In the Still of the Night

‘What about her?’ Sean gestured to where Marty Keats was sitting with her head in her hands, doubled up as if she was still feeling sick.

The inspector shrugged. Sean had known him slightly; they weren’t friends but Jack Chorley wasn’t so much hostile as resentful, envious, a little touch of the green eye over Sean’s success and suspected earning capacity, perhaps. Sean saw it in all their faces, the policemen who knew he had once been one of them but was now famous, and, by their standards, rich.

‘We still need to talk to her, she’s hardly told us anything yet, and if they were sleeping together she must be a suspect, you know that.’

‘So you do see it as a sex killing?’

Chorley ignored the question. ‘We’ll take her down to the station in a minute and see what we can get out of her. She must know more than she’s admitting. At the moment, we’re checking her alibi for last night and this morning.’

‘If I were you I’d look for her ex-husband, too.’

Chorley’s eyes narrowed, hard and bright. ‘Oh?’

‘She was sleeping with Fenn, and her ex, Roger Keats, was a nasty piece of work. They’re divorced, but he’s the type to turn vicious if he found out she was planning to marry again.’

‘Was she going to marry Fenn?’

‘No idea. I’m still just speculating. It would be worth checking it out. Oh, and if you find Keats, could you let me know? I’d like a word with him myself.’

‘You’ve got a nerve. I’m not handing police evidence over to you. Go home, Halifax, and stay out of my hair.’

‘If you need me, this is my number,’ Sean said, handing him a printed card. ‘I’ve got a mobile phone. I’ll get your call wherever I am.’

Chorley eyed him sardonically. ‘Snap,’ he said, producing his own phone from his pocket. ‘These days you don’t have to be a bigtime TV scriptwriter to have a mobile phone. Even us poverty-stricken coppers get issued one!’

‘Don’t be so bloody touchy!’ Sean grated. ‘Just let me know if anything interesting turns up, won’t you?’

‘Will I hell,’ said Chorley. ‘Leave the policework to the professionals, Halifax; you concentrate on writing far-fetched stories for TV.’

Sean didn’t bother to retort; he turned and walked over to Marty, explained that he was leaving but she would be wanted to help the police with their enquiries. She gave him a distraught look.

‘They don’t suspect me, do they? I didn’t do it. I was at home with my children.’

‘If they can give you an alibi you’ll be OK, won’t you?’

She wailed, ‘I want to go home to my kids!’ Sean watched her thoughtfully; she didn’t look to him like a killer.

Derek was hardly a heavyweight, but he was a man, and wiry enough; could a woman have overpowered him? It didn’t seem likely.

But if they had been having sex she might have taken him off guard. Pretty kinky sex, from the look of it. There had been something comic and revolting about the satsuma in the gaping, red-lipsticked mouth.

It had made Derek Fenn an object of cheap mockery. What sort of mind could have thought of that?

And the drugs in the satsuma … that was something Sean had never come across before – he hadn’t credited it when Dr Kent told him about the drugs which had been injected into the fruit.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Fairly sure. I’ve seen it before – they increase the sex drive. Give more of a kick to the orgasm when it comes.’ He had given one of his little sniffs. ‘Amazing what the human mind can come up with. What’s wrong with straightforward sex, I’d like to know?’

‘Works for me, every time,’ agreed Sean. ‘You’re the professional, Doc, you tell me – why the need to dress up something so natural and powerful with drugs and kinky stuff?’

‘Maybe the victim couldn’t do it otherwise? Well, he was getting on a bit; maybe he’d been having a problem in that direction. If his libido was on the blink, he might have needed help to get an erection, let alone orgasm.’

‘Maybe,’ Sean had said, thinking … but a satsuma in his mouth? It was far too comic. No, Sean couldn’t believe it. It must have been put there after Derek was dead. Must have been, surely, or it would have rolled out in his death throes. Strangling was a violent business unless the victim was unconscious already, and Derek clearly hadn’t been. He had struggled, made quite a mess, kicking stuff off the coffee-table, having an orgasm, urinating at the same time, his bodily functions totally out of control in his last agony.

Poor bastard, thought Sean, mouth wry. An undignified way to die, and Fenn had been a man obsessed with his image, with the way he looked. He always dressed well – even when he was wearing casual gear it was usually expensive, designer stuff.

‘Maybe I’d better get a lawyer,’ Marty said, breaking in on his thoughts, and Sean looked at her and, as he took in what she had said, nodded.