The Killing Hour

I move closer towards it. It’s the pad on which Kathy wrote my details, only that isn’t the page that’s on the top. Sherlock Landry has used a pencil to rub over the page beneath it. My name and phone number have magically appeared, and with them any chance I have of talking my way out of this.

I shift my eyes from the bag back to Landry. I say nothing, though I know the face I show him has the shocked look of a man who feels his insides have been torn out.

‘The blood on it is Kathy McClory’s,’ he says. ‘You smeared it when you removed the top page.’

But I didn’t remove it. Cyris removed it. That’s how he knew where I lived. I try to explain this but my mouth has gone dry and I feel as if somebody has poured glue down my throat. All I can do now is take my chances with the truth.

‘I think it’s in your best interests to explain at the station, where you can have a lawyer present,’ Landry says.

‘I, um, I …’

He pulls his handcuffs from behind his back. Maybe they were clipped to his belt or inside a pocket. ‘Turn around, Mr Feldman.’

‘You’re arresting me?’

‘What other choice do I have?’

‘You could arrest the right person. I didn’t kill anybody!’

‘We’ll discuss it at the station. Where you can have a lawyer present.’

‘No, no, this is all wrong. All wrong,’ I repeat.

‘Come on, Mr Feldman. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.’



They’re similar to the words I’ve been using with Jo, and on the receiving end they don’t sound good at all. I put my hands out in front of me and start waving them around in tiny circles. ‘No, no, please, wait a second, let me explain.’

‘There’ll be time for that soon.’

‘If you’ll just listen …’

‘Turn around, Mr Feldman,’ he says, raising the handcuffs. ‘Or you’ll only make things worse.’

I know he’s right. I know he’s trained to beat the hell out of people who resist arrest. I try to think of the positive side to all of this. Maybe the police will believe some of what I have to say. I turn around and put my hands behind me. A few seconds later the cold bracelets click into place.

‘What’s this?’ he asks.

I turn back and face him. He’s holding the envelope with my story inside. ‘It’s the truth.’

He tears it open and drags the loose pages out. After a quick skim through he pushes them back into the envelope. ‘A confession. That’ll make things easier.’

‘It’s not a confession. If you take the time to read it or to listen to me you’ll learn what actually happened.’

‘You can save your talking for later, Feldman. Is there anything else I should know before we leave?’ he asks.

‘Nothing.’

‘So you don’t mind if I take a look around?’

‘Actually I do.’

‘Don’t worry, I promise not to touch anything. You just take a seat there and wait.’

I sit back down, my arms pinned behind me. ‘You can’t search my house without a warrant.’

‘You say that like you think you have rights. You have no rights, Feldman. You lost those when you killed those two women.’



‘I didn’t kill anybody.’

‘We’ll see about that,’ he says, as if it’s all up to him.

He steps past me into the living room, then into the laundry. When he comes back he’s carrying my shorts, holding them on the tip of a pencil. ‘Cut yourself shaving?’

I don’t dignify him with an answer. He shakes a large plastic bag out from his pocket and places the shorts inside. When he comes across my study he spends a long minute in there. When he comes out he gives me a look I can’t read. Then he checks the room opposite. Nothing. He spends less than a minute in my bedroom. I can’t look at my watch but I guess twenty minutes have gone by since he first knocked on my door. When he comes out he says nothing. His face is clenched, his jaw pushed forward. I know he’s looked inside the box and didn’t like what he saw.

‘Time to go, Feldman.’

He keeps his hand on my back as we walk down the hallway and out to his car. My shorts in the plastic bag are tucked under his arm. His car is an unmarked, four-door sedan. The streetlight reflecting off the side windows looks like two moons. He ushers me into the back seat, twists me sideways, undoes the handcuffs and reattaches one cuff to the handgrip above the door. He pulls out another set of handcuffs and attaches my other hand to the same handgrip. It doesn’t seem like standard protocol but I guess that’s because this isn’t one of those police cars with a metal grille separating the prisoner from the driver. He does all this without saying a word and I don’t resist.





18


Sometimes the evidence points where it shouldn’t. Sometimes you go with the flow and end up looking at things in a way they shouldn’t be looked at. Other times you line up all your pieces in a row and they fit perfectly. The pad with Feldman’s name on it wasn’t a sure sign of guilt. It was still circumstantial.

But now …