David had expected to be interviewed by the police.
More precisely, he had expected to be interviewed as Steve Penderhurst's killer.
Until yesterday evening, that had seemed almost inevitable. There would have been an arrest, a solicitor and questions about motive, followed eventually by the disagreeable business of explaining why a banned driver had acquired an old saloon under a false name, spent months learning another man's movements and finally mowed him down deliberately. David had mentally rehearsed portions of the interview in much the same way he had rehearsed the killing.
What he had not anticipated was sitting in the same sort of room while the police tried to determine whether he had anything to do with somebody else's murder of Steve Penderhurst.
There was an injustice in this which David almost admired. He had done all the preparation and another man had got the arrest.
“I imagine you know why you're here,” Detective Inspector Harris said.
“I can make a reasonable guess.”
“You've heard what happened?”
“I read about it last night.”
“How did you feel?”
“Shocked.”
“Upset?”
“No.”
David shrugged. “You know the history. It would be absurd for me to pretend Steve and I were friends.”
Harris reminded him of the civil case, the six hundred thousand dollars and the fact that David had openly resented Steve afterwards. David agreed with all of it. Yes, eventually he had hated him. Yes, the coincidence of another car hitting the same man at the same crossing eighteen months later was extraordinary. And yes, naturally the police were talking to him.
“You seem very relaxed.”
“Because I had nothing to do with what happened yesterday.”
“That isn't quite the same thing.”
“No,” David said. “It isn't.”
He found that he rather enjoyed silences now that somebody else was responsible for filling them.
Then Harris gave him the name.
Colin Kerr.
Colin Kerr? Who the hell is he?
It meant nothing.
David denied knowing him, meeting him, contacting him, using an intermediary, paying him or asking anyone to harm Steve. Each answer was wonderfully clean. David hadn't appreciated how pleasurable innocence could be when confined to a sufficiently narrow subject.
“Would you submit to a polygraph?”
“Delighted. Ask whether I know Colin Kerr, whether I've contacted him, paid him or asked him to hurt Steve. I'll stay all afternoon.”
“Polygraphs have limitations.”
“Fine. Waterboard me.”
The second officer looked down.
“That was a joke,” David said.
“I know.”
David nodded towards Harris's folder. “Now can you tell me who Colin Kerr is?”
“We're more interested in what you know about him.”
“Nothing. That's what makes him interesting.”
“Why?”
“Because a complete stranger appears to have killed the man who sued me for six hundred thousand dollars, at precisely the same crossing where I hit him. Believe me - I'm more puzzled than you are.”
“You're assuming Kerr killed him deliberately.”
David's amusement disappeared.
“Didn't he?”
Harris said nothing for a moment.
“There is CCTV footage.”
That was the first thing David genuinely wanted.
The vehicle, Harris explained, had left the road roughly thirty meters before reaching Steve and mounted the pavement. Steve saw it coming and moved into the road.
“And Kerr?”
“He changed direction.”
“Towards Steve?”
“Yes.”
“After Steve moved?”
“Yes. The vehicle then appears to accelerate.”
David stared at him.
For months he had imagined the maneuver in reverse. Steve on the crossing, David approaching. If Steve reached the pavement, David would follow.
Yesterday Steve had been on the pavement.
He had fled into the road.
Colin Kerr had followed.
“Jesus Christ.”
“So he murdered him.”
“We haven't established that.”
“You've described a man chasing another man with a car.”
“I've described what the footage appears to show.”
Harris said they had initially considered some kind of medical event, partly because of Kerr's behavior afterwards. He had not fled. He stopped the car and remained there until officers arrived. There was no indication of alcohol; toxicology was pending.
“What did he say?”
“Nothing.”
David frowned. “Nothing about Steve?”
“Nothing about anything.”
Not at the scene. Not during arrest. Not to doctors, police or family.
The room seemed subtly different.
“So you don't know whether he won't speak or can't.”
“No.”
Harris placed a photograph on the table.
“Recognize him?”
David studied it. A man somewhere in his forties. Short hair. Entirely ordinary.
“No.”
“Take your time.”
“I am. I may have stood behind him buying milk once, but no.”
He looked again.
Nothing.
“Who the fuck is he?”
“You tell me.”
David laughed.
Harris looked faintly irritated.
“Sorry,” David said. “But you have to appreciate this from my side. You think I know who he is. You have information on him that I am curious about. And neither of us will tell the other anything useful.”
“We know who Colin Kerr is.”
“Then you're winning.”
Harris took back the photograph, and David was surprised to find himself disappointed.
For months he had expected, in one possible future, to sit in a room exactly like this after killing Steve Penderhurst. He had imagined the questions, the evidence, the gradual narrowing of his remaining life. Yesterday should have been the beginning of that future.
Instead another man had arrived first.
“Were you pleased Steve was dead?” Harris asked.
“No.”
“Sad?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Shocked.”
“Anything else?”
David looked at Colin Kerr's photograph disappearing into the folder.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Curious.”
The interview ended shortly afterwards. David left knowing almost nothing about Colin Kerr beyond his name, his face and what the CCTV appeared to show.
On 17 November, while David sat at home waiting for the appointed hour, Colin Kerr had driven onto the pavement towards Steve Penderhurst. Steve had fled into the road.
Kerr had followed.
Kerr had accelerated.
Then he had stopped the car and, apparently, stopped talking.
David had entered the police station expecting to enjoy being innocent.
He left wishing he knew of what.