by Carol Wyer
She complied. Murray, now in the toilet halfway down the hallway, soon heard a muffled, ‘This is a really stupid idea but I hope you can hear me. Can I stop talking now?’
‘Try the drawer,’ he called. Within a minute he heard the sound of a drawer grating against a rung as it was being hauled open. It was possible Roxy had heard the same noise. He emerged from the toilet and joined Crystal, who was trying to get the drawer back into place.
‘It sticks,’ she said as she shunted it back and forth before getting it to slide shut. ‘You heard me?’
‘Yes. Where did Sandra get the gear?’
‘I can’t tell you that.’ She moved away from the chest of drawers and dropped onto the single bed.
He saw the resigned look in her eyes and knew he could push her further. ‘Roxy’s dead. Her mum’s dead too, and now one of her friends is dead. No one need know you told me. Come on, Crystal.’
‘It was from one of the bouncers at the club.’
‘Which one?’
‘Clark, but you didn’t hear that from me, right?’
‘I understand. Thank you. We’ll look into this.’
‘I don’t know what else to say. I didn’t give her any drugs. She stole them.’
Murray studied her distraught face. She sat like a broken doll, shoulders slumped, all energy gone. ‘Do you know this man?’
He took out his phone, pulled up the photograph of Paul Sadler and passed it to her.
She let out a snort. ‘Yes. He involved in this?’
‘We don’t know.’
‘It wouldn’t surprise me if he was.’
‘Why wouldn’t it?’
‘Because he’s got a really nasty streak in him.’
‘Tell me more about him.’
‘Why should I?’
‘Because at the moment, I’m the only person preventing you from being charged for possession of drugs, supplying a minor and possibly even manslaughter.’
‘You are kidding me? I didn’t give her any drugs! I told you what happened.’
‘Help me out, Crystal, and we’ll clear everything up.’
‘You wouldn’t charge me? You know I was telling you the truth. She overheard us. She saw me in here!’
‘I don’t know that for sure. You could be making it all up.’
‘Oh, come on!’
‘Just give me some information. That’s all I want.’
She deflated further on the bed, seemingly shrinking into herself. The words sounded like they were being dragged from her lips. ‘It was at Extravaganza. He was one of our clients.’
‘Clients in what way?’
‘Any way they like,’ she replied.
Natalie was on the same track as Murray. Back at HQ she thought she had Gavin on the ropes. ‘Did Paul pay for dances?’
Gavin cocked his head to one side and released a weary, ‘No comment.’
‘Why did you really bar him? Was it something to do with the girls?’
‘No comment.’
She sat back and glared at him. He wasn’t going to crack and she’d have to try all over again with Kirk. A firm rap on the door prevented her from losing her rag with the man. She was called outside and handed a phone. Murray was on the other end and updated her on what he’d just found out from Crystal. She strode back inside the room with renewed energy.
‘My officer’s been talking to one of the girls who works at your club – a lap dancer, although I understand the girls offer more than dances.’
He lifted his hands to his temples. ‘This is not relevant to anything. What they do is their business.’
‘What they do happens to be on your premises, so let’s stop pussy-footing about. I’m investigating three deaths. I don’t give a shit what goes on in your club. I don’t care if the girls are screwing your punters. I’m not looking into what goes on there. I can, of course, hand all this information over to the vice squad, get your place shut down and charge you with perverting the course of justice. So, if you’d like me to make your life hell, then carry on behaving like an arsehole.’ She glared at him. He released a slight sigh, a sign of resignation, and she pounced. ‘What did Paul Sadler do that made you throw him out of the nightclub?’
Gavin rubbed his lips together, his head moving from side to side as he fought his conscience. Finally, he acquiesced. ‘The fucker roughed up one of the girls. She’d already complained to me that he got very aggressive during sex sessions, but some guys can be like that. I told her I’d sort it out. I had words with him and warned him not to try that sort of thing with them again, but he did and we banned him from coming back.’
‘Which girl?’
‘Sandra Mallory. She’s been off for a while so you haven’t met her.’
‘Did he have sex with any of the other girls?’
‘Crystal once, but she refused to go with him again.’
‘That was it? You didn’t threaten or hurt him in any way?’
‘We warned him that we’d tell all his workmates and family what a sexual deviant he was. It was only words. We’ve used that sort of threat before. The punters usually run a mile. They don’t want their mums or wives to know what fuck-ups they are. I thought that was the end of it. He was such a weedy guy. All fucking macho in the bedroom with a young girl and a bloody wimp when up against real men.’
‘When did this happen?’
‘Three weeks ago.’
‘I asked you if anyone had reason to set your house on fire and you didn’t mention him.’
‘I didn’t think he had the balls to do that! We throw people out regularly for all sorts of reasons. He was such a wimp, he didn’t even register on my radar.’
‘Why did you say you didn’t know Paul Sadler when I asked you earlier?’
‘I didn’t know the bastard was called Paul Sadler. He told everyone his name was Mark. Do you think he set fire to our house?’
‘I don’t know yet; however, I do know that Tucker had a key to your place.’
He threw his hands up with a loud, ‘Tucker? How the fuck did he get a key to our house?’
‘He told us he stole a set of house keys from a jar and had a copy made.’
‘Why did he do that?’
‘He wanted to drop by when you were out and watch the television.’
‘You’re joking!’
‘That’s what he told us.’
‘I don’t get it. What on earth made him do that? This is madness.’
‘It would have helped if you’d mentioned him to us when we first asked you about who might have access to your house.’
‘He never entered my mind. We’ve not clapped eyes on him for a couple of years. Besides, why would he burn the place down? We didn’t do anything to piss him off. In fact, the opposite. We had him around once.’
‘Why only once?’
‘He stole fifty pounds from a wallet Kirk left out on the top. I was pretty certain he’d taken it and was going to challenge him about it, but Kirk persuaded me to let it drop. It wasn’t important. We just didn’t invite him back and he never reappeared. We simply forgot about him.’
‘He might have resented the fact you didn’t invite him back.’
‘It was bloody ages ago. If he did and he’s responsible for the fire, why would he wait until now? Why not torch the place back in 2016?’
‘Okay, take me through it all properly. Explain why you invited him around.’
He released a sigh and rubbed a hand over his face, as if to erase the sudden irritation he was feeling. ‘We were fostered together for a while with Tucker’s father, William, who was like our older brother. We got on quite well but we didn’t stay in touch much after we left that home – just the odd phone call, catch-up now and again. We knew he was married, had a kid of his own, and then we found out about the accident and went to his funeral. Kirk felt sorry for William’s boy, Tucker. It reminded him of how we were – fatherless – so after we moved here permanently in 2016, he suggested we make an effort to get
to know Tucker, for his dad’s sake. We invited him to the house but he was a prickly, rude, horrid little shit.’
‘Have you noticed anything missing from your house the last few months?’
He rubbed a hand over his chin again and blinked in disbelief. ‘I can’t think of anything. I suppose he could have stolen things, but if he did, I didn’t notice – maybe the odd misplaced game for the PlayStation, but they reappeared and I thought the cleaner had moved them. Shit! It could have been him. The sneaky little bastard. I can’t believe it! Do you think he’s responsible for the fire?’
‘We’re investigating all possibilities.’
‘It was a goodwill gesture and look what’s happened. We should never have bothered with him.’
Natalie was inclined to agree but she was somewhat annoyed by the man’s continued lack of concern over the deaths of Roxy, Cathy and Habib. These people meant nothing to him. He’d not mentioned them once. She’d leave him to stew for a while. It might make him reflect on what had happened.
‘If you wouldn’t mind waiting here, I’ll be back later.’
‘Can’t I leave? I’m not a suspect.’
‘I’d rather you stayed put. As I said a moment ago, we are investigating all possibilities, and something new has come to light. We’ve obtained a financial report for the nightclub. It showed a substantial loss of earnings and we’ve learnt that you are, in fact, in a great deal of debt. We still can’t ignore the possibility that this could be deliberate arson for insurance purposes.’
He released another hefty sigh and sat back in his chair.
Thirty-Three
Wednesday, 4 July – Late Afternoon
David drained his whisky glass. The amber liquid had slipped down nicely and he was feeling the rosy after-effects of drinking a good brand. Of course, he wouldn’t be able to share that knowledge with anyone and had poured all the contents of the Macallan single malt that had set him back almost fifty pounds into an empty bottle of blended Scotch from Aldi that had cost eleven pounds. Natalie didn’t like whisky so she’d be none the wiser.
His luck had held out and one of his further scratch cards had rewarded him with a hundred pounds so he’d treated himself and bought a DVD for him and the kids to watch. He poured another glass and scowled for a brief moment. Josh had poo-pooed the video and gone to his room instead. Still, Leigh had seemed please by his choice, and they planned to watch it together when she finished her homework. He’d replaced the kitty money and even bought Natalie a bottle of wine. It was nice to feel like a good father and husband. He had half an hour before Leigh would be down. He ambled into his office and pulled out his phone. He’d put the remaining winnings from the cards into his online casino account and felt like a quick flutter on roulette. He was on a winning streak. It seemed a shame to not see it through.
Natalie was discussing the results of the interviews with her team.
‘He has means and motive,’ said Ian, speaking of Paul Sadler.
‘You reckon he’d burn down the house, knowing Roxy was inside?’ Murray played around with some paperclips, stringing them together into a long chain. Natalie had noticed he fiddled a lot when he was getting frustrated – foot tapping, twiddling pens and messing about with stationery items. ‘Tucker’s got a motive too. He might have accidentally set fire to the house and now be covering his own back. Habib was going to grass him up, so he killed him. Not sure why he’d kill Cathy though.’ Murray scowled at his own theory.
‘We can’t even be certain that Paul was actually in Linnet Lane. We only have a statement from a very frightened girl who can’t recall seeing him that night. Habib may well not have seen anyone. He could even have been spooking her, winding her up or coming up with some nonsense to take her mind off what they’d been doing. I agree Paul has motive to burn down the house but he’d have to know where the Langs lived first. He had an alibi. And then there’s the whole matter of Cathy. Why would he kill her?’ Natalie put her hands behind her head then dropped them quickly. She could smell her own armpits. It’d been a long day cooped up in stuffy interview rooms. She’d not gleaned any new information from Kirk, who’d been as dumbstruck as his brother to discover Tucker had been letting himself into their house while they were out. Both men had offered up alibis for their whereabouts at the time of Habib’s murder and she’d let them go for now. She had a sudden urge to freshen up. She collected her bag, containing make-up and deodorant. ‘Back in a minute. Ian, check through those messages and make sure there’s nothing else urgent.’
She spotted Mike in the corridor, striding towards her, head down, but dived off into the ladies’ rather than speak to him again. She stared at her sorry reflection with a sigh and unclipped her hair, searching in her bag for a brush. The door opened and closed with a bang and she looked up to see Mike reflected in the mirror.
He held up both hands. ‘I’m not here to fight. I saw you come in and I wanted to apologise. You’re absolutely, one hundred per cent not needy and I was a complete dick to say so.’
‘Yes, you were.’
‘That’s all.’
‘Okay.’
He paused by the door, his hand resting gently on the handle. ‘You didn’t mind me being with another woman?’
She rested her hands on the sink. ‘Part of me did but I don’t have any claim on you. You’re not a possession.’
‘That’s the most sensible thing a woman’s ever said to me.’
‘You just don’t know the right women,’ she replied, glad that any tension between them had lifted.
‘Maybe I do.’
‘Don’t, Mike.’
‘Don’t Mike, what?’
‘Don’t flirt with me.’
He gave an almost imperceptible nod and left. She ran the tap and waited for hot water to come through before holding her hands under it until they turned red and the veins rose up on the backs of them. She needed to wash away the smell of the day and get ready for the evening and her next interview with Paul Sadler. This wasn’t over yet.
Paul Sadler had the dishevelled appearance and smell of a homeless man with sunken cheeks and hollow eyes, and stubble covering his cheeks and chin. He admitted to having been thrown out of the nightclub and, between tearful break-downs, confessed he’d got carried away and hurt one of the prostitutes at Extravaganza.
‘She encouraged me to be rough with her, even said she enjoyed being tied up tightly and spanked hard, and when I did those things to her, she said I was too rough, that I’d forced her to do things she didn’t want to do. She started screaming and I covered her mouth with my hand but she bit it. I didn’t mean to hurt her but she was hysterical so I slapped her, maybe a little too hard. Gavin must have heard all the noise and rushed into the room with his brother, and they went crazy when they saw the blood. I tried to explain it was an accident, but they wouldn’t listen to me. They frogmarched me naked down the back staircase, tossed me into the yard, chucked my clothes out after me. They took a photograph of me lying there and threatened to distribute it to everyone I knew if I went back and to tell my friends and family what I really liked doing to women. I didn’t return.’
‘Did Cathy know about your trips to Extravaganza?’
He rested his elbows on the table and slouched forward, his face a picture of misery. ‘She had no idea about them. She’d have gone apeshit if she’d found out.’
Natalie wondered if Cathy had found out about his visits and challenged Paul. He seemed close to the boys – he was still living with and looking after them – so maybe he couldn’t face her leaving him and taking them away. She dragged herself away from such wild speculation. Facts. She needed facts.
‘Paul, remind me again where you were on Saturday night after Roxy went out.’
‘Home. With Seth and Charlie. We played video games. I went to bed with Cathy. We told you that before when you asked. I was at home all night.’ His eyes widened as he spoke and he leant closer to her, both indicators of his innocence.
It was true. They had little to no evidence to prove Paul had been elsewhere that night.
Natalie tried a different approach. ‘You were spotted on Linnet Lane that night.’
He pushed himself upright, brows pulled low on his forehead. ‘Impossible! I wasn’t there. Someone’s mistaken. I was at home. Ask the boys.’
It was hopeless. Their potential suspect had an alibi for that night. Although he had motive, they couldn’t prove he was at the scene of the crime, and a dead boy couldn’t act as a witness.
Meanwhile, upstairs, Ian and Lucy were searching for information on Paul and hadn’t come across anything useful. Ian stopped working to reply to a text. It was the fifth that had come in while they’d been in the office and Lucy couldn’t help but say something.
‘You got a new text buddy?’
‘It’s Scarlett.’
‘Is it back on with you two?’
‘Might be.’
‘That’s good to hear.’
‘Maybe. Maybe not.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’ll be on again but only if I quit my job.’
‘What do you want to do?’
‘I’m torn. I spoke to Murray about it and he says I should stick to my career. It might not work out with Scarlett and I’ll be left wishing I hadn’t given up something I love doing.’
‘Sound advice from the big man. I’m with him on that.’
‘But I love her and Ruby too. What if I do this job and grow weary of it and wish I’d never turned my back on them? It works both ways.’
‘I’m more of a follow-your-heart person. Things shift and change all the time. You can’t legislate for the future. You think too deeply.’
‘Think? Shit! You’ve just reminded me. Natalie asked me to check her messages and I haven’t done it yet.’ He leapt to his feet and scurried to the desk, leafing through the pile of notes and documents. He stopped at one and raced to the phone, dialled a number.
‘Hi. Yes. You left a message for DI Ward. Really? Uh-huh. Okay. Can you send a link across to the email? Thanks.’
