#180b

I was sitting in the kichen chair. In front of me were Little Dick Tracy and to either side his two Goons. Around the apartment I could hear noises as the other detectives tore the place apart and dropped crusty socks into evidence bags. It felt like my arms were tied and I was about to be pounded till I broke.

“Can I put some trousers on?” I asked Little Dick Tracy.
“Why, do you feel uncomfortable?” was his immediate response.
“No. Cold,” I replied.

Little Dick gave a nod of the head to his right Goon, who in turn stepped to the door and whispered something to an unseen colleague. A few moments later a dark hairy outstretched arm appeared through the kitchen doorway offering up my stained beige trousers.
“Put them on,” said Little Dick “and sit back down.”

As I shoved my legs into the trousers I caught sense of some light way off down the hall from where the front door had been left open. I thought of making a run for it, São Paulo, then thought better of it. I went and sat back down and tensed the muscles in my stomach just to make sure they were still there. Little Dick stood in front of me.

“Mr Tristram Spencer, I am here this afternoon, accompanied by Detective Wines and Detective Dennison and four other members of the Southwark Murder Squad in relation to the disappearance and suspected murder of your one-time live-in disabled charge Mr John McManus. I am in possession of a warrant which allows my team to search the premises and bag and leave with anything we feel may be important in our investigation. I will not be charging you with anything just right now, but I do require your co-operation in answering some question. But, make no mistake about it, if you do not co-operate or seem to be witholding information I WILL arrest you and we'll do this down at the Nick. Now, do you understand all that I have said?”

I nodded

“Ok, so let's get down to it....”

For almost two hours Little Dick Tracy asked me about John's disappearance, the date, times, why he left, where he may have gone, if he had bank accounts, the nature of our relationship, the violence, abuse, what I was doing on the evening he left in his wheelchair, why I had not reported his disappearance, etc etc and blah. A million things, sometimes being nice and sometimes turning mean, using his entire array of little tricks and questioning techniques to try and extract informationfrom me.

Sometimes he would drag questions out, almost stopping to think after each word, and other times he'd change and suddenly be flinging question marks at me like bursts of machine gun fire. And all the while he done this he was pacing around, turning his back, coming in close... down on his knees. He smoked, pulled his hands through his thinning hair, stroked his jaw, clenched his fist, screwed up his eyes, banged the table and sometimes didn't breath for so long because of the words coming out his mouth that he turned all red. When he once again looked like a dishevelled tramp I knew that my ordeal was coming to an end and he would then deliberate, look over the evidence, and either decide to arrest me or not.

I sat there drained. It had been a tough experience. I had tried to answer all Little Dick's questions with an 'idiots honesty', meaning I done so slowly and so intimately honest that it could not be helped but be believed. My bizarre and monotonous confessions of domestic sex and abuse and the small details like how John would fart in his sleep and how sometimes, when tired, his left eye would turn lazy gave the impression I was a simpleton and as such completely incapable of holding together the complex maze of lies and excuses needed to cover up a murder.

When Little Dick asked what I had done on the night John left, I'd replied: 'the argument had made me feel sexual, you know, like I could forget everything if my mind was settled on desensitizing my incredible hard-on. And I know that may sound strange but that's what happened and I cannot explain why. I was pulsating through my trousers and needed to relieve it and then relieve it again and again. And so I passed the evening masturbating and hurting and crying, often all at the same time.'

So I tried to keep to answers like that, a stupidity that is fundamentally honest. Concerning accusations of murder, well I could not help but answer them with a truthfulness that could only have seemed genuine. I did not murder John – that's the truth. And so accusations of murder were easy to deal with and convincingly. If Little Dick had have asked: “Did you kill Mr McManus?” that may have produced a far less convincing response. I did kill John, but I never murdered him.

*

Little Dick came back my way. He held his jaw in his right hand and looked at me, weighing me up one last time.

“Mr Spencer, we are almost done,” he said “but I have one last question to put to you and when after I ask it, if you hesitate of deliberate for even a mili-second before answering I will arrest your rank filthy arse and slap a murder charge on it. Clear?”

“Ok” I nodded

“So, NO deliberation... NO hesitation... NO umming or err'ing. You answer impulsively and immediately.”

And then Little Dick stopped and was quite calm. Twice he opened his mouth but didn't say anything. He was playing games. Then he took a cigar from a packet in his top pocket and put it in his mouth. On that his left Goon handed him a small black lighter. Little Dick flicked up a flame and lent in towards it, his face evil behind its flicker. Suddenly, and without warning, he didn't light his cigar but zoomed right up to my face and as quick as a flash he spat: “Where was you on the night of the murder?”

“was-no-murder-dont-know” were the five lucky words which came out my mouth, all strung together without a moments hesitation. I was shaking and terrified and said no more...

4 comments:

  1. Jim: It's not quite finished yet... theres a part C to follow in the next couple of hours.

    You've got a little picture to your name now! That's much more homely. X

    ReplyDelete
  2. 'Was-no-murder' - not very clever.

    At least you didn't add 'It was an accident!'

    'Don't know'. Fine. Should have added 'Don't know when the murder was'.

    OK. I realize this is like Mastermind and it's much harder when you're the one in the spotlight.

    Seems strange to me that you're eluding capture so assiduously and yet,to me,you also seem to WANT to get caught. Exhibit A:

    Those window boxes with all the evidence the cops need. Still sitting there when they could have been removed on many occasions, surely. (Leslie Neilsen RIP)

    Could you perhaps be a little attached to the rotting flesh of your former lover?

    It happens: Babs Cartland kept the corpse of one of those awful poodles in its own personal fridge (with its own little toys) till the day she died.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Abigail: Yeah, maybe not the greatest thing to say but thats what came. And you're right, at least I never blurted out about it being an 'accident' (the first two blows). Anyway, i'm sure someone will redraft everything I've written in 60 years time when I'm dead and gone.

    The window boxes you may very well be correct about, but there is also another thought I have on them which I'll explain another time. X

    ReplyDelete

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