Banks and Winsome stood. ‘No, that’ll be fine,’ said Banks. ‘We’re finished anyway.’
‘I very much think you are. I’d like to say I’m sorry you had such a wasted journey, but I can’t really mouth the words with any degree of honesty.’
‘I wouldn’t say it’s been wasted,’ Banks said, as he and Winsome started heading for the door, past the classical rape scenes. ‘In fact, it’s been most informative.’
‘Make sure you don’t lose your way home in the fog,’ Caxton called out after them.
‘Don’t worry,’ Banks called back. ‘We won’t.’
Annie knew that Doug Wilson must be as tired as the rest of the team. He may have felt at times like a spare part in the events of the last week or so, but he had spent a great deal of time in a darkened room with a couple of DCs from County HQ watching hours of boring CCTV footage of the roads around Bradham Lane and the Strip in Wytherton. They had got nothing from the latter. Either the cameras weren’t working, there weren’t any, or the drives had been reused since Mimosa Moffat’s departure. And they had got too much from the former, wasting hours tracking down cars and their owners, checking movements, alibis, police records. Apart from the stolen car, finally found burned out in a quarry outside Ripon, and the white van possibly used to carry Mimosa Moffat, they had found nothing of interest. They were still trying to find the car thief, with the help of the Ripon police, but to no avail. And the car was such a mess that there was unlikely to be much useful evidence in the remains.
So they were left with Jim Nuttall, rare auto parts supplier of Stockton-on-Tees, who had lied about being on the road at the time of Mimosa’s ordeal, delivering a shipment to a dealer in Southampton. And that was why Annie was sitting in the passenger seat of a police Skoda with Wilson driving, on the busy A66 east of the A1, shortly after her interview with Sunny. She thought Doug needed to get out of the darkened room for a while, and he seemed more than willing to accompany her.
There was nothing else she could be doing at the moment. Everything was in hand. The preliminary search of Sunny’s flat had uncovered small quantities of heroin, cocaine, marijuana and ecstasy, but no ketamine. Sunny’s accomplices – Faisal Sabzwari, Ismail Hossaini and Hassan Azizi – along with the three cousins from Dewsbury – were busy telling their stories to detective constables and sergeants who probably had far better interviewing techniques than either Annie or Banks. Three of the Wytherton girls were in Eastvale now, in the ‘rape suite’ especially designed for victims of sexual assault, with dim lighting and soothing music playing softly in the background. Their stories were slowly being coaxed out of them under promises of anonymity. There was really nothing to do but let the procedures follow their course and find out why Jim Nuttall had lied to Doug Wilson about the day he had made his deliveries.
Two things still worried Annie. Nobody seemed able to find Jade, and despite the successes and revelations of the past few hours, she still had no idea who had killed Mimosa Moffat. Sunny, or one of his colleagues, might have done it, but no cars caught on the CCTV had been identified with any of them – not even one of Ismail’s taxis – and motive still remained a problem. Still, Sunny had no alibi, had the use of Ismail’s minicabs, and as he was the leader, he might have had his own reasons to dish out punishment to Mimosa. Perhaps a punishment that had gone too far. They would keep at him, and if he had done it, Annie was sure that he would crack and confess eventually. For the moment, he was stewing in his cell. One of the Moffats may have done it, though Albert had an alibi, and Annie ruled out Lenny and Johnny. Which left Sinead. Junkie or not, she had kicked up a fuss, quite rightly, about the counsellor who had messed with her daughter, so if she had found out about Sunny, she might have gone after him, too. The problem was that it was Mimosa who had been killed, not Sunny or any of his friends. Annie thought maybe Sinead had lost it with her daughter, but the idea was beginning to seem far-fetched.
They found Jim Nuttall working in his garage on an old Morris Minor shooting-brake, the kind with the wooden frame around the back and sides that Annie’s father used to drive when she was a child. It had been an antique even then. The garage was a lot tidier and cleaner than most garages Annie had seen. You didn’t feel you’d end up with a grease or oil stain no matter what surface you touched, and the racks of parts were clearly labelled and, she noticed, ran in alphabetical order by make of car and name of part. It smelled of rubber, oil and sheared metal, a mix Annie really didn’t mind at all. There was something comforting about it.
The door at the back led through to an office, and that was where Nuttall took them, for a brew. The office, which smelled the same as the garage, was cramped and looked out on a backyard piled with rusted car parts, mostly tyres, bumpers, radiator fronts and doors. There were two hard-backed chairs opposite Nuttall’s, which sat behind the desk, and they eased themselves in. The office was a bit less tidy than the garage, but not much. Nuttall himself was a middle-aged man in a dark blue overall, a little overweight, thinning on top.
‘It’s a one-man business,’ he said, ‘so I apologise for the mess. I have to do my own books and orders and everything. Even make the tea.’
‘Must be a full-time job with all the deliveries, too,’ said Annie.
‘More than full-time.’
‘Why not take on some help?’
‘Can’t afford it. The profit margin’s slim in this line of work. Besides, I can manage. When I can’t, I know it’ll be time for me to retire.’
‘Anywhere in mind?’
‘I’ve been saving. I had the Costa del Sol in mind at one time but Spain’s gone bust these days, like my savings. I’ll probably end up in a caravan park in Scunthorpe.’
Annie laughed. ‘You could at least try Redcar. It’s a bit closer to home.’
‘Aye, maybe I will, at that.’ The kettle boiled, and Nuttall busied himself filling the teapot and making sure the mugs he picked from the shelf were clean. He brought milk and sugar out of one of the filing cabinets and set them on the table. When he’d finished he glanced at Wilson. ‘Brought the boss this time, have you, lad? It must be serious.’
‘We hope not,’ said Wilson. ‘We just need to go over one or two points with you.’ He took out his notebook and Annie picked up the questioning, starting by identifying the VW Transporter by its number, colour and logo.
‘Is that the only transport you have?’ she asked.
‘It is. It’s big enough for my deliveries and it doubles as a decent enough car for any personal trips I might wish to make.’
‘Now, the last time DC Wilson was here, you told him you had a delivery in Southampton on the morning of Wednesday, the twenty-second of July, and that you drove down there from here during the night of the twenty-first. Is that correct?’
‘It is.’
‘Do you often drive at night?’
‘Long distances, yes. It saves time, and I enjoy it. Gives me time to think. I’m not married. I live alone, so it doesn’t matter whether I’m in or out. Sometimes I listen to books on tape or on the radio. LBC. I like Darren Adam and Steve Allen.’
Annie shifted in her seat and leaned back as much as she could. ‘Well, it’s a serious case,’ she said, ‘so we did a routine check with the dealer in Southampton, a Mr Rodney Pomfret – is that correct?’
‘Rodney. Yes.’
‘His records seem to indicate that you made the delivery two days earlier, on the Monday morning. Which means you must have driven to Southampton on Sunday night.’
‘I’m not being charged with breaking the Sabbath, am I?’
‘Not this time. We’ll let that one slip by. But it’s a bit of a discrepancy, isn’t it? Two days.’
Nuttall scratched his head. ‘I was sure it was Tuesday,’ he said. ‘I must have got the days mixed up. Old age catching up with me. My memory’s not been that good lately. Maybe I drove back on Tuesday night.’
‘Afraid not,’ Annie said. ‘Your car was definitely travelling in the othe
r direction. It appeared on CCTV footage in the area we’re interested in at the relevant time in the early hours of Tuesday morning. That’s the big roundabout at the southern end of Market Street in Eastvale. Do you know it?’
‘I know it.’
‘Why didn’t you stick to the A1 and M1?’
‘I prefer to take the country roads. They’re more interesting. Quieter. Contemplative.’
‘Even at night, when you can’t really see anything?’
‘There’s not as much traffic. The motorways are still busy at night. Everyone drives too fast. It’s more peaceful than speeding along in three or four lanes with some bugger always on your tail and people overtaking without signalling. Not to mention the drunks driving home late from clubbing.’
‘I know what you mean. But can you see our problem? If you weren’t driving the van to Southampton when you said you were, what were you doing at the Eastvale roundabout that night? You must have brought the van back Monday, maybe also overnight, or even during the day Monday or Tuesday. Don’t you remember?’
‘Not for the life of me. It must have been another delivery. Tuesday night. I go all over the country.’
‘Where did you go that time? Exeter? Birmingham? Shrewsbury? When do you sleep?’
‘I can’t remember. I do seem to be getting a bit muddled. Maybe it’s lack of sleep.’
DC Wilson looked at Annie for the OK, then said, ‘We’d really like you to help us out a bit here, Mr Nuttall. It’s a muddle we need to get sorted. You must have records, surely? For tax purposes, at least. Receipts from petrol stations and so on.’
Nuttall gave Wilson a sharp glance. ‘I keep my taxes in order, young lad, don’t you be fretting about that.’
‘Where were you going in the van at two o’clock on Tuesday night?’ Annie asked. ‘It’s not meant to be a difficult question.’
‘Let me see . . .’ Nuttall examined a large desk diary, running his finger down the page. ‘Bristol. That’s it. It must have been Bristol.’
‘May I?’ Annie gestured for the diary. Reluctantly, Nuttall turned it round to face her. ‘That was the previous week, Mr Nuttall,’ she said. ‘The fourteenth of July. It’s the twenty-first I’m talking about. More accurately, the early hours of the twenty-second.’
Nuttall said nothing, just picked at imaginary threads on his overalls.
‘Mr Nuttall,’ Annie went on, ‘something’s not right here, is it? We need to know what it is. What you’re not telling us. If you haven’t done anything wrong, then you’ve nothing to worry about. Were you driving your car in the vicinity of Bradham Lane on the night of Tuesday, the twenty-first of July, around two in the morning?’
‘No,’ said Nuttall, looking at her with frightened eyes. ‘I didn’t go out at all that night. I didn’t feel well. I remember now.’
‘Then who was driving your van?’
‘I don’t know. Someone must have borrowed it.’
‘Do people often borrow it without your permission?’
‘No.’
‘Well, then . . .’
‘It must have been stolen.’
‘But you didn’t report it stolen.’
‘They must have brought it back before I noticed. That’s what happened. It was there the next morning, so I never realised it had been gone.’
‘Don’t you check the fuel gauge? The mileage. For tax purposes.’
‘I must have forgotten that time.’
‘Have you been out in it since, Mr Nuttall? Since the night it was “stolen” and returned?’
‘No. Just for a couple of local deliveries, like. No overnights.’
That meant there could still be forensic traces, if the VW Transporter had been involved in Mimosa Moffat’s murder. ‘OK,’ said Annie. ‘I’m losing my patience just a little bit here, Mr Nuttall. No matter what, we’re going to take your van in for forensic examination immediately. Now you can cooperate with us here and now, or you can come in to the station in Eastvale with us and we can talk further there while we wait for the results. Either way, I simply want you to tell the truth. I don’t think you’ve done anything terribly wrong. I don’t know what you’re afraid of, but believe me, whatever it is, it won’t be worse than getting charged with murder, which is what will happen if you don’t come clean.’
Nuttall swallowed. ‘Murder?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I haven’t murdered anyone.’
‘Then tell us the truth.’
‘But he wouldn’t, not . . .’
‘Not who, Mr Nuttall? Do you know who “borrowed” your car that night?’
Nuttall nodded.
‘Tell me.’
There was a long pause as Nuttall seemed to consider his options. Finally, he took a packet of cigarettes from his top pocket and asked if could smoke. Normally Annie would have said no right off the bat, but she nodded reluctantly. Anything that might help him talk. It was his office, after all. The acrid sulphur of the match and smoke from the cigarette irritated her nostrils. She edged back a couple of inches and sipped some tea. She watched a black cat picking its way across the pile of tyres in the yard and let the silence stretch.
‘I can’t do it all myself,’ Nuttall said finally. ‘So I have a lad to make some runs for me.’
‘Why didn’t you tell us this before?’
‘Because it’s not on the books. I don’t pay him much, not as much as I’d have to if it was official, like. And there’s no tax, no worries, just cash in hand. He’s always been a good lad. I can’t believe he’d do anything like you’ve been talking about.’
‘Was this lad driving your van on the night in question?’
‘Aye. He’d done a delivery that day in Sheffield, and he had a pickup the following day from a scrap dealer in Sunderland, some parts from an old Humber, so I told him to just park the van where he lived, save him coming all this way in the morning. He’s done it before. What are you going to do to me? Are you going to report me?’
‘Not if you tell me what I want to know. Who is it? What’s his name?’
There was another pause as Nuttall sucked long on the cigarette and drew the smoke deep into his lungs. As he exhaled it, he looked down, as if ashamed by what he was doing, and whispered, ‘Albert. Albert Moffat is his name. He lives in Wytherton.’
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Annie barked at Gerry as she walked through the squad room door, her shoulder braced, arm in a sling. They were the only two in there.
‘I don’t want to miss anything, guv,’ Gerry said. ‘We’ve put a lot of hours into this. It’s near the end, I can feel it. I don’t want to be lying in some hospital bed twiddling my thumbs.’
‘Did the doctor release you?’
‘I’m fine. There’s nothing wrong with me. My clavicle’s just cracked, not broken. I didn’t have any concussion or any hidden injuries, so they let me go.’
‘You should have gone home. If you’re still on painkillers, you’re no use to us.’
‘I haven’t taken any more yet.’ Gerry grimaced as she lowered herself into her chair, using her good hand on the desk for balance.
‘OK,’ said Annie, sitting on her desk. ‘That was a bloody stupid thing you did last night. You could have got yourself killed.’
‘Sorry, guv. I didn’t see any other way. Is there any news on Jade?’
‘Not yet. She isn’t in Leicester yet, and the foster-brother says he hasn’t seen or heard from her in months. We’ve got a bulletin out. Her real name’s Carol Fisher, by the way. But that’s not the point. What do you mean you didn’t see any other way? You broke just about every rule in the book. What am I supposed to do with you?’
‘I should imagine the ACC or Chief Superintendent Gervaise will have a few ideas about that, guv. As I remember they were both dragged out of bed in the middle of the night because of me.’
Annie managed a thin smile. ‘That’s true.’
‘What would you have done, guv, given the opportunity? I d
idn’t have a lot of time to make my mind up. It sounded like a one-time offer with a short expiry date to me.’
‘That doesn’t excuse what you did.’
‘But I got a result. Doesn’t that go some way towards exonerating me? Besides, what should I have done? Called Superintendent Carver? Have him send in the heavy squad? You know what he’s like. Or Reg and Bill, maybe?’
‘You could have called me.’
‘I . . . I’m sorry. I thought I had a rapport with Jade. She trusted me. I didn’t want to do something that might throw her or cause her to back off.’
‘You did well, Gerry,’ Annie said. ‘It’s just . . . I’ve been there, you know, the wrong place at the wrong time. I still have nightmares.’
‘Nothing happened.’
Annie gestured towards Gerry’s shoulder. ‘Tell that to the officers investigating the incident. And they will, you mark my words.’
‘I’ll deal with that when it happens,’ said Gerry. ‘Let them demote me.’
Annie laughed. ‘They can’t demote you. You’re as low as they come to start with.’
Gerry blushed. ‘You know what I mean. Put me back on probation again.’
‘Or traffic.’
Gerry bit her lip. ‘Would they do that?’
‘Who knows? You’re right. Worry about it when it happens. Until then, consider yourself bollocked by your supervising officer.’
‘Yes, guv. What are we going to do next?’
Annie explained about Jim Nuttall and his VW Transporter, at present in pieces in the police garage. The CSIs already thought they had identified small quantities of blood around the brake pedal and accelerator, and Jazz Singh was checking it against Mimosa’s. They were also searching for anything to connect the car with Albert Moffat. At the moment, Annie said she was waiting for the CSIs to report, then she would be talking to Albert again. He may not have been as drunk as he was acting last Tuesday, and when Warner fell asleep, he might well have decided to take matters into his own hands. How that ended up with Mimsy Moffat dead on the Bradham Road was a mystery yet to be solved.
When the Music's Over: The 23rd DCI Banks Mystery Page 38