Darkness Falls - DS Aector McAvoy Series 0.5 (2020)

by David Mark

  Oh fuck.

  “Seriously?”

  “He might be bringing you your thank-you card.”

  I give in to a rueful laugh. “As long as it’s got a fat brown envelope inside. By Christ I earned it. Fucking hell.” I spit the words and think about the implications. “Well there go my chances of getting a copy of the opening defence statement. Or a chat with Cadbury when he gets sent down. Fuck.”

  Tom looks for a moment like he’s about to put his hand up and ask a question, but stops himself when he remembers he’s a big boy now and is allowed to speak to the naughty men without getting told off. “You got history, have you Owen?”

  I sigh and stub out my cigarette on the underside of my boot. It’s still encrusted with mud. “Nothing a little bullet in the brain wouldn’t sort out,” I say.

  Tin-Tin Choudhury: the barrister responsible for the biggest embarrassment of my professional life. I picture him, floating there like the Cheshire cat. Face an amalgamation of Saddam Hussein and Bagpuss. Body like a bag of custard in a three-piece-suit, or in Choudhury’s case, a three-piece-suite. Poirot moustache. Trumpet-player cheeks. Hair dyed bottle-black under a blood-red turban. Shoes shiny enough to see up junior solicitors’ skirts. White teeth. Likes to play with a cricket ball while he’s thinking. Fat. Monstrously fucking fat. Polished, Syrupy. Kisses women’s hands when introduced. A fucking crook.

  Four years ago, when I was still working at the York Evening Press and knackering myself and my car with the daily journey through to York, Choudhury fucked me over. Richie Prospect, a local lad and king of the daytime quiz show, was up at court charged with a fairly nasty attack on a young girl. Prospect, he of the orange tan, capped teeth and infinite smugness, was unbelievably guilty. The police had his teary confession, and they had the sworn testimony of umpteen ex-girlfriends about the weird games he liked to play in the bedroom. But Prospect had Tony Choudhury. He rubbed his jewelled hands together and rose to the challenge. Prospect pleaded not guilty. Tony strung out the legal wrangling, got adjournment after adjournment, while the screams of the press reached fever pitch. Entire teams of reporters were taken off-diary, and digging into Prospect’s seedy past became a full-time job. I got the lot. By the time the trial came, I knew everything from Prospect’s dick-size to the wattage of his microwave. I was just itching to go to print with it. The trial lasted a fortnight, punctuated by the most cut-throat defence case ever seen at York Crown Court. It didn’t do any good. By the time the jury retired, it was clear that Prospect was going down. Then Choudhury had his master stroke.

  Me.

  The jury retired on a Friday at 2.30pm - the worst time imaginable, missing any useful deadline, and threatening to spill the case over into the next week. I couldn’t see the jury coming back with a verdict that day, and made a judgement call. I went to the pub. Choudhury saw me leave. He caught me on the way out, and suggested I give him my business card. Out of the goodness of his heart, he promised to let me know if the jury suddenly came back. Two hours later, he called. Choudhury told this panic-stricken, hapless reporter, that I had missed the verdict, and that Prospect had been convicted. He offered to bail me out, gave me details of the sentence, and waited patiently by the phone, feeding me details, as I cobbled the case together.

  It all landed perfectly - just in time for the evening deadline. I told the newsdesk it was over, sent my story - and told the IT department to launch my background features onto the web site, detailing every sordid encounter in Prospect’s past, safe in the knowledge that there was no jury to prejudice and no risk of contempt of court. I sat back, feet on my desk, proud of a job well done, and waited for the plaudits to roll in. Then the phone rang. John, a decent freelance from York who died a couple of years back, asked me what the fuck I was playing at. The tumblers of recognition began to fall into place, as the agony of comprehension poured ice-water into my veins. Choudhury had played me. The jury hadn’t come back with a verdict at all. They were still deliberating. I had just released months of work into cyberspace, labelling Prospect every variety of pervert. I had just been fucked, and my ass, busily augmenting and diminishing from the size of a manhole cover to a poppy seed and back again, was suddenly all too aware. Other news sites spotted the story and lifted it. Within an hour, half the country had seen or heard all about Prospect’s past, while the jury were still sitting in their cosy room trying to decide if he was guilty of anything whatsoever. Of course, the entire case collapsed. Choudhury argued that his client could never get a fair trial. I was roasted by my bosses and the PCC until my brain was running out of my ears. Of course, I fought my corner, pathetically pointing the finger at Choudhury; even making a complaint to the Law Society, but nothing stuck. I kept my job by the absolute skin of my teeth. When Prospect was finally sent down for raping a teenage girl, I was there in the press box to watch. By then, even Choudhury wouldn’t go near him. Those in the know, knew. Knew exactly what Choudhury had done. He had made his point. He had pulled a stroke so beautiful, it made him want to pull and stoke. And when he finally saw me again, eyes meeting as we crossed paths one cold November day at the Old Bailey, he had the temerity to smile, raise an eyebrow, and turn away. It was a wound that had never healed.

  I let the weight of the gun rest on my arm.

  And stroke it like a puppy.

  7

  Getting bored of small-talk, now. Of Tony’s tall tales and Tom’s questions. They’re running over the details of the case in a voice too loud and too unfeeling, oblivious to the milling crowd around us, waiting for their own trials and hearings to begin: unused to this. Unaccustomed to the violence that we chronicle daily, and to which so many of our number have become immune.

  I want to distance myself from them. I find myself scanning the faces in the crowd, the cheap shirts-and-ties, the tracksuits, wondering if any of them knew her, if they loved her, if they can hear Tom laying out the details of the autopsy at maximum volume.

  I stand, stretch, feel the pressure of the gun and the notebook.

  Walk away, through the bodies, no direction but somewhere else.

  “Now there’s a shite for sore eyes. Looking good, sunbeam.”

  A voice that likes the way it sounds kicks me in the side of the head. I turn and see Detective Superintendent Doug Roper treating me to his very best smile. Supercop. Shirley Fucking Temple. Celebrity copper and tabloid darling. 39. Expertly-trimmed moustache, with a tuft beneath his lower lip. A tan he’s worked at. 6ft 1”, straight-backed, but casual. Eyes that twinkle like the last embers in the hearth, and with about as much genuine warmth. Smile like a string of pearls, and a smirk like a bear-trap. Leather, knee-length coat, brown Ben Sherman suit and Gucci loafers. A cloud of Aramis. The faintest whiff of violence, and cunt.

  “Now then, Sunbeam, you here on time, are you?

  “I wanted to give myself the best possible chance to get close to you, Doug – I knew there would be an admiring throng.”

  “Ah yes, it can be distracting. Told them to give me a moment’s peace, actually. They’ve thronged off to do whatever throngs do. Nice to have a bit of peace – a bit of one-to-one time with a sophisticated gentleman.”

  “Kind of you to say so. You’re looking good, though you know that, of course.”

  “Not so bad yourself, son. Bit rumpled around the edges, few creases that wouldn’t sit well on a chap like me, but you just about pass muster. Few bruises though, lad. Bit of yellow under the old eye, there. Bit of a scuff on the right hand too. You been up to mischief, Owen?”

  We stand, inches apart, enjoying the game. He likes me about as much as I like him, but we engage in pretence because we both suspect we might not like anybody else very much either.

  “So,” I say. “This going to be a walk in the park?”

  “Doesn’t do to count your chickens,” he says, talking into my eyes in that way of his, where you can see your own reflection floating, as though trapped, on the blue irises. “The Butterworths are in with a couple of
my lads and it doesn’t half bring it home how important this one is. Got to get this monster put away, sunbeam. Got to.”

  “Come on, Doug, you don’t need to give me the speech. The cameras aren’t on you. We both know he’s going down. It’s open and shut.”

  “Wish it was,” he says, taking a tin of cigarillos from the inside pocket of his leather jacket and lighting one with a match he has ignited on his thumb in a deft and slightly showy motion. “He’s got Choudhury, now, hasn’t he? Which means all bets are off. And if what we’re hearing is right, we could be in the shit.”

  “Can you say?” I ask, wondering if I should pull out my notebook or keep it chatty. “You know we can’t write anything that might fuck up the trial so there’s no harm.”

  The grey sky beyond the glass suddenly darkens further, as if the sun just shivered and closed its eyes. A heavy rain begins to pummel the windows and the walls and we have to raise our voices to be heard over the tattoo that the raindrops are drumming on the roof.

  “You’ll find out soon enough anyway, laddo,” he says through a delicate puff of smoke. “There’s a so-called witness that has suddenly appeared. You know Lewis, the lad who told us where to find Ella? Well he got sent down a few months back for some minor stuff, and this witness that Choudhury’s come up with was Lewis’s cell-mate for a few weeks. We have a feeling this lad is going to tell the jury Lewis confessed all to him. Bragged about framing his thick mate. Could be enough to create a reasonable doubt.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Fuck indeed.”

  I lower my voice, two old friends having a chinwag. “If I was in your shoes I might be tempted to find this new witness and explain the importance of all this to him. Might be tempted to persuade him of the joys of silence.”

  “Would love to, my friend, but Choudhury’s got him secreted away somewhere safe and plush and, besides which, I’m an honest copper and wouldn’t dream of trying to get away with such a thing.” He twinkles, then adds: “Might get found out.”

  We stand and brood in silence for a moment, then he says: “Still, it’s all good copy for you boys, isn’t it?”

  “You know this one isn’t like that,” I say, feeling the hint of sickness rising in my throat. “Ella was an angel. We all want the right man put away. The Butterworths don’t deserve this.”

  “Nobody deserves this,” he says.

  “Some do,” I say, quietly. “You know that.”

  “Catch you later,” he says, with a wink.

  There’s a prickling starting to spread all over my back. I don’t like this. My teeth are hurting. My jaw tight and wired. Cadbury needs to go down. He must. The Butterworths need justice. This case has affected us all. I wrote metres of copy when they were searching for her. Tony and me had been out for a drink not more than a mile from where the attack happened that very night, and we both felt real closeness to her family as soon as we knocked on their door and they invited us in to share photo albums and drink sweet tea and eat their biscuits and talk about their daughter while a monster was brutalizing her corpse not far away. They’re good people. Their daughter an innocent. In most murder cases you can rationalise it. You can tell yourself that the victim shouldn’t have got in that car, or acted that way, or raised their voice at the wrong person, or acted like a slag. But Ella was sweet. She was good and caring and pure and loved her family and her cats and her boyfriend and she squeezed her wicked thoughts until they disappeared, and she lost her life because she was an angel who stumbled onto a demon’s blade.

  I think of the funeral, of the bright flowers and the kisses on the cards and the family sitting rigid and regal as the packed crematorium seemed to shudder from the weight of grief in its guts; as the hundreds of mourners, drawn black and grey in savage pencil strokes, wept and wailed and choked back snot as the priest said his words, and how we chuckled, rueful and relieved, as Ella’s sister told stories of mischief past, and how tears ran down cheeks and onto notepads and into microphones as we listened to Robbie Williams’ voice oozing from the stereo as Ella passed behind the purple curtain and into the flames to the sound of her family’s strangled cries, and the words of her favourite song.

  I duck into the toilets. Two suits are at the urinals so I head for the nearest of the three cubicles. Sit down on the plastic seat with my head in my hands. The weight in my pocket clinks against the porcelain. Instinctively I look up, as if there might be a shooting gallery of faces peeping over the door

  I sit back on the toilet seat, back straight against the cistern, and close my eyes, breathing slowly, as though listening to music.

  I hear the voice of the gun. Retrieve it, carefully, as if handling porcelain.

  It’s black. Gleaming. Rubber on the handle, writing on its side.

  For a moment, through the haze of my half-closed eyes, the markings become three distinct words.

  KILL THEM ALL …

  8

  Court One.

  10.26am.

  Four minutes to kick-off.

  Still no sign of Cadbury.

  Families packed in behind me. The hiss of pop bottles opening. The bleep of mobile phones being switched off.

  Hands being held. Words of comfort. Wendy in the front row, next to her husband, Arthur. She, regal in a green suit. Made up. Hair permed. Putting on a show. He, shambolic. Jogging pants and a jumper under two coats. White hair. Face red. Eyes the colour of brie. Puffy. Broken. Decent bunch. Poor but proud. Working class. Real class. Some bitter, some hateful. All missing a piece of themselves. Trapped like spiders beneath a glass by the barriers of their loss. Not touching each other. Torn apart by grief.

  I’m silent. Drinking it in. Second seat from the right, four feet from the glass partition which separates the decent folk from the accused. Burly security guard in a pressed white shirt. No defendant yet.

  Paul from the BBC on my right. Indira from one of the radio stations to my left. Coats still on. Cold inside the courtroom, with its pale walls. Wooden benches and hard seats. Extra seats laid on. We’re crowded in, touching elbows, balancing notebooks on knees. Only six hacks can fit behind the actual press bench. We’re twisted. Swivelling to face the judge’s bench, perched up high at the front. No judge yet.

  Below is the court clerk. Roy. Scouse lad. Knows his stuff. Grey pinstripe under his black gown. Salt and pepper hair peeping out from the sides of his curly wig.

  Flanked by an usher - 30s, brunette and dumpy, looking like Harry Potter in her black cloak, and a logger - ancient, pale suit, Royal Navy tie, lines in his face that he could keep his spare change in - preparing to fall asleep on his court tape recorder.

  Then Choudhury. A blob of silk. Leering over the junior barrister at the bench behind him, and the solicitors behind her. Cricket ball, rolled lasciviously around his palm. A lot of touching. Every word accentuated with a hand on a shoulder or arm.

  A pain in my chest just looking at him.

  Prosecutor at his side. Elegant. Tall. Straight back. Glasses. Must be 50-plus under the wig. Crisp seam in his black trousers, shine on his black shoes. Reading through his opening statement, glancing back at his junior, a younger man, to check the occasional fact. Limbering up. Ready to go the distance in a case that could make him.

  More solicitors further back. Then coppers. Assistants. Hangers-on.

  Evidence bags stuffed under desks. Files. Bundles of folders, law books, stacked like rocks in a dry-stone wall. Jugs of water and tumblers marbled with limescale.

  Jury benches still empty.

  Different, this time. I’ve covered hundreds of court cases. Become immune. This time, I feel it. We all feel it. The whole city gives a damn, this time.

  Door opens to my right, behind the glass. Heads turn. Voices drop. Another security guard. Fat. Old. As intimidating as lettuce.

  Then comes Cadbury. The man of the hour. The Killer. The Monster. The Chocolate Boy. The Accused.

  Late 20s. Round face. Belly hanging over cheap blue jeans. Short-sleeved
white shirt untucked on one side. Stains on the front. Goatee beard and two earrings. Tattoos on his forearms. Hair short and unbrushed. Face blank. Staring ahead. Takes his seat between the security guards.

  Words from behind me. Mutterings of contempt, of raw hatred.

  Wendy and Arthur twisting to see.

  Me in the way. Trapped in the glare. Their stare is a flamethrower. It roars through me like white light. It fixes me into my seat. Strips me bare. I expect my misdeeds to be played out on the wall behind me.

  I sag, exhausted, as they turn away.

  A knock on the door.

  Rat-tat.

  Judge enters. Swish of purple and red. Thin man, stern faced. No nonsense. Street map of capillaries splashed across his nose. Takes his seat. Glance at the papers on his desk. Business-like nod. Already spent half an hour talking to the barristers in his chambers. Refused to be delayed by legal argument. Wants to start today. Finish Friday.

  Looks up.

  Ready to rock and roll.

  “Gentlemen. Shall we have the jury in?”

  More bustle. Ushers banging through side doors. Shouts from other rooms. Judge talking. Me staring at the rich splatter-pattern on the curve of my boot. Picking at it with a fingernail.

  Red.

  Jury enter. Rag-bag bunch. Some in suits. Young lad with a mullet haircut and skinny arms. Couple of mumsy types in polo necks. Gangster-looking guy in a black suit and turtle neck. Gold bracelet. Pensioner with thick glasses. A woman I recognise from a night in The Manchester Arms. The manager from the bookies down Whitefriargate, looking annoyed to be here. All the same expressions. Nervous. Excited. Eager to find out if they’ll make the final 12. Irritated to be here but too curious to leave.

  Names called.

  12 answer and come forward. Always one attractive lass in a jury. This one’s about 30 and blonde. Too much eye-make up. Snuggly jumper but a bare stomach. Dirty look about her. Something in the way she carries herself. The type to slap on a bit of roll-on deodorant in the morning rather than have a wash. My type. One to watch.