‘It’s because murder is one of the few crimes that is rarely committed by practiced criminals,’ said Brightwell. ‘It’s a crime of rage or passion, and so is usually unplanned. Murderers make mistakes because they’ve never done it before. They have no experience of killing. That makes them easy to find, easy to punish. There’s a lesson to be learned from that: crime, of any kind, is a pursuit best left to professionals.’
Harlan waited. He tried to keep his breathing under control. He was grateful for the cold in the room. It stopped him from sweating.
‘Such sacrifices you’ve made for her,’ said Brightwell, and his hand began stroking Angeline’s hair again. ‘You can’t even afford new shoes.’
‘I like these shoes,’ said Harlan. ‘They’re good shoes.’
‘Will you be buried in them, Mr Vetters?’ asked Brightwell. ‘Are those the shoes you’ll want peeping out of your casket when they come by to mourn you? I doubt it. I reckon you probably have a pair in a box in your closet for just that eventuality. You’re a careful man. You’re the kind of man who plans ahead: for old age, for illness, for death.’
‘I don’t think it’ll make a difference to me one way or another how I’m tricked out when I’m dead,’ said Harlan. ‘They can put me in a dress for all I care. Now would you mind taking your hand off my wife. I don’t like it, and I don’t believe she does either.’
Brightwell’s hand left Angeline’s skin, and Harlan was grateful. She grew calmer, and her breathing deepened.
‘This is a nice place,’ said Brightwell. ‘Comfortable. Clean. I bet the staff are kind. No minimum wage employees here, right?’
‘I guess not.’
‘No whore nurses stealing small change from the lockers, taking the treats left by little children for Grandma,’ Brightwell continued. ‘No bored deviants slipping into rooms in the dead of night, fingering the patients, giving them a little something to remember, a relic of the good times. You never know, though, do you? I don’t like the look of that man Clancy. I don’t like the look of him at all. I can smell the badness on him. Like knows like. I’ve always trusted my instincts when it comes to deviancy.’
Harlan didn’t reply. He was being baited here, and he knew it. Best to remain silent, and not get angry. If he became angry, he might give himself away.
‘Still, no harm done, right? Your wife wouldn’t remember anyway. She might even enjoy it. After all, it’s probably been a while. Let’s give old Clancy the benefit of the doubt, though. Looks can be so deceptive, I find.’
He grinned, and fingered the growth at his throat, exploring its wrinkles and abrasions.
‘To return to the matter in hand, what I’m saying is that it must cost more than small change, this kind of ongoing care. A man would have to work long hours to make the payments. Loonnnng hours. But you’re retired, aren’t you, Mr Vetters?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I guess you put the pennies aside for a rainy day. Like I say, a careful man.’
‘I was. Still am.’
‘You were part of the warden service, weren’t you?’
Harlan didn’t bother asking how the man knew so much about him. The fact of the matter was that he was here, and he’d done his research. Harlan shouldn’t have been surprised, and therefore he wasn’t.
‘I was.’
‘Did it pay much, being a warden?’
‘Enough, and then some. Enough for me, anyways.’
‘I accessed your bank account details, Mr Vetters. It never seemed like you had more than nickels and dimes in your accounts, relatively speaking.’
‘I never trusted banks. I kept all of my money close by.’
‘All of your money?’ Brightwell’s eyes opened wide in mock astonishment. ‘Why, just how much of it was there? All: that could be quite a lot. That could be thousands, even tens of thousands. Was it, Mr Vetters? Was it tens of thousands? Was it more?’
Harlan moistened his mouth and throat. He didn’t want his voice to crack. No weakness: there had to be no frailty in front of this man.
‘No, there was never very much of it. It was only the sale of my parents’ house after my momma died that left me with a cushion, you might say.’
Something that might have been doubt flickered across Brightwell’s face.
‘A house?’
‘They lived over by Calais,’ said Harlan. He pronounced it ‘Callas’, like the singer, the way everyone did in the state. ‘Me being the only child, it came into my possession. Fortunate, given what happened to Angeline.’