The Marx Sisters

29

Felix Kowalski was led into the basement interview room shortly after midnight. Despite the events of the previous hours, he held his bandaged head high, and appeared alert. His eyes took in the room, the metal office desk and chairs, the flask of water, the tape recorder, with interest. He sat in the chair which Gurney pulled out for him, clasped his hands loosely on his lap, and looked around confidently.

Alerted by Kathy’s scream, the two security guards hired especially by Danny Finn had come upon Kowalski, peering over the edge of his platform at her body sprawled down below. He had reacted by leaping to his feet, swinging the length of timber, so that they had felt no compunction in using their sticks to beat him into a more co-operative state, with the result that he now had a heavily bandaged crown, one purple, swollen eye and a bandaged hand. The security men had radioed for the emergency services, as well as for Danny Finn, who arrived on the scene shortly after Brock. By that stage the rescue team had managed to extricate Kathy, badly injured, from the pit, and sent her off in an ambulance. Kowalski too had been taken to hospital, with Bren and another detective, to have his injuries X-rayed and dressed before he was pronounced fit for questioning.

It was Finn who explained to Brock about Peg’s box in the foundations of the building, and her announcement at Eleanor’s funeral. Together they went down to see where Felix Kowalski had been disturbed as he sliced away the polythene sheeting which had been wrapped around the box. Grunting with effort, Finn pulled the sheeting away to reveal a shiny black cube.

‘I thought you said it was a wooden box?’

‘Aye, it is. But it’s covered with bituminous paint-that black stuff. It’s used for waterproofing.’ He poked gingerly at a corner of the dark shape and his finger came away covered with black goo. ‘You’d get in a real mess trying tae get it off now tae get at the screw heads holding the lid down. Do ye really need tae get into it?’ Finn looked doubtfully at Brock. He was panting with his exertions, his breath steaming white in the glare of the arc lights which had been set up overhead for Kathy’s rescue, and were now being dismantled.

‘What did Peg put inside?’

Finn shook his head. ‘I don’t know. She came down tae the site office about 6 this evening with this big handbag she carries, and I left her alone for a couple of minutes. I offered her plastic bags tae put the canister of ashes and whatever else she had in, but she preferred tae wrap them in newspaper. I suppose suggesting plastic bags was a bit tactless under the circumstances. Then I screwed down the lid, and the two men from the security firm carried it down here with me. I had a drum of the bitumen paint, and I more or less poured it all over the box tae seal it. It won’t set in this cold. Does it really matter what’s inside?’

‘Probably not. When will it get concreted in?’

‘Depends on the weather. Supposed tae be tomorrow, but with this cold, and more snow forecast tonight… We’ll just have tae see.’

‘Will you keep the security men on?’

‘Aye. I promised Peg they’d stay till the concrete’s poured. I want tae find out where the hell they were when Kathy and that bastard were down here. By the time I’ve finished with them, they’ll never move from this spot again, I can promise ye that.’

Kowalski was talking in a calm, almost amused tone when Brock entered the interview room. Bren stopped him, and had him repeat the earlier part of his story for Brock’s benefit. He had been on his way home from the conference he had been attending at the University of Nottingham, he said. When he arrived back in London, he decided to go to Eleanor’s funeral before catching the train home to Enfield. He had read the announcement in The Times while he was away, and the arrival of his train at Euston just gave him time to catch a taxi out to the crematorium for the service. He wasn’t really sure why he had bothered, apart from curiosity. When he heard Peg’s strange announcement about her sister’s remains, he recalled something his father had once mentioned, about the sisters owning valuable family papers which they were unwilling to part with. He wondered if this was their way to hide them, and thought it at least worth investigating. It was a stupid thing to do, he now acknowledged-he was guilty of trespassing on the building site-but then it had seemed a fortuitous way in which the sisters might repay his parents for the trouble and distress they had suffered through Meredith’s meddling. The beauty of it was that, though technically a theft, no one would know that the papers had been removed, and so no one would be the worse for his actions. He paused briefly to look over his shoulder and smile with satisfaction at Brock, then continued his story. The accident with the woman police officer was very distressing. While he was trying to get at the box, he heard her on the scaffolding. The noise alarmed him, and he began to leave. However, when he saw her walk across the plank, then slip and fall, he tried to go to her assistance, but had been prevented by the security men, who without provocation had assaulted him.

Felix Kowalski related these details in a normal voice, and when Gurney probed and questioned his account, responded quickly with an air of confident reasonableness. Nevertheless, Brock, from the other side of the room, thought he detected the unnatural glitter of shock and adrenalin in the man’s eyes. And something else. Whenever his interrogator looked away, Kowalski would flick up his eyes and glare at him, only softening his gaze once Gurney returned his attention to him. Brock recalled this vividly from the interview which he and Kathy had had with Kowalski the previous September in his father’s empty shop. It was the flicker of an intense anger. Why anger? It seemed an odd, almost involuntary response, as if anger had rooted itself so deeply in the man that it had taken the place of fear, shame and guilt.

For half an hour Brock watched silently as Gurney tried to shake Kowalski, then he got up quietly and left.

There were endless waves of nausea. Each time the brain struggled through the nightmare dark into consciousness it was only to achieve a few moments of agonized retching, hot with curry and bile, and then to slide back into the foul dark again. The eyes wouldn’t open, and the struggle went on with her unaware that Brock was there, frustrated at his inability to help her.

When finally the retching stopped, the brain was overwhelmed by a sensation of clammy claustrophobia. It tried to tell the mouth to cry out a warning. Someone is trying to suffocate me. But nothing came, and the brain slid away into darkness.

Brock watched her become calm at last, falling back into sleep. He sighed, nodded to the nurse and left.

Brock and Gurney spoke in the corridor outside the interview room.

‘I can’t shake him on any of it. He’s a superior little prick. He talks as if he’s not got a worry in the world.’ Gurney didn’t try to hide his anger from Brock, just as he hadn’t from Kowalski.

Brock thumbed through a draft record of the interview to date and nodded. ‘Well rehearsed, I should imagine. I’ll have a go now, Bren. Does he know about his mother?’

‘Doesn’t seem to. He evidently hasn’t contacted his wife in the past twenty-four hours.’

‘All right, let’s keep it that way for the time being.’

When Brock took the chair opposite him instead of Gurney, Felix Kowalski gave a little smirk to himself. He believed that Brock and Gurney were intending to use a nice-cop, nasty-cop routine, and he was reassured by their predictability. When Brock asked him what he could possibly find amusing in his present circumstances he looked away without answering.

However, Brock didn’t offer him a cigarette, or try to reassure him that his co-operation would somehow be appreciated and rewarded. Instead he went back, coldly and without emphasis, over details of Felix’s statements to Bren, of his movements the previous day, and on the day of Eleanor’s death and key dates before that. It seemed to Brock, as he studied Felix’s face during his responses, that the effect of the adrenalin was beginning to fade and that he was having more difficulty controlling his voice.

They finally reached Kowalski’s account of Kathy’s fall. Brock paused, staring at Felix with an intensity that made him shift in his chair. When Brock spoke again, his voice remained quiet, yet Kowalski found that it was difficult to focus on anything else, as if it were filling the room.

‘The piece of wood you used has fibres of your gloves at one end where you gripped it, and fibres of Sergeant Kolla’s coat at the other where you hit her on the shoulder. There is also her blood on that end of the timber, over the fibres, where you hit her the second time, across her knuckles, from which the surgeons have removed splinters of wood, from your weapon.’

Brock was improvising, in the absence of a forensic report, but he had studied the length of timber closely and knew that he was close enough to the truth. Listening to his accuser, a phrase entered Kowalski’s head which he could not drive out: dies irae, the day of wrath.

The room, which had been formed by subdividing a larger space into four small offices, was barely large enough for the two detectives to carry out their search without getting in each other’s way. When the night security man showed Brock to the place, they had already gone through all the books which filled the metal shelving on both side walls, and were now on their hands and knees, one going through a stack of files and student essays heaped in the corner below the tiny barred window, and the other pulling up sections of the vinyl tile floor coverings. Brock squeezed in and the detective pulling up the floor straightened up to show him what they had so far.

‘None of the books on your list, sir. But this one is interesting.’

The officer handed Brock a battered old copy of Scouting for Boys . Brock frowned.

‘Open it, boss.’

He did so, and found that the centre of the book had been neatly cut out, the hollow refilled with a wad of banknotes.

‘Almost a thousand quid, in twenties and fifties mostly,’ the detective said.

‘Anything else?’

The man shrugged. ‘What you’d expect, really-teaching materials, class lists, stationery. Diaries for the past three years, but they only seem to have class times and staff meetings, stuff like that. And a bottle of whisky, nearly empty, in the top drawer of the desk. The one that locks. With his passport.’

Brock took the passport, the old type with stiff covers, issued in 1983, valid ten years. There were visa and entry, stamps for Poland for 1983, and an entry stamp for Toronto, Canada, dated 1 September 1989. Brock picked up the diary for the previous year, and thumbed through to the beginning of September. There was an entry ‘Scarborough Conference’ for 31 August, and the following seven days were crossed through.

It was almost 4 a.m. by the time Brock reached Felix Kowalski’s home in Enfield. The lights both upstairs and downstairs were ablaze. Three cars were parked at the kerb and in the driveway. Felix’s wife, Heather Kowalski, was sitting in the kitchen with a uniformed policewoman, while the detectives with the search warrant roamed about upstairs.

Heather’s face was pale and drawn, framed by locks of auburn hair which she tucked wearily behind her ear from time to time. After speaking to the team upstairs, Brock joined her, accepting the offer of a cup of tea from the WPC.

‘Your father-in-law is in the room at the end of the landing, is he, Mrs Kowalski?’

She nodded. Her hair fell forward and her fingers went up automatically. Then they dropped to the table and swept away some grains of sugar which had fallen on its surface. Everything in the kitchen was meticulously in its place, Brock noticed.

‘I’m sorry, but I’m afraid we’ll have to disturb him so that we can have a look in his room. Maybe you could help move him to the back room when they’ve finished there.’

‘He doesn’t seem to know where he is, anyway.’ She sounded drained. ‘They won’t need to disturb little Adam again, will they? He took so long to get back to sleep last time. He was frightened.’

‘No, they’ve finished there. I am sorry about this. You’ve no idea where else we could look for books?’

She shook her head vaguely.

‘Has your husband had any particular financial or personal problems lately, Heather?’

She stared at him for a moment. Her plain features seemed permanently set in a look of resignation, now emphasized by a lack of make-up and the pallor of fatigue. Another little shake of the head.

‘I do appreciate how co-operative you’ve been, and I know how tired you must be, but I want to get to the bottom of this as soon as possible. I think you must want that too. Have you and your husband been having difficulties lately?’

Her eyes winced and slid away. He suddenly wished he had Kathy there with him to do this.

She lowered her head, but said nothing. He waited, sipping his tea.

Eventually she said softly, ‘He was very upset by what they did to him in the reorganization at the Poly a few years ago.’

‘Really? What was that?’

‘His subject was Russian Culture and Politics, you see, in the Department of Russian Studies.’ She gave a bitter little smile, as if that should speak for itself. Brock wondered if the gesture was her own, or more likely a loyal imitation of the sort of look her husband would have given.

Seeing that he didn’t seem to follow, she explained, ‘They closed the department down. The government decided they no longer needed Russian departments. The Poly reorganized all the people they didn’t want any more into a new Department of General Studies. Felix ended up teaching things that didn’t interest him to all the most stupid students, who were even less interested but just needed to pick up extra units. He’s very bitter about it.’

‘I see. Still, he manages to get away a bit. At least they send him to conferences from time to time.’ She looked up anxiously at him and he held her gaze. ‘This last one, at the University of Nottingham, wasn’t it? And the one last September, in Canada.’

She looked startled, ‘Canada! No… No.’ She smiled at his mistake. ‘Last September he went to Yorkshire-to Scarborough.’

‘There’s a Scarborough in Canada too, Heather. In Toronto. I rather thought that was the one he went to.’

‘Oh no! No, he certainly didn’t. He’s never been across the Atlantic. Neither of us have.’ She gave a little laugh, with fatigue and relief.

The brain tentatively ordered one eye open. There was Brock.

‘What a mess,’ he said, sadly shaking his head.

The brain ordered the mouth to do something. ‘Bringing me flowers again?’ it croaked.

‘From all of us. Can I do something?’

‘Water,’ she whispered. He held the tumbler to her lips, she sipped, felt sick, retched and fell back exhausted. The brain decided that was enough, and switched everything off again.

Felix Kowalski had begun to withdraw behind his bandages.

‘Nothing,’ Gurney said wearily. ‘We’ve been over it all again. Any news of Kathy?’

‘I just saw her. She came out of the anaesthetic at 2 and has been sleeping since. She woke briefly when I was there. They say she’ll live. Bloody lucky.’

They went in and Brock took the seat opposite Kowalski again. He noticed the shadow under the unbruised eye, and a slight shake in the unbandaged hand.

‘Sit up and drink your tea,’ he barked abruptly. ‘Tell me about Toronto.’

Kowalski blinked at him in surprise.

‘Toronto, yes, Toronto. What did you go there for last September?’

Kowalski’s mouth hung open stupidly for a moment as he tried to read Brock’s mind. Then he mumbled something.

‘What?’

Kowalski cleared his throat. ‘Get stuffed.’

‘Last September,’ Brock persisted, ‘just before Meredith Winterbottom died.’

Kowalski snorted, shook his head.

‘The time your wife thinks you were at a conference in Yorkshire. I’ll find out, Felix. I’ll find everything out eventually. Better tell me now.’

He was rewarded by a blaze of anger which burst from Kowalski’s red-rimmed eyes. He tried to get to his feet, swearing furiously. Gurney pressed him back down with one hand on his shoulder, and he subsided, trembling. The anger died away, and when he regained control, he muttered, ‘You can’t connect me to Meredith Winterbottom’s death, and you know it.’

Brock paused before answering quietly.

‘Well, we know that, Felix. Your mother’s already confessed to the murder of Meredith Winterbottom. She was arrested on Saturday afternoon. Didn’t you know?’

Felix rocked back in his chair as if he had been struck. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped open. ‘No… No. That’s impossible.’

‘Not in the least. We established that the times you gave us for when your mother was on her own that afternoon were wrong. Then we found out about her visit to Mrs Rosenfeldt, and following that Mrs Winterbottom. When we went to see your mother on Saturday afternoon she knew what we’d come for. She confessed to killing Meredith.’

‘No,’ Felix repeated, shaking his head. ‘It isn’t possible.’ It sounded more a statement of fact than of belief. Brock leaned forward, watching him closely.

‘Why? What do you know, Felix? What possible doubt could there be?’

But Felix had withdrawn. He sat rigid in his seat, staring straight ahead with unseeing eyes.

‘Felix!’

‘No…’ He shook his head furiously, then said no more. Brock sighed and looked at the wall clock.

‘5.35. All right. Give him a bed. I’ll see him again at 9.’

He got to his feet as Felix was led away. ‘Let’s get a couple of hours ourselves, Bren. I’m beginning to feel my age.’

‘I might get over to the hospital, chief; see how Kathy is.’

‘There’s not much point at present, Bren. Why not leave it to the morning? I need you with your wits about you.’

‘What do you reckon to him?’ Gurney nodded towards the door through which Felix had been taken.

‘I think that he’s trying to decide whether to save his mother, or just let her drown.’

‘You think he can save her? She confessed to cover for him?’

‘Something like that. You know, I used to think that organized crime was complicated. It’s peanuts compared with this lot.’

Brock, feeling better for a couple of hours’ sleep, knocked on the door marked ‘Head of Department’. There was an indistinct sound of a voice from inside and he went in. He introduced himself and Gurney. Dr Endicott looked up from the papers on his desk with an anxious, preoccupied frown. His face had deep lines cut around the mouth and brow which contrasted oddly with his smooth skin, as if he had been prematurely aged all of a sudden. He was dressed in the careful neutrality of a businessman.

‘Yes?’

‘I’d like some information about a member of your staff, Dr Endicott. Felix Kowalski.’

‘Felix? Is he in trouble?’

‘He’s helping us with an inquiry. There’s just a couple of things you might be able to confirm for us.’

‘I really don’t know that I can do that. If he’s in trouble… a colleague. Also, I’m due at a meeting at 9.15, so I don’t have time at present. Perhaps you might make an appointment with my secretary.’

‘Important?’

‘Pardon?’

‘The meeting. Is it important?’

‘Ah. Well.’ He looked doubtfully at the papers on his desk, about two inches thick. ‘A meeting of the Academic Board sub-committee to decide the composition of the Committee on Gender Equity in Selection and Promotion Procedures.’

‘Well, ours is a murder inquiry, and I really don’t want to take up much of your time, but I’d like to do it now.’ Dr Endicott’s eyes widened at the word ‘murder’. Brock pressed on before he could frame a question. ‘Have you been aware of any difficulties Mr Kowalski might have been having lately?’

‘Not really.’

‘I have the impression that he’s not happy in his work. Would that be fair?’

‘Not happy? Well. Like many of us, he has had to adjust to changing circumstances. Funding cuts, new priorities, and so on. I think he has found it rather difficult. He was in a particularly hard-hit area.’

‘Has he been looking for some alternative?’

‘I really feel he should be telling you this himself. But I suppose I can say that I did write one or two references for him some three or four years back. Nothing recently, though. I rather thought he’d, er, become reconciled.’

‘Is he a popular member of staff?’

‘Ah…’ Dr Endicott swept some lank hair back from his lined forehead and frowned at his papers as he thought about that. ‘He is a challenging colleague, one might say. Abrasive, even.’

‘Yes, that was rather our impression. And is that the result of his work frustrations, would you say, or is there some other reason?’

‘Oh, I really couldn’t say. I always felt there was something

… fiery in his make-up. Central European, you know.’

‘You’ve sent him to conferences, I believe. One just last week.’

‘Really?’ Endicott looked vague.

‘The University of Nottingham?’

‘Ah yes. Not really a conference. More a staff development course, really. “Communication under Conditions of Stress” or something like that. Quite appropriate given our staff-student ratios.’

‘And last September?’

‘I can’t recall him being away last September. I could, get the file. Maureen will remember, I’m sure.’

‘Scarborough?’

‘Oh yes. That was a conference. Not really his field if I recall, but the Departmental Conferences Committee felt rather sorry for him, I think.’

‘So he went to Canada?’

‘Canada? Good heavens no! Scarborough in Yorkshire! There would have been no way of sending him to an overseas conference with our budget in the state it was!’

‘Yet we have reason to believe he went to Canada during the first week of last September.’

‘Really? Skipped off to Canada when he was supposed to be at the conference in Yorkshire? Are you sure?’ Dr Endicott seemed rather taken with the idea.

‘Are you aware of any connection he might have had with North America-friends, relatives, academic connections?’

‘Well, no.’ He hesitated, then shook his head as if dismissing an absurd idea.

‘Something?’

‘Well, the only “connection” that springs to mind is that we had an exchange student from Canada in the department last year. Rather personable young woman. But that hardly seems relevant.’

‘Felix taught her?’

‘Emm, I couldn’t say. Maureen would know, our departmental secretary. We might ask her.’ Dr Endicott seemed to have forgotten about his committee meeting as he led them out to the departmental office, where Maureen was briskly giving orders to a group of confused students. She turned to deal with the Head of Department with the same determined look on her face.

‘These gentlemen are from the Metropolitan Police, Maureen.’

‘I know. I told them you wouldn’t be able to see them. You were supposed to be at that committee meeting five minutes ago.’

Dr Endicott cleared his throat. ‘Yes, well, they need some assistance regarding that Canadian girl who was here last year. Do you remember?’

Maureen ignored his question and turned on Brock. ‘Are you the same lot that have been searching Felix Kowalski’s office?’

‘Searching?’ Endicott looked startled.

‘We have a search warrant, sir. Look, if you want to go to your meeting now, that will be fine. You’ve been most helpful. If we can just have a few moments of Maureen’s time.’

Maureen rolled her eyes and broke off to give instructions to the photocopier repair man who had just appeared. Dr Endicott hesitated, then regretfully sighed and turned back to his room to collect his papers.

‘Well?’ Maureen returned her attention to Brock and Gurney.

‘Do you recall the Canadian student Dr Endicott mentioned, Maureen?’ Brock asked amiably.

She looked suspiciously at him for a moment. ‘What is this all about?’

‘We’re conducting a murder investigation. We’d appreciate your co-operation.’

Maureen’s eyes lit up with curiosity. ‘You think Felix has murdered someone?’

‘He’s helping us with our inquiries,’ Brock said. ‘Do you remember her?’

‘Of course I do. She’s been writing to him every week since she went back.’

‘To him here?’

‘Well, I don’t suppose he wants her to write to him at home!’ She smiled grimly.

‘Did you know he went over there last September?’

‘No, I didn’t know that.’ She shook her head. ‘But, I do remember a call from a travel agent for him, which I thought was a bit funny. Sometime in the middle of last year.’ Her eyes wandered away in the direction of the corridor leading to Felix’s room. ‘What exactly are you looking for?’

‘Some old books. Are there other places we should look?’

‘Only…’ She hesitated, then shrugged. ‘He left a box in my store cupboard last year. Just before Christmas term started. I told him to move it somewhere else because I’ve got little enough space as it is to keep the stationery and departmental records and so on, but he never did.’

She showed him a door in the corner of the office, opening into a small storeroom with shelves crammed with boxes, files and papers. On the floor at the back they found an old box for photocopy paper, sealed with brown plastic tape. Bren lifted it out on to Maureen’s table and took the scissors she offered him. From the look of the tape the box had been opened and resealed several times. He folded back the flaps of the box and brought out a wad of Canadian airmail envelopes held together with a rubber band. Then he began carefully to pull out the books. Brock reached for one with a frayed black leather spine. ‘Proudhon’s Confessions,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘We seem to have found our dealer, Bren.’

‘Will he be away long?’ Maureen called after them as they left, Bren carrying the box under his arm. ‘Only we’ll have to rearrange his classes.’

They called in at the hospital on the way back. Kathy was conscious, gazing through half-open, bruised eyelids at the snow falling past the window against the grey of the morning sky. A tube was in her nose. She creased her eyes in a smile, the unbruised parts of her face as pale as the pillow and the bandages around her head.

‘A little better?’

She nodded and wiggled the fingers of her left hand, which Brock, sitting beside her, took in his own. Bren remained standing at the end of the bed, unable to keep the concern out of his eyes. She looked towards the plaster cast on her right arm.

‘Haven’t told me,’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘What’s the damage?’

Brock cleared his throat. ‘Three fingers of your right hand are broken,’ he said.

‘Anything else?’ she asked faintly.

‘One of the reinforcing bars went through your right side. Hell of a job to get you out of there. You’d appreciate it, having been in Traffic. Seems some of the bars down there were high tensile steel, and the steel cutters couldn’t get through them without making too much of a mess of you. Eventually had to lift you straight off. Lost a lot of blood. Missed the vital organs, though. They operated and stitched you up. It’ll be all right.’

She drifted away for a while, then suddenly lurched back into consciousness. ‘And?’

‘Another bar scraped your left knee. No great problem, but it’ll be sore for a while. You were very lucky.’

‘How?’ she whispered.

‘Lucky you weren’t a man, that is. The middle bar, in between those two, would have been very unpleasant.’

‘Ugh.’

‘Your left shoulder was dislocated and badly bruised.’

‘Oh.’

‘And you banged your head. Possible concussion.’

‘Mmm.’

‘That’s about it, really. Pretty good under the circumstances. You could have been killed.’

She closed her eyes and slipped into unconsciousness.

Felix Kowalski did not seem to have benefited by the break and a hot breakfast. On the contrary, he crouched in his seat with the air of someone suffering from a very bad hangover. He eyed them truculently as they took their seats, Brock in front of him, Gurney to the side.

‘You must release my mother,’ he said, before they could speak. ‘At once. She is not in any way responsible for the death of Meredith Winterbottom. She has only confessed in order to protect me.’

‘Really?’ Brock said noncommittally, turning the pages of one of the two files he had brought in with him. ‘Are you confessing to that murder, then?’

‘No, of course not. But my mother obviously thinks I had something to do with it. Her confession, as you call it, is absurd.’ He was struggling with impatience and seemed slightly feverish.

Brock flicked the file shut and sat back. He stared at Kowalski and then nodded. ‘Go on, then.’

‘When…’ Kowalski hesitated and gave a little groan.

‘Are you all right? Would you like a doctor to have another look at you?’

‘No,’ he snapped. ‘When my father and I returned from delivering the last of his books to Notting Hill, my mother was waiting for us in the shop. It was about 2.30. She was upset. She told us what that old crone Mrs Rosenfeldt had said to her, and said she’d gone round to see Meredith Winterbottom. She was on her bed asleep, she said, and the thought had gone through my mother’s head, upset as she was, to strangle the woman. She even imagined putting on the rubber washing-up gloves she saw in the kitchen, so she wouldn’t leave any fingerprints. That’s what she told us. Of course she did no such thing. My father was shocked at the idea, and we calmed her down and gave her a cup of tea from the flask we’d brought. Then I left to return the van. When she heard later that someone had killed Mrs Winterbottom, she must have naturally been worried that I might have done it while I was away, to save them further distress. Of course I didn’t, but the idea will have been preying on her mind. She’s not been well lately. Neither of them have.’

By the time he got to the end of this his voice had sunk to a monotone. There was silence.

‘That’s it?’

‘Yes.’

Gurney snorted contemptuously from across the room. Kowalski looked from one man to the other. ‘What else should there be?’

‘What about the books, Felix?’ Brock spoke very quietly.

Kowalski kept his face blank, his eyes unblinking.

‘Books?’

‘Mmm, books. Your mother had quite a bit to say about books.’

He appeared to rack his brains, then said slowly, ‘I think… she did mention something about some books. Under Mrs Winterbottom’s bed, I think it was, in a plastic carrier bag. My mother looked inside and saw that it contained some old books. When she mentioned them, I seem to remember that my father said something about them probably being ones that he had valued for her.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s about all I can remember.’

‘So your mother didn’t have the books with her when she returned to the shop?’

‘With her?’ He looked startled. He stared at Brock for a moment, searching rapidly for clues in his expressionless face, then groaned and covered his eyes with his hand. ‘She said that? She said she took them?’

‘Felix,’ Brock said, his voice still deadly quiet, ‘you don’t seem to have taken in what I told you last night.’ He leaned forward across the table. ‘I will not be lied to. I will discover the truth. You are just making things a hundred times worse for yourself and your mother.’

Kowalski lowered his head. His shoulders rose and fell with his breathing. When he began to speak again, his head still down, his voice came deep, from the back of his throat.

‘When I left them, I drove the van round the block to the lower end of Jerusalem Lane. I went in to number 22. I wanted to tell Meredith to lay off my parents, but she was asleep. Lying peacefully on her bed. So I looked at the carrier bag with the books. There were about a dozen of them. The ones I looked in had inscriptions from Karl Marx, just as my father had described. He had said they were worth four or five thousand each. So I quietly put them back in the bag and walked out with them. I took them for my parents’ sake. I reckoned she owed them at least that.’ A note of anger infiltrated the resignation in his voice. ‘I had a duffle bag at the shop to carry the sandwiches my wife had made us, and I slipped the carrier bag into that when I got back. I suppose my mother must have seen. That’s why she thinks I killed Meredith Winterbottom. But I didn’t.’ He looked up to face Brock. ‘I swear to God I didn’t.’

‘Yes,’ Brock replied flatly. ‘Go on.’

‘What?’

‘Tell us about what you did with the books.’

‘Oh… I waited for a while till I thought things would be quieter. Then I told my father a friend of mine had some old architectural books to sell, and asked for the name of the architect he’d mentioned in connection with Meredith Winterbottom’s books. I remember now how my mother looked at me when I raised it. He still had the man’s business card, and I copied the phone number and rang it later. The architect said it was really a friend of his who was interested, an academic in the States. I contacted her, and it was she who told me about the other documents.’

He looked up at Brock, and for the first time there was a note of supplication in his voice. ‘I only stole the books for my parents. That’s all I wanted the other papers for. For them.’

‘No.’ Brock shook his head. ‘You needed money, didn’t you, Felix? For yourself. To escape. Isn’t that it?’

‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘I’d call it a kind of escape. Someone else might just call it a fantasy. Running away. Digging a tunnel out of the prison, to freedom. To Canada. A fantasy.’

A look of panic formed on Kowalski’s face.

Brock leaned forward and spoke intently to him. ‘I’d like you to appreciate just how impossible that fantasy now is, Felix. I’d like you to acknowledge the truth of the matter with me. There’s really nothing left to be angry about. It’s not a matter of other people stopping you any more. You’ve stopped yourself.’

Brock fished his half-lens spectacles out of his jacket pocket and made a bit of a play of examining a page of the file while he let that sink in.

‘What about her family, Felix? What’s her name? Jenny, that’s it, isn’t it, the girl in Toronto? What about her parents, her friends? What do they think of her infatuation for a bad-tempered, frustrated, middle-aged, married Englishman, twice her age, who has no funds and no prospects? Pretty daunting for them, I should think. Or do they think it’s laughable, that it will all blow over with time? Or do they not even know yet?’

Felix’s face had become blotched red.

‘She…’ he began, then stopped himself, clenching his jaw tight shut.

‘She what?’ Brock prompted mildly. ‘She loves you? She’s pregnant? I found it rather difficult to decide about that from her letters-whether she was just fantasizing, or whether she really was pregnant. Anyway, it doesn’t really matter, does it? Because you were so taken with your fantasy, Felix, so hungry for it, for the money you needed to make it happen, that you killed two old ladies and nearly killed a police officer. And I don’t think that even Jenny’s love can survive the knowledge of that.’

‘I…’ He seemed to have difficulty forcing the words through his throat. ‘I didn’t kill anyone.’

‘Really? Hard on your wife. And your little boy. How long will they bother to come to see you inside, I wonder? Not the full twenty years, that’s for sure. Probably better if there’s a clean break now.’

Then, as if changing the subject completely, ‘She’s a meticulous woman, your wife, isn’t she? I noticed that when I visited your house last night. Everything in its place. Obsessively so. Is that part of the cause or the effect, I wonder? Is she so obsessive about the little things because she knows the big things are so askew, or was her obsessiveness one of the things that made you come to hate her so much? She’s the sort of woman, I’d say, who would insist that a man lower the seat of the toilet after he’s had a pee. Some women are like that, I believe. They find a raised toilet seat offensive because it signifies something about the male member. That’s what they say in women’s magazines, I’m told. Does your wife do that?’

Felix stared at him as if he were mad.

‘Humour me, Felix. I’m all you have now. Does your wife do that?’

He swallowed with difficulty. Finally he nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘Yes, I guessed that. Because when you broke into the Winters’ house in Chislehurst and needed the toilet-nerves, I suppose, and you had been drinking beforehand, hadn’t you?-you naturally took off your gloves to undo yourself, and when you finished you automatically lowered the seat, as your wife had drummed into you, before you put the gloves back on. You left a beautiful set of prints’-Brock peered at the second file he had brought in-‘which until today we had been unable to identify.’

Felix’s shoulders gave a little convulsive jerk. A sob came from his bowed head. And then he let go. The tears started to stream down his face and his whole body began to shake.