by Neal Bircher
Noddy felt that it was time to make his excuses and leave.
Away behind the youths was a street light, which was in Noddy’s line of vision making it difficult to see their faces or indeed to see any detail of the nearby terrain. However, by turning his head to his left and allowing his eyes a few moments to adjust to the darkness he was able to make out a risky but possible escape route. He braced himself. If he could make it across the piece of waste ground – about a hundred yards – then he’d just need to scale a quite easy fence to be onto the street beyond. There was not much traffic about and next to no chance of finding any help, but a sprint up the street and a left turn would take him back to the students’ home, from where he could raise the alarm. The armed youths might of course catch up with him, or they might simply return by the route that they had come and be waiting for him when he got to the house. So the escape option was not an overly attractive one, but as the alternative seemed to be to stand around and wait to be stabbed then there reallywasn’tan alternative. He took a good look at the distant fence before checking his ground route once more, and then… THWACK!
Noddy fell flat onto the muddy ground, clutching his leg where one of the hooded teenagers had crashed a steel jack handle into it. The handle returned six or seven times as the youth lashed wildly at his ribs and arms.
The head youth smiled and nodded appreciatively at the other one’s work. “Not thinking of running away were you, Goldilocks? You stupid cunt! I bet youarea fucking student, and a fucking paki lover too. Yeah, I bet you love fucking pakis … fucking them up the arse!”
All of the youths laughed at the spotty one’s witty repartee. He then eyed each of the three students up and down. FT, silent and pitiful, still holding his aching groin; Herbie in a state of terror with a sharp knife piercing his nose; and Noddy doubled up in pain on the floor with his attacker standing menacingly over his torso.
“Now then, what shall we do with you wankers?” He stood back, took the jack handle from his cohort, and bounced it up and down in his hand. “I’ve got an idea.”
Herbie, now relieved of his nasal attachment, interjected. “Look, why don’t you just let us go home now? Call it quits and we can all forget all about it.”
The knife came back in a flash, this time piercing the skin under his chin.
“Shut up, lanky, you twat! I tell YOU what to do. You don’t tell ME.” He turned to his team once more. “What do you think? Shall we let them go … or shall we slice them up, like the last lot?”
Their muffled muttered responses were barely audible to the three students. But the spotty one soon spoke again, loud and clear.
“I know what we’ll do, students. I’m going to let you go, this time, andall you have to do to get out into the big wide world is pay a little entrance fee. Ten pounds each is the price of a ticket, isn’t it boys?” He looked around for more murmured approval.
To Noddy, and no doubt to the other two as well, this seemed like a reasonable deal: pay up a tenner and don’t get horribly disfigured. Then he could get straight home and call the police, or even better maybe, throw a brick at the yobs as they departed and hopefully crack open one of their skulls … which was an appealing thought. There was though just one problem.
“One fucking pound! Just what do you do with all that fucking grant money? Sorry Fatso, you’re dead. And what about you, Lanky?”
Herbie had a five-pound note and about three pounds in change. Blood dripped onto the fiver as he counted out his ransom.
Noddy, now standing again, had four one pound coins and another pound or so in loose change.
The spotty head youth pocketed it all in disgust. “Fourteen fucking quid! Oh dear … Boys!” He signalled to his troops.
The three other hoodies stepped forward and in unison raised their knives to the throats of Herbie, FT, and Noddy. There was a tangible silence, the three students in real fear of the four armed teenagers in front of them. That moment held for a long time, and in his mind Noddy felt the cold blade slip painfully through his skin and into the chamber of his mouth. He could feel warm blood dripping down his chin and he could taste it running chokingly back into his throat. He wanted to run again but his ribs were in agony, his leg was little better, and his arm even worse.
The spotty one broke the quiet, and the concentration, once more.
“You lot are scum!” And he followed by spitting into the faces of each student in turn. “You make me sick! Don’t let me ever catch any of you on my patch again.”
And with that the four youths turned and walked nonchalantly off into the darkness.
The three students watched them go. Herbie was the first to speak … but not too loudly.
“Bastards … Fucking losers!”
Noddy started looking around for his brick in the undergrowth, but was challenged by Herbie.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for something hard to throw at those tossers.”
“Don’t be a prat! Let’s just get out of here before they come back and kill us!”
Noddy looked to FT for support, but FT was eying Herbie with a look of nervous compliance. Noddy recognised that as the new boy he wasn’t going to win the argument, and in any case Herbie did have a point: the safety of home was an attractive option – just like it had been, of course, twenty minutes earlier.
So Noddy reluctantly went along with Herbie’s view, at least for the time being, and the three humiliated young men trudged painfully home, each in silent angry thought.
2. Voyage of Discovery
Michael Kelly’s Alibi
Barry Timson had been quite proud of the fake Rolex that a friend of his had brought back from Malaysia. It looked like a real one, kept good time like a real one, and only when studied closely could it be seen that the second hand didn’t sweep quite as smoothly as a real one. All in all it wasn’t bad for a tenner. One thing however that he never got to find out was that the watch was not even slightly waterproof. And that property, or lack of it, whilst of little consequence to Barry Timson, provided invaluable evidence to Detective Sergeant David Ferriby.
Twelve minutes past twelve, the trusty timepiece indicated. Given that, like its master, it would probably have soldiered on for a last few hopeless moments before succumbing to the gloom of the Grand Union, then that placed Barry Timson’s fatal plunge at somewhere around ten minutes after midnight. That fitted with the accounts of the two helpful cab drivers – both of whom purported to have seen Barry Timson in conversation on the bridge five minutes or so before then, and it fitted too to an extent with the account of barmaid Sheila Ruddy who assured Ferriby that Barry had been one of the last customers to leave the Haystack, after his quick late drink, at just after twelve o’clock.One of the last, that is: There had been a few others who had left around that time … one Michael Kelly, for example.
To Ferriby’s disappointment Michael Kelly confirmed his departure time without prompting, and was absolutely clear about it.
“Just after twelve o’clock, Dave. Cos the barmaid there was hassling me to get out as they had closed up and the staff were wanting to go home.”
But he denied of course even seeing anybody else outside the pub, let alone seeing Barry Timson. He also denied murdering him.
“Walked to the kebab shop, Dave, as fast as I could, cos you never know what time they’re going to close up.”
“Stanno’s Kebabs” was near Norling railway station and about a fifteen-minute walk from the Haystack, at a brisk pace, whichever of several possible routes was taken. Ferriby decided to give “Stanno” (actually Stavros Bizoumis) a visit to verify (or hopefully not) Michael Kelly’s story. He was well aware of Stanno’s establishment but had never actually been a customer or indeed had cause to go there before in the course of duty. He viewed with disdain the 1970’s style light up “Kebab Service” sign that hung above the shop’s drab fascia, and he rapped on the grimy front door with only a vain hope of alerting any life inside. He was t
herefore pleasantly surprised by an almost instantaneous response, but not at all surprised by middle-aged Stanno’s archetypal fat, swarthy, moustachioed appearance.
After brief initial suspicion, Mr Bizoumis enthusiastically led the policeman through the grim customer serving part of the building and into a back room where he had been working. Another non-surprise was that the work that Stanno was doing was not cleaning. In fact he was doing some bookkeeping work on a particularly old and grubby computer.
Stanno did know Michael Kelly and was quite sure that he was indeed a late customer on the night in question, but as to what was “late”, that was less clear.
“Yes, Mister Ferriby, we close twelve o’clock, perhaps ten past twelve, or a quarter past twelve … no later. But Saturday, yes: maybe half past twelve or so … no later than that.”
“And what about Saturday the seventeenth of September – the Saturday before last, when you saw Michael Kelly – what time did you close then? Think about it carefully, Stavros.”
“I don’t know, Mister Ferriby, probably twenty past twelve, half past twelve, I don’t know. Each night is very much the same.”
“But you are sure that Michael Kelly was one of the last customers?”
“Oh, yes. Not the very last but maybe, I don’t know … twelve o’clock or perhaps a quarter past.”
Ferriby was again, as so often, into helpful, but no fucking use whatsoever territory here. The anecdotal evidence as it stood backed up Kelly’s story, but it only needed to be a little inaccurate (highly likely) and it wouldn’t do so. He needed some concrete evidence to place Kelly at the kebab shop at a particular time.
“I don’t suppose you have a security camera do you Stavros?”
“Sorry, no, Mister Ferriby, I cannot afford it. Try the bank, maybe.”
Bank! Where? Of course … excellent! Dave Ferriby went out into the (pedestrianised) street. No bank, but a building society two doors away, and it did indeed boast two externally mounted CCTV cameras. They were static but between them looked to cover a wide arc of ground around the premises that they protected. And even if they didn’t reach as far as the kebab shop itself then they might well have caught Michael Kelly on his way to or from it.
Some painful negotiation with a pair of pedantic building society staff ensued, but in time Ferriby was on his way back to the police station clutching an armful of unlabelled DVDs. Next task was to find some enthusiastic young new recruit to lend him some assistance with this “vital element of a major murder inquiry”.
While Ferriby was enjoying the company of Stavros and the building society suits (some people did indeed have an even worse job than his own), and collecting his stack of DVDs, his partner, Gary Brooks, had been checking out the other end of the story.
Although speaking to all the local cab drivers had so far brought up nothing useful, the fact that if Michael Kelly had been driven from the Haystack to Stanno’s on the night of the murder, rather than walking, then his alibi wouldn’t hold water, meant that some closer investigation was in order. Brooks had picked out a few key drivers of “Mac’s Cabs” – a firm that operated from a Portakabin in the back car park of the Haystack – that he was particularly keen to speak to once more, as well as the “controller” of that night, 44-year-old bottle-blonde ex-stripper Judy Hopkins.
And speak to them he did, but they were each still adamant beyond any shadow of doubt that they had not seen anything of Kelly on the night in question. Judy Hopkins would swear her life on the fact, and insisted that if he’d used one of their cabs (and rarely did drivers from other firms pick up from Mac’s home patch of the Haystack) then she most definitely would have seen him.
“You do know Michael Kelly though, Judy?”
“Oh, yes. Well, I mean not that well, but, you know, he’s a customer. I’ve come across him quite a few times.”
“Well, do give me a call if you hear anything, won’t you?”
Like fuck, she would.
So Brooks drew a blank, and it was all down to the CCTV to sink Michael Kelly’s alibi … or maybe support it. And unfortunately for Dave Ferriby it went and did the latter.
He didn’t manage to locate a willing junior, and so spent an unhappy many hours in a smoky room (his fault) straining to make out fuzzy black and white images on very flickering over-re-used DVDs. It was all boring stuff – paving slabs and upstanding citizens – save for one brief fight and a couple of members of an obliging hen party revealing their breasts for the cameras. But then what he was looking for – or maybe not looking for – hove quite clearly into view: an unmistakable mop of curly black hair above a pissed-up cheeky grin cut across the corner of the picture at precisely 12:18 a.m. Then, just for good measure, it returned six minutes later and loitered on the edge of shot to consume a newly purchased hot lamb dish in the salubrious surroundings of a betting shop doorway.
Kelly’s journey could not have been covered in less than ten minutes by Usain Bolt at his best, and most certainly not in anywhere near that time by a pissed-up, pasty, 34-year-old exercise-shy short-arse.
“Bollocks!” observed Ferriby. “The little bastard’s telling the truth. Bollocks, and fuck it!”
Closer
Nick’s second social meeting with Gail Timson occurred only six days after the first, and, like the first one, it came about by chance. A mutual acquaintance was leaving the company and although the leaver was not a close friend of either Nick or Gail, the event had seemed to both as good a way as any of spending the Thursday night in question.
The venue was an Italian restaurant that later in the evening doubled-up as a nightclub. About twenty-five people were in the party and they were spread over three tightly-packed tables. Nick arrived late as he’d been playing football, and the host, Jemma Reynolds, managed to squeeze an extra chair in for him next to herself. He was pleased about that because Jemma was a) the only person whom he could see that he knew well enough to talk to and b) young and attractive. Yet, despite Jemma’s attributes, Nick did wonder at first whether showing up for her leaving do might have been a mistake; there were some rather sensible-looking people sitting around him and conversation was worryingly stilted and professional.
However, once the food had arrived, and particularly once the red wine had been flowing for a while, conversation and frivolity followed, and all – not just the vivacious Jemma – got ever more lairy and loud. By the time of the impossible dividing up of the bill ritual it had become a very good night, and Nick was well in the mood for the move downstairs, where the club was getting into swing. A benevolent Nick paid for Jemma’s meal, and the appreciative Jemma made him promise to “Save the last dance for me”. Things were getting better by the minute.
The group got up en masse and at this point Nick noticed Gail, who had been sitting at another table with her back to him. He felt a tinge of something – he wasn’t sure what, but something – as she stood and adjusted her clothing with the same kind of silky ease of movement that he’d observed on the dance floor the week before. He didn’t know whether she had seen him yet, but was in little doubt that he would be speaking to her soon enough.
“Come on then, get a move on!” Jemma grabbed Nick’s arm and led him to the stairs. Someone called Miles, whom Nick didn’t know, grabbed Jemma’s other arm and the three of them blundered down to the club to join the hoard of mostly similarly drunk people. Jemma made straight for the dance floor, as did most of the women, and Miles. Nick though, who was a particularly bad dancer, managed to get away. His last dance with Jemma he could look forward to, but last dances were a different matter; he was not going to sober himself up through the self-consciousness of jerking around out of time to party disco records in the meantime.
He found solace in a pint of best and manoeuvred himself to a bench seat at a table that was looking out towards the packed little dance floor. The place was small, dark, and very busy. Nick could not see much of what was going on, and settled down to enjoy his drink and his own company
for a while. The while extended into a long time as the club DJ managed to hold his audience with a continued string of sing-a-long disco standards, and Nick had to replenish his pint to keep going.
Eventually the dancing throng needed to top up fluid reservoirs too, and a mass floor exodus swept into the seats all around him. Nick was pleased to find Jemma making her way towards him and then parking her handbag on the bench seat. She took a purse from the bag and spoke to him, and whilst it was obvious that she was probably offering to buy him a drink, the place was loud even by nightclub standards, and, despite Jemma making three attempts to make herself understood, he had no idea what she was saying. All the same, his head shaking and hand waving negative response would have been easy enough to interpret. He had already consumed at least a whole bottle of red wine and several pints of lager during the meal, and had only just begun his second pint of bitter, so the stacking up of further bloating material was not so appealing. Jemma went to the bar and returned with some kind of huge dark-coloured cocktail for herself … and an identical one for Nick.
Another half hour passed filled with shouted conversations and lots of exaggerated laughing before the throng was enticed away once more by the lure ofThe Birdie Song. Nick was getting to the stage where he was almost drunk enough to consider joining them; another couple of cocktails and maybe … but not just yet. He settled back to indulge again in his thoughts, mixed with a little people watching, when his eyes focussed on a familiar shape: a figure that by now he would recognise anywhere.
“Gail!” She was the other side of the table and with her back to Nick; there was absolutely no chance of her hearing him calling.
He took a sup of beer before leaning forward and tapping her shoulder. She turned, surprised, and then the beginnings of a frown turned instantly into a big “Hello, didn’t realise you were here” kind of smile. Nick gestured for her to sit beside him, and she did. An attempted “So how do you know Jemma?” conversation followed but was given up as a bad job in its early stages.