And talking of speeches, she’d given him the one about the stress of being a police officer and the importance of looking after yourself and eating healthily and cutting down on just about everything that made life worth living.
They had kids, she kept reminding him. He had a responsibility to take care of himself for their sakes. She had a point; of course she had a point. But did she have to keep making it?
Sitting down at the side of the bed, Mills looked at Douglas Marley and wondered again how somebody could look so ancient after a mere forty-five years on the planet.
He spoke the man’s name, and Marley’s eyes jerked open. A nurse followed him into the room, checking the fluids and consulting with a machine issuing beeps and lines across a small screen. When she was done, she turned to Mills. ‘Not too long,’ she said, before leaving them to their privacy.
Mills didn’t dwell on the ambiguity of the remark and was starting on the pleasantries when Marley cut him short.
‘They were warning me off saying anything.’
‘Who was warning you, Mr Marley?’
‘There was five of us. That day, down by the park. And we had that kid with us. We were only kids ourselves.’ He looked at Mills, and there was desperation about him, pleading to be understood, forgiven.
‘You had Alan Dale with you?’
Marley nodded. ‘That lad that went missing. The one they found.’
‘Can you tell me who the five were, Mr Marley? Doug.’
Marley’s breathing started to labour.
Mills said, ‘Steven Jenkins, Phillip Swanson, Martin Hillman, Paul Dammers … you?’
Marley nodded, struggling to get his breathing under control. Mills thought about calling for the nurse. A few more questions would do it. Nail it.
He pressed on.
‘Who killed Alan Dale, Doug?’
Marley took a minute to steady his breathing. When he spoke again, it came in gasps. ‘It wasn’t like that. We were having fun – to start with. Just a game, you see. And then one of them started up about football. Stoke City.’
‘Red is the colour?’
Marley looked at Mills. ‘You know about that?’
‘But I still want you to tell me.’
Marley looked away, his chest rising and falling more steadily. Even the voice, when it kicked in again, had become easier, as though the storm was passing.
Marley told a tale that sounded close enough to the account Sheila Dale had given to Tyler.
‘We went too far, but we didn’t kill him. He was crying and we left him. I’ve felt bad about that day for the whole of my life – and that’s no shit.’
Looking into the man’s eyes, Mills couldn’t help but believe him.
‘There was a big game going on the following evening. A few of the lads went to the match. Some charity game, but with stars from the past and what have you. So, the next night there was a game organised in the park. I was playing. I was no good, but I was having a laugh. The ball went over by the railings and I went to get it. Three of them were with that lad again.’
Mills noted that Marley didn’t like speaking the boy’s name.
‘Alan Dale?’
Marley nodded. ‘Him. They were taking him back down the path. He was crying but they wouldn’t let him go. One of them shouted to me, “Time for another reminder”.’
‘Reminder?’ said Mills.
‘It’s what Wise, the headmaster, used to say when he was going to set about you. “Time for a reminder.” Anyway, I thought the lad – I thought he’d had enough, so I shouted back, “Why can’t you leave him alone”.’
‘What happened next?’ asked Mills.
Marley’s breathing started to labour again. ‘I went back to the game. I didn’t give it another thought until the next day, at school.’
But the next day was Saturday, thought Mills. He was about to raise the point when Marley said, ‘No, wait a minute. It was weekend. Must’ve been the Monday. There was no sign of him. I was looking out. He wasn’t in class. I wondered if they’d gone too far and he’d ended up in hospital or something. I asked one of them. They said if I knew what was good for me, I’d forget the whole business and let it stay forgotten. Not long after that the police came to the school and I didn’t tell them anything.’
Marley’s breathing was deteriorating.
‘Who were the three, Doug? And who warned you off?’
‘Me and Swanson were in the game. He’d seen them taking the lad back down the path, same as me. They warned him off too.’
‘Who warned you off, Doug?’
‘The older one.’
‘Paul Dammers?’
Marley nodded. His chest was rising and falling rapidly in an effort to breath, and the sound was like a saw cutting into bone.
Mills was already on his feet to summon a nurse.
One last question.
‘Did Dammers visit you by the church the other night?’
Marley was shaking his head.
‘Nurse,’ shouted Mills, opening the door out onto the ward.
He turned back to Marley. ‘Not Dammers?’
Marley was gulping at the air, his face mottling as he fought to breathe.
‘Nurse! Nurse!’
The sound of footsteps running towards them.
‘Who was it, Doug? Who frightened you so much ..?’
The nurse flew into the room, the doctor not many seconds behind. And then Mills was ushered out as the battle began to save what was left of Douglas Marley’s life.
26
Chief Superintendent Berkins congratulated Tyler on his work, even reprising the speech about having every faith in him and about the bright road ahead. But no sooner had Tyler started to fill him in on the details, that same faith appeared to wane, and the road ahead quickly lost its lustre.
‘To say that it’s a bit thin is the understatement of the century. An experienced probation officer – he’s going to know the ropes and he’s going to end up hanging us from one. His solicitor will handle our respective occupational funerals.’
Tyler raised the subject of Martin Hillman.
‘No, absolutely not. You need a lot more than you’ve got so far, Jim. A sight more. An MP – God above.’
Tyler thought better about pointing out that Hillman was not quite an MP yet, and that such things still depended on a well-established democratic process. Still, it was no secret that bureaucratic organisations naturally feared the most powerful bureaucrats. And MPs, or those within touching distance of such office, were among the most highly feared of all. They knew the networks of pensions at stake, and could ring up chief superintendents and beyond, even the likes of Charles Dawkins, for that matter, and practically hold an organisation to ransom.
Nobody liked to admit it. In a day and age of ‘justice and equality for all’, the official line stated that everybody was treated with the same impartiality in the eyes of the law. It was the politically correct thing to say, and the politically prudent. To even suggest otherwise, despite the deep suspicions of the general public, was to place your neck, along with your pension, firmly into the noose.
But the eyes of the law saw what they wanted to see; what was convenient to the preservation of the machine. Being afraid to acknowledge this, thought Tyler, doesn’t stop it being true.
Tyler took the call from Mills.
‘Douglas Marley died a few minutes ago, sir.’
‘Did he tell you who visited him in the churchyard?’
‘No, I’m afraid he didn’t.’
The whole thing was falling apart.
Tyler let his head fall into the hand that wasn’t holding the phone.
‘Any news from Jenkins’ GP, sir?’
Through splayed fingers, Tyler answered. ‘Jenkins knew he was dying. They discussed treatment options. There weren’t many. The prognosis was poor.’
Tyler’s hand, the one not holding the phone, had taken on a life of its own. Massaging his eyes, trying to keep wha
t constituted mind and body together.
It was now or never, as the old song went. Double or quits.
‘Sir?’ sounded Mills’ voice down the line. ‘Are you okay?’
Tyler knew that once he had actually said it, once the words were out of his head and spoken aloud, that it would happen. It would be the end of a career, one way or another. Quite possibly a number of careers, and most likely his own.
Like the cursed sword of legend being drawn from the sheath, it could not return until it had drawn blood.
He took a breath that might have reached as deep as any that Douglas Marley had taken, and spoke into the handset.
‘We’re bringing them in,’ he said.
‘Who, sir?’
‘All of them.’
27
So many clocks were ticking.
Chief Superintendent Graham Berkins had left the building, unaware of what had hatched inside the mind of DCI Jim Tyler. But he would be back soon enough. If no-one else beat him to it, someone on Martin Hillman’s behalf would bring Berkins charging into the building, demanding to know what the blazes was going on.
As things stood already, Dammers and his brief were likely to make fools of all concerned. Someone would have to pay for that, and Tyler was under no illusions about who the main contender was likely to be.
So now he had played the bigger, far riskier hand, raising the stakes again. The chance of a red-faced department and the need for a fall guy from within had been magnified to the power of God-knows.
It was, Tyler knew, a multiple bluff with odds stacked so badly that no professional gambler would have entertained the idea for a second. Dammers had to be still present at the station when the others came in. But his brief wouldn’t see his client delayed a moment longer than the rules stipulated. Any extension was unthinkable without good, solid reasons.
For this insane thing to work, timing was everything.
And a good dose of gambler’s luck.
Tyler looked at the clock on the wall, attempting by force of will to hold the hands back. Failing, he set about busying himself in preparation for the long night ahead.
Swanson was the first in, arriving even before Dammers’ solicitor. The omens, for a few minutes, even seemed favourable. It might be enough, thought Tyler, to convince Paul Dammers that the gang had been rounded up and the truth about to be exposed.
Then the call came through from DS Mills.
Hillman was stirring up a hornet’s nest over in Derby, and the soft-spoken threats were serious indeed. Nevertheless, the law was the law, and, ass or no ass, whatever the consequences later on, Martin Hillman was coming in.
‘And don’t spare the horses,’ said Tyler, ending the call.
Phillip Swanson hadn’t seen the merits of legal representation yet. It wouldn’t hurt to have a little chat straight off. Tyler asked that Swanson be taken straight into one of the interview rooms. ‘Make sure he and Dammers catch sight of each other, though,’ he told the duty sergeant.
Mills was following up on some phone calls and it was the turn of the oatcake woman, the ‘ex-pat’ whose remarkable powers of observation had rung a false note, at least with Tyler.
She answered her mobile on the first ring.
‘Julie Hammond? Sorry to bother you again.’
Mills listened carefully as she answered his questions, explaining again how it had struck her that Hillman seemed to have a preoccupation with time. How he had been ‘suspiciously keen’ to establish the precise timing of his arrival for the meeting, and drawing attention to the lateness of his eventual departure.
‘I remember thinking: is he trying to impress somebody? Let them know how hard he works? I probably wouldn’t have thought any more about it.’
‘But for the “oatcake” business.’
‘Well, you start putting this and that together.’
Tyler was right, thought Mills. There was something odd going on. Who was this Julie Hammond? There was something that she wasn’t telling.
‘Do you think,’ asked Mills, ‘that Mr Hillman might have been establishing an alibi?’
‘For what, do you think?’
This is cat and mouse, thought Mills.
There was a heavy pause, and then Hammond said: ‘I believe that you are investigating the murder of Steven Jenkins?’
Mills hesitated. ‘I need to speak to you in person,’ he said.
‘Is there any particular reason for that?’
‘You will need to complete a statement.’
‘I will need to check my diary and get back to you,’ she said.
‘Can I ask,’ said Mills. ‘What do you do for a living?’
Following the briefest of pauses, she said, ‘If you have your diary to hand, we can arrange a time that suits us both.’
Downstairs the desk sergeant had a promising observation for Tyler. The eyes of Paul Dammers had apparently ‘popped out of his head’ on seeing Phillip Swanson.
‘They didn’t acknowledge each other, but they’re certainly not strangers.’
Swanson was smoking heartily as Tyler entered the interview room, the ashtray already filling up nicely.
‘We meet again so soon, Mr Swanson. You recognise your old school friend, I take it?’
Swanson pulled heavily on his smoke.
‘How can I help you?’
His voice was all over the place, the same as his hands, while his eyes moved from the detective’s face and back to the ashtray, setting a pattern that would continue throughout the minutes that followed.
Tyler sat down opposite, with a mute DC to make up the numbers.
‘We’ve spoken to a lot of your old school friends lately, Mr Swanson. Matter of fact, we have another one coming in shortly. But we’ll come back to that. Do you remember that chap out there? Been a few years, has it, or have you seen him more recently?’
‘I’m not sure who he is,’ said Swanson, unconvincingly.
‘Familiar, though?’
Swanson nodded, cautiously.
‘His name is Paul Dammers. He’s helping us with our enquiries. He was at River Trent High the same time as you. The year above, but he knows all the people that you used to know. He works as a probation officer, interestingly enough, though possibly not for much longer.’
Tyler watched Swanson’s reaction carefully. If anything, the fear had intensified. But was he ready yet, ready to try and save his own skin?
‘It appears that Douglas Marley had a visitor. Bit of a character was old Doug, by all accounts. Shook him up badly, this visitor.’
Tyler eased back in his seat, presenting the calm façade of having all of the answers already. He glanced across at DC Clarke, and wondered what she was making of all this. She appeared almost as nervous as Swanson, he thought.
‘I wonder who his visitor could have been?’ said Tyler.
Phillip Swanson took down another heavy lungful of smoke, but didn’t say anything.
Tyler weighed up the options, and then rolled off the names from that long-ago day in June, 1972.
‘And none of you seems to be in the best of health at the moment, I’m sorry to say. Steven Jenkins is dead, Douglas Marley … in hospital, you off sick, Paul Dammers also on the sick – even your old teacher, Howard Wood, he’s sick, too. You are a suffering lot, aren’t you? Cursed, almost, you might say.’
Swanson lit up another cigarette.
‘Something not agreeing with you, Mr Swanson? Oh, and I missed somebody out, didn’t I?’
Tyler leaned forward and Swanson edged back in his chair, as though trying to get away from the relentless, accusing presence of the detective.
‘So, who have I missed out? He’ll be here any time now, but let’s see if you can remember, shall we? See if you can work it out.’
The silence thickened.
‘Good career, social work. Very noble and worthwhile, I imagine – protecting children. Don’t know what your boss is going to think, though, when she finds out that you ha
d a hand in killing one. May have been a long time ago, but even adolescent child killers aren’t welcome in the profession these days, so I’m told. Be a pity to carry the weight of somebody else’s baggage through the rest of your life.’
The crack came so fast that Tyler practically heard it. It announced itself as a deep moan from within the broken figure sitting before him.
‘I didn’t do anything.’
‘Didn’t do anything, Mr Swanson?’
‘I was down The Stumps when they were hitting that kid but I didn’t—’
‘You mean Alan Dale?’
Swanson nodded, taking in another lungful of smoke.
‘Hitting him?’
Swanson gave his account of the events that day.
‘So, who was doing the hitting?’ asked Tyler.
‘Jenkins.’
‘Anybody else?’
Swanson was thinking about it.
‘Hillman?’
‘No.’
‘But he was there, wasn’t he?’
‘He might have been, I don’t know.’
‘So, who was there?’
Tyler suddenly felt like a midwife at the anticipation of a long and protracted delivery.
Swanson appeared to ponder, intermittently looking from Tyler to ashtray and back again.
‘Mr Swanson?’
The agitation was increasing, and Swanson appeared ready to burst open with it. At last Tyler said, ‘Listen: I will name them and you will say whether they were there or not, do you understand?’
Tyler raised his voice, and spoke more slowly. ‘Mr Swanson … do … you … under … stand?’
Jenkins, Dammers, Marley, Swanson himself – yes, they were there, all four of them. But at the name Hillman he again hesitated.
Tyler repeated the name. Swanson was shaking, head to toe.
For the final time, Tyler asked the question: was Hillman present?
‘Mr Swanson?’
The man looked into Tyler’s eye.
‘I’m scared.’
Red is the Colour Page 18