The TV Detective (28 page)

They rounded the arc of a corner. The street was narrower now, gently sloping downhill to a cul de sac. The woman stopped by a low metal gate, pointed both arms to a dark and silent house. ‘Number 23, that's it.'

For the home of someone involved in murder it was absolutely ordinary. A paved path cut through a tidy lawn, a well-trimmed hedge, a dark wooden front door with a brass knocker, curtains drawn tight over the unlit windows.

The men pushed past, strode up the path, hesitated at the doorand looked back. Adam checked his watch and gave a nod. They swung the battering ram.

There was a crunch, crack and thudding creak, violent metal on wood. The door splintered and buckled, but held.

Another swing, another heavy pounding impact and it gave, smashing back into the wall and juddering on its hinges.

The search team tumbled inside. Shouts echoed in the darkness of the hallway. ‘Police! Stay where you are!'

Two went left, towards a lounge and kitchen. Lights flicked on. Two more clambered upstairs, their boots pounding on the wood.

‘Police! Keep still! Do not move!'

From above came a woman's voice, a scream, and angry, muffled yelling.

Adam waited at the door, held out a hand to bar the entrance. ‘This is far enough. We don't need to go inside. We'll just get in the way.'

Dan had made no move whatsoever to enter the house. ‘OK,' he gulped.

They stood sheltering from the rain, squinting inside. More voices from upstairs, calmer now, but the words were unintelligible.

A ginger cat sprinted out of the door, making Dan jump back. Adam shook his head, but didn't say anything.

Two of the search team walked past, back outside. ‘The downstairs is secure sir,' one said to Adam, and began taking off his helmet.

The police van pulled up outside the house. A couple of people had already gathered on the pavementand were watching curiously, despite the rain. Good gossip from an eyewitness angle was always worth a soaking.

Adam's mobile rang. He answered, listened, then said, ‘OK, we're almost done here too. See you in a few minutes,' and hung up. ‘Suzanne,' he explained. ‘At the other house. They've got him. He's on his way back to Charles Cross.'

A milk float trundled by, the accelerating whine of an electric motor accompanied by the cheerful clink of bottles. From upstairs came the woman's voice again, loud, then turning to a cry. A baby started wailing.

A man's figure appeared at the top of the stairs, silhouetted in the light behind. He began walking slowly down, step by hesitant step. His arms were held behind his back and as he passed Dan saw he had been handcuffed. The face was familiar from their previous meetings, but the expression very different now. His mouth was a little open, his eyes blank, his skin colourless, almost bleached.

It was a look deeper than disbelief, more utter incomprehension.

Two police officers led him to the van, opened the back doors and pushed the man gently inside.

‘OK,' Adam said. ‘That's Stead safely in custody. Suzanne's team have got Hicks. That's part one of the plan successfully sorted. Now comes the tricky bit. Let's get back to the station, start talking to them and see if we can crack this case.'

From upstairs came again the woman's voice, breathless and stifled, sobbing and rising to a shrieking crescendo as it mixed with the baby's wailing cries.

Chapter
Twenty-three

I
T TOOK MORE THAN
an hour before Hicks and Stead had been booked into custody, assessed, and were ready to face questioning. Adam harassed and chided the poor custody sergeant as the man filled out his forms.

The reaction of the two men to their arrests was very different. In one cell, in the far wing of the custody block, Stead sat quietly on the thin blue mattress which covered the stainless steel ledge that passed for a bed. He was hunched forwards, hands on his knees, staring silently at the concrete floor.

Even the offer of a cup of tea or plastic beaker of water went unanswered. Stead just shook his head, a movement so slight as to be almost undetectable, and returned to his miserable trance.

As he waited for the sergeant to finish his work, Dan couldn't resist taking a tiptoe walk along the cell block. It was a feeling he suspected was akin to his ancestors going to a public hanging, one of pure, inhumane fascination and schadenfreude at the sight of the condemned, but it was no less tempting for knowing that.

At the tiny peep hole to Stead'scell, he stopped, waited and watched.

It was a good three or four minutes before the man moved at all. And when he did, it was only to reach out a hand, extend a couple of fingers and touch the bare, whitewashed brick of the cold, confining wall. He pushed at it and then did so once again, disbelief filling every pitiful motion.

Hicks by contrast was a boiling kettle, a caged animal, railing against his incarceration. He paced back and forth, kicked out at the flimsy mattress and pounded his knotted fists on the unyielding steel of the cell door, beating out a relentless boom. He would lean back against the wall, then launch himself forwards, arms flailing, voice screaming obscenities, the words echoing along the hollow corridors of the police station.

It was the manner of a man who could be a murderer. And Dan was sure he would have thought so, had he not known otherwise.

Or perhaps, in truth, the word was suspected.

Last night, in the safety and security of his flat, he had been so sure of how the killing of Edward Bray was carried out, who had pulled the trigger and who had helped to foment, plan and then cover up the crime. But now, faced with the men themselves, the suspicion of what they had done and what might now happen to them, and with the denouement of the case approaching, the doubts were crowding in, whispering their sly, corrosive toxins into his mind.

There was another delay as the sergeant called the police doctor to check Hicks and Stead were well enough to be questioned. The behaviour of both raised obvious questions about their stability.

‘For Christ's sake!' Adam exploded. ‘I don't have enough time as it is.'

‘I'm sorry, sir,' the sergeant replied, ‘but there's no choice. And as you well know, if you question them and we haven't checked they're up to it first, anything you get will be chucked out of court straight away. It's in both our interests to make sure they're OK.'

Adam sworeand issued a vehement restatement of his oft-repeated position about criminals having far too many rights, but stalked off to the MIR, tetchily beckoning Suzanne and Dan to follow.

‘Right,' he said, as soon as the door clicked closed, ‘let's talk tactics. It's vital we get this right. How do we do it?'

Suzanne ran a hand over her chin and said, ‘We don't have much time, so how about you do Hicks and I'll question Stead? We give them both half an hour, then regroup to see what we've got.'

Adam nodded. ‘Seems fair enough. It's logical. It maximises our time and resources.'

‘Err …' Dan began, then stopped himself.

‘What?' Adam snapped.

‘Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, I was just thinking …'

‘Yeah, right. I know what that means. Your thinking can be dangerous. Come on, out with it. What exactly were you thinking?'

Suzanne's hostile eyes were on him. Dan thought about what was happening downstairs, the men who were currently being examined by a doctor, but who, in the next couple of hours could be charged with their parts in a murder. They could spend tomorrow, Christmas Day, in prison, and many more such days to come.

And he was a TV reporter. A child in an alien land. Where the fun of the game of the last ten days had suddenly become very serious.

How sobering could be the ruthless impact of reality.

‘Nothing,' he muttered. ‘It was nothing.'

‘Well, don't waste our bloody time then,' Adam growled. ‘We're not exactly blessed with much.'

‘Hey, hang on!' Dan heard himself say. ‘If it hadn't been for me we wouldn't be here now. Who cracked the bloody case?'

Adam took a step towards him. The detective's hair was uniquely wild this morning, spraying in patches of dark tufts and his face was creased and shiny with sweat.

‘We've cracked nothing yet,' he said ominously. ‘Not– a – bloody – thing. All we've got is a theory. That's it. And unless we get on with finding something to back it up we're stuffed. So come on, that's enough sodding about. Let's get down to questioning them.'

He turned to go, but Dan reached out a hand and grabbed his shoulder. Suzanne's mouth slipped open. It was as if he had touched a sacred object, a heretic condemned in the eyes of a believer.

‘What the hell are you doing?' Adam barked.

‘I think you're wrong.'

‘What?'

‘You wanted to know what I thought. Well, this is it. I reckon it's wrong, splitting up and seeing them both at the same time. We'll get nothing from Hicks, I can guarantee it. He's too tough. He's delighted in Bray's murder all along. Stead's our only chance. He's the weak link in all this, the quiet one. We should concentrate on him, go at him until he cracks, all three of us.' Dan paused, then added quietly, ‘Well, you two, anyway.'

Adam hesitatedand glared at Dan. He wiped a sleeve across his forehead. There was a silence in the room, a long, loud and resonant silence.

‘Suzanne?' Adam said finally.

She shrugged. ‘It could work. It's a gamble, isn't it? It's got to be your best guess, sir.'

‘Down to me then, is it? As ever.'

No one replied.

The detective drew himself upand stared out of the window at the grey, creeping dawn and the sullen, spattering rain.

‘OK then, Stead it is,' he said at last. ‘Let's go.'

It was just after half past seven on the morning of Christmas Eve. Downstairs in the cells were Andrew Hicks, Jon Stead and Gordon Clarke, the three men who Dan believed had plotted together to kill Edward Bray.

All three had named Julia Francis as their solicitor. Her offices opened at nine. At that point the messages on the phone would be played, and she, and doubtless some equally well trained and similarly ferocious colleagues would hurry straight to the police station to represent her clients.

As ever with Francis, the word was a masterpiece of euphemism. It might equally be used to describe the way the Royal Air Force represented their country and dealt with the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain.

With the evidence they had, in the face of committed and informed legal resistance, Adam said they would not be able to justify keeping the men in custody. Against Hicks and Stead they had essentially nothing, merely some circumstance and a theory, in effect, pure supposition. Against Clarke, at least they had the fibres from the car boot, but it wouldn't take Francis a great deal of research to find out they could have come from thousands of boots.

The men would walk free within minutes.

The only hope remaining was a confession, or for one of the men to let slip something which could incriminate them. And they had an hour and a half.

Adam's view was that it was probably now or never. If they couldn't build a case today, he thought they were unlikely ever to have sufficient evidence to charge anyone with the murder of Edward Bray.

They would always believe they knew what had happened, how the killing had been carried out and by whom, but never be able to prove it.

The faltering pulse of justice would suffer another wound.

The detective's mood wasn't improved by the phone call he received on the way down the stairs to the cell block.

‘Yes sir,' he said wearily. ‘Yes, I know this is probably our last chance. Yes, I'm aware it's a huge case. No, I haven't forgotten the annual report. Yes, I know it's important to you. Sorry, sir, yes I do mean extremely important. Yes, I know you're relying on me. Yes, I will call as soon as I have any news. Thank you sir.'

‘Deputy Chief Constable?' Dan ventured.

‘Well deduced,' Adam grunted. ‘You really are showing a flare for this job.'

The sergeant swung open the thick, metal barred gate which marked the entrance to the custody block. The police doctor, Silifant, an ageing crab of a man, had pronounced Hicks and Stead fit for questioning, saying they were only showing fairly typical reactions to arrest.

A doctor more used to dealing with the factory line of fresh corpses which it was the police's lot to process, Silifant's less than endearing habit was to award the newly deceased marks out of ten for efficiency of dispatch. It had become a trait well known and much commented upon in Greater Wessex Police.

‘As you didn't have any dead bodies for him this time, he wanted me to pass on that he gives you nine out of ten for getting him out of bed unnecessarily,' the sergeant said, with a thin attempt at a grin.

Adam didn't smile, hardly even seemed to notice the man's words. He was too intent on the cell door ahead, the name “Jonathan Stead” written in chalk on the board beside it.

‘Nice and nasty?' Adam whispered to Suzanne.

‘Yes, sir. As ever.'

‘You ready?'

They waited for a few seconds outside the door, then Adam nodded and Suzanne opened it.

Jon Stead was still sitting, staring at the floor. He looked up, then quickly back down again.

‘Mr Stead, can you come with us please?' Suzanne asked pleasantly. ‘We need to talk to you and we've got somewhere more comfortable where we can chat.'

The man didn't move, didn't even look at her.

‘Mr Stead?' she persisted. ‘Please?'

Still no reaction.

‘Stead!' Adam barked. ‘Either you get up and come with us or I have you carried.'

Suzanne slipped a gentle hand under the man's arm and led him down the corridor. She walked slowly, giving him plenty of time to take in the raw, whitewashed brick, the row of steel doors, the light catching in the distortions of their pits and dents, the metal bars and the grim, echoing coldness.

It was a precursor of the taste of prison. And it was making its mark. Stead's frightened eyes darted around as he walked. At one point he stumbledand half fell, but righted himself again.

From behind, Adam watched carefully.

At the end of the cell block, the sergeant let them through the gate, making sure, just as he would have been told, to take his time and jingle the thick and heavy keys in the indomitable lock. The man could have been a jailer from medieval times.

And Stead stood and stared, his thin frame looking even smaller in the white glare of the electric strip lights.

Suzanne pushed open the door of Interview Room Two and guided Stead to sit down at the table. He lowered his head and stared once more at the floor. Adam and Suzanne settled opposite. Adam made a big play of turning on the tape recorder, introducing them and emphasising that they were conducting an interview with Jonathan Stead, a man who was a suspect for murder.

And after that final, lingering word, he left a long silence.

Even Dan, standing over by the door, arms folded across his chest, innocent and set apart from the scene though he might be, felt himself swallow hard.

‘Right Jonathan,' Suzanne said, at last, in a friendly voice, ‘Let me try to help you. We know how you and Andrew and Gordon worked together to kill Edward Bray. But we also know it wasn't your idea and that you didn't do the actual killing. But, nonetheless, I have to be honest and fair with you and tell you that you are part of a murder conspiracy, and that means you're in very serious trouble. We want to help you make it as easy as possible for yourself. So, it's probably best if you tell us in your own words exactly what happened.'

Stead didn't reply.

‘We know about the switch of identities,' Suzanne persisted, ‘and the phone call you made, to be sure the timings worked for all your alibis.'

Still no reply.

‘We know about you swapping your mobile phones …'

She waited, but there remained no reaction.

‘And how important the weather was to you that day, and why.'

Stead shifted a little in his seat, but said nothing.

‘In short,' Suzanne said, ‘we know everything.'

She sat back on her chair and looked at Stead. He didn't move. His eyes were still set on the floor.

Suzanne glanced at Adam. He was studying the man, waiting for his moment. When the silence had ticked on, he barked, ‘Stead! I don't think you realise how serious your position is. You played a significant part in a murder. The judge will see that in exactly the same way as if you'd pulled the trigger yourself. You'll be sentenced to life – that's life– in prison – to serve a minimum of fifteen years or so, maybe even more. That baby son of yours – little Joseph – will be a young man by the time you get to see him again.'

Adam waited, but there was still no response from Stead.

The detective slapped his hand on the table. ‘That's if you ever get to see him again at all! Some kids disown their parents, you know. They're so ashamed at what they've done. They can't live with it. Joseph might well feel that way. And as for that pretty young wife of yours …'

Adam lowered his voice, to a sly whisper.

‘… how do you think she's going to cope, not having you around? And do you really think she's going to wait for you? They always say they will, I've seen it often enough. But come on – they never do. She'll be off with someone else and she'll forget all about you. It won't take long. One of those letters will arrive in your cell. You know the sort of thing – “Darling, I don't know how to say this, but …” And you'll have nothing to help you through those fifteen long and lonely years in that prison cell. And nothing and nobody will be waiting for you when you come out – that is – unless …'