Mud Pie

by Emma Lee Bole

  Chapter Eleven

  Grimshaw

  “What about the goose?”

  Detective Sergeant Grimshaw sat casually cross-legged opposite me, looking unnaturally dapper for three o’clock in the morning. We each held a mug of instant coffee that he’d made in the club kitchen. I couldn’t drink mine.

  Outside, the scene of crime people were still busy bagging and photographing. Their lights flashed whitely through the far window. I didn’t know if they had yet taken away Becki’s body, and I didn’t want to ask.

  The DJ was gloomily packing his equipment up at last. Bob and Mrs Bob had been allowed to go home, and KK had just departed for his flat upstairs. Through the double doors at the far end of the club Niall was silhouetted, still talking to Detective Inspector Cole in the small bar. DI Cole, a large, brisk lady with expressive eyebrows, had already asked me all the expected questions: times, knives, movements. She had been very courteous, almost gentle. I hoped I had given the expected answers.

  But I wasn’t allowed home yet. DI Grimshaw had offered me a lift in an indefinite while. Just a little informal interrogation first.

  “What about the goose?” I said. “They graze on the playing fields.”

  “Its throat was cut. Do you ever cook goose?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “No demand, except at Christmas. You wouldn’t cook a wild goose, anyway. Could have parasites or something.” Poultry weren’t my thing.

  “Why would someone kill a wild goose, do you think?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t care about the goose. I kept seeing Becki’s sad face, mouth open, eyes closed, propped against the bin. I’d never seen Becki sad before. The goose wasn’t in the picture.

  I made an effort, staring down at my cold coffee. “Becki used to feed the geese. They would come over to her looking for scraps,” I said. “Maybe the goose gave the alarm, and the murderer had to shut it up. Geese can make a terrible noise.”

  “Yes, the Romans used them as guard dogs, didn’t they?” said DS Grimshaw conversationally. “A good point. Possibly it got in the murderer’s way. Or maybe someone trying to catch the goose was disturbed by Becki.”

  I looked up. “You mean, a poacher?”

  “How much would a goose be worth?”

  I made a random guess. “Maybe sixty quid before Christmas. But nothing now.”

  “Forensics should tell us the order of events,” he said smoothly. He was slick, well-dressed, good-looking and gallingly alert. “You didn’t hear a goose?”

  “No chance, with the music and everything.”

  “Was it loud?”

  “Loud enough.”

  “So what about the goose?”

  “Christ, how should I know?” I was fed up with this goose. “Maybe the goose tried to save Becki. Maybe Becki killed the goose. Maybe someone got into an argument with the goose and Becki got in the way.”

  DI Grimshaw raised his eyebrows. “That’s rather facetious,” he said coolly. “Did you not care for Becki very much?”

  “I liked Becki. She was good fun. She was a good laugh.” I bit my lip.

  “Not a good friend?”

  “I didn’t know her well beyond the laughing bit,” I said. “I haven’t been here long enough. I got on with her fine.”

  “Who didn’t?”

  “I don’t know.” This was as irrelevant as the goose. I knew who Becki’s killer was. Although I hadn’t yet told either DI Cole or the Sergeant, I knew I would, eventually. It was just the matter of getting it out which was proving hard. I wished they would ask the right question, so that I could tell them the answer.

  “Niall Egan?”

  “He liked her fine too.”

  “But apparently Joseph Egan didn’t.”

  “Joseph… You mean KK? He can be a bit snappy. Nothing personal with Becki, though. Look, I think the goose just got in the way.”

  His face was impassive. “Who did Becki dance with this evening?”

  “Oh – well, Hugh, of course. Niall. Jamesy, Wayne, Gary Killick, Bob, Winston, Harvey – just about anybody really.” I realised I was doing Becki no service when DS Grimshaw asked,

  “Just about anybody? Was that her general way of thinking?”

  “I’m talking about dancing,” I said.

  “But did she go out with the rugby players?”

  “She went clubbing with some of them. I believe she went out briefly with Brad. And Lee. And maybe Winston.” They all belonged to the group who had left early in the minibus. “I don’t know about any others. You’d have to ask around.”

  “We will. Was there anyone she didn’t dance with?” It was disconcerting, having all his attention focussed so tightly on me. I think he knew it: one of those people who makes calculated use of their good looks. He expected his handsome stare to disconcert me.

  But that wasn’t what threw me off-balance. It was wondering when he’d get around to asking the real question, the only one that mattered; the one I was both waiting for and dreading.

  “I’m going to get some water,” I said. “Sorry, I can’t drink this coffee.” My mouth had dried up like a mud puddle in summer. His gaze followed me into the kitchen and out again. Then he repeated his query.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I wasn’t watching. She didn’t dance with loads of people, I expect.”

  He said patiently. “But did you notice anyone offended by a refusal to dance?”

  “No.” Only now was it slowly dawning on me that, as far as the police were concerned, I must be a prime suspect. Wasn’t that right? Wasn’t the one to find the body always first on the list? And it was my knife, too, though probably covered in the fingerprints of anyone who had helped themselves to a piece of pie or cake. I sipped my water and decided to ask to see DI Cole again as soon as she had finished with Niall.

  She had finished now. He bounded out of the small bar, flushed and furious.

  “The cheek of it!” he said to me. “The disrespect!” he said to DI Grimshaw. I couldn’t tell if he was referring to the police, or the murderer, until he added, “You can stick your bloody questions up your arse!” and stamped off to get his coat.

  I couldn’t imagine how polite and gentle DI Cole had wound him up so. Grimshaw didn’t look much surprised. “Horses for courses,” he said enigmatically. “You all done now, Ben?”

  He was addressing a SOCO in a plastic suit, who nodded as he unpeeled a rubber glove.

  “For now. The rest’ll wait till daylight.” They both went to talk to DI Cole, and then we were all being ushered out, and I didn’t have a chance to say anything to her after all because Niall was ranting about rights and property as he locked up and flung the spare keys at her.

  I found myself in DS Grimshaw’s car with a silent young WPC in the back. When I glanced backwards, I saw a mile of fluorescent tape stretched around the clubhouse, trussing it up like a joint of beef.

  “Brocklow?” said DS Grimshaw.

  “Yes.” I sat in silence for a moment, then panicked as we drove out of the car park. The longer I left it, the odder it would sound.

  “I know who killed Becki.”

  “Yes?” He turned the corner carefully.

  “Not their name, but I know why. I think they killed her by mistake. I think they were trying to kill me.”

  “Why would they want to do that?” His voice was quiet, mildly interested.

  “Because I gave evidence in a drugs case.” I took a deep breath. “Salford, a few months back. There were three convictions: Wilton, Nevis and Herron. They got between seven and twelve years each.”

  “Uh-huh.” He pulled the car in smoothly by the kerb, switched on the interior light, and took out his notebook. He seemed quite unfazed by my sudden confession. “And you’ve reason to think someone was after you because of this?”

  “I know they were. Last November they came to the restaurant where I worked, Tzabo, in Manchester, and threatened me with a gun. The staff drove
them away.”

  “Did you report this at the time?”

  “Er, not as such. There didn’t seem any point.”

  He let out a faint sigh of exasperation. “But the staff witnessed it?”

  “Yes. That’s why I moved down here, to be safer. Hugh arranged the job for me.”

  He drummed his fingers on the notebook.

  “How many people knew you worked here?”

  “None of my family. None of my friends, except Charlotte. That’s Hugh’s sister. I went to stay with her for a bit, and Karl must have known. Or guessed.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because soon after I left her flat, she got threatening letters and her flat and shop got vandalised. And then the shop got fire-bombed on New Year’s Day. It’s the Fountain Hot Bread Shop in West Didsbury. And earlier that same evening a waiter I used to know saw us all together on Deansgate. Somebody must have followed us. And somebody’s been following Hugh in order to find me here.” My voice was crackling like a badly-tuned radio. Turning my face away, I stared out of the window at nothing. No lights, no stars, just the blackness of hillside in shadow.

  “Charlotte was at the party this evening?”

  I nodded. “She took Hugh home.”

  “We’ll be speaking to her. But why should they have killed Becki instead of you?”

  “They mistook her for me.” I saw Becki grinning at me, my twin for an evening. Her last evening. My voice was hoarse as I explained. “We’re both about the same age, same height, we both have dark hair tied back and we were both wearing jeans and the same club T-shirt.” He glanced across at my polo shirt with the club crest on the pocket.

  “We’ll need that T-shirt, by the way,” he said. “And the jeans. Sarah will go in with you while you change. Any other reasons?”

  “We both took out the rubbish.” And I’d cursed Becki over it.

  The WPC, leaning forward, asked, “Why didn’t you tell DI Cole this earlier?”

  “She didn’t ask the right questions. I would have, only.”

  They waited.

  “I was intimidated,” I said. “Not by her, by the whole business. And, I was ashamed.”

  He’d already caught on. “Herron. A relative?”

  “Karl Herron is my brother.”

  “You were ashamed of having a drug dealer for a brother?”

  “No. I’m ashamed of what I did. I wasn’t just a witness. I was the principal witness. I was the one who set the whole case off. I was the only reason they got caught and charged and convicted.” I stared out at the darkness, remembering the samples I’d stolen to show to the police, the lists I’d compiled of places, dates, times, names: the photos I’d taken, sneaking round the streets after Karl with my camera. Family snapshots. Outside, the blackness yawned like the mouth of a monster.

  “I shopped my brother,” I said.