Free Stranglehold by J. M. Gregson Page B

he shook his head sullenly. Rushton said, ‘Do you wish to have a lawyer present for the rest of our exchange?’
    He judged correctly that the suggestion would strike Vic Knowles only as a further threat. When the man had refused the offer, he said, ‘I think it’s time you gave us a full and proper account of what you did last night, Mr Knowles.’
    There was a silence which seemed to Knowles to stretch interminably in the small room, though in fact it was no more than thirty seconds long. His irregular breathing seemed almost that of an asthmatic as his mind raced and he sought to control it. Eventually he said, ‘I went to the Roosters as I told you. It might have been a bit later than I said; it was going dark.’
    â€˜What you are telling us now will form the basis of a statement which we shall ask you to sign, Mr Knowles. In your own interest, you should take care to be accurate. What happened next?’
    â€˜I – I wasn’t there as long as I said. Perhaps quarter of an hour – I did hear the ten o’clock sports bulletin on the radio, as I said.’ He produced this irrelevance as if he had a desperate idea that it might confirm his integrity. Then, as if he realized how futile it sounded, he said, ‘But just after that, I picked a girl up.’
    â€˜Is that why you waited outside the club?’
    Knowles nodded sullenly, twisting the cheap digital watch on his wrist. ‘There’s no law against it.’
    â€˜There are laws against both soliciting and kerb-crawling. Those laws are not my concern at the moment, but –’
    â€˜I knew the girl already, I’d seen her before.’
    â€˜What was her name?’
    Knowles’s broad shoulders dropped hopelessly. ‘I don’t know. I’d only seen her once before.’
    â€˜But you had arranged to meet her outside the Roosters .’
    â€˜No. Well, I had – Oh, I don’t know.’ Knowles dropped his eyes; they were unable to contend any longer against those relentless brown ones.
    Rushton tried to keep his growing excitement out of his voice as he said, ‘You went there to wait for her, then.’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜But you didn’t know her name. Was she a prostitute?’
    There was another silence: it pained Knowles to admit, as he knew he must, that he had been reduced to this. ‘Yes, I suppose she was.’
    â€˜And you had intercourse with her last night? That was presumably your purpose in contacting her.’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜At her place?’
    â€˜No. In the back of my car. It was cheaper that way.’ For an instant his searing self-contempt came through the words.
    â€˜And where did this occur?’ Rushton, who was having trouble with his own wife, was taking a ruthless satisfaction in the exposure of this shabby liaison.
    Vic Knowles looked up at Rushton and the officer behind him for the first time in several minutes, and there was fear in those bloodshot eyes. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know this town. I drove to where she told me. Somewhere quiet on the edge of the town, but it was dark, you see.’
    â€˜I see. Your car was recorded at just before eleven o’clock, just off the Gloucester road. Would this lady whose name you do not know have been with you at that time?’
    He nodded hopelessly. ‘The time sounds right. I’ve told you, I don’t know where we were. I just drove to a quiet place, as she directed me.’
    â€˜How much did you give her?’
    â€˜Twenty pounds. I told you, it was cheaper in the car. So long as all you wanted was straightforward sex, and you didn’t take too long over it.’ Again his disgust with himself seemed too genuine for a man like him to simulate.
    â€˜We shall need a description of this woman.’
    He gave them what he could. Young, seeming to him not much more than a girl. Dark hair, cut fairly short; red blouse; skirt navy or