A Poison Tree

by J. E. Mayhew

  “Whoever killed Rebecca had a fair scrap with her. She scratched them quite badly. You’re covered in cuts and bruises…”

  “That’s from Rory. He’s bloody strong when he loses it. And he can’t control it. He’s broken my arm in two places,” Phil Evans lifted his plaster slightly and winced.

  “We have a ton of DNA evidence from under Rebecca’s fingernails,” Blake said. “I’m trusting your word at the moment but we’ll need samples from you. This is a murder investigation.”

  “I’ll give you any kind of sample you want. I swear down; I was here with Rory. He’ll tell you. I was trying to calm him down. All evening. The neighbours probably heard the racket.”

  Blake nodded and made a note to check. “Any ideas where Rebecca got the cannabis from?”

  Evans glanced around the room as though someone might be listening. “No,” he said. “I’m not a grass, Detective Blake but I really wouldn’t have a clue. It’s been donkey’s years since I bought any round here. I think the Compass would be a good place to start but you don’t need me to tell you that.”

  Blake stood up. “Yes,” he said. “It seems like all my leads are pointing me that way.”

  CHAPTER 23

  DI Cryer phoned Blake just as he arrived back at the station. “I’ve got a name, sir,” she said. “Adam Sampson, he lives on the Dale Estate in Eastham. He’s been arrested for possession and supplying. Currently has a suspended sentence. He looked like a weak link, if you know what I mean? A stretch inside hanging over his head. D’you want me to see if I could talk to him?”

  Blake thought for no more than a second about the pile of paperwork waiting for him on his desk before answering. “Yes, in fact I’m just in the carpark. Come down and we’ll go together.”

  ◆◆◆

  The Dale Estate was built in the seventies and was a curious mixture of small rows of houses and blocks of low-rise flats. Most were well-maintained, their high fences creosoted and clean windows. Every now and then, a row would be punctuated by a shabby, broken house with an overgrown garden littered with old sofas or a broken fridge on its side. Others looked poorly maintained; rented accommodation where the boundary of responsibility for the upkeep of the place was blurred between owner and tenant. Adam Sampson occupied a small end terrace that reminded Blake of Rory Evans’ place only with the dilapidation turned up to eleven. The downstairs windows were boarded over and the upstairs had sheets hanging up over them. Bottles and cans littered the path up to the peeling front door which looked like it had been kicked in a time or two.

  ​“You knock on the front door,” Blake said. “I’ll go round the back.”

  ​Cryer nodded and Blake slipped around the side of the house to the passageway at the rear. The wiry skeleton of an old mattress, old wheelie bins and lengths of smashed fibre board filled the alleyway. Blake picked his way through them to the rotten timber fence that stockaded an equally overgrown and rubbish-strewn back garden.

  He waited, straining his ears for the sound of Cryer’s knock or any movement from the house. Blake was beginning to wonder if anyone was actually in when the sound of the back door scraping open alerted him. Stealthy footsteps hurried through the long grass. The gate in the fence rattled and a pale face peered round it.

  “Hello, Eric,” Blake said. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”

  Eric Stafford’s eyes widened and he pushed the gate wide open. The fence holding it up was so rotten that the gate came off its hinges, catching Blake full in the face. Pain lanced through his forehead and he staggered back. The sound of Stafford’s footsteps receding up the alley echoed in his throbbing head. Blinking and dazed, Blake started after the disappearing figure of Stafford but something snagged at his feet and suddenly the world turned upside down. The ground rose up and beat the breath out of Blake’s body. Confused, he looked at his feet and realised that they were tangled in the rusted coils and springs of the old mattress. Cursing, he pulled himself free and staggered to his feet. The alleyway ahead of him was empty. Stafford had escaped.

  Cryer, it appeared, had been more successful. A mournful Adam Sampson sat in the back of Blake’s Manta, staring out of the window.

  “What happened, sir?” Cryer said as Blake staggered back round to the front of the house. “Are you hurt?”

  “Only bruised pride, Kath, that’s all,” Blake said, grimacing as he massaged his back. “I’m going to have a word with the local council about keeping those alleys clear.” He peered into the back of the car. Adam Sampson looked about fifteen with an acne-riddled face and a mop of greasy brown hair held down by a black baseball cap. He had a chunky gold chain round his neck and a black T-Shirt with an image of a topless woman writhing across the front. Friendship bracelets and leather bands queued up at the boy’s wrists.

  “Where d’you find Ali G?”

  “Cheeky beggar was smoking a spliff as he answered the door,” Cryer said. “I arrested him on the spot. Don’t know if there are any others in there. Thought it might be risky going in alone…”

  “He’ll do,” Blake said. “Eric Stafford appeared out the back but he got away.”

  “Stafford? Really?”

  “Interesting, yeah?” Blake said, going round the other side of the car and sliding onto the back seat next to Sampson.

  “What you doin’ man?” Sampson said, pressing himself against the passenger door to make as much space as possible between him and Blake.

  “Just thought we’d have a little chat before we take you down to the station and call the probation service. You’re going to prison, Adam.”

  “It was just one spliff, man,” Sampson said. “I is just relaxing, innit?”

  Blake winced. “And you can drop the weird accent, too, Adam. This is the Wirral, not the mean streets of Brixton.”

  Adam looked down at his wristbands. “Okay.”

  “I’m Detective Chief Inspector Blake, Adam. I want to ask you a few questions. If you tell me something I like, then I may let you get out of the car and finish your spliff in the comfort of your own home. If you keep up with that accent and don’t tell me anything, then I’ll take you down to the station, send you to prison and have your house raided and searched. How does that sound?”

  Adam nodded. “I- I’ll help if I can… but, I don’t know nothin’”

  “So, what was Eric Stafford doing in your house?”

  “Just visiting,” Sampson said. “We went to school together. We’re mates, like.”

  “Mates,” Blake said. “Right. So he pops out of work in the middle of the day, just to say hello?”

  Adam looked out of the window but Cryer was staring in at him so he looked back to Blake. “Yeah, we’re good mates.”

  “Where did you get the weed, Adam?”

  “The Compass. Out the back. Some guy was there selling it.”

  “Who, Adam?”

  Adam shrugged. “Dunno, never seen him before. He had a Manc accent. Wasn’t from round here.”

  “You’re lying to me,” Blake sighed. “Guess we’ll have to go down to the station after all then.”

  “No! Please!” Adam said almost grabbing Blake’s sleeve. “I can’t go back. Please. I can’t.”

  “Tell me where you got the weed then,” Blake said.

  “I can’t tell you,” Adam said. “He’d kill me.”

  “Who would?”

  Adam pursed his lips. “Look, Eric is a good mate of mine,” Sampson said at last. “He looks after his grandad. He helps him tend his garden and everything. His grandad is dead good with plants and stuff. They’ve got those raised beds so he can garden from a wheelchair. That’s all I’m saying.”

  Blake thought for a while. “So… you’re saying that Eric’s grandad grows lots of plants. Herbs and the like. For selling?”

  Adam looked at him. “I’m not saying any more. Eric’s a big lad with a temper. Very handy, too. I don’t wanna get on the wrong side of him.”

  “Okay,” Blake said. “Out you pop. I�
��m giving you until five this evening to clear out whatever you’ve got in your flat. Then I’m sending a team in. Dogs, the lot…”

  “But you said…”

  “If you’re not happy, we can talk about it down at the station.”

  Adam’s shoulders slumped and he climbed out of the Opel Manta. “That’s a dope car, man,” Adam said. “But you’re not cool.”

  "Bugger off before I arrest you for that terrible accent, too!" Blake yelled. He shook his head and watched Sampson stamp back up to his front door then pulled out his phone. "Vikki. Can you and Manikas go over to Eric Stafford’s asap and look the place over as best you can. If Stafford turns up, arrest him for assaulting me. That’ll do for now but I want to get a warrant to search the place and need to know the layout.

  “Okay, sir,” DS Chinn said. “Are you hurt?”

  “Nah,” Blake said. “But my ego will make a better recovery if we pick up Stafford. Cryer and I are on our way over.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Number Four Spital Cottages was a surprisingly large property to be called a cottage. Standing on the main road from Bromborough to Bebington, it looked as though it had once been a number of smaller houses knocked into one.

  Other properties huddled beside it and tall trees grew in the front gardens, cutting them off from the outside world. A thick holly hedge made it difficult to see the house properly but the top half of the building rose above, revealing four or five bedroom windows set in red, engineering brick from the early nineteen hundreds. The roof looked at odds with the quaintness of the rest; modern tiles with smooth, opaque skylights set in them.

  DS Chinn frowned up at them. “That’s quite a house for an ex-con who hasn’t worked for years.”

  DC Manikas shrugged. “Perhaps. Maybe he got some compensation from the motorcycle accident.”

  They parked the car in the road and tried, unsuccessfully, to peer over the hedge. “Listen,” Chinn said. A constant rush of air sounded from somewhere deep in the building. “Air con?”

  “Or ventilation,” Manikas said. “Look at those skylights, too. The light is shining out of them, not in.”

  “Let’s talk to the neighbours before we knock on the door,” Chinn said. “Just see if our suspicions are justified.”

  The house on the left of number four had a beautifully tended front garden. Even though the trees had shed their leaves, the lawn was clear and cut short. The soil in the flower beds was dark and rich, not a weed in sight. An old woman with a shock of short, white hair and wearing a waxed jacket was gently pruning some roses. She greeted them with a smile. “Can I help you?”

  Chinn flashed her ID. “Merseyside Police, ma’am. I’m DS Chinn, this is DC Manikas. We were wondering if you knew who lived next door?”

  The woman straightened up from her plants and gave a slight grimace. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m not getting any younger. Next door. Yes, Mr Archer and his grandson, Eric. Lovely boys.” She frowned. “Are they alright?”

  “Absolutely fine, ma’am,” DS Chinn began.

  “Call me Monique,” the lady said. “Monique Taylor. What do you want to know? They’re very quiet. I hardly see them from one week’s end to the next but they’re always polite and neighbourly. Eric always puts my bins out every fortnight. He’s very early. Never actually see him do it. Gary can’t do much, being wheelchair bound, poor man, but he always gives me a cheerful hello when we meet. We talk gardening over the fence.”

  “Have you noticed anything unusual about the house? Funny noises or smells?”

  Monique pulled a face. “Nothing recently. Of course, there’s that extractor fan always on the go day and night but apparently that’s for Gary. He needs a rarified atmosphere,” Monique dropped her voice, “because of his condition. You know he was hit by a lorry a while back. I think he picks up infections quite easily.”

  “I see,” Chinn said, glancing over to Manikas. “Nothing else?”

  “Not really,” Monique said. “Sometimes the cleansing fluid smells a bit but I quite like it…”

  “Cleansing fluid?” Manikas said, looking confused.

  “Yes,” Monique said. Her face reddened. “I feel a little embarrassed talking about such personal matters. Gary explained it all to me. Because of his… condition, he has to use a lot of cleaning fluids. It must be hard, you know, to get to the toilet and whatnot. So he has a tank of disposable personal items. Every couple of months, the people come to empty it and take it all away. So there’s a bit of coming and going, vans and suchlike and the smell. I feel so sorry for Gary. He’s such a martyr to his injuries. He never complains.”

  DC Manikas rubbed his chin. “He sounds quite a trooper, Monique. You said you sometimes talk over the garden fence. Is there any chance we could come into your back garden and have a look over?”

  “I don’t see why not but what for?”

  “We aren’t allowed to say at the moment, Monique,” DS Chinn said. “It would be really useful if we could see the property from the back, though.”

  Monique shrugged and led the way behind her house and into a much larger garden. Most things were dormant now but Chinn imagined it would be quite a place in the Spring and Summer. The blurred golden outlines of carp shimmered in the waters of a huge pond and a number of red-leaved acers drooped on its banks.

  But the distinctive smell and the sound of crackling soon distracted Chinn from the landscaping. “Oh my,” Monique said. “He usually warns me if he’s having a bonfire.”

  A massive leylandii hedge ran between Monique’s garden and Archer’s but a small panel fence filled the gap between a garage and the start of the bushes. Chinn peered over to see a newly lit bonfire beginning to blaze. A man with pigeon-grey hair tied back in a ponytail and sitting in a wheelchair held a cannabis plant in both hands. “Who the fuck are you?” he squeaked, then threw the plant onto the fire.

  It fell in but sent another burning plant tumbling out. It rolled under Archer’s wheelchair, sending flames flickering up his cheap denim jeans. Yelling loudly, he tried to beat them down with his bare hands. Chinn leapt over the fence and dragged Archer from his chair. Tearing off her jacket, she smothered the tongues of fire that were licking their way through Archer’s clothing. Smoke filled the gardens and Chinn felt light-headed. Archer gave a yelp and passed out.

  “Call an ambulance, Manikas,” Chinn said, wrapping her jacket around Archer’s legs. “Then let the boss know what’s happened.”

  ◆◆◆

  Blake stood beside the ambulance and watched as Archer was wheeled in. The man had regained consciousness but had kept his oxygen mask firmly pressed over his nose and mouth. His eyes were full of anger, fear and resentment at Blake and his team for disturbing what must have been many years of peaceful cannabis farming.

  Vikki approached him. “Do you think we should take a look in the house?”

  “I think we may need a warrant,” Blake said. “After all, you leapt over into Archer’s garden to save his life. The fact that he was holding a cannabis plant might not be enough.”

  DS Chinn nodded in agreement. “He was destroying evidence,” she said. “He’d only just started. D’you think Stafford tipped him off?”

  “I imagine so,” Blake said. “Once I clocked Stafford coming out of the house of a known dealer, he’d realise that we’d come sniffing around here.”

  “Doesn’t really help us with Rebecca’s murder, though, sir,” Manikas said.

  “Let’s see if we can find Eric Stafford,” Blake said.

  “Then maybe we can make sense of this. Adam Sampson more or less admitted that Stafford supplied all the weed round here. It makes sense that Rebecca bought her cannabis from Stafford and a lot of it. He works at the scene of the crime and Adam said he was ‘handy’. It doesn’t take a huge leap of the imagination to see Eric Stafford as a prime suspect.”

  “Talk of the devil,” Chinn said, looking beyond Blake. He turned to see Eric Stafford running directly at him.

&nbs
p; CHAPTER 25

  If Eric Stafford was a source of fear for Adam Sampson, Blake struggled to see why. On the face of it, he was a big lad. He worked out, that was obvious. But when Stafford came charging towards him, Blake had stepped aside, grabbed the lads flailing arms and pinned him up against the side of the ambulance. The boy had no real strength in him. No real aggression. His angry yells sounded petulant to Blake.

  “What have you done to him, you bastard?” Stafford yelled. “Where’s my grandad?”

  “Relax, Eric,” Blake said. “He’s going to be okay. If you hadn’t tipped him off, he wouldn’t have got injured trying to burn the evidence. I don’t think he got very far though, so I’m arresting you for supplying drugs as well as assaulting me, twice. You got any cuffs, Vikki?"

  Chinn cuffed Stafford and cautioned him. “Let me just see him,” Stafford said, lunging forward towards the ambulance.

  Blake nodded and steadied the boy as he climbed into the back of the ambulance. “Grandad, are you okay?”

  “I’m sorry, son,” Archer said, pulling the oxygen mask from his face. “It was all my fault. I should have waited but…”

  “That’ll do,” Blake said, dragging Stafford back. “Now. I’m pretty certain that when we search your house we’ll find quite an impressive cannabis farm in your loft space, Eric. The only question is, are you going to let my officers go in and have a look around or are you going to put me to all the trouble of getting a warrant?”

  “Cannabis farm?” Stafford said. “You mental, or what? You’re goin to have to get a warrant, mate.”

  “I’m kind of glad you said that, Eric. It means I can be very specific about what I’m looking for and I can tear the place apart,” Blake brought his face close to Eric’s.

  “And believe me, son, I’m looking for so much more than a few pot plants.”

  ◆◆◆

  Before sending someone to interview Stafford at the custody suite in Birkenhead, Blake called everyone together. His head throbbed after being hit by the gate earlier that day and he knew he had a shiny new black eye. He leaned on the desk at the front of the Incident Room.