by Neal Bircher
When the door of the room shut she was all on her own again. Someone would be with her in a minute, DC Harrison had told her. Someone? …That nice Mr Humphries, presumably. But the minute became two, and then two became five, and five became ten. There were voices outside and around the building, but only the odd word or two was clear enough to make out. There was shouting too, but quite far away: an unhappy arrestee in the cells perhaps – wherever the cells were – or maybe just a complaining member of the public at the front desk. Gail didn’t listen. In fact she didn’t do anything. She consciously didn’t even think – that might get to be too unbearable. Fifteen minutes went by. And then “someone” came in.
“Hello again, Gail. Sorry to keep you waiting.”
Her sunken heart sank a little further. “Someone” was not Detective Inspector Humphries at all, but Detective Inspector something or other else who had asked her some questions previously, just after informing her of Barry’s death. She had no idea what his name was.
“Detective Inspector Ray Wilson … You may remember we met before.”
Gail stood in anticipation of the offer of a hand to shake to accompany the greeting, but it wasn’t forthcoming. She sat straight back down, her legs turning quickly to jelly. Detective Inspector Wilson was in his early fifties, five foot nine inches, or thereabouts, and just like Detective Inspector Humphries, a little – but only a little – over his ideal weight. He had a near full head of once-black, but now mostly greying, slightly unkempt straight hair. He wore a grey sports jacket, black trousers, and well-polished black shoes, and he viewed Gail with a pair of hard, penetrating grey-blue eyes. Here was another old-school copper, but not the kindly sort. Ray Wilson perfectly looked the part of a hard-nosed, astute, professional, and committed police officer. He was quite frightening.
“Can I get you a cup of tea or something, Gail?”
She nodded, and then whispered, “Yes, please, white with one sugar.”
“Dave, do you mind?” Wilson gestured to Detective Sergeant David Ferriby, who had followed him into the room.
Ferriby duly obliged and was gone for a few minutes during which Detective Inspector Wilson made small talk with the same kind of questions that Detective Inspector Humphries had put to Gail less than an hour earlier. This was not a man well able to put a person at ease however, and Gail’s side of the conversation did not flow beyond mumbled monosyllabic responses. She was relieved when Ferriby returned, and she gratefully took her plastic cup of machine tea from him. She was though less pleased to see the recording equipment that he had also brought along.
He plugged in the machine and informed Wilson that it was ready.
“I can never get the hang of all this modern technology.” Wilson chuckled and winked at Gail, sending an ice-age of a chill down her already-frozen spine. He went through the formalities of the interview process, the whys and wherefores of the audio recording process, and he reminded Gail of her rights. “Blah, blah, blah, blah,” was all that she heard.
Click! “There, that’s got it. Now, for the purposes of the recording I shall state who is present in the room…”
And once they’d all been introduced DI Wilson launched into his questioning routine. The questions were quite bland at first: Had she any idea why anybody might have wanted Barry dead? Then they became gradually more specific: Was she familiar with the stretch of towpath that ran alongside the Haystack pub? And then DI Wilson took a pause – again rather like DI Humphries had done earlier on in her front room – before matter-of-factly posing the question that drained the room of any sound but the faint whirring of the audio recorder.
“Gail Timson … did you, on the night of September 17th or the morning of September 18th of this year, kill your husband, Barry Timson?”
First Date
Nick’s old black Porsche 911 rolled into the Six Bells’ car park on the dot of seven thirty. A surprisingly large number of other cars were already there, but Nick spotted Gail straightaway, waiting in her Ford Fiesta. She got out and he leant across his passenger seat to let her in.
“Hello.” Gail looked nervy, but was smiling. Nick leant further towards her and she kissed him quickly on the lips. Then she shuffled into the low leather bucket seat.
“This is nice.”
“So… where do you want to go? Shall we have a drink here, or go somewhere else?” Nick asked.
Gail shrugged, still smiling. “I don’t mind. What do you want to do?”
He didn’t mind either; the relationship was still at that early stage. “Maybe go for a drive somewhere else first then, if you like. Perhaps finish up in here for one.”
“Yes, might be nice.”
So Nick drove off; he didn’t know where he was going to go, and realised that he should have done a bit more thinking in advance. The starting point of the village of Arlesworth was picturesque and unspoilt.
“I love these old cottages,” commented Gail. “I always dreamed of living somewhere like here.”
“Yes,” offered Nick, “nice, but not cheap.”
Once through the village he took a meandering route away into the countryside whilst he and Gail engaged in patchy conversation. Remembering that the evening was ostensibly about experiencing the car that they were travelling in, Nick gave a little commentary on its handling and performance characteristics. In turn, Gail, who was genuinely quite interested in cars, cooed about the purr of the engine, the acceleration, the quality feel … basically everything about it. “Where shall we go then?” was the other intermittent subject, and it seemed that both of them continued not to mind. It was after thirty minutes and close to the same number of miles when the joint conclusion was reached that the next reasonable looking pub would do.
“How about there?” suggested Nick.
“Yes, it looks quite nice.”
It was a big old red brick place on the outskirts of a village, and an inviting orange glow emanated from each of its many windows. Nick manoeuvred the Porsche into its tiny car park, and he and Gail went inside, walking next to one another, but not too close.
The pub was indeed very nice. Huge low oak beams, a real fire, lots of brass things hanging around, a burly, jolly, and ruddy-faced landlord, his dog, three or four regulars, and a loud-ticking grandfather clock, offered a kind of welcoming comfort that only this type of pub was able to give. It felt rather Christmassy.
Gail sipped her Coke, and Nick his low-alcohol lager. They each commented on what a nice place it was … and how nice a ride the Porsche was. Nick was looking around at the beams and the trinkets; he always marvelled at time-warp buildings and he tried to imagine the scene a hundred years before. It wasn’t difficult; it had probably been exactly the same. He wondered how long the pub had been here; there was probably some information about it somewhere.
Gail sipped her vodka and Coke, and Nick his pint of lager. It was indeed a very nice place. It wouldn’t take any more than half an hour to get back to the Six Bells, especially if Nick put his foot down in the Porsche, which shouldn’t be a problem, because it wasn’t cold enough for there to be any ice about.
A juke box was playing at low volume. A Madness song came on; it was “Uncle Sam”. “Something interesting about this song:” said Nick. “Madness’ first twenty singles all made the top twenty, and then this one, their twenty-first, made number twenty-one.”
Gail smiled half-heartedly.
“Better get going soon really,” Nick suggested.
“Yes, I suppose we should. Shame to leave though; it is very nice, isn’t it?”
“Yes, indeed. Well, maybe we’ll come here again sometime.”
Then followed a weak smile from each of them.
“Goodnight!” bellowed the landlord, as they edged out through the door.
Gail smiled, and Nick nodded. “Thanks.”
Nick opened the car door for Gail, and she once more smiled politely.
The Porsche was still a nice ride on the way back, they continued to agree. At
least they agreed that very much during the first half of the journey back, but for the second half they were both content to sit back in silence, and presumably just enjoy the handling and the engine note.
Nick felt a mixture of relief and disappointment that the evening was all but over as they returned through Arlesworth.
“Where were you supposed to be tonight?” He asked Gail, spontaneously.
“With my friend, Jenny,” she replied, looking ahead, through the windscreen.
“Does Jenny know that?”
“No, but it won’t be a problem. How about you?”
“Football.”
They were back at the Six Bells. Nick turned into the car park and manoeuvred the Porsche into a corner space under the shadow of a large sycamore tree, some way from where Gail’s car was parked. He switched off the engine. Silence. Gail had to make a decision.
Nick spoke. “Well, er, I hope you enjoyed the ride.”
“Yes, thank you. I can’t ever say that I haven’t been in a Porsche again.”
He leaned across to offer her a kiss. She met his lips with hers and then pushed against him and slipped her tongue inside his mouth; he did the same and they both closed their eyes in concentration. Nick placed his hand behind Gail’s head and then slid it slowly across her shoulder and down to the small of her back. Gail then lifted her arm and pushed him firmly back into his own seat. She’d made up her mind what she was going to do. She slipped her hand down into his lap, and they both instinctively adjusted to a more comfortable position. Gail looked hard into Nick’s smiling eyes; he was clearly quite happy to go along with her. Encouraged, she began to undo his belt, but it was tricky with just her left hand, so Nick willingly helped her out and obligingly pulled his jeans down to his ankles.
Gail returned her lips to Nick’s and their tongues indulged whilst her hand went to work. The kiss continued for several closed-eye minutes while the inside of Porsche’s windows misted over. Then Gail pulled back and gave Nick another long serious look before lowering her head to where her hand had done the groundwork. She hadn’t given a blowjob for years – and even then it wasn’t something she had been too keen on or done very often – but she was going to make a good job of this one, and she was going to enjoy doing it.
Afterwards she looked up to see Nick’s smiling face. She loved his smile, and now it was broader than ever, and without the hint of unease that had been there earlier.
“Thank you!” he said.
“It was my pleasure.” And she meant it. “It’s been a long time since I’ve done anything like that!”
It had been a long time since Nick had experienced anything like that as well, but he didn’t say so. Gail chuckled to herself at the thought that until a couple of weeks before she hadn’t even kissed “another” man meaningfully for maybe twenty years. She looked at her watch.
“I’d better be going. Sorry for steaming up your windows.”
Nick kissed her on the forehead.
“That’s OK. I think I had a part to play in that!”
Then they kissed long and enthusiastically.
“Until next time then,” he said.
“…Until next time,” Gail beamed.
She kissed Nick one more time on the lips, before hurrying over to her car to drive quickly back to her home and her husband and family.
The chain of events would see four people die.
Nick’s Arrest
“I was thinking of going to the football this afternoon,” Nick mumbled to his girlfriend.
Alyson didn’t look up from her laptop. “I thought you were supposed to be getting rid of all that crap from the shed.”
“I took it to the dump nearly two weeks ago,” he replied, matter-of-factly.
“You didn’t tell me,” she huffed.
“You didn’t ask.”
Then Nick put down his newspaper, and went through to the kitchen to get himself some lunch. A few thin slabs of cheese were placed between two pieces of white sliced bread (no butter), and then thrown onto a dinner plate, where the contents of a Walkers crisp packet (chicken flavour) were emptied over and around them. He poured a glass of semi-skimmed milk to wash it down with and then went back and settled onto one of the front room’s two small sofas – the one that Alyson was not sitting on – to watchFootball Focus with the sound very low. The meal wouldn’t keep him going all afternoon, but would make do until around three-thirty, when he would venture up to the Norling FC burger bar towards the end of the first half in order to beat the half-time “rush”.
Nick munched, and Alyson tapped away at the keyboard, sighing and swearing from time to time. Some lower-league football manager ventured a view that each year it was getting more and more difficult for the little clubs to get through to the latter stages of the FA cup.
Then the scene of fragile domesticity was broken by a rare interruption from Nick and Alyson’s doorbell. Alyson sighed extra loudly as if whoever was at the door had deliberately chosen that specific moment in order to disturb her concentration on whatever it was she was concentrating on, and she thumped the laptop down on her sofa. She soon returned, glaring accusingly in Nick’s direction. Two serious-looking men followed her; one was Detective Inspector Ray Wilson, and the other a young uniformed constable.
DI Wilson spoke. “Nicholas Hale?”
Nick looked up, a little taken aback, and frowning. “Yes.”
“Detective Inspector Wilson, Hanforth Murder Investigation Team, and this is PC Harwood”. He (unnecessarily) indicated the gentleman who was now next to him, with his left hand, whilst holding up his warrant card in his right.
Nick switched off the TV. He had already finished his sandwich and crisps.
Detective Inspector Wilson continued, “Nicholas Hale, I am arresting you in relation to the murder of Barry James Timson. You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand?”
Nick did understand, and he nodded.
Alyson didn’t understand, and she quickly turned from being angry to being livid. It was bad enough Nick causing two policemen to visit her house, but for those idiot policemen to accuse him of being involved in a murder was something else again.
“What are you talking about?” she barked. “You can’t arrest him! How the hell would he know anything about it?”
Detective Inspector Wilson was still looking straight at Nick. “I am going to ask you to accompany me to the police station.”
His face was expressionless but his eyes were absolutely focussed on Nick’s.
Nick’s expression was impassive too, and he willingly got to his feet. “OK.” He smiled, warmly. “I didn’t have much on anyway; just as long as it doesn’t take too long.”
Alyson then re-joined the conversation. “Nick! What are you doing? You can’t let them arrest you!” And then she addressed DI Wilson. “Where’s your warrant? We want to see an arrest warrant.”
Nick put his hand on her shoulder. “Calm down … You know that I was in the area; they’ll just want to know if I saw anything.”
“Well they can ask you that here!”
“Don’t worry: I’m sure it won’t take long.”
“Well don’t expect to find your tea on the table when you get in!”
“Sorry to have disturbed you, madam. We shall be at the main station at East Hill Road, in Hanforth, should you wish to contact us.”
They drove Nick to the station in a marked police car, which in a way he found quite exciting.
At the station he was shown to an interview room and, like Gail had, he declined the invitation to call on the services of a solicitor.
Gail’s Denial
Gail stared hard, or at least pretended to, at the image before her. She shook her head one more time: No, she definitely did not recognise the man in the picture.
DI Wilson was nonplussed.
&nb
sp; “Gail, I shall ask you one final time.” He then paused before spelling out the question, something of a habit of his. “… Are youabsolutely certain that you do not recognise the man in this photograph?”
Gail’s gaze was directed now not at the picture, but at the scratched surface of the table beyond it. “Yes,” she repeated softly, “I’m certain.”
Unseen to her, Wilson rolled his eyes, before gesturing to Dave Ferriby with his hand. Ferriby obediently jumped up from his chair, took two more large black and white photographs from a manila coloured cardboard folder that had been resting on his lap, and handed them to his superior. Wilson studied the photos. He knew exactly what was on them, and he’d studied them in great detail before, but he was doing it again, for effect, as well as to give himself time to collect some words in his head.
Gail looked up from the table, but looked straight back again when her eyes met the cutting glare of Wilson’s.
“Gail … I have two more photographs for you here.”
He placed them very deliberately down onto the table, neatly aligning them with the one that was already there. He had a smile on his face, as if pleased with his handiwork.
“For the benefit of the recording I shall describe the three photographs that are laid out on the interview desk in front of Gail Timson at the moment.”
He kept his eyes on the pictures as he entered into his description.
“The three photographs are stills from a security video at Norling mainline railway station. They form a sequence and represent an elapsed timeframe of eight seconds, there being an interval of four seconds between each frame. The final image of the sequence is the one that Mrs Timson and I have been discussing for the past few minutes. It shows a man quite close to the camera, and at the top of a concrete set of steps that he appears to have just climbed. There are some other people in the shot but they are some way behind the man, near the bottom of the steps, and cannot be made out clearly in the picture. The man himself is slightly out of focus, but his features are quite easy to make out, and he is clearly smiling.”