Dead Unlucky (26 page)

‘Sorry, Chief Inspector, you’re out of luck,’ replied Doreen. ‘He was a little chap, and his hair was a curly brown. I’m dead sure. I can see him now, browsing through the magazines and wearing Dave’s specs.’

‘Oh well,’ said Hart, looking glum. ‘Thanks for your help anyway.’

‘You’re always welcome to come back, in a private capacity if you know what I mean,’ invited Dave. ‘We get all kinds, I’m sure a lot are policemen.’

‘And women as well,’ added his wife.

‘DVD rentals are very reasonable, cheaper by quantity. Perhaps we could even set up a little arrangement to provide some of your good officers with the handcuffs. They’re very solid. We’ve never had a complaint about them, have we Doreen?’

‘Not once.’

‘Thanks, we do have our own supplier, but I’ll call you if I need you,’ replied Hart as he opened the door. ‘And Happy New Year.’

*****

During the morning, the final reports arrived from the chemistry boffs concerning the nightclothes that Nicola had been wearing when she died. There were no surprises, nothing different from the first examinations months before. Plenty of fibres were attached which hailed from a variety of sources, and an abundant assortment of hairs were stuck to the material. The scales on the cuticles of some of them were of a certain triangular shape that announced they couldn’t be human, a cat being the most likely origin.

The news from the manuscript specialists contained a far more interesting revelation. It turned out that the Headteacher of Highdean School kept an appointments file for her meetings with students. There was nothing remarkable about keeping a file, of course, but it was certainly peculiar that somebody had been using it to refine their skills as a forger. Not only that, but if they had any sense they would have practised somewhere else first, because whoever had fiddled around with that file had been such a bungling amateur that they may as well have written their own name there in big red letters and published their guilt for all the world to behold.

Hart and Redpath arrived at Paul Outbridge’s flat halfway through the morning, just as he was indulging in a respite from reality with a snooze on his floral sofa. As he opened the door his bleary red eyes drooped and became sad, somehow anticipating the miserable fate that was about to envelop him.

‘Hello, Mr Outbridge,’ said Hart, his own weary voice exuding the same sense of resignation to the inevitable doom. ‘We just want you to clear up one or two points for us.’

‘Come inside.’

Outbridge led the officers along his small hall into his neat little living room. Everything was tidy and in its place: the embroidered cushions sitting smartly on the chairs and settee; the newspapers and magazines in chronological sequence in the rack; the collection of seaside ornaments on the mantelpiece arranged in order, with the trinkets hailing from the north perched on the left, the latitude of origin decreasing as they sat to the right.

‘So you have a cat,’ observed Hart, eyeing the pretty little moggie who was wearing a soft black and white coat, and seemed more confused than irritated that her nap had been interrupted. ‘What’s her name?’

‘Mirabelle,’ replied Outbridge proudly. ‘I’ve had you since you were a kitten, haven’t I Sweetheart,’ he continued, picking up his pet and nuzzling their cheeks together before placing her on his lap.

‘We want a sample of its hair,’ instructed Redpath.

‘Why? Why do you want to take some of Mirabelle’s fur?’ An alarm bell tinkled inside the man’s head.

‘If you would just comb a little from all over: back, belly, legs, head and tail,’ soothed Hart. ‘Nobody else needs to touch her.’

‘But why?’

‘Perhaps
you
could tell
us
,’ snapped Redpath.

Hart hastened on from Redpath’s mocking melodrama. ‘Mr Outbridge, we would like a sample of Mirabelle’s hair because it would help us with our investigation. I am not going to tell you why just yet, but I hope you’ll simply help us out with a very reasonable request.’

‘Don’t worry, your cat’s not a suspect for anything,’ added Redpath.

‘I’ll go and fetch Mirabelle’s comb,’ said the teacher, shooting a piteous look of hurt which informed a gratified Redpath just how much he was hated for his bullying of someone so defenceless.

Outbridge gently placed his cat next to him on the sofa, stroked her back, and then stood up and left the room. While he was gone, Hart and Redpath both reflected without knowing each other’s thoughts that Hitler had been kind and good with animals.

‘Sir, I’m sure this bloke’s our man,’ whispered Redpath. ‘He killed her. The handcuffs were his, and he’s nuts. That’s good enough for me.’

Hart simply gave a shrug which said
maybe
.

‘Put them in here,’ ordered Redpath when Outbridge returned, fishing in his pocket for the evidence bags which he had brought along.

‘One from each of the five areas I mentioned. It might help the scientists a bit, you see, if they’re not all mixed up,’ explained Hart.

Outbridge returned the cat to his lap and began combing her back.

‘Mr Outbridge, you have something to tell us,’ stated Hart.

‘I don’t know what you mean.’ He concentrated on the cat, not looking either man in the eye. Mirabelle was enjoying the interview far more than her master, her purrs reverberating like the gentle murmur of a flawlessly tuned engine.

‘I’ll give you one further chance to tell us what you know of the death of Nicola Brown.’

‘We don’t know anything, do we Sweetheart. Nothing at all about that, it’s all been forgotten long ago. It hurts us too much to talk about it now. It’s still so painful.’

Hart stood up and removed the comb from the man’s small and trembling hand. ‘You need to concentrate on what I’m saying. You need to concentrate because you are in the bother of a thousand lifetimes.’ He pulled out the packet of handcuffs Dave and Doreen had given him that morning. ‘Why did you buy a pair of handcuffs just like these?’

‘I didn’t. That’s a silly idea. I work in a school, not a jail.’

‘I have witnesses who say you did. Sergeant, would you just give the police station a buzz and get them to organise the identity parade.’

Hart sat back deep into his chair and relaxed while Redpath slowly pressed a few buttons at random on his mobile. Mirabelle’s purring didn’t fill the slow silence, it just furnished it some rhythm.

After an age of a wait for the quietly frantic man opposite whose only certainty was that his life was about to be ripped apart, Redpath began to speak. ‘We have a murder suspect here and we’ll need to set up an ID parade. Name? Paul Outbridge. Early twenties. Dark brown curly hair, about five foot seven. Day after tomorrow? That’s fine. We’ll bring him along in about half an hour.’

‘You’ll need a bag with a few changes of clothes,’ said Hart. ‘Washing gear, that sort of thing.’

‘What? Now? Where are we going? You can’t really think I’m a murder suspect!’ Everything gushed out at once.

‘You are, Mr Outbridge, you certainly are,’ replied Hart, leaning forward on the edge of his seat and resting his elbows on his knees. ‘In fact, you’re at the top of the list as we speak.’

‘Who will look after Mirabelle?’

‘There is an easier way,’ suggested Hart. ‘Let’s just talk about the handcuffs, shall we? Let’s just talk about why you bought them and where they’ve been since you’ve had them.’

‘Then what will happen?’

‘Then we’ll go to the police station to formally record what you have to say and you’ll be back home in an hour or two.’
Unless I arrest you for murder
, Hart neglected to point out.

Outbridge went through the options in his fuddled mind. If they knew he had bought the handcuffs, then they could also prove it. If they could prove it, then it would be silly to annoy them. Yes, let’s get the nightmare over with, it might even be a relief to unload the burden. After all, he had dreaded this day for ages, and somehow knew it would arrive.

‘And I won’t have to stay in prison tonight?’

‘No, we won’t keep you in a cell.’

‘And what about the identity parade?’

‘We would cancel that. It would be pointless.’

‘Then I’ll tell you what I know.’

‘I think that’s wise,’ commented Hart. ‘So, you bought handcuffs similar to these on the Twenty-sixth of July last,’ he suggested, remembering the most likely date on the till record. ‘Do you agree?’

‘What about cancelling the identity parade?’ Outbridge pleaded.

Redpath held his mobile towards the teacher, pressed the return button, it was as good a key as any, and stared at him throughout the operation with a contempt that curdled the air between them. ‘Cancel the ID parade.’ His phone returned to his breast pocket but his gaze remained where it was.

‘Is the date correct?’ continued Hart.

‘I can’t say for sure, but it seems about right.’ He now ignored Redpath completely, as punishment for his shabby trick.

‘For what purpose did you buy a pair of handcuffs?’

‘It’s hard to say really.’

‘Take your time. I’m sure we’ve heard worse.’

‘I just became interested in that sort of thing.’

‘What sort of thing?’

Outbridge took a hard gulp, just to delay the embarrassment more than anything. Redpath’s burrowing, despising eyes didn’t make spilling the words any easier. ‘Tying people up. Things like that.’

‘Did you ever tie people up?’

‘No!’ Outbridge’s wide eyes stared out from behind their glass windows, begging Hart to believe him.

‘I must have the full story, Paul. I don’t want little bits trickling out over the next few days, you pretending that you’ve just remembered a tad more every time I speak to you. I wouldn’t forgive you for that.’

‘I did have a girl around here once. Just once. I rang a number from the back of the local paper. It was awful.’ As he recalled the scene, Outbridge winced as though a slice of lemon had magically appeared on his tongue. ‘She wouldn’t put handcuffs on. Said it was weird. Said if I kept on about stuff like that she was going back to the agency, but she would still want paying. The whole thing was a mistake. A horrid, horrid mistake.’

‘And the handcuffs, Paul?’

‘I just put them away. I didn’t use them for anything.’

‘But you knew they were used in the killing of Nicola Brown, didn’t you? In fact, until I came along, you were the only person on Earth who knew that Nicola had been murdered. That’s because you were the only person who knew those handcuffs hadn’t belonged to her.’ Hart’s gaze drilled into his eyes. ‘Except for the murderer, of course.’

Outbridge glanced back for a second, and then looked down at his cat. ‘But everyone at school knew Nicola was wearing handcuffs when she died. That was no secret.’

‘But why didn’t you help the police by telling them those handcuffs belonged to you? That certainly wasn’t public knowledge.’

‘It was too humiliating. It would have been all around the school. How could I go into a class with all the children knowing I owned something like that?’

‘They’ll know it now,’ observed Redpath.

And then Outbridge finally began to sniffle, confirming Redpath’s opinion that every little pervert he had ever hauled in also turned out to be a wuss. He couldn’t understand why his boss indulged scum like this, why they didn’t just yank him off to the station and charge him with murder. But Hart knew. You obtained more information from a friend, sometimes best of all a weak ally who depended on you for every little morsel of comfort you were prepared to toss him, than an enemy. If he turned out to be a killer then there would be plenty of time for the world to show its disdain and disgust. The rest of his life.

‘Paul, let’s get the interview over with and you’ll be back home with Mirabelle in no time.’

Outbridge wiped his nose as he continued. ‘Anyway, how did I know the handcuffs that had been used to kill Nicola were mine? Perhaps it was a coincidence, they could have been a different pair that belonged to somebody else.’

Even Mirabelle wasn’t prepared to listen to drivel like that, and she dropped down from the settee, enjoyed a stretch, and padded away to the kitchen for a feed.

‘So you put the handcuffs away?’ continued Hart. ‘How did they end up in Nicola’s bedroom?’

‘I don’t know. I really don’t know.’

‘Let me help you,’ volunteered Redpath. ‘They got there because you took them there to –’

‘No! No, I didn’t!’

‘You took them there and you used them to kill Nicola Brown. That’s how they got there. And the sooner you just admit that, then the sooner we can take you away and find someone to look after your cat or better still find a vet to stick a needle in it.’ Redpath wondered why they were bothering to listen to a load of garbage. Hart wondered why Redpath was sticking his boot in so hard.

Outbridge just about managed to keep himself together; he wasn’t going to give Redpath the pleasure of watching him blubber. ‘I loved Nicola. I would never harm her. She was always kind to me. She would talk to me about biology after class, especially about birds because she knew I loved them too, just the same as she did. Sometimes I wonder if she was really interested or just being nice to me.’ Outbridge stared backwards into a happy but distant past. ‘I loved Nicola. I could never hurt her.’

Redpath gazed at him with a disgusted astonishment, like he was observing the man relieving himself in the middle of Debenhams.

‘Perhaps somebody took them from my flat,’ continued Outbridge.

‘If you really think that, then you can tell us when you noticed them go missing,’ suggested Hart.

‘After that girl left, the one from the agency, I didn’t want to think about anything like that any more, so I put them at the bottom of a drawer in my bedroom. And then I heard how Nicola had died and so I checked, just to be sure they were still there, just because it niggled at me. I was amazed when I found them gone. Really amazed. And really worried, too,’ he finished, still clutching the cat’s comb, looking down into his empty lap.

‘Any suggestions who spirited them away?’ asked Redpath. He folded his arms and sighed, letting Hart know it was time to drag this gutless excuse for a man away.

‘You must believe me, Chief Inspector Hart!’ declared Outbridge, rising to the Sergeant’s taunt. ‘I didn’t know they had gone until after Nicola’s death. It was silly not to tell anyone they belonged to me, I know. But that’s not murder, is it? I was embarrassed about having them.’

‘The Sergeant’s asked a fair question, Paul. Any suggestions as to how they disappeared?’

‘I don’t get many visitors,’ came the admission of social rejection, ‘but I did have a party. Perhaps someone took them then.’

‘Tell us about the party, Paul. Take your time, get it right.’

‘It was for my birthday in August.’

‘Be precise, Paul.’

‘Well, my birthday is on the last day of August, but we had the party the first weekend in September, just after we had all arrived back for the start of school.’