“Which newspapers do you read, Jason?” I asked.
He shuffled uncomfortably in his seat and stared down at somewhere near his navel.
“The Sun?” I suggested. “Or the Sunday Sport?”
He shook his head and curled up even more.
“If I may,” the solicitor interrupted. “Jason has reading difficulties. He doesn’t buy a newspaper.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said, taken aback for a moment. Then I remembered the magazines that were found in his room. “You like pictures, though, don’t you?” I asked. “Which paper has the best girls in it? Tell me that, Jason.”
“Dunno,” he mumbled.
“But you look at them?”
“I suppose so.”
“Which ones?”
“Dunno.”
“Where do you see them?”
“All over.”
“Such as?”
“Anywhere.”
“Tell me, Jason. I’m trying to help you.”
He shrugged his shoulders and looked towards his brief for help. The solicitor waved a palm towards me in a gesture that said: “For God’s sake tell the man.”
“In the pub,” he replied.
“What?” I began. “You mean, people leave them in the pub and you collect them?”
“I don’t collect them. I just ’ave a look.”
“Where else?”
“Mates’ ’ouses. All over.”
“Which papers do you like best?”
“I dunno. They’re all the same.”
“The Sport?”
“Sometimes.”
“The UK News? Do you like the UK News, Jason?”
“Dunno if I do or not.”
“Where do you get your magazines from?”
“From mates.”
“Do you buy them?”
“No. We just swap them.”
It always looks good in the report of a trial: Police found a number of pornographic magazines in the accused’s house. Of course we did, because they’re all over the place. There isn’t an establishment in the country that employs a majority of males where you couldn’t find some sort of unofficial library of top-shelf literature, and that includes most police stations. Jason would have been more interesting to the psychiatric profession if we hadn’t found any sex books at his home.
“Tell me about your girlfriends,” I suggested.
“’Aven’t got one,” he replied.
“But you’ve had one, haven’t you?”
“I suppose so.”
“Good looking lad like you,” I said. “With a little car. Wouldn’t have thought you’d have any problem pulling the birds. Am I right?”
“Sometimes.”
“Who was your last girlfriend?”
“Can’t remember.”
“Can’t or won’t? How long since you last had a girl in the car, Jason?”
He thought about it, his brow a rubbing-board of furrows. “’Bout three weeks,” he eventually volunteered. “Maybe a bit longer.”
“So that would be before Marie-Claire Hollingbrook was murdered,” I said.
“Yeah. ’Bout a week before.”
“How did you learn about her murder?”
“In the pub. They were talking about it in the pub.”
“Did you know her?”
“No.”
“Did you ever see her?”
“No.”
“So you didn’t recognise her from her picture in the papers?”
“No.”
The solicitor leaned forward and said: “Inspector, could you possibly explain where this line of enquiry is leading? My client has strenuously denied any knowledge of Miss Hollingbrook or any involvement in her death. There are several hours of taped interviews in which he answers all questions fully and satisfactorily.”
“There is some rather heavy evidence against your client,” I pointed out.
“Which is being contested,” he rejoined. “There are precedents, Inspector, in which DNA evidence has been discredited. We are currently investigating the whole procedure for taking and examining samples from both the crime scene and witnesses.”
Here we go, I thought. O.J. Simpson all over again. O.J. bloody Simpson. It wasn’t my job to give him lines of defence, so I just accepted what he said. I turned back to Jason and asked: “What was this girl called that you last went out with?”
“Dunno,” he replied.
“You don’t know? Didn’t you ask?”
“Yeah, but I’ve forgotten.”
“Well try to remember. It could be important.”
“I’ve forgotten.”
“OK. Let’s go through it. Where did you meet her?”
“At that club in Heckley with the daft name.”
“The Aspidistra Lounge.”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“Go there a lot, do you?”
“Yeah, I suppose so.”
“What nights?”
“Sometimes Thursdays, and most Fridays.”
“And what night did you meet this girl?”
“Not sure. Think it was Friday.”
“So what did you do?”
“What did we do?” he asked, looking even more bewildered.
“Did you dance?”
“Yeah, a bit.”
“Buy her a drink?”
“Yeah.”
“What did she drink?”
“Lager. And Blastaways.”
“Blastaways. Right.” I knew that was a sickly combination of cider and a ready-made cocktail called a Castaway. “And did you ask her name?”
“I suppose so.”
“Which was?”
“Can’t remember.”
It’s at times like this that I wished I smoked. I could take out the packet of Sobranies, flick one between my lips, light it with my gold-plated Zippo and inhale a long satisfying lungful of nicotine-laden smoke. All I’d have to worry about was an early grave from cancer, not trying to keep an uncommunicative twerp like Jason from spending the rest of his natural being used as a trampoline in an open prison.
“Did you take her home?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Straight home?”
“Er, no.”
“Where did you go?”
“To the brickyard.”
Atkinson’s brickyard was long gone, but the name lingered on. It was now a lawned-over picnic site, only the red shards poking through the grass indicating its industrial past. More people meet there after dark for sex than ever eat at the primitive tables during daylight hours.
“Did you have sex with her?”
“Yeah.”
“In the back seat?”
“No, in the front.”
“Really! Wouldn’t you have found it more comfortable in the back?”
“Yeah, but…”
“But what?”
“We just started, you know, snogging, in the front, and that was it.”
“You were carried away.”
“Yeah. Well, she was. Dead eager for it, she was.”
“She took the initiative?”
“Yeah.”
I expected his brief to interrupt, but I think he was as fascinated as I was by the sexual mores of the young. I dragged the conversation back on course. “Was she on the Pill?” I asked.
“No.”
“So what did you do? Risk it?”
“No.”
“You’d gone prepared.”
“Yeah.”
“Very commendable. So did you arrange to see her again?”
“Not really. I said I might see ’er in the…the whatsit, the club.”
“You don’t sound as if you were keen. Why not?”
“Because she was a slag, that’s why.”
“But you must have asked her name.”
“Yeah, I suppose so.”
“Which was…?”
“Can’t remember.”
I turned to the brief and told him that we were
going to have a five-minute break. I said I was trying to help his client and the name of the girl might be of use in my line of enquiries. Jason was in hot water about as deep as it gets, and anything he told me could only help his case. I suggested they did some serious thinking.
Les Isles wasn’t in his office, and Nigel was nowhere to be found, either. Two DCs were busy in the main office, working at computer keyboards that were in danger of being engulfed by the paperwork heaped around them. Who invented the expression paperless office? Woody Allen?
“Where’s the boss?” I asked the nearest DC.
“Mr Isles?”
“Mmm.”
“Review meeting at Region. It’s Mr Priest, isn’t it?”
I didn’t deny the fact and we shook hands. He’d attended one of my talks at the training college and said he enjoyed it. “I’m interviewing Jason Gelder downstairs,” I told him, quickly adding: “with Mr Isles’ permission. Nobody told me he was ESN.”
“Who, Mr Isles?” he replied with a grin. “That explains a lot.”
“I meant young Gelder.”
“Sorry about that. Strictly speaking, and according to the experts, he’s not. Put in layman’s language, he’s thick, but he’s not slow.”
“I see,” I said, “or at least, I think I do. Where does he get his money from?”
“He works for a living, down at the abattoir. Spends his working day scraping flesh from animal skins. They pay him fairly well because nobody wants to do it, and he goes home stinking like an otter’s arse.”
“Right. Thanks for your help. Thick but not slow, I’ll have to ponder on that one.”
Down in the interview room Jason was slumped at the table and the brief was leaning on the wall, a polystyrene coffee cup in his hand. He shrugged his shoulders as I entered and resumed his seat.
“Where were we?” I asked, briskly, rubbing my hands together. “Didn’t you want a coffee, Jason?” and was rewarded with a shake of the head.
“So what was this girl called?” I demanded.
“I don’t know,” he stated, staring straight at me. The brief must have given him a hard time because he looked as if he’d been crying.
“What did you talk about? If you did any talking?” I asked.
“Not much,” he replied.
“How old was she? Did you ask her that?”
“No, I don’t think I asked.”
I wasn’t surprised. What was that other one from Pete Drago’s list of sexual aphorisms: If they’re big enough, they’re old enough. “How old did you think she was?”
“About eighteen. She was about eighteen.”
“So she wasn’t under age.”
“No, definitely not. She’d left school.”
“Did she work or go to college?”
“I don’t know.”
“So if she was over sixteen why won’t you tell me her name.”
“Because you won’t listen,” he sobbed. “I keep telling you, I don’t remember.”
“OK,” I said. “Let’s go through it again. You meet this girl at the Aspidistra Lounge, either on Thursday or Friday night…”
“Friday,” He interrupted. “I think it was Friday.”
“But you’re not sure?”
“No.”
“Right. You buy her a few drinks, have a dance and a smooch, and take her home. Did you stay right to the end?”
“No.”
“What time?”
“Dunno.”
“Before or after midnight?”
“About midnight.”
“Then you went to the brickyard, had sex with this young lady in the front seat because you were both too desperate to climb into the back, and that was that. You had ten minutes of passion but didn’t bother seeing her again. Why not?”
“Because she was a slag. I’ve told you once,” he stated, almost shouting at me now. I decided to push him.
“A slag! Aren’t all the girls you pick up slags?” I demanded.
“No. Not all of them.”
“But this one was?”
“Yeah.”
“Was Marie-Claire a slag, Jason. Was she another slag?”
“I don’t know. I never met her.” Tears were running down his cheeks and he turned to the brief for help. “Why won’t they believe me?” he begged.
“Because you’re not telling the truth, Jason.” I stated. “This girl at the club; what was she called?”
“I don’t know!”
“Why are you protecting her, if you think she was a slag?”
“Because you wouldn’t believe me. You don’t believe anything I say.”
He was cracking. I’d closed on him. “What wouldn’t I believe?” I asked.
“Anything.”
“Tell me what I wouldn’t believe, Jason.”
“I can’t.”
“Why? Why can’t you tell me?”
“Because!”
“Because what?”
“Just because.”
He’d turned a ghostly white and was hyperventilating. The solicitor placed a hand on his arm, saying: “Jason, if there’s something you have to say, I think you should tell Mr Priest. It can’t do you any harm.”
Jason stared at me, defiant, and I stared back at him. “Go on, Jason,” I encouraged. “Who was she?”
“I don’t know her name.”
“You said we wouldn’t believe you. What wouldn’t we believe?”
“You’d ’old it against me. Gang up on me.”
“Why would we do that?”
“Because it’s what you do.”
“Tell me what you know, Jason,” I asked.
“Tell Mr Priest,” the brief added.
Jason breathed deeply a few times, gathering his strength, then blurted the words out. “’Er dad’s a copper,” he informed us.
“A copper?” I echoed. “What sort of a copper?”
“A detective. He’s a detective. At ’Eckley nick.”
It wasn’t what I expected, or what I wanted to hear. Images of him having it away with his kid sister, or his probation officer, or some other unlikely person, were swirling around in my mind, but not this. “Are you sure?” I asked, my voice a whisper.
“Yeah. She said ’er dad was a detective, in the CID at ’Eckley. I didn’t ask ’er, she just told me.”
“But…you can’t remember her name?”
“No.”
“Good,” I mumbled. “Good. I think that will do for now.”
Chapter Eleven
I went into a sandwich shop, but when I saw them all lying there like shrink-wrapped museum exhibits waiting to be catalogued I decided I wasn’t hungry. I bought a bottle of flavoured water, that’s all, and sipped at it sitting on a bench in the town centre, because I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. It must have been a cold day because people were hurrying about with their collars upturned and I had the seats all to myself. I don’t feel the cold.
O.J. Simpson was found not guilty of murder because his legal team declared that the DNA evidence was flawed. The jury accepted their claim because the police were a bunch of racists, and it was a glitch in the procedures for processing the DNA evidence that gave them the excuse to do so.
Blood samples from accused and victims were taken to the same laboratory, and O.J.’s thousand-dollars-an-hour attorney convinced the court that DNA could have floated about in the atmosphere and transferred itself from one sample dish to another. It’s not as crazy as it seems. They’d used something called PCR, or polymerase chain reaction, to amplify a tiny stretch of DNA, too small to be useful, into a big sample. It’s a procedure that a California scientist called Kary Mullis thought of while driving his car through the desert at night. It’s a magical experience for anyone, but Mullis wove some real magic that night, enough to win himself a share in the Nobel prize.
He knew that if you took one single shred of a DNA molecule and gently heated it in a test tube, with an exotic brew of the right proteins and enzymes, t
he two strands would untwine, and as you cooled it down again each would create a copy of the partner it had just lost. In other words, you would now have two pieces of the DNA. How you knew that there was only one molecule in the tube to start with, and how you kept track of it, wasn’t explained in the book I read. The heating and cooling process only took a few minutes, so do it again and you’d now have four pieces of DNA. It’s a fiendishly complicated process — this was strictly the Ladybird version, intended for under-sevens and police officers.
Mullis stopped the car and did some sums. He calculated that in twenty heating and cooling cycles, which would only take until coffee break, you’d have over a million copies of your original sample. Still not enough to be visible on the head of a pin, but you were getting there. Keep going, and by the end of the week you’d be bringing in the enzymes by specially laid road and rail connections, and moving the DNA out by the barge-load. In a month you could fill the Grand Canyon and make a start on the Marianas Trench.
You don’t need that much in a criminal case. O.J.’s lawyers said that with all the DNA being made, who could say that a spare flake hadn’t floated into the wrong test tube or Petri dish or whatever they use, and nobody had enough clout to argue with a thousand-dollars-an-hour attorney. This DNA swirling about in the atmosphere could just as easily have belonged to Thomas Jefferson or Christopher Columbus, but nobody mentioned it. As the newspapers put it: money talked, O.J. walked.
Black spots were breaking out on the pavement in front of my feet, like some deadly infection, and a raindrop scored a direct hit on my neck. Jason Lee Gelder’s solicitor was on the basic rate for the job, we had enough semen to do all the tests we needed and different samples are always processed in different labs. There was no comfort for him there. I took a sip of water and looked at the pigeons that had joined me, expecting to catch a few crumbs. They were all exactly alike, each a replicant of some distant ancestor, their lives preprogrammed in the genetic code. I wish I’d been a scientist. I screwed the top back on the bottle and went to find the car.
A solitary detective, David Rose, was at work in the office when I arrived back. He was in his shirtsleeves, surrounded by paperwork as he peered at the VDU screen on his desk, pencil behind his ear. He turned as I closed the door and said: “Hi, Charlie.”
“No.” I replied.
“No what?”
“No, whatever it was.”
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