‘I wish you’d stop saying that,’ Collier was groaning.
Sutty’s nostrils flared. ‘You can wish in one hand and shit in the other, but I’ll tell you which fills up fastest.’ In the ensuing silence the walls themselves seemed to be ringing. ‘OK, interview terminated,’ he said, removing the tape and replacing it with a blank one. As far as I knew he collected these recordings, studied them like a touring stand-up perfecting his act. When he stood up and stretched I heard material splitting. He grunted and went for the door.
‘Hang on,’ said Collier. ‘Don’t you wanna hear what I’ve got to say?’
Sutty looked at him, almost in confusion. ‘No, not particularly. Aidan, with me.’ He left the box and I followed him outside, back down the corridor.
‘Shall we give him an hour?’ I said.
‘You haven’t got an hour to give, pal. Had a phone call from Parrs this morning …’
Because I’d collected Sutty in our customary silence, this was our first conversation of the day. Our first since Parrs had told me about the hit. I thought for a second that Sutty knew about Oliver Cartwright, the drugs I’d planted in his suitcase, but that was impossible.
I’d have been the one getting interrogated.
‘Oh?’ I said.
‘Oh. He thinks you’re wasted on Smiley Face. Wants you to focus on something more suited to your talents.’
We stopped walking.
‘The dustbin fires,’ I said flatly.
Sutty clicked his fingers and walked on. ‘You should be a detective.’
‘We’ve got a murder here—’
He was shaking his head. ‘Stop saying that. I’ve got a suspicious death. You’ve got yourself on the shit list and it’s up to you to get yourself off it. In addition to whatever last night was about – and, please remember, my door’s always closed – Stromer’s been dripping poison in his ear. Something about you turning up at that canal body-dump and making a scene.’ We stopped walking to let people go by us and Sutty lowered his voice. ‘Are you on airplane mode, Aid? Get the fucking message. They want you to put in your papers. My advice is: do it. This job’s not for you.’ He carried on walking and I watched him go. I wondered if Parrs had suggested my resignation, knowing I couldn’t do it because of what he’d told me the previous day. He’d twisted the knife in my back so often that I could recognize the brand.
Sutty held up his pass to get through a door, even holding it open for the next person. Sated for the moment by his screaming fit, he was actually at his most rational, and would stay like that for the next few hours. He’d grow increasingly unreasonable throughout the shift, though, with his rage fully recharging overnight, like a lanced boil.
I went to the toilet and closed the cubicle door. There were caricatures of both Sutty and me, drawn in marker pen at eye level. I was thin, sullen and simmering with rage. That looked like a compliment next to Sutty, who was bulbous, sweating, exploding with it. In the picture we were each using a magnifying glass to stare at the other’s tiny penis. The caption beneath it said: Slutty and Toxic Waits investigate …
2
Geoff Short was a man who belied the height restriction imposed by his surname. He was tall and slim, with an athletic spring in his step and a healthy, clear complexion.
‘Thank you for meeting me, Mr Short.’
‘I hope I can help,’ he said cautiously. Freddie Coyle had told me that his former lover was married with children, so I’d suggested we meet for a coffee near his Whalley Range home.
‘In a way, you’ve helped already …’ I explained the circumstances of the Palace Hotel breakin, and that I’d wanted to eliminate him from two lines of enquiry. In the first, I could plainly see that he wasn’t the unidentified dead body we’d discovered, and in the second, he’d been able to provide a cast-iron alibi for the events of Saturday night. His wife had been going into labour, and they’d been holding hands, breathing deeply.
He looked relieved at having provided both answers. ‘It’s nice to help just by dint of being alive. But …’ He looked at me curiously. ‘You do know I haven’t worked with Mr Blick for the best part of a year now?’
‘I actually didn’t know that you had at all. You’re a solicitor?’
He nodded. ‘It’s a great firm, but I had to climb up the ladder elsewhere. Now, hang on. If you didn’t know I used to have dealings with the Palace, why would you imagine …’ The answer occurred to him before he finished the sentence. ‘Ah.’
‘I’m afraid that during the course of our investigation your affair with Frederick Coyle came to light …’
He covered his face. ‘Affair. Christ …’ I gave him a moment and at length he looked at me again. ‘OK,’ he said.
‘Can I ask how it started?’
He shrugged but it was with an openness I’d yet to encounter from anyone else in the case. ‘The way I suspect these things usually do. Professionally, then less professionally, then what starts out as innuendo gets tested with too much drink. Finally, of course, it all ends in tears.’
‘Whose tears did it end in?’
‘Certainly Freddie’s. When I knew him he had no one but Natasha in his life …’
‘Now he doesn’t even have her.’
‘He was close to a total shut-in, then. Of course I was complicit, of course I was.’ He lowered his voice. ‘But he’d just realized he was gay. He pursued me and it was different. Exciting. All the old reasons.’
‘Can I ask how it came to an end?’ I wanted to move him on to the confrontation with Ms Reeve, but he went deeper than that.
‘I’d been slowly distancing myself, slowly breaking it off. Right from the word go, if truth be told. When I found a job at a new firm, I knew that was the right time. We’d had some fun and no one had got hurt.’
‘As far as you knew …’
‘As far as I knew. Jesus Christ, that day. I’d met Freddie at his apartment. I was telling him that I was moving on, re-committing myself to my marriage. He was upset. He kissed me and said it would be easier to take if we could pass one more afternoon together. And then the door opened …’
‘Natasha Reeve?’
‘She was furious – I mean, rightly so.’
‘Did she say anything?’
‘That was the odd thing. She stepped inside, looked at us, did one circuit of the sofa we were sitting on and let herself out. It was like a cold fury. Like she knew already …’
‘I’m afraid she did.’ He closed his eyes. ‘Ms Reeve was receiving anonymous notes about your relationship.’
Short went suddenly pale. ‘Notes …?’
‘You didn’t know anything about them?’
‘No …’
‘Both she and Freddie Coyle believe that you sent them.’
‘What?’ He looked speechless.
I sat back. ‘You didn’t send them?’
‘Of course not, I didn’t even know … First of all, I would never do that to someone. Secondly, it would wreck my life, my marriage. Why would I do that?’ He realized he’d raised his voice and, although the coffee shop was empty, went on more quietly. ‘I mean, I was ending it.’
‘Freddie says he told no one about your affair, do you think that’s true?’
His shoulders slumped. ‘I expect it is. As I say. He was hardly a social butterfly …’
‘So that leaves someone from your end …’
‘But that’s impossible.’
‘You told no one?’
‘About cheating on the mother of my children with a man? No.’
‘You may have told someone without realizing it. What about your wife?’
‘What about her?’ he said, suddenly angry. He’d accepted my questioning his own character but drew the line at hers. It made me at least want to believe him.
‘Well, she could have worked out that something was happening between you and Coyle. Sent Natasha Reeve the notes as a means of stopping it.’
‘Absolutely not.’ He saw the look on my face and answered it. ‘Well, that’s how I got into the whole mess to start with. She was working abroad. Lecturing in the US.’
I thought for a moment. ‘Natasha Reeve says that in the weeks before their relationship ended, Freddie Coyle had changed. Become distant …’
‘From her? No doubt.’
‘He wasn’t that way with you?’