by Adam Carter
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” she said. “I’m going back to meet with Ray. With any luck, he won’t have any leads and nothing’s ever going to come of this. Some cases are just never solved, Harry, and this could become one of them. That means you can never meet Ray Barden, I can never talk to him about you, all right?”
“Fine with me.”
“What I want you to do is stay here. Don’t go outside for any reason. Get rid of those shoes, but don’t burn them outside because that’s something the neighbours will see and remember.” She thought quickly. “The bath. Burn them in the bath, along with your clothes. Are they out the wash yet?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve left them in the machine.”
“I don’t even know how to work the thing.”
Lees shook her head in resignation that she would have to do everything herself. “Get your clothes out of the machine, put them over the radiator until they’re dry, then burn them in the bath as well.”
“I can’t take them straight out and burn them while they’re wet?”
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that.”
Knowing Harry would somehow mess it up, she went to the washing machine and pulled out the clothes herself. The wash cycle had finished hours earlier and she was annoyed as she dumped the wet, heavy garments into a basket. They should have dried by now, should have already been on their way to clothing heaven, but Harry did not seem to know how to look after himself. She began to wonder how he had ever managed before she had met him.
“Your two friends,” she said as she shoved the basket into his hands, impacting into his stomach with an ‘oomph!’. “What are their names?”
“What? Why?”
“Because I need to know in case Ray finds either of them. Come on, what are their names?”
“You’re not going to turn them in then?”
“How could I turn them in without turning you in as well?”
“They wouldn’t give me up if they were arrested.”
Lees stared at him with a look that was half sympathetic, half despairing. “Yes. They would. Stop being so weird and just tell me their names.”
Reluctantly, Harry gave her what she wanted. Sean Mullin and David Straw. She would have loved to talk to them both herself, make sure they understood the seriousness of the situation, but if she was going to get back to Barden this side of Christmas, she didn’t have the time. That meant, unfortunately, she was going to have to trust Harry to do it for her.
“Have you called them today?” she asked.
“No. You told me to stay here and not do anything.”
“Call them once I’m gone. Tell them nothing, but just warn them the police might be looking for them. Hang about, one of them had run off before you threw Tanner in the river, right?”
“I didn’t throw him in the river.”
“Don’t be pedantic. Whoever ran off didn’t see a thing. All he could do would be to confirm you were at the scene, which is enough to put you in the frame but not enough to damn you. Which one ran away?”
“Sean.”
“And the other was on the floor in a daze, so he didn’t likely see anything either.” Her mind was working quickly. On one hand things suddenly did not look quite so bad, yet on the other she knew either man could still condemn him. Just positively placing him at the river would be enough to corroborate what all the other witnesses had seen.
“Talk to them,” she said, “but just tell them to shut up. They can’t mention last night to anyone, and I mean anyone. If they’ve already told people, we could be in trouble.”
“Why? Even if they’ve told someone they had a narrow escape, no one’s going to even know the guy fell in the river. It’s not like it’s going to make the papers or anything.”
“That all depends how he’s found.”
Harry said nothing and Lees could see he was again thinking. It was good to see him thinking for a change, and perhaps if they could make it out of this mess together he might emerge a better person.
“Anyway,” she said, “I have to go. Ray’s going to be wondering where I’ve got to, and I can hardly tell him I came home to see you.”
Harry nodded and thankfully remained silent. Lees was beginning to feel they might make it out of this yet.
Her mobile sounded in her pocket and she answered it quickly.
“Just on my way back, Ray,” she said. “Sorry about that, I got caught up in … Oh.”
She listened to what Barden had to say, made appropriate noises of her own, then hung up. She could see Harry was eager for news, that he even had the intelligence to understand it was something bad. She thought about breaking it to him slowly, but the idiot did not deserve her being so kind to him.
“That was Ray,” she said. “They’ve found a body.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Detective Barden had seen a lot of corpses in his time and that of John Tanner was no different. That it was Tanner was not in doubt, for while he was waiting for Lees to return he had brought in Appleton to positively identify the body. Appleton had come and gone, and Barden was somewhat glad Lees had not been there for it. She had not, after all, been especially pleasant to the woman, and Appleton had been upset enough as it was. Where Lees had got to, Barden could not say, but if this was how she treated her job, he could see why she had failed that detective’s exam.
The coroner had left him alone with the body, allowing him time to think through the situation. Barden did not know much about dead bodies, so most of what the coroner had told him had gone over his head. However, he understood what he needed to, and it gave him more than enough to be thinking about.
The door to the mortuary opened and as Lees walked in he could see she was haggard, distressed. Barden did not even feel the case had been an especially harrowing one, but perhaps it had just become commonplace to him. He could not remember ever being quite as Lees was now, but he supposed there had one time been someone in his place looking at him in much the way he was now looking at Lees. Since he had turned out all right, he decided to do what his own mentor had done and not mention it.
“Sorry,” Lees said. “Had something that couldn’t wait.”
“It happens. Anyway, here’s John Tanner. Shame, but he’s not turned up alive.”
Lees stared at the body as though electricity might shoot through her eyes and awaken the monster. “We sure he’s dead?”
“Are you feeling all right?”
“I meant are we sure it’s Tanner?”
“Appleton identified him. And yes, I’m sure he’s dead.”
She did not take her eyes from the corpse. At first he thought she was staring in horror, her mind aghast at what was lying before her; but then he realised she was examining the injuries. She was already moving ahead to the actual cause of death, which meant she had put her insecurities aside and was getting on with putting a villain behind bars.
“The injuries are consistent with a fight,” Barden said. He did not mention he had obtained all his information from the coroner; if she had been here on time, Lees would have found it all out herself. “Nothing professional, just a brawl. Bruising and cuts to the face, mainly. A broken nose consistent with the head-butt Harry supposedly gave him. And cracked knuckles from where he’s obviously punched someone in the face.”
“Backs up what we know, then,” Lees said.
“Yes.”
“And also what I suggested.”
“That Tanner was the antagonist?”
“The knuckles show he hit someone, hard. Are there any signs that he was punched anywhere near as hard as the one he gave?”
“No. The worst injury, as I said, is the broken nose, but that would have been the head-butt. Harry’s fists don’t seem to have left quite as much damage as Tanner’s would have. It would be interesting to see the other guy. Harry’s probably a mess, you know.”
“Then we need to find him before he can get himself
cleaned up. We should check the hospitals. It might take time, but it’s our best place to look.”
“Already put in the calls. There were a couple of possibilities, so I sent uniform to have a look. Neither was our man.”
“How do you know? We should go ourselves.”
“One was too old, one wasn’t white, and all the witnesses said Harry was white.”
“Still, we should be sure.”
“I trust uniform,” Barden said, “and considering you are uniform, you should trust them too.”
“Right. Sorry. Just eager to get a result, I guess.”
“Admirable. You want to ask me the cause of death?”
“I assumed it was drowning.”
“No. He was still alive when he hit the water, but he didn’t drown.”
“How did he die, then?”
“This is what killed him.” Barden indicated Tanner’s side and saw Lees’s eyes widen. There was a narrow slit in the skin which had bled out into the water. It was, to someone of Barden’s experience, unmistakable.
“That’s a knife wound,” Lees said.
“Our man Harry carries a knife.”
“No.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, none of the witnesses said anything about a knife.”
Barden eyed her curiously. She had been acting very strangely since all this had begun, and there was no way he believed she had reacted like that because she was thinking about the witness statements.
“Do you have any familiarity with this case, Carrie?” he asked.
“What? No, of course not.”
“So you’re not working on it with me?”
“No, I’m working on it with you. I thought you … I thought you meant do I know any of the people involved.”
“Good, because that’s exactly what I meant. Have you ever met Appleton? You seemed to hate her.”
“I don’t hate her.”
“Tanner, then? Or the suspects?”
“No, of course I don’t know anyone. I just …” Her voice drifted off.
“Just what?”
“Something similar happened to me when I was a teenager. I was just a witness, but my friend’s boyfriend was set upon. This is just bringing a lot of that back to me.”
It was a plausible enough answer, but she had never mentioned the incident before. Still, Barden did not like to call her a liar and decided he would trust her. “What was the result?” Barden asked. “Anyone die?”
“No. Just a fight. I guess that’s what guys do best, yeah?”
“Not all guys get into drunken brawls, Carrie.”
“I didn’t mean to suggest they did. What else can the body tell us?”
Barden knew a deflection when he heard one, but at least she was talking about the case now. “Not much. I’m assuming Harry was clever enough to toss the knife away. I’m hoping we might find it in the river, but it doesn’t look too good for that.”
“Where did the body surface?”
“About a mile away from where he fell in. I’m getting some people working on identifying the type of knife used, so until then we have to try harder to find the killer. I have a lead.”
“You do?”
“And a possible name. One of the witnesses worked with someone who seems to have recognised the description we put out. I got a call about half an hour ago giving me a name. I was about to go pay him a visit, if you’re ready.”
“Sure,” she said a little stiffly. “What’s the name?”
“Sean Mullin.”
“If he ran away, we won’t even be able to charge him as an accessory.”
“How do you know he’s the one who ran away?”
“I don’t. That’s why I said if.”
“Oh. Well, actually he is the one that ran away. But, even though he wasn’t there for the end, we can still bring him in. That’s how police work goes, remember? We question people and they lead us to other people, and sooner or later we get to a suspect and we arrest him. You know, standard police procedure.”
“Please don’t patronise me just because I’m having a bad day.”
It may have been a bit of a low blow, but Barden did not feel bad for having struck it.
Barden had already found out Mullin’s address so they headed over there immediately. It was still only half a day since the fight, so there was every chance Mullin did not even know there had been a body thrown in the river. Mullin had fled the scene before the fight got really bad, so he had probably just gone to bed and woke up with a hangover. He may not even have given a single thought to the fight as yet, which meant Barden could leap on him and get whatever he wanted.
From what Barden had learned, Mullin lived with his parents in a quiet neighbourhood. He always felt bad about arresting people in front of their parents, but when he was investigating a murder it was not something to which he gave much thought. Pulling up outside, they strode to the house and Barden knocked on the door. He could see there was a bell, but everyone expected the police to knock on the door so that was what he did.
After a few moments, a woman answered. She was aged somewhere in her fifties and was clearly Sean Mullin’s mother. Barden flashed her his identification and said, “Detective Barden, ma’am. I’d like a word with your son, if I may.”
“Sean?” She looked confused. “He’s not in. He went out this morning. Is he in any trouble?”
“Hopefully not, ma’am. Did he say where he was going?”
“Oh, no. What’s he done now?”
“Witnessed a fight, ma’am. I really do need to speak with him.”
“You might try his friends.”
“Could you tell me their names?”
“Oh, I don’t know their names.”
“Could you tell me what they look like?”
“I’ve never met them. But if you find them, they might know where he is.”
Barden had a strong dislike of people who stood at the door and gave him no information whatsoever. “Do you mind if we came inside?”
“I suppose not. You want to check he’s not in his room, I assume?”
It was precisely what Barden wanted to do, and he was surprised she was canny enough to have realised. “If I may. I hate not believing a lady, but it’s my job to check.”
Mrs Mullin was fine with them searching through her son’s things, although they did not spend long there and found nothing at all of interest. CDs, magazines, computer games: Sean’s room was just the same as anyone else aged in his early twenties. Nor were there any discarded clothes from the fight last night. Barden got the impression coming to Mullin’s house had been a waste of time after all.
“Thank you for your time, ma’am,” he said as he and Lees left. “When your son comes back, could you get him to give me a call at the station?”
“Certainly, Detective.”
Barden also hated people who were too polite when he was trying to arrest their children.
“Dead end,” Lees said as they approached their car.
“Maybe, maybe not. Mullin will now know we’re onto him and that may spook him, make him make a mistake.” He frowned, for he could see Lees was looking over his shoulder at something. Turning, he saw a young man walking towards them or, more specifically, towards the house. He was tall and scraggly, with a mop of untidy hair and trousers just a little too long. He did not match Mullin’s description, but he certainly matched someone else’s.
“David Straw?” Barden asked casually.
The man blanched, turned with a stumble and ran. Barden smiled. This was more like it.
“Caroline, go!”
Barden ran, knowing every second he wasted was allowing Straw a greater chance of escape. Straw was younger and had fear on his side, but Barden seldom lost a chase and wasn’t ready to now. He did not stop to see whether Lees was following, but hared down the street after the only lead the investigation had thus far turned up. After only twenty steps or so, Straw stumbled and Barden closed the gap, gr
abbing the younger man at the shoulder and twisting so he lost his balance. Straw fell clumsily and Barden placed a knee on him while he got the youth’s hands behind his back. As he dragged Straw back to his feet, he was barely even breathing hard.
It was only then he noticed Lees was still a few paces behind him, but it did not matter. They had a body at last.
“David Straw,” Barden said. “I think we’d like to talk to you down at the station.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Never said you did. You OK?” he asked Lees.
“Fine. Just not as fit as you.” She bent over, holding her hands to her knees. They had only run for about ten seconds, if that, and she was already worn out.
“You need to get yourself to the gym,” he said, shoving Straw ahead of him. But none of it mattered. They had someone in custody at last; now the real work could begin.
CHAPTER SIX
Lees had never felt as sick in her life as when she sat in the interrogation room. Beside her, Detective Barden was psyching himself up for the interview, while across the table sat the scruffy, nauseated form of David Straw. She did not know whether he had a hangover or whether his fear had made him turn pale, but she could tell this was his first time in a police station. She and Barden had checked his record and had found it clean, which was another indication that he had never been inside a police station; but Lees was trying to use her instincts a little more. Lees was glad of Straw’s fear, for the more he sweated, the less Barden would likely notice her own discomfiture.
There was a duty solicitor present, but she seemed content to let the officers ask their questions, which was always a bad sign. Lees realised then she did not even know the solicitor’s name, which was also a bad sign because it meant she had been told but had forgotten. It was something she would not admit to Barden.