The Chief Inspector grabbed hold of the young man’s trunk, and lifted it to take pressure off the neck. Behind him, he heard the sound of Dexter Bryant entering the room.

  ‘Find somethin’ to cut him down!’ Woodend shouted. ‘An’ be quick about it!’

  Bryant looked wildly around the room for a moment, then rushed over to his stepson’s dresser and opened the drawer. The knife he pulled out of it had a long blade and a wickedly shaped edge. When he drew it across the stretched pillowcase, the fabric gave instantly.

  Bryant dropped the knife on to the floor. Woodend hoisted Richard Quinn into a carrying position, took him over to the bed, and laid him gently down on the cover. Perhaps while Quinn had been hanging there, his whole life had flashed before him – but in real time no more than a few seconds had passed.

  Quinn’s eyes had begun to bulge slightly, and he was making choking noises, but Woodend guessed that no permanent damage had been done.

  ‘Why did you do it, LH?’ Dexter Bryant asked anguishedly. ‘Why did you try to kill yourself?’

  ‘Mother . . .’ Quinn gasped.

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘Wanted her dead . . . often enough. Now . . . she is.’

  There was a loud imperious banging at the front door. Bryant clapped his hand to his forehead, as if this, on top of everything else, was enough to make his head explode.

  ‘What in God’s name . . .?’ he said.

  The banging continued.

  ‘You’d better answer it,’ Woodend said.

  ‘But LH . . . ?’

  ‘He’ll be fine for a minute. Go and see who’s there. Maybe they’ll be able to help.’

  Bryant nodded, and left the bedroom.

  Woodend knelt over Richard Quinn. ‘What did you mean when you said you wanted her dead – and now she is?’ he asked.

  ‘Shouldn’t wish for bad things to happen,’ Richard Quinn croaked.

  ‘Is that all you did? Wished for bad things to happen?’

  ‘That was . . . enough . . . wasn’t it?’

  Woodend became aware of several sets of footfalls on the stairs, and then the room was full of people. The Chief Inspector looked first at Dexter Bryant and then at DCS Newton and the two uniformed constables.

  ‘What’s goin’ on?’ he demanded.

  ‘Thank you, Charlie, I’ll take over from here,’ Newton said.

  ‘Take over what?’

  Ignoring Woodend, Newton walked over to the bed. ‘What’s happened to him?’ he asked, looking first down at Richard Quinn and then turning towards Dexter Bryant.

  ‘He . . . he tried to hang himself.’

  ‘I’m not in the least surprised about that,’ Newton said, returning his gaze to the man on the bed. ‘Can you hear, Mr Quinn?’

  ‘Yes,’ Quinn said faintly.

  Newton cleared his throat. ‘Richard Thomas Quinn, I am arresting you for the murders of Elizabeth Stubbs, Lucille Tonge and Constance Bryant.’

  ‘This is insane!’ Dexter Bryant screamed.

  ‘Please don’t interrupt, sir,’ Newton warned him. ‘You are not obliged to say anything, Mr Quinn, but anything that you do say––’

  ‘Richard was at home all evening,’ Bryant protested. ‘With me! He couldn’t have killed his mother.’

  ‘I understood that when you were informed of your wife’s death, you were at your office,’ Newton said coldly.

  ‘I . . . I . . .’ Dexter Bryant stuttered.

  ‘Were you at your office or not?’

  ‘Yes, but . . .’

  ‘It’s a serious matter to lie to the police,’ Newton said sternly. ‘I may have to charge you.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, his wife’s been murdered and his stepson’s just about to be arrested!’ Woodend thundered. ‘Cut the man a little slack, you unfeeling bastard!’

  ‘Escort Mr Bryant downstairs,’ Newton told the two constables. ‘And as for you, Chief Inspector, we’ll discuss that last remark of yours later.’

  The constables each took one of Bryant’s arms, and the Editor started to struggle.

  ‘Don’t!’ Woodend advised him.

  ‘But I can’t just let them––’

  ‘You’ll be of no help to Richard if you’re locked up in a cell.’

  Bryant nodded, accepting the logic of the argument, and allowed himself to be led out of the room.

  ‘Now perhaps we can get on with the business in hand,’ Newton said. Then he noticed the knife that Bryant had used to cut through the pillowcase and was now lying on the floor. ‘Nasty looking instrument, that,’ he told Woodend. ‘I’d say it’d be just about right for cutting throats. Wouldn’t you?’

  Thirty-Four

  Woodend flung open the Chief Constable’s door, and stormed into the room. Marlowe was, as always, sitting behind the protective cover of his large desk. Seeing Woodend standing there, he first feigned surprise, then – obviously deciding that was not something he could carry off convincingly under the circumstances – he rapidly switched to an expression of mild annoyance and bureaucratic censure.

  ‘This can scarcely be considered appropriate behaviour, Chief Inspector,’ he said sternly. ‘If you wish to schedule a meeting with me, then there are certain channels which must be gone though.’

  ‘What the bloody hell do you think you’re playin’ at?’ Woodend demanded.

  ‘I’m not sure that I quite understand your question. What am I playing at? Is that what you said?’

  ‘All right,’ Woodend said, exasperatedly. ‘If it makes you feel any happier, what the bloody hell is Newton playin’ at?’

  ‘I should have thought that was obvious. Since you seemed unable to come up with a good line of inquiry in your current investigation – or, indeed, any line of inquiry at all – DCS Newton has stepped in. I did warn you that might happen, you know.’

  ‘Oh, you did,’ Woodend agreed. ‘Indeed you did. An’ the first thing Newton does – havin’ stepped in – is to arrest Richard Quinn!’

  ‘I can’t say with absolute certainty that it was the first thing that Mr Newton did. But it is certain that he’s arrested Richard Quinn.’

  ‘On what grounds?’

  ‘That’s an operational matter. I’m afraid you’ll have to ask DCS Newton about it.’

  ‘Operational matter – bollocks!’ Woodend said. ‘You know everythin’ he knows – an’ more. He wouldn’t dare to do so much as fart without getting’ your permission first.’

  Marlowe sighed the sigh of a man who is trying to be reasonable, but, in fairness to himself, knows he cannot permit the interview to carry on for much longer. As a performance, it was better than his earlier attempts at surprise and annoyance – but not much.

  ‘If you can bring yourself to calm down for a moment, Chief Inspector, I might be willing to outline as much of the evidence against Richard Quinn as I currently have access to,’ he said.

  Woodend took a deep breath. ‘I’m calm,’ he promised.

  ‘Very well. Let’s first consider means. Did you know that Richard Quinn had combat training in Malaya?’

  ‘His stepfather mentioned that he’d served in Malaya an’ won medals,’ Woodend conceded.

  ‘He was a Royal Marine Commando, and the attacks on the three women bear all the hallmarks of commando training. In addition, the wounds are entirely consistent with a dagger called the . . . the. . .’

  ‘The Fairbairn Sykes,’ Woodend supplied.

  ‘Exactly. It was standard issue for the commandos, and we found such a dagger in Richard Quinn’s bedroom during our search.’

  ‘But do you know it was the knife which was used in the killin’s?’

  ‘You certainly believe it is, and no doubt the lab will soon confirm that we are right. Now we’ll go on to motive. In this case it is very simple. Richard Quinn hated his mother for marrying his stepfather – we will produce witnesses who will confirm that fact – and he wanted to see her punished.’

  ‘Then why didn’t he do just that? Why did he bother to kill the other two women first?’

  Marlowe brushed the question away with a wave of his hand. ‘Quinn had a nervous breakdown at the end of his period of service in Malaya. Who knows what goes on in his poor sick mind now? Perhaps the fact that the other women were also suffering from cancer made it easier for him to identify them with his mother. Perhaps he was only using them for practice, and it was pure coincidence that they had the same disease as Constance Bryant.’

  ‘There’s absolutely nothin’ coincidental about this bloody case!’ Woodend protested. ‘The killer planned the whole operation long in advance. An’ why would a trained commando need practice? That kind of trainin’s so thorough that it’s like learnin’ to ride a bike – once you have learned, you never forget.’

  ‘You obviously consider that you know the way he thinks much better than I do,’ Marlowe said. ‘In which case, could you please explain to me why the murderer – if he wasn’t Quinn – put his victims in the bonfire.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Woodend admitted.

  ‘Neither would I – if the murderer was anybody else,’ Marlowe said. ‘But if it was Quinn, then I can explain it very easily. He was brought up in India, you see, which means that he will have been aware of the Indian tradition of suttee.’

  ‘The British banned that practice over a hundred years ago.’

  ‘Nevertheless, it is deeply ingrained in the Indian consciousness, and no doubt young Richard would have learned of it. Would you like to explain to me exactly what suttee involves, Chief Inspector?’

  ‘When a man died, he was cremated on a funeral pyre,’ Woodend said dully. ‘An’ once the pyre was burnin’ properly, his wife was expected to throw herself on to it after him.’

  ‘Bonfire, funeral pyre – there’s very little difference between the two,’ Marlowe said. ‘Now do you see where I’m going?’

  ‘No,’ Woodend said.

  ‘You don’t see because you don’t want to, Chief Inspector! Very well, I’ll spell it out for you. Richard Quinn adored his father, and when the father died he expected his mother to die too – or, at very least, to go into perpetual mourning. But that didn’t happen. She met Dexter Bryant, and made a new life for herself. And Richard couldn’t tolerate that. In placing his mother on the bonfire, he was only correcting the balance – doing to her what she, symbolically or otherwise, should have already done to herself years before.’

  ‘Doesn’t all that strike you as just a little too neat an’ tidy? Just a little too much like a cleverly constructed crime novel?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘No,’ Marlowe said. ‘It strikes me as an explanation which has the ring of truth about it.’

  ‘All right, I can see we’re never goin’ to agree on that,’ Woodend said, ‘so would you mind if we looked at it from another angle?’

  ‘No, as long as that will ensure you leave my office sooner than you would otherwise have done.’

  ‘You’ve covered means an’ motive. What about opportunity? Can you place Richard Quinn anywhere near the scene of any of the murders?’

  ‘We will,’ Marlowe said complacently.

  ‘Meanin’ you haven’t even tried yet. Meanin’ that you’ve charged straight in, like bulls in a bloody china shop, without even botherin’ to put a proper case together first.’

  For once, Marlowe looked a little uncomfortable. ‘We could have waited, but we had the press to consider.’

  The press! Of course! The bloody press! Always the bloody press!

  He’d been asking the wrong questions, Woodend suddenly realized. He’d got himself so bogged down in the details of the case that he’d completely ignored the much bigger picture.

  ‘How did you get your sights fixed on Richard Quinn as a suspect in the first place?’ he asked.

  ‘That scarcely matters now that we’ve put together our case and the arrest’s been made,’ Marlowe said airily.

  ‘You didn’t have access to my case notes. You could have asked for them – you’d have been perfectly entitled to – but you never did. You were startin’ from scratch. So what made you single out Quinn from the tens of thousands of other men in Whitebridge? How could you have become so convinced he was your man that you’d go to the lengths of doin’ a full background check on him?’

  ‘I’m sure Mr Newton will give you any of the details he considers it appropriate you should know.’

  ‘He was fingered, wasn’t he?’ Woodend said.

  Marlowe made no reply. He didn’t need to – because his face said it all.

  ‘How was it done?’ Woodend asked. ‘An anonymous letter? No, your informant wouldn’t have taken the risk of bein’ dismissed as a crank. Besides,’ he continued, beginning to understand more and more of what must have gone on behind the scenes, ‘there’d be a price attached to the information, now wouldn’t there?’

  ‘I don’t see how you could make that assumption.’

  ‘I can make it because if the Force didn’t investigate Quinn’s background – an’ it’s quite obvious that it didn’t – then somebody else did. An’ that somebody had to have the resources to do the job properly. So who could that somebody possibly have been?’

  ‘You’re making a fool of yourself with all these wild speculations,’ Marlowe said.

  ’A journalist!’ Woodend exclaimed, as if the idea had come as sudden inspiration, instead of having been developing in his head for the previous couple of minutes. ‘An’ if I had to make a bet on which journalist it was, I’d put my money on Elizabeth Driver.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘So if tomorrow’s Daily Globe runs a bigger story on this case than any other newspaper does – an’ if it seems to have inside knowledge of what went on – that’ll just be coincidence, will it?’

  ‘Coincidences happen.’

  ‘You can’t let the newspapers run your investigations for you!’ Woodend said, outraged. ‘You can’t make a case based on headlines. Police work’s about dozens of small details which finally mesh together to give you the answer you’ve been searchin’ for.’

  Marlowe smiled, now sure of his ground again. ‘And what dozens of small details do you have to offer me, Chief Inspector? Which of your dozens of small details point a finger at the murderer?’

  ‘I admit we’re not there yet,’ Woodend replied, knowing it was a weak response, yet not having the ammunition which would enable him to produce any other.

  ‘Whereas DCS Newton has his murderer,’ Marlowe said. ‘Consider yourself off the case, and go back to your office to await a fresh assignment.’

  ‘I want to continue my investigation.’

  ‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible.’

  ‘Look,’ Woodend said, trying to sound reasonable, ‘it’s always conceivable that you’ve made a mistake. An’ if you did, that could prove very embarrassin’ later on. Whereas, if you were to just let me keep diggin’––’

  ‘I’ve already told you what I want you to do.’

  ‘If you take me off the case, I’ll go public,’ Woodend said. ‘I’m sure there’s any number of other newspapers which will be most interested to discover how the Globe got its exclusive.’

  ‘If you do that, you’ll be finished,’ Marlowe growled.

  ‘Aye, probably – an’ there’s a good chance that you will be too,’ Woodend countered.

  ‘That sounds like a threat.’

  ‘Good! That’s what I intended it to sound like.’

  Marlowe had been running a pencil through his hands. Now he snapped it in two. ‘You do realize what you’re asking, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you do realize that the fact we may have got most of our information from the Globe – and I’m still not admitting that we did – will be of no interest to anyone if you can’t prove that Richard Quinn wasn’t the killer?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And that that will leave you totally defenceless? A deer caught in the cross-hairs? A fox cornered by the hounds?’

  ‘You’ve made your point.’

  Marlowe’s smile returned, and this time it was broad and triumphant. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Find me a different killer – or put your own neck in the noose.’

  Thirty-Five

  The landlord of the Drum and Monkey stood behind the bar counter, polishing glasses and casting the occasional furtive glance at the table in the corner.

  Something was wrong, he thought. Very wrong!

  He’d been watching these three at work for over two years, long enough to have become an expert on them. And while he’d seen the detectives in all kinds of moods – elation and depression, mystification and triumph – he’d never seen them looking as they did at that moment. They seemed to have lost their team spirit – their sense of common purpose. They seemed, not to put too fine a point on it, to be a team no longer.

  ‘Let me be sure I’ve got this straight,’ Bob Rutter said. ‘What you’ve done is to blackmail the Chief Constable into letting you continue investigating the case, even though an arrest has already been made. Is that right?’

  ‘Close enough.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘I don’t like journalists settin’ the pace an’ direction of an investigation, especially when the journalist in question happens to be somebody like Elizabeth Driver.’

  ‘But what if Richard Quinn really is guilty?’ Monika Paniatowski asked. ‘Have you thought of that?’

  ‘He’s not,’ Woodend said.

  ‘You’ve only seen him twice,’ Paniatowski pointed out. ‘The first time was at the Dirty Duck – and only from a distance – and the second was just after he’d tried to hang himself. I simply don’t see how – based on that – you can be so positive that you’re right.’

  ‘You had to have been there to properly understand what I’m sayin’,’ Woodend argued. ‘The lad’s a mess. He’d never have been able to convince Betty Stubbs that he knew a doctor who could cure her cancer. He couldn’t have persuaded Lucy that he was goin’ to run away with her. It’s just not in him.’

  ‘He tried to top himself,’ Rutter said. ‘Couldn’t that have been because of remorse?’