by Angus McLean
I noted the other two men were both wearing ties, and immediately gave myself a mental uppercut. So much for being smart. They also all had coffees at hand.
Roger – or the Chairman, as he liked to be called – gestured for us all to sit. ‘Let’s get started.’
The table was polished mahogany and the chairs were the sort of black and chrome jobs found in conference rooms the world over. Naturally mine was adjusted right back and I nearly fell on my arse when I sat down. Recovering as best I could, I put my hands on the table and looked across at the other three.
‘You didn’t want to bring anyone with you, Dan?’ Roger asked.
‘No thanks.’ I shook my head. ‘I think I’m the best person to speak for myself, and I’ve got nothing to hide.’
I was giving them my best impression of a sincere schoolboy. Brenda resembled a bulldog chewing on a wasp. I don’t think she was buying it.
Alan went through some formalities before getting to the nitty gritty. ‘Look Dan, we’re not here to waste anyone’s time. I understand you’re aware of the reasons why we have suspended Michael Manning’s license, and I’m sure you can appreciate that. As you know, it’s a privilege not a right to be a licensed private investigator, and we simply cannot have the industry brought into disrepute.’
I nodded my understanding. They didn’t want to hear from me yet, so I kept my trap shut and listened. While I was concentrating I felt my phone vibrate with an incoming text. I ignored it. It vibrated again. Realising they had noticed, I smiled apologetically and took it out. ‘Sorry, I’ll just flick it off.’ I tapped the message icon instead and saw it was from Molly.
URGENT!! SENT YOU EMAIL YOU NEED!!
I opened the emails, ignoring the impatient stares I was getting. Sure enough, she’d sent me an email a few seconds ago with several attachments.
‘My apologies, folks,’ I said, not looking up, ‘but this relates to why we’re here today.’
Bulldog Brenda sighed heavily and drummed her pen on the table top. I scanned through the attachments at light speed. Molly had come through alright; this was pure gold. Feeling a lift inside, I closed the phone and put it away, apologising again.
‘Are you quite ready?’ Brenda said.
‘Yes, thank you.’
‘Sorry it’s such an inconvenience.’
I instinctively made to retort but caught a warning look from Roger and shut it again.
‘Right, let’s get to your situation.’ Alan glanced at his notes. ‘We have received a complaint from the Police about the actions of Mr Manning, and with you being in partnership with him, there is a flow-on effect.’ He looked across at me. ‘We need to be sure that you are a fit and proper person to hold an investigator’s license, and are not acting in such a way as to bring the industry, and thereby the integrity of the authority, into disrepute. Are we all clear on that?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘So,’ Alan said, ‘tell us why we shouldn’t suspend your license.’
***
The interview room was grey and square and cold. The tube lighting overhead was too bright.
Mike and Evans had been waiting long enough to have emptied the paper cups of water they’d been given. Evans had ensured the DVD unit was switched off while they were left alone.
The door opened and Vance entered with a female detective in tow. She was lugging two large ring binder folders packed with pages, many of which had coloured Post-It tags attached. Vance himself carried a box that he put down with a hefty thud before turning to them.
‘Mr Evans,’ Vance said, ‘long time no see.’
Evans stood and shook his hand briefly. Mike stayed where he was. Evans looked pointedly at his watch, then back at Vance.
‘Yeah, I know you’ve been waiting,’ Vance said, holding up a hand to stop him from making a big deal of it. ‘It would have been a lot quicker if you’d come to the right police station.’
‘We were in the neighbourhood,’ Evans returned calmly, ‘my apologies if you’ve had to rush to get here, but we have been waiting for the better part of an hour.’ He lowered himself into his seat again. ‘I’m sure you can appreciate we are very keen to get this dealt with.’
‘Of course. As are we.’ Vance turned his attention to Mike. ‘So you understand why we need to speak to you, Mike,’ he said. It wasn’t a question.
‘Yep.’
‘And you’re obviously happy to do that, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.’
‘Yep.’
‘And you’ve had time to consult with your lawyer?’
‘Yep.’
Vance paused and looked him up and down. ‘A man of few words,’ he said.
Mike didn’t think that needed an answer.
‘Well that needs to change pretty quick, pal,’ Vance told him. ‘Otherwise we’re all just wasting time here.’
Mike eyed him coolly. ‘You ask your questions, pal, and I’ll tell you the truth.’
Vance looked to Evans. ‘Shall we?’
Evans gestured for him to go ahead. ‘By all means, detective.’
Mike noticed the little tactical plays Evans was using. Referring to Vance as a detective rather than as a DS was a subtle play of disrespect. If Vance made an issue of it he would look a fool. Evans had also directed Mike to sit on a particular side of the table.
The table was small and square and bolted to the floor. A black microphone box was screwed to the top. A laminated sheet was taped down in front of Mike. It was a step-by-step guide for the interviewer to refer to, including the rights to be given and the process to follow when using the DVD machine.
The interviewer would naturally want to sit there, and Vance would now have to ask Mike to move. It was another subtle arm wrestle for control.
Mike waited while Vance and the female detective consulted in hushed tones. All in all, this was going to be very interesting.
***
‘I think the main point to remember,’ I said, ‘is that Mike hasn’t been arrested, and he hasn’t been charged with any offence. Yes he’s a person of interest in a homicide investigation, but he’s not the only one.’
I didn’t know that for a fact, but I figured they didn’t either.
‘And in fact, he’s with the Police as we speak.’
Roger looked up sharply from the notes he was making. ‘He’s been arrested?’
‘No. He has voluntarily gone into the station to speak to them and answer whatever questions they may have.’ I didn’t need to say that he probably had been arrested since. Roger had been around long enough to figure that one out for himself.
‘The last we heard he was on the run,’ Alan said, glancing at Brenda. ‘What’s changed?’
‘Look, Mike was never on the run. That’s just hyperbole that’s been put out into the public arena. Being on the run indicates he’s escaped custody, or some kind of Bonnie and Clyde scenario. He was never actually arrested.’
‘Unlike yourself,’ Brenda interjected.
I slid my left sleeves up to show them the strapping. I gave the hand an awkward flex for good measure, wincing at the pain. It didn’t hurt that bad, but I needed them to get the point.
‘What happened was two young uniformed cops turned up, in response to Mike’s one-one-one call, and instead of finding out what was actually going on, they saw blood on my hands and threw me on the ground. They sprained my wrist and handcuffed me.’ I pulled my sleeves down again. ‘So technically I was arrested, yes. I wasn’t charged, however, once they figured out I had nothing to do with it.’
‘And Mr Manning?’ Brenda chewed a bit more on the wasp. ‘Why did he run, if he’d done nothing wrong?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said easily, ‘but my best guess is he saw me get roughed up, they grabbed him as well, and he panicked.’
***
‘It was a knee-jerk reaction,’ Mike said. ‘I panicked.’
‘Why? You’re an ex-soldier, I’m sure you’ve been in stressful situations before,’ Va
nce said.
‘I’ve never come home to find a girl I was involved with dead on my floor. It’s not a normal situation.’
Vance was silent, trying to draw him out. Mike stayed silent. Dan was a master interviewer himself, and the two most important things an interviewer could do were to build rapport – that had failed so far – and use silences to force the interviewee to fill the gap. Mike was dead certain that was going to fail too.
‘Did you understand that you were under arrest?’
‘No.’
‘Which part of it did you not understand?’ the female detective interjected. Her name was Gardner, and Mike had taken an instant dislike to her. ‘The handcuffs, the words “you’re under arrest”, or what?’
‘Nobody ever handcuffed me, and nobody ever said I was under arrest,’ Mike said, giving her a cold look. ‘The cop grabbed me, waved a can of pepper spray at me and told me to get on the ground, so I did. Then I saw them roughing up Dan, he was in pain, and obviously they were going to do the same to me.’
‘So you ran.’
‘As I said, it was a knee-jerk reaction to a bad situation. It wasn’t something I thought about at the time.’ Mike paused, remembering the pointers Evans had given him. ‘Sometimes I get a bit anxious when people get aggressive like that. I was captured once by a foreign army and held at gunpoint. It’s something I’m still dealing with.’
Gardner gave him sceptical. ‘A foreign army? Really?’
‘I served in the Balkans, what you probably think of as Croatia, Bosnia, etcetera. When I was there it was a war zone, lots of ethnic cleansing and extreme violence. Getting captured by any of the sides involved was not a good idea.’
‘So you have PTSD, is that what you’re saying?’ Gardner prodded. ‘And you freak out when people get aggressive with you?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Is that what Sarah did, Mike? Did she get aggressive?’
Mike shook his head, his exasperation showing. ‘No, that’s not what happened at all. Sarah never got aggressive with me, or probably anyone. She wasn’t like that.’
‘Really? You sure about that?’
‘Yes, I’m sure about that.’
Her retort was cut off by Evans. ‘He’s answered the question, constable. Please don’t try and cross-examine him.’
Mike smiled inwardly at the little dig. It pleased him even more that Gardner clearly didn’t appreciate it.
‘So let’s go back to the start, when you say you came home and found Sarah dead on the floor,’ Vance said. He leaned forward, elbows on the edge of the table and his hands clasped together, giving Mike his full attention. ‘What’s the first thing you saw when you opened the door?’
‘The kitchen bench.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘The kitchen bench. It’s right there.’
Vance gave an “Uh-huh” and waited expectantly. Mike looked at him. ‘What?’
Vance sighed. ‘What was the next thing you saw?’
‘I opened the door, it opens into a little foyer thing with the kitchen off to the side, I went in and as I was closing the door I saw her.’ Mike paused, gathering his thoughts for a second. ‘Straight ahead is the living area, she was on the floor, facing away from me. Face down.’ He swallowed. ‘She had blood on her head, I could see it from where I was. She wasn’t moving.’
‘Was anybody else there?’
‘No.’
‘Uh-huh. What did you do next?’
‘I dropped my bag and went straight to her. I was talking, trying to get a response from her. She didn’t respond. I checked her, she had no pulse.’ Mike stopped, feeling a wave of emotion welling up inside. He swallowed hard, took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He was staring at the wall, blinking hard. There was no way he wanted to lose it in front of these guys.
‘What did you do, Mike?’ Vance pressed.
‘I thought she was dead. She was dead, obviously. I called for an ambulance straight away, and I called Dan.’
‘Why did you call him?’ Gardner said.
Mike shrugged. ‘I dunno. I needed some help, I guess.’
‘To try and hide what you’d done?’
Mike scowled, and even Vance showed a flicker of annoyance.
‘Why would I call for an ambulance then try and cover up something I’d done?’ Mike snapped. ‘What a stupid question.’
‘Then why was it?’ Vance took the lead again.
‘He’s my best mate. I’ve just found someone I was involved with dead in my apartment. I wanted some support.’
Chapter 16
‘We understand that you were arrested again just last night,’ Alan said. His tone was as bland as the rest of him, but I had the feeling there was a tiger lurking under that sheep’s outfit. ‘Tell us about that.’
I gave a shrug. ‘I was having a run in the Botanical Gardens and got grabbed by a couple of detectives. Evidently they’d been following me and believed I was with Mike. They pepper sprayed me, arrested me, and took me through to Central for interviewing.’
‘Were you charged?’ Roger asked.
‘No.’
‘Warned for anything?’
‘No.’
‘Then why did they arrest you?’
‘As I said, they thought I was with Mike. They arrested me for Accessory to Murder, but released me without charge.’
‘Why?’ It was Brenda’s turn. Her mood hadn’t lifted yet. Maybe she was just having a bad day.
‘Because they had no evidence. They acknowledged as much in the presence of my lawyer.’
‘And I presume this is the same lawyer who is representing Mr Manning?’ Brenda asked.
‘Yes.’
‘How did this lawyer get Mr Manning to surrender?’ Alan said, not looking at me.
I shrugged again. ‘I don’t know, you’d have to ask him.’
‘Was that something you organised, Mr Crowley?’ He looked directly at me now, assessing me closely.
‘No.’ Molly had made the call, not me, so technically I wasn’t lying on that one.
‘Why do I not believe you?’ All trace of the bland sheep was gone now, and Alan was showing his true colours.
‘Because suspicion makes you good at your job?’ I tried helpfully.
Alan cocked an eyebrow and didn’t smile. Roger looked disapproving. Brenda continued to chew on her wasp.
‘We also have information that whilst in police custody you were involved in a fight with two other prisoners,’ Alan continued. ‘Is that true?’
‘I wouldn’t call it a fight so much as an assault.’
He looked at me with surprise. ‘Sorry, did you just admit that you assaulted the other two prisoners? I’d think very carefully about what you said, Mr Crowley.’
It was my turn for the surprise angle. ‘No, I’m not saying that at all. What I’m telling you is that I was assaulted, first by one, then by the second guy. I had to defend myself.’ My eyes narrowed. ‘So you’ve been told I assaulted them?’
‘Exactly.’ Alan checked his notes again. ‘One of them has concussion from being knocked out, and the other one has torn ligaments in his knee.’ He looked up at me. ‘Is that what you call self-defence, Mr Crowley?’
‘Yeah, it is,’ I said, as I removed a sheaf of papers from my inside coat pocket. ‘And here’s the evidence to support it.’
I fanned out several pages in front of them. ‘These are the injuries I received from those two turkeys.’ I pointed them out on the colour photos Molly had taken earlier, detailing each one. I reached inside my jacket and removed my phone. I opened up the email I’d got from Molly, and tapped on the first attachment. I slid the phone across the table.
‘This here is a newspaper article about one of them, the second guy. You’ll see he’s a patched Hells Angels gang member only recently released from an eight year term for supplying methamphetamine.’ I looked Alan in the eye, game face on. ‘That’s on top of his previous jail time for robberies and assaults. He’s
a very bad man.’
‘What about the first guy?’ Roger said.
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know his name, but I know he was in there for a street robbery. He stood over someone for a phone apparently.’
‘And how do you know all this, Mr Crowley?’ Brenda piped up. ‘Or is it just guesswork?’
I gave her a direct look, just managing to maintain my cool. I was getting pretty tired of being second-guessed by people who should know better.
‘We did our research. I spoke to the cops last night, then we did some online searching this morning.’ I paused, debating with myself about whether to take the next step or not. The hell with it; this was game time. It was win or lose. ‘Rather than just take the word of someone at face value, I thought I should investigate it.’
Alan pursed his lips. ‘Are you insinuating that’s what you think we’re doing, Mr Crowley?’
‘No,’ I said carefully, ‘what I think is happening here is that you’re following a procedure that needs to be followed, for obvious reasons. However,’ I looked each of them in the eye, ‘I believe the information you’ve been given is from an unreliable source and should be treated with caution.’
‘You don’t know where we have got our information from,’ Brenda retorted with some feeling. ‘I really don’t think …’
‘With all due respect, ma’am,’ I interjected, ‘you need to think. This is not a game of tiddly-winks here; this is the livelihood of respected private investigators on the line. The decisions you make have wide-spreading ramifications, and those decisions need to be based on fact. Check the next attachments to that email. There are a couple of news articles that may assist you in assessing the credibility of the informant you’re using.’
I left them to read. My ribs and wrist were hurting. I watched them read the articles, passing the phone between themselves. Thank God for Buck and his inside knowledge.
Nine years ago Karl Vance had been the lead investigator on a service station robbery. It went to trial and the defence claimed that the confession obtained from the teenage robber had been obtained under duress. In short, they stated Vance had roughed the kid up and intimidated him into coughing. The charges were kicked to touch.
