Killing With Confidence (24 page)

Connor stared at
April. ‘Have you had a wee stroke this morning?’

‘Ooh, matron,’ she
replied in her best Kenneth Williams’s voice, ‘I haven’t had a wee
stroke in years.’

49

Throwing out the Trash

April
gingerly entered Bent’s office without knocking. Her right arm was
in a sling, and her face was still puffy and bruised after her
brutal attack. She had spent just four days in hospital as her
injuries had been mostly flesh wounds with no bones broken. The
doctor had told her that her ‘excess baggage’ had saved her from
any real damage – a polite way of saying she was fat. April
had beamed when Connor came to visit her that night saying, ‘Ha!
Who said over-eating is bad for you?’

Bent was clearly in
the middle of a personal call, feet up on the table, a rosy glow to
his cheeks, and speaking in hushed, flirtatious tones. April
thought the editor looked like a dirty sleazebag. He looked up, and
immediately swung his feet off the desk, like a teenager caught
with their trainers on their mum’s coffee table. Or a man who’d
just been caught red-handed flirting with another man’s wife, which
was probably more accurate. His tone changed. ‘I’ll call you back,
something’s come up.’

Bent regained his
composure and glowered, ‘If you need to see me, you should make an
appointment with Grace.’

‘Ah, and I distinctly
recall you saying you were the “my door’s always open” type when
you arrived here,’ April said coolly as she took a seat opposite
him.

‘I’ve been wanting to
speak to you anyway,’ Bent replied, trying to regain the
upper-hand. ‘I’m thinking that the long love affair between you and
the
Daily Herald
has come to a natural conclusion. Even
though you sustained injuries while on suspension, I have still
decided to put together a compromise deal, which I hope you find
acceptable,’ he added with a smirk, failing to enquire how April
was keeping since the attack and knowing that his compromise deal
fell well short of any redundancy package she would be due after
such long service.

He continued with an
idle threat, ‘It’d also save you leaving here with nothing, if the
disciplinary panel found in our favour.’

‘That doesn’t bother
me at the moment,’ April lied. ‘Right now I want to speak about
another love affair, the one between you and Selina Seth.’

‘What did you just
say?’ Bent growled, gripping the sides of the desk until his
knuckles turned white.

‘Please spare me the
mock outrage,’ April replied with composure. ‘You were with her the
morning of her death. In fact, you were there in the car park with
her. You were the last one to see her alive. You withheld vital
information to help catch her killer, but like a coward you kept
quiet to protect your own name and your precious career.’ April’s
voice grew louder and louder. ‘You’ve been withholding information
from a major murder inquiry. Yet all the time you and your attack
dog saw fit to have me on some trumped-up charge just because I had
a crisis of confidence. There is no way back for you now, Bent. Not
only will you have to leave this newspaper, I’d leave the country
if I were you. Blocking a police inquiry is still a serious offence
in anyone’s book – no matter how important you think you
are.’

Like the thousands of
articles she’d penned over her thirty-year career, April knew when
to stop, but not before delivering her stinging pay-off line. ‘Put
it this way, Bent, if you don’t leave my newspaper I’ll make sure
Mrs Bent and all the little Bent children know what a sleazy,
spineless coward you really are. I think I’ve made myself
clear.’

Bent slowly picked up
a letter from his desk, and stared at it for a moment. Eventually,
he said, ‘I was going to turn this down. It’s a formal job offer
for a deputy editor post at the
Toronto Star
. Didn’t really
fancy the cold. But it suddenly seems a lot more appealing
now.’

‘I’m sure it does,’
April said. ‘And I think you should take your news editor, too. A
man on the make in a new country will need a loyal lieutenant.’ She
hated to impose the Weasel on other journalists in another country,
but experience had taught her that their type usually got their
comeuppance.

April rose. It took
some effort with the pain she was still in. She hobbled out without
saying another word, leaving Nigel Bent to clear his desk.



Later that
day April sat in Luigi’s restaurant in front of a steaming,
oversized bowl of pasta and meatballs, done in a tomato and roasted
garlic sauce. It was delicious.

Luigi fussed over his
favourite customer. ‘Here-a, I have-a bib for you – I don’t-a
want-a you making a mess of such a lurv-erly blouse,’ he said,
tying a knot in a starched white napkin behind April’s neck, before
patting it flat down her ample bosom, letting his hands linger too
long as usual.

April knew his game
alright, but let it go. She was too hungry and sore to protest.

‘Now-a, have you
thought-a about my proposal,’ Luigi asked, his bushy eyebrows
arched in anticipation.

April gave him the
brush off. ‘I haven’t had time to think of anything, Luigi. As you
can see, I’ve been busy.’

‘Well-a, my-a
proposal still stands-a. You need-a someone to look-a after you. To
keep you safe from the mad-a-men. You only have to say-a the word
and it shall-a be done,’ he said before disappearing off to another
table.

April looked at
Luigi’s squat, chubby figure oozing out in all directions from
under his kitchen whites. There was a time she wouldn’t have looked
twice at an old lech like him. But then again, that was when she
was young, svelte and pretty. She looked down at the makeshift bib
that Luigi had fashioned for her, now splattered with tomato and
roasted garlic sauce. Her flabby belly was in three folds, two of
them resting on the table.

She glanced at her
reflection in the restaurant window and saw only an old woman
looking back, with a ridiculous mop of harsh yellow hair. It would
have been enough to put many women off their food, but not April.
Eating and drinking were all she had left now she wasn’t
officially
allowed to smoke any more.

Maybe she should just
give in. She wouldn’t just be marrying an old Italian; she would be
marrying a great cook. They could grow old and fatter together. She
would never have to worry about her backside being as wide as the
Clyde, as Connor had once put it. And she’d have a companion. Maybe
they’d even be happy together. It would certainly give Jayne one
almighty shock. She could see her daughter’s look of disapproval
right now. ‘Married? Having sex at your age? It’s disgusting.’

‘Yes, I plan on
having lots of disgusting sex,’ she chuckled to herself a little
too loudly, catching the attention of some nearby diners and the
proprietor.

‘Hey, what-a you
find-a so funny? You laughing at Luigi’s meatballs?’

The image made them
both laugh.

With a snap of
Luigi’s fingers, a young waiter brought April another bowl of
meatballs to replace the empty one while Luigi topped up her glass
of Chianti. He then grasped her hands tightly and said, ‘You make-a
my heart sing-a, April, because my-a food make-sa you so
happy.’

She couldn’t help
noticing how his hands once again ‘accidentally’ brushed against
her nipples. It felt quite nice, really. Maybe she would marry the
old lech, after all …

50

Visiting an Old Friend

The next
few days passed in a blur. April eventually wearied of all the
congratulatory messages and calls of concern she had taken from her
colleagues over the attack by Osiris and the sudden departure of
Nigel Bent, who had been followed sharply out the door by his
equally loathed news editor, the Weasel.

‘What the fuck did
you say to him?’ Connor had asked with a mixture of admiration and
wonder.

‘The truth, Connor,
just the truth. I always find that does wonders in my line of
work.’

‘But how did you
know?’ Connor asked still amazed.

‘It suddenly came to
me lying in my hospital bed. Bent was twitchy as hell because he
hadn’t met Selina for lunch the day before. He’d met her the
morning she was murdered. I also had a very good source,’ April
said feeling pleased with herself.

‘Who?’ Connor
asked.

‘Now, now you know a
good journalist never reveals their sources,’ she replied with a
sly smile.

‘Yeah, but who said
you were a good journalist?’ Connor quipped.

‘I asked his
secretary Grace. We’re old smoking buddies. She confirmed he hadn’t
been to lunch with anyone the previous day but had been unusually
late on the morning of Selina’s death.

‘So I took a gamble
and fronted him up. I just did my job basically.’

April wondered how
she had managed to work full-time for most of her adult life. There
didn’t seem to be enough hours in the day. Like most folk in their
fifties, she had begun to dream of the Utopia of retirement. Taking
time to really browse through the shelves of IKEA. Leisurely
weekday lunches instead of just at the weekend. Visiting the
Burrell Collection – a museum she had lived nearby for the
last twenty-five years but never once stepped foot in. But between
the constant phone calls from her colleagues and her ardent suitor
she didn’t seem to have any time for herself.

Today would be
different. She would make the time to visit Watt Wilson. She knew
he was an old chancer, but he had the patter and the ability to
make April, and his clients, feel a lot better on the way out his
door than when they stepped in. In truth, she thought, therapists
told you what you already knew. If you were overweight, it was
because you put too much in and didn’t burn up enough. But somehow
listening to someone give you a rationale for binge eating –
stress at work, relationships and so on – shifted some of the
blame, so it wasn’t entirely your fault.

April liked that
about Watt. Of course, she also had an ulterior motive. Being a
busybody, she wanted to ask Watt how he was getting on treating DCI
Crosbie’s Tourette’s. Normal doctors would have been bound by the
Hippocratic oath, but Watt wasn’t even a doctor. He just acted like
one, as if it was another role from his failed stage career.

She had tried calling
ahead, but she kept getting his answering machine, which was so
full it had stopped taking messages. April thought it strange he
hadn’t returned her calls – he always had before. She was
pretty sure Watt had a little crush on her, or he had twenty years
ago when she was a lot slimmer and better looking. She decided to
pay him a personal visit instead, which would give her the
motivation to get dressed today.

She pulled on her
trousers and blouse, both of which felt tight, and let out a moan.
‘I’ve just bought these and they’re already too small.’ She left
the house in a glum mood. Hopefully, the old mind man would make
her feel better.

April arrived at his
door twenty minutes later and rang the bell. There was no reply.
She didn’t know why she did it – instinct, she would later
guess – but after trying the front door, which was locked, she
peered through Watt’s ground-floor window.

His front room
doubled as his therapy room, and as she shaded her eyes from the
sunlight, she was able to focus on its dimly lit interior. There
was Watt’s well-worn couch, which April had lain on periodically
over the last two decades. She then let out a small but clearly
audible gasp as she spotted the twisted, bloodied and battered
figure, which lay motionless and quite dead on top of it.

Watt would not be
helping out April, or anyone else for that matter, ever again.

51

Black & White

Always
eager and keen to learn, the young PC on guard duty at Watt
Wilson’s front door asked his sergeant who was the DCI assigned to
the murder case.

The old copper began
singing in a sweet voice that belied his gruff looks, ‘I’m dreaming
of a white Christmas.’

The young PC looked
utterly mystified.

Slightly annoyed with
his underling’s lack of musical knowledge, the older cop said,
‘Bing Crosby, son?
White Christmas
? Bob Hope? All the great
black-and-white movies they did?
Road to Bali
. Ah, Jeez,
son, he’s only the greatest singer who ever lived. Sinatra wasn’t
fit to lace his shoes.’

The young PC’s brain
was tied up in knots. His utter confusion showed in his vacant
expression.

The sergeant swore
under his breath, then as if speaking to a child, said loudly and
slowly, ‘I’ll spell it out for you. The guy we’re getting today is
Bing Crosbie.’

The young PC had
barely understood anything his old sergeant, who clearly liked a
drink, had been banging on about. Was he really saying a famous
singer would be investigating this murder case? He thought to
himself that the old boy had flipped his lid.

DCI David ‘Bing’
Crosbie had overheard their entire conversation as he approached
the murder scene. It was now impossible for him to differentiate
between the good and bad side of his split personality, but he
clearly heard one of the voices inside his head say, ‘I don’t know
about
White Christmas
, but this murder investigation is
going to be one big wanking whitewash.’ He began happily humming
the tune to the old festive favourite. There was a spring in his
step as there was now no conflict in his mind whatsoever.

For evil had overcome
good. His bad side had won the internal power struggle and was now
fully in control of this fiercely ambitious DCI who was determined
to rise through the ranks.

He stepped jauntily
over the threshold into Watt Wilson’s house where he found the old
stage hypnotist exactly where he had left him three days before. He
remembered in minute detail how the old ham had pleaded with him
for his life, before desperately trying to defend himself by
striking the detective with the silver pocket watch he had kept on
a chain for over thirty years.