The Cyclist

by Tim Sullivan

  'I genuinely had nothing to do with this.'

  'Other than just supplying him?' said Ottey.

  'I did no such thing. Why would I? I could lose my licence,' Patel protested.

  'Because your team might win the L'Étape?' Cross volunteered.

  'I couldn't give a shit about the L'Étape – I wasn't even going. That's for the diehards in the group. Look, you can get all this stuff on the internet. I told you that.'

  'But only if you know what to look for and where to look,' Cross said.

  'Anyone can find out. You don't need to be a chemist. Just Google "cheat".'

  'Is he the only one in the group to do this? Any of the others?' asked Cross.

  'Absolutely not. Matthew actually...' He was going to say something further, to prove his point presumably, but then changed his mind.

  'Was it an issue within the group?' Ottey asked. Patel thought for a moment, then obviously decided to say nothing.

  'Perhaps it's best if we ask them ourselves. Is Matthew training with you now?' asked Cross.

  'He is,' he said.

  'You don’t mind if we tag along, do you?' asked Ottey.

  They followed him as he cycled along Whiteladies Road and up onto the Downs. The group met under the old disused water tower, an imposing concrete structure whose sole purpose now seemed to be as a telecommunications mast. Cross had a morbid fascination with this tower as a child. To him it seemed huge and possessed of a looming, evil intent. For some reason he hated the very idea of this giant water container and had nightmares about being trapped in its dark, damp confines. He wasn't sure that it was much better now that it was empty. The cyclists had gathered at the café and were leaning against their bikes, talking and drinking water.

  Ottey thought it best to wait until Patel introduced Matthew, which he duly did. But just as soon as he had, Cross wandered off to the group. Ottey sighed.

  'This is Matthew,' Patel said.

  'Hi Matthew, sorry for your loss. Can I ask you a few questions?' she said.

  'Sure. It's terrible. I still can't quite believe it,' Matthew replied.

  'How did you find out he wasn't going to join you on the Tenerife trip?' she asked.

  'He texted me. Said he'd done his hamstring.'

  'When was that?' Ottey asked.

  'I don't know. I saw it when I got up that morning.'

  'Can I see? Your phone?' she asked.

  'Sure,' he said. He got it out of the pouch he was wearing round his waist and gave it to her.

  Meanwhile Cross was examining one of the riders' bikes. 'Beautiful bike,' he said.

  'Thanks,' said the rider.

  'Pinarello Dogma F12, Dura-Ace Di2,' said Cross.

  'Yes,' said the rider, who laughed slightly, impressed at his knowledge.

  'I've not actually seen one before.'

  'Do you ride?' asked the rider.

  'Yes. Used to have a Trek, then a Boardman. But they kept getting stolen,' Cross replied. One of the other riders laughed. 'What's so funny?' said Cross.

  'Well, you're a policeman. It's a little ironic, don't you think?' he said.

  'Yes, I suppose it is. Are these Fulcrum Racing Zero C17 wheels?'

  'Yep.'

  Ottey was still looking at Matthew's phone. 'Was this the last time he was in touch?' she asked him.

  'Yes.'

  'And you haven't heard from him since? Not when you were in Tenerife?'

  'Nope,' he replied.

  ''Three thirty in the morning. Seems an odd time to find out you've pulled a hamstring, doesn't it?' she said.

  'Not necessarily. Depends what you're up to,' he joked, and immediately regretted it. 'Sorry, that was stupid.' Ottey looked over at Cross, who was still with the others.

  'Is it really light?' Cross asked. The rider pushed the bike over towards him.

  'Pick it up. See for yourself.' Cross did so. He lifted it up with one hand.

  'That's amazing.'

  'Ten percent lighter than the last model.'

  'Look, do you mind if we do this another time? The guys are all here and we need to get going. Some of them have families,' Matthew said to Ottey.

  'Matthew, your friend has been murdered. This is a serious matter,' she said.

  'Is that right?' he asked, looking over at Cross, who was now riding the bike he'd been examining round the water tower. Ottey couldn't believe it.

  'Okay, point taken. Can I have your number? We'll get back in touch if we need anything further.' She got his details, then walked back to the car. She sat there for a full five minutes while Cross talked to the riders, looking at some of the other bikes. She had a good mind to drive off and leave him there. The group finally got on their bikes and cycled off, in their matching lycra club tops. Cross stood there watching them as they rode away into the distance. He finally turned round, walked back to the car and got in.

  Ottey drove off, not saying anything, as if to make her point. She then reminded herself that Cross had no compunction whatsoever about never speaking, and if she wanted to make a point, she'd have to vocalise it. So she finally said, 'Why did you just go off like that?'

  'They had some very expensive bikes. It's not often you get a chance to see them like that.'

  'This is a murder investigation, George.'

  'I am well aware of that. You have no need to point it out. Did you look at the text?'

  'I did.'

  'And what did it say?'

  'That he'd pulled his hamstring.'

  'Was that it?’ he asked.

  'Yes. But it came at 3.30 in the morning,' she said. Cross thought for a moment. That was indeed an odd time to tell Matthew he was injured and couldn't make the trip. When and how did he do it? If indeed he'd done it at all. Which Cross was beginning to doubt.

  'What exactly did it say?' he asked. She handed him her notebook. He looked at it and frowned. 'I can't read that. It's scribble.' She took it back from him, irritably, and read it out.

  'Torn my hamstring. Won't make the trip. A.'

  'It would've been better if you'd pulled over to read that,' he said.

  'Are you serious?' she asked.

  'Very much so. It's dangerous.'

  'Well at least I was doing my job, George.'

  'Indeed.'

  'Don't you think that's an odd time to text Matthew about an injury?'

  'Yes,' he replied. 'I do.'

  Chapter 10

  There were often lulls in investigations while they waited for autopsy results or forensic findings to come back. And today felt like one such time. At the beginning of his career, Cross had found these moments quite troublesome. It was partly impatience but also the fact that a crime had been committed and, as long as it remained unsolved, he was acutely aware that there was an outstanding injustice. It was his responsibility to resolve the situation, was how he saw it. The fact that there might have been between another thirty or forty cops, in those days, working on it was of little comfort for him. But he gradually got used to the, at times, slow pace of these inquiries and understood how they functioned. He had worked out a system of priorities, which he adhered to assiduously. He knew that the endgame of these cases always lay in the presentation of the case to the jury. Not the arrest. Not the chase. A coherent narrative was the most important factor of all. So if it took time to find it, so be it.

  Ottey was doing her best these days not to speak to Cross in a normal, everyday, colloquial way, as he often didn't understand interchanges in the vernacular. If she did, it would then require her to provide some kind of unnecessary explanation. Normally she might go into another detective's office at this stage of an investigation and ask them if they "fancied a chat". This would have thrown Cross. Because he didn't have "chats" and he was sure she must know that by now. A "chat" implied something personal. Nothing to do with work, and it was something he never indulged in.

  'Shall we talk about what we know?' she asked.

  'That would be useful,' he said. She had come to re
alise that constant repetition and conversation about what they knew in a case was a useful process for Cross. Nothing unusual in this. It was how many police officers worked. It was slightly different with Cross, though, in that he was capable of going over and over the same tiny details and information endlessly. He seemed to find it effective in a way that she didn't understand. But having seen what often came out of this navel-gazing, as she'd once described it, much to his consternation, she went along with it.

  'Can we ask Alice to join us?' she said. He sighed. He preferred to have these conversations alone. Mackenzie still had a habit of interrupting at inappropriate moments. He knew this stemmed from her keenness to help, but he found it distracting. 'How else will she learn? I've told her just to sit and listen,' Ottey reasoned, realising this was the exact argument Carson had used with her, some months before. Which she had derided at the time.

  'Very well,' said Cross reluctantly. Mackenzie was pleased. She found sitting around pretending to be busy absolutely draining. But what was the alternative? She had toyed with the idea that she could deliberately look as under-used as she was. But this had a couple of inherent dangers. Senior figures, namely Carson, might think she was lazy or, worse, redundant. She worried she could then lose her job. Her lack of useful employment didn't make sense to her, though. Everyone was constantly moaning about a lack of resources and yet here she was, in the midst of them all, a painfully underused resource, in her opinion. It was also a little humiliating going round the department like an over-eager puppy, volunteering to do anything anyone needed. So she’d stopped doing that as well.

  What wasn't so welcome to Ottey was Carson appearing and asking, 'So where are we up to? Shall we go over what we have?' Even though it exactly echoed what she herself had said only moments before. How did he do this, she wondered? He always appeared when they were about to go through things. It was like he'd bugged Cross' office. Thinking about it, she wouldn't put it past him. But then thinking about it further, she realised that it would be pretty fruitless, as Cross sat there, for the most part, in complete silence.

  'So, let's start with the text,' she began.

  'The text is strange,' Cross said, thinking out loud.

  'You mean the timing?' she asked.

  'No, the actual wording. It's strange when you consider it in the context of the fight,' he replied.

  'What fight?' she asked.

  'Matthew and Alex had a fight. A physical fight.'

  'What?' said Ottey, now slightly put out. 'How do you know that?'

  'The other cyclists told me.'

  'Go on,' said Carson.

  'Wait a minute. Why didn't you share this with me in the car?' Ottey asked.

  'You didn't ask,' Cross replied. With anyone else she would've thought he was trying to score points in front of Carson. Not so with Cross. But it was no less frustrating, all the same.

  'But you didn't speak to Matthew,' she protested.

  'The team found out Alex had been using drugs. Matthew was furious. He's virulently anti-drugs,' Cross continued, ignoring her. Carson wanted to ask, "what drugs?" but he knew he’d look stupid and not up to speed, so in these situations he found it more sensible just to pretend he knew what was going on, and nod his head sagely, as if in agreement with everything that was being said.

  'He still hates Lance Armstrong,' Cross continued, 'all these years later.'

  'How did they find out?' said Ottey, still irritated that she was having to ask.

  'Ajjay told them. They then confronted Alex, who tried to justify it. Ajjay told him the only way he could stay in the club was to pack in the drugs. He told him they had no room in the club for cheating. Told him he'd have to stop. Demanded the drugs were handed over so he could destroy them. Then he wanted Alex to do a drugs test every week. That's when Matthew stepped in. He said it was better if Alex just left there and then. They had no room for cheats. It soon got out of control. Punches were thrown. Then Alex left. But as he was going he reversed his car and rode over Matthew's bike. A high-end carbon fibre bike worth around ten thousand pounds. Next time Matthew heard from him was when he got the text.'

  'So the wording was odd,' said Ottey, thinking it through.

  'No mention of the fight, no apology. It was as if nothing had happened. Wouldn't you expect him to mention the fight at the very least? Say something about it? Apologise. Surely he wouldn't just text him about his hamstring as if nothing had happened. He couldn't have thought that he was still going on the trip. No mention of the drugs either. Wouldn't he say, "I've listened and stopped taking them"? Or even, "I know you don't agree with it, but can we sort it out after the trip?" But nothing? Doesn't that strike you as odd?'

  'Actually, isn't it a little odd that they would still be expecting him to go?' said Carson.

  'Good point,' Cross agreed.

  But then again, it's not as if we actually know anything about Alex. I mean about his personality. Maybe this was how he was,' said Ottey.

  'He'd have to be some sort of sociopath to think everything was normal. Either that or on the spectrum,' said Cross. Ottey looked at him. No-one in the room could quite believe what they'd just heard.

  'That was a joke,' said Cross. 'You said I should try and make more jokes to put people like Alice at ease.' This immediately made her feel uncomfortable.

  'I did, I did,' agreed Ottey. 'Maybe we'll work on that. So what are you saying about the text?'

  'I'm saying that in all likelihood, Alex didn't send it.'

  'You think whoever killed him sent it?'

  'I don't know, but whoever it was had no knowledge of the fight and the wrecked bike.'

  'So that rules out everyone in the club, including the chemist,' said Carson.

  'Looks that way,' said Ottey.

  'But they knew about the Tenerife trip. Which implies it was someone known to him.'

  'I don't agree,' said Mackenzie. There was a slight pause which, of course, she misread as them being taken aback with her interrupting. They were waiting for her to make her point, which she quickly realised. 'It could easily have been the chemist or Matthew.'

  'Not Matthew,' interjected Cross. 'He has an alibi. Partner's dinner. Eight witnesses.'

  'Okay, well the chemist then. He could still have sent the text, surely,' she went on. 'If he's killed Alex just before, he could've been in a blind panic. I mean, I'm assuming this is his first murder. Maybe he wasn't thinking straight.' Cross stared at her for a long, uncomfortable, time. Oh oh, I'm for it now, she thought.

  'She has a point,' he said finally, 'but that scenario would point to it being an accidental death. Something which, as it were, took him by surprise, which he then had to cover up.'

  'If it had been premeditated, he'd have thought it through more. He would've written the text in line with the narrative,' said Ottey. 'But you're saying Alex agreed to do what Ajjay had asked. So where's the beef? He wasn't even interested in the L'Étape.'

  'So he told us,' said Cross.

  ‘Oh, okay. Did you glean more from your cycling chums?' Ottey said, forgetting that sarcasm was wasted on him.

  'Ajjay was going to step in. Take Alex's place.'

  'Really?' she looked at Carson. 'That's not what the chemist told us.'

  'Yes, he was desperate, apparently. Had been really upset not to make the cut,' said Cross.

  'So he didn't feel awkward about it?' asked Carson.

  'They said he was like the Duracell bunny, all over-excited; could talk about nothing else.'

  'Get a warrant for the chemist's premises. Take a forensic team down there,' Carson said.

  'What exactly are we looking for?' Cross asked.

  'Drugs...' he said.

  'Well there's a good chance of that, it being a chemist,' said Ottey, who just couldn't resist it.

  'You know what I mean, Josie. There's one other thing. We don't have a scene of crime yet. He wasn't killed at the garages, we know that. So where was he killed? The pharmacy maybe?' With that he lef
t. As if he'd just demonstrated a significant line of enquiry they should follow which hadn't occurred to them. Understandable, given that their policing skills were only a fraction as sophisticated as his.

  'I hate it when he loves himself that much,' said Ottey. 'I'll get the warrant.' She left. Cross sat there thinking that a warrant was, in all likelihood, a waste of time. But it wasn't a waste of his, as yet. He then looked up and saw that Alice was still there. She had also been a little lost in thought. When they both realised that they were in the room alone, with no-one else there and nothing to say, they almost jumped in unison.

  'I should go,' she said finally.

  'Yes,' he replied, ‘you should.'

  Chapter 11

  Cross had just enough time to put his head round the door of the CCTV room before they exercised the warrant on Patel's business premises. He liked the way nothing ever changed in here. Sometimes there was a change in personnel, but he usually saw the same people as, being a creature of habit, he tended to visit at roughly the same time of day. He went up to Catherine's desk; she was still working on the CCTV, of the streets leading in and out of the garages.

  'Any luck?' he asked, although he knew in truth that, if she had, he would've been told by now. She always managed to get important pieces of evidence or information through to him, wherever he was and whatever he was doing. She also had an innate sense of what could be important and what was irrelevant. This impressed him.

  'Nothing clear; still on it.'

  'We now have a time frame, which should narrow it down for you. He left the restaurant at around eight. On his bike. A bright yellow racing bike. Quite distinctive…' He stopped for a second as something occurred to him which he realised needed immediate clarification. '…except, of course, it won't be distinctive on CCTV images at all.' Happy to have cleared this up he carried on. 'But we don't know where he went. He texted his teammate at three – or someone did with his phone. We haven't found the phone yet. He then failed to show up at Bristol airport at seven. But I'm thinking he was dead by three,' Cross said.

  'Okay, we'll start at the restaurant, see what we can find. We'll hold off on the garages.'