by Steve Howell
Simmons leaned forward, and picked-up the pile of papers he’d taken from the file. They looked like bank statements.
“We found these in Mr Driscoll’s flat yesterday,” he said. “We had a search warrant of course. As far as I can tell, you transferred money to Driscoll on at least eight separate occasions over an eighteen-month period. Does that sound about right?”
Megan shrugged. “Yes, at least that,” she admitted.
Nigel’s face was in his hands. Part of me was seething at the way Megan had, for some reason or another, continued to hide aspects of her relationship with Will. But I also felt relief that we seemed to be nearing the end of the journey Simmons and Richards were taking us on, step by meticulous step, towards the truth. I thought the least I could do was make an effort to stay calm.
“You paid him,” Simmons continued, “amounts ranging from £250 to the two payments of £10,000 you mentioned yesterday? A total of £25,650?”
Megan nodded.
“Could you confirm that verbally please?”
“Yes,” she said sounding truculent now.
“And why was that?” Simmons queried.
Megan sighed, but I felt like telling her: ‘He’s got a bloody point!’
“You’re mixing-up different things,” she said. “I gave Will money a few times to help him out. He was always skint. The jobs he had didn’t pay very well, and his mother never had enough money to help him. So he asked me.”
She turned in my direction, as if feeling a need to justify herself to me.
“He couldn’t have afforded that flat without the money I gave him, and I didn’t mind. I didn’t mind at all. I wanted to help him. I had plenty – more than I could spend on myself.”
“He seems to have come to you more and more often, asking for bigger and bigger amounts,” Simmons said.
“I didn’t really notice,” Megan replied. “But what does it matter? I suddenly had all this money: it was like I’d won the lottery, so why not help him? He needed money to buy stuff, furnish the flat, whatever – I can’t remember the details – but some of it was supposed to be a loan. He was going to pay me back.”
“So he told you he was broke?”
“Yes, completely skint,” Megan said, like it was a stupid question. “He had a debt on his credit card – I had to help him pay it off.”
“Yes, well – we found some of Will’s credit card statements too,” Simmons said, pulling them out of the same file. “They don’t cover the whole of that period, but there’s no sign of any ongoing debt. He was running up big bills and paying them off every month.”
Megan picked up one of the statements, holding it with just a thumb and forefinger like it was contaminated. It was clear – even from my angle – that Will enjoyed spending money. The list of entries filled the page, but he had also paid-off the full amount from the previous month.
Megan tossed the statement down on the table. Simmons retrieved it and placed it neatly on top of the credit card pile.
“Megan,” Simmons said, a hand on each pile. “What these show is someone with plenty of cash. His account had balances in the thousands, and a high turnover, not just the transfer from your account and his own pay going in, but also other cash he was depositing. He was never short of money.”
“No, no – I’m telling you, you’ve got this wrong. That’s not what he told me,” Megan said, brittle anger in her voice.
But I was finding it harder to tell where the anger was directed. She sounded desperate, still clinging to her faith in Will – hoping he hadn’t been a shameless sponger as well as everything else – yet unable to square her loyalty with the evidence being laid, literally, before her.
“Okay,” Simmons continued. “Let’s turn specifically to the blackmail money. Tell us what happened?”
Megan fidgeted in her chair and rested her forearms on the table. She looked at the recorder and seemed to be composing herself, realising her every word would be examined forensically.
“Will phoned me,” she said. “I think it was a few weeks after the Worlds last year, and about a day or so after I’d come back from Brussels. I’d run in the Diamond League final, so it must have been the middle of September. He was angry... He said Gary had found out about the blood sample and told Will he could make trouble. He said it would give them – you – a reason to reopen the investigation.”
“That was the first time,” Simmons said, “and then the second time was about six weeks ago, yes?”
Megan nodded.
“Yes – by then I was going mental. I didn’t know what to do. I was so ashamed of what I’d done – of being exposed as completely heartless – but I was thinking, ‘I can’t go on keeping this to myself’. But then Will said if they tested the blood and found it was Matt’s, it would look like there’d been a fight and he could be done for manslaughter and me for running away and lying about it. Will said I’d be charged with perverting the course of justice.”
Megan paused and took a long, deep breath.
“So that’s why you didn’t come to us?” Richards asked. “But if you’d admitted you were there, you would have been able to tell us there wasn’t a fight – if there wasn’t.”
“I know, but I was scared. I wasn’t thinking straight. I suppose I was worried no one would believe me after I’d lied in the first place.” Megan looked down at her hands, now clasped together. “And I kept thinking about Graeme and what he would think of me – how disappointed he’d be. I wanted to see him to apologise but, and I know it’s pathetic, to be honest I couldn’t face the shame of it.”
Megan lifted a hand and wiped the tears forming in each eye with the tip of her forefinger. She was calm and seemed relieved now to finally be telling the whole story. I put an arm round her shoulder.
“And you didn’t doubt what Will was saying at all?” Simmons asked. “You believed him when he said Gary was threatening to expose you?”
Megan looked at Simmons like it was a silly question.
“Of course I did,” she said. “Why would Will lie to me about a thing like that?”
“You didn’t think he might be setting you up?” Richards said.
Megan jerked her head back and shook it firmly.
“Miss Tomos has confirmed she didn’t think Will had set her up.”
“Why would he? What do you mean?” Megan said, looking horrified. I squeezed her shoulder and she turned and smiled at me appreciatively.
“And you didn’t hear directly from Gary? No phone calls from him?” Simmons said.
“No, no way,” Megan said. “I wouldn’t speak to that shit anyway.”
“Megan, I think you should look closely at these,” Simmons said softly, pushing the pile of bank statements across the table. “Especially the one on the top for last September.”
Megan picked up the top sheet from the pile with the same wariness and suspicion she’d shown with the credit card statement. But this time she put it down on the table in front of her and went through it line by line, her forefinger running down the date column and then across to the description of each transaction, the amount withdrawn or paid in, and the balance.
My eyes followed her finger down and across the page. The statement had bigger numbers on it than any I’d ever seen for my own account. The balance was rarely less than five figures.
Megan stopped at the entry with her name on it, about halfway down. The £10,000 was shown as paid in on 16th September, taking the balance to £21,463. She carried on down the page until she reached an entry on 23rd September saying Online Transaction G Evans. The sum transferred was £5,000. Megan stopped and looked at me and then across at Simmons.
“Five - thousand - pounds…” she said, each word pronounced distinctly, horror in her voice. “Only five thousand? Oh my God.”
Simmons nodded. “We’ve been through the subsequent months,” Simmons said, “and we can’t see another transfer for that amount. There are two other transfers to Evans, but they are for
smaller amounts and add up to a lot less than five thousand. Until six weeks ago, that is, when you paid Driscoll the second ten thousand pounds and he transferred five thousand straight to Evans.”
Simmons pulled another statement from the pile and slid it in front of Megan, pointing to the entry.
“They were in it together,” she said, like she was talking to herself, needing to say it out loud for her own benefit.
“It certainly looks like it,” Richards said.
Megan was shaking her head, sprinkling tears on the table.
“But we need to do some more work before we charge them,” Simmons continued. “We’re obtaining a court order for Evans’s bank information, and we’ll have to interview both of them and speak to the Crown Prosecution Service. We will also need a full statement from you, of course, before we charge them. Mr Winters will explain the procedure and help with that, I’m sure.”
Nigel nodded, looking chastened by the gravity of Simmons’ revelations.
Megan stared blankly past Richards and Simmons. Her cheeks were wet. A tear was hanging from her chin, ready to fall. She had a tissue in her hand but didn’t seem to have the energy to use it. I squeezed her shoulder again.
“I can’t believe it,” she said, sounding empty and exhausted. “The bastard.”
25
Negotiating The Minefield
“What a stupid bitch,” Megan said, standing up and pacing along the other side of the table in the interview room.
We were on our own. Nigel had disappeared with Richards and Simmons to talk ‘procedure’.
“I can’t believe it,” Megan continued, turning and striding back, not looking at me. “He’s been using me. All this fucking time – and I fell for it.”
Countless possible comments came to mind, but I took it she wasn’t asking for my opinion. I let her vent. My questions could wait. I wasn’t even sure they were that important now.
“I’ve only seen Will a couple of times since I moved to London,” Megan said, second-guessing one of my thoughts; still pacing, talking like she was playing it back in her head. “He phoned me occasionally, and we texted, but after my parents moved, I hardly ever came back to Newport. I didn’t want to, couldn’t face it, after what had happened.”
Megan sat down opposite me, her eyes locked into my face but not really seeing it, still seeing the playback.
“All I could think about was, ‘What if people found out?’ Oh my God, I’m telling you, the thought of people finding out... I was terrified. And Will was making out he was on my side: ‘No one will ever know – trust me.’ That’s what he used to say, Liam, ‘Trust me’. Bastard.”
Megan stood up, starting to pace again, her back to me. “And I actually felt grateful. Un-fucking believable. Can you believe that? I was grateful and I was still fond of him – and all the time, the bastard was using me like a cash machine, making out he was my friend when he was up to his neck in this shit with Gary.”
She turned to me, shaking her head. “I’ll tell you what, Liam – the longer it went on and the more successful I became, the more scared I was. And he knew it. He knew I was panic-stricken about, you know, being exposed for doing something so…”
Megan stopped and sat down opposite me, elbows on the table, her lips quivering, the words coming out through gritted teeth, “…for being such a heartless bitch,” she said, almost in a whisper, talking more to herself than me. “Running away like that, like all I cared about was myself and my fucking career and enjoying the glory and the celebrity. But actually, I was scared shitless the truth would come out. And I was angry with Matt. Angry? How bizarre is that? Everything got so twisted... And all the time I couldn’t bring myself to face Graeme. I didn’t even have the guts to do that.”
I reached out across the table and put a hand on Megan’s forearm.
“You have now though,” I said.
We sat there for a moment, Megan sobbing quietly, and me way beyond anger, thinking how much I wanted to see Mimi and Danny and how tired I was of police stations and hotels and Newport and the clothes I’d been wearing since the trials.
Nigel walked in.
“Right,” he said, jauntily, rubbing his hands – and it struck me how much he must be enjoying this high-profile case, paid on the clock at God-knows-what hourly rate.
He stopped when he saw the state Megan was in, hunched at the table, shielding her eyes with one hand and producing a tissue from her track suit pocket with the other. He walked to the far end of the table, sat down with his hands clasped together, looking priest-like, and waited for Megan to compose herself.
“We’ve had an ‘off-the-record’ chat – me and Inspector Richards,” he said slowly and calmly. “I’m clearer now about the lie of the land, and you’ll be pleased to hear our friend Driscoll is dead meat. No surprises there, with the siege and the blackmail and the steroid ring, but they don’t think they can nail him for Matt’s death. The vodka thing is only a theory and the delay in calling the ambulance isn’t enough. They don’t really have any hard evidence, especially if the pathology report comes back saying Matt only had a minor bump on his head, and it wasn’t the cause of death – and that’s what they’re expecting. But Matt’s death was certainly convenient for Will – and Gary – because he’d become a loose cannon. They’d used him for some low-level dealing – around schoolmates, that sort of thing – but his drink problem, and his dabbling in coke and meth, along with the steroids, made him a liability. So the thinking is that Will was quick-witted enough to see his chance to get rid of Matt by – put it this way – not busting-a-gut to save him. But whether or not, at that time, he also realised it would give him leverage over you – sending you off like that – well, that’s another matter. We’ll probably never know.”
Megan was no longer a heap on the table. She’d pulled herself upright and was listening intently to Nigel. I sensed a steely resolve coming over her.
“But it didn’t take them long to work it out, to spot an opportunity, did it?” she said.
“No, not at all. You were off in London. Will didn’t have to put a show on for you, or worry about you finding out about his extra-curricular activities. And when you started doing well, they saw their chance to put the squeeze on you.”
“So why did Gary and Will fall out?” I asked.
Nigel looked at me as if he thought that was fairly obvious. “Thieves do, I suppose, when the pressure builds-up,” he said. “We’ve probably got Matt’s mother to thank, mainly. When she started kicking-up about the first police inquiry not being thorough, they put Richards on the case and he went through the file again and found they’d overlooked things, not least the blood sample. The original investigation was sloppy; they’d just assumed it was a typical misadventure. But Mr Meticulous left no stone unturned and Will and Gary realised they were in trouble.”
Megan was switched on now. You could sense her churning everything over, starting to look at things from every angle, the fog of her loyalty to Will having finally cleared.
“So why the tweet?” she said. “You know, Will’s tweet just before the trials.”
Nigel looked bemused. “That was before my time,” he said.
“It was odd, when you think about it now,” Megan said. “He mentioned my name. He was replying to other tweets, accusing him of all sorts, but he didn’t need to say, ‘Don’t bring Megan into it’. By saying that, it was him who was dragging me in.”
“It worked then,” I said.
Nigel had pulled out a tablet and was busy tapping and stroking it to find the tweet. “I see what you mean,” he said. “Yes, I reckon that was desperation on his part. He had to drag you in because you admitting to being there gave him a witness. He was banking on you to help him wriggle out of the manslaughter accusation. But then it all unravelled with Gary, and it was every man for himself.”
Megan was nodding to herself. “I owe Julie an apology,” she said.
“Hold on. all in good time,” Nigel s
aid. “Julie’s probably still gunning for you, and you’re not completely out of the woods with the police enquiry. Technically, you’re under caution until the pathology report eliminates the possibility of Matt being pushed. They made it fairly obvious to me that they believe you on that point, but that’s not official yet…”
“Yes, yes, I get it,” Megan said, sounding impatient and frustrated.
“Well, not entirely you don’t,” Nigel replied. “This is not only about you and Matt’s death now. The arrest of Driscoll and Evans, and all that’s come to light about their activities has widened this into a major drugs enquiry. Richards wouldn’t give too much away, but put it this way, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there are raids and arrests all over the place in the next few days. This steroids network stretches far and wide – there’s millions changing hands. Driscoll and Evans are small fry.”
***
Megan was still deep in thought as she drove me the short distance to the railway station. I didn’t try to talk. There was so much to take in. Over breakfast she’d been worrying about Will lying in a hospital bed. Now she wanted him behind bars as soon as possible. Only a few hours ago, Julie Davies had seemed a troublemaker. Now she was on Megan’s apology list. And what started as a few steroid pills being dished out at a gym was beginning to look like a national epidemic.
As we pulled up in a large, almost empty car park behind the station, Megan took a call on her mobile.
“Hello. I’m okay… Where are you? I’m dropping Liam off… At the railway station. I’ll be there soon… Wait, I’m doing it… See you in a minute… Bye.”
Megan flicked the phone off.
“My mother,” she explained. “My parents are at Graeme’s. He’s done the shopping and I’m cooking lunch.”
Megan seemed to radiate pleasure at the prospect of a simple family event.
“So, what about the Olympics?” she said after a moment.
I waited for her to answer her own question. No one – not even the best coach on the planet – can tell an athlete whether or not they’re in the right shape, physically and mentally, for the ultimate test.