by Ian Mayfield
Sticking to familiar ground, Pegley said nothing. But he was watching Zoltan keenly.
‘What I’m trying to do,’ Zoltan went on, amiable still, ‘is a bit out of the ordinary. There’s this piece of property someone lost, very valuable to them. It was stolen, but for some reason they didn’t report it. Until now. Even though it’s so long ago, we’ve managed to trace the property. Up to a point, anyway.’
‘Speaking of points,’ the duty solicitor, Baker, a supercilious, tired man in a tired blue suit, stirred from his note-taking, ‘what’s yours, Mr Schneider? I don’t think any of us are up to riddles at this hour.’
Zoltan gave the solicitor one of his nastiest, most sardonic looks. Making sure Pegley saw it, he transferred it to him, made it pleasant. ‘Thing is,’ he said, ‘this property was last seen sold on by a secondhand shop near here. And they say they bought it from you.’
He was pushing it. In his mind’s eye was Anne, hurrying over to Meadow Music to catch Roy Gillam as he arrived to open up. He knew this was a gamble that relied on faded memories; that Pegley would not associate the theft of a musical instrument with another, far more serious crime.
He said, ‘I’m talking about a flute, stolen five years ago from a house in Sutton. It was sold shortly after the theft to Meadow Music in Camberwell High Street - just down the road from here. Quite a distinctive flute. Antique. Worth tens of thousands.’ He watched Pegley’s face. ‘Would you, perchance, remember anything about a flute like that?’
Pegley assumed an expression of deep thought that wouldn’t have passed muster in the ropiest of amateur dramatic productions. ‘No.’
‘That’s odd,’ Zoltan said, ‘because what I’ve got here is a carbon copy of a receipt issued at about that time by Meadow Music for a flute like the one I described.’ He pushed it across the table, informing the recording apparatus that he was doing so. Baker intercepted it, studied it with feigned suspicion, then handed it to his client.
‘The signature, Darren,’ Zoltan said. ‘What name would you say?’
‘Can’t read it,’ Pegley said.
‘It’s no fainter than the rest of the chit,’ Zoltan said calmly. ‘Try a bit harder.’
‘No,’ Pegley said at once, ‘sorry.’
‘Well, the handwriting’s not the neatest in the world, I grant you, but I reckon it says “D. Pegley”. Bit of a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?’
He wouldn’t say.
‘Especially as the description we’ve got of the bloke selling the flute,’ Zoltan said, ‘is you to a T.’
‘It weren’t me. I never been in there.’
‘You can honestly put your hand on your heart and tell me you weren’t in Meadow Music five years ago selling a flute?’
‘Do I look like I can play the flute?’
‘In that case,’ Zoltan smiled, ‘you won’t mind giving me a sample of your handwriting so I can have it compared to the receipt.’
While Pegley was still staring at him, deciding what, if anything, to reply to this, there was a knock at the door and DI Beaumont stuck his head round. Zoltan, after a nod of assent from Baker, stood up.
‘Excuse me for a moment,’ he said, smiling.
‘I am now,’ Zoltan happily informed the recorder a few minutes later, ‘showing Mr Pegley a long, thin, black leatherbound case, entered as exhibit number 24H.’ He watched as first Baker, then a pale Darren Pegley examined the opened, empty case in its plastic evidence bag. ‘Ever seen this before, Darren?’
‘No,’ Pegley said.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Positive.’ Grumpily, he slapped it down into Zoltan’s outstretched palm. The DI took it and put it on the table facing him.
‘I’m now showing Mr Pegley the inside of the open case lid,’ he narrated, and smiled icily. ‘Could you see your way clear to reading what the manufacturer’s label says?’
‘You what?’
‘Humour me.’
‘It says “B-O-H-M”.’
‘Now what sort of thing would you say this was designed to hold?’
‘Dunno.’
‘Take an educated guess.’
‘Very long vibrator,’ Pegley said, with a leery glance at Baker.
Zoltan waited for their mirth to subside. ‘Funny you should say that.’
Pegley stopped grinning.
‘Had a proper good look, did you, just now?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And you, sir?’
Baker nodded and made a noise of assent.
‘Better put you out of your misery, then,’ Zoltan said. ‘We found out what it’s supposed to hold. Not burglary equipment, which is what was in it when we found it. That’s right, Darren, look relieved. It’s for a flute. An antique ivory flute made by Böhm of Germany. To be precise, a flute used by two suspects to assault its owner in Sutton in a five-year-old unsolved rape case, and subsequently stolen by them.’ He fancied Pegley was showing signs of disquiet. It was an emotion he often provoked, even in people he wasn’t accusing of serious crimes, so he recognised it when he saw it. He pushed the case across the table again. ‘Take a look underneath where it says Böhm, Darren,’ he suggested. ‘See that little faded three-digit number? We’ve just contacted the woman I told you about and she confirmed that’s the serial number of the stolen flute. I’m intrigued,’ he pushed on relentlessly, ‘because it was that very flute that turned up at Meadow Music. Remember?’
‘I’m telling you it weren’t me.’
‘That’s why I’m intrigued, you see, Darren,’ Zoltan said, still smiling. ‘Because we found this case, with this manufacturer’s label and this serial number, hidden in a big plastic box in the cold water tank in your flat. The landlord’s given us the names of the previous tenants. None of them has a record for burglary, Darren. But you do. And yet you’ve never seen this before. Intriguing, isn’t it?’
Another knock on the door made Pegley look up with a start. Zoltan thought this was a good place to leave him hanging, so he excused himself again and switched off the recorder.
Outside Anne White greeted him with a triumphant beam. ‘Picked him out,’ she said, handing him a piece of paper. ‘It was Pegley.’
Zoltan raised his eyebrows in mild surprise. ‘I thought he was a bit hazy on the details?’
‘He’s had all night to think about it,’ Anne said. ‘He’s fairly certain.’
‘Fairly?’
She shrugged. ‘Ninety per cent. But he IDed him straight away from the faces on that page.’
‘And this is Mr Gillam’s statement to the effect?’ Zoltan glanced at the paper.
‘Right.’
‘Ninety per cent won’t be enough for the CPS.’
‘I figured it might be enough for you,’ Anne said.
Zoltan looked up with a reptilian smile.
‘How well you know me,’ he said.
‘You’ll have gathered from the frequent interruptions, Darren,’ he said, settling himself back down, ‘we’ve got something else simmering besides you. Well, it’s just come to the boil.’
He put down the statement form, pointedly, out of the reach of Pegley and his solicitor, turned to the recorder and pulled out two thumb drives, which he sealed, signed and gave to Pegley to do the same, telling him that one would be his to keep.
‘Is that it, then?’ Baker said.
‘No, it isn’t,’ Zoltan answered cheerfully, inserting two fresh thumb drives into the recorder. ‘The reason I’m doing things this way is that new evidence has come to light, as the saying goes, and because I’m a good boy who follows PACE to the letter. So we’ll go again from scratch.’ Once more he started the machine and identified the location and those present. ‘I’m questioning Mr Pegley with regard to a burglary at 2 Langley Park Road, Sutton, five years prior to the date of this interview, during which the occupant, Miranda Sally Hargreaves, alleges she was raped. I’m bound to tell you, Mr Pegley, that I suspect you of being involved in that crime, so I’m going to caution you
again before we continue.’
‘Five years ago?’ Zoltan noted with satisfaction the paling of Pegley’s face, the slackening of his jaw. ‘How the bleeding hell d’you expect - ?’
‘I must warn you that you don’t have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you don’t mention now something you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand?’
‘Yeah, yeah.’ Pegley was still, desperately, trying to fathom what was going on.
‘Now let me tell you what’s been happening while we’ve been in here.’ Zoltan settled himself. ‘As you know, narcotics officers raided your flat in Glazebrook Road early this morning. They arrested a Miss Colleen O’Dwyer - ’
‘She ain’t got nothing to do with it,’ Pegley said, feebly.
‘ - and found, among other things, the leatherbound wooden case you’ve previously examined as exhibit 24H. It’s very noble of you to try and protect her, Darren,’ Zoltan added, underlining that he’d forget nothing Pegley said, ‘but I quote from your verbal of last night: “They ain’t mine, they’re my girlfriend’s.” Your attack of chivalry’s come a bit late.’
He paused, smiling at his own sarcasm, and then frowned.
‘This is a copy of a statement,’ he announced, placing the form carefully on the table facing Pegley, who sat staring at it as though it were a live frog, ‘made a short while ago by a Mr Roy Gillam, who runs a business called Meadow Music. Would you like to read it?’
‘May I?’ Baker put his hand out to take the document with a glance at his client, who nodded. The solicitor speed-read it, sighed and offered it back. Again Pegley made no move to study it.
‘Perhaps you’d like to mull it over for a while,’ Zoltan suggested.
‘I don’t wanna read it.’
‘It’s in your own best interests, Darren.’
Pegley folded his arms and looked at the wall.
‘Here’s an idea. I’ll tell you what it says.’ Zoltan drew the statement towards him and adjusted his glasses. ‘Mr Gillam states that having studied a series of photographs from criminal record files, photographs of young men similar in appearance to yourself, he identifies you as the person who sold him an antique ivory flute, subsequently discovered to be stolen. For the record,‘ he glanced at the tape recorder, ‘that flute was the rightful property of Miranda Hargreaves. Now are you sure,’ Zoltan said, pushing the statement over to Pegley’s side of the table, ‘you don’t want to read it for yourself?’
A change had come over his suspect. Slowly, but obviously trying to restrain himself, Pegley took the form and read it carefully.
‘You can’t prove nothing,’ he said at last, tossing it back. ‘It was fucking years ago.’
‘It certainly seems to have stuck in Mr Gillam’s mind.’
‘Yeah, I bet,’ Pegley grunted.
‘Are you saying none of this happened?’
Pegley was saying nothing.
‘Did you burgle number 2 Langley Park Road?’
‘No.’
‘Then how,’ Zoltan came back at him, ‘did the flute’s case, which we found in your flat, and which has your fingerprints on it, come to be there?’
‘I bought it.’
‘Who from?’
‘Can’t remember.’
‘But you definitely bought it?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You told me you’d never set eyes on the case, Darren.’
‘That was before...’ He tailed off.
‘Before I told you I suspected you of rape?’ Zoltan said with brutal mildness.
Pegley said nothing. Zoltan could see him grinding his teeth.
‘I’ve checked back in our files,’ he went on, ‘to see if anything else matches. Nothing does. Not for that time period. No other stolen flutes, no other burglars turned rapists. Now I’ve got Miss Hargreaves’s original statement, which I’ll give you to look at, and the trouble is her description of the man who raped her sounds a lot like you.’
‘So?’
‘So there are too many coincidences,’ Zoltan said. ‘Like the flute being sold shortly after the rape by yet another person who looked like you and who just happened to countersign his receipt with your name and address.’
‘It weren’t me,’ Pegley said.
‘Wasn’t you who what? Beat that young woman up, forced her to strip, raped her, and then as if that wasn’t humiliating enough, stuck her most precious possession, her beloved flute, up her vagina? Who was it, then?’
‘Dunno.’
‘Do you know a man named Michael Bayliss?’
A flicker of something in Pegley’s expression, which Zoltan didn’t think was surprise.
‘Was Michael Bayliss your accomplice that night? Were you his?’
‘I wasn’t there.’
‘Because if Bayliss committed the rape, how come it was you, Darren, who ended up with the flute?’
‘Inspector Schneider,’ Baker interrupted, sitting up straight. ‘As my client has pointed out a number of times, this alleged crime happened years ago, far beyond reliable memory. Now if you have anything other than some flimsy identification evidence which hasn’t the least chance of standing up in court, kindly produce it if you’re planning to do anything other than trawl through ancient history.’
‘This isn’t ancient history, Mr Baker,’ Zoltan said. He stared Pegley down. ‘Is it, Darren?’
‘What are you saying?’ Baker demanded.
‘There’s evidence,’ Zoltan explained, still to Pegley, ‘linking this rape with at least half a dozen similar incidents. All involving burglary. All involving the use of a foreign object to sexually assault whichever woman was unlucky enough to be in the house at the time.’
Pegley had slid down in his chair.
‘Last week an old lady in her nineties, in a retirement community, was attacked in her bed with a nurse sitting at a desk not fifteen yards away. Can you imagine?’ Pegley stared. ‘Maybe you don’t need to. This lady was beaten up and raped with one of her own candlesticks. Ninety years old. What sort of person does that?’
‘Mr Schneider,’ Baker said, ‘I’d like to confer with my client in private for a few minutes. Would that be possible, do you think?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Zoltan said, as if the request hadn’t been rhetorical. ‘Interview suspended.’
He found Jasmin in the canteen, slumped beside a plate of scrambled eggs and a half empty mug of cold black coffee. She was asleep, head resting on folded arms, mouth open. Shaking his head, he left her there, bought himself coffee and wandered back upstairs.
Anne looked up from behind a clipboard. ‘Sophia wants you to ring her. Let her know the SP.’ She peered knowingly at him. ‘I gather from your expression Gillam’s statement might have done the trick?’
‘Possibly.’ He gave her hand a quick squeeze while no-one was looking. ‘Pegley’s closeted with his brief now, no doubt concocting a version of the truth in which he comes out smelling of roses.’
‘Is he in the frame, then?’
‘He was there all right. But he won’t cop to the rape - not as long as he knows we’ve no forensic. That character Camberwell dug up.’
‘Bayliss?’
‘Yeah. Pegley got twitchy when I mentioned him. Since he now thinks I’m going to fit him up for the whole series, my money’s on him naming Bayliss as the second man. What?’ he frowned. Anne was staring at him oddly.
‘So,’ she scowled, ‘in exchange for shopping Bayliss, Pegley gets off scot free on the rape?’
‘The price of justice.’
She sighed. ‘Well, I’m off out of here in a couple of days, so it’s not going to be me that has to tell Miranda Beckett if he does.’
‘Quite,’ Zoltan said. He looked at his watch, then around the room at the tables piled high with evidence. He said, ‘Are you busy?’
Anne shrugged. ‘Just killing time, awaiting instructions.’
‘Jasmin’s flaked out down in the canteen,
’ Zoltan said. ‘Think you could revive her to a sufficient level of consciousness to stuff her in the car and take her home?’
‘Sure.’
In the doorway she collided with a uniformed sergeant. ‘DI Schneider about?’
Anne looked back to where Zoltan was standing, dialling on his phone. ‘You’re on,’ she called to him.
He opened the door to see Pegley and Baker looking up at him expectantly. He took his seat in silence and, making no move to turn the recorder back on, folded his arms and waited.
‘My client,’ the solicitor said after a few tense moments, ‘is willing to make a statement explaining his part in the, er, events leading up to his coming into possession of the flute.’
Slowly and deliberately, Zoltan nodded.
‘In exchange,’ Baker struggled on, ‘he would like an assurance that you’ll take the, er, the mitigating circumstances into consideration.’
‘Assurances of any kind,’ Zoltan said levelly, ‘aren’t up to me. What I’m able to recommend to the CPS in the way of reduced charges will depend on what Mr Pegley has to tell me.’
‘Darren?’ Baker said.
Pegley nodded, tired.
Zoltan switched on the machine, said the necessary and launched in. ‘OK, Darren, who assaulted Miranda Hargreaves? You or Michael Bayliss?’
Pegley looked surprised and affronted. He turned to Baker. ‘You didn’t tell me he was gonna ask that straight off!’
‘Mr Baker isn’t privy to my interview techniques,’ Zoltan said, ‘so spare him the grief. All right, let’s go back a bit. How do you know Bayliss?’
‘Ain’t seen him for years.’
Zoltan let it pass. ‘You’ve known him how long?’
‘Since school.’
‘You used to live in Croydon?’
‘Addiscombe. I moved to Camberwell with me mum when her and me dad split up.’
‘When was that?’
‘Just after GCSEs.’
Zoltan doubted Pegley had ever got near a GCSE, but he dropped the question as irrelevant. ‘So at the time this incident took place, you were living with your mum in Camberwell?’