Dead Men's s Boots

They won’t be happy.’

He frowned and shook his head in slow, sombre disapproval.

‘Well,’ I responded, as though everything he’d just said made perfect sense to me, ‘you knew what Jan hired me for. She doesn’t believe that you killed Barnard, and she thinks tha sshet st your best bet at trial might be to try to establish that someone else was in that room along with the two of you. A dead someone else, which is why she came to me. But obviously I’d like to hear your version of what happened.’

‘My version.’ Hunter looked down at his hands momentarily, palms up, as though he was checking to see if they were clean.

‘Nothing,’ he muttered, as if to himself. ‘Nothing.’

This was getting us nowhere fast. I sat down next to Juliet, hoping Hunter might follow my lead, but he wasn’t even looking at me. He was looking up at the ceiling.

‘My version’s older than that,’ he murmured, so low I almost didn’t catch the words.

‘Was there someone else, Doug?’ I asked, trying again. ‘Did someone else come into the hotel room with you? Or afterwards? How did Barnard die?’

He lowered his head slowly, making eye contact with me almost accidentally at the bottom of that long, gradual arc.

‘The hammer,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that what she used? I’m not sure any more, but that’s what I remember. His head – was very – I can ask her. If you like.’ ‘Then there was someone else?’ I demanded again. The eerie dissociation of his mood was in the air like something you could breathe in and catch. I had to fight the urge to push my chair back away from him, and to force myself to take normal breaths instead of sipping the tainted atmosphere as shallowly as I could.

Hunter shook his head. ‘Just me,’ he muttered. ‘Just me and her. Nobody else. Maybe a dead man. Maybe some people who were dead. Nobody else.’ A ponderous frown passed across his face like a ripple across muddy water. ‘I think he sucked me. My cock. But I can’t remember why now. That’s really disgusting.’

He sighed, long and deep, and sat down at last, opposite me.

‘I sprained my ankle,’ he said, sounding slightly wistful. ‘And they took me next door. To the church. If they’d had a first-aid kit – but it was all cash in hand, no tax, no pack drill. Nobody to keep the site up to code. Thought they might have some painkillers, or a surgical bandage. Stupid.’

There was a long silence, which I didn’t try to fill. I had a feeling that if I let him free-associate he might lead me to something important.