by L M Krier
'I don't like it at all, Jim. It's got stitch-up written all over it. It's clever enough, in its way, but I can't see CPS being happy with it. We've got a tentative and probably suspect link between Bosko and Hutchinson from the car door and the business card, if they're confirmed, as I've no doubt they will be. Now we have his DNA, we'll check it against both scenes of crime but I'm pretty sure we won't find a match there. Not unless those three goons have been tampering with evidence in a big way.
'Both Rob and I, independently, found Bosko credible. There was no sign at all that he was lying, not at any stage of the interview. You can see for yourself on the playback, if you need to. But I can't believe both Rob and I would have missed something, if there was anything there to see. I don't like him for a suspect, not at all.'
'I don't like any of it any more than you do, Ted,' Jim Baker growled. 'We all know your famous intuition is usually right, but we need more than that. If he is our man and we let him go, we're up the creek without a paddle. The unit could go down, and you and I might be issuing fixed penalties for the rest of our lives.
'I like it even less going into a weekend, with the added hassle that gives us applying for extensions if we need them. When's our twenty-four hours up?'
'Two o'clock tomorrow morning.'
'If I authorise another twelve hours, does that give us long enough to achieve anything?'
'I'll come back in first thing in the morning, probably with Rob, and have another go at him, but I doubt his story is going to change one iota and I personally think he's telling the truth. As for officers possibly tampering with evidence, that's one for you or Complaints, I imagine? But I think it's something that needs looking into, on the quiet, and urgently.'
Jim Baker nodded his agreement. 'I'm pretty sure you're right, Ted. I wish you weren't, but I have a feeling you are.'
'Oh, and Jim? I'll go and talk to the custody sergeant now, but can you issue an official edict with a bit of clout? I don't want anyone interviewing Mr Bosko except me and Rob. I have a feeling that if Foster, Mackenzie and Coombs go anywhere near him, he would finish up confessing to every unsolved crime in history, and probably claiming to be Jack the Ripper.'
Chapter Sixteen
Before Ted left to head back to Stockport, having updated Foster's team on what he and the DSU had decided, he wanted a quick word with DC Winters. So far, he was the only one of Foster's team who had shown any sort of a spark. Ted was particularly interested to know why he hadn't looked as pleased at the rest of the team with their suspect.
'I have a little mission for you, DC Winters, if you're interested,' Ted told him. 'But just for the moment, I'd like to keep it quiet, if I can count on your discretion. I understand your loyalties lie with DI Foster, but I'd just ask you to trust me on this one. Can I rely on you?'
'I want to see the right suspect charged, sir,' the younger man told him. His answer, and the unexpected formality, told Ted all he needed to know about why Winters had not looked pleased about the suspect. If he didn't know, he certainly had a hunch that all was not as it should be. It was encouraging. Ted didn't like to think the whole team was rotten.
'I need you to go on a shopping trip for me. I'll authorise payment, of course, but I need it doing to be ready for me here first thing in the morning, when I come back to interview Mr Bosko. And I wondered if you would like to sit in on that interview, to see the fruits of your shopping? I'm hoping it may well be enlightening.'
Once in the car heading back south, with Rob driving, Ted phoned Jo to check how things were going back on his own patch.
'Not quite all quiet on the western front, boss,' Jo told him cheerfully. 'We've had a fatality. Looks like a domestic which got out of hand. We've got the boyfriend in custody but he's completely off his face, not fit to be interviewed. We've banged him up for now and I'm coming in first thing in the morning, with Mike, to question him, when he's hopefully come down off whatever it was. Everything's in hand, though, and I'd be surprised if he was going to try to deny it, although he may deny intention to kill.'
Jo was turning out to be a real asset. It was certainly taking some pressure off Ted to have someone senior at the helm while he was away in another division. As long as Jo's seemingly roving eye and twinkling gold tooth didn't lead to relationship problems within the team, he was glad to have him on board.
Ted left his car on the driveway when he got home. It was later than he had hoped. It didn't leave him much time before he would have to go out again, to be at the pub to see if Jezza and Megan could find Suki.
He found Trev in the sitting room, stretched out full length in what looked like a press-up position, but with his weight resting on his forearms. He was holding the position without moving, throwing the muscles in his shoulders and arms into sharp relief.
'What are you doing?' Ted asked him curiously.
'Planking,' Trev replied. 'It's all the rage. And it's harder than it looks.'
'How long do you have to stay like that?'
'Until my muscles get too wobbly, which they are just starting to do.' Trev lowered himself to one knee then sprang lightly to his feet. He was wearing sweat pants with a vest top, showing his clearly defined muscles and a body with not an ounce of spare fat. 'I have to work hard to keep my body in perfect shape. I live with an insatiable sex fiend,' he grinned as he greeted his partner with a hug.
No matter how hard Ted's day, Trev usually succeeded in making him smile, as he did now.
'Your body is already perfect. That's why I'm insatiable. But I'm going to have to love you and leave you yet again. I've got to go and chaperone Jezza in a dodgy pub full of rampant women. I've just got time for a shower and change, grab a bite to eat, then I have to go. Oh, and I'm sorry, but I'll need to work tomorrow, too. But I'll make it up to you as soon as I can.'
Trev was nuzzling his neck suggestively. 'I need a shower too, after my work-out. We could share, to save water. Then I could make you a bacon butty to eat on your way. And I'm going to call that favour in sometime soon. Shewee's trying out for the school eventing team and she wants me to go down to Somerset to watch her compete on Blue. I'd like you to come with me. But for now…'
Ted was only just on time to meet the others at the pub. Kevin Turner and Maurice Brown were already installed in a corner, their drinks in front of them, in a good position to give them a view of the whole room, which was already busy. With his peripheral vision, Ted saw that Jezza and Megan were also there, sitting near to a bunch of other women, talking loudly. He made no move to acknowledge them.
'How did it go, Kev?' he asked, sitting down, while Maurice went to the bar to get him a drink as the other two caught up.
'Ulcers. Can all be sorted with a few pills. And you were right about Maurice; he was bloody marvellous. To think I'd been worrying and bricking myself about it for weeks. Not very pleasant, but it's done and there's nothing to worry about.'
Maurice Brown was looking even better than the previous week, and Ted noticed that he was on soft drinks. He appeared to be in his element, with a seemingly plentiful supply of single females. But the three of them were there for a specific purpose, keeping an eye on Jezza and Megan, and looking out for anyone who may have been the real killer. Ted was still convinced that Pawel the Plumber was not their man.
Jezza had been agreeably surprised to see how well Megan had entered into her role for the evening. She realised she had been judgemental of her new colleague. To see the way the two of them were turned out, few people would have taken them for off-duty police officers. They were there specifically to try to find Suki, so they mixed with other women. But to keep up appearances, when either of them went to the bar, they would flirt outrageously with any men in their path.
Jezza had asked a few women already if they knew Suki but had so far drawn a blank. At the moment, women far outnumbered the men in the bar and Ted's trio were attracting a fair bit of attention, to Maurice's evident delight.
When the door opened to yet
another group of young women, who headed straight for the bar, Jezza got up to join them and order more drinks.
'Hi, is Suki coming tonight, do you know?' she asked the one nearest to her.
The young woman pointed towards the other end of the bar as she replied, 'Suki? She's over there.'
Jezza laughed it off. 'God, sorry, bird, so she is. Teach me to be too vain to put my specs on when I go out on the pull.'
She collected the drinks she'd ordered, then made her way casually to the person who'd been indicated to her. She looked to be in her late twenties, blonde and attractive, busy attacking the tequila slammers with her friends. As Jezza drew level with her, she let out a squeal of apparent delight as she said, 'Suki! Hi! Not seen you in ages. Where've you been hiding?'
Suki looked at her blankly, clearly struggling to put a name to the face which was greeting her. Dressed as she was, and with all her many piercings back in place, Jezza looked nothing like anyone's idea of a copper, even one off-duty who was trained in drama and an expert at blending in.
'Jezza,' Jezza supplied helpfully. 'We met in here, a few weeks ago now. I kept meaning to give you a bell. You were probably as pissed as me and forgot all about me.'
It was such a simple tactic, yet it worked more often than not. Suggest to someone that they had met you before and they would often believe that they had, without remembering when or where. Jezza had it off to a fine art. The two were soon chatting away as if they were long-lost friends just reunited, then Jezza skilfully steered her over to join Megan at their table.
'Don't look now,' Jezza said, with an elaborate show of casually ignoring people, 'but those three blokes over there keep looking at us. I reckon we've pulled. Three of them, three of us. Perfect.'
'Which one do you fancy, Jezza? The small one looks cute and cuddly,' Megan replied, throwing herself into the part and nearly giving Jezza the giggles in the process.
'I've got a thing for older men,' Suki told them. 'If I have to pick one at a time, although I'm open to other suggestions, I'll take the one in the middle. He looks a bit of a silver fox.'
Jezza lost it at that point, nearly snorting her drink back down her nose. Suki was eyeing up Kevin Turner, Megan had suggested Ted, which left her with Maurice Brown who, she knew, fancied the pants off her anyway, even if they were good friends and work colleagues.
They'd prearranged a signal with Ted, in case they succeeded in finding Suki, so he could come over. She wasn't a suspect at this stage, simply a witness, but they needed to talk to her and she might be wary if she'd made the connection between the man she'd gone to the hotel with and the press and television news articles about a body being found there. Jezza made direct eye contact with Ted across the crowded room and raised her glass towards him in invitation.
'Get your coats, gentlemen, we've pulled,' Ted told the others ironically, then added, 'Remember, Maurice, what we're here for is just to find and interview a witness. So don't get your hopes up.'
'Or anything else,' Kevin added, giving Maurice a suggestive nudge with his elbow.
The three sauntered over, trying to look nonchalant, then pulled up stools to join the three women. First names were exchanged to begin with, the conversation kept casual. The three men were sitting in such a way that none of the women opposite them could leave their seats easily. Then Ted switched into professional mode.
'Suki, I'm sorry if we've led you on, but we're police officers. We've been looking for you in connection with a death which you probably read about in the local papers. I believe you may have been with the man who died, a Duncan Waters, shortly before he was killed. You may have known him as Duncan Allen.'
Suki had gone white as soon as he began to speak. She whispered, 'Oh, shit.'
'You're not a suspect, Suki, we just need a witness statement from you, and we had trouble tracking you down. Hence turning up here tonight looking for you.'
'I've been avoiding my place for the time being. A small matter of outstanding rent and a not very accommodating landlord. I've been dossing with friends.'
'I'm sorry we're mob-handed, don't let that alarm you. Jezza and Megan were just here to find you. The rest of us were having a social drink, that's all. Would you be willing to come out to my car, with Megan, and tell us what happened the night you were with Duncan Waters?' Ted slid his warrant card across the table so she could see it. 'It's a bit unorthodox but we do need to question you. We might need you to come into the station at a later date to make a formal statement.'
She was looking from one to another in bewilderment. 'You're all coppers, all of you? And I suppose we've never really met before?' she asked Jezza.
Jezza grinned at her. 'We may have done, but we were maybe both too pissed to remember.'
'And you three aren't out on the pull?' she asked, still looking hopefully at Kevin Turner, who was smiling back at her appreciatively.
'I'm afraid not,' Ted smiled. 'I'm sorry for the subterfuge but we really do need to speak to you. Would you be willing to come outside? My car's not far and Megan can come with us.'
'I'm not into that kind of threesome,' she told him with a laugh. 'And I don't need a chaperone.'
'I think I might,' Ted told her candidly, but with a smile.
The three of them went out and got into Ted's car. He sat in the driver's seat, with Suki next to him and Megan in the back seat. He put the heater on as the night was chilly, and the interior light, so he could study Suki's face as she began talking.
She spoke frankly and without hesitation. She told them that she liked casual sexual encounters with older men, with no strings attached. She often used online dating sites and chat groups to meet up with them, as well as going to singles nights and speed dating.
She'd met Duncan Waters in a pub as arranged. There was an instant physical attraction between them, so after a meal together, they'd gone back to his hotel room and enjoyed what she described as some fairly lively sex. She told them she had left shortly before midnight when Waters had been alive and well. She'd not had any further contact with him and had never intended to.
'You didn't notice anyone else in the pub paying any particular attention to the two of you? Nobody behaving suspiciously? No signs of anyone following you?'
'I wasn't paying much attention to anyone else. We were both well up for it. We just wanted to get to his room and rip the clothes off one another.'
'Are you not worried by the risks of such encounters?' Ted asked her, as much out of curiosity as anything.
She shrugged, unconcerned. 'Some of my friends have done the whole get married, settle down, have kids thing. One of them is nothing but a human punch-bag but won't leave him. Another has a bloke who's always dipping his wick where he shouldn't and she's picked up STDs a couple of times from him. How is what I do any more risky than that?'
'And Duncan Waters was alive when you last saw him?'
'Most bits of him were, but one part was pretty much dead to the world,' she said, then caught herself up short. 'God, sorry, that sounds heartless. But he was fine. We'd had a good time but it was never going to be any more than just that.'
'Can anyone verify the time you left the hotel?'
'I called a taxi on my mobile from his room and they picked me up in front of the hotel. I can give you the details of the taxi firm, and they'll have it on their records. The driver was cute. I tried chatting him up on the way home, so he may well remember. Turned out I was wasting my time anyway. He told me he was gay and his boyfriend was a cage fighter, but he may just have been saying that.'
'And you can't think of anyone you know who might want to harm Mr Waters, because he'd met up with you? Partner, former partner, jealous boyfriend? Anyone who may have followed you to the hotel?'
'I'm really not into long-term relationships at all. Plenty of time for that later on, if I decide I want to do it. I can't think of anyone who would be bothered by me going off with someone else. I really can't.'
'We're going to need a formal
statement from you, at the station. We can arrange that for early next week,' Ted told her. 'But we need to be able to contact you, if you could give us an address, and confirm your current mobile phone number. And if you do remember anyone else in the pub at the same time, anyone who may have been looking at you, here's my card. Do please let me know.'
'I'm not being conceited or anything, but lots of men eye me up when I go out on the pull. If they didn't, I'd know I'd lost it. It's how I meet blokes a lot of the time. The Internet stuff is just for a bit of fun. I know that type are always married men, playing around away from home, and it adds a bit of a thrill.'
'Please be careful. It's a very dangerous game you're playing,' Ted told her earnestly, not wanting her to be another murder statistic, especially not on his own patch.
'Haven't I read somewhere that you're fifty per cent more likely to be killed by family or someone you know well than by a stranger?' she countered.
'Statistically, yes,' Ted conceded. 'But you're still taking a huge risk meeting up with people you don't know. Did Mr Waters mention anything to you about his domestic circumstances? About anyone who may have been watching him, or perhaps following him?'
She gave him a pitying look. 'That's not the kind of conversation we were having. I'm not interested in the whole 'my wife doesn't understand me' bit. It's just about casual sex, a one-off, no strings. Just a bit of fun. And it was fun, as it happens. He was quite imaginative.'
Ted knew, through his job, that people lived like that. He couldn't imagine anything worse. He thanked her for her time, took her contact details, and let her go back to her manhunt. He did wonder if she would succeed in getting her claws into Kevin Turner, although as far as he knew, Kev was happily married and didn't play away.