by Tin Larrick
“How are the girls?”
“Asleep. They’re okay.”
“Honey?” I said, before she could hang up.
A pause.
“Yes?”
“Think of the overtime.”
There was silence, then the bitter hiss of laughter through her teeth.
“We’ll get through this, Claire.”
“I hope so.”
“See you later, then.”
I went to replace the receiver.
“Dan?”
I put it to my ear again.
“I love you. I wish you were home.”
My heart leapt, and it felt as though someone had just unpicked all the knots in my shoulders.
“I love you too,” I said, and hung up.
I sat in silence at my desk. I hadn’t bothered to turn the lights on. The amber wash from the arc light over the alley between the station and the second-hand bookshop was sliced into thin strips by the window blinds and projected onto the far wall.
There was a burst of activity from a personal radio someone had left on their desk. The words were mostly unintelligible, but the voice was animated, and I caught clips of the transmission – words like ‘track,’ ‘containment’ and ‘closing in.’
I walked to the desk and switched the handset off. Typical CID. Go racing out of the station to get in on the action, and leave their radio behind.
Hope returned with two cups of strong coffee and two copies of Mickey Coombes’s previous convictions and intelligence reports wedged in his jaws. In the dark, I saw him frown. He set down the coffee and removed the paperwork, and then switched on the lights.
“Two TDA convictions from last year,” he said, sipping the coffee. “On bail for common assault, and a reprimand for being drunk and disorderly.”
He put the coffee down.
“Hardly the First Division,” he said.
“Just as well,” I said. “Not sure you could have fitted any more in your mouth.”
Hope snorted. “He’s a wannabe. Eighteen years old, thinks he’s seen it all.”
I flicked through the file.
“Looking for something special?” Hope asked.
“Something JD Burton said. Mickey’s brains… here we are.” I pulled an intelligence report from the file. “He would have been on course for GCSEs in all the sciences, but for his offending. He was expelled from Hampden Park secondary three months before his exams.”
“Idiot,” Hope said.
“According to this, he had enough smarts for college and beyond, but couldn’t hold it together.”
I put the file down.
“It’s early days, but the fire commander said he’s never seen a building go up like that. It ate a crane and seven cars. Eastbourne Fire Brigade took eleven 999 calls in ninety seconds, and the pumps came from all over.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I don’t think that was a can of petrol and a bit of rag. It went up like a bloody pyrotechnics show.”
“You’re thinking the little chemist helped it along?”
“Entirely possible. In any case I’d like to get in his room. If he’s experimenting at home, Special Branch ought to know about it.”
We entered the interview room. Mickey looked relaxed. He had an innocent-looking face, and there were smears of soot on the left side. He had stripped his paper suit down to the waist, and wore a grey singlet. His arms were folded, showing off the budding attempts at weightlifting he had embarked on. Mickey was the first of the crew to have requested a solicitor, and the wiry old crone sat in the corner, poring over his notes.
I started the interview, my delivery now stripped now of all garnish. I was getting tired, and the bravado coming off Mickey in waves did not serve to assist my mood.
“Mickey Coombes, eighteen years old. What’s your story?”
“No comment.” Mickey stretched his arms, sat back in his chair, and laced his hands behind his head. His little biceps twitched.
I leaned across the table at him, in one swift movement.
“No comment? Are you sure about that? We’ve got video footage of you walking out of an alleyway next to the old Cannon. Minutes later it’s a raging inferno. We can put you at the scene more or less immediately before the fire started. And you’ve got nothing to tell me?”
“No comment.”
“Want to know what your mate JD told us?”
“No comment.”
“And your mate Hippodrome? He’s bubbled you up good and proper.”
Mickey rolled his eyes and expelled air through his teeth.
“Look here, detective, you can lay off the mind games,” Mickey said. His solicitor leaned forward to speak, but Mickey stopped him with a wave of his palm. “I’ve been interviewed before, by CID an’ all.”
“That right?” Hope said. “CID? For two joyriding jobs and a D&D? I don’t think so. You’ll have to commit some proper crimes before you get treated like a man, Mickey.”
Mickey didn’t speak, but I could see Hope had needled him.
“My uncle’s in CID. I know the tricks.”
“I bet he loves having a pissant like you in the family.”
Mickey turned to his solicitor. “Yous gonna let him speak to me like that? That’s oppression.”
The solicitor began to speak, only to be shushed again by a waving palm, this time Hope’s.
“So now we’re on speaking terms, let’s talk,” I said, taking the reins again. “That fire was not the work of an amateur, Mickey. That was a professional job. Fire boss said he’s never seen anything like it.”
The ego-rub approach had worked. Mickey didn’t say anything, but his face and body language changed completely. He wanted more.
“The flames were a hundred feet high. They’ve only just put it out.”
Mickey shrugged – what can I say?
“But put it out they have, and we’ve been inside for a look.”
I slid a Polaroid across the table. It showed the charred, unrecognisable remains of the person I had seen behind the melted remnants of the cinema screen, grinning blackly where the lips had melted away to nothing.
Mickey swallowed. I kept my eyes on his face as it tightened up. I didn’t blink.
“Who is this?” I asked. I knew the answer, but I wanted to test him. Thinking we had yet to identify the corpse, his face relaxed just a fraction, but the implications were dawning on him.
I spelled it out for him.
“This is a murder investigation now, Mickey.”
At this, the solicitor sat forward and began to splutter about disclosure and rights and the fact that his client had only been arrested for arson.
I held up my hand in a placatory manner.
“Okay, let’s change tack slightly.”
Mickey looked relieved. I could feel Hope staring at me. “I want to talk about the box Trevelion gave you.”
There was a stunned silence. All I could hear was the gentle whirring of the tapes, the ventilation system deep in the bowels of the building, and the breathing of four men – my own slow and deep, Mickey’s fast and shallow, Hope’s slightly laboured and the solicitor’s raspy and irregular.
Hope and the solicitor were being left behind now, but I didn’t care. This was between Mickey and I.
“What? What?” Mickey said, in disbelief.
“The box Trevelion gave you,” I said, calmly. “What was in it?”
Mickey was speechless. I sat back in my chair.
“Take your time,” I said. “Don’t worry about how I know, just accept that I do, and then maybe we can make some progress.”
Mickey didn’t know what to say. I filled the silence by once again producing my collection of five Polaroids. I laid them on the table in a row.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll start you off. John Burton – JD.”
I slid the police mug shot of JD over to Mickey. His eyes dropped to it briefly, and then back to me.
“Kevin Gillespie.”
Kevin’
s mug shot followed.
“And Mickey Coombes,” I said, sliding his own likeness across the table to join the other three. I followed this with the fourth mug shot. “Adrian Knight, better known as Hippodrome.”
I slid the final photograph over, the one of the kid in the red hoody on the climbing frame.
“And Joseph Bonner. Known to his mates – especially the Kingsmere Krew – as Junior.”
I leaned forward again, and turned over the four Polaroids of JD, Hippodrome, Kevin and Mickey.
“Four are in custody and out of the picture. But Junior is still out there, somewhere in Ashdown Forest, trying manfully to evade us. He’s doing a grand job. But we’ve got dogs, armed officers, mounted officers and a helicopter. It’s just a matter of time. If you help me find him, I can guarantee his safety. If you don’t, well, those firearms boys can get a bit itchy if they spend too long primed for action. A bit tense. See what I’m saying?”
I sat back. He just stared at me.
“Who are you?” he said.
“I know most of it, Mickey. And I know this is really Junior’s story. You all were just players in his game. So tell me – what was in the box?”
Mickey Coombes looked around the grotty grey phone box of an interview room. It was airless in there, and it was getting stuffy with old breath and body odour. He looked up at the video camera in the corner of the room, then his gaze went from his solicitor to Hope before coming to rest on me.
He shook his head.
“You’ve got no idea. If you knew…”
“That’s why I’m asking, you bloody prat. Don’t say anything, you.” I turned to the solicitor, who closed his mouth before he could protest.
I sat forward, and lowered my voice to a whisper.
“What? What should I know? What happened? What was in the box?”
He dropped his head, and kept shaking his head.
“We swore… we’d never tell.”
*
kevin
I sat at my desk, feet up on the edge, staring into nothing. Hope sat nearby, tapping his pen slowly on the edge of his chair; rhythmically, like a metronome.
It was nearly two in the morning. My eyes were gritty. The yellow light of the office was harsh. My hands felt dirty and I needed a bath and a change of clothes. I needed a drink as well, but I was keeping that at bay. I loosened my tie and swigged some water instead.
Mickey had been about to speak. It was like a mantra going around in my head. He wanted to talk. I’d got to him. It doesn’t matter who you’re dealing with, if you can find the chink in the bravado, identify the load they’re carrying, they’ll want to get it off their chest. I wanted another go with him, but he had got so upset that we’d had to take a break, or, further down the line, some bleeding-heart judge would have forestalled our interview from ever being adduced in evidence. Got to look after these little thugs, and all that. Can’t be oppressive.
Hope stopped tapping.
“You know, it gets to this time of the morning and I could murder a cold beer,” Hope said.
I didn’t answer, but my thoughts moved to the accumulating pile of accusing letters on my doormat – and, latterly, my desk – and I silently agreed. Making the association by rote, I checked with the front desk for any messages from Claire. Nothing.
“What are you not telling me?” Hope said.
I looked at him.
“Let’s go for a smoke,” I said.
We walked out onto Grove Road. I lit a cigarette for both of us. The night was cold, but it was warming up with gangs of revellers preparing for a night on the tiles. A carrier with blue lights flashing roared by and sped past the town hall towards Meads.
“I’m listening, sergeant,” Hope said.
“I can’t tell you all of it. It would take too long.”
“Who’s Trevelion?”
“Joseph Bonner – Junior – is part of the crew. When they were kids, Junior was a little streak of piss. His old man was a steroid freak. Used to knock him and his ma about something terrible. Hardest guy in Eastbourne, or so the story goes. Undefeated in thirty-one underground bare-knuckle fights.”
“Sounds like bollocks to me.”
“Trevelion was Junior’s uncle, on his mother’s side. Hated the old man. After Junior’s dad nearly killed his ma, they went to Trevelion for help. Trevelion gave them two things. He gave them a box. And he told them to seek out a guy called Peter Dillingburgh.”
“I’m sorry, sarge. You’ve lost me.”
I turned to him, and expelled smoke.
“That roast pork chop lying on the mortuary slab, that’s Junior’s dad.”
“So what was in the box? A DIY arson manual?”
“We’ve got one interview to go. Kevin Gillespie. You called JD the leader, but it’s Kevin, really. He was the last one I found. Picked him up in Eastbourne Central this morning. He was in the Inn on the Track. My guess is that whatever was in the box was a bit of Dutch courage. I’m hoping Kevin will tell us.”
“And this guy Dillingburgh?”
An officer sprinted out of the station, nearly colliding with us.
“Sorry,” he said. He was a young constable, dressed in PSU overalls. He held his NATO helmet under one arm and a video camera under the other.
“Where you off to in such a hurry?” I asked. He stopped and turned, his eyes dropping to my name badge before he answered.
“Ashdown Forest, sarge. They found Bonner. Got him boxed in. He’s proper tooled up. They’re trying to negotiate now. I just hope they don’t shoot him before I get there.”
Hope turned to me.
“Best hope Kevin talks sense, then.”
*
Kevin Gillespie was a tall, lanky creature who vaguely resembled a pelican. His arms were folded and he sat perfectly still. His eyes were calm and intelligent, and I thought I detected the faintest hint of a wry smile.
Hope and I sat down opposite him. The same solicitor was in the corner of the room, just behind his client.
I took my time unwrapping the sealed tapes and settling myself in. I arranged my papers and opened my note book. I sat up straight and rested my forearms flat on the greasy black tabletop, pointing directly at Kevin. There was a pen in the fingers of my left hand.
Hope started the tapes.
“Many happy returns,” I said.
The hint of a smile became more obvious, but he said nothing.
“Would you say your name for the tape, please?”
“Kevin Gillespie,” he said, not taking his eyes from mine.
“Would it be fair to say you lead your little crew?”
He shrugged. “Define ‘lead.’ If you mean they do what I say, then no. Everything we ever did was by unanimous vote. If you mean they followed me around everywhere, then no. If you mean they looked up to me, then you’d have to ask them.”
“How come you’re using the past tense?” I asked.
“This was all a long time ago. We were kids. Eleven, twelve.”
“But you’ve stayed mates, yes?”
“You grow up, don’t you? You meet girls, get jobs, go to prison. You’re never as tight as you were.”
“That is, until you all meet up again. For one last hurrah? Then all the old loyalties come flooding back, am I right?”
He let out a long sigh, as if the answer would be too complicated to explain.
I heard Hope exhale as I arranged my photographs in a line in front of him. Perhaps my routine was boring him. That suited me. When I first became a detective my tutor was a grizzly detective sergeant who had been a policeman for thirty-four years. We called him ‘The Grinder,’ after Cliff Thorburn, and his painfully slow, methodical technique had gleaned him more admissions than any other detective in Sussex.
There were six photographs. My five suspects, including Junior, and the remains of Junior’s dad as he lay in the cinema. I laid them out and sat back.
Kevin didn’t even look at them. Instead he kept his eyes on mine
. I gestured to the pictures with my eyes.
“Take a look,” I said when he still held my gaze.
He shook his head, ever so slightly.
“Okay,” I said lightly, and removed all but the photographs of Junior and his father’s corpse, and placed them side by side. “Your friend Junior, the last of the musketeers, is currently in a hole in Ashdown Forest, with twenty assault rifles pointing at him. Any sudden movements, and they’ll shoot him.”
Still nothing.
“You grew up with him, and so probably wouldn’t have noticed, but he’s grown up to be the spit of his old man, right down to the bling and the appetite for steroids. If his old man wasn’t charcoal, you probably couldn’t tell them apart. Sad, really. What’s that song? Cats in the Cradle? Seems quite fitting here.”
Kevin licked his lips, and readjusted his sitting position.
“You’re a difficult man to catch up with,” he said. His voice was quiet.
“What are you talking about?” I said.
He leaned forward slightly, and made a show of reading my name badge.
“’Daniel Proudfoot – Detective Sergeant.’ Where did you get a name like that? Make it up?” His tone was not aggressive, and I found myself wanting to talk to him.
“What do you mean? Proudfoot is an old Saxon name,” I said.
“I know it is. It doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue, though. But then, neither does Peter Dillingburgh.”
I didn’t say anything. I held it together enough to know that involuntary reactions speak volumes. But then I knew that my silence was confirmation in itself, and as his smile broadened I realised that it wouldn’t have mattered how I reacted.
“You want to carry on talking here, or switch the tapes off?” he said.
As if in a trance, I leaned forward, and switched off the tapes.
“Someone want to explain to me what the hell’s going on?” Hope asked.
I didn’t say anything. I stood, opened the door for Kevin, and left Hope and the solicitor sitting there in total befuddlement.
We walked down the corridor.
“Let’s take a drive,” he said.
*
peter
Kevin and I walked to my car. The underground car park was flooded with unreal yellow light.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“North,” was all he said.