by Ken McCoy
‘I think this story is a load of rubbish. I know Winnie believes it because she believes in the boys, but I don’t because I happen to know that Roscoe Briggs killed Santiago.’
‘Really? How do you know?’ asked Hawkins.
‘Because he bloody well told me back there at the foundry. His last words were: “I might not have got you, but at least I got three grand for killing Santiago.” Last words of a dying man. Death-bed confession to a senior police officer. A lot of dying villains like to go out boasting that they’ve got one over on us coppers before they go.’
‘So,’ said Hawkins, ‘you’re saying the fall didn’t immediately kill him?’
‘He was all but dead, alive enough only to talk to me for a few seconds.’
‘You should have made a statement to this effect at the time and it could have been verified by our forensic people. It’s too late now with Briggs having been cremated.’
‘Sorry about that, but my mind was all over the place.’
‘He didn’t look to have much life in him to me,’ said Fiona.
‘He didn’t have any life in him when you arrived!’ retorted Sep, annoyed that she wasn’t helping him to help Winnie. Surely she must see what he was trying to do.
Hawkins studied him, nodding slightly, as if to indicate that she knew what he was doing and that she approved. Then she asked him, ‘Why would the Piper boys concoct such a story?’
‘I don’t know, ma’am. Their mental limitations might well come to their rescue in court. A half-decent defence brief will destroy their testimony and they have the money to hire the best. This will leave us police with egg on our faces.’
‘So, DI Black, if you stick to your story how are we supposed to handle this?’
‘Well,’ said Sep, ‘if Adam’s outlandish statement about Snowball reaches the hands of the NYPD, which it would, it condemns all three of them, including Winnie, as having committed a very major crime in the US. Is that what we want? All three of them extradited to the States where the boys’ UK immunity doesn’t count? Long prison terms for them all, I shouldn’t wonder. And we must bear in mind that all three of them came here of their own free will, at our request, to straighten this mess out.’
‘And …?’ asked Hawkins.
‘And,’ said Sep, ‘We’re here to find out who murdered who and why. We definitely know who killed Feather and James Boswell and Agnes from the Grimshawe. I say we now add Santiago to the other three solved murders. The two murderers being Martyn Rogerson and Roscoe Briggs.’
There was a silence in the room, broken only by Hawkins drumming her fingers on the desk, her thoughtful and narrowed eyes on Julie.
‘Mrs Rogerson, Miss O’Toole and the Piper brothers, I wonder if you could leave us at this point. This is a matter to be resolved by police alone.’
‘She means not to be discussed in front of a reporter,’ said Julie to Winnie as they left the room.
‘Think yourselves lucky you’re all walking away from this without being charged with anything!’ snapped Hawkins.
She waited a few seconds after they’d left before saying, ‘So, what we possibly have in reality are three murders which we have solved, which is good, and one accidental death which is not good. The latter will make the police seem rather unprofessional, having spent so much time and money investigating what amounts to a no offence. After our success in solving the other murders it would seem foolish to blemish our success with what is, at worst, death by misadventure.
‘On balance,’ she went on, ‘It would save us enormous trouble to simply take your version as the most likely cause of Charles Santiago’s death, Detective Inspector Black.’
‘Everything to gain, nothing to lose, ma’am,’ said Sep. ‘Roscoe Briggs is dead. We already know he was a hitman. Let him make our job easier.’
Hawkins continued: ‘With regard to the programme in the NYSE computer we’ve already been in contact with the New York police to tell them, in absolute confidence, about a scam some of our criminals were running to defraud their stock exchange. I did tell them that the two main perpetrators were dead and the rest locked up and that the scam is dead and buried and no longer running. I heard yesterday that a top expert has been all over the NYSE computers and had found a programme that seemed surplus to requirements which he’s deleted. They’re happy to leave it at that because any story about the stock exchange being defrauded would cause unnecessary panic in the world money markets.’
‘So, what’s the outcome, ma’am?’ asked Sep.
‘Well, I anticipated something like this, which is why I made myself the senior officer present. First of all we must thank Winnie O’Toole and the Piper brothers for coming over here to clear things up for us. Our reward to them is that they will have no charges to answer to. I suggest we use Roscoe Briggs’s deathbed confession to our advantage. DI Black will of course need to make a sworn statement to this effect.’
‘Not a problem, ma’am.’
‘Excellent. Then Roscoe Briggs’s death and his confession wraps up this whole bloody pantomime very neatly. So, all the crimes are solved and no one present at this meeting is to be prosecuted for any of them.’
‘What about Martyn?’ asked Julie.
‘Martyn will need to be caught and brought before the courts,’ said Hawkins to her, ‘so if you have any clue at all as to his whereabouts, you need to tell us.’
‘I’ve no idea where he is,’ said Julie.
Sep looked, keenly, at her to see if she was telling the truth. Julie looked back and gave him a challenging smile. Hawkins looked around the room and added, slowly and clearly: ‘For obvious reasons I expect that every word spoken at this meeting to be forever cloaked in absolute secrecy by all who are present.’
Heads nodded all around the room. Everyone understood the gravity of her words.
‘Then this meeting is concluded.’
Sep winked at Winnie, who mouthed Now will you marry me to him.
EPILOGUE
Sep had been discharged into Winnie’s care. She was driving him home in his recently acquired Jaguar.
‘Last words of a dying man, my arse. Jesus! Septimus Black, you really are a world-class liar!’
‘How do you know he didn’t confess to me?’
‘Because I saw his brains scattered all over the concrete. That man was stone dead when he hit the deck.’
‘Was he? I must have been hearing things – things very much to your advantage I might add.’
‘I know and thank you, but Hawkins will know all that. She’s not an idiot. Shouldn’t a copper of her rank have gone by the book?’
‘She is going by the book. There’s firm proof that Roscoe killed Feather and it clearly follows that he killed Santiago as well. Sometimes we have to go on circumstantial evidence. This way, no one’s going to be unjustly punished. Anyway, why are you upset? She’s got you off the hook.’
‘She’s let you get me off the hook, you mean. You coppers twist things to suit yourselves.’
‘Suit ourselves? To suit you, you mean. You and Mrs Rogerson and the Pipers. You were the winners here, not the coppers; and for your information we are going by the book. Roscoe’s confession won’t form any part of the evidence against him. We have him nailed on the Graham Feather murder without his confession and enough circumstantial to pin the Santiago murder on him as well. Legally, we’ve got all we need.’
‘I know but … bloody hell, Sep! You’ve got to sign a sworn statement.’
‘I’ll be doing no such thing and Hawkins won’t press me on it. Winnie, did you not think justice was done back there?’
‘I don’t know. I wasn’t allowed in the room when it was done.’
‘If Julie had been allowed in she’d have made a story out of it and sold it to a national paper and you and the boys would be on your way to the States very shortly to face major charges. Winnie, the law isn’t always black and white. If we can, we like to be fair whenever possible. I just saw a way of making it possible. Hawkins p
icked up on what I was doing and made it work. Neither of us wanted to see you banged up, especially after all the trouble you lot took to help us sort this mess out.’
‘The two of you have it all nicely sewn up, haven’t you?’
‘Rank has its privileges and it’s been our privilege to see justice done.’
Winnie pressed the button that had the hood come up. She waited until it had clicked into place before saying, ‘Talking of justice, you told me that if I came back, you’d give me this car and your word to me is your bond. You’ve often told me that.’
‘So, you’re back for good, are you?’
‘I am, if I get to keep this car.’
‘What? You’d take this off me, after I’ve saved you a ten stretch in an American prison and you call that justice?’
‘Why not? Your word is your bond, Sep. Oh, by the way, Hawkins had a word with me on the way out.’
‘Yes, I saw you two talking.’
‘She’s offered me a job. In fact, she’s offered both me and Adam jobs. The West Yorkshire Police are opening a Yorkshire Cyber Crime Unit based in Leeds and they need someone with Adam’s expertise to run it. I did tell her that Adam couldn’t run a bloody whelk stall, which is why she offered me the job as his mouthpiece, so to speak. With me understanding what he’s talking about I’d be able to pass it on to our minions with some authority. That’s what Adam lacks, you see, my authority. We’d make a good team, don’t you think? I stay a civilian but I get sergeant’s wages.’
‘Winnie, are you really going to keep my car?’
She grinned and said, ‘Hey, do you know who the top expert is who did the impossible and found the file in the NYSE computer? The only person in the world who could find such a thing.’
Sep chewed this question over in his mind for a while, until realization hit him.
‘Oh, please, no!’
‘Oh, please, yes!’
‘So, it’s still in there?’
‘Who knows?’
‘Jesus, Winnie!’
‘Sep, if we get married, this’ll be our family car.’