Deadly Intent

by Lynda La Plante

  “We have a statement from your friend Silas Roach.”

  “Yeah, an’ you got one from me an’ all.” Delroy leaned back and grinned; a gold tooth glinted on the front row of his teeth.

  Langton sipped his water, placing the plastic beaker down carefully. Still, it left a small wet ring. “You are being charged with—”

  He was interrupted. “Yeah, man, I know what I bein’ charged with, and I put me hand up. I said it all when we was first brung in.”

  “You are now to be charged with the murder of Frank Brandon, and also with the murder of Stanley Leymore.”

  Delroy sprang to his feet, shouting that it was bullshit. His solicitor asked him to sit down, but he jumped up and down on the spot, accusing Langton of framing him. “Listen, man, I never done nothing!”

  A uniformed officer waiting outside came in, and pushed Delroy back into his seat.“Where you think I’m fucking going with these on?” He held up his handcuffed wrists.

  “You’ll be going down for eighteen, that’s where you’ll be going.”

  Delroy shook his head as Langton read sections from Silas Roach’s statement. “He’s a fucking dead man.”

  “So let me hear your side of it, Delroy. We know you lied about Donny Petrozzo being at the squat on the night of the shooting.”

  Eventually, Delroy began to talk. They gained more information about Petrozzo trying to make a deal, having been a regular buyer,

  scoring from Delroy for a number of years. As Silas had said, Delroy claimed it was mostly small amounts of cocaine and hash, sometimes some tabs, but he was a good customer and always paid up front.

  Petrozzo had approached Delroy, asking if he could do some really big business with him; he knew someone who had a big stash of gear that he wanted to off-load and, between them, they could make a lot of money. “But I said to him, what gear was he talking about? You know I run a tight business; I keep on the move, right? There are gangs of bastards trying to squeeze in and I got to be careful. Just keeping my team together is fucking hard, so I wasn’t sure about getting too big. I mean, I don’t have the facilities to stash big loads of hash or grass, know what I mean? Anyways, he says this stuff fits into a real small box, no bigger than this.”

  Delroy mimed with his hands the size: about eighteen inches by ten. “I says to him, what the fuck is in that? He says it’s a drug called Formalyn. I never heard of it, but he says it’s worth millions. I says, how the fuck did he think I could lay my hands on that cash? Said he was off his rocker. He then says if we do a deal, me to use my runners, we can split the profits; says he’s got the gear. I didn’t believe him—he was a bullshitter—but then he says he’s gonna bring us some stuff to test it out.” He started to laugh.

  Petrozzo brought him two vials of the stuff and said they could either inject it or take it liquid. “I mean, I honestly didn’t know what this fucking stuff was, so I ask around a few contacts, an’ I start to get some interest, so next time he appears, I says to him, we can maybe do some business. He wants ten grand; I says I need to think about it—I mean, ten grand is big money—so I give him five in cash.”

  “Do you mean Fentanyl? Is that the drug on offer?”

  “Yeah, yeah—that’s the word.”

  “Did you do the deal?”

  “Nah, ‘cause he never showed up—and we got a problem, because one of the kids that took some of this stuff snuffed it. Next thing, we get a rap on the door, and there’s this cop …”

  Delroy implied that it was an accident; that nobody intended to

  shoot, but it was all panic. He denied that he was the shooter, and placed the blame on Silas. He said that they ran from the squat. Their first port of call was to Stanley Leymore, as they knew he was friends with Petrozzo, and they got their vehicles from him. Delroy explained that Leymore denied knowing anything; he swore he hadn’t seen Petrozzo for months, and told them to leave.

  While Stanley went to the toilet, they searched around and found some cash hidden under some tires. “That money was mine. That old bastard lied to me. That motherfucker was always trying to rip us off. He was screeching that it was his money and nothing to do with Donny fucking Petrozzo; he said he’d got it from sellin’ a jeep and he could prove it. He started to get up, really screaming his head off, his pants round his ankles …”

  “You killed him?”

  “No, not me—Silas, he done it. He was crazy; he’d been coked up all night since we had that cop round at the squat. He’d been smokin’ crack all morning; his nose was streamin’ like a tap.”

  Langton poured more water for himself and asked Delroy to make a new statement. He was not that interested in who had pulled the trigger; that would be down to further interrogations and the eventual trial. What he was interested in was trying to assimilate the actual series of events. Langton took out the photograph of Alexander Fitzpatrick as Delroy leaned his head on his hands, his elbows on the table. “Do you recognize this man?”

  Delroy glanced at the photograph, then shook his head.

  “He could have been with the man you believed was a police officer—this man.” Langton showed the picture of Frank Brandon’s body.

  “He was a fuckin’ Drug Squad shit. I recognized him.”

  Next, Langton laid down the photograph of Alexander Fitzpatrick again.

  Delroy shrugged, unable to recall seeing Fitzpatrick. “I mean, if he was outside the room—you know, in the outer room—I wouldn’t have seen him. I got out the window.”

  “You stood over Frank Brandon’s body and you fired three shots; you had to have seen this man—he was standing directly behind him.”

  Delroy sucked in his breath, and made kissing noises with his lips. “Prove I shot him, ‘cause I am not saying that I fuckin’ did, no way. I’m just sayin’ I recognized him, ‘cause he pulled me in years ago. I never seen that other bloke, but the geezer on the floor, I knew; he arrested me ten years ago, mean son of a bitch. He gimme a real pasting when he nabbed me, and he fuckin’ held up his ID. It was obvious we was gonna be busted, and I didn’t wanna go down for a long stretch.”

  Langton stood up. “You are going down for one now—a very long one.”

  Delroy gave a nonchalant shrug. Langton would have liked to smash his fist into his pugnacious, gloating, gold-toothed mouth. Instead, he walked out without a backward glance. It had not been successful, bar collecting up a few more pieces of the jigsaw. Still missing was the central piece: Alexander Fitzpatrick.Julia Brandon was hunched over in her seat at Chalk Farm Police Station as if she had stomach pains. Her solicitor, Simon Fagan, glanced toward her; he had placed a hand on her arm, as if to comfort her, but she had brusquely shaken him away. He now sat tight-lipped, staring at some point on the wall above Anna’s head.

  Julia had been questioned for over half an hour. She had told them a rambling story about how she had first met her ex-partner when she was young and impressionable. He had a lot of money and he treated her with respect, like an adult, showering her with gifts and money and clothes. She had left Oxford to move into a flat in Kensington; she started sobbing as she explained that he had told her he was a property developer for wealthy clients. “I didn’t know anything about this business.” Julia rocked in her chair.

  Anna sat listening quietly. Cunningham had instigated most of the questions, taking an interest in the relationship between Julia and the man she called Anthony; she had flatly refused to identify him as also being Alexander Fitzpatrick. “I never heard anyone call him that; I never met anyone with him who didn’t call him Anthony.”

  Cunningham had sighed. “All right. So you began this relationship

  with him—did you never at any time query where he got these vast sums of money?”

  “Why should I? He was almost as old as my father; when he told me he was in property and got paid huge amounts, 1 believed him.”

  “So the trips abroad?”

  The interview was becoming tedious, with Julia trying to recall where th
ey had been on various trips and how many properties he had, from the Bahamas to St. Lucia to Mallorca, the yachts, the private planes; all the while, with her rocking and sniffing, as she cried and wiped her eyes, and started to make hiccup sounds. She said that she had spent many weeks, often months, alone in the house in St. John’s Wood while he was away.

  “What about your sister?” Anna said softly.

  Julia looked up, almost in surprise. “Yes, well, I had Honour, but she hated to come to London and I wasn’t welcome at her place; she used to have a flat in Oxford. When she did see me, we just argued because she didn’t approve of me living with Anthony.”

  “So she met him?”

  “No, she just knew I lived with a rich guy. She said I was an idiot to waste my time on an old man like him, who was just using me for sex, which wasn’t true. I really liked him—I loved him—but I got lonely all by myself.”

  “So when did your partner begin to open accounts for you?”

  “Well, early on. It wasn’t ever that much, but I had a credit card and could basically buy what I wanted.”

  Anna crossed her legs; her knee hit the underside of the table, but she said nothing. This was Cunningham’s interview and she didn’t want to antagonize her.

  “So how old were you at this time?”

  Julia sat up straighter. “Early twenties.”

  “When did the relationship change?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When did you stop feeling as if you had a Svengali manipulating you?”

  Julia shook her head. “I never felt that; I really loved him. The fact

  that I got so lonely, and sometimes felt trapped, didn’t mean that I stopped caring about Anthony or enjoying living with him, because I did. I had a fantastic life: trips abroad, skiing whenever I wanted. Like I said, I had carte blanche with my credit card.” Julia had stopped her rocking and even her tears, but she was still tense; she twisted one ankle around, as if doing an exercise, and then tapped her toe forward, her expensive stilettos flattering her slim ankles and perfect legs.

  Cunningham turned a page in her notebook. “So this relationship became on what—equal terms?”

  “No, never that.”

  “But you have a considerable amount of money, Mrs. Brandon.”

  “Yes, and I had a lot more: it was to save on the government making him pay taxes or something. Well, that’s what he told me. It was investments and stuff like that. To be honest, I never really understood how it moved from one account and country, in and out. I never paid any attention to how many accounts he had drawn up in my name. I mean, I didn’t have the checkbooks.”

  “What other countries?”

  “Well, there was Switzerland—Geneva—Germany, and Florida; I had money there for when I was in the United States.”

  Anna was fascinated. The more Julia talked about the life she had lived, the more arrogant she became. She twisted her diamond rings and diamond earrings, often seeming more interested in her nail polish than the flow of questions from Cunningham. Anna wondered if this was a ploy by her superior; the more queries were posed about her lifestyle, the more Julia gained in what appeared to be confidence. Doubtless certain that the two women opposite had never lived the luxurious life that she had, Julia started to behave as if she was almost enjoying herself.

  “And you never had any indication that this lifestyle you are describing was funded by drug deals?”

  Julia shook her blond hair away from her neck. “No. I never even had an indication that what I was being told was anything but the truth.”

  “Did you ever take drugs yourself?”

  “No.”

  “What about your partner?”

  She wafted her hand. “He used to smoke dope, for relaxation, but nothing else; he was quite a fitness fanatic and always worked out. We even had a gymnasium on the yacht. I think sometimes he felt that, being so much older than me, he had to keep up.” She laughed.

  Cunningham nodded, and tapped the table with the tip of her pencil. “So, take me through the period when you were still living at the St. John’s Wood property. If I am correct, there was a substantial change in your lifestyle.”

  “What?”

  “You became pregnant, isn’t that right? In fact, you had two children in quite quick succession.”

  “I wasn’t living at the St. John’s Wood house then.”

  “Where were you living?”

  “I moved into a mews house just behind the Albert Hall. I think we rented it; we were having an extension built or something at the big house. I can’t really remember.”

  “Where was your partner?”

  “I can’t remember; he had been abroad a lot.”

  “He arranged this move?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Do you have the address?”

  Julia sucked in her breath and sighed; she said it was Albert Hall Mews, but she had only lived there a few months before she moved into a rented flat in Harley Street. Cunningham scribbled on her notepad, asking for the exact address. Julia couldn’t recall if it was forty or forty-two; again, the property was rented. She crossed her legs and, like Anna had done, knocked her knee beneath the table. She muttered and examined the tiny snag in her stocking.

  “So you moved from one rented place to another, for how long?”

  “Well, it would be about two years.”

  “During this time, were you together, or alone?”

  “A bit of both.”

  “Who else lived with you?”

  “I had a girl come in and clean, but I was on my own really I had a car, so I could drive. I’d failed my test a few times, and then when I passed I got a Porsche, a birthday present.”

  “And the two children?”

  Julia pursed her lips. “I had treatment at the Chelsea Fertility Clinic.”

  “The father of your two children is not named on their birth certificates.”

  “No.”

  “Is the father of your children the man you knew as Anthony Collingwood?”

  “No. He was, as they say, firing blanks. I used a donor.”

  “Do you have a name?”

  “No. It was a donor provided by the clinic.”

  “The same donor for both children?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was your partner happy about this situation?”

  “Yes, he organized it.”

  “Was he a good father?”

  “Not really. He didn’t have much time for the girls; they were just babies.“Julia frowned and chewed at her lips. “Sometimes I wondered if he was so insistent, you know, so it would keep me tied to him.” “Did it?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Were you able to have the same lifestyle or, with two small children, was it less free?”

  “We still traveled a lot.”

  “He traveled with you and the children?”

  “No, I would bring the children to see him.”

  “Where?”

  “Well, wherever he was. “Julia listed Florida, Germany, France, India, Switzerland, and Scotland among the places she had taken her children to visit him. She was obviously becoming bored; she tilted her head

  back and closed her eyes. “You can check all this out with passport control. Both children have separate passports. A few times they went with a nanny he hired, but mostly I traveled with them.”

  “Can you give me a list of the hotels you stayed at during this period?”

  “What, all of them? I can’t remember all of them.”

  “I’d like you to try. Why don’t you start off with Scotland? Where did you stay there?”

  “Skibo Castle; we often went there, but we never stayed in the castle, always in one of the cottages. You can send over to the restaurant and they deliver food, whatever you want. You could play golf—well, not me, I don’t play, but we would ride …” She continued discussing the other activities she had enjoyed as Cunningham jotted down a note to Anna for the photograph of Alexa
nder Fitzpatrick to be sent for identification to the hotel.

  When Anna returned to the interview room, Julia was still trying to recall the various hotels where she had taken her children to stay. By now, she was leaning her chin on her hands, elbows propped on the table. The extraordinary thing was that Simon Fagan had not said one word since Julia had recoiled from him; he had remained sitting stiffly, almost as if determined to keep his distance. He had a leather-bound notebook in which he wrote odd notes with a Cartier fountain pen, unscrewing and rescrewing the top. Then he would stare down at the page, or back to the wall, as Julia talked on, and on, and on.

  Cunningham spoke into the tape recorder that DI Travis had returned to the interview room. Anna slipped her a note to say they were checking into the Scotland connection; she then inched her legs under the table and picked up her pencil, straightened her notebook, and waited, but Cunningham remained silent. It was a little unnerving. Julia looked to Fagan, but he didn’t pay any attention to her. Instead, he coughed and straightened his immaculate tie.

  “When did it all go wrong?” Cunningham asked suddenly.

  Julia sat back as if she didn’t understand the question.

  “You moved into a property in Wimbledon and you married Frank Brandon. Then, it appears from our previous interviews, you were

  coerced into handing over a considerable amount of money: four million. Your financial adviser apparently persuaded you not to release any further monies. He then ends up dead, as does your new husband. So I am asking you, Mrs. Brandon, when did it all go wrong?”

  “I never had anything to do with their deaths. I can prove where I was at all times. I wasn’t involved in any way at all.” Her voice had become shrill.

  “I never said that you were involved, but it is rather a coincidence, isn’t it? So, what I am asking you to explain to me is, when did this wonderful relationship—with a man you knew only as Anthony Collingwood—when did it go wrong? Was he aware of your marriage? Perhaps he even arranged it? He seems to have arranged everything else about your life.”