by Simon Mason
DI SINGH: What time was this?
AMY ROECASTLE: About quarter to midnight. I’d just got out of the taxi and it started tipping down with rain. He’d been in the bus shelter outside the gates, waiting for me. He was all sort of shaky, and he had this strange expression on his face, and he came out of the shelter fast and said, ‘This isn’t what it looks like’, and gave me the gun. And I took it.
DR ROECASTLE: Amy! I can’t believe it. What were you thinking of?
DI SINGH: Go on, Amy. What else did he say?
AMY ROECASTLE: Nothing sensible. Just babble. He was very scared. I could see something bad had happened. Something really terrible. He was so frightened. He wanted me to trust him. That was the most important thing. Don’t let me down, he kept saying. Please don’t let me down.
DR ROECASTLE: Amy, I just can’t sit here and listen to this. Why did you take the gun from him? I don’t understand.
AMY ROECASTLE: Of course you don’t understand. I took the gun because he needed me to.
DI SINGH: ‘This isn’t what it looks like’. What did he mean by that?
AMY ROECASTLE: That he wasn’t guilty. That he hadn’t done it, whatever it was. That it wasn’t his gun, that somehow it had ended up with him. That he was terrified people were going to blame him anyway. All that.
DI SINGH: Did you believe him?
AMY ROECASTLE: Yes. Damon wouldn’t kill anyone.
DI SINGH: So why did Damon have the gun?
AMY ROECASTLE: I don’t know. [pause] Someone must have given it to him.
DI SINGH: Who?
AMY ROECASTLE: I don’t know.
DI SINGH: What happened after you took the gun?
AMY ROECASTLE: I was trying to hold it together, but I was scared. Straightaway I had the impression that someone else was after it. Just the way Damon kept looking round, as if someone had been following him. It freaked me out. The rain coming down made everything worse. Thunder going off, lightning. Damon gave me his jacket but it was soaked through in a few minutes. I didn’t know what to do. I had to get the gun away from Damon, but I knew I couldn’t keep it in the house. Luckily, I thought of PJ.
DR ROECASTLE: PJ! That strange man in the woods? My God. I thought you didn’t know him.
AMY ROECASTLE: I’d met him a few times.
DR ROECASTLE: What do you mean? He’s fifty years old! Where did you meet him?
AMY ROECASTLE: Bars, mainly. Anyway, I remembered he worked nights in a storage place. And he was an absolute life-saver. He came straight out to meet me, didn’t ask why, didn’t even ask what was in the box.
DI SINGH: You met him by arrangement in the clearing in the woods?
AMY ROECASTLE: Yes. I was so frightened I took the dog, which hates me. The storm was bad, getting worse, the noise was deafening. I nearly lost my way pushing through the trees. And when I was nearly there someone came out of the shadows and grabbed me, and I panicked and dropped the chain and Rex got loose and I could hear him snapping and snarling as if he was fighting with someone, and I just got to my feet and ran.
DR ROECASTLE: Amy, all this is so strange and frightening, I hardly believe it.
DI SINGH: Take your time, Amy. [pause] This man who attacked you. Do you know who he is?
AMY ROECASTLE: No.
DI SINGH: Do you think he’s the same man who chased you in Red ’n’ Black?
AMY ROECASTLE: Yes.
DI SINGH: Why do you think that?
AMY ROECASTLE: He was so desperate to get the gun.
DI SINGH: Why is that?
AMY ROECASTLE: I don’t know.
DI SINGH: Tell me what happened after you reached PJ’s van that night.
AMY ROECASTLE: PJ drove me to Red ’n’ Black, and I put the box in a lockup. When PJ’s shift ended I went back to his place and slept for a bit, and then I hitched to Dad’s.
DI SINGH: I see. And when did you learn that there had been a murder?
AMY ROECASTLE: Early next morning. We were listening to PJ’s radio.
DI SINGH: But you made no attempt to contact the police.
AMY ROECASTLE: [pause] No. I know Damon’s flaky. He’s a mess. But he would never kill someone.
DI SINGH: Did you know Joel Watkins, the man who was murdered?
AMY ROECASTLE: Not at all.
DI SINGH: Did Damon know him?
AMY ROECASTLE: I don’t think so. He never once mentioned his name to me. Listen. Please. Damon’s not a murderer. He’s not. He gets mixed up in stuff by mistake. I told you, someone must have given him the gun.
DR ROECASTLE: May I interrupt, Inspector, to ask where this Damon is? The last I heard, he was at large. I’m assuming you’ve found him by now.
DI SINGH: A moment, please. Amy, would you describe Damon as a nervous person?
AMY ROECASTLE: [pause] Everyone knows Damon’s had issues.
DI SINGH: Are you aware that when he was younger he was obliged to take an anger management course?
DR ROECASTLE: Inspector, will you please tell me where Damon Walsh is now?
DI SINGH: Amy, I put it to you that Damon Walsh is a nervous and unstable character with anger management issues liable to panic or to lash out if he feels threatened.
DIANE REBUK: I have to intervene. You’re leading my client.
AMY ROECASTLE: It’s all right. Yes, he’s nervous. It’s pitiful how nervous he is. Yes, he’s unstable. That’s why he’s the person most at risk here. He’s so frightened now, who knows what he might do to himself. Ask Garvie. When he met him on that tram, Damon talked about killing himself.
DR ROECASTLE: Garvie Smith? The boy doing the fencing? He didn’t tell me he’d found him.
DI SINGH: You think Damon is a suicide risk?
AMY ROECASTLE: I do.
DR ROECASTLE: Please, Inspector. Tell me. Is Damon Walsh in custody now?
DI SINGH: He is not. His whereabouts are unknown. [brief silence] I must tell both of you, very clearly, that Damon Walsh is now a suspect in this murder enquiry. If he tries to get in touch with you, Amy, you must contact us immediately, do you understand? This is the law, but it is also for your own safety. And I would ask you now to re-evaluate your opinion of him. I would not want you to be any more vulnerable than you already are.
AMY ROECASTLE: Am I going to be charged?
DI SINGH: Not at present. After the various procedures for fingerprints, DNA, photographs and so on, you will be free to go home. But I recommend you discuss legal protection for all eventualities with Ms Rebuk. Now, I’m afraid I have to go into another meeting. Do you have any other questions?
DR ROECASTLE: I wish also to know about the complaints procedure.
DI SINGH: Amy?
AMY ROECASTLE: No.
DI SINGH: Thank you. This interview is at an end.
31
It was five thirty in the afternoon before DI Singh finally reached his office. He was tired. The interview with Amy Roecastle had been followed by his meeting with the chief, lengthy briefings with Dowell and his team, an hour-long news conference and further consultations with Forensics, Homicide and Youth Services.
Now he sat quietly at the empty desk.
The investigation into the disappearance of Amy Roecastle wasn’t over; it had become part of the larger investigation into the murder of Joel Watkins, in which he was now Detective Inspector Dowell’s deputy. It was his opportunity, as made clear to him by Dowell and the chief, to atone for previous mistakes, namely his mismanagement of the case and, in particular, his failure to apprehend Damon Walsh, now exposed as Joel Watkins’ likely killer. He had been asked for – and he had given – assurances that he would not let further lapses of judgement undermine police efforts.
He had a job to do, but he was not yet sure how to proceed. First, he reflected on various difficulties.
He thought about the fact that he had been given access to Dowell’s investigative findings on a limited need-to-know basis only. It did not surprise him that he was not trusted, though he
resented it.
He thought about Amy Roecastle. He did not believe that she had told him the whole truth yet. There was more she could tell him, he was sure, about Damon Walsh, but it would be difficult to win her trust. Young people could be so stubborn, so sure of themselves, so fiercely protective. He knew: he had been one himself, a proudly disobedient student in Lahore. Only later, during police training, had he accepted his need for stricter personal discipline.
Finally he thought about Garvie Smith, the archetype of disobedience, the disrupter of other people’s karmas, finder-out of other people’s secrets.
For twenty minutes he sat perfectly still, staring at his desk, thinking hard. And finally he decided how to proceed.
He picked up the phone and called Len Johnson.
32
At six o’clock in the evening Garvie Smith was still in bed from the night before.
Since he’d been laid off by Smudge’s brother there was no urgent reason to get out of bed. At all. Ever.
Therefore he had stayed in bed all day. His mother was still out on her shift. He lay there unblinking, looking at the ceiling, thinking about mathematical sequences. In particular, recurring terms. Pascal’s triangle, for instance. The triangle is an infinite symmetric number pyramid, each number the sum of the two numbers immediately above it, starting with 1 at the apex. The strange thing is that the number 3003 keeps cropping up. An event unexpectedly repeating itself. Like the same character making a sudden reappearance. You think you won’t see them again, then suddenly there they are – like PJ, for instance, picking Amy up in the woods on the night of the 8th, and picking her up in the woods again on the night of the 20th.
Someone buzzed the intercom downstairs. Garvie ignored it. A few moments later someone rang the doorbell of the flat. He ignored that too. He only took notice when he heard a key in the lock and the door opening and footsteps coming in.
He got out of bed in his shorts and T-shirt and padded into the living room and there found Detective Inspector Singh in full uniform and Uncle Len in business suit and tie, looking like the Head of Police Forensics. Which, of course, he was.
He looked from one to the other. ‘She’s not here,’ he said.
They looked at him severely.
‘It’s not your mother we want,’ Uncle Len said.
Garvie crossed his hands in front of him. ‘I do not have to say anything. It may harm my defence if I do not mention when questioned something which I later rely on in court. Anything I do say may be—’
Uncle Len said, ‘Will you stop your fooling? Raminder isn’t here to arrest you. He wants to talk to you.’
Garvie said nothing. He waited. Singh cleared his throat nervously.
Uncle Len said to him, ‘Do you want me to stay? You know what a devil he can be.’
‘No, no. I can manage.’
Uncle Len nodded. He said to Garvie, ‘We’ve discussed this with your mother already. There’s no need to tell her about it.’
‘What makes you think I tell my mother things?’
Frowning, his uncle left the flat, and Garvie and Singh stood in silence, looking at each other.
Singh shifted his weight awkwardly and cleared his throat. ‘I’m not quite sure how to put this.’
‘Would it help if I went back to bed and you wake me up when you’ve worked it out?’
‘There are some questions I’d like to ask you.’
‘An interrogation? Down the station?’
‘Off the record.’
‘In other words,’ Garvie said, ‘you’re asking for my help. Which means breaking police protocol. Which isn’t something you’d do.’
There was a long pause. ‘Probably it’s the only way to stop you interfering,’ Singh said. He did not smile.
‘Is that a joke?’
‘It is.’
‘Didn’t think you did humour, to be honest.’
‘I don’t.’
‘I’d wait till you’ve had more practice.’
Both remained expressionless.
Singh said, ‘You said before, I needed help. You’re right. There are difficulties I need to solve, questions I cannot answer, and yet I must.’
Garvie nodded. ‘Yeah, you want to know if Damon killed Joel.’
Singh stared.
‘Could have been him,’ Garvie added. ‘After all, he had the gun.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘It’s not hard. When I asked Amy if she’d let Damon down she got such a nark on it was obvious she’d helped him out big-time. By taking a hot gun off him, for instance. Must have been him she stood with for half an hour in the rain before she went into the house.’
Singh nodded. ‘But how do you know that gun was the murder weapon?’
‘He was desperate to get rid of it just an hour after Watkins was shot? Timing works. And Damon was in Market Square during the riot, he mentioned it to me. Like ‘the Wild West’ he said. Easy for him to drive up to Froggett by the time she got back. He would have parked the van out of sight somewhere, waited in that bus shelter, probably, while the rain came down.’
‘Yes, that’s what she told me, in fact. And, yes, it is the murder weapon. But even if he was in Market Square, Amy is sure someone gave it to him after the shooting.’
‘Equally possible he was the shooter.’
‘Yes.’
They looked at each other.
Garvie said, ‘Now it’s your turn. Can’t help you if you’re going to keep stuff back.’
They sat at the kitchen table and Singh began. The investigation into the murder of Joel Watkins had so far assumed that Watkins was an innocent bystander caught in crossfire between rival gangs during the riot that happened after the police stormed the warehouse where the rave was taking place. A reasonable assumption. Two other guns retrieved from the scene belonged to members of rival criminal gangs. Watkins had no link whatsoever with either.
Garvie took this in in his usual expressionless fashion. ‘What else do you know about Watkins?’
Singh summarized. Joel Watkins, twenty-six years old at the time of his murder, seemed like a regular person. He moved jobs frequently, apparently out of choice; generally his employers made no complaints about him. He lived alone in a little flat in Tick Hill and never missed a rent payment. There was no reason for anyone to kill him.
His photograph, which Singh slid across to Garvie, showed a man about six foot four, with a powerful build, soft, bland features, thick, drooping moustache, and dark brown hair cut very short and already receding. He looked as if he worked out: his neck was thick, his shoulders bunched with muscle.
‘What sort of jobs?’ Garvie asked.
Security, mainly. He’d been a bouncer at the club Chi-Chi, doorman at Imperium casino until he was let go a few days before his death, a night-watch guard at the shopping mall downtown before that. Occasionally – and recently – he’d driven dispatch. He’d worked for short periods in construction.
‘What was he doing in the square that night?’
Unknown. All the investigation had to go on were some contradictory witness statements.
Garvie said, ‘Yeah, I remember the report on the radio. Someone saw him fleeing the fighting, and chatting in the Ballyhoo bar to a guy in a HEAT beanie, and fighting the police, and lying drunk in a gutter. All at the same time.’
CCTV was no help. There had been approximately a thousand people in Market Square, all panicking. It had proved impossible to ascertain Watkins’ movements before the moment when his unconscious body had been found in an alley off the square and taken to City Hospital, where, after multiple attempts to resuscitate him, he died of perioperative shock. He had suffered three apparently wild gunshots, in the thigh, abdomen and forearm.
Garvie looked again at the photograph. Watkins stared back at him with a closed expression.
‘No connection between him and Damon?’
‘Nothing known.’
‘Maybe just not known, then. On Supertra
m, Damon was bitter about someone he used to think was his “soul mate”.’
‘Amy Roecastle?’
‘No. He was looking at her photo but he wasn’t talking about her. Someone from further back, I think. Someone he’d relied on, someone he thought was solid. Until they had a bust-up.’
Garvie looked at Watkins’ photograph, met his fixed gaze. He was certainly solid. Heavy-lidded eyes, impassive. A man you couldn’t stare down.
‘Did Watkins have any convictions?’
‘None.’
‘Trouble with the police?’
‘Nothing in his records.’
‘What records? Adult records?’
‘Yes.’
‘What about when he was young?’
Singh looked at him. ‘Release of that sort of information requires a formal legal procedure. We haven’t made a request.’ He paused. ‘You’re thinking they may have been on the youth offence programme together?’
‘People bond in dark times. People like Damon need someone to rely on.’
‘I will initiate the process,’ Singh said. ‘But it takes time.’
‘Isn’t there someone you can ask? Not Dowell.’
Singh thought. ‘Actually, there is. He might remember. But, of course,’ he added, ‘the main thing is to find Damon.’
‘Waste of time.’
Singh looked at Garvie suspiciously.
‘Do you know where he is?’
‘Lying low, getting high. Listening to the air.’
‘Really?’
‘That’s what he told me. I believe him.’
‘You think he can’t be found?’
‘I don’t think you can find him.’
Singh pondered this. ‘Listening to the air? He said that?’
‘His words.’
‘Somewhere quiet then. The countryside. Up at Froggett, or in Halton Woods. Somewhere where he can hide his van.’
Garvie shrugged.
Singh said, ‘I think, in fact, he will be in touch again.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he needs it to be over, he’s anxious, he wants the anxiety to end.’