by Gavin Smith
“He hasn’t been seen since. Not long after that brawl, someone staged an arson attack on the Murphy family home and his wife and kids were killed. A former inmate is in custody but we’re ruling nothing out, including Murphy’s involvement in the arson attack on his own home.”
“That’s can’t be substantiated and shouldn’t be in the notes. Prejudicial.” Skinner was halfway to his feet and waggling a finger at the secretary.
“Tony, settle yourself down,” urged Betts, unruffled. “Courtesy obliges me – us - to hear what this officer’s got to say. You don’t have to like it but try to be polite.”
Slowey glanced to either side. Skinner’s cheeks had dappled, but he still wasn’t blinking or breathing. Hoskins was calmly examining the parade gloss on his shoes.
“Yes, thanks. Well, as I said, Murphy’s a suspect. As you know, there’s some cold logic in that. Most murders victims are done in by their nearest and dearest. There’s also the fact that he may be a victim himself. We need to lay hands on him to make sure he’s safe and well and able to,” Slowey groped for a better expression but settled for the standard issue euphemism, “assist us with our enquiries.”
“I see.” Betts leaned forward and folded her arms across the desk. “It’s regrettable that such a tragedy has befallen a member of the Prison Service family. When Dale is found, we will of course offer him all the support he needs. But what, specifically do you need from me right now?”
“To be frank, ma’am, not much. Just your say so for me to access Dale’s personnel and disciplinary records and chat with his colleagues. Maybe a few inmates too.”
Skinner snorted and shook his head. Betts reclined in her chair and swivelled so that she could watch the secretary’s note-taking. Hoskins turned his attention to his cuticles.
“I’ll be as honest as I’m allowed to be, which I’m sure won’t be good enough,” said Betts. “Let me start with some basics. Dale is still employed here as a prison officer and his service number is LI 1003. Dale isn’t at work today and hasn’t been within these walls for more than 24 hours. He was rostered to work today but didn’t turn up and hasn’t been in touch. His line manager tried to make contact but got no reply. That’s about all I can tell you.”
Name, rank and serial number, thought Slowey. “That’s absolutely fine. You’re the boss and you’ve got a lot on. Just point me in the right direction.”
“I’m sorry. I should have been clearer. That’s all I’m allowed to tell you without Home Office approval.”
“Why?” sighed Slowey, leaning forwards. “This guy’s either a murderer or he’s an undiscovered victim of murder. We need to get him found either way.”
“I sympathise but I’m in a bind. If it helps, I’ve reviewed Dale’s records and there’s nothing of critical importance to your case in there.”
“With respect, ma’am, the prosecutor, coroner and judge won’t see it that way when we get pummelled by the defence for not checking every lead and not disclosing every iota of evidence.”
“I understand your frustration, constable, but we are not the police’s humble turnkeys. We are an independent agency with our own remit. Now, we could sit here with tea and biscuits for the next hour or two while we both repeat what we’ve already said in slightly different ways, but that’s not my style.”
It occurred to Slowey that Skinner had relaxed; not only had his shoulders dropped, but he hadn’t tutted or interjected for some time.
“What’s he done then?” asked Slowey, too tired to care about rank.
“Excuse me.”
“Your man, Murphy. What are you so embarrassed about?”
“I think you’re forgetting yourself, constable.”
“I can be forgetful but that’s why I write everything down. Besides, like you said, we work for separate agencies. You’re not my gaffer and I’m not your humble turnkey.”
“I indicated politely that this interview was over.”
“You stonewalled me because you need time to limit the flak your service will take when you have to disclose whatever it is you’re so touchy about.”
“I’m not stonewalling. I’m simply declining a request you’re not empowered to make.”
“So, what’s it to be? I know my office had Dale in for knocking the guests about. What else did you let him get away with?”
“Enough, for Christ’s sake,” exclaimed Betts. “He’s under investigation by regional management…”
“That’s confidential, nothing’s been decided,” declared Skinner, half standing, “and you’re not authorised…..”
“…and you will never presume to tell me the rules again, Skinner,” shouted Betts. She glared at him until he sank back into his seat.
“Mr Skinner and Mr Murphy are drinking companions,” resumed Betts, composed again. “Lager is thicker than water. As I was saying, an internal investigation is underway. I cannot and will not tell you anything else until the Home Office agrees, and that won’t be until mid-week at the earliest.”
Slowey momentarily glanced at his notebook, looking for a gem of inspiration in the open-cast of his scrawled notes. Betts took the opportunity to stand and extend a hand. Slowey flicked his notebook shut, levered himself to his feet and shook hands. Unanswered questions nagged at him and he felt crestfallen, as tired and sore as an old stag butted out of the rut.
“If I were your boss, I’d send you home,” she said, soothing now. “You look dreadful.”
“Well. Thanks for your time. And if you could push things along with the Home Office…”
“Of course. Brian,” she said to Hoskins, left eye twitching in what could have been an unaccustomed wink, “escort this officer out, if you please. Skinner, I need a private word if you wouldn’t mind staying.”
Skinner held a protest between pursed lips then swallowed it as Hoskins led Slowey out, pressing a finger to his lips as soon as the door was closed.
As they approached the last locked gate that exited onto the cement driveway, Hoskins made a great show of confusion as he tried one key then another in the lock. Only when the yard was clear of prison officers did he find the right one.
“So what’s going on, Brian?”
“We can have a quick chat and a slow walk,” said Hoskins, grinning inanely. “But you’ll have to pretend we’re having a bit of a laugh about nothing in particular. Nod and grin, you know the drill.”
“Fine.” Slowey smirked, shook his head with mock disgust and stooped to tie then untie his shoelaces. “Let’s have it then.”
“This is off the record, for now. Murphy was a disgrace to the profession. I don’t feel like I’m betraying the brotherhood when I tell you this ‘cause he shouldn’t ever have been part of it.”
“Go on,” guffawed Slowey, straightening.
“Too much. Here’s a shaggy dog story. Just keep smirking.”
“Sorry, go on.”
“I’ll have to be short and sweet. He got his rocks off by locking people up. You might think that’s a natural perk of the job, but he went too far. He taunted the guests, knocked ‘em about.
“Not that he was totally dumb. Didn’t pick on the upper tier blaggers and murderers. Liked the young and tender ones, the ones who should be on a psych ward. Cells never clean or tidy enough. Cons always too early or too late. Started with verbal abuse, real personal stuff. They had to react sooner or later ‘cause it’s all about face in here. Then he’d be straight in with restraint techniques. Very smooth. He must have practised in his own time.
“Then solitary for ‘em if he could swing it. Where he made a habit of shouting more abuse at ‘em through the hatch. Laugh now.”
Slowey cranked out a poor imitation of laughter that sounded more like an emphysema victim breathing his last. Hoskins snorted and nodded his head as if in awe of his own comic genius. He raised a hand to the portly gate-guard who waddled past all too slowly.
“Guy’s a live-wire on the staff side too. Forever bleating about his wife carryi
ng on with other men. Whether you want to hear it or not, he’ll tell you and stare at you ‘til you say something he approves of. Everyone from the Governor to the paedos on the nonce wing knows about the way she gives other men the eye or looks too made-up or looks too scruffy or takes too long at the supermarket.
“Look, I’ve got to wind this up but the complaints are probably pukka and he’d be out of a job if he didn’t drink with the union rep. Besides, there might be a new coat of paint on this place, but it’s still a powder keg in here. Murphy thinks it’s funny to light fuses and wait for the bang.
“I’m not going through that again,” said Hoskins, slapping his maimed leg as he stopped and pivoted to face Slowey again. “Now then, if you’ve got a business card on you, drop it near this chap tending the flower bed on your left when we pass him. You know, accidentally.”
Slowey palmed a card from his inside pocket, plucked out a stick of gum in the same hand, extracted the stick with his teeth, folded the card into the silver gum wrapper and casually dropped it to the ground without breaking his stride. When he glanced back over his shoulder, the card was nowhere to be seen and the pale, shaven-headed youth was still intent on his perennials.
“Are you in the spy game now, Brian?”
“That’s Jake Barnaby. Used to bunk with that arsonist, Firth. Witnessed all sorts of antics from Murphy. Wouldn’t come forward while Murphy was still around. I had a quiet word. His lawyer might be in touch. You might get something useful, you might not.”
“Thanks Brian. I owe you a huge one. Who’s the lawyer?”
“Not the foggiest, but they’ve all got one. Anyway, don’t thank me. We haven’t talked. In fact, I barely know you.”
Hoskins unlocked the inner gate and ushered Slowey into the entry bay.
“Police coming out.”
By three p.m., the sun had shredded the humid murk into skeins of low-lying, wispy stratus. A cleaner light fell through the rents to sparkle in the pits left in the Mondeo’s windscreen by the anonymous airgun pellets, and shimmer on the impossibly clean front windows of 3 Glamorgan Mews.
He’d alerted the search team to the amateur sniper lurking somewhere above their heads. They’d been nonplussed, particularly those who’d worked in Nottingham in a past life. After all, you weren’t really doing your job unless someone took a pot shot at you now and again. He’d left them debating the legality of kicking down doors on the strength of amateur triangulation and gut feeling, not to mention the time involved in processing a firearms offence on what promised to be another good evening for a barbecue.
Glamorgan Mews appeared to have the bluest skies and the whitest fences in the city. Sandwiched between the river and the maze of Edwardian tenements where students, hard-grafting Poles and housing association junkies were stacked five deep, the street hosted a dozen identikit starter homes for yuppies. Each boasted UPVC DG throughout, GCH, patio doors opening onto a terrace just big enough for a gas-fired barbecue, and a garage too small for a small car but big enough for garden tools, unwanted wedding presents and unsellable junk. Each sported meter boxes on the exterior walls so that contact with the meter-reading classes could be minimised. Each was detached by just enough distance from its neighbour to claim an outrageous mark-up.
Harkness had telephoned Fitch, Brown & Jennings and been informed by an unctuous automated message that their offices were closed at present but he should direct the police to contact the duty solicitor should he find himself in custody and refuse to say anything until he’d spoken to them. He thought better of leaving a voicemail message. Instead, he rang A&E reception – a handy number to have on speed-dial - and, to a chorus of screaming, sobbing and what sounded like vomiting, a clerk who knew his name and who was too harassed to argue the toss over data protection gave him the Jennings family’s discharge address.
He parked the Mondeo out of number three’s line of sight, then jammed the rear-view mirror onto the dashboard and used it to straightened his tie and polish a few flakes of dead skin off his nose and cheeks. He fished out his leather warrant card holder and clipped it onto his belt with the enamelled crest displayed. His battered notebook slid into a leather valise. First impressions hopefully counted just enough to get him through the door.
He found himself avoiding the gravelled drive as if he had some reason for stealth. Pausing, he made a mental note: Why had the Murphys’ attacker audibly walked across gravel when they were clearly doing something illicit? Could the door be accessed without crossing gravel? Did the question matter? It might not be important but Firth would know better. He would check Slowey’s notes again later.
Folding away his notes again, something caught his attention, a flickering presence behind the sun’s glare on the front window, a sound like a scraper being dragged across wet glass. Stooping and shielding his eyes, he saw a hand waving at him manically, then an index finger jabbing at the inside of the pane. Before he reached the front door, it was dragged open by an inch then held by its chain.
“Ma! SJ! SJ! Come see, a man. Tall dark handsome stranger danger. Don’t say nothing and seek bona fides.” The voice boomed out thick, lisping and permanently amused. Slowey had mentioned something about a disabled son and an ailing father. Through the crack in the door, squabbling female voices contended with the whine of a washing machine hitting its spin cycle.
“What is it now, Jeremy?” A brusque, female voice approached, correct and authoritative but diminished by the quaver of age or some less certain weakness. That must be Marjorie, pegged by Slowey as matronly, a bustling mother hen.
“Stranger danger. One must not open the door to stranger danger. Demand bona fide identification. I want to call the policeman.”
The door opened a few inches and jerked again on its chain.
“He’s put the chain on. You’re a good lad, Jeremy. Just a minute, whoever you are. Jeremy, go and help your dad.”
“Demand credentials and sundry forms of bona fide identification!”
“Mum!” Another voice, younger and well spoken. “This is my house, you know. I can manage. You take Jeremy. I’ll answer the door.”
“But it could be anyone dear. You just never know.”
“If it’s an axe-wielding psychopath, mother, I’ll let him do me in outside so you don’t have to shampoo the carpet again.”
“I’m just saying.”
“And you keep ‘just saying’. What’s he done to this wretched chain?” A flurry of rattling and tutting ended with the door swung wide and Harkness pinned by gleaming grey eyes under lowered brows, leaving him in no doubt that he was very much part of the problem. “Yes, what?”
Resisting the impulse to flinch and take a step back, Harkness offered up his warrant card to the young woman.
“Detective Sergeant Harkness from down the road. And you’ll be Sharon then?”
“Hmm.” The young woman’s gaze flickered between his card and his features repeatedly before she nodded minutely. “We’re not on first name terms yet, officer. Presume you’re here about the fire.”
“My apologies. Ms Jennings. And yes.”
“Ms Jennings? Now I feel old. Or guilty.”
She’d raised her gaze, allowing her brow to unknot and her eyes to soften as she brushed her hair from her temples, platinum strands stark against lustrous red nails. Tall as he was, the jut of her chin suggested she was often elevated by formal clothing and high heels when she dealt with hulking police-men, rather than her current ensemble of baggy t-shirt, paint-speckled jeans and bare feet.
“Alright, Sharon it is then. You’d better come in.”
“Yes. Good.” He missed a beat while he jolted himself away from the glimpse of pale breast and lilac lace the woman’s baggy t-shirt had afforded him. “Actually I’m glad I caught you.”
“Oh?” She moved aside to let him in.
Harkness stood firm. “We may need to interview your parents at some length and we need to make sure it’s ok to use your house. A nicer place than t
he police station, after all.”
“Yes. That seems sensible. But my family’s complicated. If they’re all here, it won’t be a tranquil setting for anything.”
“And I need to speak to you. Private would be best. I don’t want to trouble your family more than needs be.” Harkness gripped his binder and studied her.
Frowning, she closed the front door behind her and motioned towards a passage leading to the back garden. Harkness briefly considered allowing her to lead, but she’d abruptly traded her soft, feminine edges for something more waspish and resolute. Following her pointing fingers, he led her to the back garden where he found a plastic chair in the shade of curtains that hung motionless on the line exhaling musty perfume.
They regarded each other without haste, her over red-tipped fingers interlocked over crossed knees, him over the notebook he’d placed a finger in but didn’t yet want to open. She seemed about to speak, thought better of it and studied her cuticles. He prepared to lead off in the same old dance; the prosecution lunging, the defence parrying. Walk ten paces, turn and fire, in the knowledge that your opponent has been rooted to the spot, studying your gait and drawing a leisurely bead.
“Firth,” he proclaimed.
“Firth,” she echoed, without surprise, acknowledging terms.
“Nigel Firth is a suspect in this matter.”
“I know.” How did she know? She was bound to find out, but this soon?
“And you represent him.”
“You know I can’t talk about that, but basically, yes. In a certain capacity.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that I don’t do crime these days.”
“Unlike your client.”
“Tell me you’re not really trying to get an easy rise out of me. I thought that only happened on TV. ”
“Mea culpa.” Harkness raised his hands and attempted an ingratiating smile. His burned skin still smarted and would permit no more than a sickly smirk. “But we’re both in a similar game, aren’t we? Trying to beat the whole table without giving our best cards away.”