The Bluebell Informant

by Nick R B Tingley

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Barker thought long and hard. Giles watched him, scrutinising his every move whilst she sipped at her coffee.

  He fiddled with his clothing.

  He flicked at the loose dirt on the wall.

  He tugged at his ear and stared back down the street towards the entrance to the market.

  At every unexpected noise, he turned his head sharply as though expecting some armed assassin to be bearing down on him whilst he grabbed a firm hold of the gun concealed in his pocket. His breathing was intermittent at best and his face had turned so pale and clammy that he looked almost ghostly under the afternoon light.

  After a short time, his eyes returned to Giles and, with a certain amount of trepidation in his eyes, he shook his head defiantly.

  ‘No,’ he answered.

  Giles sighed and set her espresso back down on the wall. Her eyes swung over to the mobile coffee shop where, inside the little kiosk, the server stood watching them with interested eyes. Pressed to her head was a mobile phone into which she talked animatedly as her eyes remained glued on Barker. Every so often, a customer would approach to buy something but they were sharply waved away as the server spoke rapidly down her phone.

  We’re running out of time.

  ‘I’m getting tired of this game, Barker…’

  ‘When I am safely in your custody with an immunity agreement in my hand and a guarantee of witness protection, you will get what you want.’

  ‘Then I don’t get what I want.’ Giles’ words cut through the air turning Barker even paler than before. ‘But more to the point, you don’t get what you want.’

  Barker stared back at her flabbergasted. ‘You can’t mean that…’

  ‘The Bluebell Killer is dead, Barker. I killed him. I shot him and I watched him die.’

  She reached up and plucked the scarf from around her neck, thrusting it angrily on to the wall. She bent her neck towards him and gestured to the scars on her skin.

  ‘You see these? These were the marks he left on me before he died. So don’t toy with me with stories of how I got the wrong man.’ She thumped a first down on the wall, knocking the espresso cup off the top. She didn’t even glance at it as the takeaway cup tumbled to the ground, spilling what remained of the contents on the grey ground. ‘The wrong man would not have done this to me…’

  ‘There is more to this than just one man…’

  Giles cut him off with a vicious hiss.

  ‘You see that woman other there,’ she said, allowing Barker time to glance up at the server in the coffee kiosk. ‘She recognised you a few minutes ago. A few seconds later, she picked up her mobile and she’s been talking on it ever since. Now, she could be talking to anyone, but I’d lay even money she’s on the line to a local police dispatch office, what do you think?’

  She gave a little shrug of disinterest.

  ‘Now, one of two things will happen. Either you will be lucky and the policemen who come to get you will be honourable and just arrest you, or we’ll end up with another bent copper like Doyle who will simply put a bullet through your brain. Either way, time is not exactly on your side…’

  ‘Then we must get out of here, now…’

  Barker made to stand up.

  Giles hand darted out to stop him.

  ‘I told you before,’ she said coolly. ‘We are not leaving this place until I get what I want.’

  ‘I’ll kill you…’

  ‘Donnovan tried that one. It didn’t go too well for him…’

  ‘But you’re a police officer…’

  ‘Well, if you are going down, you might as well do it in style, right? Gun down a defenceless woman in broad daylight – I’m sure the media will lap it up…’

  She had played the game well. Barker watched the server finally hang up the phone and retreat a little further into the kiosk.

  ‘I don’t reckon we have much time, do you?’

  Barker turned back to her.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘The last time you contacted me, before today that is, you said you were gathering proof of who the Bluebell Killer was. You obviously didn’t think it was Donnovan…’

  ‘I will tell you everything once I am safely in custody…’

  ‘Then our deal is over.’

  Barker eyed her carefully, his face forming in to a slight smile as he examined the detective sitting opposite.

  ‘You wouldn’t do that. My evidence is too important…’

  ‘We only have to wait a few more minutes to find out.’

  The smile vanished and Barker’s face became nervous and contorted once more. ‘I can give you a name…’

  ‘I already have a name…’

  ‘No, I mean the name of the man responsible for all of this. Not Donnovan - the man who put him up to it. I can give you his name…’

  Giles pouted at him.

  ‘You seriously want me to believe that the man who helped your party win the election is the same man who killed over a dozen people last year?’

  ‘Yes,’ pleaded Barker. ‘And when I give you his name, you’ll understand…’

  ‘A name is easily acquired,’ shot back Giles. ‘I already have part of your story. I know this man arranged for the Britain’s Own Party to win the election by a landslide, which means he probably invested a fair amount of money in you. I know he has influence over certain people in the police force whose identities are known to me, which means he probably has them on the payroll. I’m sure, if I followed the money, it may well lead me back to him…’

  ‘He is a smart man. I’m sure he would have something like that covered…’

  Giles’ eyebrow rose. ‘Something like that?’

  Well, that’s interesting…

  ‘That certainly is interesting…’

  But if that’s the case…

  ‘That would explain everything…’

  Giles’ mind erupted in thought. In the darkest recesses of her memory, she recalled half-whispered conversations and images stretching right the way back to the days of the Bluebell Killer up until the terrible events by the River Eden.

  ‘You forget,’ she said calmly. ‘Yours is not the only name I have. I can identify DS Doyle. I know Alison had something to do with it. If you will not speak up, I am sure there will be other ways of getting that information.’

  Barker’s face turned pale. ‘You can’t do that.’

  Giles climbed down from the wall, smiling at Barker as she did so. ‘Watch me.’

  She began to walk away towards the railway bridge. She had barely walked a few steps when Barker’s hand darted out to grab her as he came alongside her. She turned to him, feeling the gun jutting half-heartedly into her chest, and looked into his pleading eyes as they began to well up with tears.

  With trembling lips, he finally stuttered:

  ‘Tommy Haines.’ His eyes instantly clouded over with shame. ‘The man you want is Tommy Haines.’

  Giles let his words hang in the air. The gambit had worked for the moment, but the next few minutes would be decisive. She quickly nodded towards the wall and led him back to where they had been sitting a few moments before. Under his watchful gaze, she reached inside her coat pocket and produced her phone, which she quickly searched through to find the voice recording function before setting it down on the wall.

  ‘It’s hardly a formal interview setting,’ she said, ‘but it will do.’

  Barker looked – for a moment – like he might object but as Giles pressed the record button and announced herself, he immediately followed suit:

  ‘Daniel Barker,’ he said clearly. ‘Former leader of the Britain’s Own Party.’

  Giles nodded in satisfaction.

  ‘Tell me about Tommy Haines.’

  Barker took a deep breath.

  ‘Tommy Haines is a businessman with a good reputation amongst those who do legitimate business with him. He started off with nightclubs; he had dozens of them across the
UK. Then, once he started getting a bit of success, he moved on to real estate, car mechanics, and airplane parts. If you can name it, he probably has a business interest in there somewhere…’

  ‘Including politics?’

  Barker nodded.

  ‘I was approached by Haines shortly after the general election five years ago. He assured me that he had the means to make my party a success. At first, I thought he was just talking about money and, for a while that seemed to be all there was to it. But, during the local elections two years ago, after my party made some substantial gains in the number of MPs in Parliament, Haines revealed to me that he had essentially arranged for certain constituencies to fall to us. He had blackmailed and bribed us into a position where we had become the only tangible opposition in Parliament.

  ‘Flash forward to the General Election - he promised my party would win by a landslide. All I had to do was give him my word that, when Haines decided the time was right, I would repay that debt in anyway He felt necessary. What I failed to realise at the time was that he wasn’t guaranteeing my own position as the leader of this country. The party won, but I lost out.’

  Giles nodded her understanding. ‘Did Haines ever tell you why he was willing to go to such lengths to get you into power?’

  Barker scoffed.

  ‘He made no secret of it,’ he replied. ‘It was quite clear from the off - to me at least - that he was doing it to ensure that there was a government in power that he could manipulate to work in his interests. The fact that the Britain’s Own Party’s policies were very closely aligned to Haines’ was, by and large, of little consequence. In the grand scheme of things, our party was a new one. New parties are a lot easier to influence than the old guard…’

  He fell back against the wall as though a great weight had been lifted from his mind. Giles stared at him intently before a slight movement by the entrance of the market caught her eye. A group of people had appeared underneath the railway bridge, making their way slowly down the street. One of them stopped at the coffee kiosk and chatted to the server who nodded in Barker’s direction. Following her gaze, the man nodded and the group set off once again.

  Near the front of the group was a man Giles recognised.

  For the moment, Barker hadn’t seemed to notice them. He had his back towards them and, whenever he seemed lost for words, he would look up at the towering cathedral rather than towards The Shard behind him.

  She flicked her eyes back to Barker and, with a little more urgency, asked: ‘And what has this got to do with what happened today?’

  Barker looked up at her, his face dropping with shame.

  ‘The morning after the election, Haines found me in a pub drowning my sorrows. He said he still expected me to fulfil my side of the bargain. I tried to wriggle out of it, told him that he had conned me, but he wasn’t having it. I told him that I had nothing now thanks to him, so there was no way I could repay his debt…’ He sighed, shaking his head remorsefully. ‘The repayment was killing that man down at Edenbridge. That was the debt I was able to pay.’

  ‘It was a hit?’

  Barker’s eyes widened.

  ‘Under duress, yes. Haines’ men supplied me with a gun, they even taught me how to shoot. They knew this man took a dog out for a walk every morning at the same time and along the same route. They knew he walked past an old bunker and advised that it would be a good hiding place. I went down there this morning. I bought a train ticket to Edenbridge and made my way to the bunker and waited…’

  His eyes glazed over. ‘When the time came, it was incredibly easy. He had his back to me, as you guessed already. It only took one shot. I don’t think he even knew what had happened.

  ‘The rest, you already know. I tried to move the body out of sight but was seen by that lady passing by. I didn’t have much time, either way she was calling the police, so I had to act quickly to create the story that I was the real target. Plenty of people hate me in Britain so it wouldn’t be too hard a sell. I exchanged everything in his pockets with the tickets in my own – scrawling our names on them with a pen I found in the bunker. I tossed his wallet and phone into the river – I even had time to retrieve the bullet casing, which I lobbed in the water as well. Then I rubbed his hand against the gun so that it left his fingerprints on it, punched the pillbox wall a couple of times to make it look like a big fight had happened and then I was just about ready…’

  He looked up sheepishly.

  ‘I sold you the inch of truth so you wouldn’t start to question the bigger lie. I thought if anyone was going to help me, it would be you. And I was right, wasn’t I?’

  Giles thought about this for a moment and then nodded solemnly.

  ‘Except you overplayed your hand,’ she muttered. ‘Harris was ready to acquit you until I turned up. You had no idea what to expect until I arrived on the scene – and that’s when things started going wrong for you. You hadn’t accounted for how much I hated you. You thought you’d brought in an ally, when you’d actually brought in the one person who would put you squarely in the crosshairs.’

  Barker chuckled quietly. ‘I think, in hindsight, that was my only major mistake. There’s a moral in there somewhere – never judge a person by their name…’

  Giles forced a small smile.

  ‘Who was the victim? Why was he so important?’

  Barker shrugged. ‘They didn’t tell me.’

  His eyes drifted to one side as he desperately avoided eye contact.

  ‘And the Bluebell Killer?’

  Barker’s eyes shot back to her in an instant. He drew a deep breath.

  ‘How sure were you that Donnovan was your man?’

  Giles shrugged.

  ‘The case was getting there,’ she replied. ‘We had him linked to a fair few of the murders…’

  ‘But there were some that you couldn’t link him to, am I right?’ Barker replied, his face darkening. ‘Some where his alibi was so strong that you considered abandoning the case against him?’

  Giles’ eyes quivered.

  ‘How could you possibly know that?’

  ‘Every time you thought you were close with a suspect, another murder would happen. But your suspect wouldn’t only have an alibi. More often that not he’d have a police alibi, right? You put them under so much surveillance that they can’t scratch their balls without you knowing and then another murder happens putting them in the clear…’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘They know exactly what your protocols are. They play you with your own bloody Murder Book…’

  ‘How do you know? Tell me.’

  Barker closed his eyes and exhaled slowly in a state of pseudo-meditation. When they opened again, he stared straight at her – his eyes seemingly stabbing into her’s with the intensity of his stare.

  ‘Because you never stopped the Bluebell Killer, Detective Sergeant Giles,’ he said quietly. ‘You can’t have killed him.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because the Bluebell Killer…’ Barker said softly. ‘… is me.’