Scene of Crime

by Jill McGown

  After a moment or two his eyes became accustomed to the half-light, and he made his way through the dancers to where he could see big Baz Martin trying and failing to perform the same actions to the music that everyone else was. Tom smiled as the overamplified sound resolved itself into a recycled pop song from his teenage years, and he watched them all doing the hokey-cokey, in effect. Now that he came to think of it, it was more like summer camp than Sodom and Gomorrah. But maybe that just made it more sinister.

  Baz gave up and draped himself around the young woman he was dancing with instead, his tongue halfway down her throat by the time Tom reached them. At least she looked old enough to be out on her own.

  “Sorry to break this up,” Tom said.

  Baz surfaced and looked at him, his eyebrows drawn together. “Who the hell are you?” he said, then his face cleared. “Sergeant Finch? What’s happened to your hair?”

  “A word, Baz,” said Tom, steering him off the dance floor. “Excuse us,” he threw over his shoulder at Baz’s date, who looked less than impressed. Tom led the protesting Baz outside.

  “I’ve got nothing on me, honest!”

  “I should hope not,” said Tom. “You’re in court on Wednesday, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Relax, Baz. I’m not looking for controlled substances. But I do want to know all about a jade cat.”

  “A what?” Baz craned his neck to see inside.

  “A green cat. Your mate sold it tonight.”

  “It wasn’t nicked,” said Baz, his eyes still searching what he could see of the dance floor through the half-open door and the enormous bouncer. “Honest. He bought it. He said.”

  “Yeah? So who is this mate of yours?”

  “I don’t know his name.”

  Tom smiled. “A real close mate, is he? He wouldn’t be your cousin Ryan, by any chance?”

  “Ry? No.” Baz shook his head, and turned away to see what was going on in the club. “I’ve not seen Ry for weeks. It was just a mate.” He looked back at Tom, his eyes imploring. “Look, Sergeant Finch,” he said, pointing over his shoulder. “I’m on a promise. Can I go back in now?”

  “No, I don’t think so, Baz. I think you’re going to have to come to the station with me and help me with my inquiries.”

  Baz’s mouth fell open. “But Sergeant Finch—” he said, motioning toward the dance floor.

  “Or you can tell me who your mate is. It’s up to you.”

  “I dunno his name.” Baz shook his head, and Baz was very stubborn. “Honest, I don’t.” He glanced into the club once more, and turned back, his eyebrows meeting with anxiety. “Sergeant Finch,” he said, practically squirming with desperation, “I’ve got to get back inside.”

  Tom could have taken him in and spent the next two hours failing to worm Ryan Chester’s name out of him in any form that could be called a statement, but he felt a carrot would be more likely to produce results than a stick. “Well, if you won’t tell me who your mate was, you can tell me who he sold it to. Is the purchaser still in the club?”

  Baz looked a little mutinous, which meant that he was. Now Tom knew he had some real bargaining power. “Let’s go back in, then,” he said. “Introduce me to him.”

  Baz’s face, which had lit up with Tom’s first statement, fell with his second. “You’re joking, aren’t you?”

  “No. Either you tell me who bought it, or you don’t go back in at all.”

  Baz was seeing his hoped-for night of passion slip away. “But I can’t do that,” he said. “I’m not a grass.”

  “I thought you said it wasn’t nicked?” Tom said. “That’s not grassing, Baz. Just point him out to me, and you can get back to what you were doing. Or you can spend the night with me. It’s your choice, but you might be banged up come Wednesday, so it could be your last chance for a while. I know which I’d go for, if I were you.”

  Baz struggled with his conscience, and his libido won. “Okay,” he said, diving back into the club so fast that Tom was left standing. He caught up as Baz nodded through the gloom to an older man who sat at a table with a group of people. “He’s the one with the tie on,” he said. “His name’s Wayne. Don’t tell him I told you.”

  Wayne, once the situation had been explained to him, and the word death had been introduced, proved more than willing to come to the police station voluntarily to help Tom with his inquiries.

  Half an hour later Tom saw him off the premises and looked at his bowdlerized and sanitized statement. Wayne had, of course, bought the items in good faith, and was only too happy to hand them over. He wouldn’t normally buy things in a drinking establishment, but he had assumed they would be the vendor’s to sell, Baz being someone whose judgment he trusted, and it being Baz’s cousin Ryan who was selling them. Tom smiled. Wayne must be the only man in Malworth who trusted Baz Martin’s judgment, but given that Baz and Wayne’s combined IQ fell short of double figures, it might even be true.

  So Jimmy had earned his money, and now Tom had to plan a surprise visit for Ryan Chester.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A dawn raid. Long before dawn, actually; it was only just getting light now. Ryan had never been the subject of one before, despite his calling; he had been woken in what seemed like the middle of the night by Detective Sergeant Finch telling him to get out of bed, demanding that he open his locked closet. At first he hadn’t recognized Finch; the last time he’d had dealings with the detective, his hair had looked a bit like Dex’s, only blond. Now he’d had it cut so short it didn’t curl.

  “It doesn’t suit you,” he had said.

  “Your opinion doesn’t interest me very much,” Finch replied. “Get up.”

  He and his colleagues had searched his room, and when they found the candlesticks he was going to give to his mum, they arrested him on suspicion of burglary and manslaughter, which left Ryan open-mouthed with disbelief. He had hoped for quite some time that he was dreaming, but he was beginning to accept that it was reality. The really surreal bit was that they’d arrested Dex, too, as soon as they saw him, which Ryan didn’t understand at all.

  Dex had been in bed when he’d gotten home, his mother having called the doctor just in case it was worse than Ryan had thought. The doctor had sent him to bed, so Ryan had to wait to talk to Dex. And he hadn’t exactly been given the chance this morning, so he was none the wiser about who had beaten Dex up, or why, and now Dex had been arrested, just as his mother had predicted.

  His mother had been in tears, and blaming him, of course. Saying she knew he’d been up to no good, knew he’d been getting Dex into trouble, and that had not helped his case with Finch. Then, when she realized they were saying he had killed someone, she went right off the deep end. Her son would never do a thing like that—the whole bit. Finch just raised his eyes to heaven and ignored her.

  Ryan had been asked if the shoes he was wearing were the ones he’d worn last night, and he said yes.

  “No, they’re not,” his mum said. “You wore those other ones early on.”

  “Mum!”

  She had come up to him then. “Did you kill someone last night?” she asked.

  “Of course not!”

  “Did you burgle a house?”

  “No.”

  “Then let them look at your shoes. Let them look at anything they want. Let them prove you didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  Now, sitting in the cell, Ryan tried to get his head around it all. “What about Dex?” he asked Stan Braithwaite, the solicitor who had been doing his best to represent him since he was fourteen years old.

  Stan shrugged. “Your mum said she wanted Dex to tell the police everything they wanted to know, and that he wouldn’t need me there to do that.”

  Ryan closed his eyes. “Well, let’s hope he wasn’t burgling this house. Because I wasn’t.”

  “Are you being straight with me, Ryan? You really aren’t involved in this burglary?”

  Ryan nodded. “But Dex was up to somet
hing, Stan. Have you seen the state he’s in? Someone gave him a right going-over last night.”

  “Are you honestly saying you can’t tell me anything at all about what went on there last night? The police are playing their cards very close to their chest—they haven’t told me what they’ve got on you.”

  “I know nothing about any burglary,” Ryan said. “And I’ve no idea what Dex was up to.”

  “In that case, you say no comment to every question they ask, or you’ll make my job very difficult when your mum decides that Dex does need a solicitor after all.”

  “Okay.”

  It was Lloyd and Finch who were doing the interview. Ryan knew Lloyd; he hadn’t had much to do with him lately, but they had sat opposite one another when he was a kid and Lloyd was a DI, and Ryan wasn’t too keen on being questioned by him. Finch was okay—he was straightforward, but Lloyd was up to every psychological trick in the book. It was Finch who led the questioning, and that didn’t surprise Ryan. Lloyd nearly always let his co-interviewer do that.

  “All right,” said Finch. “Where were you at eight-fifteen yesterday evening, Ryan?”

  “No comment.”

  “And where was Dexter?”

  “My client doesn’t have to answer that,” said Stan. “To quote the Good Book—he is not his brother’s keeper.”

  “As I recall, it was a murderer who said that,” Lloyd murmured.

  Thanks, Stan. Ryan glared at him.

  Sergeant Finch produced, much as Ryan had himself, the jade cat, the handbag, and the CDs. “I am showing Mr. Chester evidence bags marked TF1, TF2 and TF3,” he said. “Do you recognize these items, Ryan?”

  “No comment.”

  “I have a statement saying that you sold these items for seventy-five pounds in the Starland club last night.” Finch looked impressed. “You’re a good salesman, Ryan. I’d have reckoned thirty or forty pounds at the most. But then your customer isn’t the brightest thing on two legs, is he? Not just as dim as Baz, of course. But close.”

  “No comment.” Trust Baz to have mates who grassed you up. He really must stop using Baz. For anything.

  “These items were removed from number 4 Windermere Terrace during the course of a burglary which took place last night.”

  Ryan could practically hear Stan’s blood pressure rising. Finch sat back a little. “Number 4 Windermere Terrace is the home of a Dr. and Mrs. Bignall,” he said. “Mrs. Bignall died as a result of treatment she received at the hands of the intruders.”

  Ryan stared at him, his mouth open. He hadn’t recognized the address. And did he just say that Mrs. Bignall was dead? “What—What happened to her?” he asked.

  “She was left bound and gagged. She couldn’t breathe, and so she died.”

  “Your mother cleans for the Bignalls, doesn’t she?” asked Lloyd.

  Ryan looked helplessly at Stan, who was tight-lipped and angry, then looked back at Lloyd, nodding.

  “So how did these items come to be in your possession?”

  Ryan’s mind was racing. “No comment,” he said.

  Lloyd shook his head, smiling a little. “Ryan, you and I have met before. I know you. You’re a bright lad.” He tipped the seat back slightly.

  Ryan had seen him do that before. It was when he thought he had you.

  “You know, it’s said that if criminals weren’t stupid, we wouldn’t catch any at all,” Lloyd said, rocking gently as he spoke. “And I have to be honest with you—there’s a lot of truth in that. Most of them are very stupid, and that is how we get them. But you’re not stupid, Ryan. We haven’t seen you here in over a year, and I don’t suppose that’s because you’re sticking to the straight and narrow. It’s because you use your head.” He let the chair fall forward. “CDs, Ryan. You must know that the cases are the perfect surface for fingerprints. A fingerprint expert would use Perspex if he wanted to demonstrate how fingerprint identification works. And these,” he said, picking up the bag, “are going off right now to be fingerprinted. And since you know that your prints must be all over them, you would never be stupid enough to think you could get away with denying all knowledge of them.”

  “I think my client would probably like a word with me, Chief Inspector,” said Stan through his teeth.

  “Ryan?” said Lloyd.

  “All right, all right, I sold them,” said Ryan, seeing little point in having a word with Stan, despite the sharp kick his leg was given under the table. “But I never burgled anywhere.”

  Finch now produced the candlesticks, and everything he’d stashed in the garage. His mum must have told them about it, true to her belief that letting the police see everything would prove his innocence. It hadn’t been used for a car—at least, not one his mother knew about—since Edward had died, and the rent for it was lumped in with the rent for the house; he thought she’d forgotten it existed. Unfortunately, she hadn’t.

  “And these?” said Finch. “I’m showing Mr. Chester evidence bag TF4, containing two candlesticks recovered from a closet in the home of a Mrs. Janet Gibson, and evidence bag TF5, containing items recovered from a storage garage in Ellis Street rented by the same Mrs. Janet Gibson. Your mother was unable to account for these items being in her closet and her garage, Ryan. Can you?”

  “I put them there.” He was kicked again, harder. Well, bloody hell, he had to admit it was him. He wouldn’t put it past them to charge his mum with handling.

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” said Finch. “And how did you get hold of them?”

  “I found them.”

  Lloyd was smiling broadly. “You found them,” he repeated. “Well, why didn’t you say that in the first place?”

  “Chief Inspector,” said Stan. “I really must ask you to allow me to speak to my client in private.”

  Lloyd raised his eyebrows inquiringly at Ryan, who shook his head and turned to Stan. “It’s okay,” he said. “I did find them.”

  Stan sighed deeply.

  “You know,” said Lloyd, “I’ve been a policeman since long before you were born, Ryan. Do you know how much walking I’ve done in that time? And in all those years, I have never once come across so much as one candlestick lying in the road. But you and your colleagues only have to step out of your front door and you find yourself tripping over microwaves, stubbing your toes on stereos, wading through bundles of cash, offensive weapons, credit cards, wallets—it’s odd that, isn’t it?”

  “I found them,” repeated Ryan. “They were in a sack.”

  “A sack?” said Finch. “Did you find a couple of reindeer while you were at it?”

  Ryan closed his eyes. “A black plastic sack,” he said. “A bin bag. You must have found it, too—they were still in it.”

  “Did you keep the rechargeable razor for yourself?” asked Finch.

  What was he talking about? Ryan frowned. “What rechargeable razor?” he asked.

  “That’s the only item known to be missing from 4 Windermere Terrace that we haven’t recovered,” Finch said. “Where is it?”

  Ryan shrugged, and looked down at his hands.

  “Someone answering your brother Dexter’s description was seen running away from the vicinity immediately after the window was broken,” Finch went on.

  Oh, God, no. Ryan didn’t react visibly, but inside he was terrified. What the hell had Dex been doing there? How had he gotten himself mixed up in this?

  “Was he supposed to be acting as lookout? Were you initiating him in the art of burglary?”

  “My client is not obliged to—”

  “Dexter was nowhere near the place!” As soon as the words were out, Ryan could feel Stan give up on him. That question required no comment if ever a question did.

  “Are you admitting that you were there?”

  “No comment.”

  “Look, Ryan,” said Lloyd. “I know that whoever carried out this burglary didn’t mean Mrs. Bignall to die. So if that was you, believe me, this whole thing will go a whole lot better for you if
you make a statement.”

  “But it wasn’t me. I didn’t burgle their house,” said Ryan, finding himself close to tears. “I didn’t tie anyone up.”

  “Did Dexter?” asked Finch.

  Ryan lifted his head. “No!” he said.

  “How do you know? I thought you didn’t know where he was?”

  Ryan shook his head. “I don’t,” he said. “But he wouldn’t do anything like that.”

  “Well, if it wasn’t you and it wasn’t Dexter, that just leaves your mother.”

  Ryan jumped to his feet, to find Stan restraining him and Lloyd shouting at him to sit down.

  “Chief Inspector, I think we can do without Sergeant Finch trying to provoke my client,” Stan said.

  “I think Sergeant Finch felt that he was offering the only other possible explanation,” Lloyd said, and looked at Ryan. “How did these items come to be in your possession? The truth, if that’s at all possible, Ryan.”

  “I found them. And that’s all I’m saying.”

  “Very well,” said Lloyd. “We’ll see what Dexter has to say about it, shall we? Interview terminated at 9:23 A.M.” He stood up. “And if I were you, Mr. Braithwaite, I would indeed have a word with my client. Make him see sense.”

  Back in the cell, Stan rounded on him. “How in hell am I supposed to represent you if you don’t level with me?” he said. “You swore to me you had nothing to do with that burglary, and I find that the entire proceeds are in your possession! You do realize how serious this is? For God’s sake, it’s manslaughter, Ryan.”

  Ryan looked up at him. “I never killed anyone.”

  “Ryan, Ryan. Use your head. Even if it was accidental, it’s still manslaughter because it’s against the law to tie people up and gag them—or maybe you don’t know that?”

  “I never tied anyone up! I never burgled anybody! I found that stuff!”

  “But don’t you see? You’ve admitted handling it—what are they going to believe if you can prove it wasn’t you who stole it? That Dexter did! That he tied the woman up! He’s the one who was seen, not you! Now, for God’s sake, tell me what you know about it!”