by Keith Dixon
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THEY PROCESSED ME through the custody officer and put me in a dank cell that smelled of bedding that hadn’t been washed in a month, then left me for an hour with only my thoughts and a pair of shiny shoes for company. I sat on a bench made more comfortable by a bright blue plastic mattress and watched a spider make connections between two grey bricks in the top corner of the cell. I wished I could make connections as easily. I had pieces of information but nothing linked. I was suddenly aware of the size of my ignorance, an awareness that moved like a poison down my chest and settled in my stomach.
It also began to kick off another migraine. I laid back on the bunk and put my hand over my eyes, trying to settle my breathing and calm the tumbling thoughts that I only became aware of when one of these headaches started up. Instead, I began to feel sick.
What did the phrases left with Rory’s body and in Tara’s bathroom mean—‘Who’s the daddy now?’ and ‘Where’s the little girl?’ Was there any significance in the fire-door being open in the office where Rory was murdered? What impact did the fact that Brands was losing money have on the people who worked there—particularly on their morale? And their potential for murder? Was Derek Evans as uninvolved in the murder and kidnapping as I thought he was?
I didn’t have answers to any of these questions.
After an hour the cell door made several metallic noises and then swung open. Howard stood in the doorway with his hands in his pockets, staring at me through pouched eyes. I sat up slowly with my hands on my knees and my head down. I didn’t give him the satisfaction of showing him my face.
‘We found some fingerprints,’ he said. ‘Round the back of the Brand house, on the windowsills.’
‘Aren’t we supposed to be in an interview room with two of your mates?’ My voice sounded hoarse and distant.
‘I don’t recall any part of the story that has you going round the back of the house.’
‘You should talk to my solicitor about these interesting facts.’
‘You’ll remember we took your prints when Tara was kidnapped. So we were able to match these new ones to you.’
‘Lucky.’
‘Anything to say?’
‘Not that you want to hear to your face.’
My migraine began to pound more fiercely behind my eyes. I stared down at the floor and imagined myself in a calm, quiet place. It didn’t help. I heard my voice echoing in my ears as I tried to make Howard feel bad. ‘What have you done with miss Marshall?’
‘Took a statement and let her go.’
‘You know she’s my client. That’s her only connection with all this.’
He shrugged. ‘What’s a few questions between friends?’
‘Enjoy it while you can, Howard.’
I looked up and he smiled without saying anything. After a moment he turned and left the doorway and the cell door swung closed again. I lay down and closed my eyes. I thought about Laura and what Howard had said to her. I hoped she didn’t listen too closely.
Eventually they led me upstairs to a green interview room that smelled of crushed cigarettes and grilled me thoroughly—with the occasional break for the legally permitted meals. I gave my version of events and felt my stomach sink each time they asked me to repeat it. I told them about visiting Tara and hearing voices inside the house; I mentioned the big BMW, whose driver I never saw; I described that first meeting with Tara, when she’d slammed the door in my face without saying anything.
‘How did she appear?’ Howard asked.
‘Tired. But then she’d just buried her husband.’
‘When you say “tired”, what do you mean?’
Interview techniques have moved on from the bullying tactics of years gone by. The modern style of interviewing is to ask the suspect to go over his story while looking for inconsistencies and holes that you can probe. There are specialist, trained interviewers who speak quietly and in an understanding fashion, trying to build rapport. It’s effective, eventually, but God it’s boring. I told Howard that ‘tired’ meant exactly what it sounded like. He looked at me dubiously.
‘What do you know about Derek Evans?’ he went on.
‘He’s the Finance Director of Brands. I’ve met him.’
‘Do you know where he is?’
‘Not at this moment.’
‘Have you spoken to him?’
‘I’ve met him, so I’ve spoken to him.’
‘I mean recently.’
I hesitated. ‘Yes.’
‘When?’
‘Earlier.’
Howard leaned forward in his seat. ‘You went down to Wales?’
I nodded.
‘Say it,’ he said, glancing towards the recording device.
‘I talked to him today, in Wales.’
Howard smiled, folding his arms. ‘He said you found him this morning. We just missed you.’
‘Did you find Brian and the money?’
The smile vanished from his face. ‘What money?’
‘Check the airports and the ferries,’ I said.
Howard glanced at one of his colleagues, who left the room hurriedly. Far from being grateful, Howard became more grim. ‘You’ve been a bad boy,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to learn to tell the truth.’
‘Will it do me any good?’
‘If it fits.’
‘The facts as you know them.’
‘You didn’t tell us about seeing Tara at the house beforehand. You didn’t tell us you’d been married to her. You didn’t tell us about the mysterious stranger in the big BMW. Is there anything else you didn’t tell us?’
‘I’ll have a think.’
‘Well have a think on your own time,’ he said, and gestured for me to be taken away again. ‘People do their best thinking while staring at the back of a cell door.’
As he turned to go, I said, ‘Have you spoken to Gerald Finch?’
He looked at me over his shoulder. ‘The man Brand sacked?’
‘One of them.’
‘What’s he got to do with anything? He was alibied for Brand’s murder.’
‘He’s a big man. He could have knocked me out and taken Tara under one arm, like Shrek.’
Now Howard turned fully to face me.
‘Got any evidence? Motive?’
‘He and Rory disliked each other. It’s worth a punt.’
He shook his head. ‘You take the biscuit, Dyke,’ he muttered. ‘This is your finest hour. Back to the wall and you try to throw the blame on someone else.’
‘So you’ll give Finch a call?’
‘Finch is out of the country,’ he said. ‘We told him to tell us of his whereabouts and he did. He’s in Belgium on business. He checked in with our colleagues in Ghent. Happy?’ He couldn’t help a condescending smile twitching the corners of his lips.
‘You mentioned motive.’
‘So?’
‘What’s my motive for killing Rory and kidnapping Tara? Why would I do it?’
‘Grow up, Sam. Envy, revenge, lust – they’re all in there. You’ve known Mrs Brand a long time. When you found out Rory was married to her it must have hurt. Who knows what goes on in the mind of a crazed killer?’
‘That’s me all right,’ I said.
We both knew they didn’t have anything more to go on than my brief marriage to Tara and the fact that I was there the night she was taken. Admittedly both of these were worth a poke, and I couldn’t blame Howard for trying. But there was no more physical evidence and no real motive that held up. They knew I hadn’t seen her in nearly twenty years.
I could tell Howard was frustrated but his heart wasn’t in it. He had the air of someone going through the motions for the sake of appearances, and possibly to appease the press. He had to be seen to be doing something, and I was It until something better came along.
I slept briefly and in the morning I was feeling better and ate the food when it came. At lunch time, when I might have been expecting more food, Howard solemnly took me o
ut again and went through it all one more time. He was beginning to look tired—his eyes were dark and his shoulders slumped forward so far they almost met in front of his chest.
By late afternoon I was back in the cell and was on nodding acquaintance with the uniform who locked me up. He looked at me without letting a single emotion show on his face. But I knew deep down he was on my side.
Finally Veronica was able to weave her legal magic again. It seemed that when forensics took my prints the first time, after I was knocked out at Tara’s house, they were taken as elimination prints to exclude them from consideration alongside any others they found. They couldn’t then use those prints as the basis for an arrest just because they had a match. I could almost hear the fireworks from my cell. I was unprocessed by my friendly uniform and got my possessions back.
‘They knew all that,’ Veronica said to me when we were outside. ‘They were trying it on just to throw a scare into you. What the hell have you done to piss Howard off?’
‘I breathe,’ I said.
‘Well try to do it more quietly,’ she said.
Then she zoomed off again, hair flying behind her like a superhero’s cape.