Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #3: Books 9-12 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [reading in the dark TXT] 📗

walking and put both hands on the back of the chair opposite me. “Now, let’s get a little darker: Gordon Sr. likes to dish it out, but he doesn’t look to me like the kind of man who likes to take it. So, while he thinks it’s a gas to humiliate his son by seducing his fiancée, when his son hits the sack with the woman he is planning to marry, I figure that could make him real mad. Mad enough to kill.”

I nodded. “It’s possible.”

“It’s more than possible. And note where he was when Cameron came in and started shouting at him. Right outside the study, where his son was locked in, doing his accounts, within the window for the time of death.”

I did a lot of nodding, then said, “All good, solid reasoning.”

“But?”

“No buts, just two questions: one, how did he do it? And two: what is the connection between this murder and the murder of his grandfather forty years ago?”

“Same answer to both.” She spread her hands. “I don’t know.”

I stood. “Let’s get him in here and ask him.”

I went to the door, opened it and leaned out.

“Mr. Gordon, could we talk to you for a moment?

He stared at me, like an ancient, giant Nordic king. Beside him, still sitting on the arm of his chair, was Sally, watching me with hard, calculating eyes. I wondered for a moment at the woman who had been sleeping with the man who sat dead across the hall with half his head blown away, yet showing no emotion on her face but caution. She held my eye a moment, then Gordon stood, sighed and strode unsteadily across the room to join me.

Dehan closed the door as he grunted and lowered himself into the chair at the head of the table. “Couldn’t some of this have waited till the morning? Sally is exhausted, and frankly, so am I.”

“No.”

I sat. Dehan remained standing, leaning against the wall. He looked at her sourly, then turned away.

“I need to know everything about your relationship with Sally Cameron.”

He didn’t look at me. He just stared sullenly at the table. “Go to hell.”

“I can’t hold a gun to your head, Mr. Gordon. I can’t even point one at you from the fireplace. It’s your choice. But what I can and will do is inform the cops when they get here that after asking me to investigate, as soon as we touched on the subject of your affair with Sally Cameron, you clammed up and told me to go to hell. If you want to draw attention to your affair, that is certainly the way to do it.”

He grunted again and was then silent for a while. Finally, he said, “It’s not relevant.”

I shook my head. “No. I decide that. Or you can go to hell and get somebody else to investigate.”

He fiddled with his thumbs for a bit, then said, “Fine. So I’m screwing Sally. So what?”

I turned to Dehan. “Let’s go pack and get some sleep. We’ll catch the first ferry once the storm stops and make a statement at the police station at John O’Groats.”

“OK!” He snarled it at the table top.

I leaned down and put my face close to his. “Listen to me, Gordon. You are not doing me a favor. I’m doing you one, you understand? All I want is to have my honeymoon with my wife. Now, if you want me to get your sorry ass out of this mess, you had better come clean and tell me what the hell is going on, because I do not intend to get prosecuted by the British cops for concealing or suppressing evidence. So if you want my help, start talking. I want to know everything about your relationship with Sally Cameron.”

He watched me carefully.

I sat. “And just remember, I have been talking to other people who have been watching and observing you both. I’ll know if you hold back.” I pointed at the door. “And one more attempt to bullshit me and me and my wife go through that door.”

He heaved another big sigh.

“Things have not been good between me and Pamela for some time.”

Dehan snapped, “Try forty years.”

He glanced at her, but other than that, showed no sign of having heard. “After my father died I discovered… Somebody told me… that Pamela had been my father’s lover. It embittered me. She was already pregnant with my son…”

He faltered.

I stared at him. “Son of a gun,” I said. “You don’t know, do you? You were never sure, and you couldn’t bring yourself to do the paternity test. It probably wouldn’t have been conclusive anyway. So instead you spent his whole life abusing and humiliating him for his mother and your father’s sins.”

He didn’t answer. He stared at the wall across the room for a long moment, then blinked and looked back at his thumbs. “When the boy was born, I raised him as my own, though he may well have been my half-brother, as well as my stepson. It was nauseating. I began to have affairs. Whether Pamela did or not, I neither know nor care. And yes.” He looked at me with hard, resentful eyes. “On the rare occasions when Charles entered into a sentimental relationship with some insipid female, I would make a point of seducing her. It was my small act of vengeance against my father and my wife.”

He stood, crossed the room to the sideboard and poured himself a large whiskey. He sipped it and spoke without turning.

“But all that changed when I met Sally. I can honestly say that every relationship I have had since Pamela has been an act of cruelty and revenge.” Now he turned, glanced at Dehan and then looked at me, as though he expected me to understand. “Sally was