I was blindsided by his bluntness. It took me a second to find the right words to respond.
‘I had a medium-to-strong assumption that Fran did kill Macleod and O’Neill, yes,’ I said, followed by a deep sigh. Angus looked somewhat impressed by my answer. His eyebrows leapt up, as if taken aback by how not-in-denial I was.
I could’ve asked him if he had known about Fran’s penchant for murdering old guys all this time, but I had a feeling that the answer wouldn’t do much for my mental state.
‘I have O’Neill and Macleod’s rings in my drawer. Do you want to see them?’ he asked brusquely.
‘Why the hell would I want to see that?’ I said slowly, exasperated.
‘As proof that she did it. More for her than me, I think. She wanted to have little mementos to remind her.’
These past few days would never cease to amaze me. Angus, the mysterious brother-but-not-really-a-brother, was an accomplice to my wife, the serial killer. Fantastic. This would make Christmas so exciting this year. If there was a Christmas…
‘Why even did they wear the rings?’ I asked.
‘Do you really believe they weren’t still in contact? You should know, Detective, those who think they’re in high society need some way to recognise each other,’
‘That’s true, I guess,’ I remarked. I supposed what they did wasn’t shameful to them: it was smart, it was clever.
‘Why haven’t you seen her at the prison yet?’ Angus asked just as bluntly as he’d admitted that my wife had a predilection for death.
‘I’ve been a coward,’ I said, matching his abruptness in fear that if I waited a second longer to respond, he’d offer another brain-breaking revelation.
Angus nodded, somewhat assured by the answer and further impressed by my no-bullshit attitude.
‘I went to see her. She told me that if you tried to call, I should pick up. So, I just thought I’d ring you instead. I was fed up with waiting around and thought you might be being a pussy.’
He really didn’t mince words, did he?
‘Have you spoken to her lawyer?’ asked Angus.
‘Yeah.’
‘How’s her chances?’
‘Bad.’
Angus didn’t even seem to react, replying only with a sharp snort. He took a second to process, and then got up to intricately reorganise one of the countless newspaper stacks. These fewwords we had exchanged were more than we had spoken in the entirety of Fran’s and my marriage. Having only ever said ‘hi’ to each other in brief moments of passing, here we were shattering records – it was just that, unfortunately, I wished it had been under better circumstances.
‘How was Fran, when you went to see her?’ I asked.
‘She was okay. Scared, I think, which is new for her. She was pretending to be all brave, but it wasn’t hard to see through it.’ Angus scratched his scraggly facial hair as if pondering some big philosophical problem. ‘Do you think there’s anything else we could do for her?’
‘No. I’ve tried to bend some rules.’ I played down my descent into police corruption to Angus. ‘But I think the prosecution have a pretty damning case against her.’
‘Nothing that could be done to get her out of this? Nothing at all?’
‘No,’ I said, sedately. ‘Not unless O’Neill suddenly returns from the dead and decides to absolve Fran of all wrongdoing or – I don’t know – someone stepped up and magically took all responsibility for the crime,’ I murmured forlornly, thinking of what Andrew had said to me a few days ago. Even putting my career on the line hadn’t done much to change the tide of Fran’s trial now it was underway.
I had just noticed Angus’s eyes shift. Up to this point, they had been wandering all across the room, but they had now suddenly focused and narrowed. I caught his gaze as he took one of his famous trademark inhales that I had heard about.
‘Could I?’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked, not sure what Angus was asking.
‘Could I say I did it? I killed O’Neill and Macleod?’
My brain went into hyperdrive. The selfish part of me realised that Angus taking the fall for this murder could bea literal ‘get out of jail card’ for Fran. But he hadn’t even committed these crimes. He was barely an accessory, but if he said he’d killed them, he’d get a life sentence at the very least. What was left of my moral conscience fought against the words coming out of my mouth.
