by David Evans
“Listen,” he began to say, “I was wondering …”
“Yes.”
“Ready Cyril,” Barton boomed as he rounded the corner and spotted him.
“Catch up with you later,” Cyril said quietly.
“Okay,” Cathy said, walking away as Barton approached, totally ignoring her.
“What have you learned?” Barton indicated the file in Cyril’s hands. “Any weak points?”
“We’ll see,” he considered thoughtfully before opening the door to the interview room.
Cyril took the seat opposite Thompson this time, with Barton sitting alongside. The constable left them to it.
Cyril introduced himself and Barton before commencing the interview. “Mr Thompson, Eddie,” he said, “why did you flee the scene yesterday?”
Thompson lifted his head, looked from Cyril to Barton and back again before answering. “Tommy wanted to get out.” Head down once more.
“He got out. But that doesn’t explain why you drove him away in the car.”
“He told me to.”
“And do you always do what Tommy Marshall tells you?”
Thompson gave a shrug. “Have you tried not to?” He looked up. “Sorry, of course not, you’re police.”
“So Thompson has a hold over you?”
“Put it this way, he’s not the sort of man to argue with. It was just easier to drive.”
“What do you know about a sawn-off shotgun found in the car you were driving yesterday?”
“Nothing much”
“So you didn’t conceal it?”
“No.”
“Who did? Victor Robinson? David Robinson? Maybe Tommy Marshall?”
“I don’t know.”
“Funny that, because Mr Marshall claims it was yours.”
“He would.”
“Come on Eddie, give us something to work with.”
Finally, Thompson appeared to take things seriously. He leaned forward onto the table and looked straight at Cyril. “Whose prints did you find on the gun? I’ll bet it wasn’t mine. In fact, I’d hazard a guess that you found Tommy’s.”
Cyril leaned back, stroking his moustache. “And how would you know that?”
“Just a guess.”
Cyril took a breath. “How many times have you been at that warehouse?”
“I’ve driven Victor and David there maybe five or six times.”
“With Mr Marshall?”
“On two or three occasions.”
“Ever been on the upper floors?”
A slight look of alarm passed over Thompson’s face. “Can’t say as I have,” he answered after a brief pause.
“So we wouldn’t find your fingerprints up there?”
“Well … maybe … I might have been upstairs once.”
“Know a man by the name of James Morgan? Jimmy?”
“No … not sure.”
“I’m surprised, because he drove the flower van back from Holland a couple of times. And if you’d taken the Robinson boys there to meet it, like you did today, you’d have met him.”
Thompson gave an impression of a lightbulb going on in his brain. “Short bloke in his fifties, thinning fair hair. Was that him? I never knew his name.”
Cyril looked to Barton then refocussed on the man in front of him. “So how about Douglas Chalmers?”
Again a flicker of something crossed his face but Thompson shook his head. “No idea.”
Cyril left a pause and hoped Barton wouldn’t jump in. Fortunately, he just sat back in his chair, relaxed.
Cyril opened the file. “How long have you worked for Frank Robinson?”
Thompson sucked in air. “Ooh, since about 1935.”
“A long time then. Over forty years. All through the war, in fact.”
“I had a reserved occupation.”
Cyril nodded. “In the docks, I know. Handy for someone like Robinson.”
“Don’t know what you mean.”
“So you’d feel a sense of great loyalty to Mr Robinson. I suppose you could say you helped his businesses develop?”
“What are you trying to say?”
“And you probably have that same sense of loyalty for his boys, Victor and David?”
“Watched them grow up.”
“Looked out for them, probably?”
“Probably.”
Cyril leaned in closer. “But I don’t suppose you could ever feel that deep loyalty for Tommy Marshall?”
Thompson let out a gasp. “You must be joking.”
“So why do you protect him, Eddie? A man who tells us that you owned that shotgun; it was you who secreted it in the car.”
“No! No way.”
“And it was you who was responsible for what happened to Jimmy Morgan and Dougie Chalmers.”
“The lyin’ bastard, it was nothing to do with me, it was all his … hang on, he hasn’t said that at all, has he?”
Cyril turned to Barton who, for the first time seemed to take an interest in the conversation. “It’s true, Eddie. Marshall is hanging you out to dry,” the DI confirmed.
Cyril watched closely as Thompson processed that information, then turned the screw even more, his voice growing louder. “But your reaction just now … you know Morgan and Chalmers were murdered. You know it took place in the warehouse. You know, don’t you Eddie?”
Thompson looked from Cyril to Barton, but he wasn’t helping him, then back to Cyril. Nervously playing with his hands, head down, he started to mumble incoherently.
Cyril adopted a softer tone. “You’re not a well man Eddie. I can see that. Your record - you’ve been involved in some scams for the Robinsons, carried the can for them too, I wouldn’t wonder. Probably been well looked after. But this …” Cyril glanced to Barton then leaned on the table again. “Look, are we right in thinking the Robinson lads weren’t actually involved in the murders, not directly anyway?”
Finally, Thompson looked up, eyes moist. “Look Mr Claydon,” he said, “I’ve got six months at most. Cancer. My mum’s still alive and in a home in Shadwell. She’s eighty-three. I’m all she has. I don’t want to go to prison again. I haven’t got the time. Can we do a deal?”
71
“He wants a deal?” Sanderson was standing looking out of the window in his office, hands in his pockets. The rain was siling down and he watched people scurrying past on the pavement, umbrellas and plastic macs being used for the first time in months.
“Cyril did a brilliant job, Sir,” Barton said.
Sanderson turned and faced him, a surprised expression on his face. “So you rate him now, do you?”
Barton shrugged.
“And you two could work together?”
“He has qualities.”
Sanderson decided to leave that line alone. “So what does he want?”
“He’s terminally ill and he wants to have immunity from prison.”
Sanderson shrugged. “Not sure we can guarantee that.”
“But what have we got from forensics so far?” Barton wondered.
“They’ve lifted prints from door handles and door frames on the second floor as well as off the workbench and roll of plastic on the first floor. I’ve been on to the bureaux to get them to check against our suspects quickly.”
“What about the other samples from those rooms?”
“At best a few days.”
“Anything else?” Barton looked desperate.
“They’ve identified blood spots on the floor of the flower van. Again waiting on results.” Sanderson sat down behind his desk. “Although that could be Cyril’s. He took a head wound in there.”
Barton snapped his fingers. “I’ve just remembered, the other thing the lab said they were looking at was fibres on the tape that bound the plastic on Morgan’s body.”
Sanderson’s eyes widened. “I didn’t know they’d found any.”
“There was. They’re comparing it to samples of the carpet in the boot of the Robinsons’ Daimler.”
“A later model, and that has grey carpeting whereas Robinsons’ is black. And it was black we found on the tape.”
“All right, I’ll keep up the pressure on the lab. In the meantime, see what you can get from Thompson. Keep any talk of deals circumspect.”
* * *
“Okay Eddie, we can’t promise anything but, dependant on what you have to tell us, we will do everything we can to help you.” Cyril spoke quietly to the man sitting opposite him. Barton was alongside, happy for him to resume his relationship with the Robinsons’ driver.
“How do I know I can trust you?” Thompson asked.
“You have my word, as someone who served in the last war and who places great importance on doing things right,” Cyril assured him. “But it’s your decision.”
Thompson hesitated for a second or two, looking at Cyril before leaning forward, placing both arms on the table. “All right, but I’m trusting that you’ll keep me out of this as much as you can.”
Cyril nodded and flipped open his notebook.
“The first bloke you mentioned, Morgan, we had nothing to do with him. That idiot Yardley who owned the building, he’d shot him. Marshall reckoned he could make him disappear.”
“How was that?”
“Same way he got rid of the other two.”
“Two?” Cyril paused writing, eyebrows raised.
“The other one you mentioned, Chalmers was it? I think he was one, then there was another before that, but I’ve no idea who.” Thompson became defensive. “It’s only what I heard.”
“When did this happen exactly?” Cyril picked up his pencil.
Thompson puffed out his cheeks. “Not too sure on that. But this last one, Morgan, was a couple of days before the plane crashed. Marshall used a guy who’d fly the body out over the sea and dump it.”
Cyril looked up at the man. “Okay Eddie, let’s go back to the beginning of how you became involved with the Robinsons and Marshall.”
Thompson began to tell how Frank Robinson, Victor and David’s father, had given him work before the war and had looked out for him since. He’d been brought up in the same street in East London and his mother knew Frank’s wife. Since the war, Thompson had driven for Frank and when his sons became involved in the ‘business’, Thompson would drive for them too. Mention of ‘business’ brought a snigger from Barton.
Thompson looked sharply at him but carried on undaunted. Robinson senior had had a caravan on the holiday park since the early sixties where he used to bring the family. The static the boys used was the third that Frank had owned in Clacton.
Barton interrupted. “Look, this trip down memory lane is all well and good …”
“This is important background,” Cyril said turning to Barton. “Let’s just hear what Eddie has to tell us.” He returned his attention to Thompson. “Perhaps we can concentrate on the events of this year though,” he encouraged.
“As I said, I used to drive for Mr Robinson but Victor and David wanted me to drive them down here, sort of posing with the birds, if you know what I mean. Frank wanted me to keep an eye on them too.”
“And where did you stay?”
“I’d get a B & B in Clacton.”
“So when did Tommy Marshall come on the scene?”
“It was Victor who knew him. He said he was useful muscle. He began coming down with them at Easter. He’d stayed in the same B & B as me at first but then started finding his own. He used to go round the pubs and clubs and put himself about a bit. I suppose that’s when it all started.”
Thompson then went on to tell the story of how Marshall met a guy who was organising poker games. Marshall was a bit of a gambler and he got drawn in. It didn’t take him long to realise the game was crooked. He wasn’t standing for it and he got a bit heavy with this character. That was when Marshall learned about another punter who owed the man a sizeable sum but had a connection with access to light aircraft. That got Marshall’s brain working. “I didn’t trust him, but he mentioned to Victor that it could be useful and he had an idea how,” Thompson said.
“So Victor Robinson became involved?” Cyril asked.
“No, no. Not so far as I know.” Another defensive reaction from the man.
“Look, Thompson,” Barton snapped. “Don’t piss us about! Remember what we told you about being straight with us.”
“I am, honest,” Thompson responded. “The only definite times I knew of were these last two jobs and they were all Marshall’s.”
Cyril flicked over his notes. “This last job, the one that took place on the morning of the plane crash …”
Thompson nodded
“Did you help transport the body to the airstrip?”
“We used Victor’s Daimler. He was down here for the week, him and David with a couple of tarts. So I knew I could have the use of it for a few days, unless he called me to drive them somewhere.”
“Tell us about that.”
“Tommy spoke to me the day before and said he had a job for me. I had to collect him about three in the morning and drive him to the warehouse. Yardley let us in. He opened the double doors. I had to back the car in and he closed them behind me. The flower van was sitting there, the chiller on. I drew up close to it and Yardley opened the back of the van. The two of them pulled out this bundle and loaded it into the boot. I had nothing to do with that. I’m not fit enough for any exertion.”
“But you knew what it was?”
Thompson nodded. “Tommy told me.”
“Then you drove to the airstrip?”
“We had to sit there for about twenty minutes until this other bloke in a van turns up to open the gate. We followed him up the track and Tommy and this other bloke gets the bundle out of the boot and takes it over to one of the planes.”
“And you’re telling me all this happened without Victor and David Robinson’s knowledge?”
“No. Tommy said it was just a little job on the side.”
Cyril looked over to Barton then back again. “You’re honestly asking me to believe that?”
“That time of the day, the boys were bunked up with their lady friends. Tommy said we shouldn’t say anything. He was doing it for a few quid from Yardley.” Thompson began squirming in his chair. “Look Mr Claydon, can we stop for a minute? I really need a pee.”
“No you bloody can’t,” Barton retorted.
“I can’t help it, I’ve a weak bladder with all my treatment.”
“I’ll get the constable to take you Eddie,” Cyril said. “I think we could all do with a break.”
* * *
“I still think we should have made the little bastard suffer,” Barton said.
They were in Sanderson’s office reporting progress.
Cyril shook his head. “He’s singing like a canary. It does no harm to give him a little bit of a break.”
Barton turned to the DCI. “You said that the Robinsons’ solicitor had been to see him, didn’t you Sir?”
“He did.”
“Bloody obvious then,” Barton went on, “He’ll have told him to stick Marshall in the frame for the lot, leave precious Victor and David out of it and the old man’ll look after him for however long he’s got. But we’ll still get the bastard on aiding and abetting though.”
Sanderson was leaning back in his chair, right foot resting on his left knee. “Maybe so, but the problem is, we’ve got nothing that’ll stand up against the Robinson boys.”
“What have we actually got?” Barton despaired.
Sanderson sprang forward and shuffled through some papers on his desk. “I’ve been back onto the lab and tried to gee them up a bit.” He pulled one sheet free and scanned it. “They now tell me there are three distinct blood groups from the workbench, two of which correspond with blood spatter in the upper floor rooms. We know Morgan was A positive and I’m waiting for word of what group Chalmers was, but that might only narrow down the possibilities.”
“For what it’s worth, I’m common as muck,” Cyril said. “O positive.”
“Okay, thanks, I’ll let them know.” Sanderson made a note. “But the other thing was they found two different blood groups in the flower van. Again, we’ll see what actual group they can identify.”
“All takes so bloody long though,” Barton complained.
“But in the meantime, we get as much information from Thompson as we can. Hopefully, the forensics will bear out what he’s telling us. And if Marshall is involved as much as we think, the case against him will strengthen.” Sanderson stood up. “Also, we need to interview Adam Fletcher again; put some pressure on him to tell us everything.”
“Will do.” Barton headed for the door. “Come on then,” he said to Cyril, “Let’s get stuck in to Thompson.
* * *
“Now then Eddie, let’s hear about the body before Jimmy Morgan,” Cyril prompted once he and Barton were seated opposite Thompson in the interview room to resume questioning.
“I really don’t know for sure who it was but that was a month ago and more now.”
“We believe he was disposed of on Friday 6th August.”
“Sounds about right.”
“Now we also believe that was the body of Dougie Chalmers.”
“If you say so.”
“And that name meant something to you when we mentioned him earlier, didn’t it?”
Thompson nodded. “He was the bloke that ran the poker games that Tommy got involved with.”
“What happened with him then?”
“I don’t know exactly. All I know is that Tommy tells me to pick him up early hours one morning and run him over to the warehouse. Only this time he had a key to get us in.”
“Just the two of you on this occasion?”
“Yes.”
“That means you’d have had to have helped, right?”
“No. Tommy disappeared upstairs. Next thing, he’s struggling back down with this big package wrapped in black plastic over his shoulder in a sort of fireman’s lift.”
“But you knew it was a body though?”
Thompson nodded. “I guessed so. And then as he put it in the boot, it snagged on the boot lock. I could see the fingers of a hand. Tommy dashed back upstairs and came back with some tape to seal it up again.”