19 DRIBBLING

Approaching the nitty gritty with the first of four interviews...

It was getting late and the interview rooms at Brumpton Police Station were occupied by a selection of murder suspects, all of whom seemed to have been on the cusp of confessing to the murder of Philip Buttery, librarian and until recent times an all-round good egg in the eyes of most people.

But he can’t have been an all-round good egg, or he wouldn’t have been murdered. That was Detective Inspector Rosie Baur’s conclusion, and it made sense though it didn’t help her decide who the killer was.

She was suffering from a lack of evidence. The man had been blinded, and the pathologist Cardew Dingle had suggested that the most likely instrument had been some kind of spoon. She couldn’t imagine how anyone could actually do that kind of thing to another human being and concluded that whoever it was must have been truly emotionally angry and believed he (or she, it might have been a she) was right. It was cold-blooded, pre-meditated and gory. The killer had been offended by the man’s eyes, and had left him blinded and unconscious, and traces of medicated elastoplast showed his mouth had been covered, probably to prevent him being heard when he regained consciousness, and then had been ripped off and discarded (probably in the already emptied wheelie bins and probably along with the murder weapons, she included the blinding instrument as a murder weapon) post-mortem.

There had been two blows to the head, one before the other, the first at the time of the gouging of the man’s eyes in what must have been a real fit of anger, but it had been the second blow possibly an hour later that had actually killed him. But the weapon used, something rusty and made, obviously, of iron had most likely been the same as had caused the initial head injury.

That was the evidence of the body, and that was all she had with the exception of four people sitting in four interview rooms.

She sighed out loud and called Peter Jenson to her. “You take the girl and I’ll take the lad,” she said. “I don’t think either of them did anything, though they both had motives. The trouble is, I’ve got four suspects with four sexual-ish motives, and I don’t like it one bit.”

She and Constable Thrives walked purposefully into the first of the four interview rooms. There were only four such rooms at Brumpton nick, and she hoped nobody else would be foolish enough to commit a crime that needed an interview before she had sorted this mess out. He was already there, and a duty solicitor was sitting next to him, a bored expression on his legal face.

“Right Denis,” she said crisply, sitting in front of him and contriving a severe expression on what was probably a weary-looking face. “Let’s get this over with, shall we? The last time we spoke you said you loved your sister. Explain, and don’t make it difficult for me to understand or I’ll simply charge you with murder and have you locked away for the duration.”

“You can’t say that...” began the solicitor.

She looked at him, and unusually a member of the legal profession withered under the stare from her almost black eyes.

“A man has been murdered and I plan on finding out who did it,” she said firmly. “Why, for goodness’ sake, if I let the guilty man go on the whim of a pasty-faced legal-eagle then I wouldn’t be surprised if the next person he killed was that legal-eagle. Get me?”

The man nodded and decided that silence would be the best policy until he had something really substantial to complain about, and he knew that Detective Inspector Baur had quite a reputation in the town, and not one of making mistakes.

“So what did you mean by loving your sister?” she asked.

“Of course I love her!” he said, quietly, thoughtfully, his voice devoid of anger. “We’re twins. We’re almost joined at the hip, like most twins are. It’s natural, like breathing. I look out for her.”

“I’ve got twins at home,” Rosie told him, “and think I can see what you mean. But tell me. You told us that there was a remarkable similarity between your mother as a younger woman and your twin sister as she is now...”

“That’s right! I’ve seen old photos.”

“And you implied that your father was a lonely man who found himself being mentally transported back into his youth by looking at the girl he’d fathered because he reminds her of his first love…?”

“Well, he would, wouldn’t he?” asked Denis defiantly. “And mum wasn’t kind to him, you know. He even had to sleep in his own room!”

“Had to or chose to?” asked the Constable, needing to be seen as part of the team. Rosie looked at him and nodded with a smile. “Answer the Constable,” she said.

“Had to. He had to.” mumbled Denis.

“What do you think your father got up to with your twin sister?” asked Rosie.

“I think he … I think they had … sex!” almost spat Denis.

“You’re sure of that?” asked Rosie.

“Absolutely! She told me!”

“Who did? Your mother?”

“How would she know? No, it was Amelia. She said they had sex. I hated her for doing it!”

“Hated her? Why her?”

“Because she’s too young and pretty to be messed around with by an old man, and letting him!”

“You know that one of the things that we do when there’s a question of sexual activity is to have girls checked over, to see that they’re all right, to make sure that nothing inappropriate has been done to them?” asked Rosie, “well, a doctor took a peep at your sister and there can be no doubt about it: she’s a virgin and has never had sexual intercourse with anyone. What do you say to that?”

“A dirty old doctor messed with my sister?” There was the start of an explosion in his voice as he stared at Rosie and then, giving in, looked down.

“There are female doctors,” said Rosie.

“And you’re sure … are you saying … it’s not possible … that she lied to me!”

“She must have done if she told you different. Now, young man, tell me what really happened that evening when you visited your parents.”

“I was with mum, on the landing...” Denis looked up at Rosie, and then away. “I’ll tell you everything,” he decided. “Amelia had gone to the toilet and not shut the door properly, and it swung open, and we both saw it. We both saw dad staring at her where she sat, and almost dribbling!”

“You saw dribble?” asked the Constable, a stickler for detail. “Actual real dribble?”

“He was! He must have been! Mum told me. Look at him dribbling, she said. Then he must have known we had noticed because he told her to shut the door. And she leaned forwards, and shut the door and dad went on his way.”

“Still dribbling?” asked Rosie.

“I don’t know. I really don’t know,” whispered Denis. “He just went.”

TO BE CONTINUED

© Peter Rogerson 12.03.17