Mourn not your Dead

that made me wonder. By that time the game had grown a bit stale, and I was intrigued.
    “Oh, it was a game at first, I admit, a chance to use old skills, feel the edge of things again. And it was a challenge—give Alastair enough to keep him off my back, yet not enough to compromise Claire too badly. He should have blackmailed a less biased snoop.”
    Deveney rubbed one thumb with the other. “I should think you’d have relished the opportunity to get even with her, after she threw you over for him.”
    “And satisfy bloody Alastair Gilbert in the process? He wanted me to tell him his wife was cheating on him. He seemed to get some sort of perverse satisfaction out of it.” Kincaid leaned forwards. “Was she?”
    “I don’t intend to tell you that, either. What Claire did was her business.”
    “But you told Gilbert about the bank account.”
    “It seemed harmless enough. I called him that afternoon, told him I wanted to talk to him and that I’d meet his train in Dorking. I gave him the information and told him I was finished. In months of watching Claire, that was the only thing I’d come up with, and for all I knew she was saving up to buy him a bloody birthday present. I’d had enough.”
    “And that was that?” Kincaid raised a skeptical eyebrow.
    “He agreed,” said Ogilvie, his eyes shuttered.
    Kincaid leaned forwards and thumped his fist on the table. “Bollocks! Gilbert would never have agreed. I know that for a fact, and I didn’t know him half as well as you. I think he laughed at you, told you he’d never let you off. And you believed him, didn’t you?” Kincaid sat back again and stared at Ogilvie, playing out the scenario in his head. “I think you followed him home from Dorking that evening, hoping for an opportunity. You left your car in the pub car park, where it would be unremarkable, or up at the end of the lane. You rang the doorbell and made an excuse, told him there was something you’d forgotten to mention, while you saw that no one else was home.
    “And I think it was you Gilbert underestimated. He turned his back on you, and that was the end of it.”
    The silence in the room grew thick. Kincaid imagined he heard their hearts beating in opposition and the sound of the blood pumping through their veins. Sweat stood out now on Ogilvie’s brow, glistening like oil.
    Ogilvie moved, wiping his hand across his face impatiently. “No. I did not kill Alastair Gilbert. And I can prove it. I drove straight back to London, as I had an evening appointment with a painter to discuss the decorating of my flat.” He smiled. “An alibi from an unbiased witness, Superintendent. You’ll find it stands up.”
    “We’ll see about that,” said Deveney. “Anyone is susceptible to a payoff. As you should know.”
    “A dirty blow,” said Ogilvie. “Touché, Chief Inspector. But if we’re trading points here, I must say that in my old nick we at least gave the accused a cup of coffee. Do you think you could manage that?”
    Deveney glanced at Kincaid, grimaced. “I suppose so.” He spoke into the tape recorder, giving the time and noting that they would take a brief recess, then switched it off.
    When the door had closed behind him, Ogilvie gave Kincaid a considering look. “Off the record, Superintendent?”
    “I can’t promise that.”
    Ogilvie shrugged. “I’m not about to make a grand confession. I have nothing to confess, except that I’m tired. You seem like a sensible man. Let me give you a bit of advice, Duncan. It’s Duncan, isn’t it?” When Kincaid nodded, he went on. “Don’t let bitterness damage your judgment. I should have had Gilbert’s job. I was the better qualified, but he was better at sucking up to the powers that be, and he sabotaged me.
    “After that I started to feel I deserved more, that the system owed it to me, and that was how I excused the little infractions. Then you begin to justify it in other ways—the stuff goes on no matter what we do, you say, so why not benefit from it?” Ogilvie paused and drained his water glass, then wiped his mouth. “After a while it wears on you, though, like a sickness. I knew I needed to get out, but I kept putting it off. I never meant for anyone to get hurt. That constable—how is he?”
    “They say he’s in surgery, but it sounds as though he’ll be all right.” How easy it was to fall from grace by increments. Kincaid looked at Ogilvie, wished he’d met him a dozen years ago, untarnished.