He was silent for several beats then said, almost with relief, ‘There was candles.’
‘Did you touch the bodies after you had shot them?’
‘No way!’
‘Where did you pour the petrol?’ Janet said.
‘On them and all around.’
‘And they were both lying on the floor?’
‘Yes.’
‘How far apart?’
‘Dunno.’ He shifted in his seat again, threw his head back in a show of boredom.
‘Approximately?’ Janet said.
‘Fifteen, twenty feet.’
‘When did you buy the petrol?’ she said.
‘Can’t remember.’
‘Whereabouts did you shoot Victor, where on the body?’
‘I’ve told you. For fuck’s sake-’ He turned to his solicitor. ‘I’m not saying any more. I did it. Game over.’
‘He’s lying,’ Godzilla said to Rachel and Janet and Lee.
‘The details don’t stack up with what we know.’ She summarized the problems with Noel Perry’s confession, counting them off on her fingers. ‘One, we’ve no accurate time of day given for the shootings. Two, the description of the actual killings is wildly inaccurate. He doesn’t refer to the victims sitting, he can’t even get the number of shots fired right. Three, his claim to have started the blaze with petrol is contradicted by the hard evidence. If we contrast this with the joint accounts of the Richard Kavanagh murder, which were consistent, coherent, detailed and supported by forensics, I think we are looking at a false confession.’
Janet agreed. ‘Minimal detail, the less you say, the easier to keep on top of the lies. The only bit that seemed coherent was the account of previous visits and how he gained access.’
‘So I think we can accept that he was familiar with the warehouse,’ the boss said. ‘And he admits going there to buy drugs but his brother is no comment. From what we’ve seen so far these two don’t even fart without the other joining in, so I don’t buy Noel Perry suddenly going solo and committing a double murder. And I don’t think Neil has any idea that his brother has confessed.’
‘With Kavanagh,’ Rachel said, ‘they both suddenly owned up, didn’t they, couldn’t get a cigarette paper between the stories, but this time only Noel does.’ It was a weird one all right.
‘With Kavanagh they had time to discuss it before we picked them up,’ Janet said, ‘“if it’s getting close to charge we’ll own up,” that sort of thing. But they were already in custody when the warehouse victims were discovered so they’d not have any chance to talk about it.’
‘Even if they were responsible,’ Rachel added sarcastically.
‘Why a false confession, Lee?’ Her Maj said.
‘There are different types, different categories, but in this context I’m thinking attention-seeking. More stripes on his sleeve,’ he said.