Silas Nash books 1: Hush Hush Honeysuckle: Chapter 11 (b)

‘First thing’ turned out to be after ten o’clock. Gathering information, they said. He hadn’t slept. Somebody was singing Billy Bragg’s New England on a loop. It got marginally better as the drunk sobered up, and then he puked. He banged on the door and shouted for hours. And the buzzers—those bloody intercom buzzers. Max was driven mad after one night. The duty care staff must have been demented.

He heard another inmate buzz for three meals in the space of an hour. Max was amazed that he got them. He was going to put in a complaint about taxpayer’s money—but wouldn’t. He felt guilty the next morning when Glenda—that was the lady who came to check on everybody before the changeover to the day staff—told him that man was homeless. She said that if he couldn’t get a hostel, he’d do something to get arrested just to have a warm place to stay and something to eat. Glenda said it might be the only food he got for the day, and they didn’t mind.

‘Don’t the buzzers drive you mad?’

‘Like you wouldn’t believe.’

He wanted to say more, but his own predicament was too big, and he couldn’t be bothered to make small talk.

Max rang his solicitor, Jeremy Stillman, but as he feared, he couldn’t help. There was a big difference between corporate law and criminal. Max disagreed and said they were both dealing with thieves and liars, but his observation fell on stony ground. Stillman said he knew somebody that was brilliant.

Jane Pearson called within the hour, and he was handed the phone to speak to her. She agreed to represent him but would need initial payment upfront. Max assured her that money wouldn’t be a problem. However, she was tied up in court all day, and the earliest she’d get to him was late that night or the next day. The first piece of advice she gave him was free. She told him to say nothing until she got there and was brought up to speed.

Nash said, ‘This interview is being recorded on video and cassette. For the tape, present are Detective Chief Inspector Nash and—’

‘Detective Sergeant Phillip Renshaw.’ Nash’s inferior officer kept his voice steady and even.

‘For the tape, please state your name.’ Nash said.

‘No comment.’

‘I don’t blame you with a name like yours, lad. State your name, and we can move on. It’ll make it a lot easier for both of us to make headway, and if we get no further, we can at least lay out the allegations against you. I’m sure your solicitor didn’t mean for you not to tell us your name.’

‘You know my name.’

‘State your name.’

‘Maxwell Edward Bartholomew Tyler Jones, but the cat calls me Max.’

‘If you leave the comedy to me, lad, we’ll get along just fine.’

Max looked at the detectives. Sometime between him being brought in and now, they must have decided that he wasn’t going to leap across a table and bite their heads off Ozzy Osbourne style. The riot police had all been called off, and it seemed to be just the two officers and him. He looked at the two-way mirror and wondered how many people were watching behind it. Barrow hadn’t had a murder for a while. How many spectators did the slaying of one boring old bastard warrant? One? Twenty? He grinned at the mirror and dropped them a wink.

‘Do you think antics like that are going to do you any favours?’ Renshaw’s tone was like ice.

‘No, probably not. I’m sorry.’

‘You scare us, Jones.’ Nash was talking again.

‘I do? I scare myself sometimes too. And you should see me first thing in the morning after a night on the piss.’ Max was nervous and couldn’t help himself.

‘Shut up,’ Nash barked at him, and a drop of spittle flew from the corner of his mouth.

Max focused on it and saw the tiny wet dot on the interview table as a being trying to survive just like him. He fancied that if it dried up and died and it was no more, he might die too.

‘This bravado isn’t working.’ Nash motioned to Renshaw, who opened a brown folder and took out some A4 sheets of glossy paper. He slid them across the desk facedown.

‘If I find the lady, do I get to keep the tenner?’

‘Your mouth is really going to get you into trouble, Jones. For the tape, I am showing Mr Jones exhibit 1A.’

Max wondered if he’d developed Tourette’s Syndrome in the last half hour. He had to physically stop himself from saying, “For the tape, he isn’t showing it to me. It’s face down,” by hiding behind a cough. Nash was right. His mouth wasn’t doing him any favours, but his nerves brought a shitload of smart remarks, and he had to suppress them to keep them in. He knew that when Renshaw turned the pictures over, he was going to see the mangled body of Henry Watson. Maybe not mangled. His imagination was working as fast as his mouth, but it would certainly be gruesome, and he wasn’t ready for that. It was hot. He felt as though he was suffocating and pulled the neckline of his sweatshirt away from his throat. Nash’s eyes followed Max’s hand. He knew that every word he said and every nuance and gesture was being scrutinised. They probably had a psychologist watching him from behind the mirror.

Nash turned over the first photo, and Max’s hands flattened on the table, his body pulled up straight in his seat, and he stared at Nash. He didn’t expect that. They watched him and let Max be the first to speak.

‘What the hell?’

‘Do you know this man, Max?’

It wasn’t Henry. It was some old dude with wispy white hair and blue-grey dead skin.

‘No. Honestly, I’ve never seen him before in my life. You have to believe me. I thought it was Henry.’ Max couldn’t stop himself, and any advice given by Jane Pearson went out of the window.

‘Henry, who?’

‘My partner, Henry Watson. The one you told me was murdered.’

‘Why did you think it was going to be Henry?’

‘He’s the only person I know that has died.’

‘We’ll come to that in due course. Look closely, Maxwell. Take your time. No rush. We’ve got all day. Do you know this man?’

Max didn’t want to look again. Nash turned the second and third pictures over. ‘For the tape, I’m showing Mr Jones Exhibit 1B and 1C.’ They were of the same man. One was a full-view image, and the other was a shot in closer detail. Naked. Max could see he was probably well into his seventies or eighties. His skin was liver-spotted in places and wrinkled. Max noticed that his feet were thick with dead skin that had died years before the rest of him. The body was covered in holes, and there was so much blood. He was lying in a sultry pose on top of an old upright piano. A single-stem flower vase was on the end of the piano’s cabinet with a sprig of honeysuckle. The victim was facedown with his empty old-man buttocks uppermost. One leg was bent behind him and kept in position with a cable tie attached to his wrist. His other hand was under his head, holding it up in profile for the camera. The old man had a red rose between his teeth. Blood ran over the upright of the piano and onto the keys. White was black with gunge, and black was wet and looked sticky. There was so much blood, but his eyes were drawn to the piece of music on the stand. At the top of the page, it was titled. Minuet in G major, BWV anh. 114. Max hadn’t seen a piece of sheet music in twenty years, but he followed it, and the notes played in his head as his eyes read the line. It was by Christian Petzold, and Max had played this piece for his grade three exam every night until his fingers bled. The same bastard piece. He’d hated it and was transported back to those times sitting at the piano with a musty old tutor scrunched on the stool next to him. It was 2001, and sometimes, his hands touched Max’s hands as he guided him over the keys. He heard his voice, “Let my knowledge flow through your fingers and play.” The tutor lived for music and wanted Max to be the best he could be. Max was good, but at his exam recital, he flunked the piece on purpose. He hated playing the piano when his mates were out playing with girls. He couldn’t remember the tutor’s name.

‘Oh my God. I know him.’

‘Who is it, Max?’ Nash pressed him.

‘I can’t remember his name. He came to my house when I was a young kid and taught me piano.’

‘What did he do to you, Max?’

‘What?’

‘What did he do when it was just you and him alone playing the piano? Look at the picture and the staging. The piano is as important as the man on it. You hated that piano, didn’t you, Max?’

‘Yes, every terrible second of it. But hang on. You’re way off-beam. He was just a boring old man. He rapped my knuckles with a baton sometimes if I didn’t get it right.’ The memories flooded back. ‘But he never once touched me. He talked to me when nobody else did. He told me I could be somebody. He was a nice old man, you know. How did he end up like this? I liked him and would never wish him dead. ’

Max remembered being eight. He was a lonely child. He had his two best friends and his sister but lived the life of a boarding school child with parents that wanted him to be a high achiever.

The best thing about piano lessons was Mr Armstrong. Sometimes he’d stay well over the allotted hour, and he listened to Max when nobody else did. The man, who was old to Max even back then, taught him to play chess, and they talked. Mr Armstrong never spoke down to him and let him have opinions, even if they were the silly fancy of a young boy. He’d stared with wide eyes when Mr Armstrong agreed that aliens probably do exist. No grown-up had ever said that to him before. ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Max, than are dreamt of in your head.’

One day Max had been punished for some childish misdemeanour and said how much he hated his parents. ‘No, Max, you must honour thy father and thy mother because no matter what you do, they will never hate you.’ Max wasn’t so sure about that.

Mr Armstrong used to come with an old-fashioned satchel. It was brown leather with two pull-over strap buckles. Max laughed and called him a sissy when he said he liked baking. ‘In that case, you won’t be interested in what I’ve brought in my satchel.’ After that, every time he came, he brought cake or homemade biscuits. There was always a slice for Mel too. But she spoiled it like she spoiled everything. Mel was jealous because Max had a friend and shot herself in the foot. She told their parents how long Mr Armstrong stayed over his allotted time, and then there were no treats for either of them. Max could see now that untrue things were suspected, and Mr Armstrong didn’t come again. It was only a week or two until his grade three exam, and that was part of the reason he sabotaged it. He never saw his tutor again. The old man shouldn’t have died like that. So lacking in dignity. Max thought back and realised that Mr Armstrong was probably gay and how much harder it was for minorities back then. It was twenty years ago, and yet he could remember the man saying to him, ‘There is nothing worse than loneliness.’ Being alone doesn’t care about age or class segregation. It can hit anybody at any time.' Max and Mr Armstrong had bonded over their loneliness as equals. He was brought back to the present when Nash clicked his fingers in Max’s face. Mr Armstrong would never have been that rude. He was a gentleman.

‘William Armstrong. That’s his name. Is it coming back to you now, Max? Let’s be clear about this. Before today we had no connection between this man’s murder and you. Now the evidence is piling up like a snowdrift at the cabin door. Did you kill Mr William Armstrong, Max?’

Max was terrified.

‘This was your first one, wasn’t it? We can tell that from the body. The autopsy showed that you were very wary. You made a lot of practice attempts before breaking the skin very much. They just caused bruising. Then, the next lot of wounds, the ones we are counting from, weren’t as deep as later ones. It was as though you didn’t have a lot of strength and had to perfect your technique.’

‘This is grotesque. Please shut up,’ Max said.

There was still a photograph on the desk. What the hell was on it? He felt tears welling up in his eyes. ‘No. He was a nice man. I liked him. I did not kill him, Inspector.’

‘Are you saying you had nothing to do with this man’s murder?’

‘I am.’

‘We’ve done a full autopsy. The poor bastard died a painful death. It wasn’t fast, and he bled out for a long time. Either this animal knew what he was doing, or he was very bloody lucky. Sixty-eight stab wounds, some of them deep, made with the double tines of a tuning fork. They have rounded ends, and we’ve had an expert analyse the body and tell us exactly how much pressure was put on the handle of the fork to pierce the flesh and make those wounds. It was a lot. The man suffered. And yet, until the last thrust, the final two wounds, not one of them touched any major organs. The coroner said the wounds were time-staged. From the clotting, he was able to tell that Mr Armstrong was stabbed every few minutes. Now, this was a shot in the dark, but we figured that he might have stabbed him once every 2 minutes and 66 seconds. Why do you think that was?’

‘It’s a short piece. It wasn’t the length of time it took to play the Minuet. But he could have played it twice. He was playing the piano in between stabbing him.’

‘Him? or you, Max?’

‘I never touched him.’

‘As I said, this was a shot in the dark until we pieced things together. When we took the witness statements after the body was found, neighbours complained about him playing “One song,” their words, not ours, repeatedly on the piano. They knocked on the walls, but the killer held his nerve, raised the volume and carried on playing. When they couldn’t stand it any longer, they hammered on the door and shouted for him to keep the noise down. This guy’s cool, Max. He raised the volume again until it was deafening and played Fortissimo. I’m sure an old hand like you knows what that means. We played the piece to them, and they said that was the tune, and they never wanted to hear it again.’

‘It wasn’t me.’

‘And now we have our link to you. Did you kill him?’

The fourth photo was making him sweat.

‘No comment.’