Black Tide by Peter Temple Page A

expression. Absolutely no disrespect intended. Absolutely. With Sylvia and Carlette, two—’
    ‘I’m sure everyone understands, Cyril,’ I cut in. ‘I suggest you leave me with Ms Marlowe and ask Mrs Davenport to come in and record Ms Marlowe’s sworn statement.’
    ‘Audio and video,’ said Wootton.
    ‘Video?’
    Wootton went to the desk, beckoned me over and pointed to two buttons on the second shelf of the bookcase behind his chair. ‘When you’re ready, press both. Camera’s focused on the client’s chair. Press both again when you’re finished.’
    ‘Video all right with you, Ms Marlowe?’ I asked.
    She looked doubtful. ‘What’s it for?’
    ‘Just backup in case the police query your testimony,’ said Wootton. ‘We won’t use it unless we have to. Easier than getting you down here again.’
    ‘Why don’t I just give a statement to the cops? Cut out all this.’
    ‘Let’s just say,’ said Wootton, ‘that we’re not entirely confident that the officers of the law always have the interests of justice at heart. I’ll send Mrs Davenport in.’
    Mrs Davenport came in and gave Sylvia her disapproving headmistress look. How the patients must have loved her when she was the receptionist for a specialist in sexually-transmitted diseases.
    Sylvia looked her up and down coolly. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘now that matron’s here, can we get on with it?’
    Both women were smart and articulate and Sylvia took a pleasingly droll view of the world. We had a few laughs in the mere forty-five minutes it took to do the statements. Henceforth it was going to be hard to shake the case that Brendan O’Grady never left the company of Sylvia, Carlette and Tony between 9 p.m. and 8 a.m. on the night Frank Zakia was shot dead in Camberwell. Identity wasn’t a problem.
    ‘I think I can be said to know what Brendan O’Grady looks like,’ said Sylvia. ‘If necessary, I can supply distinguishing marks and measurements.’
    Mrs Davenport’s eyebrows twitched.
    ‘I don’t think it’ll come to that,’ I said.
    Mrs Davenport took fifteen minutes to produce the documents. She brought them in holding them upright by the edges as if to minimise contact with the paper.
    I read the statements to each woman in turn, they read them and signed three copies. Mrs Davenport and I witnessed their signatures and she was out of the front door before the ink was dry.
    ‘I’ll be on my way, too,’ I said. ‘Pleasure to meet you. Have a good trip back.’
    Sylvia looked me in the eye. ‘What’s to do in this dump at night?’
    I wasn’t tempted. Tempted is a mild state. There is something a step or two up from tempted.
    ‘I’m sure Mr Wootton will see to it that you don’t want for anything,’ I said.
    Wootton was quivering like a retriever waiting for the gunshot. ‘Absolutely,’ he said. ‘Booked you into the Sofitel. Everything you want. I’ll come around myself…’
    She ignored him, maintaining her disquieting hold on my eyes. ‘Can’t you take care of that?’ she said, wickedness in the tilt of the Hepburn head.
    I did the professional smile. ‘Love to but I have to take the children to their school concert.’
    She smiled too. ‘Lying. Still, hookers scare some men.’
    ‘Scare them rigid.’
    ‘I wish,’ she said. She put out her right hand, suddenly businesslike. ‘Enjoy the concert.’
    We shook hands. Our palms made a shell. Then she did a terrible thing: she scratched my palm with the nail of her longest finger. A gentle, sharp stroke of a scratch. An erotic frisson went through me, I fell through time, years dissolved, my legs felt unworthy of my weight.
    My mother had a friend, much younger, Jane Beacham, a tall and slim woman, married to a stockbroker. I was sixteen. I have no idea how old she was. We were standing next to Jane’s car, the BMW without door pillars, on the broad driveway of my grandfather’s Brighton mansion. Late afternoon. I remember Jane’s strong blonde hair, roots