by Neal Bircher
“You were fined £400?”
“Yes. A bit tight, I thought, as I was a skint student who hadn’t done anybody any harm, when there are thousands of morons out there mugging and stabbing people all the time and always getting away with it.”
Ferriby looked at him with a deadpan expression. “I can assure you that they don’talways get away with it, Nick.”
Holster
“Mrs Timson, I have in this polythene bag something that we found in your bedroom. It is a leather handgun holster. Do you recognise it?” Detective Inspector Wilson was experienced enough not give away any triumphalism in his voice, but he and his team had been quite excited by this find, especially as it was in a wardrobe among Gail’s things, not Barry’s.
Gail showed them no emotion. “Yes, it’s mine.”
Wilson was also experienced enough not to show his slight disappointment at her lack of evasiveness. He composed himself. “And do you have a gun to go with it?”
“No,” she swallowed and looked a little distant, before continuing quietly, “ not anymore; I got rid of it.”
Wilson permitted himself a glance towards a suddenly very alert Ferriby. “When did you get rid of your handgun, Gail?”
Gail looked up wearily. “Years ago…” She thought about elaborating, but there was nothing of use that she wanted to add.
“How many years ago, Gail?”
“I don’t know … six or seven years, maybe.”
Wilson took a few seconds to decide on the direction of his line of questioning.
“Gail, can you tell me what type of handgun you owned?”
Like so often, Gail’s soft voice was close to a whisper. “Yes. It was a Smith & Wesson .38.”
Wilson considered that this apparently demure lady was becoming more and more interesting. And interesting to him also meant promising.
“Tell me, Gail, why did you own this Smith & Wesson .38?”
Gail was becoming ever more uncomfortable with Detective Inspector Wilson’s tone.
She looked up from the table, but into the space above Wilson’s shoulder rather than into his eyes, which were starting to become menacing. “I used to fire it at the gun club. I had a proper license.”
“…And, have you ever owned any other guns?”
“Yes, I had a Luger before the Smith & Wesson, but I didn’t like it.”
Ferriby looked on. The thought of Gail with a powerful gun was a nice image, and quite distracting. If his boss had the same thoughts then he wasn’t showing them.
“Gail, when did you last fire a gun?”
Gail gave an exasperated sigh. “…Before I sold the Smith & Wesson, probably about eight years ago.”
“I see. And have you used a gun recently?”
This time she did look him in the eye, and she was starting to frown. “No. I just told you that.”
“Do you know anyone who has used a gun recently?”
Gail looked genuinely quizzical. “No. I don’t.”
“Have you seen anybody use a gun, or carry a gun?”
“No!” There was irritation in her voice, but then she added, more softly, “No, I haven’t.”
Wilson was standing, and he took a long theatrical pause. Gail’s eyes were now fixed on his.
“Gail, I am going to ask you again,” he cleared his throat “… did you kill Barry Timson?”
Gail’s expression darkened. Her eyes moistened, but only with a hint of a tear, and her face had defiance written all over it. She looked right through Wilson, right through his head. She spoke quietly once more, but this time with a hitherto un-shown assurance.
“Mr Wilson, It is my fortieth birthday tomorrow. I buried my husband yesterday. I am no longer answering your fucking questions. You piece of shit!”
Dope
To Nick, Wilson had seemed at first to be a likeable person. He exuded authority, but he wasn’t aggressive; he came over as quite reasonable. However, the longer Nick spent in his company, the more Inspector Wilson got to annoy him. And now a smug look had engulfed Wilson’s face that raised that irritation to another level.
“Would you mind telling me what this is?” he implored Nick, referring to a small clear polythene bag that he had placed on the table, or more specifically, referring to its contents.
Nick had generally been polite and accommodating to this point, at least outwardly. But he was beginning to feel that it was time to get a bit cocky. “Yes, I can. It’s a polythene bag.”
An unimpressed Wilson kept a blank expression, and stated in a neutral tone, “Maybe you could tell me what the bag contains.”
Nick knew perfectly well what the bag contained. It was a flaky brown chunk of cannabis resin, about twenty quid’s worth. He wasn’t much of a smoker himself; in fact he hardly ever touched the stuff. He just didn’t find it much of a buzz, and as a non-smoker of conventional cigarettes he always woke up with a foul-tasting mouth the morning after. Alyson didn’t smoke it very much either, usually only if she had some of her City-type work associates round for dinner – occasions Nick avoided if he could. She tended to bring a bit home from work from time to time, and then it would sit at the back of the fridge, often for months on end.
The police probably weren’t interested in such a tiny quantity anyway; they were just hoping to use it to unsettle him. If he told them that it was Alyson’s then they probably wouldn’t even check it out; for sure they wouldn’t pursue the matter with her … would they?
“It’s cannabis, Inspector Wilson.”
Wilson had been standing over the table. He eased himself down onto the tired plastic chair, and its old tubular steel legs creaked in protest. He leaned over the table and lowered his voice to a very serious tone. His mouth was only inches from the voice recorder.
“That’s right, Nick, it is a quantity of cannabis resin. And do you know where we found it?”
Nick had a bored, bemused expression. “No. Surprise me.”
Wilson frowned. He did not like cockiness on the part of suspects, even though it was very much the norm … and particularly the norm when a suspect was guilty.
“We found it in your fridge, Nick, but I don’t suppose that does surprise you at all, does it?”
“What: where it was, or that you managed to find it?” Nick managed to keep a straight face, but was suppressing a laugh.
Wilson permitted himself a brief wry smile. He was not smiling at Nick’s rather obvious joke: he was relishing the prospect of what he considered to be the inevitability of getting the better of Nick in the end.
“Are you aware, Nick, that it is a criminal offence to possess cannabis, a class B illegal drug?”
“Yes, of course I am.”
“And could you tell me to whom this specimen belongs.”
Nick looked Wilson straight in the eye, and held his gaze for several seconds. Then he spoke slowly and dramatically, but not quite as similarly to Wilson’s style to be obviously mimicking him.
“Yes, I can tell you to whom it belongs, Inspector. …It’s mine, and it’s been there for about six months. And before you ask, I got it from a bloke in a pub in London. And no I don’t know who he was, nor can I remember which pub. I do hope that you find that information useful!”
Student Discussion
Noddy was first through the front door of the students’ little terraced house. The door opened straight into their front room where their fellow resident, graphic design student “Pompey”, was toasting in front of the gas fire watching TV. He was eating a Pot Noodle with a fork and had a can of cheap lager perched on the arm of his chair. He looked around lazily.
“Good night?”
“No, it bloody wasn’t!”
One of their home’s few luxuries was a telephone. It was an old cream coloured thing with a dial, and it sat near the door on a wobbly and stained coffee table. It wasn’t used very often.
Noddy crouched down next to it, picked up the receiver, and began to dial: 9…..9…. and then a big gangly
hand came crashing down on top of the phone.
“What the fuck are you doing?” asked an agitated Herbie.
Noddy looked up, confused and annoyed. “I’m calling the bloody police!”
“No you’re fucking well not!”
“We’ve got to get those wankers caught!”
Herbie glared. “We’re not having any fucking coppers in MY house!”
Noddy opened his mouth to argue, but Herbie’s wild eyes, and FT and Pompey’s “Leave it; you don’t know what he’s like when he’s angry” expressions made him think better of it. He slammed the receiver down and went through to the kitchen to get himself a can of lager. “Wankers!” he shouted, kicking an empty can against a cupboard door.
When he came back into the room he settled in front of the TV, joining the other three students in a brief uneasy silence. That silence was broken when an incredulous Pompey asked whether anyone was going to tell him what the fuck was going on.
FT told him the story in a slow dejected tone, without any dramatisation. Pompey interjected with appropriately positioned “Shit!” or “Fuck!” or “Wankers!” comments. Herbie rolled a large spliff. Noddy stared at the TV, not taking in what was on.
Noddy was seething: at the yobs, at Herbie, and at himself for not standing up successfully to either of them. He was the new boy in the house, and Herbie still ruled the roost over those other two drips. That wasn’t going to last.
Herbie took three long drags on his dope, before passing the spliff around the room. Noddy waved it away and got himself another lager. FT finished the story and Pompey offered his verdict: “Tossers!”
Noddy re-joined the conversation with a view on how to deal with Leicester’s thug population. “They should all be fucking shot!”
“Two of the guys in the football team had their jaws broken on Saturday by some wankers,” offered Pompey. “It could have been the same lot. One of them’s still in hospital – poor fucker.”
Noddy returned to the shooting theme. “There’s only one way to deal with morons like that and that’s to get a gun. That’d put the boot on the other foot.”
“Yes, right. Dirty Harry, eat your heart out. Noddy’s got a heater and he’s gonna clean up the streets of Leicester,” Pompey mocked.
“I mean it. I’m really going to get a gun. I’ve had enough!” And Noddy uncharacteristically threw his half-full can as hard as he could against the wall.
Herbie raised his eyebrows and then took a long toke on his spliff, “And where are you going to get this gun, Woolworths?”
“I dunno. But they can’t be that hard to get hold of. Watch me.”
Herbie was still unimpressed. “Yes, and what are you going to do when one of those twats pulls a blade on you, kill him?”
“YES! Why not? It’s what they deserve, isn’t it? … Fucking scum!”
“And spend the next ten years of your life in prison?”
Noddy was still staring intently at the now lager-stained wall in front of him. He answered in a slow, quiet, croaky voice.
“It’d beat dying in an ally-way with a rusty knife in your gut ….” He chose not to continue, “… just like my best mate from school did, last year.”
Insurance
“Mrs Timson,” Wilson asked, “did you know that your husband had taken out a life assurance policy?”
Gail really disliked the way he flipped between “Gail” and “Mrs Timson”, and there didn’t appear to be any pattern or apparent reason for it.
“Yes, I knew he had some kind of insurance.”
“And do you know who is the beneficiary of that policy?”
“Well I would imagine that I might be … after all I am his widow.”
Wilson noted the ease and composure with which Gail used the word “widow”, rather than “wife”.
“That’s right, Gail. You are the sole beneficiary. And do you know how much money the policy is worth?”
Gail was looking into a space just above the table again, and her eyes were beginning to water over. Her voice was soft but apparently unemotional. “No ... Tell me.”
Wilson put on his reading glasses, paused, as so often, for dramatic effect, and read from a sheet of paper. “The policy is worth eighty-six thousand four hundred and eleven pounds and thirty-nine pence.” He looked up at Gail and waited for her to raise her eyes to meet his, and then he spoke softly and deliberately. “That’s quite a lot of money, Gail. Does it surprise you?”
Gail shrugged her shoulders. It did actually surprise her; she’d imagined something in the region of forty to fifty thousand. She was not impressed though. It was just a number on a piece of paper.
“Gail, did you also know that, due to the event of your husband’s death, the remainder of your mortgage endowment will be paid off immediately? That’s about ninety-thousand pounds, effectively going into your pocket?”
Gail was looking into that space again. “No. I didn’t know that.”
“You didn’t?” Wilson feigned an almost mocking surprise. “Well there’s more. What about your husband’s pension scheme, do you know what that means to you?”
Gail shook her head stiffly and slowly.
“Well I’ll tell you. It means that for the rest of your working life you will be paid a salary … enough probably that you could live on it, should you choose to do so. And when you retire you will get a pension for the rest of your life, in addition to your state pension, and any arrangements you may have of your own.
Barry left you very well provided for, didn’t he, Gail?”
Gail carried on staring into that space above the table, only harder than before.
Jacket Alibi
Nick studied the photograph in front of him. It was a still from the train station CCTV where he was approaching the top of the steps a pace or two behind Gail. Of the three stills that Wilson had previously shown him this one had the clearest image of Nick himself, which was why Wilson had selected it for this new purpose.
Nick looked up and helpfully offered: “Yes, I can see the jacket; it’s quite a clear picture.”
“Is the jacket yours, Nick?”
“Yes.”
“And do you know where it is now?”
“No.”
“Well could you tell me where it might be; we couldn’t find it at your home.”
“No, you wouldn’t find it there. I’ve lost it.”
Ferriby moved a little in his chair, and glanced at his boss. Wilson didn’t see him glance, as he was leaning on the table, getting his eyes to burn into Nick’s head. He allowed one of his dramatic pauses to run its course, before delivering his next question, slowly and clearly, for the benefit of the recording, and tinged with smugness and disbelief for the benefit of his current audience and any future courtroom airing.
“You … have … lost … it?”
“Yep!”
Wilson regretted the wording of his next question almost before it had left his lips:
“And could you tell mewhere you lost it, Nick?”
Nick gave him a knowing look that confirmed he was right to regret his question.
“Well … Mr Wilson … if I knew that … then … it … wouldn’t … be ... lost … would it?”
Wilson managed to hide his exasperation well, in fact, he recovered well. “Absolutely, Nick, but I wonder if you might be able to tell me when you did last see it, and any information that you might have about the circumstances of its disappearance.”
Nick was ready to get more sarcastic still, but he had caught the briefest of moments of something in the older man’s eye. Yes, it was exasperation, but it was something else too. It was sadness. Nick checked himself. Wilson had been annoying him, it was true, but suddenly he felt a bit sorry for the man, dedicating a lifetime to dealing with cocky criminals, whose only interest was self-interest.
He resolved to take a more diplomatic approach, and play ball for while … after a fashion.
“Yes, I went out in London with a mate the Tu
esday before last, and sometime during the evening I lost my jacket.”
“Thank you, Nick, and could you tell me the name of this ‘mate’, and where you went with him, or her?”
Nick told him the truth, that he had indeed been out with a friend called Andy Hilton; he told Wilson of a couple of Soho pubs that they had been to (but not the third one), and he reiterated that by the time he had got home, a bit the worse for wear, he no longer had the black jacket.
“Check it out if you want, Mr Wilson.”
“Oh I shall, Nick, I shall.”
4.
Centre of Attention
Christmas!
Christine Heath's party was a good one. Her birthday being December 4th, she had booked an upstairs room in a pub, and the proximity to Christmas helped to ensure that it was very well attended.
Nick had arrived early in the evening, but the room was already pretty much full, and the party in full swing. Laughter and top-of-voice conversations drowned out theNow That's What I Call Christmas album being piped through the speakers (although later on in the evening a further playing of the same would inspire much drunken singing, dancing, and snogging of colleagues on the dance floor), streamers and party hats were out in number, and Gail was sitting at a table sharing a bottle of sparkling wine with a few other members of her team.
Catching sight of Gail gave Nick a warm feeling inside. Was it blossoming love, or merely the thought of a possible sexual encounter at the end of the night? Or maybe the two were one and the same. Gail was very quickly standing next to him with a big smile on her face, and, he suspected, having similar thoughts to his own.
The evening then passed like every other of these types of piss-up for Nick. He drifted in and out of conversations with twos, threes, and fours, accepting and distributing pints with decadent frequency. Cars, gambling, Christmas, booze, and work each got a good airing more than once as the alcohol worked its magic, easing him and most of the rest of the gathering into the warm world where the need to get up in the morning is obliterated from the consciousness. Slade’sMerry Xmas Everybodyfound the whole throng in good voice and Nick and Gail’s eyes met for a knowing moment on the line about granny rock and rolling. It still gave him a little surprised jolt each time it occurred to him that Gail was a grandmother, and he suspected it was something that she was still coming to terms with too. Then it wasThree Times a Lady, and he was slow-dancing with Gail on the dance floor. Although they stopped short of kissing in such a colleague-filled environment, anybody observing hand positioning and motions would have been left in little doubt that the two of them were very well acquainted.