Monkey Puzzle Read online

  ‘Ah.’ The parody of regret changed to one of deep chagrin. ‘Make a note of that, Sergeant Toscarelli. One is becoming predictable. One is no longer impressive. One is well on the way to becoming a bore. Did your boyfriend kill Adamson, Miss Trevorne? Did you?’

  ‘Maybe we did it together.’

  ‘As you seem to do so many things! Work. Sleep. Lie.’

  ‘I haven’t lied.’

  ‘You haven’t told the truth, either. You and Mr Wayland have both made very heavy work out of what should have been nothing at all. Now why is that, I ask myself? Why are you making such a fuss? Why didn’t you just say you had dinner, came home, made love, parted? Why be coy about it? It’s no big deal. Everybody’s doin’ it, doin’ it, doin’ it.’

  ‘But not everybody talks about it, Lieutenant Stryker.’

  ‘Ooops – there go my big flat feet all over her delicate sensibilities, Sergeant. What a clod I am.’

  Kate was totally nonplussed by Stryker’s behaviour. He was crazy. He wasn’t like any of the policemen in books, or on television or in the movies. In the conference room he’d seemed normal, but here – he looked crazy, he acted crazy, he was crazy.

  ‘You do remember don’t you?’ she finally asked.

  ‘Remember what?’ His eyes flickered, momentarily.

  ‘Me.’

  ‘Should I? Have we met before?’ His eyes were steady, now.

  ‘Not really. It doesn’t matter. Is that all you want to ask me? Is there anything else?’

  ‘Oh, scads.’ He swivelled Dan’s chair to face the window, only the top of his head visible.

  ‘You went to school here, with Wayland?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Were you ever a student of Adamson’s?’

  (Could it be he didn’t remember? That was almost worse.)

  ‘Yes – I had several classes with him as an undergraduate.’

  ‘Get good marks from him?’

  ‘Straight A’s.’

  ‘My goodness. And to a girl, too. I bet that hurt him.’

  ‘Aiken wasn’t like that.’

  ‘Did Wayland have classes with him?’

  Careful, Kate, she told herself. ‘Yes. Greek Mythology. We both had it. That’s where we met.’

  ‘Ah. So no doubt you celebrate that every year, too, along with the rest of the things like Spinach, and Mozart, and Roller Skating?’

  ‘And Screwing. Don’t forget screwing,’ she said, sweetly. ‘Oh yes, we celebrate that. Fireworks and everything.’

  Stryker whirled his chair around and brought his hands down hard on Dan’s desk, making her jump. ‘Time!’ he shouted at the top of his voice. He turned to Toscarelli. ‘What do you make the score?’

  Toscarelli didn’t bat an eye. ‘About evens.’

  Stryker nodded. ‘Me, too.’ He turned back to her. ‘Thank you, Miss Trevorne. We’ll have a statement typed up for you to sign on Monday.’ He waved. ‘Byeeeee.’

  ‘That’s all?’ But she was talking to the back of Dan’s chair again. Uncertain, she looked at Toscarelli, stood up, hesitated, then went out. She closed the door very, very carefully, lest she break something fragile within.

  After a moment, Stryker spoke. ‘Did I scare her?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Tos admitted, putting down his notebook. ‘You sure as hell scared me.’

  Stryker looked at him out of the corner of his eye. ‘Thought I was cracking up, hey?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Tos was being cautious.

  ‘I made a mess of it,’ Stryker admitted to the trees beyond the glass. ‘I should have let you do it.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Toscarelli didn’t want to hear this. He started writing in his notebook again.

  Stryker’s voice was harsh in self-condemnation. He turned the swivel chair back, put his elbows on the desk and his face into the small darkness of his palms. ‘She’s lying, Tos. And Wayland is lying. Maybe some of the others, too. But they don’t seem to be lying about anything that matters. I was wrong – I thought I would understand them, but I don’t. They’re not reacting like other people. They’re all so ready to tell me how they hated Adamson’s guts, how they’ll dance on his goddamned grave. As far as I can tell, everybody dunnit.’

  ‘This isn’t the Orient Express,’ Tos muttered.

  ‘So Miss Trevorne would probably say.’

  Tos looked at him. ‘What was that about remembering her?’

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’

  ‘Okay.’ Toscarelli’s voice was distant.

  The murder was only hours old but Tos knew the signs. Stryker would get wound tighter and tighter into the case until it was all he breathed or slept or ate. And it would eat at him, in return. Before he’d been ill, he’d had the stamina to stand up to his own method. Now – Tos wasn’t so sure.

  Stryker ran his fingers through his curly hair, rubbed his face, pulled his ear. ‘Jesus,’ he muttered to himself.

  It was a prayer.

  TEN

  Kate hurried towards her office, the sound of her steps echoing back from the walls of the narrow corridor. As she approached Aiken’s closed and sealed door, she gave an involuntary shiver. The floor in front of it was slightly paler, where it had been cleaned.

  She felt cold. Aiken’s blood had run there, and inside the office Aiken’s body had lain, horribly murdered.

  Somebody had been unable to stand it any more.

  Had it been Richard?

  Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself, and rushed past the door, practically running now. Her mind ran on, too.

  Aiken had died ‘between eleven and one’. Richard had left before midnight, and he’d lied to the police about it. Instinctively, protectively, she had lied, too. But she was a bad liar, had always been one. She’d made it worse, because she sensed Stryker had known it was a lie.

  Richard couldn’t have done it.

  And yet, he’d been so angry last night. It wasn’t the meal he’d had to walk off, but his rage at Aiken’s constant, endless sniping.

  She fumbled her key out of her handbag and got it into the lock, stepping across the sill with a grateful sigh of relief.

  ‘Did you tell him?’

  She gave a little scream as Richard’s voice cut into her.

  His blond hair was down over his forehead, and his coat was spangled with melting flakes of snow. He was leaning against her work table, his arms folded across his chest, long eyes unreadable in the shadows.

  ‘My God, you scared me!’ Kate gasped. She dropped her handbag on to the desk and went over to him. ‘Did I tell him what?’

  ‘The time I left?’

  ‘No. I said I didn’t know what time it was, but that it was very late. What on earth made you say you’d stayed the night?’

  His familiar crooked grin turned her heart over. He took hold of her upper arms to draw her close. ‘Because I wanted to stay all night, as you damn well know, and because I wanted to make it clear that you were my girl. Also, I find being accused of fornication infinitely preferable to being accused of homicide, don’t you?’

  ‘Why did you want to make it clear I’m “your girl”? What does that matter?’

  ‘Maybe it was because of the way he kept looking at you. Or the way you were looking at him?’

  She pulled away. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Why should I look at him in any special way? Or he at me?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘You’re imagining things. Oh, God. I wish we were somewhere else. That I’d never come back – ’

  ‘If you hadn’t come back, I’d have never found you again,’ came the reply she wanted to hear. He pulled her back to him. ‘And that would have been a crime.’

  ‘So is murder.’

  ‘Not when it’s Aiken’s murder. That’s deliverance.’

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nbsp; ‘You said you wanted to murder him, last night.’

  He pulled back slightly and smiled. ‘So did you.’

  ‘Maybe somebody was listening.’

  His face darkened momentarily, then brightened again with his big, quick smile. ‘Come on. We’ve got nothing to worry about. I didn’t kill him, and you didn’t kill him, and since we were together nobody can say otherwise, can they?’

  ‘Is that why you lied about last night?’

  ‘Isn’t that why you lied about last night?’ he countered.

  ‘I didn’t lie . . . exactly . . .’

  He chuckled. ‘Look, what difference does it make? Why should the police waste time on us? After I left you I drove around for a while, and then I went back to the fraternity house, but I can’t prove that. Nobody was awake when I came in, as far as I knew. Now, the police would love that, wouldn’t they, especially with – everything else?’

  ‘There is no “everything else”. It’s past, it meant nothing. We were children, we knew nothing about it.’

  He let his arms drop from around her and turned to look out at the few icy flakes of snow that were whirling over the Mall. ‘Whereas we know everything about everything now, don’t we? All-wise and terribly sophisticated are we, Freud is mother’s milk to us, anything goes – ’

  ‘Oh, for goodness sake, forget it!’ Kate said, irritated by his morose self-absorption. They’d been over it so many, many times. ‘It’s a dead issue.’

  He turned and grinned at her. ‘As is Aiken, of course.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  He gave himself a little shake. ‘I guess you’re right. Nobody knows but us chickens, and us chickens, we’re saying nuthin’. Right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘That’s my girl.’

  ‘Now that we’ve dealt with last night, what about tonight?’ She wanted something to blot out what was happening, something that she could look forward to again. ‘Coming over?’

  ‘No, hon, I can’t. I told you – the meeting.’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course.’ There were so many meetings. She picked up the little carving he’d given her- the three monkeys with their paws over ears, eyes, mouth. Hear no, see no, speak no evil.

  ‘Look, if it doesn’t go on too late – I’ll call you.’

  ‘Fine. I’ll just be lying around eating chocolates and reading dirty books. You know me.’ She put the carving down hard.

  He looked at her oddly, but gave her a quick kiss on the nose before going to the door, where he paused. ‘I hope I do, Katie. I really hope I do.’ He seemed worried by her apparent anger. ‘It’s the Liaison Committee, and I have to go back to the house and change . . .’ he pleaded in explanation.

  ‘Fine. Goodbye, Richard.’

  ‘Katie . . .’

  ‘Oh, go on, you big dope. Do your thing.’ She made it a joke. Relieved, he grinned and went out, with a wave.

  Kate went over to stare out at the Mall, where the snow flurries danced and whirled, making the air twinkle but leaving no trace of their passage. Ice in the wind.

  Her hands were cold, and she grasped the radiator briefly to warm them.

  On her desk the telephone waited.

  Liz Olson was, like Richard Wayland, a friend from Kate’s undergraduate years. They’d attended High School together, as well. Liz had stayed on at Grantham to take her doctorate, had done a year’s sabbatical in France, and was back at Grantham when Kate had returned, bruised and rueful, from New York. It was she who had finally persuaded Kate to stay.

  She was a tall Junoesque girl, with wide blue eyes and thick golden hair that fell around her shoulders in the kind of natural waves other women spent a fortune to achieve. She never entered a room, she sailed into it, like a galleon. She did so now, sweeping into the shadows of the Tacoma, and squinting nearsightedly until she located Kate in a rear booth. She was wearing a long red cape and high black boots, with a fur hat set back on her head. Several men turned to look, but she didn’t notice them. She never noticed them.

  Liz was only looking for Mr Tallbar.

  Since she was six foot in her stockinged feet the first thing she usually learned about a man was whether or not he had dandruff. This prospect, she claimed, had soured her soul. If so, it didn’t show.

  Now, settling herself opposite Kate in a swirl of red wool that nearly cleared the table of eating implements, she stripped off her gloves and took a deep breath, part relief, part anticipation. ‘Well?’

  ‘I hardly know where to begin – ’ Kate said.

  ‘Oh, God, don’t start out with a cliché,’ Liz said in exasperation. ‘By all means descend to them gradually, but an opener like that one is definitely an underachiever.’

  Kate met the blue glare and drew strength from it. Nothing ever boggled Liz – she’d heard it all. Better men and women than Kate had poured their troubles on her lap, and she had very high standards. She knew Kate too well to indulge her in any way. Such lack of compromise was a kind of shelter. Kate could say what she liked, as long as she said it well. She gave Liz a brief outline of what had happened, start to finish.

  Liz leaned back, slightly mollified, waited as the waiter awarded them each another martini, and then pronounced.

  ‘Did you kill him?’

  ‘Oh, for goodness sake . . .’

  ‘Oh, hell – I know. It’s just that I’m never likely to have a chance like this again. So few of my friends go in for homicide.’

  ‘Listen, this is . . .’

  ‘Serious?’ Liz raised an eyebrow. ‘No, it isn’t. Keep telling yourself it isn’t. Keep it light, Kate, keep it out. It’s the only way you’ll get through in one piece.’ She lit a cigarette and regarded her friend thoughtfully. ‘I know what you’re like, remember? Everything a drama, everything the beginning and end of the world. Did Richard kill him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure.’

  ‘He left before midnight.’

  ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘I saw him go. He charged down the stairs and out of the door like a mad buffalo and then roared away like his ass was on fire. What did you put in his coffee – kerosene?’

  ‘He went home.’

  ‘So he says.’

  ‘Liz – ’ Kate said, exasperatedly.

  ‘Oh, all right, all right. Tell me about this policeman. Is he tall?’

  ‘Is that the only thing you ever want to know about a man?’

  ‘No, but it’s always the first thing.’

  ‘He’s about five-ten, I guess.’

  ‘Oh.’ Liz was only momentarily daunted. ‘Well, never mind. What is it about him that has you so twitchy?’

  There was no use pretending to Liz. Kate leaned forward slightly and whispered. ‘He’s the one.’

  Liz’s eyes widened and she leaned forward, too, her voice hushed and reverent. ‘Not . . . The One? Not really The One?’

  Kate started to giggle. ‘Stop it.’

  Liz leaned back and took a long drag on her cigarette, and smiled. ‘Well, for crying out loud, what do you expect me to say? You want to explain the dramatic pronouncement or – ’ She stopped, suddenly. ‘Oh, my God, you don’t mean that one? The one from the sit-in?’

  Kate nodded. ‘He’s now a Lieutenant of Detectives in Homicide. His name is Jack Stryker.’

  ‘Does he remember you?’

  ‘I don’t know. He acted pretty oddly, but – I don’t know. I didn’t recognise him myself, at first. Not until he put his glasses on.’

  ‘He wears glasses? God, how the mighty have fallen.’

  ‘Well, only for reading,’ Kate said. ‘When the light hit them, they were a bit like a helmet visor . . . and I remembered. He kept making me angry, but until then I didn’t realise why.’

  ‘Angry?
Don’t you mean horny?’

  ‘No. He’s not – he’s older, Liz.’

  ‘Aren’t we all?’

  ‘Yes, but . . . oh, he’s different, now. Tired and . . .’

  ‘Oh, Kate, I’ll bet he’s still gorgeous. Isn’t he?’

  ‘Well – ’

  ‘Jesus wept.’ Liz was suddenly burdened by the knowledge of what lay ahead, added to the burden of all that had gone before. She stared at Kate with some pity and not a little delight.

  It had been during the sit-ins of the mid-sixties. Richard Wayland, student activist and potential nominee for the draft, had led a sit-in in the Department of English, protesting the University’s policy of making student records available to the government, for the purpose of establishing preferment for the draft. Kate, adoring girlfriend of Richard Wayland, had gone along with it, swept up in the excitement of the emotional and somewhat ill-defined ‘cause’. She, too, had joined the chanting, laughing and partially hysterical crowd – until the police had arrived. Then everything had changed. She had been terrified by the line of uniformed men advancing into the building, and had fled. One of them had followed, and cornered her in an empty upstairs office.

  There he had proceeded to turn her over his knee and spank the living daylights out of her. Then he stood her up, kissed her hard on the mouth, and left her, returning to his colleagues who were busy arresting everyone else.

  Kate hadn’t been arrested.

  Humiliated, embarrassed, and most of all, filled with guilt at having panicked and deserted Richard and the others, she had cowered in the office until darkness had fallen. Then had crept out and slunk home. She had told no-one of her experience – except, of course, her best friend, Liz Olson.

  She hadn’t seen the cop’s face because he had been wearing those mirrored goggles so beloved of motorcycle patrols. She could remember nothing of him except his hand on her bare flesh, his mouth, and his laugh as he’d left her. He’d said only one thing – ‘Go home and play with your dolls, babe, this is no game for little girls.’

  At the time it had happened Liz, always more worldly-wise than Kate, had seen the funny side of it. She still did. That, she had crowed, was the ultimate in fantasy ‘rape’. Come on, admit it, you enjoyed it. Kate, filled with rage and shame, had hotly denied any such thing. She said she only wanted to forget it.