by John Barlow
And now he’s back, living in the very school that had made his escape possible.
“Do you want tea?” he asks.
Sugar is on one of a pair of leather sofas in the middle of the room, leafing through a copy of Yachting World.
“No, I’m fine.”
“By the way, the five grand I owe you? Probably best not to give you it here. But if you are thinking of disappearing for a while, I’ll need to know how to get it to you.”
“Give it to Donna’s mum. Tell her it’s for the funeral. You know where she lives?”
“I know.”
“Don’t forget.”
“I won’t.”
“I’ll find out.”
“I won’t forget.”
Sugar returns to the magazine, holding it up to appreciate a two-page spread of a boat as if it’s a copy of Hustler.
“Thanks again for doing this,” John says.
“That’s okay,” says Sugar. “Got a message for you, as it happens.”
“Oh, yes?”
Sugar takes a second. Then:
“You reckon you’re gonna find out who did it?”
“I might,” John says.
“There’s fifty k for the name, whoever it is. That’s the message.”
Suddenly the situation is a lot clearer: the reason why Sugar has agreed to speak to the police, and why Roberto agreed to contact Sugar… They want to know who killed Donna, and if Sugar does the interview, Baron’s line of questioning might lead them in the right direction. But if John can tell ’em who killed her, all the better. What they really want is to get there before the police do.
“I’ll see what I can do. Have you spoken to Lanny about this?”
Sugar lets Yachting World drop onto the long glass coffee table between the sofas.
“I’ll tell you this much. Until somebody’s name comes up for this, a cell in Millgarth is the best place for Freddy.”
***
“Mr Graeme Lyle,” Baron says, reading aloud as Steele drives. “Broken home, various bits of trouble as a youngster, charged with GBH, acquitted… Nothing since then. Has worked for Lanny Bride, but in general keeps himself to himself.”
They’d managed to cobble together a recent file on Sugar, aka Graeme Lyle. Baron was not happy to have the time and place for the interview dictated to them by a witness and possible suspect. But Superintendent Kirk decided they should play along, see what Sugar had to say.
“Two knife crime charges dropped through lack of evidence back in ’07. Works as a bouncer in VIP lounges. Suspected involvement in drugs but, again, no charges. Sexually promiscuous and known to move in circles involving pimps and prostitutes. Suggestion that he may have been a male prostitute in his teens. Reputation for explosive violence. Angel tattoo on the back of his neck.” Baron tosses the file onto the dashboard as they pull into the car park of the old high school. “Scum.”
“Yeah?” Steele says, pulling into a space marked PRIVATE. “From what I’ve heard, a lot of women find him a real turn-on.”
The Jaws ringtone sounds again. Baron answers his cell phone, listens. Yes, yes… Thanks the caller.
“The CCTV from Kirkstall Road?” he says. “Turns out our good friend Mr John Ray did indeed buy a Mondeo from a bloke on the side of the road, Monday.”
“Just like the fucker said, eh?”
Steele flings the car door open and looks up at the old high school with undisguised loathing.
Baron stays where he is, the cell phone in his hand. It’s Sunday afternoon. Should he ring the twins? They get two weekends a month with their dad, and yesterday at half-past eight in the morning another visit was cancelled. They took it in their stride, as usual, seven-year-olds who couldn’t possibly understand why something called work was so important. He’d spoken to them again this morning, just as they were getting ready for a trip to Flamingo Land. Probably not be back yet.
He slips the phone into his pocket and prepares to enter the Head Boy’s private lair.
***
Sugar is sitting on one of two sofas in the middle of the room when Baron gets there, and shows no sign of moving.
The ex-Head Boy himself is busy making a pot of tea, although both policemen decline the offer of refreshments. The atmosphere in the flat is strangely subdued, almost embarrassed. Neither Baron nor Steele acknowledges Sugar’s presence, although Steele has eyeballed him a couple of times with very apparent relish.
Baron props himself up awkwardly on a stool in the kitchenette, every muscle in his body tense, his eyes straying continually up to the gold lettering of the old roll-call boards on the wall. Head Boy, 1984-5 John Ray.
“Fancy a smoke,” John says to Baron as if to lighten the mood.
Baron hardly hears him. He’s thinking about his boys, about their childhood, and how he’s missing it for this.
“The store room?” John adds.
“No thanks,” Baron says. “Shall we make a start, gents?”
“Okay,” says John. “I’ll be off. There’s tea and stuff if anybody wants it.”
He walks the length of the room as quickly as he can, disappearing into the bedroom at the far end before Baron has a chance to ask him if he would mind leaving the premises altogether. He closes the door firmly behind him and lies on the bed, knowing that despite the interior wall he’ll hear every word loud and clear. Victorian schools, built to last; modern conversions, built from plasterboard.
Baron takes a seat on the sofa opposite Sugar, the coffee table between them. He introduces both himself and Steele, who stands behind.
“Mr Lyle,” he says, “you go by the name of Sugar. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“And your profession? We don’t seem to have it.”
“Security consultant. Self-employed.”
He says it as if it’s a shared joke between the three of them.
“When did you last see Donna Macken?”
“Friday.”
“This Friday, the 11th?”
“Yes.”
His answers are quick and direct.
“Where?”
“Outside the Majestic club, City Square. I was going in, she was coming out. Pissed and a bit stoned, by the way she looked.”
“How was that?”
“Like I said. Wasted. Eyes half closed, hardly tell what she was saying.”
“Could you tell, or not?” Steele interrupts.
Sugar lifts his head to look at the young detective.
“I got the gist. She was slagging off the Ukrainians.”
“What exactly was she saying about them?” Baron asks.
“She was all over the place. They were bastards… she hated them… And there was something about money, someone owing her a lot of money.”
“The Ukrainians?”
“I think so.”
“You think?” Steele says, a little too eagerly. “You’ll have to do better than that, my friend.”
Sugar sighs.
“That’s what I remember. I’m here of my own free will, right?”
“We can soon change that.”
Baron lets the tension hang there a moment, then goes on.
“What else did she say?”
“There was something about a fake note, I heard. She got a twenty rejected at the bar. They’ve got scanners in there now.”
Baron says nothing. But he knows that there were no fakes on the girl when she was found, only in the boot of the car.
My new best friend Craig Bairstow got that note, John tells himself in the bedroom. Then he spent it, apparently.
“A fake banknote?” Baron asks.
“They’re all over town. Or didn’t you know? Friday night flood.”
“The flood? Tell us about the flood, Mr Lyle.”
Sugar purses his lips, unsure as to whether he wants to start explaining how to pass counterfeit money.
“They target a town. Soon as the banks close on a Friday the notes start getting passed off. Quick
as they can, before the alarm goes up. Pubs, clubs, car boots, markets, the busier the better. They do a city at a time.”
Baron nods, says nothing more. He already knows about the flood in the city. He also knows that the fake money that’s been turning up in Leeds over the weekend is different to the notes found in the Mondeo. Murder first, he tells himself. But he’s got John Ray in his sights…
“What Donna said, about the fake money,” he asks, “was it in relation to the Ukrainians?”
“I wasn’t there,” Sugar says. “But I think so.”
Steele is by now perched on the arm of the sofa, looking down at Sugar, arms crossed.
“You just told us you were there.”
“When she got the note rejected, that was inside the club, at the bar, like I said. I saw her outside. Like I said. You should pay more attention, young man.”
Sugar turns back to Baron.
“That’s what people told me. When I saw her coming out she was drunk and angry. Said she was going up there to get what she was owed.” He looks at Steele. “I think you’ll find the Majestic has CCTV on the door, Sarge.”
“Hey, he’s cocky!” Constable Steele says, still amused at Sugar’s attitude.
Sugar snorts some phlegm back down his throat.
“So why this?” Baron asks. “Why is she dead?”
“You tell me. All I know is, she had a loud mouth, a bad temper, and she drank too much. Why not find the last guy she mouthed off to?”
His words trail off and he looks down at the floor.
“You said the Ukrainians?” Steele asks, shifting position on the arm of the sofa. “Sounds like you know ’em.”
“Bill and Bo, Bo- something.”
“Bilyk and Boyko,” Steele says. “Circus act. Tell us about Mr Bilyk.”
Sugar sits back, thinks.
In the end he decides to say nothing.
Steele can’t resist. “We can have you in a cell in five minutes, sugar lump.”
“Be my guest. See how much you get out of me down there.”
Jesus, John says to himself, trying to imagine the benign smile on Sugar’s face, he’s enjoying this. Ten grand to tell the police where to stick it? Yep, I guess that’s a nice earner, if your alibi’s good.
“And by the way,” Sugar says, “those knifings you nearly got me for a few years back? I didn’t do ’em, since we’re all cosy and off the record. I don’t need a knife.”
“No one said this interview was off the record,” Steele says, standing and bearing down on Sugar, who feigns confusion.
“What interview, officer?” He holds out his arms, wrists together, ready to be cuffed. “I’ve got a bad memory. Take me down the station and kick it out of me, big boy.”
“You’re an arrogant twat, aren’t you?”
“Yeah,” Sugar says. “I bet you could have me any time you wanted, that right, Sarge?”
Steele’s face never slips.
“Something like that.”
“Teach me a lesson then.”
Steele chortles.
“Come on, copper boy. We’re among friends. Let’s roll the carpets back.”
“Shall we cut the testosterone?” Baron says. “Mr Lyle, is there anything you can tell us about the Ukrainians?”
“Her normal clients were in big city hotels. Five-star places. Those blokes in the Eurolodge were trouble.”
“How so?”
“Twenty-two-year-old girl in a tatty hotel room with two foreign blokes she doesn’t know?” He’s looking at Baron as he speaks. “An empty hotel half way up York Road?”
“So why weren’t you there? You were her minder, right?”
“I went up there one night to check it out.”
“She paid you?”
He shakes his head.
“By that time she’d decided she didn’t need me.”
“We’ll come back to that. When did you go to the Eurolodge?”
“About five weeks ago, six tops. I had a drink in the bar, waited to see her come in. Went back there a few times, as it happens.”
“How was she?”
“She was anxious. Didn’t want to upset the Ukrainians.”
“Didn’t want you there?”
“That’s what it felt like.”
“And why was that?”
Sugar inches forward on the sofa.
“You charge two hundred quid for ninety minutes. Suddenly two guys are employing you three, four nights a week, six weeks in a row? That’s a lot of money, even if you’re giving ’em a discount.”
“That they never paid her?”
He shrugs. “I dunno. She didn’t want to pay me, is what I know, not for all that time. Thought she could handle it herself. This was her chance to make some real money, get out.”
“Out of prostitution?”
“It’d be my guess. She’d dropped all her other clients. This was her way to get some cash together, make a break. That’s what they all want.”
“Know that from experience, do you?” Steele asks.
Sugar pauses, decides to ignore it.
***
From the comfort of his bed John listens to the rest of the interview. Steele continues to jab at Sugar’s ego, but it’s a ritual now, and Sugar’s sarcasm is slightly condescending. By the time Baron wraps things up, Sugar has done his best to intimate that Bilyk and Boyko are well worth a closer look, without ever pointing the finger at them directly. He also makes it clear that he’ll deny everything if this all gets official.
When John reappears Sugar has already gone. Steele is on his phone, standing over by the windows, looking out across the valley. Baron is staring up at the roll-call boards on the kitchen wall, deep in thought.
“Can I offer you a drink?” John says as he makes his way to the kitchenette and selects a bottle of Rioja from the wine rack.
Baron shakes his head.
“That Mondeo of mine,” he says quietly as he pulls the foil from the neck of the bottle, “do you happen to know the mileage that was on it when you found it?”
“Pardon?”
“The Mondeo. Its mileage?”
“We ask the questions, not you.”
“Sure I can’t tempt you? It’s a Murrieta, pretty decent.” John says as he twists the corkscrew in. “Just the mileage, that’s all. I got you Freddy. I got you Sugar. This might help get the murderer.”
Baron sees the gilt letters up on the wall: Head Boy, 1984-5.
“You’ve got a bloody nerve.”
He’s out of the flat without so much as a backwards glance.
Steele follows. But from him there is definitely a glance, and John can read it like words on a page: Christ, I hope Sugar’s not waiting downstairs.
***
He gives Den a ring.
“Hi, it’s me,” he says before she can stop him. “Are you at Millgarth? Look, I’ve got a favour to ask. I don’t think you’re gonna like it…”
Twenty-seven
She doesn’t like it.
But she doesn’t think Freddy’s a murderer either. Most of Millgarth agrees. The station’s rumour mill is churning out the theories, but one is clear: the lad in the cells should be croaking for it by now, the state he’s in. Only, he’s not, and Baron is dithering on a charge. There’s gotta be a reason.
She tries not to think about Freddy as she makes her way down the bare concrete steps to the secure area in the basement. Forensics are long gone, but the red Mondeo is still there, waiting to be towed to storage. From the other side of the wire mesh she stands and looks at it, her arms folded tight across her chest.
“Hello there!” comes a cheerful voice.
There’s been a lot of cheerful voices the last two days. She’s getting plenty of sympathy for being caught up in this shit, although it generally seems to come with a big dollop of unspoken I-told-you-so. And she deserves it.
“Hi, Trev,” she says as a bald man in his fifties appears at the service counter, wiping his hands on blue ov
eralls.
“What can I do you for, sweetheart?”
She moves across, leans on the counter, hating herself. She’s known Trevor since she joined the force at eighteen. Evidence manager, civilian. Two kids at university. Now she’s going to lie to him and hope he’ll lie for her. Nice one, Den…
“Can’t get it out of my mind,” she says, nodding at the car behind him.
“Understandable,” he says. “Not your fault, though, is it?”
“I was called out on it. That’s the weird thing. I should be working the case, not sitting on my arse in here.”
“Nothing you can do about that, love. Why go blaming yourself?”
“Trev, do you think I could have a quick look at the evidence report? It’s probably nothing, just something I saw yesterday morning when I got there. It’s been in the back of my mind.”
His head tilts to one side.
“Not really, love.”
“It’s personal,” she says, disgusted at herself.
He gives her an I-told-you-so look, same as everyone else, and goes to fetch the log book.
“Tell me what you want to know,” he says, opening the book and laying it on the counter.
“The boot. Was it forced?”
As he runs a finger down the page, she finds the mileage, reads upside down. It’s on the top of the report, next to the chassis number.
“Nope,” he says, immediately closing the book.
“I thought it was,” she says. “Couldn’t understand why no one was mentioning it.”
“No one should be mentioning anything.”
“Yeah, right. Been in the cafeteria lately?”
“Gossip central, they should call it,” he says, his hand flat on the closed log book.
“It was just…”
“Don’t you worry. Must be a million things going through your head at the moment. There’s no law against you coming down here for a chat.”
“Thanks, Trev.”
As she makes her way back up the stairs, the disgust is replaced by a dull sense of shame. But it recedes quickly, leaving an emptiness where the guilt should be. Also, at the back of her mind there’s a thought: how easy it had been, lying to a colleague. Would she do it again?