A Sticky End (24 page)

I lay on top of him for a while, both of us panting. Finally I withdrew.

“Well, McDermott, either you're telling the truth or that was the greatest performance since Gielgud's Hamlet. I'm inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

“Thank you, sir.” He got up and started dressing; his pants had been roughly pulled over one boot and were in disrepair, torn up the side seam. That would take some
explaining. “I really did enjoy it. I really am queer. Honestly I am.”

“I believe you, McDermott.” I put my cock away and tossed him his shirt.

“May I go now, doctor?”

“You may.” I put things back in my bag. “Oh, before you go, McDermott, there was one last question I wanted to ask you.”

He was his usual cocky, confident self now, and I found him almost painfully attractive. “Fire away.”

“Did you know that Frank Bartlett's dead?”

“I…” Silence fell with an awful suddenness.

“Yes?”

“Frank…Bartlett.”

“Dead. Yes.”

The fear was back in his eyes, 20 times worse than before.

“I didn't do it.”

“What an extraordinary thing to say, McDermott. Suggestive. You knew something about him, then?”

“I… No. I mean, yes. But I didn't—”

“I think, Jack, that you and I need to have a serious talk.”

His hand groped for the doorknob.

“Otherwise I'm afraid the results of our little—test, shall we call it, may have to become public.”

“You mean you—”

“Some people naturally tell the truth, McDermott. Others need a little persuasion. You fall well into the latter category.”

“You mean you fucked me just to…to…”

“To compromise you. Yes. To force a confession out of you, just as you forced money out of Frank Bartlett and others. How many were there, McDermott? How many men have you driven to suicide?”

“That's not how it is.”

“That's how it looks to me, Jacky boy. And that's how it's going to look to the police. Unless you can persuade me otherwise.”

“You want to fuck me again?”

Yes.

“No. That will not be necessary. I simply want some answers.”

“Very well.” He stood up straight. “Not here. Somewhere else.”

“Name the time and the place. And don't even think about not turning up.”

“The Forces and Reserves Club. Four o'clock. I'll be there as near four as I can.”

I knew the Forces and Reserves Club by reputation; this military lodging near Waterloo Station was regarded by some as an unofficial brothel.

“You'd better be, McDermott. Remember. I'm not fooling around.”

“I know.” He swallowed, stood to attention. “Sir.”

This had worked out better than I expected. I couldn't resist a final embellishment. “One more thing before you go, McDermott.”

“Yes, sir?”

I handed him the flask of piss, now cold and acrid.

“Get rid of this, would you?”

A LETTER HAD BEEN SLIPPED UNDER THE DOOR OF MY ROOM at the hospital, my name neatly typed on the envelope, a sheet of weighty notepaper inside bearing the address of Bartlett and Ross, solicitors. Mr. Walter Ross requested my attention on an urgent matter at my earliest convenience. There was nothing else, no mention of Frank Bartlett—though it was clearly him, rather than my putative investments, that the note concerned.

Even more urgent than finding out more about the dead man, however, was the fate of the living. It was now well after lunchtime (“lunch,” for me, had been a sandwich and a pint of milk, consumed on the hoof), and I still did not know whether Morgan had been released from Wimbledon Police Station.

I called Morgan's home from the phone booth in the hospital lobby, and got through to Belinda, who told me that Morgan was still “helping the police.” She had no idea when he would be home. Morgan's solicitor had been to the station and was told that his client would be released as soon as
the interview was concluded. Belinda's voice was calm—that was typical of her, coping in a crisis, keeping things on an even keel for the sake of the children—but I knew she must be feeling terrible, prey to all sorts of suspicions. I always imagined that she knew something of Morgan's “other” life—she would have to be blind to be entirely ignorant of the nature of our friendship—but, I suppose, like many a wife, she accepted her husband's extramural activities provided that they did not threaten her family.

I was a known quantity, a good and trusted friend who performed a valuable service for Harry Morgan. Belinda knew that I was never going to try to steal him away. But now, surely, she realized that there was something else—some unknown force at work. Did she suspect Frank Bartlett? Did she—as the police did, as I did—see something sinister in the fact that Bartlett died when he was alone with Morgan? Did she suspect that the friendship between the two men was somehow the cause of Bartlett's death? And, if so, did she take the next inevitable step of suspecting Morgan of wrongdoing? There was so much that we didn't know about Morgan—neither of us, it seemed, had the complete picture. There was a side of Morgan that, perhaps, only Frank Bartlett knew—and whatever it was, he could no longer tell.

If, at any time, I had hoped that this was all a horrible misunderstanding that would blow over once a few basic facts were established, that hope evaporated now. The police had held Morgan for nearly 24 hours. He had not, as far as I knew, been charged with anything, but neither had he been released. The police were biding their time. They believed they had their man; presumably they were now racing around town looking for enough evidence on which to bring a charge. Murder? Manslaughter? Something else? Whatever they were planning, it did not look good for Morgan. On one side, there was the might of the Metropolitan
Police, eager for a quick conviction. On the other side there was—me. Mitch Mitchell, amateur detective, who had already half condemned his best friend in his own mind.

And what did I have? What information had I collected that might somehow help save Morgan? Little, or nothing. I examined my facts, and they slipped through my fingers like water. Someone was blackmailing Frank Bartlett—possibly it was still Jack McDermott, but after our recent interview it seemed unlikely that he had driven Bartlett to his death. Bartlett was known for his lack of discretion, so much so that he was the talk of the Parthenon steamroom—but again, it seemed unlikely that a man like that would take his own life. He might suffer an occasional fit of remorse, might even endeavor to clean up his act once in a while and be a good husband, but he would soon slip back into his old ways. I know the type. I'm probably one myself. And then there was his own brother-in-law's suggestion that Bartlett was stealing from his own company to pay off blackmailers—that this was not the first time it had happened. Tippett had hinted at the same thing. The web was so tangled, how could I—one man with an average intelligence and a low attention level—ever hope to extricate my friend from its deadly threads?

I had to stop groping in the dark. He who gropes in the dark tends to find things he wasn't looking for—and, looking back over the last 36 hours, I'd found more cocks, asses, and mouths than was altogether plausible. The one thing most likely to distract me from a case is, of course, sex—and sex seemed to rear its head at every corner. Was this a coincidence? It often seems to me, when I reflect on my experiences, that whenever I am in close proximity to crime, to murder, sexual opportunities arise with far greater frequency. Why is this? Is my libido suddenly exaggerated by the nearness of death? Is it, as the Freudians would have us believe, evidence of the close relationship between Eros and
Thanatos? Or is it simply that criminals know exactly how to keep me occupied by throwing sexually attractive men in my way whenever I get too close for comfort? Whatever the reason, my three encounters with suspicious death have coincided with peaks in sexual activity. I will leave further analysis to the experts.

I hurried over to the City. How very different it was today from the ghost town of Sunday! The streets were thronged with workers, every man wearing a hat, a collar, and a tie, the shoes polished, the trousers pressed. Everyone had a purpose—to get from A to B as quickly as possible. Woe betide the idler, the sightseer, who stumbled into the Square Mile on pleasure bent: he or she would be mowed down by the herds of workers. This was not a place for recreation; it was a place for doing business as swiftly and efficiently as possible. Fortunately, I knew where I was going, kept my head down, and let the crowd carry me to the front door of Bartlett and Ross.

Arthur Tippett's head was visible through the window, bent over a ledger, he hair neatly plastered down; what a different view I'd had of him yesterday. He looked up as I entered, and did not betray our recent intimacy by so much as a flicker of the eyelid.

“Good afternoon, sir,” he said. “Mr. Ross is expecting you. One moment, please.”

He squeezed between desk and filing cabinet to make his way to the back office; was it my imagination, or did his ass give a little wiggle as he went? Perhaps that part of his anatomy remembered me, even if the rest of him did not. It had every reason to.

Walter Ross was a big, avuncular man—broad from his neck to his knees, powerfully built and well padded, the sort who usually radiates welcome and good fellowship. He had sandy hair, possibly once carroty red, now faded with time and graying at the edges. He wore the uniform of the prosperous
City solicitor—black suit, striped gray waistcoat, wing collar, bow tie, and a gold watch chain stretched across the ample dome of his stomach.

“Doctor Mitchell,” he said, extending a hand. I said Ross was the type who usually radiates welcome—but on this occasion, he looked positively forbidding. I could not know exactly what Tippett had told him, but I assumed that he somehow associated me with the murky business surrounding his late partner. Whether or not Ross knew of Bartlett's lateness, I could not yet ascertain.

“Bad business, this,” he said, indicating a chair. I sat; he remained standing.

“Sir?”

“Frank.” He paced the room.

“Ah.” I did not know whether to offer my commiserations, or to tut-tut over Bartlett's indiscretions. Ross was clearly building up to some statement; I would take my lead from him.

“The police were here this morning,” he said.

He knows.

“I'm so sorry.”

“Frank Bartlett was like a brother to me.”

“Yes.”

“But damn it all, Doctor Mitchell,” he said, spinning around on the balls of his feet and banging his hands on the desktop, “why did he kill himself?”

“The police are sure it was suicide?”

“Of course.” He frowned and searched my eyes with his. “What else could it be?”

I had no desire to promulgate any idea that this was murder, seeing as there was really only one possible suspect in the case. “I understand that they have to establish these things with a certain amount of evidence.”

“Quite so. Well, it seems they have done so.”

“Good.” Good? What a ridiculous thing to say. But I was
baffled. If the police were satisfied that this was suicide, why was Morgan still being held? What of the mystery of the strychnine in the mouthwash?

“Between you and me, Mitchell, it might be better for all of us this way. Tippett, here, tells me that you are acquainted with Harry Morgan.”

“Yes. Is that why you wanted to see me?”

“I want you to do me a favor, Doctor Mitchell. I know this is a lot to ask. You don't know me from Adam. Why should you help me? Truth is, we're in a damned awkward position, and I want as few people to suffer as possible.”

“When you say ‘we,' who do you mean?”

“The firm will close, of course. I was about to retire in any case. There's enough money in the bank, even after—well, enough to give Mrs. Ross and me a very comfortable few years. What's left of the business I will pass on to our Mr. Tippett. Ambitious man, Tippett, and very capable. If anyone can salvage something from this wreck, it's him. Good luck to him. But it's curtains for Bartlett and Ross. After all these years…” He sighed. “Well, so be it. Reputations come and go. It's no skin off my nose.”

“Then—whose nose, exactly, do you wish me to protect?”

“Doctor Mitchell, let me ask you a direct question. I hope you do not object.”

“Not in the slightest.”

“Do you trust Harry Morgan?”

I hesitated just long enough to make my “yes” sound anything but convincing.

“The thing is, there have been a few irregularities in Frank's business dealings in the last couple of years. I'm not saying that Morgan is behind them, simply that they coincide with the period of their…acquaintance. A suspicious mind might think that Morgan was in some way…”

“Implicated?”

“Implicated. That's the word. You would make a good lawyer, Mitchell.”

“I doubt that,” I said, thinking of the job I'd done on the “ambitious” Mr. Tippett over a bottle of scotch in my room. “But thank you.”

“The police came here looking for answers,” said Ross. “They wanted to know if Bartlett had been stealing from the firm, not to put too fine a point on it.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I said no, of course, but that didn't satisfy them. They asked me to look into it, and I had to comply. They have given us twenty-four hours in which to make a survey of Bartlett's financial dealings. Now, I know perfectly well that he had been borrowing from the firm in order to make…ex gratia payments to one or more individuals. Tippett tells me that these payments were sometimes made under duress. Do you follow me?”