Black & Deep Desires

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Wednesday, July 9

“She was sedated. She was confused. I don’t for a moment believe she deliberately killed herself. She was irrational. Look at her outburst when she saw the Taylor woman. Look, she wandered away from her room. She probably thought she was somewhere else, climbed over the stair rail. It’s a tragedy. Not only for her family, of course. Very unfortunate for us -”

Grenville leant across the desk, his toad eyes bulging from between puffy, freckled, pinkish lids. “No, Tuckett. It’s not a tragedy. It’s a fucking fiasco. A fucking great cock-up of the highest order. Do you understand me? Do you even begin to grasp the magnitude of this mess?”

“Sergeant Prinn was -”

Grenville slammed his fist down on the desk, sending a small paperweight bouncing to the floor.

“Don’t fucking give me that! Beagle was snoring her fucking head off in that ward. What, in the name of all creation, possessed you to leave Beagle in charge? Where was Lawson? Where was Prinn? Where, even dare I say it, was Martingale, useless yes, but at least usually conscious? Why?” He smacked his bald head with a vast, freckled hand, “Why, God preserve me, why Beagle?”

Tuckett’s voice was rapid and placatory. “Sergeant Prinn had left Beagle for only a moment while she -”

“Shut up, Tuckett! If someone had been awake in that ward, if Beagle had at least been conscious, not that she ever rises beyond a state of waking coma, but if she’d at least had her fucking eyes open, the kid would be alive as we speak. I hold you personally responsible. And I make you personally responsible for fixing this mess. I want that man, Tuckett. I want him.” Grenville’s voice sank to a hiss and he leant across the desk. His eyes were like two boiled eggs. “Give him to me, Tuckett, or you’ll be running the station at Horsey Corner.” And he drew a fat forefinger across his throat.

When Tuckett got back to his office, Bridget Prinn was at his heels.

“This came. It looks like the others.” She handed him a white envelope, and her eyes flicked across his face. He examined it briefly. His name was printed on the front, in pencil, no address. He slit it open and pulled out a single sheet of folded paper.

“It’s the same person. The vicar was in the woods last Saturday afternoon. Ask him.” He took a deep breath; “The problem with this case is that there are too many suspects. First we have Oates not being able to account for his actions, then that prick Taylor. Now the bloody vicar.” Prinn lowered her lids. She rarely heard him lose control enough to swear.

“Well, we’d better go and have a chat with the vicar,” she said crisply.

“And he’ll deny it. I wish I knew who was sending these notes.” He examined the page again; “It’s someone very careful. I have the unpleasant feeling we’re being had.” He lifted his head and stared out of the window. “Someone who’s playing a game of his own. Someone with his own agenda.” He folded the page and slid it back into the envelope. “Here - get this to Sproal. See if he has any joy with it. Then we’ll pay our respects to the Reverend James Savage.”

Wednesday, July 9

Diana dragged herself through the day. She cancelled the play rehearsal after school. No-one was in a fit mental state to concentrate. She went straight to the phone as soon as she got in and punched in Oates’s number, but it just rang and rang. She went to the kitchen window and stood looking out at the beech trees and longed with an unbearable ache for Paul. She felt hollow and dry. She clung to the cold edge of the sink. Paul had been good to hold. She remembered his clear grey eyes which never seemed to look at you for long. She wondered now that she hadn’t seen the problem right from the start: his unwillingness to endure, his need to move on. He was never there when you really needed him.

The phone rang. Oates said sharply, “Are you allright?”

“Yes. Oates ...”

“What?”

She drew a slow breath. “I’d like you to come round.”

“Allright. Give me fifteen minutes.”

When the doorbell rang, she looked out of the sitting room window. Oates was standing on the path hunched in an old fawn raincoat, raindrops glittering in his untidy hair. His resigned stance suggested that he might stand there all night. She ran to answer the door.

“Sorry - just checking to see it was you.”

“Glad to hear it.” He walked in, dripping rain onto the hall floor.

“Are you hungry?”

‘No. I wouldn’t mind a drink.” For once she didn’t lecture him. She went and fetched a bottle of South African KWV Port. Oates drank half the glass in one gulp, without tasting it. Yesterday she would have reminded him sharply that it was twenty years old, but now she just refilled his glass.

What happened to Molly?”

“She fell down the stairwell.” He stared blankly into space. He hadn’t taken off his raincoat.

“Fell?”

“That’s the official line.”

“And the unofficial line?”

“No-one bloody knows.”

“What do you think?”

He frowned at her. “Don’t perch on the edge of your chair like a budgie. And unclench your fists.” The lines of his face were cut deep. He looked old. “I think there was somebody who didn’t want Molly to talk to us. Someone who would breathe more easy if Molly wasn’t alive. Someone afraid. Afraid of Molly.”

“You think someone pushed her.” Diana’s voice was ragged.

“I don’t know what I think. I don’t know any more than anyone else.”

“But that would mean he was still here. Here, in Rundall.”

“If it was the same person. If it was anybody at all. Maybe she just fell. Trying to run away, trying to find a nurse. Who knows?”

“What time was she found?”

“Half past eight. Just after. She’d fallen only moments before. Visiting hours end at eight thirty. She had no visitors.”

“As far as you know.”

“As far as we know. And she was in a room right at the end of the passage, away from other patients.”

“What about the twenty-four hour watch?”

“Someone was there. Dozed off for two minutes. That’s all it needed.”

“Could someone, would it have been possible for someone to have gone into the hospital, pretend to be visiting Molly, wait to catch her unattended, and push her down the stairs?”

“Well, not impossible. But what chance of catching the policewoman off guard?”

“Perhaps someone has been going in at different times, just waiting and watching. Knowing there had to be a moment eventually when she’d be left alone.”

“Very risky. Insanely risky.”

“Oates. Do you think she just fell?”

He looked at her speculatively. “Perhaps we’ll never know that.”

“We’ll never know what Molly was thinking while she lay in hospital. What she thought about when she wandered through Hogg’s Wood by herself. What went on in her head. We’ve got to know how she died.”

Oates emptied his glass and pushed it across the table. She refilled it, and her own. She noticed how young his hands were. Compared to the rest of him, anyway. Kind hands, she thought; hands that might cradle a dog’s head, fix things without fuss, carry shopping bags. Unromantic hands. He wasn’t good looking, like Richard. Or sexy, like Paul. She put out her hand and covered his as it lay on his knee.

“Thanks for coming tonight. I was pretty low.”

He looked at her hand, then her face. “You’ve been crying.”

“Is it that bad?” She looked away.

He saw the blotches around her eyes and realised how seldom he looked into peoples’ faces. He wanted to reach out and take off her glasses. He wanted to fold his arms round her, kiss her, take her clothes off. Tear her clothes off.

“I’d better be going.”

She withdrew her hand. “Have you heard from Shirley?”

“No.” He stood up slowly; his knees were aching. “I think it’s over.” His words fell like drops of lead into the silence. For a moment she saw surprise on his face, as though he’d only just fully realised what he’d said.

After she shut the front door, he walked down the path and stopped near the brick wall under an overhanging mass of jasmine. The scent was dizzying. He looked back at the cottage. He saw her go into the kitchen and fill the kettle. As though watching a television screen he saw her every movement in the lit square. After some time the window went dark. Twenty seconds later a light went on in an upstairs room. He saw her come to the window, stand there for a moment, then reach up and draw the curtains closed. A movement of wind sent a shower of drops down the back of his neck from the leaves. He pulled up his collar, turned and vanished into the night.

Wednesday, July 1

“It was my job to trim the yew.” Charlie had settled himself with a palpable air of satisfaction into his chair, eager for the pleasure of the narrative. Glenda could see the anticipation in the way he sat, back straight, hands clasped together on the table between them. He wasn’t in the bare, stuffy prison room; he was back at Darkwood House, walking towards the maze on a sunny morning with the shears in his hand.

“Yes, that was my job. I was only a lad but I did it better than anyone. An eye for detail, my dad used to say, an eye for detail.”

Glenda concealed her impatience. “I bet it took a long time.”

“It was a never ending job! When you got to the middle it was time to start at the beginning again. Like London Bridge.” Charlie chuckled; “That’s funny, that. You should get to the end, then go back to the beginning. But there is no end to a maze, only a middle. A beginning, a middle ... and no end.” His face grew grim. “Old Alice Guilfoyle had to have it perfect, too. Not a leaf out of place. And I took a pride in my work. At first I had to have a map. But later on I got to know it like the back of my hand. I was a quick learner.”

“And did she keep on putting Rex in there?” Glenda wanted to drum her fingers on the table in her impatience.

“Oh, yes. But the funny thing about Alice Guilfoyle was how she wasn’t satisfied with anything for long. After a while, the maze wasn’t enough. That was when she started to put the blindfold on him.”

Glenda shivered with morbid anticipation. “Blindfold?”

“A silk scarf. A black silk scarf, it was. Said to belong to her husband. I think it was partly that, the fact that it belonged to his dead father, that got to Rex. She did it to keep her power over him, that’s how I see it. It was hard to know why she did the things she did. But I think as long as she knew the maze and he didn’t, she had control. I can see her now ...” He screwed up his eyes; “I can see her taking him across the lawns. It was her shape that I remember. Like a beast, with those massive shoulders. Like a bear’s shoulders. Sort of hulking. Her head was sunk right down into her body.” His lips drew back from his teeth. “And this little kid trotting along beside her. He didn’t have a choice - she’d hold so hard to his hand and practically drag him. And she moved fast. She could move allright. Not like you or me. She sort of swivelled herself along. Hard to describe. I remember one day the wind blew her skirts up and I saw these great bags of fat hanging over her knees, white as lard, the veins like blue roots in the fat. And him trotting to keep up, half running. I used to see a lot of what went on because I’d follow to find out what she was going to do with him. I was afraid. I remember being afraid for him; I thought if I was there, close by, I could save him. I think I had it in my head that - I don’t know - that one day she’d kill him.

When she came out of the maze alone, she was like a creature that’s eaten something. Horrible. I tell you, girl, that woman had evil in her.”

“What about the other twin? Larry? Did she punish him?”

“Rex hated Larry. How he hated him. You could tell from his face, the way he’d look at him. If he could have got rid of him, I swear he would’ve. Larry was never in trouble. She doted on Larry. She was besotted with the boy. He was the good looker, of course - curly dark red hair, big blue eyes. Funny thing - he looked a lot like Rose Guilfoyle’s son. Like Simon Guilfoyle. Same butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-the-mouth, holier-than-thou look about him. No, Larry was never in trouble.”

“What happened then, about the blindfold?”

“The only time I ever saw Rex let her see his fear was when she put it on for the first time. She stopped him at the entrance to the maze. I was hiding in the laurel hedge. Rex’d taken one of Larry’s toys - or so Larry said. She was angry, really angry. Her lips were thin, folded away like a slit. I was scared, I can tell you. She had this long, long red hair - it fell down to below her backside - but she always wore it dragged back from her head into a tight knot. From the front it looked as though she had no hair at all, and that day her eyes were black holes in that great white face. She stopped outside the maze and took the scarf out of her pocket. She did it slowly, watching him all the while. He didn’t even blink. But then she made him come closer, and she put it round his eyes. I remember he cried out, No please, no mummy, no. Charlie shook his head slowly. “It would have broken the hardest heart. But she wasn’t normal. She wasn’t human. I couldn’t believe it, how she could hear that voice and still do it. She tied it round his head. By then he was quiet. She had such power, what could he do? She took him into the maze. The next morning he still had it on. He hadn’t even tried to take it off.”

“Gawd,” breathed Glenda.

Charlie sighed heavily. “It explains why he hated his own son so much. Just think. To produce a son that looks the spitting image of your hated twin brother. Like he’s been reborn from the dead to torment you.”

“When did his brother die?”

“I’m getting to that.” Charlie gave her a reproachful look; “That’s the thing about stories - you mustn’t skip to the end.” He paused to collect his thoughts. “Things went on much the same until the boys started school. Not normal school - they had tutors come to the house. Alice Guilfoyle wanted to keep everyone close, under her control. She didn’t mix with people, she didn’t want her boys going out into the world. Larry went on being the injured party, of course, and Rex being punished. But the maze business stopped - I think she thought as he got older he might tell someone. No, not afraid - nothing scared her - but careful. Careful not to let her secrets out. She was a very careful woman.

Anyway, the years went by. Rex had learnt to keep out of trouble - he just disappeared most of the time. Reading, painting, walking. Larry was the bright one, the gay one. Larry became more and more good-looking and charming, Rex more and more dark and quiet. Like the two masks - the laughing one and the scowling one. I never knew two children so different. Larry was like sunshine - always laughing, always singing - people couldn’t help but like him. And Rex was secretive and quiet. Never a peep out of him, never a smile. Just his eyes would follow you, like he was thinking deep, deep thoughts that didn’t bear putting into words.

I went on working there. In the end I was promoted to groundsman. She still insisted that I had to look after the maze. No-one else was allowed to touch it. That was my job, and her word was law. Another thing was that the servants weren’t allowed to talk to the children, but I did. Rex and I used to hide in the rhododendrons and he’d tell me about Larry, and how he hated him. He never said anything about how he felt about his mother, though. I think he was too afraid of her to even talk about her. I just used to listen.

When Larry finished school he went to university to study something or other - law, I think. He was a clever boy. Rex went to work in a bank in Norwich. She said it would be a waste to pay for university for him. She made the bank manager give him the job. She had money and power. She could make people do things. I think he was cleverer than Larry, but he didn’t say a thing. He just did as he was told. Funny enough, it seemed a good arrangement. At least it meant the boys were separated. Rex went on living at home. I don’t know why he didn’t leave. It was as though he couldn’t.

And then, that summer, Larry brought Rose back to Darkwood House.”

Wednesday pm, July 9

Tuckett put his hand up to his eyes. The sun slanted through Rundall churchyard. Dock and thistle, nettle and cow parsley, holly and ivy flourished in tangled intimacy around the gravestones. Even hogweed, noticed Tuckett with distaste. What possessed a man of the church to allow his working space to run so out of control? A movement at the far end of the churchyard caught Sergeant Prinn’s eye.

They waded through rampant summer growth. Insects flew up from the disturbed grasses, flashing blue and green. James Savage was sitting cross-legged, his back against a gravestone, a small book propped in his thin hand. He stared at them through wild locks of black hair.

Tuckett frowned. “Reverend Savage?”

“The law. How do you do?” Savage indicated the grass. “Please sit down.”

“Chief-Inspector John Tuckett, Norwich police. Sergeant Prinn. We’d like a word, if that’s convenient.”

“But of course.” Savage waved the book at them. “Are you familiar with the writings of St John of the Cross? A fifteenth century mystic, Spanish. He writes of the passionate love affair that he has with his God. Tossing aside all caution, he goes at night to meet his God beneath the dark, mysterious cedars.” He shot a quizzical look at Tuckett. “Where do you meet your God, Inspector Tuckett? In the interrogation room at HQ?”

Tuckett’s voice was crisp and cool. “Could we speak to you in the rectory, perhaps?”

“Oh, no. My wife’s in a cleaning frenzy. You’re likely to lose a limb. It’s far more pleasant out here.” He put the book down, stretched his legs and rested his hands behind his head, tilting his pale features to the sun.

Tuckett shook a beetle off his trouser leg. “Reverend, would you be able to remember exactly where you were and what you did last Saturday afternoon?”

“The fete. I was at Darkwood House. Being the vicar, I am compelled to attend the parish fete. It’s my fate, you might say. And attend I did, all virtue. I buttered scones, I poured tea, I mopped and mowed, I bowed and scraped. Then at about four o’clock I escaped, and went for a walk on Havers Hill.”

“Did you leave the grounds of Darkwood House at all before four o’clock?”

“Would you mind moving a little to the left? The sun’s in my eyes.”

Tuckett moved involuntarily, then stopped himself. “Reverend Savage, would you answer my question?”

“Inspector, am I suspected of something? I assure you, I am innocent of most things. Some foolhardiness, perhaps. Some misguided zeal. But not utter wickedness.”

“Did you leave the grounds?” Tuckett’s neck was uncomfortably hot and he thought something was crawling up his leg.

“Yes, I did leave the aforesaid grounds. Maddened by the heat inside the tea tent, intoxicated by the fumes from the raspberry jam, I fled to the coolness of Hogg’s Wood. Pointless to deny it - doubtless, I was seen. It would have been three o’clock. Ish. And I returned about twenty minutes later to the fete.”

“What did you do in the wood?”

“Was I seen?”

“Yes.”

“Then pointless to lie. And lying is abhorrent. I met a friend. We walked up and down, talking. No more.”

“Did you hear anything, see anything?”

“We were on the outer edge of the wood. Near the Taylors’ cottage. If I knew anything at all that I thought could help you, trust me, I’d have told you.”

“Who was it?”

“Who was I with?”

“Yes. Who were you with?”

“If you don’t know, I can’t tell you. I do apologise.” He shrugged, and smiled.

“Reverend Savage.” Tuckett realised he was speaking through clenched teeth. “Do you understand that you were in Hogg’s Wood at the time that Molly Smale was raped and beaten? And you refuse to name the one person who can provide you with an alibi? Your standing does not put you outside the law. Come to your senses, man!”

Savage watched him impassively. “If I name this person, will the matter end here? It does not need to be published in the local rag that the vicar met a woman in the woods?”

“If you do not tell me who you were with in Hogg’s Wood between three and three thirty on Saturday afternoon, you might quite possibly end up in jail.”

“Well, then. It was a Mrs Lucy Brunt, of 18 St Anne’s Loke, Rundall. There you have it. If you are going to question her, I beg of you, do not let her husband know. For her sake, I assure you, purely for the sake of her physical well-being. Inspector, I implore you as a man of the law, a man of good sense and compassion, not to let her husband know. His retribution will be swift and terrible.”

Thursday pm - July 10

It had become an accepted custom for Diana and Richard to work together after the rest of the staff had left. They’d make coffee, share small tales of their day, sometimes help each other mark a pile of test papers. Diana didn’t want to go home. The school felt safe. Going home meant an empty house, a house which would have to be thoroughly searched and locked before she could even sit down to have a cup of tea. It meant being near the dark mass of Hogg’s Wood, the distant block of the maze like a kind of Stonehenge beyond Darkwood House.

She hadn’t told anyone about the person on her doorstep. The more she thought about it, the more confused she became. Had she dreamt it? Had she even been awake? She had twinges of fear that she might be going mad.

“Richard, do you think Molly was killed?”

He lifted his head and frowned. “Diana, you have to stop thinking about her. It doesn’t help to dwell on it. You’ll end up depressed and incapable of doing what you most want to do right now - make a success of the play. Concentrate on that. Focus on the play. You’ve got a week. You can’t afford to fall in a heap.”

“I know. You’re right, of course. But I’m worried. I’m worried that her attacker is so clever that he could get away with what he did and still be free. And that he may have been clever enough to get into the hospital and push Molly down the stairs, and get away with that too. I makes me feel sick.”

“Of course it does.” Richard put down his pen and folded his arms. “But it’ll drive you up the wall if you go on worrying. You don’t have to feel guilty about not thinking about it, for goodness sake.”

“I have this fear that the police are going to assume it was an accident when it may not have been. That they’re not going to look into it all thoroughly enough, and the truth may never be known. Richard, this is to do with getting a maniac off the streets and locked up.”

“But there’s nothing you can do about that. Look, I understand. We all want to know the truth. But face it, the truth may never be known. I applaud your involvement, and I can see that it’s not because you’re frightened for yourself. You’re not angry and paranoid, like so many people are when a criminal isn’t found. Just truth-seeking and moral.”

She was touched, almost to tears. “That’s not always been said about me. Nit-picking and neurotic, perhaps.”

“Maybe you’ve changed.” He stood. “I have to go. I’ve still got some pieces to frame for the show.”

She didn’t want to be alone in the school. It was Richard’s presence that made her feel safe. Without him she definitely didn’t want to be there. “Wait for me.” She hastily put her books into her briefcase.

“I wouldn’t go without you.” He was packing his things in a leisurely way.

She said, a little hesitantly, “I wanted to ask you round for a meal.”

“What about Saturday night? It can be by way of a celebration if I’ve sold enough to cover my framing costs, commiseration if I haven’t.”

Outside, he stopped at the bottom of the front steps and dropped his hand lightly on her shoulder. “You’ll be quite safe.”

Oddly enough, she believed him.

“You know Rundall better than I do. What about the vicar, James Savage?” Tuckett tapped his pen on his desk blotter.

Oates shrugged. “I’ve never spoken to him. From what I hear, he’s a bit peculiar. And that’s putting it politely. Not exactly popular, either. Three quarters of the Rundall congregation have deserted. Apparently he doesn’t offer the comforting sort of bilge they want to hear on a Sunday morning.”

Tuckett put his pen down and lined it up exactly with the edge of his desk blotter. “He was seen in Hogg’s Wood on the afternoon the girl was attacked. By our anonymous informer. He admitted he was there, to meet a Mrs Lucy Brunt. There seems to have been quite a bit of that going on. His story is that they walked about for twenty minutes, then she went home and he returned to the fete. We’ve spoken to her. Do you know her?”

“By sight. Her husband’s Ron Brunt, the plumber.”

“Know anything about him? Any domestic problems?”

“The talk is that he’s a bit heavy handed when he’s had a couple. She had a broken rib at one time, though the story was she’d fallen downstairs.”

“Savage gave us the impression there might be a problem if the husband caught a whiff of this. We went round when he was at work. Of course a dozen neighbours could tell him that.”

“Yes, but they wouldn’t. No-one likes him.”

Tuckett took another pen out of the jar and placed it end to end with the first pen. Oates watched, fascinated.

“Well, she confirmed his story. I got the impression she’d support anything he said. They’re a strange pair. Do you think he’d really have the gall to carry on with one of his parishioners?”

“Maybe it’s purely spiritual.”

Tuckett snorted. “Then why be so hole-in-the-corner about it?”

“Have you met his wife?”

“No. Difficult?”

“Like a cross between Joan of Arc and Thatcher.”

Tuckett frowned disapprovingly. “So, not at all like little Mrs Brunt, then?”

“Chalk and cheese. I wouldn’t like to meet her in a dark alley. The wife, I mean.” Oates frowned. “Surely they’d have heard or seen something?”

“They both swear they heard and saw nothing. But if their story is correct, they were there before the attack took place.” Tuckett swept the four pens that he’d arranged into a diamond shape to one side, and leant forward on the desk. “I am bothered by the possibility, the probability, that our anonymous note writer had nothing to do with the attack on Molly Smale.”

Oates remembered something. “You mean the notes you’ve been getting?”

“Yes, of course. Are there others?”

“Diana Gray told me on Saturday that she received a couple of poison pen letters a few weeks ago. But they were very personal attacks on her, no mention of anyone else.”

“Why on earth didn’t you tell me about this sooner?”

“They didn’t seem to have any relevance to the Guilfoyle business. And she didn’t want anyone to know about them. She found them pretty upsetting. Insinuations about her abilities as a teacher, that sort of thing.”

“Good God, man, this could be important. I want to see them. I need to see her, too.”

“She destroyed them.”

“Jesus.” Tuckett ground his teeth. “Did you see them?”

“No.”

“Was it stuff about her previous school?”

“Yes, I gather, with a couple of literary quotations thrown in.”

Tuckett stared at him, through him. “A jealous colleague. Someone from her old school who thought she wasn’t punished enough. Someone at her current school who wants her thrown out. A connection, a connection.” His eyes came back into focus. “Get her in. No. I’ll go and see her.”

“I haven’t broken a law by not reporting anonymous letters.” Diana glared at Tuckett, furious with Oates. “I didn’t want them to be spread about. It’s bad enough getting them in the first place.”

“They wouldn’t have been ‘spread about’ as you put it. And they could have enormous significance. I’ll tell you something you don’t know. I have received three anonymous notes regarding people who were seen around Hogg’s Wood on Saturday afternoon, and I regard them as possibly vital to this case. I have taken them very seriously, and followed up each allegation.”

“Inspector, I don’t see how my notes could possibly have had anything to do with all that’s been happening here. And believe me, while the Linton Grange business was going on, I had plenty of anonymous phone calls, death threats, horrible letters, both anonymous and signed. That’s why I didn’t really take them seriously. Or I tried not to.”

“Please will you write down for me everything you can remember in the notes. And anything else - how you received them, when you received them. Did you burn them, flush them down the lavatory?”

“I burned the first one. The other one was on disk.”

“A computer disk?”

“Yes. Remember I told you I’d had an intruder? Well, this is what he or she left.”

“Where was it?”

“With all my other disks, on my desk.”

“Do you always keep them in the same place?”

“Well, the only place I might take them is school.”

“Was it a new disk, or one of yours?”

She reflected. “I don’t know. It had nothing written on the label. It’s just like the ones I get from the school office.”

Tuckett took a deep breath. “And you’ve thrown it away?”

“Yes. It’s lying on some municipal tip somewhere. Sorry.”

The muscles bunched rhythmically in his jaw. After a while he said quietly, “I want you to write down those details for me, please. I’ll wait. Take as long as you need.”

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