I thought back to being crumpled in Bob’s hallway, trying to catch my breath, and the strange, blurry indent I’d seen in the stairs.
‘Yeah? All you need to know is, I don’t believe anything you say.’
‘Up to you,’ he said, standing. ‘I have to go. Don’t be a daft twat. Keep your mouth shut or it all comes out. Do we have a deal?’ He stared into my eyes and held out a hand.
I kept mine flat on the table. ‘It ain’t over, Bob. Stay away from me. And stay away from my mum.’
‘Or?’
‘Behave yourself, Bob. Now piss off.’
~
Time became like Mister Fantastic, stretching far into the near future, then pinging back pretty much as it was. Blink and you missed it. I didn’t miss DCI Hobbs clomping into the interview room. He came and stood in front of me, a quizzical look on his face.
‘Case solved?’ I asked.
‘Yes and no.’ He yanked a seat closer to mine, swivelling it around on one leg before sitting down. ‘We pretty well know what happened at Clegg’s flat. We just have to decide on the charges. As for Helen Porson’s sister …’ He leaned in closer. ‘I’ll level with you. I’ve gone through all the statements, all the forensics, all the evidence, and I still don’t know what happened, or who to charge, or with what.’ He gripped the table top, whitening his knuckles. ‘What happened, Eddie? Do you know?’
‘Yes and no.’ I shrugged. ‘Mainly no, as it happens. But the thing is, I don’t much care.’
Truth to tell, I didn’t know – but I did care. In Columbo speak, it’d been bodderin’ me all day. In between my Weighton Pier trapeze act and arriving at Blue HQ – interrupted only by Jimmy’s death-chase – it was all I had thought about. As someone once said, there are things we know we don’t know, things we don’t know we don’t know, and then there was this case. I didn’t know enough to know. Simple really, when you said it like that.
If there was one thing Bugg had said that made any kind of sense, it was that the answer had to be in the statements. A careful cross-reference of the statements. Forensics would probably have them all at the scene, and all in contact with the deceased. They couldn’t attribute guilt. The statements could, though, because someone had to be lying. Maybe they were all lying.
‘I don’t believe that,’ Hobbs was squawking. He got up and began to circle my chair, his eyes cast down. ‘You must have a theory?’
‘I have a hunch.’
‘Go on.’
‘Not that easy.’
‘What do you mean?’
I smiled. ‘I might be able to help …’
‘But?’
‘I need to see all the statements.’
He shook his head. ‘Can’t do it.’
‘Because?’
‘It would break procedure. The CPS wouldn’t touch it, not with that kind of breach.’
‘Only if I’m still a suspect.’ I tapped the table. ‘If I’m a free man I’m just ordinary Joe-Po helping out.’
He nodded carefully. ‘I’d have to file a ton of paperwork.’
‘Where do I sign?’
Hobbs rested his back against the wall and rubbed his face in his hands. ‘Bugg thinks you’ve got guilt running through you like a stick of rock.’
‘Bugg schmugg. You know different.’
‘Maybe.’ He gazed at me intently. ‘I’d still be doing you a huge favour.’
‘Yeah, but it’d be a favour for a favour.’
‘That remains to be seen. I’m the one taking the risk.’
‘You can always re-arrest me.’
He choked back a groan. ‘I’d be a laughing stock.’
I went to say something pithy – the curse of a gag reflex – but he gave me a warning look. For once I took heed.
After a little thinking time, he said, ‘It’s still a big ask.’
‘If you say so, but it’s not like I wouldn’t appreciate it. Anyway, there’s something else I need.’
‘We’re not horse-trading, Eddie. In fact, you’ve given me nothing yet. So right now you don’t have anything to trade.’
‘Yeah, but I will once I’ve read the statements. And ...’ I deliberately let it fade.
‘And?’
‘There’s stuff I’ve found out from them – all of them, even Jimmy. Stuff that won’t be in their statements. Incriminating type stuff.’
He nodded. Decision made. ‘Okay. What is it you want?’
‘Two things.’
Hobbs held his head in his hands. ‘Jesus, Eddie, you know how to push it.’
‘If I’m Jesus, you’re God. I know you can do it.’ With Hobbs wavering, I went for the clincher. ‘I’ll even throw in a discount. Let’s call it one and a half.’
He pulled a face but nodded. ‘Go on. Tell me what you want.’
I told him. He mulled it over for a good while. Then he agreed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Sunday – 21:37
I started with Jimmy’s statement. What can I tell you? It didn’t take long. My eyes glazed over a wilderness of white space, interspersed with the odd repeated phrase. No dictionary twirling required. His masterpiece basically boiled down to a fuck-load of “no comments”. The message was clear: nothing to see here folks, move along.
Tommy’s statement was even less forthcoming, and it didn’t contradict anything said by his boss. It didn’t mention any boat excursions, either. By some sorcery he’d even managed to sign it.
Next I read Helen Porson’s statement. I skimmed it quickly on first reading and didn’t notice much that I didn’t already know. Maybe a few extra details here and there.
I moved onto Robert’s statement, followed by Kip’s. It was remarkable how similar they were. They had either synchronised their stories or they were telling the truth. I didn’t favour the latter. Their text reflected what they’d told me, but with more detail. Yet in the detail, as Jimmy had reminded me earlier, hides the devil. Somewhere a tiny clash of detail would throw up a spark. It had to be so.
I read everything again in reverse order, slowly and carefully, all the time searching desperately for a “spark”. As I did, different permutations fizzed and waned with the nuance of every full-stop. It might not have been what I signed up for, but welcome to the new job. Having got to the end, I sat back, linked my fingers behind my head and thought it all through. I willed myself to behold a glorious break-through.
And the winner is …? I was buggered if I knew.
But something was niggling away. Whatever it was, it prompted me to remember Bugg’s words, his only specks of wisdom. The answer had to be in Helen Porson’s statement. Not because she was the assailant, but because she was centre stage for every act, every scene in the entire play; even the intermission. I had to find the combination of details in her statement that would tumble the lock.
Having grabbed a standard issue police pad, I spun it into the landscape position and jotted down a timeline. I re-read Helen’s statement word by word, marking each key event on the timeline, then cross-matching it with the other statements. When I placed all the protagonists at the crime scene in the alleged sequence, the inconsistencies materialised like an out-of-focus hologram.
With no statement to support Jimmy’s movements, I’d plotted his timeline based on what he’d told me. It dovetailed with Robert’s account, but not with Helen’s. There was no reason why Jimmy would have given me a truthful account, but there was no reason why he wouldn’t. Most likely it was a cocktail of half-truths and self-serving spin.
The Nkongos also had every good reason to shuck and jive, yet they’d been consistent all the way through about seeing Jimmy as they were leaving Priory Road, without seeming to realise the importance of both the sighting and the timing. Or had they played me on that from the start?
Jimmy claimed he’d had a tussle with Helen Porson in her kitchen, but that wasn’t what she’d told me, and it wasn’t in her statement. Maybe Jimmy had attacked Elaine by mistake, as in Helen’s acc
ount, then made up the story about Helen’s pre-emptive strike. But if that was a fabrication, why say it took place in the kitchen when Elaine had been laid low in the lounge? Was it proximity to the alleged weapon? And why would he make the whole story up anyway? It wasn’t a “Jimmy” style tale. Was it just a hasty cover-up? Did that explain it?
Maybe Jimmy’s story had happened the way he’d said. Maybe Helen was lying to implicate him. I couldn’t blame her, but would she really go that far?
If Helen’s version was the truth, Elaine had recovered from Kip’s assault only to be finished by Jimmy “The Constrictor”, which would really have topped off her merry run of luck.
If Jimmy’s version was the truth, Helen Porson had survived his attack in the kitchen, discovered her dead sister – courtesy of the Nkongos – then fabricated the other story as retribution. Both sounded dubious.
It was all maybes and schmaybes, and I was losing the will to wonder. And with so many inconsistencies, which one was smoking hot? The one to rule them all, the one that in the darkness binds them? The one that tilted the truth in an unmistakeable direction?
I sketched a rough map of Priory Road showing the location of the houses, then traced out timelines, denoting a big ‘X’ where the protagonists should have crossed paths. They didn’t match. If I followed Helen Porson’s timeline, she was on her way back from an errand at number ten when she saw Jimmy leaving. According to her statement, she hid behind the gate of number eight to stay out of sight. Plausible enough. But that meant her time-elapse for cat feeding was off. Maybe she’d underestimated her time at the neighbour’s house, but that still didn’t explain what had disturbed the Nkongos a few minutes earlier, when they’d high-tailed it out of number four.
When Robert had recounted his story to me at the Mayflower, I’d assumed Helen Porson’s return had spooked him. But if that was true, why hadn’t they seen each other? In his statement, Robert said they’d left the house the same way they’d gone in, but only after checking the coast was clear. Did Helen Porson see them and stay out of sight, as she’d claimed about Jimmy’s departure? Even so, she’d still managed to come three doors down – according to house-to-house enquiries – without any neighbours seeing her. Not even über nosy from next door, the deluded Mrs Davies.
If Jimmy’s account was correct, how had Helen P got back to the house after the Nkongos left, but before Jimmy arrived, without being seen by anyone?
It raised another question: what had spooked the Nkongos? It couldn’t have been Jimmy’s arrival, because they saw him on the road afterwards. It might have been Helen returning from her errand, but if so, it was back to the “why hadn’t they seen each other” dead end. Maybe it was just an unconnected noise, a misheard sound too close for comfort.
The big neon “solved” sign wasn’t exactly flashing above my head. I hadn’t even got the “s” to blink. In frustration I screwed the makeshift map into a ball and whizzed it against the wall. The compressed paper rebounded at an uppish angle and looped back to me. On a reflex I tried to catch it in the same hand. As it bobbled out of my grasp, something bobbled in my mind, and I remembered the route I’d used to cycle to Helen Porson’s house for our first meeting. It was something and nothing, yet still a blink. A faint, unmistakeable blink. I picked up the ball of paper, smoothed it out, and studied the map again. I returned to the statements then back to the map. There was only one way to join all the dots.
Bingo! The neon sign crackled into life.
I called over to the long-standing WPC. ‘I need to see Hobbs.’
She nodded and slipped out of the room. Within a few minutes DCI Hobbs stood wearily in front of me.
He leaned forward. ‘Well?’
‘I need to go to the house. There’s something I have to see.’
~
Once upon a time a dash across town in a police car – blue lights flashing and sirens blaring – would have been the stuff of dreams. Turns out it was a disappointment. Then again, I hadn’t been much in the mood.
Bugg had insisted on cuffing me before we pulled away from Weighton’s epicentre of law and order. Only Hobbs’ brusque reminder that I was no longer a suspect persuaded him otherwise. As a result, Bugg had a furious scowl on his pudger for the remainder of the journey.
Hobbs never asked what I wanted to see. He could tell from my tone it was important. Whether that was on his mind or he couldn’t compete with the intrusive siren, he stayed silent the whole way. Bugg, true to form, kept up a cycle of lame digs, but we both ignored him.
Fifteen minutes after leaving the police station, our squad car turned right off Chester Way and rolled into Priory Road. Helen Porson’s elegant Victorian house was set back a good way from the entrance and it nestled peacefully in its own manicured grounds. A sandstone wall and wrought iron gates shielded the house from the road, and a brigade of elm trees lining the other side of the wall provided a natural second buffer. Hobbs pulled up on the cobblestone drive and parked by the ornate gate pillars. On the left pillar, two angels held a ceramic plate aloft, displaying the number “4”.
The last of the summer daylight had faded, and Weighton’s street lamps were doing their best to fight the encroaching gloom. I got out of the car and walked up to the gates with Hobbs and Bugg close behind. In the dying light the scene looked eerie, and I jumped when my movement triggered the drive security lights. I let my eye follow their sequencing, peering down the curved drive to the front door.
After waiting a few seconds to take everything in, I turned right and jogged along the pavement to number ten. Bugg apparently thought I was making a break for it and almost fell over himself trying to catch me up. Not that Weighton’s least finest would have broken the tape before yours truly.
All the while, Hobbs watched me carefully, but didn’t speak.
Similar to the house at number four, number ten was Victorian in style and set back from the road. Its gates were closed. Judging by the curtains, the neighbours were still away. On the gate post was the entry panel that, according to her statement, Helen had used to gain access to feed the cat. No doubt his Tibbs was already feasting elsewhere.
I had a good look at the house from the road then walked back to number eight. Once there, I stopped to examine Helen Porson’s alleged hiding place behind the gate pillar, getting a feel for her line of sight. If the timing was right and she’d been passing number eight when Jimmy left the house, then no doubt she would have ducked behind the gate.
In his statement, Robert Nkongo said he and Kip had turned left out of the drive of number four, crossed the road, and been a house further down when they’d seen Jimmy and his crew pull up and get out. That meant Jimmy and co would also have turned left coming out of the drive when they’d gone back to the car. In other words, Helen Porson could have seen them before they saw her, and shuffled safely out of sight.
I continued back to number four, walked through the open gates, and stopped. Grabbing the edge of the gate, I swung it back and forth, but heard no squeak. I edged slowly down the drive, looking left and right. After the line of elms behind the wall, there were randomly spaced trees, bushes and shrubs, with grass between them. The combination of these and the curved drive could easily have obscured Helen Porson from view when the Nkongos made their check before leaving. If Helen Porson had heard or seen them first, she could have stayed out of sight in the garden. That meant I couldn’t rule anything out – at least not so far.
From the front step I surveyed the angles, trying to assess what the Nkongos could have seen before making their exit. They would have been able to see most of the drive, but not all the way to the gates. Given what had happened in the house, they’d taken a big risk by leaving via the front door, but something had spooked them, maybe at the back of the house. Either way, a leisurely “risk review” clearly hadn’t been their first thought.
Hobbs approached me. ‘Well?’
‘Nothing so far.’
‘Are you done?’
&
nbsp; ‘No, I haven’t looked at what I came for yet. I’m just ruling other stuff out.’
He nodded. ‘You almost look like you know what you’re doing. Either that or you’re pulling my chain?’
‘As if.’
‘What next, then?’
I pointed my thumb behind me.
He looked over my shoulder ‘You mean inside?’
‘No. Back garden.’
Hobbs pushed a torch into my hand. ‘You might need this.’
As I walked around the side of the house, more security lights came on. The biggest light was over the back door. I grabbed its handle and gave a hard tug, eliciting a quiet rattle.
From the back of the house I saw a large patio, landscaped lawns, a greenhouse, and a stone path leading to a lower level. The higher level was bordered by small, neatly pruned bushes. Hobbs stood by the back door, wailing into a police radio. Bugg stayed put on the patio, ambling around, kicking stones, not bothering me. Perhaps he’d finally got used to the idea that I wasn’t a serial killer. Either that or he just liked kicking stones.
I moved past the shaped bushes then descended the steps to the lower level. On the left side of the path I made out a vegetable patch, with a number of fruit trees on the right. A few yards in front of me stood a high wooden fence that marked the end of the garden. When I turned to look back at the house, reflecting in the beams of the up-lighters, it looked grand and serene. I stood at the end of the path, my back to the fence, and took in a full sweep of the lower garden. When I got to my extreme left, level with the fence, I spied a structure. I switched on the torch and traced an outline of a hardwood pergola, overgrown with climbing plants. My torch light flickered over the tangle of wood and vines, and something in the background glinted back.
I pushed through the pergola tunnel, aimed the torch, and saw exactly what I thought I’d come for.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Sunday – 22:22
On the way back to the police station, I asked Hobbs to knock off the sirens. The drone was hurting my ears, and I couldn’t think straight. From the back of the car I wondered about my discovery at the back of the garden. Sure, I’d found what I went looking for, but what it actually meant I couldn’t say.
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