One Bad Turn (28 page)

‘
Positive, I got his address from the probation officer and went round there myself. He’d been placed in a hostel in Little Hulton, I’ve just finished speaking to the duty manager who arranged for him to go into a hospice when he couldn’t look after himself
.’

‘Christ.’ Coupland rubbed the heel of his palms into his eyes. He felt tired, as though someone had sucked the air right out of him. ‘I was sure we had him,’ he said eventually, ‘everything about it fit.’ He ended Turnbull’s call and pulled out his pack of cigarettes. He offered one to Ashcroft, but the DC was already waving the pack away, ‘I forgot your body is a temple…’ Coupland said absentmindedly as he lit his cigarette, lowering the car’s front windows to compensate. He slumped back into his seat, inhaled the nicotine as far as it would go. ‘Shit,’ he muttered eventually.

Ashcroft turned to him, ‘Bit of a coincidence don’t you think…’ he said slowly, ‘that one of the cops responsible for his arrest that day took his own life the same year he died.’ Coupland exhaled reluctantly. He could no more fathom the reason for that than he could the solution to world peace. ‘It might explain the reason for Carruthers’ call to Sandford. His widow only heard part of it, but what if he’d been informing Sandford of Dawson’s death?’ Coupland’s brain cells were on go-slow, but they turned nonetheless, ‘But how would he have found out in the first place?’ He grazed his hand over his chin, puffed out his cheeks. ‘If that was the thing that he felt guilty about - knowing an innocent person had gone to jail, maybe he kept track of him over the years, wouldn’t be difficult with the contacts he’ll have made during his career. Maybe he hoped for an early release, a reunion with his family and a happy ever after.’ The reality was seldom like that. On leaving prison the chances of ex-offenders moving into employment were slim, with family members reluctant to take on the responsibility of keeping tabs on them life in a hostel beckoned. It was no wonder they returned to old haunts, likely that was the only welcome they would find.

‘Even if Carruthers didn’t have a contact inside he could find information like that from press archives or the internet.’

‘When did Carruthers kill himself?’

Ashcroft tapped the screen on his phone and scrolled down, ‘31 March 2015.’ He said. Coupland hit the redial button on his mobile, Turnbull picked up first time:

‘
Sarge?
’

‘When did Lee Dawson die?’

A pause as papers were shuffled around his desk. ‘
1 March 2015
.’

Coupland nodded to Ashcroft. ‘Turnbull, get Krispy to do a search on Dawson’s death, see whether it was reported at the time,’

‘
DC Timmins?
’ Turnbull clarified, but the fact he’d correctly identified who Coupland was referring to meant already the nickname had stuck, ‘
I’ll get him on to it right away
.’ He said before ending the call. Coupland started piecing the timeline together, ‘I think poor little Harry in there has been telling us porkies…’

‘Shall we go ba-?’ Ashcroft stopped mid-sentence, Coupland was already out of the car, jacket flapping in the wind as he stomped up Sandford’s driveway. He caught up with him as he banged on the front door.

‘What the hell do you call this?’ Sandford spluttered, using his body to block Coupland’s entry. ‘I’m not having you barge in here like I’m some common criminal. What do you want?’

‘I want the truth!’ Coupland spat, ‘And this time I won’t be going round the houses to get it. You’ll either answer my questions or I’ll bring you in for obstruction.’ Sandford reared his head back as he stared at both men on his doorstep, ‘On what basis?’

‘That you already knew Lee Dawson was dead yet failed to tell me that when I questioned you. Now why would you do that?’ Coupland leaned in close so that his face was only inches from the retired cop, ‘I didn’t know he was dead!’ Sandford protested, though his heart wasn’t in it. Coupland’s nose was practically touching Sandford’s now. ‘You either cooperate with me or I go round to your son in law’s place and tell him and your wife that Maria’s death rests firmly on your shoulders.’

‘Sarge,’ Ashcroft warned, resting a hand on Coupland’s arm, ‘we don’t know that for sure,’ he said in his ear. Coupland spun round, locking eyes with the DC but his threat had already worked its magic. ‘You’d better come in,’ Sandford said quietly.

The front door had no sooner closed behind them than Sandford raised his arms in mitigation. ‘I didn’t like the little scrote, OK? Sometimes it happens like that, you don’t take to someone or they rub you up the wrong way and let’s not forget these are football hooligans we’re talking about, not boy scouts on a day trip.’

‘It was that attitude that caused Hillsborough,’ Coupland said evenly, ‘police treating fans like they were less than human.’

‘Don’t give me that politically correct bullshit!’ Sandford sneered, ‘don’t tell me certain folk don’t get on your nerves.’

‘Oh, I hate certain folk alright,’ Coupland mimicked him, ‘I hate killers and rapists and men that rob little old ladies, but right up there on the top of my twat list is people who waste police time. You get that?’ Sandford nodded. He was a large built man, could hold his own under normal circumstances, but Coupland was twenty years younger and raging. ‘So tell me what happened,’ he ordered, clenching and unclenching his fists, ‘the condensed version.’

Sandford hung his head. ‘I first clapped eyes on Dawson before the match when I was carrying out a stop and search. He was a mouthy little sod-’ he saw the look on Coupland’s face and raised his hands once more, ‘-Fine! Fine! But there’s no escaping he rubbed me up the wrong way. When he finally buggered off to the game I saw his scarf lying on the floor where I’d pushed him to the ground. I shoved it inside my jacket. God knows I had no idea what I was going to do with it. Probably would have just thrown it away but things sort of progressed.’

Coupland eyed him steadily, ‘In what way?’

‘After the match me and Lewis got separated from the rest of the officers escorting supporters from the ground. The crowd turned on us and Lewis wimped out, leaving me to take a pasting.’ He pointed to his knee once more, just as he had during the detectives’ earlier visit to his home. ‘I needed a new plastic socket, pins and everything.’

‘Like I give a toss,’ Coupland growled. Undeterred, Sandford continued, ‘I managed to get away, limped into a multi-storey car park close to the stadium to hide. On my way in I collided with a supporter. I recognised him from previous run-ins; he was a member of one of the most feared local football gangs. He stopped and stared at me as though daring me to question him…he was carrying a knife and there was blood on it, and I didn’t need to be Einstein to know what he’d do to me if I didn’t play my cards right, so I told him to get out of there.’

‘Who was it?’ A sigh. ‘I didn’t know his name, honestly. We were beat cops, weren’t kept in the loop when it came to the Who’s Who of Salford gangs. It didn’t stop us recognising their faces, though.’

‘Yet you let him go, even though you suspected he’d stabbed someone?’

Sandford didn’t even blink. ‘I was hardly in a position of strength, was I? I certainly didn’t want to be his next victim. I let him go on his way and he let me go on mine.’

‘And then you found the body?’

‘Yes,’ Sandford replied, only quieter now, ‘and that’s when it dawned on me. That I could teach that little fucker Dawson a lesson he wouldn’t forget. I pulled his scarf out of my jacket and placed it beneath the body.’ His eyes slid in Coupland’s direction, ‘Next thing I know Lewis appears from behind a parked car, tells me he’d witnessed the stabbing and had called it in. He wanted to know what I was doing with the scarf. When I told him he went ballistic, but as I reminded him, he was in no position to take the moral high ground, what with leaving me to take that beating. We were arguing the toss when Nathaniel arrived and everything just fell into place, I asked him to check for signs of life telling him I thought I could feel a pulse, next minute he spots the scarf while checking Garside over and seeing as the victim was already wearing a team scarf realised this could lead us to the killer. I left him to piece the rest of it together and hey presto, someone pulls out CCTV from the main routes into and out of all the pub car parks where we’d searched supporters that morning and lo and behold Dawson is in several shots wearing his Burberry scarf, clear as day. Further footage of him going into the stadium shows him minus the scarf. A search went out for him; Nathaniel tracked him down that evening and arrested him. My only regret was that I got carted off to the hospital; I didn’t get to see the look on the little tosser’s face… Lewis kept his silence over the years, well for the most part, every once in a while he’d try sounding me out to come clean but what was the point? Then after all this time I get a call from him last year, he’d read that Dawson had died shortly after his release. He said we’d ruined a young man’s life and that we owed it to his memory to come clean to his family about what we’d done. “No point now is there?” I told him. I guess Lewis just couldn’t live with it.’

‘I guess he couldn’t,’ Coupland said.

Sandford regarded him irritably, ‘What’s the point of raking over this when you know Dawson is dead? He can’t be the killer.’

‘No,’ Coupland said evenly, ‘but he’s the reason this is happening.’

Just then his mobile rang. It’s tone shrill amid the tension in the room. Coupland barked his name into the mouthpiece causing Krispy Kreme to stutter. ‘
Sarge? You wanted me to check for old articles relating to Eddie Garside’s murder in ‘92? The Evening News ran a main feature following his death, headline:
Gang Leader Knifed in Unprovoked Attack.
The reporter claimed that Garside’s own knife was still concealed in the lining of his jacket
,’ Coupland noted that internal leaks were as prevalent then as they were today, ‘
that he was caught unawares because he never went anywhere without his foot soldiers to protect him
.’

‘So his killer could have been someone he knew and trusted,’

‘
As you know the local papers headlined with Dawson’s back story, how his friends and work mates said he was a decent guy. Well the Echo goes on to show a picture of his ‘distraught girlfriend’ as the caption describes it, walking down the crown court steps following the guilty verdict.
’ He paused. ‘
She was pregnant, Sarge
.’

‘I’m on my way in.’ Coupland barked, pushing Sandford out of the way to get to the door.

Chapter 16

Incident room, Thursday afternoon

The incident room phones were on meltdown by the time Coupland returned to the station. Krispy and DC Whitehead had been tasked with tracking down Lee Dawson’s girlfriend and child. ‘The girlfriend’s name is Patsy Doyle,’ Krispy informed Coupland when he approached his desk, ‘she was interviewed by the Evening News after the trial, who had her down as living in Walkden. She gave birth to a boy at Hope Hospital on 3 September 92. I’m checking with the housing department and private landlords registered in the area to see if I can find her.’

‘Good work,’ Coupland turned his attention to DC Whitehead, seated beside Krispy, ‘I’m checking with the local schools to see if a boy with either of their surnames attended,’ he informed him. ‘Try nurseries and childminders too,’ Coupland added. Whitehead nodded.

As he approached the open door to Mallender’s office the DCI was already on his feet. ‘I was just on my way to see you, I heard about Dawson,’ he moved round to the front of his desk to perch on a corner whilst Coupland took a seat. ‘So who the hell’s got an axe to grind on his behalf, and while we’re on the subject, what’s their motive?’ His eyebrows knotted together as he considered the possibilities.

‘Well, I suppose I’d better fill you in on that.’ Coupland responded, getting up to push the office door to.

The atmosphere in the incident room was charged. They were on the brink of tracking down a significant person of interest. Coupland didn’t want to call him a killer yet, didn’t want to repeat the mistakes that had started this tragedy in the first place. When they tracked Dawson’s son down they would bring him in, and Coupland and Mallender would interview him. Ashcroft was sipping from a takeaway cup that he’d brought back from the canteen. He leaned over Krispy’s shoulder to read something on the junior detective’s desktop. A matching take out coffee cup sat on Coupland’s desk. He gave Ashcroft the thumbs up sign as he gulped the coffee down, though he made a mental note to remind him he was on sweeteners now. His phone, set to silent, was charging on his desk. He was about to check it when DC Whitehead called over, ‘No joy on the schools, Sarge, childminder and nurseries have drawn a blank too.’

‘Could have moved out of the area,’ Coupland suggested, heading over to the bank of desks the detectives were working from, ‘could hardly blame her I suppose. Widen it out to Greater Manchester,’ he turned to Krispy to include him in the instruction, ‘she might have been rehoused but stayed close enough to be near relatives.’ Krispy nodded, writing the new search criterion onto a pad. ‘Bright kid,’ Ashcroft murmured as he moved beside Coupland, ‘knows his way around a computer alright,’

‘Thank Christ someone does,’ Coupland was all too aware of his own shortcomings in that area.

‘What’s going to happen to Sandford, you reckon?’ Coupland’s mouth turned down at the edges as he mulled it over, ‘He was a serving officer at the time of the incident, Mallender reckons Professional Standards will want to take a look at this first, but there’s no doubt he’ll be in prison this time next year.’

‘What goes around…’ Ashcroft muttered into the space between them. Yet Coupland felt no satisfaction in this. Sandford deserved to go to prison but his wife didn’t deserve to be left bringing up their daughter’s children single handed, for he had little faith in her son-in-law stepping up to the mark. Nathaniel Mathers was another casualty of Sandford’s misdirection. He’d lost his daughter for no other reason than trusting what his colleagues told him to be true. Coupland closed his eyes; hoped to Christ they made a breakthrough soon.