Unnatural Selection

TWENTY-FOUR

“As a matter of fact,” an animated Clapper said, gesturing with his fork as he talked around a mouthful of fried eggs, “what finally did the trick was something you said the other day.”

They were at the dining table in Clapper’s dowdy, comfortable, furnished apartment above the police station, enjoying bacon and eggs on thick, chipped, white china that had no doubt come with the furnishings. Earlier, Madeleine, showing a hitherto unsuspected domestic side, had bustled cheerfully about the minuscule kitchen humming Cherubino’s arias from The Marriage of Figaro in a surprisingly sweet little voice, and had produced four perfect little mushroom-and-cheese omelets, each with a halved grilled tomato and two strips of bacon alongside it. And toast and tea for good measure. All in under ten minutes.

Clapper had spent what must have been an exhausting five hours booking Rudy-a more thorough and extensive process than it was in the States-wading through the related paperwork, and communicating back and forth with headquarters. Now, with the day’s reports filed and the log filled out, and with Rudy locked up in one of the two holding cells downstairs (Robb and one of the volunteers were spending the night there), he was as fresh and talkative as Gideon had yet seen him, the words tumbling out of him like quarters out of a slot machine.

Gideon looked up from sawing through a strip of thick English bacon. “Something I said? And what was that?”

“Do you remember when we were on the beach at Halangy Point, and you were going on about the finer points of dismemberment? About how much blood you get cutting off the arms and legs, and carrying them about, and so on, and how it was usually done in a bathtub?”

“I remember.”

“Charming, the mealtime conversations one has in the company of this sort of person,” Madeleine Goodfellow said flutily.

“Better get used to it,” Julie said. “That’s my advice.”

“And you were saying how difficult it is to get rid of every trace of blood?” Clapper went on.

“Yes, sure, even ten years later, even if the surfaces are washed down. Luminol will pick up blood at one part per fifteen million.”

“Fascinating,” Madeleine said. “Do tell us more.” They had finished their meals and she was refilling their teacups.

Gideon thought for a moment. “With spectrophotometric analysis of the ammoniac residue, you can even tell how old a bloodstain is, how about that?”

“Fascinating,” Madeleine said.

“The trick is not to ask them questions,” Julie told her.

“The thing of it is,” said Clapper, “once we established that the remains were Villarreal’s, and then when Dillard’s subsequent death made it clear that everything was linked to the goings-on at the castle, I rang up headquarters and asked for a crime-scene examiner with bloodstain expertise. He arrived this afternoon.”

“And that’s what the room search was all about?” Julie asked. “He was checking our bathrooms, looking for blood? And he found it in Rudy’s-that is, in the room Rudy was staying in last time, the John Biddle Room?”

“Yes, in the grout above the tub, and between the tiles behind the wash basin, and in the crevices at the base of the walls. And not only in the bathroom, but in the bedroom as well, between the floorboards. I can’t say I was surprised. I had my suspicions, as we coppers are wont to say.”

“Really?” Gideon asked. “You suspected Rudy all along?”

“There wouldn’t be another couple of eggs lurking in the pantry somewhere, would there?” asked Clapper plaintively, knife and fork clasped upright in his hands, their bases resting on the table. Oliver Twist again. “And a rasher or two of bacon?”

“Of course there are, my dear,” said Madeleine, jumping up, bangles jangling. “Would anyone else care for more?”

Gideon and Julie declined, and Clapper continued. “Not all along, no. But since yesterday I’ve been virtually certain of it, only I had no evidence. Now, with the bloodstains, I do.”

“But what made you think it was him yesterday?” Julie asked.

“Superior police work, my girl,” said Clapper jovially. “Learning that the fax to Mr. Kozlov-ostensibly from Mr. Villarreal-originated in Anchorage on the eighth of June, and knowing that the previous consortium had ended one day earlier, I had Kyle run a search for the name of any consortium fellow that might have arrived at Anchorage International Airport on either of those two days. And what do you know, up popped the name of one Rudolph Walker, who had flown from Toronto on the morning of the eighth, having flown to Toronto from London the day before. He stayed five hours, long enough, I should say, to send the fax and to pick up Mr. Villarreal’s car and dispose of it somewhere, then catch a 3:00 P.M. flight back to Toronto. That made it close enough to a virtual certainty to satisfy me. And the bloodstains in the room cinched it. So we nicked him.”

“Well done, Mike,” Gideon said.

“Hear, hear,” Madeleine said in the kitchen.

“The blood will go off to a laboratory for DNA analysis, and along with all that you’ve come up with, Gideon, I should say we’ll have a pretty strong case, whether Mr. Walker decides to cooperate or not.”

“He hasn’t confessed, then?” Julie asked.

“No, and I haven’t asked him to. It’s early days yet. He’s entitled to a legal adviser, you see, and he’s demanded one. The problem is that there aren’t any solicitors on the island, not a one. I offered him the opportunity to have telephone advice from Penzance, or London, or any place he liked, but he said that wasn’t good enough and refused.”

“You can’t really blame him,” said Gideon. “It wouldn’t be the same as having a lawyer at your side.”

“I don’t blame him. In his place, I would have done the same. In any event, he’s gotten hold of an experienced solicitor from Truro, but the gentleman isn’t available until tomorrow afternoon, so I’ve put the meat of the interrogation off until then. I want to be very sure I have all my procedural ducks in a row.”

Madeleine returned with Clapper’s bacon and eggs and put them before him.

“Ah, thank you, love,” he said, immediately setting to.

“And what about Joey’s murder?” Gideon asked. “Do you have anything to go on that connects Rudy to that? Anything solid?”

“Not yet,” Clapper said placidly. “Nothing more than conjecture, but then we’ve only just begun, you know. Don’t even have the autopsy report yet. I’m anxious to see that.”

Madeleine seized on the lull in conversation to change the subject. “What happens to you two now?” she asked Gideon and Julie from the kitchen. “I assume the rest of the consortium has been called off.”

“That’s because you don’t know Vasily,” Julie said. “No, we have one more day to go tomorrow, and he’s already informed us that he expects us-”

“Those of you still left,” said Gideon.

“-to be there. Vasily Kozlov’s not the man to have his schedule upset by a murder or two.” She accepted another cup of tea from Madeleine. “Thank you. And then on Monday we catch the 1:00 P.M. ferry for Penzance, and the train to London. We fly from Heathrow that night.”

“Perhaps we can have dinner tomorrow night?” Madeleine suggested. “Something heartier than eggs and bacon?”

“Absolutely,” said Gideon. “Our treat.”

“And then we’ll see you in October for our”-charmingly, she blushed-“wedding?” Although she was fifty, Gideon knew, this would be her first marriage, so blushes were in order.

“I suspect we’ll see them, or Gideon, at any rate, before then,” Clapper said. “We’ll need him to give evidence at trial.”

Having by now put away the last of his second helping, Clapper finally set down his knife and fork. “That was splendid, love,” he said to Madeleine, who beamed back at him, then went so far as to dab at a bit of egg beside his mouth with the corner of her own napkin.

“Oh, don’t fuss so, woman,” he griped, but it was obvious that he was loving it; that they both were loving it. Madeleine kept on digging until the egg came away, while Clapper’s happy eyes, raised helplessly to the ceiling, said: What can I do? The woman is mad about me!