Free An Unsuitable Death by J. M. Gregson Page B

the heroin, didn’t you? You must have done, unless your relationship was nothing like as close as you’ve claimed it was.”
    “I told you, we were going to get married. I loved Tamsin, and she loved me.” With that simple, rather banal assertion, he was suddenly in tears. Neither of the older men opposite him moved forward to console him, to mitigate his grief. A man in extreme distress would reveal more than a man in control of his emotions, and long experience of CID interrogations had made them ruthless in pursuit of the information which was the currency of their trade. Eventually Tom Clarke gathered himself, volunteered them a look of extreme disgust, and said, “All right, I knew about the smack. She was going to give it up, with my help. That was to be part of our fresh start, when we moved away from here.”
    Lambert said drily, “I doubt whether that would have been possible, without professional help. Dependency — and according to the PM report, that’s what we’re speaking of in Tamsin’s case — is not easily cast aside. But that’s not our concern here. It’s how Tamsin financed the habit that has to interest us. On top of a flat she shouldn’t have been able to afford, she was using heroin to the value of hundreds of pounds per week. Now where was the money for all this coming from?”
    Clarke mopped away the tears from his handsome features, using a large handkerchief with a “T” embroidered in the corner, hating them for the question, hating them even more for making his misery so naked. “I don’t know. I told you, my only concern was to get Tamsin out of all that. To make a fresh start together.”
    It was becoming a recurring chorus. Lambert said, “How long had she been dependent on heroin, Tom?”
    He shook his head hopelessly. “I don’t know. I’ve taken a little pot myself, in my time, and at first I thought that was all it was. But I soon realised it was much worse than that. She said she’d gone on to snow, and then to smack. I saw the needle marks, of course, as soon as — well, as soon as we were naked together. She wouldn’t admit it, but I’m sure it got worse while I knew her. She needed more of the stuff, I mean, though she would never admit it. It’s odd, but I never thought of her as dependent. I thought if I could just get her away from Hereford — She always talked as if she was
    going to give it up next week.”
    It was the self-delusion of all addicts: alcoholics, gamblers and junkies were all going to give it up next week. And of the three, it was the drug-dependents who usually died most quickly. Lambert said gently, “Did it not occur to you that drugs might be the source of her income as well as her trouble? People who are dependent lose all moral equilibrium. They will do anything to get the fix their body demands, when they reach that stage. Including selling drugs to other people.”
    “No!” The monosyllable came as a shout in the quiet room. Unless he was a very good actor indeed, this handsome, rather callow young man had never considered the possibility before. “I’m sure she wasn’t. Tamsin despised herself for the habit. She’d never have started selling drugs to others.”
    He was desperate for reassurance, desperate to preserve the crumbling image of the girl he had set on his own pedestal. Lambert could offer him no comfort. “It’s something we have to consider, until we find the source of her funds. I can assure you that once you are dependent on heroin, you will do anything to get the drug: the body simply demands it, needs it. Any idea of right and wrong is submerged beneath that need. That is what makes dependency such an awful thing.”
    Clarke nodded, accepting the logic for humanity, yet denying it for his own tiny corner of the human race. “I can see that. But I’m sure Tamsin wasn’t selling on drugs to others. I’d have known if she was.”
    The lover’s old illusion that the partner withheld nothing, that when you