I Know You (DI Emma Locke)

by Louise Mullins

  Aeron looks up, eyes wide with anxiety and something else I can’t quite assimilate as we enter the living room.

  ‘Where are the children?’

  ‘Next door with Gillian. She’s giving them dinner. Said to collect them whenever we want.’

  Sinead has a bruised forehead, a cut above her left eye, a swollen nose, and dried blood in her hair. She sips tea from a cup Aeron holds out for her, the tremor in her hand too powerful to prevent spillage.

  ‘You caught him?’ says Sinead, her voice low-beat and measured, words leaving her swollen mouth in a lisp, saliva dripping down her chin.

  ‘Not. Yet. Did you get a look at him?’

  She shakes her head slowly and tears spring to her eyes. ‘He approached me from behind.’

  ‘Your positive your attacker was male?’

  ‘Yesh,’ she dribbles.

  ‘Can you recall anything else?’

  ‘He said, “Tell Aeron to pay up.” I preshume they’re acquainted,’ she says, looking from me to her husband. Aeron stares at her incredulously then reverts his gaze to the floor where his wife’s feet wrestle with one another, itching to move, to flee.

  ‘Did he give you any indication as to what he meant by that?’

  ‘I guesh he meant Aeron owed him money.’ She sounds irritable, her restless toes wriggling. If I don’t separate them, she could blow. I’ve seen it once too often. Calm one minute, angry the next.

  ‘Aeron? Any idea what the man meant?’ His features are frozen. He doesn’t move.

  ‘Would you mind if I had a quiet word with your husband, Sinead?’

  ‘Alone?’

  I nod. ‘If that’s alright with you, Mr Griffith?’

  He thaws. ‘There’s no need.’ He stands from his knelt position on the floor at his wife’s side and puts the cup down on the coffee table behind him. ‘I borrowed some money.’

  ‘Why?’ says Sinead. I ask, ‘from who?’ at the same time.

  He looks at me. ‘To offset some business expenditure.’ Then to Sinead. ‘A payday loan.’

  ‘How much?’ I say.

  ‘A grand.’

  ‘From which company?’ says Sinead.

  ‘A leaflet came through the door, offering—’

  ‘A doorshtep lender?!’ Sinead’s voice rattles.

  ‘Could you describe the individual you borrowed money from to me?’

  ‘There’s no need, is there?’ he says. ‘I’ll call him. Arrange to meet somewhere public to pay off the remaining balance. Then you can swoop in and arrest him.’

  ‘That’s unlikely to happen, and I can’t allow you to do that, Mr Griffith, without permission from my superior. Besides, it could be dangerous. We don’t know who he knows. It’s unlikely he came here and did this to your wife.’

  ‘He sent someone?’ he says, his brow furrowed. They usually do.

  ‘He shmelt strongly of deodorant,’ says Sinead.

  ‘Could you describe him to me, Mr Griffith?’

  ‘Fat, average height, light hair,’ he says pulling his mobile phone from the pocket of his workman jeans. ‘Always wears Caterpillar boots.’

  ‘Wait. Without authorisation, you’re risking your own and Sinead’s safety. I still need to request back-up and assess the risk o—’

  ‘Paperwork?’ he spits.

  ‘Yes, unfortunately. And your wife is going to need medical attention.’

  ‘I’m fine.’ She waves me off, but appears anything but okay.

  ‘You’re not. I want you to see a doctor. You’ve hit your forehead badly twice in less than a week. You could have latent concussion.’

  ‘I’m not in any pain.’ She flexes her hands to recirculate the feeling through them. Pins and needles, a sign of rapid blood pressure loss. A red flag suggesting shock.

  ‘Even if you’re given the all-clear, it’s useful to get your injuries logged.’

  ‘Fine,’ she says, in an exasperated tone.

  I think it’s odd that she hasn’t asked me how, and wonder if she’s experienced a photography session for crime reference purposes in A&E before. While I haven’t retrieved any background information suggesting she’s ever been the victim of a crime, it’s possible there could be anonymously reported undisclosed crimes I haven’t got the authority to access. I don’t have time to ask however because the front door swings wide open. Jones, stood beside it, turns immediately towards Tulip, blocking the light trying to pierce through the hall from a weak October sun. He jerks as he saunters into the house uninvited.

  ‘Uh, excuse me but you can’t just barge into someone’s property—’

  ‘I caught him on my camera,’ he says, panting and holding out a phone, the screen containing the image of a solid built man with light reddish blond hair, wearing a grey T-shirt, a pair of khaki-coloured trousers, and a rough-looking pair of Caterpillars in the standard beige colour they’re known for.

  ‘Is this him?’ I point to the phone, my eyes fixed on Aeron.

  ‘Yes,’ he says.

  ‘I saw him leave,’ says Tulip.

  ‘Thank you.’ I move to take the phone from him, but he retracts it and says, ‘Oh, no. I must keep it. It has my diary on it. I’ve set alarmed reminders.’

  I snatch it from his hand. ‘It’s evidence. You’ll get it back as soon as I’ve sent a copy of the picture over to Blaenau Gwent Headquarters.’

  ‘But I don’t think you understand… uh…’

  I ignore his argumentative attitude and send the photograph via SMS to Evans, who calls me back immediately. ‘Presently initiating the sending of officers to his address.’

  ‘How do you know where he lives?’

  ‘He’s a con artist. Got lifted a few months back for that door-to-door salesman scam in Newport. He’s on bail.’

  I remember now. I didn’t work the case. Neither did Jones. So he’s the man responsible for not only illegally entering the home of a woman to repeatedly punch her across the head, but also of falsely accumulating thousands of pounds from old ladies with the promise of new guttering, conservatory installation, and driveway tarmacking before disappearing with their pension savings. If only it were my job to nick him. There are a few things I’d like to say to the man behind the locked door of a cell.

  Tulip combs his fingers through his hair, looking jittery and lost. ‘Did it help?’

  ‘Tremendously.’ I hand him back his phone. ‘We need a statement from you.’

  ‘Oh, uh…’

  ‘Which house is yours?’

  ‘Twenty-eight. The house numbers go around in a circle instead of odds one side, evens the other.’

  ‘Right. We’ll finish speaking to Mr and Mrs Griffith then we’ll be over.’

  ‘Oh, uh, you want to come inside?’

  ‘Yes, if that’s okay?’

  ‘Uh, well…’

  ‘We’ll see you in a minute.’

  I turn away while he hesitantly heads outside, slamming the door behind him without reply.

  I return my attention to Sinead and Aeron. ‘He’s known to us. He’s being arrested. Which means we haven’t got long to get those photographs taken. It’s digitised these days, so they can be scanned by intel and sent straight over to the CPS.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ Sinead’s eyelids droop.

  ‘I can use my phone if you’ll act as witness?’ I glance across to Aeron who’s focused on his wife.

  I notice Sinead is resting her chin on her chest and her eyes have become unfocused. ‘Are you feeling okay?’

  She gives me a crooked smile and bats my question away, staring at me vacantly.

  ‘Are you in any pain?’

  She closes her eyes, moves her lips, and whispers something I can’t make out.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘The donkeysh kicked me hard.’

  Before Aeron reaches the landline and Jones has pulled his phone from his vest, I’ve already dialled 1 for instant access to the ambulance service. I give the call handler my name, credence, Si
nead’s name, her date of birth, and the address. ‘Head injury, loss of consciousness, hurry.’

  *

  Severe trauma to the temporal lobe. Concussion. Potential bleed on the brain. Signs of internal swelling by the lack of dilation to her pupils from the light of a miniature torch the doctor shone in her face. Those are the words I am given when I approach the family room to speak to the doctor with Aeron’s permission. But what I hear is: the bastard has physically attacked Sinead so badly it’s caused damage to her brain.

  Jones has gone to hunt down a vending machine, leaving me alone with Aeron, who looks guilty and scared, the door left ajar. The doctor is examining Sinead’s head beneath a Magnetic Resonance Imaging scanner.

  ‘Tell me about your motivation to borrow money from an unlicensed thug to save your firm?’

  ‘I didn’t know he was a thug. I wouldn’t have borrowed money from him if I was aware that he had a reputation.’

  ‘Why, at all?’

  He sighs. ‘A customer failed to pay up for an extension on his property. When I went over there, to his house, unannounced, he had his brother and a friend with him. Three big blokes. I was alone. No one knew where I was. I didn’t want the hassle. They threatened to sink me. Damage the building work, take pictures, and upload them to the company Facebook page. Leave damning reviews on Yell.com. I left without the money. I can’t afford a civil court application to cover the cost of a bailiff to make a claim for the completed work. Then Sinead told me about this man who she thought was following her and I got distracted, missed a loan repayment, was late making the next. She said that people kept honking their car horns at her, flashing their lights at her, trying to cut her up, overtaking her, yelling at her through their windows. I thought she was being paranoid to start with. At least until the incident the other day. She didn’t tell me straight away and she was evasive when I asked if she knew who the driver might be, but she mentioned one man. Said he’d ranted his engine at her, and that she felt intimidated by him, but that she didn’t recognise him, was positive she didn’t know him.’

  ‘The blond was one of the drivers?’

  ‘I assume he must have been. She said this one man tried to run her off the road.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘A few days before he, if it is the same man, crashed his car into hers.’

  ‘Did she tell you the vehicles’ makes, models, colours, or describe the drivers?’ That’s assuming there were others and he wasn’t working alone.

  He reaches up and combs his fingers through his hair. ‘There were so many.’

  ‘And you didn’t think to mention this to the PC who first took her statement?’ I can’t question her and ask why she withheld that from me when I took her statement.

  ‘I wanted to. But she gave me a warning look, so I backed off.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘If I knew that we probably wouldn’t be here.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I paid Terry, the lender, back. I’d cleared the balance by the time the car hit Sinead’s.’

  ‘Loan sharks don’t usually beat up family members unless you owe them money. Besides, you said earlier, back at your house, that you would “call him to arrange for him to collect this week’s payment.” So how much more money did you borrow from him and when?’

  He lowers his gaze. ‘Two thousand pounds. A few days ago. I wanted to buy Sinead a car, so I wouldn’t have to struggle to afford a taxi and a train fare every day to get to work and back while she drove mine to take the children to school. I was going to give her the money Saturday, so we could visit a dealership, see if we could get a cheap runner for now, or put the cash towards a decent car and get the rest on finance.’

  ‘I don’t advise borrowing money until you’ve got a grip on your expenses, Mr Griffith. You don’t want to fall into any more debt.’

  ‘I know. I know.’

  ‘So when did you contact him the first time?’

  ‘Ten, eleven weeks ago. We agreed I would pay him back in full a fortnight later, which I did.’ His shoulders drop, and he lowers his head, mumbling below his breath, ‘Then of course I borrowed more.’

  ‘Do you have any idea why Sinead didn’t report these incidents to the police before?’

  ‘No, sorry. I regret not pushing harder for her to do so. But she’s strong-willed and kept saying she didn’t want the drama.’

  I don’t doubt him.

  I move towards the door when my phone rings. Evans again.

  ‘We’ve got him. How’s Sinead?’

  ‘Induced coma.’

  ‘I’ll push the prosecutor for Actual Bodily Harm.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘He’s “no commenting” at present, but thanks to Tulip – what kind of sodding name is that anyway? – and his camera skills, we have a witness confirming Terry left the crime scene and photographic evidence to support Sinead’s testimony.’

  ‘We’ve also got a motive from Aeron, the husband.’ I glance in his direction to find him tapping one foot against the kickboard. ‘I’ll fill you in once I’ve spoken to Tulip.’

  ‘Call me back then,’ says Evans before ending the call.

  I turn to Aeron who is staring down at his feet like a puppy reprimanded for chewing a hole through his owner’s sofa. Guilty and ashamed. Though in all honesty they’re both keeping secrets from one another. Sinead had an affair. He caused her to get knocked around after failing to pay back a fist-happy, scam-artist money lender. Though Sinead appears to have come off worse.

  ‘What was that about Tulip?’ he says as though coming out of a trance.

  ‘Protocol. I’ve got to take his statement to ensure we have what he witnessed in writing.’

  He nods uncertainly.

  I don’t want to ruffle feathers, but I suspect Sinead’s not been truthful with her husband regarding a lot of things.

  ‘Mr Griffith?’

  ‘Aeron, please. Cut the formal bullshit.’

  ‘Did your wife tell you about the recent poop incident?’

  ‘What? Not another one? Are you serious?’

  I take a step forward. ‘How long has this been going on for?’

  ‘Weeks. Eight. Ten. Twelve. I don’t know. I just assumed it was Terry. That’s why I didn’t tell anyone.’

  ‘Your wife wasn’t aware your house was being targeted?’

  ‘Not a fucking clue. Or so I thought.’

  ‘If Sinead had kept it, we could have tested the leaflets surrounding it for prints, but she binned it.’

  ‘The waste lorry has been and gone unfortunately,’ says Aeron. ‘Who would do something like that, to us?’

  ‘You don’t think Terry is responsible for putting the dog faeces through your door?’

  He huffs. ‘Thought. Past tense. I’m not sure now. I mean you’ve seen how headstrong he is. Do you think a man capable of knocking the crap out of my wife would bother to collect stinking dog shit off the pavement and dump it through our letterbox?’

  I don’t know what to believe. But he’s right. It doesn’t seem like something Terry would do.

  ‘I’ve got to shoot. Are you going to be okay?’

  He points to the doorway, where on the other side and down the hall, in a room somewhere on the left, his wife of ten years lies beneath a scanner. ‘It’s her I’m worried about.’

  ‘Call me if you need anything.’

  I meet Jones in the corridor. He holds out two plastic cups of strong bitter coffee. The smell hits my olfactory nerves and gives me the placebo effect of wakefulness. I take a sip and fill him in on my conversation with Aeron.

  ‘So Sinead has two haters.’

  ‘It certainly looks that way.’

  We down our drinks while heading for the car. ‘I hate these places.’

  ‘Me too. Full of sickness and death.’

  Driving away from the Royal Gwent hospital, we hit traffic. It takes us over twenty minutes to reach Tulip’s property. ‘Let me do the talkin
g. He comes across as socially reclusive. I don’t want him feeling so daunted by our presence that he clams up.’

  ‘Okay, bossy boots,’ says Jones.

  ‘I haven’t been called that since I was a child.’

  I’m concerned Tulip has gone out, but I’m pleased to find his Renault in the bay beside where I park, and he seems to have been impatient for my arrival, because the moment I knock on the door, he flings it open. He takes one look at Jones then drops his gaze at our feet. ‘Shoes off. It’s my mother’s house. She doesn’t like people wearing them.’

  I assume he means that she doesn’t like people treading across her carpet with their shoes on and not that she doesn’t like people wearing them in general.

  That’s when I notice for probably the first time and put together Tulip’s anxiousness, robotic movements, and the way he speaks. Stunted sentence structure, the lack of syntax, monotone notes to his voice. He talks and behaves just like Jaxon.

  I get the impression from the woven fabrics pinned to the walls along the hallway and in the living room, the sofas covered with a mixture of various uncoordinated patterned throws in glaringly bright colours – fuchsia, damson, pumpkin, and shamrock – textured in velvet or wool, that they’re living in a seventies time-warp. My thoughts are confirmed when I spot five vintage guitars piled up on top of each other beneath the rear window. Beside them a stack of old records leaning precariously from the floor to midway up the wall, The Carpenters parked on top. Wind-chimes jingle in the breeze emanating through an open window at the far end of the living room diner, and there is a scattering of crystals on a table next to the sofa I choose to perch on. Jones remains standing.

  ‘My mum’s psychic.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘She said something big would happen today. Her tarot cards read a brewing threat.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘The man. Do you need me to identify him from a parade? Because I can do that you know.’

  ‘We do it digitally these days. And no, that won’t be necessary. We’ve caught him. He’s being processed.’