by John Barlow
“Well, these days,” says John, “there’s a new emperor in town.”
“Yes, I heard that.”
“Freddy? How does he know Donna? He met her at the hotel?”
“As far as I remember, Freddy met Fedir in the city one night. Two young guys, you know how it is, same age, same interests. From then on, any time we were celebrating, Freddy’s there waiting at the bar, a big smile on his face.”
“Could he have been looking after Donna?”
“She could look after herself, believe me.”
“Why did she smash up the room at the hotel?”
Bilyk’s bonhomie is draining away fast.
“Money, my friend. The old story. Does it ever change? It’s always about money, in the end.”
“Ain’t that the truth. Tell me, why…”
“Enough questions.”
“…why are you really staying in that hotel? I mean…”
“Fuck the hotel!” Bilyk’s shouting, already out of his seat, leaning across the table until John can see the blackheads on his nose. “And fuck the dead bitch in your car!”
John doesn’t flinch. A trick his brother taught him. Bilyk looms there, his torso over the table. But John never wavers, his eyes dead still.
And it works.
The Ukrainian drops back into his seat with a massive hudumph.
“Money. Fake money, Mr Ray!” he says, jabbing a finger onto the table as he speaks, a little out of breath. “In your car, the car that Freddy had. Whose money was it?”
“Counterfeits, you say…?”
“Don’t play clever with me.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Yes.”
It’s Bilyk’s turn to keep his gaze steady. And it frightens John half to death. “We’ll be talking again soon, John Ray.”
With that he stands to leave.
John also rises and is about to extend a hand, keen not to make an enemy out of Bilyk. But the Ukrainian is already making his way through the cars, a curious bounce in his step, something coiled up and dangerous. Then, as the automatic glass doors sweep open, he turns.
“I bet Tony Ray would’ve had a straight answer for me!” he shouts.
“I’m not Tony fucking Ray!” John bellows, surprising himself with the force of his voice, and knowing that if the Ukrainian were to make one step back towards him he’d be out through the back door like a hare.
But Bilyk stays where he is. He laughs, a big hearty laugh of derision, then turns once more and makes his way out onto Hope Road.
John grabs the perspex Auto Trader award and hurls it into the side window of a red Audi 3, sending tiny fragments of glass skidding across the floor.
Twenty-one
Freddy opens his palms, looks down at his big, thick fingers.
A minute passes.
Two.
Next to him Moran is keen for the interview to end.
The young DCs opposite are the best Baron’s got. One male, one female. Jack and Jill they call ’em. Sharp, subtle, and very patient. They seem to have all the time in the world. And since the first interview, yesterday afternoon, they haven’t raised their voices or threatened Freddy in any way. Even when they talk about Donna’s dead body, they say Miss Macken, as if she’s still alive, as if there’s still some hope for her.
Moran has to admit that whatever they’re teaching ’em over at the training centre in Wakefield these days, it’s effective.
Finally Freddy looks up.
“Yep,” he says, “that’s it.”
The officers nod, terminate the interview, and stand.
Freddy seems confused. Looks at Moran, then back at the detectives. He’s like a lost kid, desperate for assurance, a friendly face. Had anyone in the room known him before all this, they’d have seen how severe the change in him has been, the extent to which he’s crushed on the inside.
But they don’t know him. And it doesn’t much matter. He’s under arrest for murder, and now, as he and his lawyer prepare to leave the interview room yet again, he sinks back into a state of groggy bewilderment.
“I’m going to talk to John,” Moran whispers to him, “then I’ll be back. Okay?”
Freddy is taken back to his cell, where he will spend the next hour in tears.
***
“He had sex with her!” Moran announces.
John is sitting on a metal bench at the far end of the bus station, his black, size ten Dr Martens shoes up on the bench opposite.
“Now why does that not come as a surprise?” he says as Moran steps over his legs and takes a seat next to him.
“On the back seat of your Mondeo.”
“Classy. They got his DNA?”
“Not yet. Don’t need it anyway. He told ’em.”
“And he just remembered this, did he?”
“Yes, right there in the interview room. The first I’d heard!”
“Shit. What else is he saying?”
“Same as before. Knows nothing about the money. He’s sticking to that.”
Good lad.
“But the girl, he’s all over the place. Loved her, tried to get her to stop, she needed to be patient… He’s talking his way into a charge here. Simple as that.”
“Stop what?”
“No idea.”
“Someone else took the car, that still his story?”
“Yes.”
“You believe him?”
Moran emits a terse gasp of exasperation. “They dragged her out of the hotel, dead. It was either Freddy or the Ukrainian kid who drove. I can’t force clients to tell me the truth.”
“Fedir, Fedir something, he’s called. The Ukrainian. He’s disappeared.”
“Then they’re gonna stay with Freddy as the main suspect. What else can they do?”
A turquoise and cream double-decker pulls up into the bay in front of them.
“What on earth is going on in there?” says John, as if he’s asking the bus.
Moran screws up his face, stifles a yawn. “The problem is what’s going on inside Freddy’s head. Those two are building up the trust. I’ve never seen a suspect get so much tea. Then he tells ’em he had sex with her in a lay-by, Thursday evening.”
John pulls himself up.
“Thursday? So they know he took the car Thursday as well?”
“One of the many facts he offered up to Jack and Jill, his new best friends.”
“What was he doing in the car with her on Thursday night?”
Moran shakes his head, as if amused.
“They just drove around, apparently. And they did it in a lay-by somewhere near Wetherby. He can’t remember exactly where.”
“At least he’s not being too specific.”
“I just wish he’d be a bit more specific with me.”
“Hold on,” John says.
He punches redial and presses the iPhone to his ear.
“Quick question from the Falcon,” he says when Bilyk answers. “You said Donna was Fedir’s idea. What about Freddy?”
“Ha!” Bilyk says, but the ebullience has gone from his voice. “When it comes to young women, no man is a communist, yes?”
“Fedir didn’t like sharing the goods?”
“I think that is a fair assessment.”
He hangs up and sits there, hands pushed down into his jacket pockets. The driver of the bus in front of them, having let his engine idle for several minutes, now turns it off and swings out of his seat.
“Funny thing,” says Moran, “most of the questioning has centred on the fake money.”
“Do they have a theory?” John asks, watching as the driver locks up his vehicle and wanders off.
“Way it’s looking, they think Donna got her hands on some fake notes, or was tricked into taking them. Always back to the money, that’s how they’re playing it. And, what with one thing and another, that puts Freddy right in the frame. The fact that he’s banging her does not help him, clearly.”
Clearly.
Moran continues: “There’s some sort of altercation at the hotel, which might have had something to do with fake notes. In the course of that, she dies.”
“Accident?”
Moran shrugs. “Who knows. It’s complicated. She’d been beaten, and she’d had sex. Could have been forced. But it was the smashed skull that killed her. They’re hinting at a fall.”
John exhales, letting his lips flap together.
“You’re talking as if it’s a done deal.”
“It’s what I’m picking up. What I don’t understand is why Freddy has nothing to say about the money.”
Moran stops, waiting for his own thoughts to come together. Then: “You know why your dad spent so little time in jail?”
The question surprises John. But he knows there’ll be a point.
“Go on.”
“Because he never said anything. Didn’t matter how long, or what they asked, how much they threatened… Never said a single word. And he was so damn insistent about it, as if he was doing the respectful thing by not talking.”
“They used to laugh about it, didn’t they?”
“The police? Yes, because outside the interview room he was courteous, knew everybody’s name, always used the correct rank. They knew where they were with him.”
“Yeah. Nowhere.”
They sit a while in silence.
“I never really thanked you for looking after my dad all those years.”
“I got paid.”
“You kept him out of jail. I think after mum died jail would have been the end of him. He took it pretty hard.”
Moran smiles. “He kept himself out of jail. After your mum was gone he became very cautious, did everything through me, sometimes Joe, but mainly me. He didn’t give the police a chance.”
“You think he feared going to jail, to lose mum then get locked up?”
“No, it was for you,” says Moran, his eyes locked on the gaudy red metalwork of the station’s ceiling.
“What?”
“Just a matter of time, that’s what he said. Then you’d be back to run the business. He wanted to make sure he was around when you came home.”
“But I was never going to come home.”
Moran raises his eyebrows: “You’re here now, aren’t you?”
John stares at his big black shoes. Then he lets his head fall back, looks at the ceiling.
“How is your dad?” Moran asks.
“No change,” John says up into the air. “Hardly speaks, y’know.”
They continue looking up to the ceiling.
Eventually the silence between them threatens to turn intimate. By what feels like mutual consent, they decide it’s time to go.
“There’s another thing,” John says as he stands. “The money in the car. It’s different.”
“Different from what?”
“There’s a lot of fake money going around at the moment, it’s been in the news. But the notes in the boot of the Mondeo are different. Much better quality. No comparison.”
“Do they know?” Moran asks, no hint of surprise.
“I think so. Let’s wait til this afternoon, see how things pan out with Freddy.”
“The money in the boot,” Moran says. “Fifty grand of fakes? Is it…?”
He doesn’t have to finish the question.
“Don’t worry. Your client won’t go down for that.”
“Somebody will.”
“Not Freddy. Just tell him to say nothing about it.”
“Listen, John. I think it’s time you got yourself a solicitor.”
“I’m not under arrest yet. Give me time.”
Moran lets it go. But he’s not finished.
“One other thing,” he says, drawing a little closer. “In strictest confidence. I’ve had a couple of calls. You’re not the only wants to know what Freddy’s saying in there.”
“And I don’t suppose…”
Moran’s already shaking his head.
“Well, thanks for letting me know, Henry.”
Suddenly Moran looks every one of his fifty-eight years.
“I hope you know what you’re doing, John.”
Twenty-two
There’s a patrol car and two unmarked cars outside the Eurolodge. He drives slowly past them and watches as a fat scene-of-crime officer in a white body suit emerges from the hotel and opens the boot of one of the cars.
John parks a hundred yards up the road and waits for the SOCO to disappear back into the hotel. Then he walks down the road. The silver beemer is there again, a 3 Series, right outside the fire doors of the hotel. It’s immaculate, a couple of years old but spotless. And it’s got that fresh out of the showroom look. No mud under the wheel arches, the bloom of a recent waxing. Fuller’s pride and joy.
He looks inside the car. Scholes BMW, it says on the servicing tag that’s still hanging from the indicator arm.
Behind him the fire exit doors clatter open.
“I asked him not to come back…”
Adrian Fuller is speaking to a uniformed officer as both men step out through the doors.
“You got the security camera fixed sharpish, I see,” John says, looking upwards and noticing that the camera’s tiny red light is back on.
Fuller comes to a halt on the pavement.
“Nice car!” John adds. “Scholes give you a good deal, did they? Very tidy.”
“Could I ask you what you’re doing here, Sir?” the uniform asks.
Sergeant, old school copper.
“John Ray,” he says, introducing himself. “My best friend’s been arrested for murder. The body was found in a car belonging to me. I’m what’s called an interested party. In fact,” and he taps the BMW with his knuckles, “on the night of the murder, the car in question was parked right here where you normally park, wasn’t it, Mr Fuller?”
“He’s been specifically asked not to…” Fuller begins.
“It was parked here, wasn’t it? I mean, you’d know, since you were inside when she was killed, you and the two guests at the hotel that night. You also helped drag the dead girl from the room then propped her up against the wall while some thug hit her repeatedly in the dead face.”
He puts a cigarette between his lips, and casts a glance up at the camera high up on the wall.
The policeman purses his lips, shifts on his feet.
“I’ll have to ask you not to come inside the hotel, Sir.”
“Absolutely,” John says.
Fuller turns on his heels and disappears back into the hotel. The sergeant stays where he is.
“Thought you were the straight one, Mr Ray?”
“Mr Ray? My reputation goes before me, does it?”
He holds out his cigarettes.
“Nah,” the copper says. He takes a few steps towards John, near enough so he could reach out and grab him if he wanted. “I know you cos of Denise.”
“Oh, right. I see.”
“You want a bit of advice?”
“I can only ignore it.”
“Fuck off and wait til someone gets charged with this. And hope it’s not you.”
The sergeant doesn’t blink.
You get a nose for coppers when you’re Tony Ray’s son. And this one strikes John as a good bloke. For some reason he wants to tell him his secret, the one only Den has ever heard.
I wanted to be a copper. I really wanted to be a copper.
“I won’t be back,” John says, turning to go. “That security camera up there on the wall? It was broken yesterday. They got someone in pretty quick for a weekend.”
The sergeant watches him walk down to the corner of the building then cross over, back up towards his car.
“Twat,” he says to himself, pulling the fire doors closed after him.
***
John lights his cigarette and props himself up against the Saab while he smokes. Even from this distance he can see a familiar face peeping out from behind a beige blind in one of the ground floor windows, ginger hair catch
ing the light.
Seconds later he emerges from the hotel. He’s in a Motorhead T-shirt today, and an army surplus canvas jacket.
“Why don’t you leave us alone!” Craig says even before he gets up to the Saab, his voice surprisingly firm for someone so wiry.
“Leave you alone?”
“Yeah, why not just let the police do their job, then we’ll find out who killed her. That’s what we want, isn’t it?”
Craig looks hyper and morose at the same time, the dark shadows underneath his eyes more pronounced than yesterday. He hesitates, not sure what to do.
John lets the silence run for a while. Then:
“They had me in Millgarth most of yesterday.”
“You?”
“It was my car they drove her away in.”
Craig straightens.
“And Freddy?”
John considers the question.
“Look, I’ve got to be going. Can I give you a lift somewhere?”
***
On the way into town he explains that Freddy is still being questioned, and lets slip a few details, the arrest at the race course, the suggestion that fake money is involved. Craig nods like a dog, desperate to know.
“And you’re, like, doing the Inspector Rebus bit?”
John laughs. “Something like that. Just trying to find out what happened.”
They turn off the York Road, skirting the city centre.
“So, what would you tell Rebus?” John asks. “Still got the night porter down for it?”
“I don’t know. I’ll tell you what I told the police. It’s the truth. I was on the bar, Friday. She comes in…”
“Donna?”
“Yeah. She comes in about eleven, quarter past. It’ll be on the video…”
That I can’t see.
“She’s upset. Angry. Something about dodgy money.”
“Something?”
“She was drunk, or high, or both. Whatever. The notes were all she had. So I bought her a drink. Large vodka. She gave me one of the notes, told me to keep it.”
“You said this to the police?”