Axe to Grind

by A L Fraine

  “Really? He was chatting with you for a while.”

  “Yeah, it was just work stuff,” Jon answered, lying through his teeth. He wasn’t sure Nathan would appreciate him betraying his trust and outing him.

  “Riiight,” Kate replied with a suspicious look. “So, it wasn’t about me then? He can be a little protective, sometimes.”

  “I’m sure he just cares about you.”

  “Yeah. Alright, so, what are you thinking? Why’s Bradley here?”

  “Guilt,” Jon replied, feeling fairly sure about this aspect of the case. “He’s not told us something.”

  “You think it’s the drugs angle you were pushing yesterday?”

  “Could be,” Jon replied. Verbally, he was hedging his bets, but he was secretly about ninety-nine percent sure that was exactly what was happening here, but he didn’t want to bet his lunch money on it just yet.

  They walked into the interview room to find Bradley sat behind the table. He jumped to his feet as they walked in, pale and nervous.

  “Morning, Bradley,” Jon began.

  “Um, hello.”

  “It’s okay Brad, you can sit,” Kate said with a smile, and moved to take her seat. Jon followed, looking over at Bradley, curious to see if his suspicions were right.

  “Oh, okay, sorry. Look, I just needed to come and talk to you… again…”

  “Brad, wait a moment, yeah?” Kate replied cutting him off, before she then set the DIR to record, and went through the motions of introducing everyone in the room for the benefit of the recording before looking back to Bradley.

  “We’ll be conducting this interview under Caution Plus Three, Bradley.”

  “Oh, okay. What’s that?”

  “I’m going to read you the standard police caution and then I’ll explain further,” she replied. “In this interview, you do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”

  “What? So, am I under arrest?”

  “No, I’m just telling you what your rights are and the circumstances under which this interview will take place.”

  Interview, hah! Interrogation, more like, Jon thought.

  “Oh…” Bradley replied, frowning.

  “Don’t worry, it’s nothing to be worried about. The Plus Three part of it refers to three things. Firstly, you’re not under arrest, secondly, you can leave at any time, and finally, you have the right to free independent legal advice, should you want it.”

  “It’s free?”

  “It is.”

  “Oh, I thought lawyers were really expensive.”

  “They can be, but this kind of thing is covered.”

  “Do I need it?”

  “Unless you’re about to admit to killing Mollie, probably not,” Kate replied.

  Jon nodded slightly. While Kate’s reply wasn’t wrong, it was designed to make things move quicker. Getting a lawyer in took time, and always delayed them getting the answers they needed. In fact, time-wasting was a well-known tactic that solicitors used to frustrate the police and protect their clients.

  But they needed answers, and quickly, so advising Brad to get some representation would just delay them.

  “But it is up to you,” Jon added, he didn’t want the way they conducted this interview to destroy any future case. “If you feel you need representation, just say so and you can have it. But it will delay things and take time.”

  “Alright, I don’t want to be here any longer than I need to be. I’ll continue,” Bradley replied.

  Jon smiled. “Excellent. Alright, so why did you come to see us today, Bradley?”

  “I needed to speak to you. I didn’t tell you everything about what Mollie was doing the other night, and I think I need to. I… feel guilty.”

  “Why? What did you do?”

  “Nothing,” he replied quickly, and Jon raised an eyebrow in curiosity. “But that’s the problem. I should have done something. I should have gone with her. I feel so silly.”

  “Where did she go?” Jon asked.

  “Look, it’s nothing serious, okay? We’re just having fun. That’s all. We don’t deal or anything.”

  “Deal what?” Kate asked. She no doubt knew what Bradley was talking about, but they needed it to come from him, and not to be seen as leading the witness.

  Bradley sighed and slumped in his chair, his head low, looking at his hands on the tabletop. “Drugs. She went to buy some weed for us. It should have been my turn to go, but I was just shattered, and I’d done a bunch of the runs recently, covering for Mollie while she finished her work, so I figured that she needed to take her turn. Fair’s fair, right?” He sighed again. “I didn’t know she’d get killed.”

  “So,” Kate said, cutting in, “you’re saying that Mollie, the straight-A student, with an impeccable track record, who everyone loves, was a druggy?”

  “No!” Bradley replied, offended. “We were just having a bit of fun, you know? Relaxing and enjoying ourselves. That’s all. A bit of weed helped us do that.”

  “And you let her go out there on her own because you were feeling lazy?”

  Bradley frowned and then crossed his arms at Jon’s comment. “I think I might need some representation.”

  “You’re doing fine,” Kate replied. “I know these are hard questions, but we just need to get to the bottom of all this.”

  “But, he implied…”

  “Just focus on telling us the truth and anything that might help us find out who killed her. That’s the most important thing, right?”

  “Right. Sure.”

  “Maybe start with who she was going to see?” Jon said, tilting his head sideways.

  “I don’t know his real name, but the guy we’ve been buying the ganja off is called Mogs.”

  “Mogs?” Kate asked. “M-O-G-S?”

  “I think so, I didn’t exactly ask him to spell it for me.”

  “Do you think he did it?” Jon asked.

  Bradley shrugged and then shook his head. “Honestly no, probably not. Didn’t strike me as that type.”

  “And, you know that type, do you?”

  “What? No! Look, if this is…”

  “You did good,” Kate cut in. “Is there anything else you can tell us?”

  “No, not really. I told you everything else yesterday. I just didn’t want to tell you we were buying drugs.”

  Jon rolled his eyes. He’d felt sure that was the case yesterday, but at least the kid had come forward with it. Kate looked over at him, and Jon nodded to her. They were done here.

  “We’ll get one of the other officers to come in and formalise a statement and get you home. Thank you for coming in, Bradley. You’ve been most helpful. But please stay local for a while, will you? No gallivanting off to another part of the country, or going abroad, alright?”

  “Sure, no problem,” he replied, visibly relaxing now he knew he was off the hook.

  A short time later, they were back upstairs in the main office. Jon sat on a chair beside Kate’s workstation as she hunted through the database, searching for Mogs.

  “You were hard on him,” Kate said looking over at him, crossing her legs as she settled into her chair.

  Jon bobbed his eyebrows. He was aware he’d been playing bad cop in there and giving Bradley a hard time of it, but honestly, he’d been annoyed and hadn’t been feeling charitable. “He messed us about. He should have told us yesterday and not lied.”

  “I wouldn’t say he lied, exactly. He just didn’t tell us everything.”

  Jon grunted. “Yeah, I guess. But that’s not much better when people’s lives are at risk.”

  Kate nodded, acknowledging the seriousness of the case and the situation. They needed to work quickly to save any more people from being killed. “Fair point.”

  “I think that went well, though,” Jon remarked. “A bit of good cop, bad cop.”

  “I’m the ca
rrot and you’re the stick, right?”

  “You’ve got the hair for it, carrot top,” Jon said, with a wry smile.

  Kate turned to him and raised an eyebrow. “Carrot tops are green, smart arse.”

  “Alright, whatever, Barry. Have we found this Mogs, yet?”

  Kate rolled her eyes and returned her attention to the screen, after having logged in and getting to the right program. She popped the name ‘Mogs’ into the search bar and hit return.

  A list of hits popped up, and they started to sift through them, one by one.

  “I think this one fits, look,” Kate said after a while, pointing to the screen with a slender finger.

  Jon gave the profile a look and began to nod. “Freddy ‘Mogs’ Mogasen,” Jon said, reading from his rap sheet. His father was German, his mother English, and he’d been issued warnings, community service, and fines a whole bunch of times, mainly for drugs-related offences, but there was nothing about violent crime on there at all.

  “Look,” Kate said and pointed using the mouse curser. “Known associates.”

  “Carson Miller,” Jon replied, reading the name. “He certainly gets around. Let’s pay him a visit.”

  19

  “Do you think he’ll be in?” Kate asked as she drove them towards Cobham village, east of Horsley Station. Carson Miller’s address was on their database, so with any luck, it wouldn’t be an issue finding him and asking him a few questions.

  “I’ve got no idea. What does the relation of a mob boss do during the day?”

  “Beats me,” Kate replied. “Manages his racketeering…racket? Maybe?”

  Jon laughed. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

  “Don’t laugh. I’ve watched The Godfather.”

  “I think you’d be better off watching some of Guy Ritchie’s films, to be honest.”

  “Oh. Makes films about British gangsters, does he?”

  “Something like that. There’s Lock, Stock, and Snatch…”

  “Snatch?”

  “Yeah, look it up.”

  “With a name like that, I’m not sure I want to. Sounds… rude.”

  “Heh, no. I think you’d like it. It’s got Brad Pitt in it.”

  “Bradders? The Pitt-ster?”

  “He’s got an Irish accent in it, too.”

  “Oh, well then, why didn’t you say so? He’s proper lady-boner material, even now. How old is he now?”

  “Lady-boner?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s a thing?”

  “It’s totally a thing.” She looked over at him with a cheeky smile. “Look it up.”

  “I’ll pass,” Jon said and turned to look out the window at the passing houses. They were driving through some wealthy areas with impressive homes. “So, this is how the other half lives, is it?”

  “There’s a lot of footballers and celebrities around here,” Kate said. “Chelsea’s training ground isn’t far.”

  “Okay,” Jon replied.

  “Do you think anything will come from this?”

  “Unless we can pin something else on Carson, I doubt it. Tom’s already said he doesn’t want to press charges,” Jon said.

  “Yeah, I heard that. They always get away with this shit.”

  “We still need to talk to him, though. He’s linked to all this, and I want to know why. People like him and his family are certainly capable of killing these girls, so just because Tom isn’t willing to hold them accountable, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t.”

  Kate nodded. “We’re getting close.”

  Jon’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out and saw the number on the screen, a number he didn’t recognise. He nearly hung up, and then thought better of it for some reason, and answered the call.

  “Hello?”

  “Aaah, Mr Pilgrim. I caught you. Good. I hear you’re on your way over to talk to Carson.”

  Jon frowned at the statement and wondered who the hell this was and how they got his number. “Who is this?”

  “My sincerest apologies, where are my manners. My name is Irving Miller. Have you heard of me?”

  The jigsaw piece dropped into place, and he wondered how word had gotten out about them making this trip to visit Carson. Who was on the Miller’s payroll in the police?

  “I have.”

  “Excellent, Carson is with me, so please come to mine and we can talk about this civilly.”

  “And where would that be?”

  “I’ll text you the address,” he replied. “See you shortly.”

  He hung up, and Jon took the phone away from his ear.

  “What the hell was that all about?” Kate said, confused.

  “Change of plan,” Jon said. “That was Irving Miller, we’re going to his house to speak to Carson.”

  “Irving’s place? Damn. This just got about a thousand times more serious.”

  Jon’s phone buzzed, announcing the arrival of the text from Irving. He read out the address and Kate popped it into the satnav. It wasn’t far.

  “Have you dealt with these guys before?” Jon asked feeling slightly nervous.

  “No, I’ve heard about them, but I’ve not had any dealings with them yet. Not that I’m aware of, anyway. Do you think this is a good idea?”

  Jon nodded, although he wasn’t totally sure about that. There was every chance that the Millers were luring them into a trap, but somehow, Jon didn’t think so. There was nothing to gain from doing that, apart from a whole heap of trouble. “We’ll be fine. They won’t do anything.”

  “You think?”

  “Pretty positive.”

  “That’s not one hundred percent, though. That’s like ninety? Eighty-five? I’m not sure I like the idea of that.”

  “I get it…”

  The rest of the drive didn’t take long, and they were soon parking up in the driveway of a gated property. It was a modern, sprawling house… no… mansion was a better term. It was huge and gorgeous.

  “You know when they say, crime doesn’t pay,” Jon said, walking up the driveway beside Kate and gesturing to the house. “Yeah, that’s bullshit. It only doesn’t pay if you get caught. But if you’re good at it, then life’s pretty nice.”

  “I can see that,” Kate replied resignedly. “We should plan the perfect crime,” she quipped. “I bet that between us, we could come up with something foolproof.”

  “Foolproof or full proof? Because we’d need to make it proof against more than just fools,” Jon remarked.

  “Well shit, that counts us out.”

  “Speak for yourself, Barry.”

  As they approached the front door, it opened before they reached it, and a man the size of a rhino appeared. He looked them up and down with his beady eyes, before stepping back and waving them in. “Come in,” the man of a mountain muttered.

  Keeping one eye on the one-man-wrecking ball, Jon walked in first and surveyed the spacious hallway with its immaculate wooden panelling and clean lines. It was a lovely place. Too nice for the likes of gangsters.

  “Mr Miller is expecting you,” the man rumbled and started across the hall. “Follow me.”

  Jon looked over at Kate and leaned in to whisper to her, “It speaks.”

  Kate smirked briefly before getting her face under control as they followed him. His shoulders were so big, Jon could hardly make out the man’s head from behind him. It was all neck muscles.

  The man ducked through a doorway into one of the rooms and turned to wave them through.

  Jon followed and found himself in a large, spacious office. Sofas surrounded a table in the middle of the room and at the far end, a modern desk dominated the far wall. Three people waited for them, all of which Jon recognised from their mug shots and other photos in their files.

  Carson sat in a chair before the desk, watching them with a smug expression on his face that Jon wanted to slap right off it again. Irving perched on the front of his desk, sporting a jovial smile, while his wife, Meredith, stood to one side, her look s
erious and cold.

  “Welcome,” Irving said in greeting, waving them towards a set of chairs set up before him. “Please, come in. Take a load off. I’m not sure we’ve ever had the pleasure.”

  Jon disliked him right away. He was being far too friendly for his own good and decided right away that he was not going to take a seat and get comfortable.

  Irving looked at Kate and smiled. “Sergeant Kate O’Connell, I’ve heard so much about you. Your time on the Surrey Murder Team is well documented. I applaud you. And you…” Irving continued, looking at Jon. “Jon, isn’t it? I’m not as familiar with you, Detective Chief Inspector Pilgrim. You’re new to the area, right?”

  “I am,” Jon replied, forcing himself to stay civil. There was no need for this to get out of hand, and judging from the walking lump of muscle behind them, things would go badly for them if it did.

  “Laconic. I like it.”

  “We’re here to speak with Carson.”

  “Right down to business is it? Well, Carson is right here, you can ask him whatever you like.”

  Jon nodded and was about to say something when Irving cut in again, his tone suddenly serious. “But be aware, Mr Pilgrim, that my family is very dear to me.”

  “Isn’t everyone's?”

  Irving paused for a moment. “But of course,” Irving replied, his jovial attitude back once more. “Please, go ahead.”

  “Where were you on the eighth at around three-thirty in the afternoon?”

  “At home,” Carson replied.

  Jon narrowed his eyes at the man. “I have CCTV footage that places you in Sutton.”

  “You can’t believe everything you see on video these days,” Carson replied.

  “True,” Jon answered, nodding his head, “but I think I believe this. Do you know Seth Bailey?”

  “Never heard of him,” Carson snapped, answering a little too quickly.

  “Never?”

  “Nope.”

  “Or, Harper Richards?” Watching closely, he could see the man’s face flush with blood as he shifted in his chair at the mention of her name.

  “Who’s that?” he replied.

  “The girl whose murder we’re investigating.”

  “I don’t know nothing about no murder.”

  Jon stared at him for a long moment, deciding if he should pedantically correct his grammar or not. He decided not to, but only just. “So, you’ve not been watching the news?”