The Detection Collection

‘No,’ I said. ‘Of course not.’ But there was something. It was as much his mannerisms, that snort for example, as anything else. As you know, I never forget a face, or a name. But I couldn’t place him.

We waited in stunned silence as everyone was interviewed. Manola disappeared to her room as soon as her interview was finished. Trent made an attempt at light-hearted comments to break the tension, but failed and disappeared too. Myself, Charlie Cameron the Canadian, and Phil Riviani, a balding, overweight analyst who had been with the Houston office for fifteen years, waited in silence. The case was forgotten. I tried to go for a walk by the lake, but a uniformed policeman barred my way.

Eventually, Bill appeared, followed by Steve Goldberg, who had fetched Manola and Trent from their cabins. Manola’s eyes were rimmed red. Bill perched on the dining-room table and addressed us grimly.

‘This is clearly the worst day in our firm’s history,’ he began. ‘Harald was a great guy, he would have made a terrific partner, and we all miss him. We will all need time to mourn him in our own way. But for now, we have something very serious to consider. I have been speaking with Sergeant O’Leary, and he is of the strong opinion that whoever murdered Harald was staying at the camp. It snowed in the middle of last night and there are no fresh tracks anywhere leading in here. Of course, this suggests that the murderer could have been one of the staff at the camp, and the police are questioning them very closely as we speak. But, and I hate to say this …’ he paused and looked regretfully at each of our faces, ‘it is most likely that Harald’s killer is one of us. Or rather, one of you.’

He waited for our reaction. There wasn’t one for several seconds, before Charlie Cameron spoke. ‘You can’t be serious,’ he said.

Bill shrugged. ‘I find it very hard to accept, myself, but there is no other conclusion.’

‘It doesn’t make sense,’ I said.

‘Sergeant O’Leary thinks it does,’ Bill said. ‘But I have every confidence in the loyalty and integrity of our people. Before he takes you all off to the nearest police station, I have persuaded him to allow you an hour to discuss it amongst yourselves. You’ve all worked together in the past, I’m sure you can figure out which one of you is responsible. You have an hour.’

With that, he was gone.

He left the rest of us, the five of us, staring at each other. It was an extraordinary situation, totally disorienting. Here we were, miles from anywhere, dealing with the surreal. I couldn’t accept it. ‘This is all bollocks,’ I said. ‘None of us killed Harald.’

‘No,’ said Phil Riviani. ‘None of us can have done. It must have been an outsider.’

Charlie Cameron nodded. Trent and Manola were motionless.

‘So what do we do?’ Phil said.

‘We wait an hour and then talk to the police again,’ I replied.

‘I guess so,’ said Phil.

We looked at each other in silence. The dining room must have been a recent addition to the lodge. It had a high-vaulted ceiling and big picture windows, giving a view of the lake, sunshine glaring white off its flat snowy surface. There were no signs of human habitation. Framed by the window, the winter landscape looked like something out of a Christmas card, not the scene of a murder.

‘You went for a run this morning,’ said Trent to me.

‘As did you. So what?’ I said.

‘I didn’t kill him.’

‘And neither did I.’

‘What did the police say to you?’ Charlie Cameron asked me, carefully.

‘They asked me about my run. Whether I saw anything. Whether I knew any reason why any of us would want to kill Harald.’

‘And what did you say?’ Charlie asked.

‘That I didn’t. Why?’

‘Well, when the police spoke to me, most of the interview was about you. They wanted to know all about your background, your ambitions, about your time working with Harald in London.’

‘They asked if I knew that you had once threatened to kill Harald,’ Phil said.

‘What! Harald and I got on well. I never threatened him.’

‘Until Bill told us that Harald was in pole position for partnership, you were the favourite,’ Trent said. ‘O’Leary asked me lots of questions about your desire to become a partner.’

I looked around the assembled group. They were puzzled, doubtful, but they were also suspicious. I could feel it in the air. All except Manola who was staring blankly ahead of her, blinking.

‘This is ridiculous,’ I said. ‘I didn’t kill him. None of us killed him.’

‘Somebody did,’ said Charlie Cameron in a reasonable tone. There was silence. Charlie, Phil and Trent all stared at me.

‘I know who killed Harald,’ Manola said in a whisper so low I wasn’t sure I had heard it. She was rocking backward and forward in her chair. Her face was red, and her expression tight as a drum, as if she were struggling to hold in a mighty force. ‘Harald and I had a relationship. We were engaged, actually.’ She held up her left hand, revealing a cluster of diamonds around her finger. ‘Of course we had to keep it secret. I put his ring on when I went to my room just now.’

‘I didn’t know,’ said Charlie. He and Phil looked completely surprised. Trent slouched back in his chair. His lips weren’t actually smiling, but he seemed, well, satisfied.

‘I’m sorry, Manola,’ I said.

She ignored me and took a deep breath. ‘They say it’s stupid to enter into a relationship with someone at work. In the case of Harald I don’t regret it for a moment, he was a wonderful man, but sometimes they are right.’ She sniffed. ‘What was stupid was the night I spent with Trent. It was eighteen months ago, before Harald. We were on a trip to Angola, we’d had a few too many drinks in the hotel bar. It was an awful mistake as I told Trent right afterwards. But he wouldn’t accept it.’

‘Are you saying I killed Harald?’ Trent said with scorn.

‘You were jealous. You were insanely, stupidly jealous, especially when you realised that Harald and I were having a relationship and that that relationship was serious.’

‘I was just kidding,’ said Trent, looking uncomfortable.

‘You stalked me! You followed us when we went out on dates. You called me up in the middle of the night. You sent me flowers, letters. You know you did all that, Trent.’

Now it was Trent’s turn to blush.

‘But there was no need to kill him,’ Manola’s voice was speeding up. She began to shake. ‘What did you think would happen when he was dead? Did you think I would fall into your arms, my fiancé’s killer? Did you think I would ever speak to you again?’

‘Hey, I didn’t kill him!’ Trent protested.

Manola was on her feet. ‘Of course you killed him! Peter didn’t, why would Peter do something like that? But he saw you out running by the lake, didn’t he? You killed him. You’re a murderer, Trent!’

She was screaming now, her face red, spittle flying from her lips. She launched into a tirade of Spanish, and lunged towards him. I stood up and took her by the arm. ‘It’s okay, Manola,’ I tried to say. ‘It’s okay.’

‘It’s not okay, Peter,’ she said, but she was sobbing. ‘I’ve got to get out of here. I can’t stand being in the room with him.’

‘Here, I’ll take you back to your cabin,’ I said. I led her out of the dining room. The policeman guarding the door was about to stop her, but I glared at him. He stepped out of our way. I took her to her room and left her there, promising I would be back in a few minutes.

As I walked back to the lodge I wondered what to do. I had no doubt that Manola was right, that Trent was jealous of her affair with Harald. But had he killed him? It just seemed so absurd, so unreal. The whole thing seemed unreal.

I saw the policeman waiting by the door. He was tall and nervous; Manola’s hysterics had clearly shaken him. He didn’t look like a country policeman at all. He was soft, no tough guy. I stared at him. A policeman, even in rural New Hampshire, should be able to handle angry women better than he had. Suddenly I knew where I had seen Sergeant O’Leary before.

‘Where’s your squad car?’ I asked the policeman.

‘Out back,’ he said.