Kissing the Dragon - 6. Accused

Winter sunlight flooding the room has overheated the already thickly warm space and I sense a trickle of sweat snake its way down from my hairline. Without waiting for permission, I stand quickly and remove my jacket, twisting around to arrange the cloth across the back of my chair. Wiping the sweat away from my face with both hands, I turn back into Whitehead’s fierce glare. Does he think I am responsible in some way, that I should have done more? Without giving anything away, he returns his attention to his notebook. Once seated, and with a conscious effort, I force myself to breathe and think back to Friday night. Did Denny seem scared or concerned that night? No, he was the same as always, drunk but otherwise his usual caustic self. Did he decide to head back to the pub? But that seems highly unlikely, not only was he too drunk but he claimed to be tired. And I remember turning back after leaving him, and witnessing the light come on in his house. Why would he head back to the ponds when he could barely stand? After we parted company I ambled home, not really giving the man another thought. Not realising that I would never see him again. And now these professionals are here to interrogate me. And then a cold thought comes to me. Am I a suspect? How can I not be?

“Why?” I hear myself say.

“Why what?” says Chaudhary.

“Why would anyone want to kill him? He’s harmless. Was. A vicious tongue perhaps, but otherwise harmless.”

“People have been murdered for less. Why do you think we’re here?” says the man. Again, he stares at me hard and impassive, no flicker of empathy.

“You think I had something to do with this,” I say, a statement not a question, truly despising him now, but choosing instead to match his fixed gaze. My mind rallies back to the walk home on Friday night seizing a fleeting memory.

“Now there’s an interesting thought,” replies Whitehead, his gaze unwavering.

“Ben,” mutters Chaudhary.

“Wong,” I blurt out, causing all eyes to turn my way.

“Mr McCann?” says Chaudhary, frowning as though she has misheard.

“Wong’s, I mean,” I say, a sigh of relief escaping me. I close my eyes and massage the bridge of my nose with my thumb and forefinger. “The Chinese takeaway on Garfield Road. I’d completely forgotten that I nipped in on Friday night on my way home after leaving Denny. Was going to order some food but the place was heaving. The shop’s two streets away from my home.”

“Can anyone verify that?” asks Chaudhary.

“Mrs Wong,” I reply, exhaling audibly, relief flooding through me. “They were busier than their usual Friday night, end of the month I suppose, so she was out front taking orders. But she made point of saying hello and gave me a copy of their new menu. Wanted to show me the dishes they’d added. Requested by an acquaintance of mine.”

Thank heavens for Billy. Even though he had not been home all weekend, his persistence with the local Hong Kong restaurateurs has entailed them adding a few extra dishes to their typically British version of Chinese cuisine, and providing me with my alibi.

“And you think this Wong woman will remember you?” asks Whitehead.

“I think so,” I venture, looking up into his stern gaze. “I mean, yes. I’m confident she will.”

Whitehead shoots a coded look at Chaudhary and then continues scribbling in his notebook.

“I still don’t understand,” I say, addressing my concerns to Chaudhary. “I parted company with Denny at the end of Station Lane. I saw lights come on inside his house. Nobody else was around. I would have seen. Why would he head back to the ponds. He could barely stand when I left him. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Look, this is strictly confidential,” she says, ignoring the sharp glare from her counterpart. “He might have not been killed at the ponds, might have walked in on somebody.”

“But that’s speculation right now,” adds the man.

“Oh, my God,” I hear myself whisper. “And he’d have been too drunk to defend himself.”

“That’s not always the case, Mr McCann,” says Chaudhary. “Although the interesting thing is that according to the coroner, Mr Harrison didn’t put up a struggle. Which draws us to the conclusion that he was either taken by surprise or that he knew the murderer. Or both.”

“Sorry if I’m being obtuse here. But you said the body was found floating in the pond?” says Dorothy, asking something patently obvious that I have missed. “Why would the robber go to all the trouble of killing him in his home and then carry his body to the pond? To make it look like a drowning? Isn’t that a little fanciful? Did you find any murder weapon?”

“At the water’s edge,” says the man, nodding in agreement at Dorothy’s skepticism.

“But the murderer may have been trying to divert attention from something else, to make it look as though he’d been attacked in the woods. In fact, if it wasn’t for a scrupulous member of our team finding Harrison’s blood beneath a rug on the bedroom carpet, we would have assumed he’d been killed at the ponds.”

“Which is still the most likely case. Can you think of anyone Mr Harrison might have had issues with? Apart from yourself?” asks the man, his gaze still glued to me. I take a deep breath before answering.

“Enough to kill him? No, I can’t. But then we were hardly bosom buddies. Aside from bumping into him at the Duck, I rarely saw him,” I say, and then feel a wave of remorse living so close to this man. What would it have cost me to maintain a closer friendship? “Maybe you should speak to his co-worker at the shop. Or Megan Mayhew, the landlady at the Duck. She probably saw more of Denny than anyone.”

“You think we haven’t done that already?” said Whitehead, stony-faced. ‘“Why do you think we’re here?”

“I’m trying to be helpful.”

Once again I notice Chaudhary cast a cautioning glance at Whitehead, but the man ignores her, lowers his head again, hiding in his notepad.

“We know you are,” says Chaudhary. “And we thank you for your help, Mr McCann. One final thing, would you mind looking at a photograph of the victim, just to confirm?”

I have never seen a photograph of a familiar body laid out on the slab of what I guess to be the mortuary before. Denny’s face is bloated and bloodless but otherwise recognisable and thankfully no wounds can be seem. Still my stomach contracts in protest and I turn away, swallowing back bile. Something about his outfit niggles though and when I turn and look again, I realise it is the same as I had seen on the night, except for one small detail.

“Yes, that’s him. And that’s what he was wearing. Apart from the handkerchief.”

“What do you mean?”

“He didn’t have a handkerchief in his top pocket that night. Not when he was with me.”

“Are you absolutely certain?”

I nod decisively in response and hand back the photo. Chaudhary is unaware of my mild form of OCD otherwise she would not question me about attention to detail. Moreover, it strikes me as an odd addition to the colours of his outfit. As affected as he was, Denny made a point of never wearing pink.

“Before I let you go, Mr McCann, I’ll need your fingerprints for our records. Can you also confirm your address and contact information. We aren’t releasing any details to the media until later today or early tomorrow, so I would be grateful if you could treat this matter as strictly confidential. And not a word to anyone about the bedroom scenario. DC Whitehead, can I have word?”

Whitehead’s head snaps up at that and he rises hastily. Striding to the window Chaudhary stops and turns to face us, far enough away to be out of earshot, and nods for him to join her. While I write my details on paper provided by Dorothy, I peer up a couple of times to see Chaudhary’s mouth working, a flash of anger in her face. A couple of times she shakes her head. With his back to us, it is difficult to make out Whitehead’s reaction but finally, once she has stopped speaking, his shoulders shrug once. Leaving him at the window, Chaudhary returns to us and I follow her instructions on providing fingerprints.

“Once again thank you for your time, Mr McCann,” she says, tucking her kit away. While I wipe my fingers on a tissue, she reaches into her breast pocket, pulls out a business card and hands it to me. “If you remember anything else, please call my private line or the station main switchboard. We’re going to be installed in the Croxburgh police station until this is resolved. Now perhaps you’d like to wash up and return to your class while I have a quick word with Ms Humphreys.”

Still in a daze, I bid them both farewell. Stepping past, I venture a glance at Whitehead who has turned to observe me, his arms folded. As I walk past him, I nod a cursory farewell, a gesture that is rewarded by a dark glower that follows me to the door. Whatever she has said to him has rattled him royally.

All I can think is, thank goodness I will be dealing with Chaudhary from now on.