Читать книгу Flush - Jane Clifton - Страница 14

Davey hung up and did a small air punch. His phone rang immediately.

`Crockett,' he said.

`Sir!' came the urgent voice at the other end. `Get in here quick will you. It's Kransky.'

Blood was gushing from Kransky's forehead. There was blood on the wall and on the floor where the suspect lay in a heap.

`Ambulance?' Davey asked while he felt for a pulse.

`On its way,' said the duty-sergeant, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

`Was there a fight? What happened?'

`I don't know, Davey. I mean, I didn't hear anything. He must have been banging his head away since last time I looked in.'

`And when was that?'

`One o'clock, I think.'

`Two hours ago?' Davey yelled. `This suspect's supposed to be on suicide watch!'

Archie thundered into the room.

`What's going on?'

`Kransky's been bashing his head against the wall for the past two hours and no one seems to have noticed,' Davey said angrily.

`What the fuck were you doing?' Archie asked, rounding on Ellis.

`I thought he was okay. He seemed fine. I mean, he just sat there most of the time, singing a bit, like I said before.'

`Singing!' Archie roared. `Why wasn't I told?'

`Didn't seem important, boss,' Ellis barely whispered. `It was just singing.'

`Didn't seem important?' Archie's face had reddened. `This suspect hasn't said boo since his arrest, and now you tell me that he has been making audible noises! And you chose not to inform me or any member of the team! The suspect could have been singing an entire confession! He could have been singing something which may later be used in evidence against him!'

`I did mention the singing to Davey, boss,' Ellis said softly. He wasn't going down alone.

Archie rounded on his partner, who was saved from a similar bollocking by the timely arrival of the ambulance crew.

An hour later Archie, calmer now, was taking the odd bite from a sallow-looking cherry Danish.

`I'm not sure I could do something like that,' he said.

`What?' Davey asked.

`Bang my head against a wall until I knocked myself out.'

`Medics say they're going to keep him in ICU until he comes round. No serious damage, they reckon. Just going to have one hell of a headache.'

`Maybe when he comes round this time he'll decide to speak.'

Archie took another desultory bite.

`What is going on with that bloke, Davey?' he asked, throwing the rest of the Danish into the bin. `I can't work him out.'

As if on cue, Davey's phone rang. Decca Brand was at the front desk.

Had anyone ever carried out a scientific study, Decca wondered, into what it is that triggers the mental picture we form of a person when we only hear their voice? Nine times out of ten, in Decca's own experience, the brain created the wrong picture. Detective Sergeant Crockett in person was not at all what she had pictured.

The voice of the short, fat, bald man who had beamed through her mobile phone belonged to the body of a tall, dark and handsome heart-throb straight off the pages of a romance novel. In her low-cut, sleeveless sun dress and chunky jewellery Decca felt uncomfortably frivolous in the prosaic surroundings of police headquarters.

Another man rose to greet her as they entered the small interview room. Now, here, thought Decca, was your classic copper: solidly built, medium height, big round head with sparse hair, drinker's nose, old man's ears and a paunch to rest a tie on. When his meaty hand gripped hers, Decca experienced that inexplicable frisson of fear even the innocent felt when in the presence of the law.

Detective Senior Sergeant Archie Stock lugged around the weight of every case he'd ever investigated in the bags beneath his eyes. And at that moment, his eyes were running all over Decca like ants at a picnic.

`Thanks for coming in, Miss Brand,we appreciate your time.'

`No problem,' Decca said, putting her handbag on the floor and trying to sit without flashing too much leg.

`What can you tell us about Mr Kransk?' Crockett began, notebook and pen at the ready, inadvertently creating an odd reversal of Decca's usual work situation. It wasn't at all like on television, she noted. They hadn't switched on a tape recorder or read out her rights.

`Mr Kransky began coming to see me in May last year.'

`Why?' Crockett asked.

`I'm a psychologist,' she said. `I specialise in the area of Panic Anxiety Stress Disorder. Oleg came to see me because he was suffering panic attacks which were impacting upon his ability to work.'

`Panic Anxiety is a relatively recently recognised syndrome, according to the material I've seen,' Crockett said with a self-deprecatory smile. `Isn't it?'

Decca had the grace to smile back.

`Has it always been the focus of your practice?'

`No. I went into private practice about six years ago. Prior to that I was resident psychologist at a social welfare unit in St Albans for nine years.'

`You would have had your hands full there,' Crockett said.

`It gave me a reasonably broad perspective,' Decca said.

`Can you remember what kind of work Mr Kransky was engaged in when he began coming to see you?' Crockett asked.

`He was working as a builders' labourer, I believe. He'd only been in the country a short time and was struggling with the language,' Decca said. She was finding it difficult to know how much to reveal about Oleg. `I don't think it was the kind of work he was accustomed to.'

`But he had no difficulty communicating with you?' Crockett asked.

`I had the luxury of time and patience,' Decca said.

There was an uncomfortable pause. Crockett was doing all the talking, Decca noted. Archie kept darting sidelong glances at the younger man as if he wasn't quite following the conversation. Was this what they called `good cop, bad cop'?

`Can you tell us what country Mr Kransky came from?' Crockett asked.

`No,' Decca said.

Crockett put down his pen and looked at her. Archie folded his arms across his chest.

`Not because I don't want to,' she added, quickly. `I simply wasn't ever able to work it out. I assumed he was from Poland.'

`It's a reasonable assumption, given his surname,' Crockett said. `Then again, he could have been of Polish origin but travelled to Australia from somewhere else.'

`I suppose so,' Decca said.

`Is Oleg Kransky a psychopath, Miss Brand?' Archie asked at last.

`That's a difficult question to answer,' Decca said.

`Give it a shot,' said the DSS with a mirthless grin. When Decca smiled and shook her head, he ploughed ahead before Crockett could get back in on the act.

`In your professional opinion would you consider him unbalanced enough to be capable of killing his wife and then making an attempt on his own life?' Archie leaned forward across the table towards her until his face was uncomfortably close.

Decca stiffened then decided not to let the older man intimidate her.

`Mr Kransky stopped coming to see me in July of last year,' she said, her tone no longer conversational. She paused while she considered giving Archie the bizarre details of Oleg's last appointment, but just as quickly thought better of it. `We had made some progress with his therapy. He mentioned his wife frequently during our sessions. I gained the clear impression that he loved her very much.'

`And did you gain the impression that she felt the same way about him?' Stock asked with a sneer. Decca said nothing. `Did Mr Kransky mention what his wife did for a living, by the way?'

`I understood she worked as a hotel manager,' Decca said.

Now it was the turn of the two men to say nothing.

`She earned enough to support them both but part of Mr Kransky's problem stemmed from the pressure he felt to be the main provider in the marriage.'

`Yes. You mentioned that he had only been in the country a short time and—' he leaned over to look pointedly at his notes, `was still struggling a little with the language.'

Decca nodded and Archie gave her a broad smile.

`And yet his wife held an Australian driver's licence issued in 1998.' He let the statement dangle while Decca struggled to compose herself.

`Did Mr Kransky mention that his wife had travelled to Australia separately, many years prior to his arrival?'

`No,' Decca said. Her head was reeling. Oleg had told her they had been apart for six months! That it was a `trial separation'. Six years was something else altogether.

`I can't help getting the feeling that this information has come as a bit of a surprise to you, Miss Brand,' Archie said, the ghost of a smile playing around his lips.

`Detective Senior Sergeant,' Decca said slowly, `I came to tell you what I could, within the parameters of patient confidentiality, about a previous patient of mine who—'

`Who happens to be suspected of torturing and brutally murdering his wife,' Stock said, getting up from the table. `You'll forgive my frankness, Miss Brand, but given your time at St Albans I'm sure you've heard worse.'

The DSS rested his big hands on the table, looked down at her and sighed.

`We have a man in custody whose wife is dead. And yet he's refusing to speak to us. We know nothing about him. We don't know where he's from, what he does for a living, whether he has any friends, whether he has any enemies. We've got nothing to go on, except for one small clue, Miss Brand.' His eyes bored into her. `Your card.'

`Now, if we had found an appointment card for, say, his barber, we would have gone through exactly the same process as the one we are going through with you. And, barbers being the shrewd observers of humanity we know them to be,' he said, looking back at Decca, `maybe we would have garnered a lot more information by now.'

Decca made to reach for her handbag.

`But, by a stroke of luck, we find that this man, who may or may not have killed his wife in a fit of rage, was seeing a psychologist less than a year ago.' Stock was building to a crescendo. `And we figure, reasonably enough, that this psychologist might be able to shed some light on why this man is acting in the way he is!'

`You want my professional opinion, Detective Senior Sergeant?' Decca asked. `I'd say it was high time you enrolled in an anger management course.'

Her heart was racing. She was both angry and scared, but she would not be bullied.

`I will prepare a statement and mail it to you.' Decca rose from her seat. `Now, if you don't mind, I'm expected elsewhere.'

Stock came around the table to face her, blocking her access to the door.

`Do you think the fact that Mr Kransky had recently discovered that his wife was working as a prostitute would have been enough to tip him over the edge, Miss Brand?' he asked quietly.

`Good night,' Decca said.