The Mother, page 20
He shrugs his thin shoulders. ‘So, talk.’
I give him a summary of our investigation so far, Owen’s work to uncover a conspiracy, unanswered questions about Christine Lai and the three men who have been looking for me since I was released.
‘There’s also the fact that I didn’t kill my husband,’ I add.
Musgrove takes another puff of oxygen from the mask.
‘What do you want from me?’
‘I need to know, John. I need to hear it from you.’
‘Hear what?’
‘The truth.’
‘The truth is that I’m fifty-six years old and I’m dying, Heather.’
‘And I’m sorry about that, I genuinely am. I think you were a decent man trying to do a difficult job ten years ago, with a lot of pressure on you from all sides.’ I lean forward on the bed. ‘But surely you had doubts back then, didn’t you? Alternative suspects connected with his parliamentary work? With the benefit of hindsight, do you think it’s possible you got it wrong? The fact that I’m here ten years later, still telling you I didn’t do it, isn’t that enough to make you wonder—’
‘You know the worst thing about this place?’ he says, cutting me off. ‘Apart from the staff trying to be relentlessly bloody cheerful all the time?’
‘What?’
‘No booze. Not a drop. Not allowed in case it interferes with the delicate balance of my palliative care regime, or whatever they say. I mean, if you can’t enjoy a dram in here of all places, what’s the point of it all?’
‘No booze in prison either.’
‘Touché.’
‘So what’s your point?’
‘Listen, we both want something, right?’ He lets out a long, sad sigh. ‘You want to know what was wrong with your conviction. I want one last bottle of fine single malt, to take the edge off.’
Words stall in my throat, the blood starting up a thud-thud-thud in my ears as his words sink in.
What was wrong with your conviction.
37
Finally, here in this moment, in this place, I had found what I had been seeking for the last ten years. I had found the key, the secret to unlocking all of it – to redeeming my past and finding a new future. A future in which my sons could be a part of my life again. And now that I was here I didn’t want to wait another minute, not a second longer. Musgrove had known, he had known the conviction was unsafe and if we hadn’t tracked him down he would have gone to his grave without telling a soul. He owed me this.
‘So you’ll tell me?’
He gestures at his surroundings. ‘Haven’t exactly got much to lose now, have I?’
The thud of blood in my ears is getting louder. ‘If you’ve got something to tell me, just say it now. It’s to do with corruption, isn’t it? I know what happened to Liam was because of his job. And Christine Lai’s tied up in it too. Just tell me instead of dancing around it, I don’t have time for that.’
‘You have more time than me.’
That brings me up short. ‘True, I suppose.’
‘Quid pro quo, Heather.’ He gives me the ghost of a smile. ‘Consider it a condemned man’s last request. Put a glass of Talisker in my hand and I’ll tell you everything.’
I stand up, blowing out a frustrated breath. ‘Seriously?’
‘I want a drink, and you want to know.’
His eyes hold mine with a quiet intensity, daring me to say yes. Knowing that I can’t say no.
‘Deal,’ I say.
‘I’ll go,’ Jodie says. It’s the first time she’s spoken since we walked into the room, and I get the sense she’s eager to leave, to get away from this man if nothing else. ‘I know a place nearby.’
I hand her my payment card and she’s gone without another word, pulling the door shut behind her. I’m left alone with John Musgrove.
He indicates a wheelchair, folded next to the door.
‘In the meantime, Heather,’ he says, ‘how about you and I get some fresh air?’
* * *
I wheel him out to the garden, along a path bordered by pink and purple hydrangeas, the sweet-soft scent of their blossoms heavy in the air. We find an empty bench down by the lake and he manages, with an effort, to lever himself out of the wheelchair and onto the wooden seat.
We sit in silence for a moment, the only sound between us the wheeze of breath forcing its way in and out of his shattered lungs. The sun is still warm but he’s bundled up in an overcoat and scarf, thick slippers on his feet and a flat cap on his head. And still, he seems to shiver as if there is a coldness set deep in his bones.
‘Would you ever have told me?’ I say finally. ‘Would you ever have told anyone, if you hadn’t been here? If I hadn’t come to find you?’
He folds his arms across his chest, shoulders hunched.
‘I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about you over the last ten years, Heather. I’ve thought about you a lot, from time to time. You retire, you think you’ll put it all behind you, but certain cases . . . Yeah. They stay with you.’
‘You got promoted off the back of my conviction.’
‘It wasn’t only that.’
‘How long has it been since you’ve known? Just since you’ve retired, or was it longer ago? Did you know even at the trial that it wasn’t right, it wasn’t me, but everything was too far gone by that point?’
‘The thing about police work, Heather, the thing no one understands outside of the job, is that no case is watertight. No prosecution case is one hundred per cent perfect. If you’re lucky you might get it to ninety per cent, or eighty, or maybe seventy-five, and God knows I’ve seen people convicted on less. And acquitted on more. There’s always going to be an element of doubt, that’s just how life is.’
We gaze out across the lake as a trio of ducks make a splashy landing on the water.
‘But why did you wait so long?’ I say.
He shrugs. ‘Always thought there would be a better time. That I’d have more time.’ He curls into another fit of hacking coughs, bending almost double at the waist. ‘And now I’ve got secondary tumours in my liver, and up here too.’ He points an index finger at his bald head. ‘Short-term memory’s going, can’t even remember my own bloody phone number but I can still remember the details of cases from ten, twenty years ago.’
I’m surprised to find that my anger has dissipated almost completely, replaced with a heavy grey melancholy that wraps itself around me like a shawl. Both of us are losers here, both of us beaten by life.
‘How long has it been, John?’ I say quietly. ‘Since you were diagnosed?’
‘Christmas.’ His voice has dropped to barely a whisper.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I had so much anger in prison, towards you, towards the system, towards all of it. But I’m sorry this has happened to you.’
He doesn’t respond straightaway and I think emotion might have finally got the better of him. It’s only after a minute that I realise his eyes are closed, his chin dipping down to his chest with fatigue.
We’re still like that – at opposite ends of the wooden bench, him dozing and me staring out at the lake – when Jodie finds us half an hour later with a couple of plastic bags clinking in her hand. Together we ease Musgrove back into the wheelchair and the three of us return to the hospice’s main building, down the long corridor to his room, helping him back into the big armchair by the window.
Jodie has outdone herself. Not only has she got exactly the single malt whisky he asked for, she has bought cut-glass tumblers too.
‘No point buying the good stuff,’ she says, ‘and then drinking out of the crappy little squash glasses you’ve got in your cupboard.’
Musgrove has perked up considerably since seeing the unopened bottle of Talisker.
‘Quite right,’ he says. To me, he adds: ‘I like her.’
Jodie unpacks her purchases in the little kitchenette, a soft pop as she twists the cap off the whisky and then half fills a small jug with water from the tap.
‘Just a little dash of water,’ Musgrove calls to her, licking his lips. ‘Not too much, love. A drop or two to break the meniscus and open up the taste, that’s all.’
While she’s pouring and he’s distracted, I slip my mobile phone from my pocket and hit start on the voice recorder app, placing it on the side table next to his armchair. Jodie emerges from the kitchenette with a loaded tray and hands a tumbler to Musgrove, and then one to me. She takes the last one for herself.
‘So what are we going to toast?’ she says.
Musgrove stares longingly into the pale amber liquid in his glass. ‘How about justice?’
The three of us clink the heavy glasses together and murmur the toast. I take a small sip, the smoky, peaty liquor burning my throat as it goes down, too nervous to really enjoy it. Jodie knocks hers back in a single gulp, like a shot. Musgrove holds the glass beneath his nose, inhaling deeply before taking a slow, considered mouthful, closing his eyes in rapture as he swallows and exhaling with a sigh of delight.
‘A fine single malt is all you really need in this life,’ he says, taking another mouthful. ‘And that is God’s honest truth.’
He pushes his empty glass towards Jodie and she obliges, filling it with another generous measure of whisky and topping it up with a splash of water. She pours another half-inch into her own tumbler as well. There is a tremor in my hand as I raise my glass. Just a sip. Need to focus, need to be straight for this, to remember exactly what he says next. I glance at the screen of my phone to double-check the voice recorder is going, seconds ticking onwards.
‘So, John,’ I say, leaning forward. ‘We made a deal.’
‘Indeed we did.’
‘Now I need you to tell me.’
He takes another hefty swallow of Scotch from his glass.
‘And you’re sure you want to know?’ he says.
‘I am.’
‘You’re absolutely certain? Because some things can be very hard to hear.’
‘Yes.’ My heart drums painfully against my ribs. ‘Whatever it is, just tell me.’
‘OK, Heather. I’ll tell you what was wrong with your conviction.’ He looks me right in the eye. ‘Nothing. Absolutely nothing at all.’
He raises the whisky tumbler towards me.
‘Cheers.’ He takes another deep sip, letting out a little gasp of pleasure, his head falling back against the armchair. ‘That’s the stuff all right. Oh yes.’
For a second I’m too stunned to say anything.
There is a sick, hollow feeling in my stomach as if I’ve been cheated or tricked, as if I’ve opened a longed-for gift and found nothing inside but an empty box.
‘I don’t understand,’ I say. ‘What are you talking about? What do you mean, nothing?’
‘Exactly and precisely that, my dear.’
‘We made a deal, you said you’d tell me the truth. You said you’d tell me everything.’
‘I said I would tell you what was wrong with your conviction. Which is exactly what I’ve done. Your conviction was entirely safe and justified and correct, and that’s why you did those nine years. That’s why your appeal was dismissed. To be honest, I’d hoped by now you’d accepted the consequences of your actions, taken responsibility for them. It’s the only way you’re ever going to move forward.’
38
I’m gripping my glass so tightly the knuckles are white ridges of bone beneath the skin, and I have a sudden urge to hurl it at his head. I slam it onto the table instead, whisky slopping out onto the polished teak.
‘You bastard. You tricked me.’
Musgrove shrugs. ‘What did you expect?’
‘You were talking as if you’d changed your mind. As if you had regrets. I know I didn’t kill Liam, and I hoped you’d want to put the record straight.’ I gesture at the surroundings. ‘Especially considering you’re here.’
His forehead bunches with angry lines for the first time since Jodie and I had arrived.
‘What?’ he says. ‘You thought that just because I’m dying, I’d fall to my knees and confess that it was all a stitch-up? That I’d unburden myself with some great revelation about how me and my team turned you over?’ He is breathless again, his chest rising and falling with the exertion, and he reaches for a puff on the oxygen mask next to his chair. ‘That I knowingly got an innocent person sentenced to eighteen years? That I’d take my whole life, my whole career – a career that has been everything to me – and blow it all away just because you turned up on my doorstep?’
‘You never considered any other suspects,’ I say. ‘Not after that first day. You got tunnel vision, you were totally fixated on me and you couldn’t see the bigger picture, all the things that didn’t fit.’
He shakes his head. ‘I tried to tell you earlier. Every case has its rough edges, the little pieces that don’t quite fit. The odd things that don’t quite chime with the rest, or don’t slot in one way or the other. People nowadays watch so much CSI and Sherlock and Silent Witness on telly and they think that everything is tied up neatly with a bow. But real life isn’t like that. Real cases are not like that either, there’s never a case that’s one hundred per cent watertight, that’s why we let the jury decide one way or the other.’
‘And what were the rough edges in my case?’
‘It doesn’t matter now. Not with your legal options exhausted and—’
‘It matters to me! If there were weaknesses in the case I deserve to know.’
‘You haven’t been listening to what I’m saying to you. You’re a convicted murderer, you’ve had your due process and you deserve whatever—’
‘Wrongfully convicted.’
He grunts and shakes his head.
I stand up, move nearer to his chair. ‘Were you leaned on by the chief whip’s office to get a quick result?’
‘No.’
‘Was there pressure on you to ignore any connection with corruption in Parliament, cash for access, sensitive information being sold to big corporates?’
‘There was pressure to get a result. The right result. Full stop.’
‘Does the name Artemis mean anything to you? Is it a company? A project name?’
There is the slightest pause in the passage of the glass to his lips, before he takes another sip of whisky.
‘Never heard that name before.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Believe what you like,’ he says. ‘I’m dying.’
‘Why has most of the case evidence been lost by the police?’
‘Nothing to do with me.’ He shrugs. ‘I was already retired by then.’
‘The blonde woman in the photos on Liam’s phone, how come you never found her?’
‘Rough edges, like I said. But we still had enough to get over the line.’
For some reason, the sporting analogy stokes the fire of my anger even higher.
‘That’s what you call it, ruining my life? Getting over the line?’
‘You killed your husband, Heather.’
‘No!’ I lean down towards him, close enough to smell the sour whisky on his breath. ‘No, I didn’t. And I really thought you’d have the guts to admit you had doubts. Especially when I found out you were in this place.’
He doesn’t move this time, doesn’t flinch.
‘In that case, I’m pleased to be able to disappoint you.’
I blow out a sigh of frustration and turn to Jodie who has been leaning against the wall, glass in hand, observing the whole exchange. Her raised eyebrow says, I told you so.
Without a word, she turns and moves back to the kitchenette, rattling through cutlery in the drawer loud enough for him to hear.
‘Some decent knives in here, Heather, if you want to go with my approach instead.’ At my quizzical look, she adds: ‘Remember – we threaten to cut his balls off unless he gives us the info?’
Musgrove freezes, the glass halfway to his lips again, eyes flicking between the two of us as if he’s not sure whether she’s serious.
Jodie pulls out a wicked-looking carving knife with a silver handle, testing the blade against her fingertips. She grips it easily, checking the weight, the balance, the point, as if to familiarise herself with the knife. She seems quite comfortable with a blade in her hand.
‘I reckon this one’s the sharpest.’ She points it casually at Musgrove. ‘What do you reckon, John? Do you want to play the yes–no game?’
For a second, the temptation is there. I don’t think Jodie would actually hurt him but he doesn’t know that. Maybe it’s worth a try, just to see if he gives us anything more.
But it’s not right. Not when he’s defenceless. Whatever he’s done or not done, he doesn’t deserve this.
I shake my head. ‘We’re wasting our time here.’
‘Pity.’ She stabs the carving knife down into a chopping board with a thud instead, leaving it embedded upright in the wood. She comes out of the little kitchen and points at the three-quarters-full bottle of whisky. ‘Do you want it?’
I look at Musgrove, at the tremor in his hand as he pours another generous measure into his glass.
‘Leave it,’ I say, grabbing my phone up off the side table. ‘Let’s go.’
I throw one last glance back at former Detective Inspector John Musgrove, but he won’t meet my gaze. The door swings shut.
Jodie hurries to keep up with my angry strides as we head back along the corridor towards the reception desk.
‘It was worth a go, Heather. Not your fault he’s an arsehole.’
‘You were right,’ I say through gritted teeth. ‘Should have listened to you.’
In the car park, she guides me to the passenger side of the little black Corsa. I wait until both doors are shut before I let it out, a sob of rage and frustration so loud it makes my ears ring.
Jodie takes my hand, gives it a squeeze.
‘That’s cops for you, isn’t it?’ she says. ‘They’re all bastards. All the bloody same.’
‘I really thought . . . when we found him and he started talking to us.’ I shake my head. ‘He could have called for help, raised the alarm somehow, but he didn’t. Thought he had something to say to me, to get it off his chest after all these years.’
I give him a summary of our investigation so far, Owen’s work to uncover a conspiracy, unanswered questions about Christine Lai and the three men who have been looking for me since I was released.
‘There’s also the fact that I didn’t kill my husband,’ I add.
Musgrove takes another puff of oxygen from the mask.
‘What do you want from me?’
‘I need to know, John. I need to hear it from you.’
‘Hear what?’
‘The truth.’
‘The truth is that I’m fifty-six years old and I’m dying, Heather.’
‘And I’m sorry about that, I genuinely am. I think you were a decent man trying to do a difficult job ten years ago, with a lot of pressure on you from all sides.’ I lean forward on the bed. ‘But surely you had doubts back then, didn’t you? Alternative suspects connected with his parliamentary work? With the benefit of hindsight, do you think it’s possible you got it wrong? The fact that I’m here ten years later, still telling you I didn’t do it, isn’t that enough to make you wonder—’
‘You know the worst thing about this place?’ he says, cutting me off. ‘Apart from the staff trying to be relentlessly bloody cheerful all the time?’
‘What?’
‘No booze. Not a drop. Not allowed in case it interferes with the delicate balance of my palliative care regime, or whatever they say. I mean, if you can’t enjoy a dram in here of all places, what’s the point of it all?’
‘No booze in prison either.’
‘Touché.’
‘So what’s your point?’
‘Listen, we both want something, right?’ He lets out a long, sad sigh. ‘You want to know what was wrong with your conviction. I want one last bottle of fine single malt, to take the edge off.’
Words stall in my throat, the blood starting up a thud-thud-thud in my ears as his words sink in.
What was wrong with your conviction.
37
Finally, here in this moment, in this place, I had found what I had been seeking for the last ten years. I had found the key, the secret to unlocking all of it – to redeeming my past and finding a new future. A future in which my sons could be a part of my life again. And now that I was here I didn’t want to wait another minute, not a second longer. Musgrove had known, he had known the conviction was unsafe and if we hadn’t tracked him down he would have gone to his grave without telling a soul. He owed me this.
‘So you’ll tell me?’
He gestures at his surroundings. ‘Haven’t exactly got much to lose now, have I?’
The thud of blood in my ears is getting louder. ‘If you’ve got something to tell me, just say it now. It’s to do with corruption, isn’t it? I know what happened to Liam was because of his job. And Christine Lai’s tied up in it too. Just tell me instead of dancing around it, I don’t have time for that.’
‘You have more time than me.’
That brings me up short. ‘True, I suppose.’
‘Quid pro quo, Heather.’ He gives me the ghost of a smile. ‘Consider it a condemned man’s last request. Put a glass of Talisker in my hand and I’ll tell you everything.’
I stand up, blowing out a frustrated breath. ‘Seriously?’
‘I want a drink, and you want to know.’
His eyes hold mine with a quiet intensity, daring me to say yes. Knowing that I can’t say no.
‘Deal,’ I say.
‘I’ll go,’ Jodie says. It’s the first time she’s spoken since we walked into the room, and I get the sense she’s eager to leave, to get away from this man if nothing else. ‘I know a place nearby.’
I hand her my payment card and she’s gone without another word, pulling the door shut behind her. I’m left alone with John Musgrove.
He indicates a wheelchair, folded next to the door.
‘In the meantime, Heather,’ he says, ‘how about you and I get some fresh air?’
* * *
I wheel him out to the garden, along a path bordered by pink and purple hydrangeas, the sweet-soft scent of their blossoms heavy in the air. We find an empty bench down by the lake and he manages, with an effort, to lever himself out of the wheelchair and onto the wooden seat.
We sit in silence for a moment, the only sound between us the wheeze of breath forcing its way in and out of his shattered lungs. The sun is still warm but he’s bundled up in an overcoat and scarf, thick slippers on his feet and a flat cap on his head. And still, he seems to shiver as if there is a coldness set deep in his bones.
‘Would you ever have told me?’ I say finally. ‘Would you ever have told anyone, if you hadn’t been here? If I hadn’t come to find you?’
He folds his arms across his chest, shoulders hunched.
‘I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about you over the last ten years, Heather. I’ve thought about you a lot, from time to time. You retire, you think you’ll put it all behind you, but certain cases . . . Yeah. They stay with you.’
‘You got promoted off the back of my conviction.’
‘It wasn’t only that.’
‘How long has it been since you’ve known? Just since you’ve retired, or was it longer ago? Did you know even at the trial that it wasn’t right, it wasn’t me, but everything was too far gone by that point?’
‘The thing about police work, Heather, the thing no one understands outside of the job, is that no case is watertight. No prosecution case is one hundred per cent perfect. If you’re lucky you might get it to ninety per cent, or eighty, or maybe seventy-five, and God knows I’ve seen people convicted on less. And acquitted on more. There’s always going to be an element of doubt, that’s just how life is.’
We gaze out across the lake as a trio of ducks make a splashy landing on the water.
‘But why did you wait so long?’ I say.
He shrugs. ‘Always thought there would be a better time. That I’d have more time.’ He curls into another fit of hacking coughs, bending almost double at the waist. ‘And now I’ve got secondary tumours in my liver, and up here too.’ He points an index finger at his bald head. ‘Short-term memory’s going, can’t even remember my own bloody phone number but I can still remember the details of cases from ten, twenty years ago.’
I’m surprised to find that my anger has dissipated almost completely, replaced with a heavy grey melancholy that wraps itself around me like a shawl. Both of us are losers here, both of us beaten by life.
‘How long has it been, John?’ I say quietly. ‘Since you were diagnosed?’
‘Christmas.’ His voice has dropped to barely a whisper.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I had so much anger in prison, towards you, towards the system, towards all of it. But I’m sorry this has happened to you.’
He doesn’t respond straightaway and I think emotion might have finally got the better of him. It’s only after a minute that I realise his eyes are closed, his chin dipping down to his chest with fatigue.
We’re still like that – at opposite ends of the wooden bench, him dozing and me staring out at the lake – when Jodie finds us half an hour later with a couple of plastic bags clinking in her hand. Together we ease Musgrove back into the wheelchair and the three of us return to the hospice’s main building, down the long corridor to his room, helping him back into the big armchair by the window.
Jodie has outdone herself. Not only has she got exactly the single malt whisky he asked for, she has bought cut-glass tumblers too.
‘No point buying the good stuff,’ she says, ‘and then drinking out of the crappy little squash glasses you’ve got in your cupboard.’
Musgrove has perked up considerably since seeing the unopened bottle of Talisker.
‘Quite right,’ he says. To me, he adds: ‘I like her.’
Jodie unpacks her purchases in the little kitchenette, a soft pop as she twists the cap off the whisky and then half fills a small jug with water from the tap.
‘Just a little dash of water,’ Musgrove calls to her, licking his lips. ‘Not too much, love. A drop or two to break the meniscus and open up the taste, that’s all.’
While she’s pouring and he’s distracted, I slip my mobile phone from my pocket and hit start on the voice recorder app, placing it on the side table next to his armchair. Jodie emerges from the kitchenette with a loaded tray and hands a tumbler to Musgrove, and then one to me. She takes the last one for herself.
‘So what are we going to toast?’ she says.
Musgrove stares longingly into the pale amber liquid in his glass. ‘How about justice?’
The three of us clink the heavy glasses together and murmur the toast. I take a small sip, the smoky, peaty liquor burning my throat as it goes down, too nervous to really enjoy it. Jodie knocks hers back in a single gulp, like a shot. Musgrove holds the glass beneath his nose, inhaling deeply before taking a slow, considered mouthful, closing his eyes in rapture as he swallows and exhaling with a sigh of delight.
‘A fine single malt is all you really need in this life,’ he says, taking another mouthful. ‘And that is God’s honest truth.’
He pushes his empty glass towards Jodie and she obliges, filling it with another generous measure of whisky and topping it up with a splash of water. She pours another half-inch into her own tumbler as well. There is a tremor in my hand as I raise my glass. Just a sip. Need to focus, need to be straight for this, to remember exactly what he says next. I glance at the screen of my phone to double-check the voice recorder is going, seconds ticking onwards.
‘So, John,’ I say, leaning forward. ‘We made a deal.’
‘Indeed we did.’
‘Now I need you to tell me.’
He takes another hefty swallow of Scotch from his glass.
‘And you’re sure you want to know?’ he says.
‘I am.’
‘You’re absolutely certain? Because some things can be very hard to hear.’
‘Yes.’ My heart drums painfully against my ribs. ‘Whatever it is, just tell me.’
‘OK, Heather. I’ll tell you what was wrong with your conviction.’ He looks me right in the eye. ‘Nothing. Absolutely nothing at all.’
He raises the whisky tumbler towards me.
‘Cheers.’ He takes another deep sip, letting out a little gasp of pleasure, his head falling back against the armchair. ‘That’s the stuff all right. Oh yes.’
For a second I’m too stunned to say anything.
There is a sick, hollow feeling in my stomach as if I’ve been cheated or tricked, as if I’ve opened a longed-for gift and found nothing inside but an empty box.
‘I don’t understand,’ I say. ‘What are you talking about? What do you mean, nothing?’
‘Exactly and precisely that, my dear.’
‘We made a deal, you said you’d tell me the truth. You said you’d tell me everything.’
‘I said I would tell you what was wrong with your conviction. Which is exactly what I’ve done. Your conviction was entirely safe and justified and correct, and that’s why you did those nine years. That’s why your appeal was dismissed. To be honest, I’d hoped by now you’d accepted the consequences of your actions, taken responsibility for them. It’s the only way you’re ever going to move forward.’
38
I’m gripping my glass so tightly the knuckles are white ridges of bone beneath the skin, and I have a sudden urge to hurl it at his head. I slam it onto the table instead, whisky slopping out onto the polished teak.
‘You bastard. You tricked me.’
Musgrove shrugs. ‘What did you expect?’
‘You were talking as if you’d changed your mind. As if you had regrets. I know I didn’t kill Liam, and I hoped you’d want to put the record straight.’ I gesture at the surroundings. ‘Especially considering you’re here.’
His forehead bunches with angry lines for the first time since Jodie and I had arrived.
‘What?’ he says. ‘You thought that just because I’m dying, I’d fall to my knees and confess that it was all a stitch-up? That I’d unburden myself with some great revelation about how me and my team turned you over?’ He is breathless again, his chest rising and falling with the exertion, and he reaches for a puff on the oxygen mask next to his chair. ‘That I knowingly got an innocent person sentenced to eighteen years? That I’d take my whole life, my whole career – a career that has been everything to me – and blow it all away just because you turned up on my doorstep?’
‘You never considered any other suspects,’ I say. ‘Not after that first day. You got tunnel vision, you were totally fixated on me and you couldn’t see the bigger picture, all the things that didn’t fit.’
He shakes his head. ‘I tried to tell you earlier. Every case has its rough edges, the little pieces that don’t quite fit. The odd things that don’t quite chime with the rest, or don’t slot in one way or the other. People nowadays watch so much CSI and Sherlock and Silent Witness on telly and they think that everything is tied up neatly with a bow. But real life isn’t like that. Real cases are not like that either, there’s never a case that’s one hundred per cent watertight, that’s why we let the jury decide one way or the other.’
‘And what were the rough edges in my case?’
‘It doesn’t matter now. Not with your legal options exhausted and—’
‘It matters to me! If there were weaknesses in the case I deserve to know.’
‘You haven’t been listening to what I’m saying to you. You’re a convicted murderer, you’ve had your due process and you deserve whatever—’
‘Wrongfully convicted.’
He grunts and shakes his head.
I stand up, move nearer to his chair. ‘Were you leaned on by the chief whip’s office to get a quick result?’
‘No.’
‘Was there pressure on you to ignore any connection with corruption in Parliament, cash for access, sensitive information being sold to big corporates?’
‘There was pressure to get a result. The right result. Full stop.’
‘Does the name Artemis mean anything to you? Is it a company? A project name?’
There is the slightest pause in the passage of the glass to his lips, before he takes another sip of whisky.
‘Never heard that name before.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Believe what you like,’ he says. ‘I’m dying.’
‘Why has most of the case evidence been lost by the police?’
‘Nothing to do with me.’ He shrugs. ‘I was already retired by then.’
‘The blonde woman in the photos on Liam’s phone, how come you never found her?’
‘Rough edges, like I said. But we still had enough to get over the line.’
For some reason, the sporting analogy stokes the fire of my anger even higher.
‘That’s what you call it, ruining my life? Getting over the line?’
‘You killed your husband, Heather.’
‘No!’ I lean down towards him, close enough to smell the sour whisky on his breath. ‘No, I didn’t. And I really thought you’d have the guts to admit you had doubts. Especially when I found out you were in this place.’
He doesn’t move this time, doesn’t flinch.
‘In that case, I’m pleased to be able to disappoint you.’
I blow out a sigh of frustration and turn to Jodie who has been leaning against the wall, glass in hand, observing the whole exchange. Her raised eyebrow says, I told you so.
Without a word, she turns and moves back to the kitchenette, rattling through cutlery in the drawer loud enough for him to hear.
‘Some decent knives in here, Heather, if you want to go with my approach instead.’ At my quizzical look, she adds: ‘Remember – we threaten to cut his balls off unless he gives us the info?’
Musgrove freezes, the glass halfway to his lips again, eyes flicking between the two of us as if he’s not sure whether she’s serious.
Jodie pulls out a wicked-looking carving knife with a silver handle, testing the blade against her fingertips. She grips it easily, checking the weight, the balance, the point, as if to familiarise herself with the knife. She seems quite comfortable with a blade in her hand.
‘I reckon this one’s the sharpest.’ She points it casually at Musgrove. ‘What do you reckon, John? Do you want to play the yes–no game?’
For a second, the temptation is there. I don’t think Jodie would actually hurt him but he doesn’t know that. Maybe it’s worth a try, just to see if he gives us anything more.
But it’s not right. Not when he’s defenceless. Whatever he’s done or not done, he doesn’t deserve this.
I shake my head. ‘We’re wasting our time here.’
‘Pity.’ She stabs the carving knife down into a chopping board with a thud instead, leaving it embedded upright in the wood. She comes out of the little kitchen and points at the three-quarters-full bottle of whisky. ‘Do you want it?’
I look at Musgrove, at the tremor in his hand as he pours another generous measure into his glass.
‘Leave it,’ I say, grabbing my phone up off the side table. ‘Let’s go.’
I throw one last glance back at former Detective Inspector John Musgrove, but he won’t meet my gaze. The door swings shut.
Jodie hurries to keep up with my angry strides as we head back along the corridor towards the reception desk.
‘It was worth a go, Heather. Not your fault he’s an arsehole.’
‘You were right,’ I say through gritted teeth. ‘Should have listened to you.’
In the car park, she guides me to the passenger side of the little black Corsa. I wait until both doors are shut before I let it out, a sob of rage and frustration so loud it makes my ears ring.
Jodie takes my hand, gives it a squeeze.
‘That’s cops for you, isn’t it?’ she says. ‘They’re all bastards. All the bloody same.’
‘I really thought . . . when we found him and he started talking to us.’ I shake my head. ‘He could have called for help, raised the alarm somehow, but he didn’t. Thought he had something to say to me, to get it off his chest after all these years.’
