As soon as Hannah was through the office door, Banecroft slammed it behind her.
‘Right, this is all a steaming pile of nonsense.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘This,’ said Banecroft. ‘This whole threw-himself-off-a-building thing – it’s rubbish.’
Hannah looked at him as he hobbled around the office hurriedly, opening drawers and moving piles of books and papers around.
‘I don’t …’ She didn’t know where to start. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Doing? I’m looking for the keys to my car. I’ve not driven the thing in months.’ Banecroft started pulling drawers out of his desk and emptying them on to the floor.
‘The detective said they’ll give you a lift to the station.’
‘I’m not going to the station and neither are you.’
He was now kicking the contents of his drawers around the floor, mingling the mess with the other detritus.
‘But they said we had to?’
‘No, they didn’t,’ said Banecroft, moving over to his filing cabinet. ‘They said they’d like us to. I’d like my staff to treat me with an awed reverence, that doesn’t mean they do. The police aren’t arresting us, because we haven’t done anything wrong.’
‘But shouldn’t we cooperate with them?’
Banecroft started wresting open the overstuffed drawers of the filing cabinet as he spoke, first to himself and then to Hannah. ‘Be under C for car, surely.’ He raised his voice slightly. ‘And good God, no. We’re the free press – with the emphasis on “free”. It’s our job to make sure they’re doing their job, and you heard her, they’ve clearly already made up their minds. They’ll have this filed away by teatime, you see if they don’t.’
‘But,’ said Hannah, ‘I don’t … Do you think it’s possible that perhaps … y’know, like, the five stages of grief, you’re in denial?’
‘No. No, I don’t. This smells all wrong.’
‘Can’t we tell them that?’
‘Police don’t care what we think. Not if we’ve no proof. Hmmm … Not under C for car. How about V for vehicle? … No? J for Jag? No.’
‘Vincent!’ Hannah spoke with such urgency that Banecroft looked up this time.
He fixed her with a glare. ‘You can believe what you like, but I know what I know. The last article the lad submitted to us was not very good.’
‘There’s no need to speak ill of the dead.’
Banecroft shook his head. ‘Yet again, you are missing the point entirely. Six months ago he was dreadful, three months ago he was bad – so “not very good” is a massive step up. He was trending upwards. The lad was mustard-keen and I was developing him …’
Hannah went to speak but Banecroft cut her off.
‘Yes, he was outside. In which time, he’d learned shorthand, taken two online courses and worked on his writing style. Despite appearances to the contrary, I was paying some attention, and I’m telling you, he was not the jumping sort. Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s why we need to investigate. One of two things has happened here. Either he’s thrown himself off a building or someone has gone to great lengths to make it look like he has.’
Hannah ran her hands through her hair, trying to think this through. ‘All right, then. Shall I tell DS Wilkerson we’re not coming?’
‘Absolutely not. H for hidden!’ Banecroft held up a bunch of keys triumphantly.
‘But why—’
Banecroft gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘We’re not telling them we’re not coming because then they won’t know where we are actually going. The thing about the police is they’re very keen on looking into people, but they’re not keen on people looking into them.’ He tossed Hannah the keys, and she caught them clumsily. ‘You’re driving, because …’ He pointed at his foot.
‘But,’ said Hannah, ‘there’s a policewoman waiting in reception right now. How are we going to get …?’
In lieu of an answer, Banecroft opened the window to his office. ‘First rule of journalism: know how to shimmy down a drainpipe!’
CHAPTER 19
Discounting a crappy marriage, Hannah had never escaped from anything before. Her impromptu departure from The Stranger Times building wouldn’t be forming the basis of a beloved Christmas Day movie any time soon. She half clambered, half fell down a drainpipe and then served as a human crash mat for her boss, who landed unceremoniously on top of her. Luckily no bones were broken, but several things, not least her pride, took some serious bruising. Ever gallant, Banecroft opined that he regretted not having hired a larger girl.
His car was under a sheet in a sizeable shed behind the church, which was otherwise filled with half-used tins of paint and the kind of items nobody ever used but never threw out, convinced they might come in handy at some point.
As Hannah pulled off the sheet, she was surprised to reveal a large, dark-green Jaguar. It clearly had not been in service for quite some time, yet it was in considerably better nick than anything else Banecroft owned, or indeed Banecroft himself. After a couple of false starts, the engine coughed into life. Banecroft stretched himself out in the back seat, from where he proceeded to bark instructions and unhelpful criticisms as Hannah drove the getaway car.
The Dennard building was a massive, forty-two-storey skyscraper that towered over the city from its position on Cheetham Hill. Glass stretched up to all but the top few floors, where the exposed girders of the building’s skeleton could still be seen. Under Banecroft’s snapped instructions, Hannah parked the Jag on the pavement behind a couple of police vehicles, her passenger explaining that nobody who wasn’t meant to be there would dare park like that.
The site lay behind a massive chain-link fence. A couple of Portakabins sat at the far end, surrounded by a lot of men in hard hats who were being paid to drink tea, and several tense-looking people who Hannah guessed would have to explain to the higher-ups exactly how they’d ended up paying quite so many people to do nothing but drink tea. About half a dozen uniformed officers stood guard around a hastily erected tent in the middle of the site, which figures in forensic overalls could be seen walking in and out of. With a jolt, Hannah realized that it must be concealing Simon’s body.
As she and Banecroft approached the gate, Hannah looked up at the building, keen to direct her attention elsewhere. She’d seen it before from the bus, but only now she was this close did she realize that its sides were slightly concave, bending inwards from the four corners. And only now she was this close did it hit home how incredibly tall the building was. The thought of how long Simon would have had to watch the ground hurtling towards him popped into her mind, and she really wished it hadn’t.
Banecroft stopped in front of the uniformed policeman on duty at the gate – a young lad who Hannah guessed was fairly new on the job. He managed to give off a vibe of being both nervous and bored.
‘I’m sorry, sir, the site is closed at the moment.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Banecroft, ‘it’s a crime scene. We are very well aware. DI Sturgess has asked to see us.’
Hannah realized that this was technically true, but barely.
‘Well, I …’
Banecroft kept moving. ‘Is he up on the roof?’
‘I, ehm—’
‘It’s fine,’ said Banecroft, pushing through. ‘I’ll find him myself.’
Hannah gave the PC a smile as she followed her boss. She could see the thought bouncing around the constable’s head that what had just happened was possibly going to get him into trouble, but he couldn’t say for sure why.
Banecroft made his way across the site, criss-crossed with muddy tracks from heavy machinery. He stopped in the middle of the open area, looked up at the building and then around him.
‘Are you sure we’re allowed to be here?’ asked Hannah. ‘I mean …’
‘The key to life,’ said Banecroft, ‘is looking and acting like you know exactly what you are doing at all times. Margaret Thatcher said that.’
‘Did she really?’
He turned and raised an eyebrow. ‘No, but thank you for having proved my point. Now, do you notice anything?’
‘Ehm … Like what?’
Banecroft shook his head. ‘Really? Nothing?’
‘Well, I mean …’ Hannah looked around. With the obvious exception of the tented forensics area, it looked like a relatively ordinary building site, in Hannah’s admittedly limited experience of such places.
‘Come on,’ said Banecroft. ‘I don’t have time to hold your hand right now.’
He limped off towards the building. Hannah followed while trying to look as if she was supposed to be there. He was heading straight for where the reception area would be when the construction was finished. Right now, it was nothing more than exposed concrete with plastic sheeting running across it. A female PC stood guard in front of the lifts. She eyed them suspiciously as they approached.
‘DI Sturgess,’ said Banecroft. ‘He asked to see us.’
As he went to press the button to summon the lift, the policewoman moved in front of him. ‘Sorry, sir, who are you?’
‘Vincent Banecroft. DI Sturgess asked to see me and I’m a very busy man.’
Again, while everything in that sentence was true, the cumulative result was a lie.
The PC looked at the clipboard in her hands. ‘I don’t have you on the list.’
Banecroft shrugged. ‘Then it’s not a very good list, is it?’
‘And he specifically asked you to meet him upstairs?’
‘Of course not,’ said Banecroft. ‘I’ve just wandered in here because I’m curious and I’ve nothing else to be doing.’
‘There’s no need to take that tone, sir. I’m here to ensure that only people with the correct authorization gain access to this site. You can be as rude as you like, but it won’t change that fact.’
Banecroft gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Fine. Sorry, officer. Yes, DI Sturgess asked to see us on top of this building ASAP. Your colleague over there’ – he waved a hand in the vague direction of the gate they’d come through – ‘just rang up and got it confirmed. Feel free to check again if you like, but fair warning, he wasn’t exactly thrilled when he got dragged away the last time. Now, would you like us to sign in or not?’
Almost every detail of those last couple of sentences had been an out-and-out lie. The part of Hannah’s brain that had been keeping score was now poking the rest of it in an attempt to point out that the likelihood of this ending very badly had just increased. Hannah could see the PC weighing up what Banecroft had said, before begrudgingly presenting him with the clipboard. He scribbled a quick signature on it and handed it to Hannah, who did the same before returning it to the PC with a wan smile. The PC then pressed the button and the middle lift of three opened its doors.
‘Take it to the top floor and then go around to the stairs on the left.’
Banecroft nodded as they moved inside.
When the doors had closed, Hannah turned to him. ‘Did we just commit a crime?’
‘Didn’t you set a house on fire there a few weeks ago?’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘I’m just saying – technically you’re on a spree.’
The first thing Hannah noticed up on the roof was the wind. It hadn’t felt that windy down below, but up here, with nothing to block its path, it cut right through her. She hadn’t brought her coat, mainly because when she’d stepped into her boss’s office an hour ago she’d not thought to dress for the possibility of finding herself on top of a skyscraper in the near future.
She and Banecroft nodded and smiled at a few uniformed police as they passed them hastily. They were met with some slightly confused expressions, suspicion clearly battling with ‘well, if they weren’t supposed to be here, they wouldn’t be here’.
Banecroft limped towards the roof edge at the front of the building, with Hannah trailing in his wake. On the ground near the ledge she noticed a yellow numbered sign, presumably there to denote where something had been. Banecroft moved right up to the edge and looked over. Hannah stood a few steps back, and even there she was feeling nauseous.
‘Hmmm,’ said Banecroft. ‘Interesting.’
‘Can I help you?’
Hannah turned to face a man in his thirties with thick black hair, sporting a neatly trimmed beard and a cheerful smile.
‘No, thank you,’ said Banecroft. ‘We’re here to see DI Sturgess.’
‘I see,’ said the man. ‘And he specifically asked you to come up here, did he?’
‘Yes.’
‘That seems unlikely’ – the man pulled a wallet from his coat pocket and flipped it open – ‘seeing as I am DI Sturgess, and you are under arrest for obstructing a constable in the execution of their duty.’
‘Oh,’ said Hannah.
‘Yes,’ continued Sturgess. ‘Just for starters. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’
‘Excellent,’ said Banecroft, hobbling back towards Sturgess. ‘Just one thing before we go.’ He patted down the pockets of his coat, seemingly unable to find what he was looking for. Then he looked around them.
‘Ah, just the ticket.’
He snatched DI Sturgess’s wallet and tossed it off the roof.
Messy Nessie
Following a road accident last week in which six kegs of finest Scottish whisky fell into Loch Ness, watchers have become increasingly concerned about the reported behaviour of its most famous occupant. On Tuesday, a jogger reported seeing a dinosaur-like creature seemingly involved in an altercation with an electricity pylon while sporting a traffic cone on its head.
On Wednesday, Michael Barrymore (no relation), 24, from nearby Inverness, was taking his dog for a walk at 10 p.m. when he returned to the car park beside the loch to discover that Nessie was on top of his VW Beetle.
‘He’d mounted me car and was pumping away on it, the dirty bastard. Ye could see the shame on his face while he was doing it too, the toe rag. It’s not on, is it? And she’s been pulling to the right something shocking since.’
Mr Barrymore’s outrage has not prevented him listing the car on eBay where, at the time of writing, bids for ‘the car Nessie shagged’ have reached £22,500.
On a related note, Miss Irene Willis, who we reported as claiming to have married Nessie three months ago, has issued a statement that ‘she is taking some time to consider their relationship after recent events’ and is appealing for the press to respect her privacy at this difficult time.
CHAPTER 20
DI Sturgess entered the interview room at Stretford police station to find its occupant fast asleep on the table. He slammed down his folder as loudly as he could and enjoyed the pained expression on his interviewee’s face as he reared back into consciousness.
‘Ah, Mr Banecroft, I do hope I didn’t wake you.’
‘Sorry, sorry,’ Banecroft said, rubbing his eyes. ‘I was having this weird dream where I was suing the Greater Manchester Police for wrongful arrest. Any idea what Tahiti is like this time of year?’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Sturgess, sitting down in the chair opposite. ‘I’m just a lowly officer of the law, as opposed to you, Vincent Banecroft, former Fleet Street darling. Now, of course, you’re the editor of …’ He held up a copy of The Stranger Times from a few weeks previously, the one with ‘Zombie Elvis Ate My Hamster’ as a headline. ‘That must’ve been quite the fall from grace. I imagine you do need a holiday.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Banecroft. ‘I won’t deny I’ve been through a difficult few years. At one particularly low point I considered joining the police. Can I ask, exactly what charges am I here on?’
‘Before we get to that …’ Sturgess turned on the recorder sitting beside them on the table. ‘DI Sturgess interviewing Mr Vincent Banecroft, eleven thirty-eight a.m., March sixth.’
‘Excellent,’ said Banec
roft. ‘To repeat the question I just asked, what exactly am I charged with?’
‘Let’s kick off with obstructing a constable in the execution of their duty to start, but I’d imagine there’s a case to be made for adding in wasting police time.’
‘Really? Am I the one keeping you locked in this room?’
‘Then we can move on to why, after I sent one of my officers to ask you to come in to assist us with our enquiries, I found you trespassing on my closed crime scene less than an hour later.’
Banecroft scratched at his hair energetically. ‘Well, I’d imagine it comes down to poor communication skills. I’m sure it’s not DS Wilkerson’s fault. Maybe you could send her on a course?’
‘Thank you – I’ll take it under advisement. You’re quite the expert in staff development. Speaking of which, could you explain your relationship with Simon Brush?’
‘I don’t have one.’
‘Really?’
‘No. He wanted a job working on The Stranger Times, I repeatedly and frequently told him he wasn’t getting one.’
‘And yet, according to his mother’ – Sturgess looked down at notes on his pad – ‘he turned up to your paper’s premises every day. You tortured him – her words – by not letting him join.’
‘No,’ said Banecroft. ‘With all due respect to a grieving mother, nobody tortured anyone. He was very determined to get a job with us.’
‘And you delighted in not giving him one?’
‘He wasn’t good enough. I did monitor the articles he submitted, and if he’d improved, I’d have considered it. His work was getting better.’
‘Do you think this constant rejection might have played a role in his death?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Call it a hunch.’
Sturgess raised an eyebrow. ‘Is this the same finely honed instinct that led you from Fleet Street to’ – Sturgess indicated the newspaper sitting on the desk in front of him again – ‘“My Vagina Is Haunted”?’
The Stranger Times Page 14