Doctor Who_ The Banquo Legacy - Andy Lane [46]
‘You wanted to see me, I believe, Inspector,’ I said, but the voice was not my own.
‘I did indeed, Mr Hopkinson.’
He was leaning against Wallace’s desk, the wreckage of Harries’s career cluttered across the top. Baker stood beside me. ‘Just one or two little points I’d like to clear up about this accident.’
‘Accident?’ I had felt rather than heard the slight hesitation as he chose the word.
‘You don’t think it was an accident then, Mr Hopkinson?’
My legs were about to give way, and I sank into the chair in front of the desk hoping it looked as if I had intended to. I talked to cover my weakness: ‘I don’t think you’d be bothering with all this if you did,’ I told him. ‘That’s not quite the same.’
‘And what do you think happened?’
I pretended to consider, in fact concentrating on keeping my hands steady as I pressed the moist fingertips tightly together in front of me. ‘Harries was not a very likeable character, I’m afraid. When he died it was a little too neat in my opinion.’
Stratford raised an eyebrow and suggested that perhaps I was putting myself under suspicion by admitting my dislike for Harries. I had little doubt that I was under suspicion already, but pleaded confidence in his ability to detect my innocence.
‘I didn’t do it,’ I told him; I felt it was a pathetic thing to say. But it sounded smug.
‘Can you tell me who did?’
I told him that I neither knew nor cared. I was floundering now: if he failed to see the perspiration on my brow it could only be because he was distracted by the sound of my racing heart.
‘Does anyone else here at the Manor share your opinion of Professor Harries?’
I almost laughed – he could not be so naïve. I watched as he toyed with the blackened base of a shattered valve, seemingly uninterested in my answer. He was trying to trap me.
‘I couldn’t really say,’ I lied. ‘I don’t know that Sir George cared for Harries overmuch. I’m not sure about Dr Friedlander or Herr Kreiner, but they have only just arrived. I don’t believe they’d met Harries before this evening. Everyone else apart from his sister seems remarkably indifferent. Including his fiancée,’ I added, not because I wanted him to know – perhaps he already did – but because I wanted to believe it myself.
‘She does seem a little detached –’ He did know. ‘Have you any idea why?’
I had, of course: it was obvious given the conversation I had overheard and Gordon’s predicament. But I was not going to play into Stratford’s hands quite that easily. ‘Not really,’ I told him. ‘But I gather from Mrs Wallace that the engagement was not going smoothly.’ I hoped she had noticed. ‘It seems that I know even less than you, Inspector.’
It sounded lame. He knew that I was lying, and his smile said so as clearly as his sarcasm.
‘Quite probably, Mr Hopkinson. Quite probably,’ he humoured me. ‘You can of course account for your movements this evening.’
It was not a question, but I answered anyway. ‘Of course.’
‘In that case, I shan’t ask you to – not yet.’
The menace was sharp in his voice, and I muttered my thanks. With that, he dismissed me. It was over. A wave of relief washed over me and I felt my skin cool beneath its sheen. I could hardly leave the study quickly enough.
I should have realised, of course, that he had not been at all interested in my answers so far. He had been waiting for me to give in to my relief. My hand was on the door handle when he spoke, as I think I had known he would. But I still reacted. My hand gripped the handle and my whole body froze, rigid.
‘Why didn’t you tell Sir George that Gordon Seavers is dead?’
As I struggled to control my clenched hand and search for a plausible answer I heard a voice reply, a calm and quiet voice. Reasonable and secure. It was my own. ‘George has been ill,’ my voice said confidently. It felt ready to crack at any moment. ‘I hoped to find an opportunity to break the distressing news to him gently, so as not to upset him. No such opportunity