Close Call (30 page)

‘But you didn't do it.'

Carol hoped it was a statement, not a question. Perhaps she should have been insulted. Instead, she found herself merely anxious to reassure this blundering husband, who seemed to have learned so little about life during all his pathetic attempts to find love in strange places. ‘No, I didn't do it, Phil. But there were times when I'd have liked to kill Rob Durkin. And when I found he was dead last Sunday, I felt no real sorrow, just an overwhelming relief.'

He smiled. That at any rate was an assurance that she had no longer felt anything for the man. ‘So did I. He won't be here to worry us any more. So it's up to us to pick up the pieces and get on with our lives.'

Phil wasn't going to stop thinking and talking in clichés, Carol thought. But so long as the clichés expressed the right sentiments and were genuinely felt, she didn't give a damn. She said as casually as she could, ‘I think you'd better move back into the main bedroom tonight, don't you?'

Philip Smart could think of nothing to say. Eventually he managed, ‘If you want me to, I will.'

‘I do want you to. Be such a pity if you didn't have proper access to our wonderful new en suite bathroom, you see.'

Carol Smart knew that it was up to her to produce the little joke Phil would never have managed, to pretend that the most deeply serious things in life were really quite trivial. Humour was the only way you could cope, sometimes, when the things at stake were so tremendous.

In the third house in Gurney Close, the one where Robin Durkin had died, his wife was determinedly getting on with her life.

Ally Durkin refused all invitations from others and made herself an excellent casserole, which would do for her evening meal today and tomorrow. At six o'clock, she would open a good bottle of red wine; but not before six, because there was no way she was going to run the risk of becoming an old soak.

At four o'clock, she was speaking to her sister on the phone. ‘No, I shall be staying here … Quite definitely made my mind up, yes. This was the house I wanted, the one I worked on with the builders at the planning stage, and I don't see why Rob's death should alter that … No, apparently I shouldn't have any worries about money. He was a lot better off than he cared to declare to anyone, apparently … I don't know where most of it came from – it certainly wasn't the garage – and maybe I shouldn't ask too much about that … Actually, I don't need to worry about funeral arrangements for the moment. They can't release the body for cremation yet. A nice young woman police officer came round and explained it all to me on Thursday. Apparently when they make an arrest and charge someone, the accused will have a right to a second, independent post-mortem … No, that doesn't really upset me at all. Our marriage was over and it's a relief now to be able to admit it … I suppose I might be in shock, yes. Just a little. They told me I could have counselling, but I don't feel I need it. I'll come and see you though, in a week or two … I think I'll quite enjoy it here, when everything's calmed down again. I like my neighbours, and I'm sure we're going to get on very well in the years to come … No, you're not to worry about me at all. I'll ring you in a couple of days and let you know when I can come over.'

She put the phone down and sat contentedly in her chair, looking out not at the back garden and the spot where Rob had fallen, but at the small patch in front which she would need to work on. It seemed to her impossible that any of these nice neighbours could possibly have committed murder.

That was the thought in her mind as she saw the now-familiar police car appear at the corner. It moved slowly past the three houses and turned into the drive of the single bungalow at the end of Gurney Close.

‘I
t's the CID again. They say they want to speak to you, Ron.' Rosemary Lennox did not trust herself to say any more as she led in Chief Superintendent Lambert and Detective Sergeant Hook.

Ron Lennox was in an old green leisure shirt with the top button missing. He looked up from the sports section of the
Times
and gestured towards the sofa opposite his armchair. ‘Do take a pew, gentlemen. And please excuse my dress: I was working in the garden earlier in the day.'

He pushed himself a little further back into his chair, anxious to convince them that he was thoroughly relaxed and unthreatened. His sparse hair was dishevelled from his efforts at clearing brambles at the back of the garden, emphasizing the high dome of his forehead and the narrowness of the head behind it. He clasped his arms across his chest and then unclasped them immediately, in a gesture which was obviously habitual and gave him comfort. Then he grasped the wood at the end of the arms of his chair firmly in his lean fingers, as if the action was necessary to immobilize his hands.

Lennox's shabby gardening trousers had ridden up high as he sat back, so that an inch of very white leg showed between socks and trousers. The forearms which protruded too far from his short-sleeved shirt were sinewy without any great sign of strength. There was a smear of blood on the back of his left hand where a bramble had scratched him, another and fainter smear on his cheek where he had dragged that hand across it.

Despite the spurious confidence of his greeting, Ronald Lennox now looked watchful, frail and very vulnerable.

He said primly, ‘I trust you are making progress, Mr Lambert. I'm only too anxious to help, of course, but I can't think that I can possibly be of any further help to you.'

Lambert didn't hurry. He knew he held all the cards now. But a confession was always helpful. He said quietly, ‘Your son spoke to a CID inspector in Cambridge this morning.'

‘So I understand. The boy spoke to his mother on the telephone whilst I was in the garden. I realize that neither you nor Detective Sergeant Hook was personally involved, but I feel I must protest at his arrest. It won't do Andrew any good with his employers you know – even if they are only supermarket executives.' He could not conceal his distaste for his son's choice of temporary employment. ‘An arrest is hardly appropriate treatment, you know, for a putative Cambridge graduate.'

‘Your son wasn't arrested, Mr Lennox. He was asked to help the Cambridge police with their enquiries, which they were pursuing on our behalf.'

‘I'm glad to hear it. Nevertheless, this heavy-handed—'

‘Andrew could have been arrested, however. Indeed, I'd say he's lucky that he wasn't both arrested and charged, in the past. Lucky not to be carrying a criminal record into the final year of his studies for his putative degree, in fact.'

‘To me, this is amazing and quite ridiculous.' Lennox decided not to be irritated by the superintendent's ironic repetition of his word ‘putative'. He clasped his thin hands together in his lap, wrung them against each other for a few seconds, and then returned them to the arms of his chair. ‘But I make a point of never commenting upon things which I do not understand, so I shall hold my peace.'

It was impossible to tell whether Ron Lennox was shaken or not. Lambert realized in that moment that the man had prepared this reaction for them, probably at the moment an hour or two earlier when he had learned of his son's being questioned. ‘I'm speaking of the time when he was dealing drugs for Robin Durkin. When he was a pusher for him, a junior in the ranks of his drugs operation.'

‘You may think that you have the facts of the matter, Superintendent. I could not possibly comment.' Ron remembered the actor Ian Richardson saying something like that, in a play on television.
House of Cards
, he thought it was. Not Shakespeare, by any means, but an appealing enough melodramatic trifle. People had sometimes compared him to Ian Richardson, and he was flattered by the thought, since he liked the actor. He had rather taken to imitating his thin-lipped, acerbic delivery since two or three people at school had mentioned the likeness.

It was Rosemary Lennox, sitting with drawn face on an upright chair at the back of the room, who now said, ‘Andy left all that behind him long ago. I hope no one is going to charge him with dealing at this stage of his life.'

Lambert turned his head for a moment and looked at her steadily. ‘That is out of our hands, Mrs Lennox. But I don't think it is likely there will be charges; I gather that your son has so far been fully cooperative.'

Ron Lennox should have been relieved by this diversion. Instead, he felt a little piqued that he should not even for an instant be the centre of attention here. He said querulously, ‘I can't see that Andrew's evidence has anything to offer that could possibly be relevant to—'

‘Not evidence, Mr Lennox. Not as yet. Andrew has merely being cooperating with a police investigation. Helping us with our enquiries into the murder of Mr Robin Durkin.'

‘Andrew has nothing to say about this. He hadn't even spoken to Durkin for years.'

‘Nevertheless, he is central to this case. He is the reason why you decided that you had to silence Robin Durkin.'

Lambert had expected gasps of astonishment, or shrieks of protest. Instead, there was absolute silence, so that the raucous cry of a seagull, drifting inland before the approaching rain, rang unnaturally loud through the open window. Rosemary Lennox sat as still as a well-dressed statue on her chair at the back of the room, and Lambert sensed in that moment that she already knew exactly what her husband had done. Ronald Lennox had scarcely blinked at the words from the superintendent. He sat with his knuckles whitening with the fierceness of his grip on the arms of his chair, wondering whether to accept or deny the accusation.

It was Bert Hook, sensing as usual the moment when an intervention from him would be most telling, who now said softly, ‘You hated Rob Durkin a lot more than you admitted to us, even back in his school days, didn't you, Mr Lennox?'

Ron turned eagerly to the ruddy, experienced face, sensing a chance for self-justification rather than the invitation to incriminate himself. ‘He was disruptive and malicious throughout his time in the sixth form. He was a dreadful influence upon his peers, even then. And among the staff, he singled me out particularly for his contempt and his derision. I don't think I would be exaggerating if I say that even all those years ago he was vicious.'

He weighed the word for a moment and nodded slowly, demonstrating to them that even in this context it was important for him to be accurate in his vocabulary. Hook nodded sympathetically, as if Lennox was now making things much clearer for him. ‘And after Durkin had left school, things only got worse, didn't they?'

Ron nodded eagerly, careless of the implications for himself of what he was saying, anxious only to make clear the nature of the evil he had been fighting. ‘I breathed a huge sigh of relief when Rob Durkin walked through the school gates for the last time. But things got worse, rather than better. I would see him in his car outside the school gates, smiling at me, letting me know that he was still around, still making mischief.'

Rosemary Lennox leaned forward on her chair, the first, minimal movement she had made since she had taken up her post on the edge of this dramatic tableau. ‘You don't have to say this, Ron. You should keep quiet, you know. You should wait for a lawyer's advice.'

‘Lawyers!' His contempt for a whole profession was crammed into two syllables. ‘They're no more efficient and no less grasping today than when Dickens laid into them in
Bleak House
. I'm not here to make fat fees for lawyers. I brought more justice to the world than a thousand lawyers when I killed Rob Durkin!'

His admission stunned all four of them for a second or two. Then Bert Hook glanced at Lambert and stepped forward to the man who sat so tense and still in the armchair. He informed Ronald Lennox calmly that he was being arrested on suspicion of the murder of Robin Durkin, that he did not need to say anything, but that it might harm his defence if he failed to mention when questioned something which he might later rely on in court.

Lennox scarcely listened to him, appearing only anxious to speak. He said right on the heels of Hook's last word, ‘The world is well rid of Robin Durkin. I shall be proud to justify that to anyone who will listen.'

Lambert saw that Lennox was transforming himself from murderer to martyr, that this would be the image he would use to sustain him through the long years in prison. He said quietly, ‘You are an intelligent man, Mr Lennox. You know better than most that we cannot allow people to take justice into their own hands.'

Lennox looked as if he would like to engage his nemesis in a philosophical discussion about the defects of the law. Then he nodded, and said, ‘That way anarchy lies. That way civilization disappears. You're right, Chief Superintendent Lambert, of course you are, in general. But the system falls down with men like Durkin. The system isn't efficient enough to deal with them. He'd have come to grief eventually, no doubt, but a lot of better people than him would have suffered at his hands before the law got to him.'

‘People like your only son.'

‘He said he'd ruin Andrew. Said he'd be delighted to expose his dealing in drugs at the right time, when he'd graduated from Cambridge and was embarking upon a career. Said it would be the crowning victory in the campaign he'd waged against me since he was at school. I've got things he gave to me to show what he could do to us. Photographs of Andy when he was dealing, photocopies of orders my son sent to his supplier for illegal drugs. Cocaine, heroin, LSD, as well as lots of cannabis. Lists with Andrew's name on them, but nothing to implicate Durkin. He was much higher up the chain by then. Durkin said he'd drop them anonymously into a police station when he thought the time was right.'

Lambert doubted whether he would ever have done that: there would have been too great a danger of the mud spreading wider and smearing him as well, too great a danger of the action implicating other and more dangerous people in that vicious industry. But everyone said that Durkin had enjoyed threatening people, enjoyed exercising power over their lives and making them suffer. And his feud with this hyperactive, sententious man went back to his days at school, when Ronald Lennox had been the one exercising the power.