The Truth About Murder

by Chris Collett

  When I was growing up, ‘estate’ was simply the descriptive word for a housing development, but in recent years it had become so much more loaded.

  ‘Thanks, Davey, it’s a start,’ I said. ‘Would you be prepared to come into the station and see if you can pick them out from a line-up?’

  ‘I don’t know about that.’

  ‘Davey, Stefan Greaves was badly beaten up. He could have died. I want to get these guys off the street. They wouldn’t see you, or be able to identify you.’

  ‘I’ll think about it.’

  I had to settle for that. ‘Great,’ I said, with more enthusiasm than I felt. ‘I’ll give you a call when we can set something up.’

  * * *

  Back at the station, I looked up the two men that Davey had identified: Sam Bostwick and Evan Phelps. The names didn’t ring any bells, but then I still had a lot to learn about the local colour.

  ‘What have you got there?’ Suddenly, Denny was at my shoulder, looking at the picture of Evan Phelps. When I explained, he was far from excited about my two newly identified suspects.

  ‘It won’t be either of them,’ he said, instantly crushing any hopes I might have had. ‘I know Bostwick, and I vaguely remember Phelps getting caught up in something or other, but I don’t think they even know each other.’

  ‘It doesn’t mean they don’t,’ I returned. ‘Davey was pretty certain with his identification.’ I was laying it on thick, but Denny wasn’t taken in.

  ‘What, that they were outside his shop? So what?’ He moved round to sit at his own desk. ‘I’ve known Bostwick for years,’ he went on. ‘He’s a troublemaker all right, but apart from anything else he wouldn’t be in Greaves’ part of town. He doesn’t stray that far from his patch — too parochial. Plus, he wouldn’t have it in him to initiate something like that.’

  ‘Could easily have been an impulsive thing,’ I challenged.

  Denny shook his head regretfully. ‘Your witness has made a mistake. You have to be mindful of that. Witnesses often want to please you. The human brain likes to make connections where it can — often they’re not exactly lying but their eagerness causes them to jump to false conclusions.’

  I felt a stab of annoyance. I might not know either of these men, but I didn’t need a patronising lecture. I was well aware of how witnesses could behave, and I was convinced it didn’t apply in this case. I was half inclined to mention Greaves’ clothes, and see how Denny wriggled out of that one, but this was the longest conversation we’d had in days, and though he seemed in a pretty good mood, he remained volatile. I didn’t want to upset things by pointing out what was at best an oversight, and at worst a mistake. Especially as it was probably too late now to do anything about it. It occurred to me in that moment that maybe Denny was one of these coppers I’d heard about who is actually frightened of retirement, worrying about how he’d fill the hours after the job came to an end. It might account for the reticence and negativity. If that was the case, then criticism of his handling of the job was the last thing he needed.

  Besides, at that moment, Bowers strolled in.

  ‘Denny,’ he said, casually. ‘When you’ve got a moment.’ He dipped his head towards his office.

  ‘Blimey, what does he want now,’ I muttered, more out of frustration than anything else.

  ‘To discuss arrangements for Operation—’ Denny’s head snapped round, guilt all over his face. He’d let that slip unintentionally.

  ‘Operation what?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter, it’s nothing. A visitor, that’s all,’ he said, managing to look as awkward as a six-year-old caught with his hand in the biscuit tin. Suddenly he was preoccupied with rearranging random sheets of paper in his tray stack.

  ‘Well that’s hardly unique,’ I pushed. ‘What visitor?’

  He went on rearranging. ‘Someone who doesn’t want a lot of fuss made.’

  And yet he or she commanded their own ops title. ‘When’s this, then?’

  ‘Not sure exactly, a couple of weeks or so. It’s been in the planning for some time. I suppose it’s never certain if these things will come off. Anyway, on the off-chance it goes ahead, the chief wants some local knowledge, and a bit of security support. He’s keen to get it right.’

  I’ll bet he was. From what I could tell, schmoozing dignitaries seemed to be Bowers’ favourite occupation by some distance and I could imagine a visit by any VIP would be a dream come true for him. No prizes for guessing where all his energies would be centred for the immediate future.

  ‘Why all the secrecy?’ I asked.

  ‘No secret,’ Denny said. ‘They just want to keep below the radar, that’s all. Forget it, will you? It’s no big deal.’

  So why was I left thinking exactly the opposite?

  * * *

  Despite what Denny had said, after he’d gone, I logged onto the Police National Computer (or PNC, as we call it) to see what we had on Bostwick and Phelps. No harm in educating myself, I thought, though at first glance I had to concede that Denny might have had a point. For one thing, they didn’t look a very likely pairing. Bostwick was white and the older of the two — early thirties — and lived in one of the remaining down at heel areas of the notorious Flatwood estate. He wasn’t listed as having a regular job. But then, from what I’d heard, there wasn’t much in the way of prospects for kids growing up on the Flatwood. Detail was sparse and Bostwick didn’t at first glance have much of a record. A habitual offender when he was in his teens, between then and now, either he’d stopped altogether or, what was more likely, he’d got good enough at it to fly under the radar. I wondered what might have prompted the move to aggravated assault at this point in his life. There was a queried annotation ’WA?’, which must have been local code and meant nothing to me. I’d have to ask Denny at some point. It was a bugger we didn’t have Greaves’ clothes. Who knew what they might have yielded?

  Evan Phelps, on the other hand, had an address on the smarter side of town and had only just turned twenty. His sole misdemeanour was a burglary three years ago, which had been called in by a Mr Hywel Phelps of the same address, which suggested to me that Phelps might have been turned in by his own father. That in turn suggested a possible drug dependency problem that could have resulted in him stealing from his family. Phelps had been arrested along with another unnamed — so presumably innocent — youth of the same age, and got a caution for his trouble. So why was Phelps hanging out with Bostwick last Friday night? Was Davey mistaken, or had he been stringing me along to get rid of me?

  What might settle it, I decided, would be to run the same catalogue of faces past Stefan Greaves. If he picked out Phelps and Bostwick too, then I might be onto something. But when I turned up at the hospital, I learned that Greaves had already been discharged.

  Chapter Ten

  Emerging from the shower, a towel around my waist, this was the first time since the mugging I’d looked in a mirror. The one clear bruise on my face, from when I’d been slammed into the wall, had mutated to an impressive dark purple, with a speckled graze that ran down the length of my cheek. Maybe that’s what the woman in the supermarket had been drawn to — I couldn’t say I blamed her. I was admiring the rest of the handiwork, including the multicoloured ribs and abdomen, when the door buzzer sounded. Shit, who could that be? Standing frozen by the sink, I realised that I was slightly afraid. It occurred to me for the first time that my attackers had struck, almost literally, on my front doorstep. They knew the block where I lived. Did they also know which flat was mine? Fraser had intimated that he thought the attack was random, but they would know by now that I was easy prey, virtually incapable of defending myself. They might also think I’d seen enough to shop them. What would stop them from coming back for another try? This feeling of vulnerability was new and unwelcome, and I considered ignoring the buzzer. I could at least establish who it was, though. Limping through to the hall, I pushed the intercom button.

  ‘Hi Stefan, it’s PC Fraser.’ The Scots acc
ent was immediately reassuring. ‘Those pictures. Would it be convenient to come in for a few minutes?’

  Relieved, I debated whether to make Fraser wait the ten minutes it would take me to get dressed again, or even a couple of minutes while I battled my way into my boxers. But I was decent, just about if I kept hold of the towel (no mean feat), and as a police officer he’d hardly be green around the gills, so I simply said ‘yes’ and let him in, though not before throwing the bag of roll-ups into a drawer and wafting the air around a bit with a cushion. Understandably, he was a little disconcerted when I opened the door.

  ‘Don’t panic,’ I said, letting him in and taking him through to the living room. ‘I’m not coming on to you. Just inspecting the damage.’

  But by now he was distracted by the sight of my multi-shaded body.

  ‘Christ, they really made a mess of you, didn’t they?’ He averted his gaze.

  ‘You think I could flog it to the Tate?’ It was an offbeat comment and I didn’t expect him to understand what I was saying, but he laughed.

  ‘You could enter for the Turner Prize.’

  ‘I’ll go and get dressed.’

  ‘No hurry,’ he said, lifting his right arm and a tablet. ‘This is running a bit low, I’ll plug it in to charge.’

  ‘Make yourself at home.’ Directing Fraser to the nearest electric socket, I retreated to the bedroom, all too aware of the lingering smell of weed. By the time I had laboriously pulled my clothes back on and returned, exhausted, to the living room, he had set up the computer on the dining table.

  ‘Interesting room freshener you use,’ he said, without looking up from the screen.

  ‘Cuts down on the spasms. Helps me relax,’ I said, keeping my tone casual. He responded with the slightest nod of the head. He wasn’t going to make anything of it. It was time to fess up. ‘I’d been smoking on the night I was attacked,’ I told him.

  Now he looked at me. ‘You were stoned?’

  ‘As a raisin. You going to arrest me?’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. Not this time.’

  ‘It might explain why my memory’s a bit hazy.’

  He shrugged. ‘Yeah, that or the fact that the bastards beat you senseless.’

  I decided I liked this guy. ‘You want a beer?’

  ‘Nice thought, but no thanks. I’m on duty. A coffee would go down all right though.’

  It took me a while, but he didn’t seem to mind the wait. Coming back into the lounge, there was something else I had to get off my chest. ‘I remembered something else when I came back here,’ I said, putting his coffee down within reach.

  ‘Yeah?’

  I had considered the possibilities and decided to go with the one that was most palatable. ‘I think one of them threw something bleachy on me,’ I said.

  Now he was sceptical. ‘Jeez. No one said anything about that. Are you sure?’

  ‘I remember a kind of burning sensation, and the smell. It came back to me when I walked past the spot earlier. Now it’s like I can’t get it off me.’ The shower hadn’t made much difference, I realised.

  He pulled a face. ‘Well that’s good . . . I mean, not good that they did it, obviously, but it might give us a lead, especially if it’s been a factor in any other assaults.’ His turn to look awkward now. ‘What happened to the clothes you were wearing that night?’

  ‘One of the nurses gave them to my friend Laura, so she took them home to wash. All except my leather jacket, and that’s gone to the cleaners.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘So you did want them for forensics.’

  He sighed heavily. ‘Yeah, slight communication breakdown there. I suppose I thought Denny, my partner, had collected them, and I guess he left it to me.’ He looked puzzled. ‘Laura’s not the girl who found you.’

  ‘No, that’s Keeley. Laura’s another friend.’

  ‘You have a lot of women running around after you,’ he observed. ‘Do you know if she’s actually washed them yet?’

  ‘I would think so. She’s pretty efficient and she did mention it when she picked me up this morning.’ So — we both knew — any useful samples would have been eliminated. ‘I can double-check with her, if you like?’

  ‘Yeah, might be worth a try.’ Fraser handed me the tablet. ‘Meanwhile have a look at these — some possible candidates. It’s a long shot, but sometimes seeing the face again can just jog the memory.’

  He brought up a grid with nine mug shots, without exception as unflattering as the average passport photo. I didn’t recognise any of them. For the next while, I swiped across page after page of similarly anonymous faces in near silence, the only rhythm provided at the end of each page by a shake of my head. The parade seemed to go on forever, and after a while they all began to blur into one another, with their mostly shaven heads and grim expressions. A couple of times a spark of familiarity flared, until I realised it was just my short-term memory playing tricks. Finally, Fraser sat back.

  ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘The full extent of our rogues’ gallery.’

  My sigh was pure frustration. ‘It could have been anyone,’ I grumbled. I felt sure that there were one or two faces I could have seen before, but I couldn’t definitively place any of them in the context of Friday night.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Fraser said, philosophically. ‘It might just be too soon. We’ll try it again in a week or so. For what it’s worth, Davey at the supermarket has picked out a couple of possibilities.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Don’t get your hopes up. I haven’t had the chance to check them out yet. Might be nothing. Do the names “Bostwick” or “Phelps” mean anything to you?’

  They didn’t, and my disappointment must have been crystal clear.

  ‘Like I say — may turn out to be nothing anyway,’ said Fraser. He powered down the tablet and unplugged the cable. Sipping his coffee, he cast a look around the room. ‘Nice place you’ve got here,’ he said.

  ‘You’re wondering how I can afford it?’ It was a touch defensive, though I hadn’t meant it that way.

  ‘Of course not. You’re a lawyer, aren’t you?’ But he’d coloured a little. It had crossed his mind.

  ‘I’m a glorified clerk. Let’s be accurate about it. I don’t blame you. There was a compensation settlement,’ I said. ‘My mum invested it in a trust fund, and enjoyed her own pretty lucrative career.’

  ‘She was a lawyer too?’

  ‘Not exactly. She was a model.’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘Yeah, how about that?’

  ‘Well, thanks for the coffee.’ He took his mug through to the kitchen, passing the chessboard on the way. ‘You’re in the middle of a game,’ he observed.

  ‘An online game,’ I said. ‘Quite often, I can hold the moves in my head, but this one’s more of a challenge. He’s a strong opponent, so I need to play it out.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘I don’t know anything other than his pseudonym, Crusader. He could be anyone, anywhere in the world.’

  ‘You don’t know anything about him?’

  ‘Only his nickname and his chess ranking, which is about the same as mine.’

  ‘Does he know anything about you?’

  ‘Hardly, he’s not much of one for chat. Do you play?’

  ‘Not really. I’m more of a five-a-side man, me.’

  ‘Oh, I was a footballing legend too, but tough choices and all that . . .’ At that moment a motorbike outside backfired and I leapt. Fortunately, I’d drunk my coffee so nothing got spilled.

  ‘You OK?’ Fraser asked.

  ‘Yeah, it’s just spasms. They happen to me. It’s nothing to get alarmed about.’

  ‘Looked like more than that to me,’ he said, astutely.

  ‘I felt safe here.’

  ‘Not now?’

  ‘It happened just outside, a bit close for comfort.’ I was disappointed to realise that going out by myself after dark was not something I would relish in t
he immediate future, and I was dismayed by my apparent lack of resilience.

  Fraser was reassuring. ‘Feeling vulnerable isn’t uncommon,’ he said. ‘Victims of these kinds of crimes often get a dip in confidence immediately after the incident. It’ll come back. Your girlfriend doesn’t live here with you, then?’

  ‘My . . . ?’ I had to think for a minute. ‘Oh, Keeley? No, no she doesn’t.’ I’d assumed that he might have worked out who she was by now, but as he hadn’t, I wouldn’t disillusion him just yet.

  I walked with him to the front door. ‘I know it’s what everyone asks, but are you likely to catch them?’ Posing the question, I was fully aware of my own shortcomings as a witness.

  ‘Honestly? I don’t know. We’ve got Davey’s leads to follow up, which might help us with the lads who were hanging around outside his shop, but there’s no CCTV outside your building, and we’ve got no other witnesses who would have got a clear sighting.’

  His mobile rang. ‘Sorry,’ he said, glancing at it. ‘Denny. My partner. I need to take this.’

  ‘Sure. I appreciate you stopping by,’ I said, and meant it.

  ‘No problem. Look, my experience tells me this was a “wrong place, wrong time” opportunistic attack. I can’t see them coming back. Really.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ I said, though I wasn’t convinced.

  Chapter Eleven

  Denny. First time for everything. Calling to tick me off for wasting my time, probably. He kept it brief and to the point: ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Meridian Crescent. Just about to leave.’

  ‘Well step on it. We’ve got a shout.’

  ‘Ten minutes,’ I said, and ended the call.

  Something felt odd, driving back to the station, the rain drumming on the roof of the car. I couldn’t work it out to begin with, then I realised that the weird thing about it was Denny calling on me for assistance. The rain had slowed the traffic to a crawl and my ten minutes became twenty. As soon as I drew up in the car park, Denny came running from the building and threw himself into the passenger seat, cursing.