“Uh, I’m saying it’s a possibility. We’ve no reason to suspect they want to harm anybody else.”
“And you’ve no reason to suspect they don’t. I’m told some people like to kill for fun.”
“All right.” Giles hopped onto the stage with a reassuring smile. “You’re all very safe. Don’t worry. Derek will look after us.”
The room looked at Derek, the Sheldon Oaks security guard, who was slouched in a comfy chair by the wall. Upon hearing his name he jolted himself out of his nap. He was overweight, had a mop of white hair and thick glasses. No one had ever seen himmove. Derek, thought Carol, might well be the oldest person in the room.
“I have something to say.” Belinda, one of the residents, was wearing big dark sunglasses and a fur coat. She had a kind of cheap glamour, like the mother of a millionaire boxer. “If anybody has been wondering why I’m wearing sunglasses, it’s because I’ve been crying so much.”
“Oh,” said Giles. “Well, thank you, Belinda.”
“Over Desmond. That’s the reason I’ve been crying. Because Desmond is…” She started to wail. “Deeead!Oh, oh, I can’t do this.”
“All right, we’ll just wrap things up there, then,” said Bob.
Belinda stood up and projected her voice, performing to the whole room. “I’d like it to be known that I cannot be the murderer because I loved Desmond and he…oh, oh, this is so painful…he loved me. Why? Why did he have to die?Whyyyyy?”
Inside Carol’s white Reeboks, her toes curled.
Geoffrey stood up. “Hello. DCI Geoffrey Standing. CID. Is yourself aware that one of the residents at Sheldon Oaks is a convicted serial killer?”
Bob Beattie looked to his colleague, and Giles took control of the microphone. “Thank you, Geoffrey. I think the police can deal with things from here on in.”
“Thank you, Giles, but Iamthe police,” said Geoffrey. He pointed to Carol. “Carol Quinn. Over there. Served thirty-five years for seven murders. Her MO—which, as you’ll know already, Officers, but just for everyone else in the room, is a phrase that we police use that stands for ‘modus operandi’—her MO was murder,simply for the pleasure in it. In layman’s terms, Carol Quinn is a psychopath. I suggest you bring her in for questioning.”
Carol wanted desperately to defend herself but worried that any sign of a temper might serve only to affirm Geoffrey. “I’m not a psychopath,” she said, too quietly for anyone to hear.
“I have a question.”
Carol turned to see a chef, a handsome man in his thirties, with slicked-back black hair and an Italian accent, his hand up.
“Uh, yes?” said Bob Beattie, clearly impatient to leave.
“If the police won’t lock Miss Carol up now, maybe we can do it here. Lock her in her room, yes?”
“I don’t recommend…”
Giles interrupted Beattie. “We won’t be doing that. Everyone is equal in the Sheldon Oaks family.”
Now the cleaner spoke up. “Why’s she here anyway? I should talk to the union. This can’t be right. Where does it say in the contract that we have to clean up after murderers?”
“Maybe,” Norma, a tiny ninety-something-year-old lady in a wheelchair, spoke up, “we should check if any of Carol’s bodily fluids were found on the body. Isn’t that usually how they do it onForensic Files?”
Bob returned to the microphone. “We will, of course, be looking into any possible leads. In the meantime, I suggest that you are all, uh, vigilant, and I’m sure that, uh”—he looked to the barely alive security guard—“Derek will take care of you all.”
As the stage cleared, Carol had the sense that the atmosphere had turned from moderate excitement to all-out fear, and she was the cause.
—
Bob and Laurawere walking slowly back to the Corsa. As far as Bob was concerned, they were done for the day. Leyton Orient were playing at home that night. He had time for a couple of pints before kickoff. Needed them.
“You know Carol Quinn?” asked Laura.
“Knowofher. Before my time. I’m notthatold.”
“Shouldn’t we be questioning her now?”
“Let’s do the autopsy first, shall we? Would be handy to have something to throw at her.”
