Full of Money (9 page)

And Edgehill knew it to be all true, this magical metamorphosis of Rupert. Sandine did what she half promised Larry she would do. She'd ditched
The Godfather
, switched to Rupe and his blood, and so on. A bellyful of booze made her zoom, not nosedive. Grand! Edgehill had watched her performance, half thrilled, half appalled, thinking of Adrian and Dean. Pellotte's daughter wouldn't have enjoyed it either. She'd watch because her man appeared.
Her
man? Her man and who else's? And Flo wanted the two of them, Ralph and Sandine, to put on reruns of this crotch concurrence in a series! Hell, marvellous!

Larry saw Sachev Biggs was gazing at him, probably trying to read his reactions to Flo's call. He gave Sachev a thumbs up. He didn't deserve any blame. Or not too much, anyway. He was only a waiter, the bottles bloke. He hadn't intended hanging a notice around Rupe's neck, and possibly Sandine's, saying ‘Dump me dead in a playground'. Possibly around Larry's, too.

Sachev offered Edgehill a small, solemn nod in acknowledgement. Teamwork.

‘This has been a seminal experience for me,' Gerald said.

‘I hope Sandine and Bale dodge that.'

Seven

There were no more notes from Tasker's laptop and the next day Esther turned to the transcripts of the Dean Feston and Gabrielle Barter Cornish interrogations, done separately, of course. Feston had been questioned by Detective Sergeant Abner Cule, one of Esther's best interviewers. He would have seen the Tasker laptop recovered notes. Esther skipped some preliminaries. Then:

Esther had watched some of the interview via the one-way glass. Feston looked at ease, as Esther would have expected. He'd been through a lot of interrogations before. He knew what signs Cule would be alert for, as symptoms of lying and guilt. Feston didn't give any, not in what he said, nor in body language. The manuals taught that guilty liars were inclined to answer the interviewer's questions in brief, terse terms and offer no additional comment. That is, if they answered at all. Feston's reveries about the writer – Powell, Pole? Who he? – such wanderings would be regarded by some interrogation experts as evidence of untroubled innocence. So would other reactions. For instance, Esther saw no hesitations in Feston's replies. In fact, he seemed to be enjoying the chance of a chinwag. His voice sounded comfortable and assured, his grammar stayed OK, and his breathing. All sorts of research had been done on breathing as an indicator of truth/falsehood.

Cule liked to operate in a room with no table between him and the suspect. He believed a table not only imposed distance, but acted as a kind of protective barrier for the subject, a rampart. Also, with no table to hide the lower body any uncontrolled, spasmodic movement there would be on show. Some interviewees could regulate their facial expressions well enough and keep their features deadpan or relaxed or even jolly. They concentrated on this, because they believed the interviewer would watch the face for giveaway symptoms of confusion or fright or concealment. Their anxieties might register in their feet and legs, though. And in their bladder and/or bowels, of course: this would be evident whether the room had a table or not. But Feston stayed composed throughout his entire body. He didn't smile non-stop, like a frozen, taunting, defensive pose, but when he did smile it was a happy testament to mateyness and contentment. Esther had the idea he knew there would be an invisible audience behind the window, and he behaved as though he wanted to convey that mateyness and share that contentment not just with Cule but with her and anyone else taking a peep. You'd think Feston was the host and all the rest guests to be considerately cared for and entertained. No wonder he'd risen to be chief bottle washer and top dogsbody in the Pellotte outfit.