Free Quarter Square by David Bridger Page A

says Tony told him you’d punched him and why.”
    Dawson raised his gaze. “Do you still say you don’t have a temper?”
    I shrugged.
    “For the tape,” Smith announced, “the suspect shrugged his shoulders.”
    “I walked in on them shagging. Not exactly a normal situation. I don’t normally have a bad temper. What happened to them?”
    But Dawson still wasn’t ready to tell me. He took me back to my verbal account and examined it. He walked me through everything I’d said so far, taking each small section in turn and encouraging me to remember more and more about it before moving on to study the next segment.
    He was making me commit further and further to my story and manoeuvring me into spaces where I would have to invent things on the spot if what I was saying had been concocted: inventions I would have to remember accurately when he reexamined me. He was calm and meticulous, like a surgeon, cutting deeper and deeper.
    My main difficulty was keeping the insiders out of the picture. I managed to do it, but I suspected these lies of omission were making me look guilty, so I compensated by talking in great detail about my dealings with builder’s merchants and subcontractors.
    “I bought a lot of stuff in Plymouth last week, and all the credit-card receipts are in my wallet. They’ll prove I was where I say I was. Take a look at them.”
    “We will.”
    Explaining my whereabouts during Flo’s funeral gave me the most trouble. I’d lost track at the time, but that took place on Saturday, and this was Monday. Still Monday. It had been a very long day.
    Anyhow, I hadn’t seen anyone on the outside from Friday evening until Sunday morning and had no receipts to cover that thirty-hour period. The fact that I was being interviewed in Islington told me the murders must have occurred there, and thirty hours would have been long enough for me to get from Plymouth to London, kill them both and return to Plymouth. The time gap worried me.
    Strangely, though, Dawson didn’t probe that weakness. He allowed me to explain it away as time spent working alone in the theatre. From that I assumed the murders must have occurred before then. Thursday night, perhaps. However, I was tired, my head was buzzing from two hours of interrogation and I didn’t trust my powers of deduction.
    Dawson pulled a slim folder from his file and rested his fingertips lightly upon it. “We want to talk to a Plymouth man of about your age and height, but thinner. Wears dark clothing in a rather theatrical style. He has longish black hair and a little Vandyke beard. Sound like anyone you might know?”
    Shit. I shook my head. “No one I can think of.”
    “Doesn’t sound familiar?” He pursed his lips and shook his head too, as if sympathising and trying to jog my memory.
    “No.”
    “That’s odd.” He slipped a glossy ten-by-eight photograph from the folder, placed it on the desk and announced an evidence number for the tape.
    It was a good-quality shot of Will and me outside the theatre. I had him pinned against the wall and was threatening him with my raised fist. Both our faces were visible. There could be no doubt about our identities.
    “Oh, him. ” My mind raced through various possibilities.
    “Yes, him. ” Dawson raised his eyebrows, waiting for whatever I came up with.
    “He’s a nuisance who heard I was taking people on and keeps pestering me for work. I needed a couple of tradesmen and found the ones I want. He has no skills anyway. Eventually he got a bit nasty—” I nodded at the photo, “—so I told him to back off.”
    “So this is another example of you not having a temper, is it?”
    I sighed. “Look. Things took a nosedive last week, and yes, maybe I’ve been more touchy than usual. Surely that’s understandable. No?”
    The detectives turned to each other wordlessly. They didn’t buy it.
    Tough. I’d chosen my story, and now I’d have to stick with it.
    Dawson produced another folder and announced