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  Geoffrey patted his pockets until he found his reading glasses, and cleaned them thoroughly on the end of his tie, and then put them on so he could see what she was showing him.

  ‘Do you recognize it?’

  Geoffrey took off his reading glasses and lay them on the table. ‘I really can’t comment.’

  ‘It’s a waiver,’ said King. ‘Releasing the Exiteers from any culp­ability in the death of a client – in this case, Mr Charles Cann.’

  Geoffrey said nothing.

  ‘There’s also this will,’ she said, flattening said document on the table. ‘Have you any knowledge of this?’

  ‘No comment.’

  Kirsty King shrugged. ‘Mr Cann says you advised him to buy nitrous oxide from a dentist called Mr . . .’ She glanced at her notes. ‘Williams. And that you gave him precise instructions on how to use it.’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘Where does Dr Williams practise?’

  ‘I really can’t comment.’

  King watched him for a long beat, then lifted an old leather briefcase on to the table. ‘This was left behind too,’ she said, and clicked it open. ‘And these . . .’

  She removed the thermos, the N2O cylinder and the foil-wrapped sandwich, and laid them out in a neat, if random, row.

  ‘Do you recognize any of these?’

  Geoffrey put his glasses on again. ‘Is that a sandwich?’

  ‘Yes.’ DCI King peeled back the foil.

  ‘Strawberry jam?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In that case,’ said Geoffrey, ‘no comment.’

  King pursed her lips at him. ‘This is not a joke, Mr Skeet. It’s your right not to answer my questions, but I’d very much appreciate it if you’d remember that a man has died.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Geoffrey. ‘I apologize. I’m a little nervous, that’s all. This is all very new to me.’

  ‘I understand,’ nodded King.

  ‘May I have a glass of water, do you think?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Calvin fetched it. Geoffrey thanked him and took a careful sip. His hand shook a little as he did and he smiled thinly at them. ‘Parkinson’s,’ he said. ‘I spend most of my life spilling things down my shirt.’

  King remained stony-faced. She tapped the briefcase. ‘These items were left behind in the Cann house. The older Mr Cann – your client—’

  ‘Alleged client.’

  ‘Alleged client . . . says that this morning he put the cylinder beside his bed with the attached mask within easy reach, along with his will and this signed disclaimer, which he says was provided to him by you. He says he was expecting somebody from your organization to witness his suicide.’

  Geoffrey said nothing.

  ‘However, Mr Cann says he woke later to find the cylinder, will and waiver removed from his bedside and a stranger in his room. When he asked what was going on, the man left without a word. Somebody had already called the police but by the time we got there, the intruders had escaped. Sadly, a man was already dead. The wrong man.’

  She let the words hang there for a moment.

  ‘Not Mr Charles Cann . . .’ She tapped the will with a short, no-nonsense fingernail, ‘. . . but his son, Albert.’

  Geoffrey’s eyebrows flickered upwards, and King nodded, as if she agreed wholeheartedly with his surprise.

  ‘So,’ said King, ‘what went wrong?’

  Geoffrey frowned as if he was trying to work that out. ‘No comment,’ he said very slowly.

  ‘Have you spoken to the people involved?’

  ‘No. Comment.’

  ‘Has anyone in your organization made this kind of mistake before?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘This waiver shows that you understand how carefully your operatives have to carry out their duties to stay the right side of the law.’

  Geoffrey didn’t look at it.

  ‘But of course,’ King said, ‘the waiver is meaningless unless the person who signed it is the person who actually . . . you know . . . dies.’

  Silence.

  ‘So where does that leave you?’

  He did not reply.

  ‘Then I’ll tell you,’ she said. ‘Up to your neck in it.’

  He did not reply.

  DCI King sat back in her chair and observed him coolly. ‘You’re not helping yourself, you know, Geoffrey. You think you’re protecting the people who attended this scene, but refusing to reveal their identities amounts to an obstruction of justice at the very best. Accessory to murder at worst. Albert Cann used oxygen for emphysema. It was right there in his room next to his bed. Huge big tank. Anyone who was there must have seen it. Anyone with common sense would have understood that it might lead to confusion. They would have double-checked. Should have double-checked. To have not done so is criminally reckless at best.’

  Geoffrey said nothing.

  King leaned back in her chair with a sigh. ‘The trouble is, Geoffrey, you’re the only suspect we have right now, and unless you help us to identify anyone who may be more culpable, I’m afraid you’re it.’

  Geoffrey smiled faintly.

  ‘What’s funny?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘It’s just, they say that on TV police dramas and then the suspect always breaks down and tells the police everything they want to know. I just wondered whether it ever works in real life.’

  ‘Often,’ said King, ‘but only because it’s true.’ She smiled. ‘You know what else often works?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A search warrant.’

  The Discrepancies

  ‘I’m so sorry, Geoffrey!’ Felix was mortified. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Bideford police station.’

  Felix squinted at his watch, but his arm wasn’t long enough to read the time without his glasses. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can and tell them this is completely my fault, then they’ll let you go.’

  ‘Don’t you worry about me, John, I’m fine. I’m doing the old no comment thing at the moment. The only trouble is, I don’t really know what it is I’m not commenting on.’

  So Felix took a deep breath and told Geoffrey exactly what had happened. After he finished speaking there was a long silence.

  Then Geoffrey said quietly, ‘The police think it was deliberate, John. They’re talking murder.’

  ‘What?’ he said. ‘What?’

  ‘A man died . . .’

  ‘But . . .’ Felix was dazed. ‘It wasn’t deliberate! It was just a terrible mistake!’

  ‘Well,’ said Geoffrey cautiously, ‘it does sound as if there are some discrepancies.’

  ‘Discrepancies?’

  ‘Between your version of events and theirs.’

  ‘But how can there be? I did everything by the book. I mean, I checked his name, and the cylinder and the will and the waiver were right there next to his bed—’

  ‘Well, Charles Cann told the police they were beside his bed. But, of course, they found them in your briefcase, so that’s impossible to establish for sure. And apparently the poor fellow who died – Albert Cann – had emphysema or some such and used oxygen and they think he may have confused that with the nitrous oxide.’

  ‘But there was no oxygen in the room,’ said Felix. ‘People use those great big cylinders on wheels, don’t they? I couldn’t have missed it.’

  You weren’t looking for it . . . a little voice niggled in his head and Felix thought back to the bedroom – small, stuffy, with big old brown furniture and a gloomy carpet. But no oxygen tank. Not that he could remember anyway . . .

  He thought of Albert Cann. The laboured breathing, the mottled skin. The poor man had been suffocating right in front of them. The way he’d looked frantically around the room for the mask, and how – when he’d found i
t in his lucky hand – he’d clamped it so hard to his face, and sucked so greedily . . .

  Desperate for life, not death.

  ‘My God . . .’ Felix felt reality shift around him and settle into a new, far less comfortable position. He sat down heavily on the little telephone seat in the hallway of his home, feeling numb.

  ‘Now don’t worry, John,’ said Geoffrey kindly. ‘I’m sure there’s a good explanation for all of this. You just lie low. I’ve got your back on this, one hundred per cent.’

  ‘Lie low? But I have to tell the police what really happened!’

  Geoffrey hesitated, then said sombrely, ‘I think that until we know more about what went wrong, that might be rather dangerous for all of us.’

  Felix nodded, trying to think against the tide of shock. ‘Just promise me you’ll keep that girl out of it, Geoffrey. She’s got her whole life ahead of her.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Geoffrey. ‘No point in bringing her into it at all.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Felix. ‘I only—’

  ‘So anyway . . .’ Geoffrey cut across him brusquely, as if he suddenly had company. ‘I need somebody to feed my cat.’

  ‘Your cat ?’

  ‘Do you have a pencil?’

  Felix was discombobulated by the sudden conversational swerve. He frowned at the little pad they always kept by the phone but was still thinking about the man in the bed, sucking death through the mask that Amanda had handed him, and the pad . . . the top page had Margaret’s writing on it – Jean lunch Thursday? – and Felix had been loath to tear it off and throw it away, so he had folded it back and used the pages underneath . . .

  ‘. . . Exeter,’ said Geoffrey, and Felix realized that Geoffrey had given him his address and he’d missed it, so he asked him to repeat it and wrote it down, feeling as if he was going a bit mad. Writing down a cat’s address, while thinking of Albert Cann gasping and dying and the little gold pencil with the tassel, and Jean coming for lunch on Thursday . . .

  ‘Geoffrey—’

  ‘His name is Buttons,’ said Geoffrey, and the line went dead.

  Felix placed the receiver back in its dock with barely a sound. Then he just sat and stared at the address without seeing it.

  Deliberate?

  The police must be wrong. The will had been right next to the bed. And the waiver too. And there was no oxygen in Albert Cann’s bedroom. He was sure of it.

  Wasn’t he . . . ?

  Felix was a fair and thorough man and so he sat and examined his own memory – walking it carefully through the day’s events, from the moment he had taken the key from under the mat, right up until the old man in the bed had said those fateful words . . .

  You took your time!

  Felix took his time again now. Didn’t hurry. Wanted to make sure he wasn’t missing anything. But at no point did his memory stumble over what he already knew to be true. There was no catch, no revelation, no cloudy area where he realized he’d mixed things up and needed to revise his version of events. Nothing came to him now that had not been part of the experience then, or that might have happened in the wrong order.

  Felix knew he was right. But he also knew he was old . . .

  He frowned down at his hands on his knees. They were big square gardening hands with sparse hair on the knuckles, and knobbly in places they hadn’t been the last time he’d noticed. Although the last time he could remember really looking at his own hands, he’d glued his thumb to the fuselage of an Airfix Spitfire and his mother had made him soak the whole lot in a bowl of warm water for half an hour, while the RAF decals floated sadly off the wings . . .

  These weren’t the same hands. These were an old man’s hands! And yet here they were at the ends of his arms, all rough and wrinkled.

  His memory was rough and wrinkled too – with hills and gullies that might hide truths or lies. He vividly remembered hanging this woodchip just after they’d moved in – the dry roughness and the smell of the paste – but sometimes he forgot to put out the recycling. Often, in fact. And only last week he’d missed a doctor’s appointment. And gone out twice to the corner shop for milk and come home both times with Margaret’s string bag full of everything but milk. Including okra, which he had no idea how to cook and no desire to eat, so why on earth would he buy it?

  The truth was, Felix had started to forget things. So if he had forgotten something about this morning would he even know ? Would he remember that he had forgotten? Or would the forgetting be complete?

  The thought was frightening – that maybe all his future held for him now was forgetting his past.

  Would he forget Margaret one day?

  Jamie?

  The thought alone scared him.

  And now something new scared him too.

  Until now Felix had been quite sure of one thing – that when he was arrested the police would believe his version of events, because the evidence would support it. That he’d only have to tell them the truth to make them understand how the tragedy had unfolded.

  But what if his truth was wrong?

  What if some bit of evidence he’d missed or forgotten supported another truth entirely?

  Then, killing the wrong man and fleeing the scene of the crime might not sound understandable at all.

  It might just sound like murder.

  Another Bite of the Cherry

  Calvin Bridge didn’t like the Cann case.

  For a start, it made him consider his own mortality. Calvin already considered it more often than was probably healthy. Or logical, given that all four of his grandparents were still alive, with Dermot Bridge leading the way on ninety-nine not out.

  But Calvin had never felt quite like one of the family. He’d never looked much like his dark-haired brothers and sister, and he didn’t think like them at all, and so had always felt that being confident about sharing their life expectancy was a luxury he should not presume to afford. Therefore he was only too aware that he might have a limited time to get a proper life under way, and that he’d already had one false start with Shirley. He hadn’t had a proper girlfriend since then, and he was nearly twenty-seven. Which was pretty much the same as being nearly thirty. Which was only ten years from being forty, and then he might as well just admit defeat and slide downhill towards the grave.

  So, obviously, this case had raised the spectre of death in his mind once more.

  Then yesterday he had been further unsettled by Geoffrey Skeet’s innocent musings on Tiverton folk they might have in common. The old man had thrown names out there every now and then as they’d taken the winding route between Exeter and Bideford: Tigger Jackman and Derek Trott and Cynthia Curley and Paul Minster . . .

  Most of the names Skeet had mentioned were unfamiliar to Calvin, but one of them was not.

  Cynthia Curley was his mother.

  Geoffrey Skeet had said it with a question mark, and Calvin hadn’t even blinked before shaking his head.

  I don’t know her.

  And Geoffrey Skeet had moved on to another memory without him, while Calvin had sat in cold, dark dread.

  Cynthia Curley had been in and out of prison for theft and handling stolen goods for much of his life, and Calvin Bridge couldn’t think how Geoffrey Skeet might know her. Calvin had worked too hard at leaving his history behind him to let some random suspect in the back of a cop car open it up like a scab to be picked over by colleagues. Or – worse – leak out into the wider community, so that every little thief he collared felt he had the right to ask him why he wasn’t arresting his mother for real crimes, instead of him for pinching a six-pack from Morrisons, or shooting up in the doorway of the White Hart.

  Calvin Bridge loved his mother but, at the moment of truth, he’d denied her like Peter.

  ‘All right, Calvin?’

  He flinched as DCI King dropped a file over his shoulder and on
to the table.

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ she said.

  Calvin blushed deeply. How does she know? Was he really that transparent? Maybe he should come clean. If only he could trust her to—

  Then he looked around and realized that King wasn’t talking to him – she was talking to the vending machine.

  The Bideford police station vending machine was the biggest thief any of them knew. It routinely took their cash and gave nothing back. Worse, it taunted them while it did so – uncurling its spiral arms to proffer chocolate or a sandwich . . . and then refusing to hand over the treat, sometimes leaving it well short of the ledge, other times grabbing its ankle and dangling it over the drop, like a mob debtor off a roof.

  Calvin had lost dozens of coins over the years, and always just sighed and hoped for better luck next time. But Kirsty King was made of sterner stuff. Now she thumped the glass sharply and when that didn’t work she grabbed the machine by both shoulders and shook it, whereupon it choked up the Twix she’d paid for, and a bag of Quavers she hadn’t.

  She dropped the Quavers on the table in front of Calvin. ‘Your lucky day,’ she said, and sat down.

  ‘I paid for these a week ago,’ Calvin mused as he opened the snacks. ‘Skeet cracked yet?’

  ‘No comment,’ she shrugged. ‘Bloody annoying. He’s obviously covering up for the men on the ground.’

  ‘Or women,’ Calvin said.

  ‘Or women,’ she agreed. ‘I’ve sent Pete back to Black Lane to see if anyone has any CCTV of the scene, and I’ll have another bash at Skeet this morning, but he’s not going to give us anything, if I’m any judge of character.’

  Calvin nodded and DCI King looked at him carefully. ‘Talking of which, everything all right with you?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said, wide-eyed.

  ‘You sure? You’ve got a face like fourpence.’

  That stung. Calvin liked to think he had a face like Ryan Gosling.

  King regarded him coolly down the double barrel of her Twix, and Calvin was filled with a mixture of irritation and admiration at her powers of perception. He did his best to look cheerful.