Killing Time

by Mark Roberts

  ‘Poppy, do you mind working here instead of in your office? If anything comes from the phone, I need to hear it from the horse’s mouth as and when it occurs. I need as much time as possible to compute information before the eight o’clock kick-off.’

  Clay returned her attention to the photographs and considered the way the twins had been physically linked in death, into a human X. She turned over the fifteen images in which Karl and Václav were not physically touching each other and looked, one by one, at the images in which they were shoulder to shoulder, had their hands on each other or had linked arms.

  She looked at the clock, saw it was seven minutes past six and heard the murmur of Poppy’s voice as she talked to herself, unlocking the phone on the other side of the incident room. Her instinct told her she was missing something small but obvious. Clay turned over all the images in which the Adamczak twins were indoors.

  Seven images that, after more than ten minutes, came down to three.

  Karl and Václav Adamczak outside Goodison Park holding up an old-fashioned blue and white Everton scarf.

  Karl and Václav Adamczak on the steps of the Metropolitan Cathedral with a small group of people around them and others coming and going, up and down the steep stone steps.

  Karl and Václav Adamczak outside the Pumphouse at the Albert Dock, arms around each other, drinks in hand, smiling in the sunshine at Aneta as she photographed them.

  One, two, three, four; one, two, three, four; one, two, three. She stopped.

  Slowly, she drew the image of the identical twins outside the Pumphouse closer to herself, and smiled at the very first image she had seen of Karl and Václav Adamczak. Her mind skipped back to Raymond Dare being booked in by Sergeant Harris.

  Oh, Raymond, she thought, you are in so much deep, deep trouble.

  79

  8.00 am

  Carmel Dare sat to Raymond’s left and to his right sat Mr Robson, the duty solicitor. As DCI Clay formally opened the interview, Raymond looked down at three evidence bags on the table in front of him, Clay’s laptop and his mobile phone.

  ‘Mr Robson,’ said Hendricks. ‘Before DCI Clay starts the interview with your client, is there anything you’d like to lodge with us based on your discussion with the duty medic?’

  ‘My client has major mental health issues and has electively not been taking medication to control the symptoms. There are also serious issues relating to substance abuse. I don’t agree with the doctor. I don’t believe he is fit to be interviewed. I’d like a second opinion from a doctor not employed by the Merseyside Constabulary.’

  ‘Raymond,’ said Hendricks. ‘What’s your date of birth?’

  ‘October first, 2003.’

  ‘Tell me something about the schools you attended.’

  ‘Matthew Arnold when I was a little kid, then I moved on to Shorefields for secondary and, after they kicked me out...’

  ‘Why did you get kicked out?’ asked Clay.

  ‘Arson. But it wasn’t me. The police couldn’t prove it was me.’

  ‘So there must have been other issues?’

  ‘Yeah, I nutted this teacher, Miss Nglove.’

  ‘Why did you head-butt her?’

  ‘Because she was a cheeky black bitch.’ He examined the memory in a moment of silence. ‘That’s right. Then I went to a special school for bad boys.’

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘He’s on good form,’ said Carmel. She leaned forward and addressed Mr Robson. ‘He needs to get on with this. You don’t need a second medical opinion. Ask me, I’m his mother, he can do this just fine.’

  ‘When did you steal the white Fiat Uno from Moses Street, a few streets down from where you live?’ asked Clay.

  ‘No comment.’

  Hendricks picked up Raymond’s mobile phone and pulled up the gallery.

  ‘Our IT expert came in at six o’clock this morning to open your phone,’ said Clay. Raymond’s mouth formed a little knot and his brow creased. ‘How do you know a woman called Dominika Zima?’

  ‘No comment.’

  Hendricks turned the screen of Raymond’s phone towards him.

  ‘Is this the Dominika who sent you these self-portraits?’

  ‘Oh my God,’ said Carmel. ‘The dirty old cow.’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘We’ve got an incoming call on your phone at 8.30 pm on Monday, 1st December, two nights ago, from a phone registered to a Dominika Zima. Our IT expert traced it back to her.’

  Hendricks showed Raymond a printed-off image of Dominika blowing a kiss to the CCTV camera outside Gino’s Bar, as Clay pulled up the footage of her waiting outside on Aigburth Road on the laptop.

  ‘Is this Dominika Zima?’ asked Hendricks.

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘Same woman on your phone as the woman on the CCTV? Do you agree?’

  ‘No comment.’

  Clay turned the laptop around and pressed play. ‘She’s waiting for a lift here. You haven’t arrived yet, but when she called you up from Gino’s, the barman heard her address you as Ray, and ask you for a lift. She was annoyed with you.’

  She stood up and walked behind Raymond. ‘There you are. You’ve pulled up, and there she is, getting into the car.’

  ‘How do you know that’s me? You can’t even see the driver.’

  Clay paused the footage at the point where Dominika was sitting in the passenger seat with the doors closed.

  ‘We know it’s you, Raymond, because we found the car keys.’ Hendricks picked up an evidence bag and poured the car keys onto the table. ‘In your bedroom.’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘We checked. There was a burglary at 101 Moses Street on Friday, 28th November. The car keys for the Fiat Uno were taken. Did you commit that burglary, Raymond?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘According to the barman, she was annoyed with you because you’d arranged to meet her in Gino’s Bar but you didn’t show up. But then you did turn up rather quickly to pick her up. We got you on every Automatic Number Plate Reader travelling from the street behind Tesco’s on Park Road, where you left the Fiat Uno after you’d stolen it, to Aigburth Road, where you picked up Dominika.’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘Has she been in touch with you in the last forty-eight hours?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you know why that is?’

  ‘No comment.’

  Clay turned the laptop around, came out of videos and into the photo gallery.

  ‘She hasn’t been in touch with you because...’ She turned the laptop back around, and showed an image of Dominika inside the tent in Otterspool Park. Raymond turned his face away and muttered, ‘Shit!’

  ‘Raymond,’ said his mother, her face frozen, her words rising from her core. ‘Stop messing around with no comment responses and start talking the truth. Was it the voices again? The voices in your head?’

  ‘I’m going to draw a line under everything that’s passed so far this morning,’ said Clay, as Raymond looked anxiously at the other evidence bags on the table. ‘Are you wondering what’s in them? We’ll come to that in time, but I will tell you that we found the contents of each bag in your bedroom.’

  ‘What? What is it?’

  ‘We ask the questions, Raymond,’ said Hendricks. ‘You answer them. This is your big chance. Talk to us before we charge you with the murder of Dominika Zima. Convince us that you didn’t murder her, having raped her first.’

  ‘I robbed a car from round ours and I gave Dominika a lift but that was all I did. I didn’t kill no one. I’m not that violent. I wouldn’t even hit a fucking woman, let alone... I’m a peaceful lad.’

  ‘I don’t think your brother would agree with you,’ said Hendricks.

  ‘What’s Jack got to do with this?’

  ‘You don’t remember what you did to his dog last night?’ asked Clay.

  ‘I-I remember.’

  ‘You took his dog
to Sefton Park, slashed her throat and dumped her in a cave, lakeside.’

  ‘Tell us about Monday night. Tell me about Dominika.’

  Raymond looked at his mother. ‘You’d better leave the room.’

  Carmel looked at Clay who stood up and said, ‘Come with me, Carmel.’

  As Carmel followed Clay to the door, she looked back at Raymond and said, ‘My God, you didn’t, did you?’

  Outside the interview suite, Clay said, ‘There’s a viewing room next door. Did you see the reflective glass on the back wall?’ Carmel nodded, strangling the tears that stormed inside her. ‘You’ll be able to see and hear him. He won’t know you’re there. Ask Sergeant Harris to take you in.’

  ‘Murder? My son?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Carmel. I think you must prepare for the worst.’

  Clay returned to the interview suite and sat opposite Raymond in silence, giving Sergeant Harris time to bring Carmel Dare into the viewing room.

  ‘What’s with the silence, all of a sudden?’

  ‘I’m giving you time to process the information we have about your involvement in the murder of Dominika Zima. In thirty seconds I’m going to start asking you questions. The truth is your only option.’

  Clay looked at Raymond’s unfocused eyes, saw something behind them like a faulty fluorescent light.

  ‘Ready to talk, Raymond?’

  ‘Has she gone?’ he asked. Clay nodded. ‘I didn’t ask Dominika out on a date. I’d just swapped phone numbers with her, and when she called me from Gino’s Bar, it was, like, totally out of the blue. Yes, she was pissed off with me because she said we’d arranged to meet in Gino’s and I didn’t turn up.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’ asked Clay. ‘You sounded uncertain when you said We’d arranged to meet in Gino’s.’

  ‘I can be forgetful sometimes.’

  Clay said nothing and stared him down hard.

  ‘After she sent me the pictures of herself, we swapped phone numbers. We had a conversation on Sunday night, the first time I spoke to her on the phone. I smoked a lot of weed on Sunday, and I was half asleep when she called.’ He blinked like talking was a huge physical effort. ‘We might have arranged to meet, and I would have picked Gino’s because they serve underage drinkers and don’t ask for ID. It’s kind of dark and quiet, lots of little corners...’

  ‘So you’ve been before.’

  ‘Yeah, not on a date.’

  ‘Who do you go with?’

  Clay looked in his eyes, saw him stifle the truth. ‘I understand,’ she said. ‘You don’t want to give away your friends’ names.’

  ‘DCI Clay,’ said Hendricks. ‘Their street names are CJ and Buster. Pretty distinctive. It won’t take us long to track them down. You hearing me, Raymond?’

  Raymond flashed a look at Hendricks, as if the man directly across the table from him had successfully read his mind. Hendricks smiled back at him.

  ‘What are their real names, Raymond?’ asked Clay.

  He half-shrugged and muttered, ‘Just Buster and CJ.’

  ‘Were they with you on Monday night?’

  ‘No, I was alone.’

  ‘Why did you pick Gino’s Bar, Raymond?’ asked Clay.

  He shook his head and swerved away from making eye contact.

  ‘You must have known from the photographs that she was a considerable amount older than you. And like you said, it’s dark and quiet, lots of little corners where you could hide with your cougar date. You were embarrassed about the age gap, weren’t you?’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘OK, she phones you up, asks for a ride home. Take it from there, Raymond.’ Clay sat back and kept her entire focus on Raymond as he shifted on his seat and drilled his eyes onto the floor. ‘Raymond, you’re about to be charged with murder. Now is not the time to clam up.’

  ‘I-I robbed the car from Moses Street on Friday.’ Raymond fell silent, looked up at the ceiling, head tilted back.

  ‘I’m going to help you out, Raymond. You stole the car on Friday. Normally, you would have driven it round with your mates until the tank was empty and then abandoned it. But this time you parked it out of the way because you knew you were meeting up with Dominika and you wanted to impress her with your motor. Look at me, Dominika. I’m a successful man of the world. But you stood her up on Monday evening because you’d either genuinely forgotten the date due to the amount of weed you’d been smoking, or you plain bottled it.’

  ‘I didn’t bottle it.’ He looked at Clay and said, ‘I fucking forgot. I remember now. I did arrange to meet her in Gino’s but then I forgot all about it.’

  ‘Keep going, Raymond.’

  ‘She called me, pissed off, and asked for a lift. I went to the car park behind Tesco’s on Park Road where I’d left the car. I picked her up on Aigburth Road. She was a bit drunk. I was driving towards Garston when she put her hand between my legs and started talking really dirty, saying what she wanted me to do to her.’

  ‘After you’d stood her up? She must have been a deeply forgiving woman.’

  ‘I’d apologised and I told her she looked lovely. I said, Let’s turn around and go to Otterspool Park. I was really pumped up at this point. She was kissing my neck and started telling me what she was going to do to me. I parked the car outside the entrance to the park, you know that bit that’s just off the top of Jericho Lane. It was dark. We got onto the back seat and she said, No, no, no, this isn’t comfortable. Take me to the Travelodge.’ I told her I only had a tenner and I said, Let’s get out of the car and go into the park.’

  ‘And she agreed to that?’ asked Clay.

  ‘Yeah, she was well up for that.’

  ‘On a night when the temperature was hovering over zero and you’d stood her up and you’d refused to pay for a room? Carry on, Raymond.’

  ‘We walked towards the railway bridge, and went into the woods, where the sloping bit is. The embankment. We were there for, I’d say, the best part of an hour.’

  ‘And what did you do during that hour?’ asked Hendricks.

  ‘I had sex with her three times.’

  ‘In an hour.’

  ‘I took a load of poppers with me. She took it up the arse and a couple of times up the minge.’

  ‘Just for the sake of clarity, when you say minge, Raymond, are you referring to Dominika’s vagina?’ asked Hendricks.

  ‘Her twat, yeah, whatever...’

  ‘Was it your idea to perform anal sex?’ asked Clay.

  ‘It was her idea to do it up the arse. The poppers made it happen. After the third time, I’d pretty much run out of gas, so I said, Thanks, I’m going now. She started asking me for money, really aggressively, Give me money or fucking else. Or else what? I said. Or else I’ll tell the police you forced me.’

  ‘I gave her the tenner and started to walk off. She shouted, Aren’t you going to give me a lift home? I said, Where’s home? She said, Garston. I said, No, where are you from in your country? She was like Zlin in the Czech Republic, why? And I was like laughing and went, You’d better get back there! She started going crazy, running after me and calling me all the cunts under the sun. So I picked up a big branch and went, Do you want some of this, slag? She soon backed off. And that was the last I saw of her.’

  Clay looked at the two face-down photographs in front of her. Hendricks pointed at an evidence bag and asked, ‘Shall I?’

  ‘Yes, please, Detective Sergeant Hendricks.’

  ‘What else did you get up to on Monday night? After you’d walked away from Dominika?’

  ‘I drove off and burned the car out. Then I went home and got stoned. And that’s the truth.’

  Clay pushed the face-down pictures towards Raymond.

  ‘What’s all this?’ asked Raymond.

  Clay turned over a photograph of Karl and Václav Adamczak; Hendricks emptied a small evidence bag, and the silver crucifix that Raymond Dare had handed over to Sergeant Harris tumbled onto the desk.

  ‘Do you know the
se men?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘They’re on a night out.’

  ‘Looks like...’

  ‘They’re outside the Pumphouse by the Albert Dock. Arms around each other’s shoulders, smiling, beers in hand. You don’t know them?’

  ‘No.’ Flat and certain, Raymond looked at the picture and back at Clay. ‘Don’t know them from Jack Shit.’

  ‘Have a closer look, Raymond. Look at the small detail.’

  ‘What’s your other picture of?’

  Hendricks turned over the next picture and explained, ‘This is a close-up of the crucifixes they were wearing.’

  ‘Loads of people wear crucifixes. So what?’

  ‘On the night that Dominika Zima was murdered and set alight, these men were murdered and set alight. When we pulled apart their flat on Picton Road, where their bodies were, the crucifixes in their photograph weren’t there.’

  Clay turned over the third and fourth photographs.

  ‘This graffiti was found on the wall in the bedroom where the men died and were burned, post mortem. And this graffiti was found on the railway bridge in Otterspool Park where Dominika Zima was murdered and set alight earlier that evening.’

  Hendricks picked up an evidence bag and asked, ‘Do you recognise the graffiti, Raymond?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s Black Sun. Anyone who knows anything about the Nazis knows that. But what the fuck’s that got to do with me?’

  ‘I’ve seen a picture of the mural of the Nuremberg Rally that you painted on your bedroom wall. Detective Sergeant Mason sent the image to my phone. You’re a talented artist,’ said Clay.

  ‘Thanks,’ replied Raymond.

  Hendricks took out a lovingly cut-out stencil stained with black spray paint.

  ‘This was found in your bedroom, with your other art materials, including a black spray can.’

  ‘That’s not mine.’ Raymond looked at his solicitor, his eyes filled with pleading and confusion.

  ‘All right, Mr Dare,’ said his solicitor. He turned to Clay and asked, ‘Can I request a break from this interview, so I can speak in more detail with my client?’

  ‘By all means,’ said Clay.