Unforgiving

by Nick Oldham

  Ominously, Henry tapped the photograph of the gun with his fingertip. It had been taken in situ on the floor of the flat where the girl had dropped it after killing herself. ‘This gun has now killed at least two people and may well be linked to other serious crimes … In fact, I’d stake my life on that. Time will tell, but I reckon it has killed an innocent boy and someone else equally innocent.’

  Oxford screwed up his nose. ‘What the fuck are you on about?’ he snarled, and Henry smiled inwardly because more often than not when a ‘no comment’ interview is broken, it rarely reverts to being that again. The thin end of the wedge had been kicked into place.

  ‘What sort of ammunition do you use?’ Henry asked. ‘Commercially produced or manufactured in someone’s shed …? Actually, don’t answer that because I already know. The victim on the estate was killed by a home-made bullet. Forensics have already told me that … So, the thing about ammunition like this – and I speak from bitter experience on this point – is that it can be a bit temperamental, if you get my drift?’

  ‘You’re talking bollocks,’ he said sourly.

  ‘Did you ever let Sophie mess with the guns in the flat?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re on about. You’re, like, an idiot, blabbing on.’

  ‘How long have you been going out with her?’

  ‘And that’s your business?’

  ‘Did you love her?’

  ‘And, again, what business is that of yours?’

  ‘Listen very carefully to that question again, Wayne.’ Henry leaned forwards and emphasized the first word. ‘Did you love her. Not do you love her.’

  ‘You’re talking through your arse, cop … Not my girl, don’t know her.’

  ‘OK, OK,’ Henry said, sitting back. His fingers delved into the envelope again and pulled out some more photographs. ‘These items were found in the flat,’ he said irritably, ‘so I don’t want any more ridiculous denials.’ He turned a few over for Wayne to take a look at, pushed them towards the prisoner. ‘A provisional driving licence in your name, but with a different address. A photo of you and Sophie Leader, which was on the fireplace; looks like it was taken on Blackpool prom. A debit card with your name on it. Do not continue to lie to me, Wayne.’

  ‘I fucking crashed there now and again, that’s all,’ he conceded. ‘I don’t have an address, OK? I’m no fixed abode. It’s her place, not mine.’

  ‘And the guns?’

  He clamped his mouth shut.

  ‘A proper little arsenal. Tooling up for something?’ Henry speculated. ‘Gang war? Robbery? What?’

  ‘None of the above,’ Oxford responded glibly. ‘I don’t know anything about the guns, OK?’

  Henry narrowed his eyes. ‘Nothing whatsoever?’

  ‘Fuck. All.’

  ‘Never touched them, then?’

  Oxford wilted. Henry pointed at him. ‘Because if you have, your fingerprints and DNA will be all over them.’

  ‘I want my eight hours.’ Oxford faked a yawn and stretched his arms.

  ‘OK … but just a couple more things before your beauty sleep. Sophie Leader – your girlfriend, yeah?’

  No response.

  ‘Again, listen to this question carefully: did you love her?’

  Oxford breathed down his nose irascibly.

  ‘Did you let her handle the guns?’

  ‘Just fuck off, eh?’ Oxford shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

  ‘Let me tell you what happened when I went to your flat, Wayne. I knocked on the front door, went in, and there was Sophie, pointing this revolver at me.’ Henry tapped the photo again.

  ‘Good.’ Oxford half-smiled.

  ‘Then she fired at me. She must have realized, perhaps, it wasn’t you coming up to see her, though we will never know exactly why.’

  He chuckled. ‘Even fucking better.’

  ‘But it didn’t go off because it was loaded with shit ammo.’

  ‘Shame.’

  ‘Well, to be accurate, it didn’t go off immediately.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Not until Sophie looked down the barrel to see what was wrong. Then it went off!’

  Oxford stared with incomprehension at Henry, who reached into the envelope to pull out the last of the photographs. He drew it out slowly, face down. ‘This is what I meant by this revolver having killed two innocent people, Wayne. It killed Jamie Turner first … but when Sophie fired at me, the gun didn’t go off, and then she looked down the barrel.’

  Henry turned the photograph over, a painfully slow reveal. ‘Look at this photograph, Wayne.’

  Oxford tried not to drop his gaze, but the lure of confusion and curiosity he was feeling drew his eyes surely down as Henry rotated the photograph so it was the right way up for him to see.

  ‘That is what I meant when I asked: did you love her? Because now she’s dead, and that gun of yours killed her because you loaded it with home-made, unpredictable, dangerous ammunition.’ Henry’s eyes bored into Oxford’s. ‘Think about it … Think about it hard when you’re having your sleep … Interview concluded.’

  FIVE

  ‘You wanted to speak to me.’

  ‘I’ll talk to you – but you have to protect me.’ Wayne Oxford’s face was puffed red and swollen from his crying and blubbering. His eyes were raw, and his nose dripped snot. It was twenty minutes since Henry had left him to ponder the fate of his girlfriend and his own future, which looked very bleak at that point.

  Henry settled back into the chair opposite Oxford in the interview room, and Rik sat alongside him, both drinking coffee. For a moment Henry said nothing, just regarded the distressed prisoner and his somnolent solicitor, who had not even made it home this time before being summoned back to see his client.

  ‘I’m assuming the protection thing refers to the guns?’ Henry asked.

  Oxford nodded.

  ‘Well, first things first, Wayne … at the moment those guns are secondary to what’s going on here because even though I’m no firearms expert I’m pretty sure that the ones on your dining room table were not used to kill Jamie Turner. Here, now, this minute, the one I’m interested in is the one Sophie killed herself with.’

  ‘You make it sound like she deliberately killed herself,’ Oxford said, snorting through his tears.

  Henry ignored him. ‘The thing is, you’ve been arrested on suspicion of murdering that young man. That is my first priority here, and when I’m happy that issue has been resolved, then I’ll start looking at the other things – such as the other guns, such as your involvement in gangs and drug dealing and turf wars – but Jamie Turner’s murder is my first priority.’

  Rik Dean leaned forward earnestly. ‘Did you kill Jamie Turner?’

  Oxford rolled his jaw and raised his eyes to Rik. ‘Yes … but I didn’t mean to … He was in the way, wrong place, wrong time … collateral damage.’ Oxford shrugged.

  ‘You intended to murder someone, though?’

  ‘Yeah, but not him, not the lad.’

  ‘What gun did you use?’

  ‘A point thirty-eight … probably the one Sophie … had … killed herself with.’

  Henry Christie’s bottom twitched, his invisible sign that told him he was now mining gold.

  Oxford blinked rapidly and lowered his face, then glanced sideways at his solicitor, who said, ‘My client will now tell you everything you need to know about Jamie Turner’s death. He will admit everything.’ Oxford nodded in agreement as the brief spoke. ‘And as much as I understand you need to deal with that as a matter of priority, he also needs to tell you something about the other weapons in the flat.’

  ‘OK,’ Henry said cautiously, suspecting some kind of bargaining chip was about to be dealt. ‘But I will make no promises about anything else until I hear what they are. If he is completely truthful, I will make it clear to a court that he cooperated with the police investigation into Turner’s death fully.’

  ‘And the other weapons will not be men
tioned?’ the solicitor added hopefully.

  Henry gave him his best sardonic look. ‘Put the information on the table and we’ll discuss it. I have to know what I’m dealing with before I make any decision.’

  Solicitor and client exchanged another glance, and the brief gave him an almost imperceptible nod.

  Oxford looked at Henry. ‘The guns aren’t mine … except the one Sophie had,’ he mumbled, then looked up in a panic. ‘Please switch off the tape and the camera. What I’m going to tell you now, I don’t want it recorded anywhere.’

  Henry reached across to the tape machine and switched it off. ‘Happy now?’

  Oxford nodded. ‘Like I said, the guns aren’t mine … I’m holding them for someone.’ He exhaled with a juddering breath.

  Henry and Rik waited, unable to remove the cynical expressions from their faces.

  ‘I’ll get fucking killed for this,’ Oxford said desperately.

  Henry still said nothing. It was down to the prisoner to fill the silence.

  ‘I’m holding them for Fraser Worthington, and he’s coming for them tonight,’ he blurted. ‘And I’ll deliver him on a plate to you if you protect me and reduce my charge to manslaughter.’

  The mention of that name made Henry’s ringpiece twitch like mad.

  Henry and Rik retreated to the corridor outside the interview room where they had a hushed conversation.

  ‘What do you think?’ Rik asked.

  Henry rubbed his eyes and willed his brain to keep working. ‘What do you think the chances are that Worthington knows chummy in there has been arrested?’

  Rik thought it through. ‘At this moment in time—’ he checked his watch, seeing the time was nearing eleven a.m. – ‘maybe not … but the press are already sniffing around about Sophie’s death, so if that gets out … dunno.’ He shrugged.

  ‘It would spook him if he heard that, but if we could keep a lid on it …’ Henry pondered out loud. ‘And, hopefully, none of Oxford’s mates know he’s been arrested yet; just gone off the radar for a few hours …’

  The two detectives looked at each other.

  ‘Fraser Worthington’s a big fish,’ Rik said. ‘Nasty man.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Henry, fighting to keep his brain on track, ‘and if he is alarmed in any way, he won’t come anywhere near the guns, because that’s how guys like him operate … Something not right, they go to ground.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘But if he thinks all is right with the world, he turns up, Wayne hands him the guns and we step in and nab him.’ Henry’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘Which would depend on a lot of factors, not least of which is Oxford’s full cooperation, and he’s clearly shit-scared of Worthington.’

  ‘But what holds more fear – a life sentence for murder, or a lesser one for manslaughter? That’s why he’s trying to bargain with us.’

  ‘Are you seriously thinking of charging him with manslaughter instead of murder?’ Rik asked.

  Henry frowned doubtfully. ‘Based on what we have now, what’s the realistic chance of securing a murder conviction against Oxford?’

  ‘Pretty bloody good, I’d say.’

  ‘I think so, too.’ Henry started to waver. ‘And the prospect of explaining the decision to Jamie’s parents to charge him with manslaughter instead of murder is not something I feel I could justify. They don’t give a shit about us catching Fraser Worthington. All they want is justice for their boy … and so do I, come to that,’ Henry conceded. ‘Oxford deserves to be convicted of murder, and if we can prove it, then we should … Missing the chance to nail a scumbag like Worthington might hurt us, but it’s the lesser of two evils – although there could be another way to nail him.’

  He sighed long and hard through his nose and rubbed his temples as it all rolled through his mind. He had endured a great deal of pain and heartache from Jamie Turner’s family over the last few weeks and had made a lot of promises about catching and putting his killer away for good – promises he was determined to keep. Losing the chance of taking down a big-time armed robber like Worthington was way down on the scales of justice if he was honest with himself.

  Henry was screwed up about it, though. It was such a good opportunity, a great double whammy. He sniffed.

  ‘Well?’ Rik asked impatiently.

  ‘We’re going to have to work around this somehow.’ He jerked his head, indicating that Rik should follow him back into the interview room.

  With his fingers interlaced on the table in front of him, Henry looked deeply into Wayne Oxford’s bloodshot eyes.

  ‘Wayne, we’ve had a chat, and to be frank with you I’m going to have to charge you with murder.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s a given, I’m afraid. If the charge gets reduced to manslaughter when it reaches court, then so be it, name of the game, that’s not my call.’ Henry pulled his hands apart and leaned on the table. ‘You see, you’re a cold blooded killer, and my job is to catch people like you.’

  ‘B–but,’ Oxford blabbered, casting desperate looks at the solicitor.

  ‘No buts.’

  ‘What about the other guns? I told you, they aren’t mine!’

  ‘I know, but I have to deal with that separately – the punishment for your illegal possession of a number of dangerous prohibited weapons and ammunition will be huge, and that, together with a conviction for murder, will see you in prison for many years to come,’ Henry said cruelly. ‘And if I’m honest, I don’t really see you dropping Worthington in it when it comes to the crunch, because I’ll bet you’re more scared of him than you are of me, and if you do grass on him, you’ll probably get knifed to death in some prison showers two years down the line.’

  ‘But I’ve already told you – they’re his guns!’ he protested.

  ‘Mm, you have. But in your possession.’

  ‘And he’s coming to collect them tonight.’

  ‘That, too,’ Henry said.

  Oxford slumped back in his chair, flabbergasted.

  ‘And clearly I have to act on that information,’ Henry said with a half-smile.

  ‘Fuck you,’ Oxford said as he worked it through. ‘I want to make a phone call.’

  ‘I’ll bet you do,’ Henry said.

  It felt to Jake like he had to drag himself physically out of his slumber. It was such a real effort to wake up that by the time he reached for his mobile phone, which he’d left next to the bed, it had stopped ringing. He’d been lying face down in the pillow, and now he wedged himself up on his elbows, swallowing back dribble, and glanced at the offending device on the bedside cabinet, on to which a text then landed.

  Jake’s face drooped forward. He could feel his features sagging loosely, tugged by gravity. He swallowed, twisted over and swiped up the phone, tabbing through to read the message.

  It was from work and read, ‘BRIEFING HQ 4PM. U OK 4 THIS? FULL KIT.’

  Jake flopped back on to the soft pillow, seeing it was only now 1.30 p.m. He’d hoped to have the day off … That was, he would tell Anna that he’d hoped to have the day off, but secretly he was glad of the text. At that moment he could not get enough of work, but he would never admit it and would always complain to Anna about the hours he worked. However, he would have liked a bit more sleep.

  He texted back: ‘YES.’ This, he knew, would land on the Operations Inspector’s phone.

  He placed his phone back down and listened for any signs of occupation in the house. He could hear rain lashing down, as it seemed to do every day now, but nothing else. Rolling out of bed, he glanced through the curtains and saw that Anna’s car was not on the drive. She wasn’t back from work yet.

  He swore and went into the shower room.

  Jackie had to get into work and left Anna in the café, where she sat alone for the next hour, her mind churning, going through all the combinations: the clues, the facts, the figures, the guesses.

  To be honest, there was very little to go on.

  Since becoming a firearms officer ten years ago, th
en getting on to the Armed Response Unit, Jake had often worked long hours. Financially, that had been good, especially with a fat mortgage and two fast-growing kids. Anna had returned to work after Daniel had been born, but had quickly gone on to part-time working, something that had just been brought in by the force as the organization felt the pressure of equality and discrimination legislation. That had been just about manageable, but when Emma entered the equation Anna had decided to quit the cops to devote all her time to the children, despite the financial hardship of just one wage.

  So long hours had been the norm for some time for Jake.

  It was just the other things, particularly over the last few months.

  The lack of sex was one. The complete lack of sex, actually. There had been times over the years when the frequency of making love had diminished, but it had always returned with a vengeance. Recently, there had been no comeback.

  Regular late finishes were another factor. Not solid chunks of overtime, but short blocks, coming home late for no reason and it not showing up in his salary.

  Jake’s vague distance was also a worry, along with his newly discovered passion for golf: spending five hours out of the house on a rest day wasn’t unusual now.

  Anna sighed, wondering if she was just being oversensitive. She knew she was grouchy, always felt tired, always felt like it was she who sorted the kids; she knew she rarely ‘scrubbed up’ for Jake (although that was a two-way street – he just slobbed around the house), and maybe she had become unattractive to him.

  Maybe nothing was going on. And yet … She swigged down her coffee. It had gone extremely cold.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Jake demanded.

  ‘Met up with Jackie for lunch.’

  They had come face-to-face in the hallway. Jake had been fastening his boots whilst sitting on the bottom step when Anna came through the door.

  ‘I think, “Where are you going?” is the question to be asked,’ she countered. ‘I thought you had the day off.’