A Narrow Margin of Error (8 page)

‘Nice work if you can get it,’ Jimmy said flatly, sounding not one whit envious.

They entered a black-and-white tiled foyer, and a pretty young woman immediately rose from behind an oak-panelled reception desk, a wide smile plastered onto her face.

‘Hello – Mr and Mrs Felix Ottenmeyer?’

Jimmy looked at Hillary, his face a picture of dismay. ‘I don’t look like a rich Yank, do I, guv?’ he asked mock-anxiously.

‘No. Perhaps she thinks you’re just an eccentric millionaire,’ Hillary said consolingly, holding out her ID.

‘We were wondering if Dr Dwayne Cox was in, and if so, if he could spare us a few minutes?’ Hillary asked pleasantly.

The young woman’s face flickered briefly between them, before she smiled, evidently deciding that the way to handle such
an unprecedented turn of events was to pretend that they were potential guests.

‘Of course, I’ll just check. Would you like to take a seat in the conservatory?’ She pointed to a set of internal French doors, which led to a green and leafy room beyond, with an original domed glass ceiling. Potted palms, rattan furniture and exotic blooms held sway here, and Jimmy cast a particularly gaudy orchid a suspicious glance.

The room was empty – which was probably why the young lady had so adroitly shunted them into it. It was also quite warm. Hillary slipped off her beige jacket, revealing the cream-
and-orange
blouse underneath. She took a seat in a wide, circular-backed chair and watched, amused, as Jimmy seated himself gingerly in a similar chair opposite.

He caught her look and grinned self-consciously. ‘I’m never convinced that these grass seat things are going to take my weight, guv.’

‘I think they’re bamboo based – which is supposed to be incredibly strong, given what it is.’

The chair creaked and groaned a little as Jimmy settled back cautiously. He got out his notebook and marked the date and time. As he was finishing doing this, a tall man with near-black hair and blue eyes walked in. He was classically good-looking, and Hillary noticed that his eyes went straight to her, hardly registering Jimmy at all.

A lady’s man, in spades, Hillary thought. She didn’t rise, but smiled briefly up at him. ‘Dr Cox?’ she murmured, suddenly amused at the man’s name. It seemed so appropriate somehow. ‘I’m Hillary Greene, this is Mr Jessop. We work for the Crime Review Team out of Thames Valley Police Headquarters. We’re currently taking another look at the Rowan Thompson case, and hoped you wouldn’t mind giving us a little of your time. If it’s not convenient, we can arrange for a more formal interview,’ she added blandly.

Dwayne Cox shook his head and quickly dragged over a chair
to sit next to her. ‘No, no, that’s fine. My next patient isn’t until after two.’

Hillary nodded. Hardly a hectic schedule, then. From the files, she knew that Dwayne Cox came from a strictly working-class background, and had got to Oxford through excellent exam results and the backing of one of the teachers in the
underachieving
comprehensive he’d attended.

It was apparent, with one look, that he had very successfully put his humble beginnings very firmly behind him. He was dressed in a suit that even Steven couldn’t have faulted, and had obviously found a very good barber for himself somewhere in town. As he leant forward, he looked confident and trustworthy – just the sort of man to help you sort out your problems. And with his good looks, Hillary was willing to bet that the vast majority of his patients were women – probably middle-aged, divorced, lonely and wealthy – all of whom were no doubt only too ready to spill their deepest, darkest secrets, and innermost needs.

She knew from the file that Dwayne Cox was not yet married. He was probably having too much of a good time being single, she realized with a mental smile. And when he was ready to take the plunge – well, in a set-up like this, he’d have his pick of a rich crop. Maybe that was what he was doing working here? Sorting out a cushy future for himself?

‘So, after all this time,’ Dwayne said quietly, ‘I still think about him often, you know. He was so young. At the time we didn’t think of ourselves as being particularly young, but now, of course, I find myself realizing that we were. Barely out of our teens.’ He shook his head and gave a devastatingly self-deprecating smile that no doubt was used to very good effect on the clinic’s
clientele.

‘What can you tell me about Rowan?’ Hillary asked simply.

Dwayne spread his hands in a what-can-you-say kind of gesture. ‘Rowan was full of life. He was a bit of a nutter at times, to be honest. Nothing was too outrageous for him to try. He was
smart, of course, that goes without saying, and charming when he liked, but he was basically good-natured and good-hearted.’

Hillary nodded. So far, everyone seemed to be singing from the same hymn sheet when it came to their victim’s personality. ‘We’ve already spoken to his girlfriend at the time. She said much the same thing,’ Hillary agreed.

‘Darla? Darling Darla,’ Dwayne said softly, and smiled in a show of reminiscence. ‘How is she?’

‘Married, with a child, good job, nice house, happy,’ Hillary said briefly. ‘She tells me you and Rowan used to encourage each other to be naughty – egg each other on and so forth. I imagine, reading between the lines, that you must have had a bit of a rivalry going on between you two,’ she added craftily.

Dwayne tried to look abashed, and almost pulled it off. ‘Like I said – we were young. And yeah, I suppose you could say we had a bit of a thing going – you know, to see who could pull the most. He was one kind of girl-magnet, and I was, so they tell me, another kind.’

‘No need to be modest, Dr Cox,’ Hillary said drily. ‘You are the classic, tall, dark and handsome type. Rowan, as far as I can make out, was the cheeky-chappy, fair-haired, naughty-boy type. Between you, I’m sure you cut quite a swathe through the girls.’

Dwayne sighed. ‘It all sounds so cold-blooded and heartless, but really, it never felt that way. And Rowan was fond of Darla in his way. He was just never cut out for monogamy.’

‘When he was killed, did you really have no idea who might have done it?’ she asked bluntly, wondering if shock tactics might cut through the rather sickening self-aggrandizing that was going on with this vain young man.

‘No,’ Dwayne said, with seemingly genuine surprise. ‘Nobody could have wanted Rowan dead.’

‘But by your own admission, he must have left behind him a stream of resentful women and their cheated-on boyfriends.’

‘I suppose. But it was nothing that serious. I mean, you have to have a really serious affair to make someone hate you so much
that they want to kill you when you break up, right? But Rowan was like a butterfly – a flit here, a sip of nectar there and on to the next flower. And, like I said, he could be charming. You just tended to like the guy. Even when he was indulging in one of his more outrageous stunts.’

‘Outrageous, how?’ Hillary asked, intrigued.

‘Oh you know. Experimentation. Rowan was always hungry for a new sensation – something he hadn’t tried before. It was almost as if he knew he was going to die young and wanted to fit everything in whilst he could.’

‘You think he’d been receiving threats? He felt afraid for his life?’ Hillary asked sharply, and Dwayne quickly back-tracked.

‘Oh no, nothing of that kind. I’m just…. It’s sort of hard to explain. Rowan was just greedy for life, that was all. He wanted to sample everything, try everything, do something new all the time. Take the Freeling brothers, for example.’

Hillary raised an eyebrow. Dwayne Cox gave a slightly embarrassed smile. ‘The Freelings were these brothers who worked at a bicycle hire shop we used to use. Mark was the oldest, Jeff much younger. They were both as gay as gay, and came on to Rowan the moment he first walked into the shop. He was their type, I guess. Anyway, the Freelings took sibling rivalry to the extreme, and each of them wanted to get Rowan between the sheets first. So he played them along a bit, and then, and this is pure Rowan, when he had them worked up to fever pitch, he said he couldn’t possibly choose between them, and said he would make a one-night offer only to take them both on at once.’

‘And did he?’ Hillary asked.

‘Oh yes.’

‘Was he gay?’

‘Not as far as I know. I think he wanted to find out if he might be bisexual. But that’s what I mean about him being extreme sometimes. Where angels might fear to tread, he just rushed in.’

Hillary nodded. ‘I see.’ Now, that sort of attitude was just the
kind that could get you killed. ‘Tell me about the morning he died,’ she said flatly.

Dwayne took a long slow breath. ‘Well, I left the house early. It was nearly Christmas, I was in a rush to get all the last-minute things done before heading off home. I wasn’t looking forward to it, but what could I do? The family expected me there for the
holidays
. When I left, I heard someone moving around in Rowan’s room, and thought it was either him or Darla. I never saw him or spoke to him, though. When I got back to the house, the police were already there.’

Hillary nodded. Just as he’d described it in his original
statement
to Gorman. And just like Darla, it might have been true, or it might not. The original team had certainly found witnesses who could put the handsome Dwayne in the various places he’d said he’d been, but again, like Darla, he could have slipped back to the nearby house and killed his friend without anyone being the wiser. None of the sightings of him had made the time-line impossible.

‘You saw no one hanging around the house or in the street when you left?’

‘Nope.’

‘He never complained of being scared of anyone?’ she pressed.

‘Nope.’

‘You haven’t thought of anything in all these years that might now seem significant that didn’t occur to you at the time?’

‘Sorry, no. And believe me, I’ve been over and over it hundreds of times since then. I know the original detective, Gorman, thought that either Barry or Darla did it, but I think he’s way off track there. Darla simply doesn’t have it in her, and Barry was one of the most ‘got-it-all-together’ people I knew.’

‘Is that your professional psychological view, Dr Cox?’ Hillary asked, a touch ironically.

Dwayne gave that white-toothed self-deprecating grin again. ‘For what it’s worth, it is. Any psychologist will tell you that the human mind is practically unfathomable at times, and the most
we can do is take really good, educated guesses as to what’s going on.’

Hillary nodded. ‘Well, thank you for your time, Dr Cox. We may need to speak to you again sometime,’ she warned.

‘Any time, I’d be only too glad to help.’

Hillary nodded, thanked him, and got up. With some difficulty, Jimmy got out of his creaking chair, and they walked outside.

Back at the car, Jimmy relaxed behind the steering wheel.

‘Was it only me,’ Hillary said, ‘or did you get the urge to push the good doctor’s smug little face in?’

‘From the moment I set eyes on him, guv,’ Jimmy reassured her.

‘Huh,’ Hillary said, glad that she wasn’t the only one. ‘So, apart from not liking him, what do you think? On the face of it he’s got no motive for killing Rowan. So far, everyone seems to agree they were friendly enough. And after meeting him, I think our friend the doctor has, and probably always has had, far too high an opinion of himself to ever have regarded the likes of Rowan as much of a threat.’

‘No. I got the feeling they played off each other and were having too much fun to be get seriously jealous of each other,’ Jimmy agreed.

‘So unless they had some sort of sudden, violent argument, he’s not looking like a hot contender,’ Hillary mused. ‘Did anything else he said strike you as being possibly significant?’

‘The bit about the gay blokes was interesting,’ Jimmy said at once. ‘Not wanting to sound homophobic or anything, perhaps the Freeling brothers didn’t like being played. Or sharing.’

Hillary sighed. ‘You’d better check them out. And you’d better take Vivienne with you for protection.’

Jimmy, for some reason, seemed to find that highly amusing.

Back in his office, Dwayne Cox reached for the telephone. He had no need to look up the number, since it was one he’d used many times over the years.

‘Hey, it’s me,’ he said cautiously. They never used names, and
were always careful about what they said, having evolved, from long practice, a sort of personal code system.

‘What’s up?’ the familiar voice asked just as cautiously in his ear.

‘Have you been visited by unfriendlies yet?’ he asked.

‘Hell, no – I never have. Have you dropped me in it?’ the voice asked aggressively.

‘Don’t be stupid, you know I wouldn’t do anything like that,’ Dwayne said, slipping almost unnoticed into a professional, soothing tone. ‘It was about the boy from Birmingham.’

There was a startled silence on the other end of the line for a few moments, and then, ‘What about him? They can’t be digging all that up again after all this time.’

‘But they are.’

‘Shit!’

‘Relax,’ Dwayne said, still in that soothing, everything-will-
be-all
-right voice he usually kept for the punters. ‘There’s nothing they can prove after all this time, you know that.’

A sigh came across the telephone line, then a thoughtful grunt. ‘No. I suppose not. But if they’ve been on to you, it’ll only be a matter of time before they get around to me.’

‘So what?’ Dwayne asked, flipping a pen between his fingers, a thoughtful frown on his handsome face. ‘You telling me you can’t handle a bit of pressure?’

‘Now who’s being absurd?’

Dwayne flipped the pen some more. ‘Exactly. So no problem, then. We hadn’t better meet up for a while – you know, just in case.’

‘You don’t want any more presents, then?’ the voice said flatly.

‘Perhaps not just yet. For a while, anyway. Why take risks?’ Dwayne pointed out reasonably. ‘But when everything’s gone back to normal, then so can we. Right?’

The voice on the other end of the line laughed. ‘Maybe I’ll have found someone else to give my presents to by then.’