A Poison Tree (Time, Blood and Karma Book 3) (23 page)

Claire was not the unfaithful one.

I was
.

But there was more to this, much more.

I shouldered aside my feelings of guilt and self-loathing. There would be time enough for those later.

How often we fail to see what is right in front of us.

In some ways, it is unsurprising that connecting the dots is difficult. Every second of every day information bombards our senses. The more we take in, the more superficial our view. On the other hand, the more we concentrate, the more we miss, for when we direct our attention to one item, we ignore other things at the periphery. We need to be able to take in a bird’s eye view and deploy a microscope at the same time. But our brain does not work that way. Meantime it corrupts the data, colouring it with our own experiences and prejudices. Therefore to solve an interconnected problem, we require an epiphany, triggered by a chance remark or the surfacing of some relevant memory. Where our forebrain fails us, we need a subconscious connection; something to shine a narrow spotlight on the place where we should have been looking for answers all along.

Epiphanies do happen. Sometimes they happen on a bench in the grounds of a hospital.

An anonymous letter directed at Jack Irving, to cause him trouble
. That’s what people would think. But I knew better. First the phone call, then the letter. The pattern that had been eluding me came into focus.

The
primary purpose of the letter was not to wound Irving. It was intended to turn him into a weapon against Max Harper, the man who had slept with Jim Fosse’s wife.

A
nd then another piece of the jigsaw slid into place as I recalled a conversation I had with Katie in Bali.
Portfolio theory for the criminal mind,
were the words she had used. It explained many things.

I pulled out DCI Banks’ card
.

Given Eleanor’s knowledge about Claire and Jack – and the fact that she might speak to the police about it, if she hadn’t already – I was left with no choice but to raise the matter with my wife.

“I want you to know that I love you,” I said.

“I know that.”

“Sit down, Claire.”

“What is it?”

“It’s about Jack.”

“Have you been to the hospital? Is he dead?”

“No. I mean, it’s about you and Jack.”

It was the last conversation I wanted to have, and much crying resulted. My wife was contrite but swore that although her liaison was conducted in an atmosphere of secrecy, no lovemaking had occurred even when she spent the night with Jack in London.

“Did you give him a blow job?” I said.

“No.”

“A hand job?”

“No.”

“Did he ask you to?”

“David, please.”

I turned my face away, disgusted at my own brutality.

Claire knelt in front of me, resting her hands on my knee. I didn’t pull back. My anger was directed inwards, not at Claire. She hadn’t hurt me. I had hurt myself.

“You want the details, David?” She brushed back the hair that had fallen across her face. “You’re entitled,” she said, her voice hoarse. “He kissed me. I kissed him. He held me. I lay beside him. That is all that happened. I swear to you that is all. We talked.”

“What about?”

“About lots of trivial things. But mainly about Daniel.”

“You talked to him about Daniel, but you didn’t talk to me?”

“That’s right. I’m so sorry, David.”

I reached forward, cradled her in my arms, and drew her against me. The tears came.

Claire had needed to unburden herself about our son, and about all the sensations of helplessness and futility his death evoked in her. I had felt the same need. I just hadn’t acted on it in the same way. Things had developed from there, and gone too far. Listening to Claire, it was obvious that Daniel’s death had affected her much more than I had realised. She was plagued by guilt and regret that she had not been able to reach out to me.

I believed everything she said. Even if her explanations had not rang true, given Eleanor’s words, I would still have believed her. Because I wanted to. Because I needed things to be right between us. Because I loved her.

I told her I understood and that we would get through this.

If I could have confessed to Claire about Adele and Cumberbatch and Anna, I would have. But I knew I could not. It would have destroyed everything. The rest of our life together would have to be spent with those lies of omission; a stain on our relationship that would be visible only to me.

So as I reassured Claire that I forgave her, the hypocrisy of my words seared me like a branding iron.

When I related the Jim Fosse saga, Claire was concerned but content that at least now it was in the hands of the police. I think Claire’s own feelings of guilt so consumed her at the time, it was hard for her to process the implications of Fosse’s scheming. That was probably just as well.

Claire suffered.

I lied.

What a piece of work I was.

35

DAVID

It was around eight o’clock when I parked outside Jim Fosse’s house. His car was in the drive and the downstairs lights were on
, the curtains drawn. The pile of patio slabs was gone. As I approached the front door I could hear the sound of Mahler’s ‘Adagietto’ from Symphony No. 5.

The door was answered after a few seconds
. The man of the house stood there barefoot in a blue-and-white kimono, a glass of whisky in his hand.

“Ah, David.” He
did not appear surprised.

“I know what you’ve been doing, Jim,” I said.

“Really?” he replied. “Well then, you’d better come in.”

He ushered me into the sitting room where the theme from ‘Death in Venice’
played.

“Couldn’t you just
die
for Mahler?” He twirled theatrically across the floor.

“Frankly, no. Can you turn the volume down?”

Jim looked at me as if I had just said something obscene. Then he picked up the remote control, pressed a button and the music stopped.

The silence felt loud. Jim Fosse regarded me for a few seconds.

“Please sit down. Would you like a drink?”

“No, thanks.”

“Oh, please. Join me for a whisky. I’m getting myself a refill. From the expression on your face it looks as though at least one of us is going to need a stiff drink.”

Without waiting for an answer
, he swept into the kitchen and after a few moments I could hear the chink of ice. I took a seat on the large sofa and surveyed the room. It was completely different from the evening of the dinner party. Lots of dark wood furniture and Asian artefacts. Expensive rugs from the Indian sub-continent. A large abstract bronze statue filling a corner. Japanese water colours on the walls. There was nothing to indicate the owner was American.

Jim returned with two whisk
ies on the rocks, passed me one and sat down opposite. He raised his glass.

“What shall we drink to, David?”

“How about ‘just desserts’?”

“Or ‘absent friends’, perhaps?”

Jim sipped while I looked at my whisky.

He leaned forward and tapped me on the knee.

“It’s not poisoned, you know. I wouldn’t waste good Scotch. That would be a heresy. Or do I mean ‘heterodoxy’?”

I declined to offer an opinion
.

“
This is a Campbeltown single malt,” he said, as if that settled the matter.

I drank and put the glass down on the coffee table.

We looked at each other steadily for a few moments.

“I know what you’ve been up to, Jim. I worked it out.”

“Aside from grieving for my missing wife, you mean? Aside from hoping she’ll walk back through the front door?”

“You know very well your wife isn’t coming back. Because you killed her.”

Jim wrinkled his nose.

“And how exactly did I do that, David? I was in the Philippines when my wife disappeared. I’m sure the police have checked all this out thoroughly. My travel dates, passport stamps, airline bookings
– and the fact that my wife was seen on several occasions after I’d left the UK.”

He paused and
raised the drink to his lips.

“I don’t mean you did the actual deed. But I know that you arranged it.”

“Actually, David, I thought that you might have done the deed; that perhaps you’d taken our drunken conversation at the Bell seriously, and killed my wife expecting me to kill yours in return.”

“Cut the bull
shit, Jim.”

“You know, that reminds me. You haven’t seen my new patio yet, have you?
It took me a while to lay, but it was a labour of love. Do you want to see it?”

“No.”

“I expect if the police are of your mind, they will want to dig it up to see if there is anyone underneath it. I guess that’s all part of the game.”

“This is not a game.”

“No? Are you sure?” He sighed. “OK, David, set out your theory. But please remember you are talking to a man who is in an emotional state and go gentle.” He winked at me.

I settled
back in my chair. “I’ve been doing some checking up on you, Jim.”

“How exciting.”

“It seems the police in North Carolina are still very interested in you. They haven’t yet closed the file on your first wife’s death. Big insurance pay out, wasn’t it?”

Jim was unfazed. “Yes, indeed. But if you have done your homework, you will know there was no evidence to charge me with anything. I wasn’t even in the country when Carol died.”

“Maybe not. But a gentleman by the name of Hank Taylor was. Just as you were in the country and
he
was abroad when his wife, Vivien Taylor was shot dead.”

Jim raised his eyebrows. “My, you have been busy, David.
I’m impressed. You’re wasted in a car showroom. You should be a private detective. I can see you in a long coat, smoking your Marlboros.”

“A wife for a wife.”

“Ah, I see where you’re going with this. But poor old Hank hanged himself. Dead end there,” he said, sounding apologetic.

“Convenient.”

“Oh, David, where’s your humanity? Here, before you go on, let me top you up.”

Before I could refuse, he took my whisky glass and disappeared for a few minutes, then put a refreshed glass down in front of me.

“Please continue. I’m gripped.”

“I figured out your method. Perhaps with Hank Taylor you got lucky. He was an old school friend of yours. So he may have been receptive to your proposal, although in the end he couldn’t handle what he had been party to. At least he didn’t feel he had to drop you in it. So instead, he assumed your guilt and took it with him to his grave.”

Jim had been staring at his glass. “I’m listening,” he said.

“Here in England, you would have to vary your approach a bit. Nobody knows you, so you would need to cast your net a little wider for a gullible fish. But you would have to be careful, couch your idea in a way that could be taken as a joke, if your target associate reacted the wrong way. Risky to approach several people, but the chance of your finding the right guy would be increased.” I paused to let this sink in. “
Portfolio theory for the criminal mind
. Quite clever, I must admit. It would not occur to the person you approached that he was not the only one you were considering as a partner-in-crime. Whoever you talked to would be likely to keep quiet if they found out later Monique had died. They would not want to get involved: few people are that public-spirited. They’re more concerned about self-preservation. They wouldn’t want to talk to the police and have to explain they had had a discussion about killing someone. Neither would they want their wives to know. You are pretty shrewd on matters of psychology, and would have factored that in.”

“And you know this – how?” he said.

“When I considered who else you might talk to, Mat Hoggard came to mind. When he also happened to be a dinner guest, it clicked into place. That was careless of you, Jim.”

My companion said nothing
, his mouth a thin line.

“
Well, I talked to Mat,” I continued. “It seems you did have a rather similar conversation with him to the one you had with me.”

“So I have a rather black sense of humour, David. That’s not a crime. If it were, half your English stand-up comedians would be in jail.” Jim eyed me. “I will say, though, that you certainly have the imagination to be a
film noir
screenwriter, or even a private eye if you put your mind to it. However, if you want to play policeman, there is this thing called
evidence
to consider.”

I picked up my whisky and
drank while I waited for his move.

“So who killed Monique according to your hypothesis? Surely not Mat
Hoggard. He wouldn’t have spoken to you if that were the case. And, as I think we both know, he wouldn’t have the balls for such an undertaking. Furthermore, if your theory were correct, presumably I should be killing someone else’s wife round about now.” Jim was enjoying the conversation. “Would you like to have a look around the house? See if I have any bodies lying about anywhere? Maybe it’s someone else’s wife under my new patio. What do you think?”

I
straightened my back and looked him straight in the eyes. “I think you organised a professional hit on Monique. That’s what I think. Your other plan is just too crazy to work. What is more, you’ve been fucking with my mind just for the fun of it. Or maybe to keep me quiet.”

Jim gave a long, tired sigh. “So, no proof. All just theory. A pity. You had me interested there for a while.
”

“I haven’t finished
yet.”

“Oh, good.”

“You were the one who made those anonymous phone calls to me and sent me that poison pen letter alleging things about Claire. It was to get me stirred up. You did the same to Mat Hoggard. And you gave Jack Irving the same treatment, not because you wanted to get at
him
, but because you wanted him to confront Max Harper – the man who was sleeping with your wife. I saw you following Monique when she met Harper at a hotel. That Harper was killed must have exceeded your wildest dreams for revenge. Pity Irving had to be reduced to a vegetable at the same time. But then for you, that’s just collateral damage, right? ”

Jim
appeared unruffled. “More supposition. Still, these are all good stories, David.” He drained his glass. “Shall I tell you a story now?”

His calmness infuriated me.

“This is an entirely hypothetical story, you understand. But since you have transported us to some fantasy land already, let me continue in the same vein,” Jim said. “If I were the cold-blooded person you assume me to be, do you know what I would have done? Let me paint you an alternative scenario. I would have printed out a letter from you to me which suggests we kill each other’s wives. Then I would have made sure it had your fingerprints on it.”

“And how would you have done that?”

He waved his hands in the air. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “Perhaps that night you came to dinner and I passed you the wrong piece of paper when we were out on the patio. Maybe that was the letter. You gave it back to me, remember? I guess I’d still have that somewhere.” He smiled innocently. “Then do you know what I’d do? I’d serve you a Campbeltown single malt whisky, and when you’d finished it, I’d offer you another one. Meantime, I’d take your original glass with me and put it in my safe, and give you your second whisky in a new glass. The saliva containing traces of your DNA could then be transferred onto the gummed flap of an envelope containing the letter I mentioned earlier. That way, if there was any police investigation, I could produce the evidence which pointed to you originating this whole scheme for killing each other’s wives. You’d be the prime suspect in Monique’s disappearance then, wouldn’t you?”

“You little bastard.”

He spread his hands and assumed a virtuous air. “However, as I say, all this is just hypothetical. Still, best you not talk to the police, eh? They can be rather suspicious individuals and you never know which way they’ll jump. Now if you would excuse me, David, I’m rather tired and I would like to listen to some more Mahler before I turn in. Give my kindest regards to Claire, won’t you?”

I left Fosse’s house and drove past the unmarked van parked just down the road. I stopped after a mile in a lay-by and called DCI Banks.

“I assume you’re in the van with your team? I didn’t think you’d appreciate my knocking on the back door,” I said.

“Right on both counts.” Banks sounded morose.

“Did you get anything usable?”

“No. None of this would stand up in court. Not the way Fosse was at pains to describe everything as hypothetical. It’s almost as if he knew you were wearing a wire.”

I removed my hidden microphone and transmitter and threw them on the passenger seat in disgust.

“He’s smart. And careful,” Banks continued. “You somehow expect a modern-day Bluebeard to be tall and wearing a pirate hat, and not some tubby little American who listens to Mahler.” There was a pause. “If it’s any consolation, Mr. Braddock, I am inclined to believe your version of events, not Fosse’s. I don’t think you’re the guilty party in this.”

“Thanks a million.” I struggled to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

“We will get him.”

“When? On his third
wife or fourth wife? Assuming he’s even in England then. What about the forensics on that paper I gave you? You said you’d get back to me but never did.”

I heard Banks suck in a deep breath of air. “There were fingerprints on the poison pen letter and its envelope, but I would guess none of those are Fosse’s, though of course we will check. We will have to fingerprint your staff, I’m afraid, as well as you. No DNA evidence. The cell phone number that called you had a pay-and-go SIM card, so it’s not traceable. As for the travel schedule that Fosse gave you, his fingerprints may be on that or its envelope but even then, that proves nothing.”