even remember making it. But if I did, and if, as you say, she'd been phoning me as well, then likely as not I was merely returning her call, fending her off in one way or another. Or at least attempting to. She had it for me. I won't deny that. But there's no way I was encouraging the lass."
"And the day of her death?"
"What about it?"
"Tell me where you were. What you did. Who saw you."
"I've been over all this with the other two - "
"But not with me. And sometimes there are details that one officer misses or fails to put in a report. Please humour me."
"There's nothing to humour you with. I worked at the ice rink, I went home to shower and change, I came here. It's what I do every day, for Jesus' sake. There's someone at every point to confirm this, so you can't be thinking that I somehow scarpered up to Stoke Newington to kill Jemima Hastings. Especially as I had no bloody reason to do it."
"How do you get from the ice rink to this job, Mr. Chaplin?"
"I've a scooter," he said.
"Have you indeed?"
"I do. And if you're thinking that I'd've had the time to weave through traffic and make it up to Stoke Newington and then back here ...Well, you best come with me." Frazer rose, picking up a few more nuts and tossing them into his mouth. He had a brief word with Heinrich and then led the way out of the bar and out of the hotel as well.
At the far end of the cul-de-sac that was St. James's Place, Frazer Chaplin's motor scooter stood. It was a Vespa, the sort of vehicle that zips up and down the streets of every major town in Italy. But unlike those scooters, this one was not only painted a violent and completely unforgettable lime green, it was also covered with bright red advertising transfers for a product called DragonFly Tonics, in effect becoming a mobile billboard not unlike those seen occasionally on black cabs round town.
Chaplin said, "Would I be mad enough to take myself up to Stoke Newington on that? To leave it parked anywhere and then do a dash to kill Jemima? What d'you take me for, man, a fool? Would you be likely to forget you'd seen that thing parked hither or thither? I wouldn't, and I doubt anyone else would either. Take a bloody photo of it if you want. Show it round up there. Go to every house and shop in every street there is, and you'll see the truth of it."
"Which is what?"
"That I bloody well didn't kill Jemima."
When the police ask Ian Barker on tape, "Why did you make the baby naked?" he does not reply at first. His grandmother keens in the background, a chair scrapes the floor, and someone taps on the tabletop. "You know that baby was naked, don't you? When we found him, he was naked. You know that, don't you, Ian?" are the next questions, and they are followed by,
"You yourself made him naked before you used the hairbrush on him. We know that because your fingerprints are on that hairbrush. Were you angry, Ian? Had Johnny done something to make you angry? Did you want to sort him out with the hairbrush?"
Ian finally says, "I didn't do nothing to that kid. You ask Reggie. You ask Mikey. Mikey was the one changed his nappy, anyways. He knew how. He got brothers. I don't. And Reg was the one nicked the bananas, eh?"
Michael says in response to the first mention of the hairbrush, "I never. I never. Ian told me he poohed. Ian said I was meant to change him. But I never," and when asked about the bananas, he begins to cry. Ultimately he says, "It got poo on it, didn't it. That baby was in the muck there on the ground...He was just laying there...," whereupon his weeping turns to wailing.
Reggie Arnold addresses his mother, as before, saying, "Mum, Mum, there wasn't no hairbrush. I never made that baby naked. I never touched him. Mum, I never touched that baby.
Mikey kicked him, Mum. See, he was on the ground and he was on his face cause...Mum, he must've fell. And Mikey kicked him."
When told of Reggie's claim, following on the heels of Ian's claims, Michael Spargo finally begins to tell the rest of the story in what is an attempt to defend himself against what he obviously