth is going on?’

‘Where did that noise come from?’ Kathy demanded.

‘The bathroom …’ Her head turned towards a door at the far end of a short corridor.

Locked. It gave on the third heave of Brock’s shoulder. He stood back, nursing his upper arm with an oath, and Kathy went in.

Long was sprawled absurdly across the edge of the large, cast-iron bath, a collapsed scarecrow in pyjamas. From a knot around his neck, the cord of his old dressing gown looped up to the frame of a shower curtain, which his weight had brought down from the ceiling. The tiled floor of the bathroom was scattered with fragments of ceiling plaster and screws and plugs from the inadequate scaffold, and blood was smeared on his leg, where he had scraped his shin on the edge of the bath. There was a startled look on his face as he gazed up at Kathy.

‘Are you all right, sir?’

‘I …’ he gulped, i don’t think I can move.’

‘Not the practical type, are you?’ She went forward to help him, then paused as Mrs Long appeared in the doorway. She stared down at her husband for a moment, eyes wide, taking everything in. Then she said, in a voice brimming with contempt, ‘Do you really think I didn’t know?’ She turned on her heel and they heard the bedroom door click shut behind her.

Brock advised that there be more than one witness for Long’s interview at Division, so they got hold of Penny Elliot, because she was the only one Kathy trusted, and on Penny’s recommendation Detective Sergeant McGregor from Serious Crime. They came into the building from the basement car park, using the stairs and avoiding the front entrance, and met in the conference room on the fifth floor, next to Long’s secretary’s office. It was 4.15 a.m. when Kathy began by formally cautioning the Deputy Chief Constable.

He ignored her. ‘I’m not a people sort of person, David.’ He seemed to feel a need to address himself to Brock, and Kathy let him go on. ‘I’m a systems sort of person. I think you understand that, don’t you? I have a record of achievement in that area of which I believe I can be justifiably proud.’ His posture, like his speech, was stiff and formal. His eyes were bright, but his grey face was in need of a shave. There had been a moment of farce at the house when it had seemed that Mrs Long might refuse to hand over anything for him to wear. Eventually, however, the bedroom door had opened briefly and a pile of his clothes had been dumped into the corridor.

‘I have never seen it as my job to hunt criminals. I leave that to others. Frankly, I find that side of things utterly uninteresting. Some people don’t understand my position on this. But those same people don’t seem to expect the head of British Coal to wield a pick and shovel!’ He gave a stiff little smile.

‘My role has been to set in place the management systems of a modern police force. And that I have done. You really would have no idea, David, how derisory the procedures were here when I first arrived. Now they are leading-edge, I promise you. At the last review we scored more best-practice ratings than any other County force. The figures are in my office. I would like you to see them. I think you would appreciate their significance, something that cannot be conveniently swept aside by those few detractors — Neanderthals, that’s my word for them. Yes.’

He paused, nonplussed for a moment by losing the thread. There was an embarrassed silence in the room, and then Kathy spoke.

‘Mr Long, please tell us what happened on the afternoon of Sunday z8 October of last year.’

Her tone was not harsh or even unkind, but his face flinched as if she had struck him. His hand formed a fist, and he spoke through clenched teeth as he looked pointedly at Brock.

‘David, I wish to continue this with you alone, please. I would consider it a personal favour. Please:

Brock shook his head. ‘No, Bernard.’

Long looked mildly shocked, sniffed and took in a deep breath, drawing together the remnants of his tattered dignity.

‘The afternoon of Sunday 28 October of last year,’ Kathy repeated, and this time they could see from his eyes that his mind had indeed gone back to that day. He gave a little shudder, and when he spoke there was no more protest in his voice.

‘I had arranged to meet Alex in the gym at four that afternoon.’

‘Not three, as you told me when I spoke to you the following day?’ ‘No.’

‘So you met him at four. Was he alone?’ ‘Yes.’

‘Why did you arrange to meet?’

‘To talk. We often talked. We found it easy to talk.’

‘What is your blood group, Mr Long?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Your blood group.’

‘AB, I think. Why?’

‘Do you know if you are a secretor?’

It was clear from his blank expression that he hadn’t the faintest idea what she was talking about.

‘Never mind. How would you describe your relationship with Mr Petrou at that time?’

‘We were friends.’

‘You were lovers.’

Long stared at the table in front of him. He said nothing.

‘You were lovers.’

Nothing.

‘You were lovers.’

‘Yes!’ he whispered hurriedly, anxious not to hear the words repeated yet again in front of this audience.

‘And you had sexual intercourse with him that afternoon.’

‘No … yes … not at first. At first we talked.’

‘You could have talked in the drawing room upstairs or gone for a walk outside. You met him in the gym because you wanted to have sex with him there.’

‘No!’ Long’s protest was almost a shriek, i needed to talk to him undisturbed. To discuss some matters — in confidence.’

‘I ask you again. What was your relationship with Petrou at this time? What were your feelings for him?’

He sucked in a lungful of air, eyes staring, as if he were drowning, it was a madness,’ he whispered at last. ‘A madness. I couldn’t help myself.’

‘You couldn’t control your feelings for him?’

Long nodded.

‘And what about his feelings for you?’

‘I knew that he was using me. That there were others he was using.’

‘In what way was he using you?’

‘At first, money. He needed money. I didn’t mind helping him. Why should I mind? He repaid me fully.’

‘He repaid you the money you gave him?’

‘No, no. He repaid me in other ways.’

‘With his body.’

Long said nothing.

‘With his …’

‘With his companionship, yes!’

‘But he was greedy.’

‘Yes. And cruel. He enjoyed making me suffer for him.’

‘What else did he want besides money?’

‘I told him there was a chance I would be going to London to a senior position in the Metropolitan Police. He seemed to think that this would be important for him. He had plans to set up some sort of club in London, and he seemed to think that he would need a … special arrangement with the police. I told him it was out of the question, of course, but he wasn’t easily dissuaded. When he decided that he wanted something, he could be completely unreasonable.’

Long was breathing heavily as he spoke now, and sweat was gleaming on his forehead.

‘You must have found that rather worrying.’ ‘Oh yes! It could have been absolutely disastrous, of course!’

‘What did you do?’

‘When I realized he was going to be so unreasonable, so demanding, I became very worried. I suppose I became frightened. One day I had a meeting here with a number of officers about some staffing matters, and at the end of it I was speaking to Chief Inspector Tanner — Inspector Tanner as he then was. On the spur of the moment I asked if he could make some unofficial inquiries for me about the immigration status of someone who was being a nuisance to some friends of mine. I wanted him to check if Alex’s papers were in order, perhaps find out if something could be done to terminate his visa, have him sent back to Greece. That’s what I wanted really, just for him to go away.’

‘When did you have that conversation?’

‘A week or two before that Sunday.’

‘What happened?’

‘Tanner came back quite quickly to say that Alex was an EU citizen, without a criminal record, that his papers were in order, and that nothing could be done unless he was found guilty of a criminal offence. Well, I knew that if he did get into trouble with the law he’d expect me to help him, so I didn’t see any hope there. However, I thanked Tanner and left it at that. A couple of days later he spoke to me again about Alex. He seemed to know quite a lot about him, where he worked, and my connection with Stanhope. He asked if Alex was still being a problem to my friends. I said yes, and he asked me if I would like him to have a word with him, to persuade him, as he put it, to behave himself. I said I didn’t think that a warning from the police would have any effect in this case, and he just laughed and said that, with respect, I didn’t have much idea about what he called “practical policing”.’

Long was sweating freely. The crisply ironed shirt that his wife had thrown out of the bedroom for him was now limp and stained around his armpits and in the small of his back.

‘Did you take him up on his offer?’ Kathy was speaking more gently to him now, coaxing rather than pushing him along as his explanation became fuller and freer.

‘No, although I thought quite a lot about what he had said. Anyway, I had arranged to have a few days at Stanhope and decided I would bring things to a head with Alex while I was there. It was very difficult. He refused to take me seriously. When I told him I would have nothing more to do with him, he simply laughed. He also reminded me …’ Long paused, swallowed, as if each awful memory had to be digested afresh each time he dredged it up. Kathy passed him a glass of water, which he gulped before continuing. ‘He reminded me that he had a personal letter I had written him and some photographs he had taken.’ Long hung his head, it was a nightmare, you see. An utter nightmare.’

‘What did you do?’

‘That was on the Friday. On the Saturday I saw him briefly and arranged to meet him the following afternoon. My idea was to make one final attempt to come to an arrangement with him, a financial arrangement to settle our …’ He paused again.

‘Affairs,’ Kathy said.

‘But I wasn’t optimistic, so I phoned Chief Inspector Tanner. I explained that Alex was becoming more difficult and was threatening my friends with blackmail. They were going to make one final attempt to settle things, but if that wasn’t successful, then it might be necessary to seek Tanner’s help.’

‘You were still saying it was friends who had the problem?’

‘Yes, but I’m fairly sure that he suspected the truth by that stage.’

‘Go on.’

‘I gave him details of the meeting the next day, and he suggested that I ring him afterwards. If it wasn’t successful, he would come over and speak to Alex.’

‘Wasn’t that risky?’ Kathy asked. ‘Weren’t you worried about what Alex might tell your Inspector?’

‘It was a last resort. I just wanted the problem solved. I saw no other way.’

‘How did Alex react to your offer of a financial arrangement?’

‘He was outrageous. I was prepared to be generous, very generous, but he simply laughed. He said that he would take my money and my help. He said I could refuse him nothing and that he would prove it to me. He did.’

The room was very silent.

‘How?’ Kathy said.

They waited, but Long said nothing.

‘What happened?’

Long looked up suddenly at the ceiling, eyebrows raised as if trying to recall some prosaic event in the distant past. ‘When it was over … as I was leaving, I said I had a friend I wanted him to meet. I asked him to wait there in the gym for him. Then I went out and phoned Tanner. I was upset. He could tell from my voice how upset I was. I mentioned the letter and photographs, and he asked me about Alex’s room, whether he had a car or a flat outside the clinic, things of that kind. He said that I should go to my room and then ring him again later that evening.’

‘Give me the times of all this. When did you leave Petrou?’

‘I’m not exactly sure. Perhaps a quarter to five. I went upstairs to the public phone to ring Chief Inspector Tanner.’

‘Did you see anyone?’

‘No, it was very quiet. I went to my room and had a shower and came downstairs for the evening meal, then the recital. When it was over I rang Tanner. He asked if I’d heard anything concerning Alex, and when I said no, he said there was no need for me to worry any more, he had taken care of everything.’

‘What were his exact words?’

‘I’m not sure. Just that, I think. He had taken care of everything with Petrou. There was nothing more to worry about.’

‘What did you understand by that?’

I was amazed, frankly. I didn’t dare believe it. I asked him what had happened, but he wouldn’t say, only that I needn’t worry any more. I asked about the letter and photographs, but he just repeated that everything was taken care of. He was very calm and matter-of-fact, and as I began to believe him I was quite overcome with gratitude. I told him I couldn’t begin to express my thanks, and he said he would like to talk to me about a couple of matters in a day or two.

I had absolutely no idea that anything had happened to Alex until you told me the following morning. I couldn’t comprehend it at first. I thought what an extraordinary coincidence it was, and how, as things had turned out, I’d gone through all that worry for nothing and involved Tanner unnecessarily. In fact, as I came to realize that I need never have involved Tanner at all, I started to worry about what he must have thought of the whole thing, what Alex might have said to him about me and, above all, what had happened to the letter and photographs.’

So many worries.

‘I tried to contact him during that Monday to find out what he knew. It took several calls to get hold of him, and eventually he said he would come to the clinic to meet me that evening in the car park.’

Kathy remembered her encounter with Tanner in the canteen at Division that first evening of the investigation. He must have gone to Stanhope after that.

‘I began by telling him about the turmoil the day after Alex was discovered, and of course he knew — he said that Sergeant Kolla was reporting to him. I said, in the light of Alex’s suicide, I felt I had put him to a lot of unnecessary trouble on behalf of my friends. I said’ — a flush spread upwards from Long’s neck — ‘my friends wanted to thank him for his trouble, confidentially, wanted him to have a drink on them.’

Long paused. ‘Did you offer him something?’ Kathy prompted. He nodded. ‘An envelope with five ten-pound notes inside. He counted the money and laughed. I didn’t really understand at first. I thought he was insulted by the idea of a gift. I didn’t realize it was the amount that he found laughable.

‘He called me “an old woman” and then explained that Alex hadn’t committed suicide. He told me he had gone to speak with him after I telephoned on the Sunday afternoon. He had been in his car near Edenham when I rang, and it only took him ten or fifteen minutes to meet up with Alex in the gym. He said he soon realized that Alex wasn’t going to be easily intimidated and also how indiscreet Alex was — apparently he told Tanner things, about me, and about other Friends … And finally, Alex said something to make Tanner angry. I don’t know what it was, he wouldn’t say, but I know how clever Alex was at picking up on things that provoke people. So Tanner killed him.’

There was total silence in the room.

‘He told you that?’

‘Oh yes, he was very clear about it. He said, “I choked the living shit out of that greasy faggot.” Those were his exact words. I remember them very clearly.’

Kathy glanced at the others in the room. Penny was staring in blank horror at the bowed figure of the Deputy Chief Constable; McGregor was stony-faced; Brock was scowling and gripping the shoulder he’d hurt breaking through Long’s bathroom door.

Long drew a deep breath. ‘My head felt as if it were exploding and I found it very difficult to think. But Tanner was very calm. He explained there had really been no alternative and he would make sure there were no consequences. The investigation would find for suicide, and life for the rest of us would go on as before. He would like to think that if I went to London he would be accompanying me as part of my team there — with promotion, of course.’

Kathy frowned. ‘Did he say what position Petrou was in when he strangled him?’

Long shook his head.

‘You don’t know if he was lying or standing?’

‘No. He did say that he had intended to move the body, to make it look as if Alex had hanged himself. Only there was nowhere to hang him from in the gym.’

Kathy pictured the bare surface of the brick vaults.

‘He went out to see if there was a suitable place in one of the adjoining offices, and then he heard someone coming along the corridor and opening the gym door. He waited till they went — I don’t know who it was — and then he left quickly, thinking they would raise the alarm. He said he was as surprised as anyone when Alex turned up in the temple, but realized that someone else must have tried to cover the thing up just as he had been intending to do himself.’

‘Wasn’t he taking an extraordinary risk of being noticed, wearing outdoor clothes in the clinic?’

‘He took a dressing gown — he said anyone wearing a dressing gown was immediately invisible at Stanhope.’

Kathy nodded. ‘AH right.’ She suddenly felt tired, reluctant to move on. ‘There are things that I’ll ask you to expand on later concerning what happened last October, but now I’d like you to tell us about Rose Duggan.’

Long, too, seemed loath to continue, i don’t feel well,’ he complained hesitantly.

‘In what way? Do you want us to get a doctor?’

The thought of confronting new faces brought the nausea back to his throat. ‘No, no.’

‘Would a cup of tea help?’

He nodded, and Penny got to her feet and made a phone call from the secretary’s desk outside.

‘Why don’t we get this next bit over, then we can break for your tea?’ Kathy suggested. ‘How did it begin, with Rose?’

Long sighed. ‘One day Stephen Beamish-Newell rang me here. It must have been January or February. He made some general remarks about the Petrou case and the coroner’s verdict, which struck me as a bit odd. I asked if anything was wrong, and he said he was becoming concerned about one of his staff, Rose, who was still going on about the case. He said it was unsettling for everyone, and he wondered whether there was any possibility that Rose might be able to get the coroner to reopen the case. He was very worried about more bad publicity and so on. I explained that there was little chance of the case being reopened unless she had new evidence, and I asked him to try to find out if she did, and to keep me informed. I mentioned it to Tanner, of course.

‘Then Tanner found out about Rose’s letter to Sergeant Kolla and her meeting with you, David. You can imagine that this was the last thing we wanted. The nightmare was beginning all over again. I contacted Stephen and told him who you were, David, and about Rose’s letter. He was as worried as I was, and only too willing to do as I suggested, to try to keep Rose away from Brock and to keep me abreast of any developments. I explained that Brock’s visit was unofficial and that I might be able to dampen things down if Rose were able to get him interested in reopening the case. I must say that Stephen seemed absolutely terrified of that.

‘The weekend of that first week you were there, David, Stephen contacted me again at home. Rose was becoming very difficult.. Her fiance had tried to talk to her, as had Laura, but she was becoming quite hysterical. Stephen had learned she intended to talk to Brock when they had an acupuncture session on the following Monday, because she had discovered something about Alex’s death. I then phoned Tanner — I felt I had no choice. He told me to find out all about the arrangements for your acupuncture session, the time and place and what else would be going on in the basement at that time. He also suggested I propose to Stephen that he give you something at lunch-time, David, to make you sleepy.

‘I went through all this with Stephen. He gave me the information and agreed that all we could do was to try to delay Rose’s talking to Brock, and if possible persuade her against it. I gave Tanner the information he wanted, and he told me to get Brock’s acupuncture session brought forward an hour, when the place would be quiet, and to make a call to the clinic at two-thirty — I was to insist on speaking to Stephen about an urgent, confidential matter.’

‘Did he tell you what he planned to do?’

‘No.’

‘And you didn’t ask?’ Long shook his head.

Someone came into the secretary’s office with the tea, and Kathy stood up. Her skin felt grimy with perspiration and fatigue.

‘We’ll take a break there,’ she said, i have some things to arrange with Sergeant McGregor, then we’ll go downstairs.’