[Eddie Collins 01.0] The Third Rule

by Andrew Barrett

  Henry’s pause was longer than mere surprise. He was calculating. “Nonsense.”

  Waste of a pause, Mick thought. “Oh yes it did. I have friends in the right places, you see. Forensic friends.”

  Henry flinched.

  “Have the police visited you yet?”

  “Obviously not, since I didn’t know the car had been recovered.”

  “Well, this’ll be good practice for you. Mind if I smoke?”

  “No, you may not smoke.” Henry stood, hovering over Mick as though it might incline him to leave sooner. It didn’t work. “Mr Lyndsay, tell me why you’re here or get out.”

  Mick sipped. “You look very nervous to me, Mr Deacon. Not that I’m insinuating any connection with the murders.”

  “Murders?”

  “That’s what it’s called if you run people over and leave them for dead.”

  Henry folded his arms; lips tight.

  “They can put you on a Rule Three for that. They can kill you for it.”

  “As you said, Mr Lyndley–”

  “Lyndon. Mr Lyndon. Just call me Mick.”

  “As you said, I had no connection–”

  “I wouldn’t cast aspersions, Mr Deacon.” Mick paused. “I’ll let the evidence do that.”

  “I want you to leave.”

  Mick looked up. “I spoke with your father on Tuesday.”

  Henry’s eyes widened slightly.

  “He mentioned you, and your business. Things not going too well, I understand.”

  “Things are just fine, now if you’ll–”

  “Nice shirt you’re wearing.”

  Henry reached out and grabbed Mick by the sleeve. Mick looked at Henry. Henry let go and sighed as though he’d lost the war as well as the battle.

  “Is it an Oxford & Hunt? Always liked those.”

  Henry closed his eyes. “Yes, it’s an Oxford. Now, please leave.”

  “It’ll come out, that you killed the man on Leeds Road, and that little boy on Westbury Avenue. The man was Peter Archer. He was thirty-eight, had two grown up daughters. And the kid was called Sam. Not quite twelve years old.” Mick watched. “It will come out, Henry.”

  “Get. Out.”

  “You were driving that Jaguar that day, at that time. They recovered your broken mobile phone, the one you smashed. All they have to do is find out when it was last used, who you called at what specific time, and… Bingo!”

  Henry’s top lip shone with new sweat. “Someone else could have used my phone and then–”

  “But what about the woman?”

  “What woman?”

  “The one on the bus. She saw you throw Mr Archer under it. She recognised you through the side window of your car.”

  “Gotcha, Mr Lynon. The side windows of my car are blacked out, she couldn’t have seen me.”

  “Then it was you?”

  “I never said that. I said…” He paced the floor, his hands began flapping around.

  Mick let him rant. An innocent man really would have thrown him out by now, or threatened to ring the police if they disliked him as much as Henry seemed to dislike him. Henry was… afraid.

  “I meant that she couldn’t have seen whoever was driving my car.”

  “And then there’s the shirt.”

  “What shirt?”

  Mick stood. Stepped forward. “The piece of burnt shirt hanging out of the filler pipe.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Henry pointed to the door. “Now get out, before I call the police.”

  Mick stood his ground, eye to eye with Henry Deacon. “Call them, I insist. We can wrap this whole matter up here and now.” Mick smiled. “Make a great story.” He began walking out of the lounge. “Did you get help burning the car or did you do it yourself?”

  Henry followed. “Where’re you going? You can’t go through there.”

  “Who helped you?”

  “Stop it.”

  “Think of me as the one who’s trying to find the truth, Henry; the genuine truth. When the police get a hold of you after I tell them about the female witness, they won’t be so easy on you. They have quotas to fulfil.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “Maybe you think they’d go easy on you, mislay some evidence, get you off the hook, that kind of thing; you’re the son of our Justice Secretary. Wouldn’t look good if you went to the slaughterhouse, would it?”

  “What do you want?” Deacon closed his eyes.

  Mick froze; just on the threshold from the hallway to what he thought might be Henry’s bedroom. There were no footsteps behind him; he knew Henry stood there like a lame animal waiting to be shot. He relished the moment and praised the gods for giving him this job.

  He opened the door and discovered the room was a bathroom. Very neat, polished tiles, Jacuzzi bath the size of a small pool, two sinks, bidet, even palms in the corner by the bay window. Looked like it belonged in Florida. Mick closed the door.

  He straightened his face, turned, and looked at Henry’s slumped shoulders. His hands had gone back inside his pockets. A good sign, that. Mick stepped across the hallway, opened another door and sure enough, it was Henry’s bedroom. Big TV hanging on one wall, abstract prints splashed the one opposite, the one where a huge super-king-size bed sprawled. The third wall, opposite a pair of mirrored French doors that presumably gave out onto a private patio, was wardrobe space and there was a door too, probably to the en-suite. “Mind if I sit in here?”

  Henry tagged along in a slovenly manner.

  Mick stood in the centre of the massive room. Slowly he turned, taking it all in. Next to the French doors was a cream leather sofa and Mick chose to conduct his interview there. “Mind if I help myself to a drink?” He didn’t wait for an answer, just took a crystal tumbler from the mahogany table next to the sofa and poured a generous quantity of what he hoped might be whisky. “Want one?”

  Henry shook his head.

  “Sit down, Henry. Don’t mind if I call you Henry?” The bed was made. Or it hadn’t been slept in last night. It would explain the tiredness.

  Henry sat on the bed, eyes creeping to the void beneath the wardrobes, the flap still open, exposing the darkness underneath.

  Mick followed his gaze, wondered what was so interesting under there, and wondered why the flap should be open at all. It was wasted space covered by a fixed valance. Usually. Unless you planned to store something under there. Was it Henry’s drug store?

  He placed the tumbler on the occasional table just inside the French doors, and fumbled inside his jacket pocket.

  There was a click.

  He brought out a dictaphone.

  “I told you, I’m not giving interviews.”

  “Good. This isn’t an interview. This,” he put the dictaphone down, “is switched off. See? The things we’ll be talking about will not be on any record. You may speak freely to me.”

  Henry folded his arms.

  “I have the name and address of that woman, don’t forget. She swears blind she saw you in the car when those awful things happened. She’s a good witness too. Teacher. She’ll look great on a witness stand.”

  “If that’s the case, why haven’t you passed her details on to the police?”

  “Who says I haven’t?”

  “Because you wouldn’t be here now. The police would be.”

  “I haven’t passed her details on to them. Yet. And I suppose you’re wondering why she didn’t go to them in the first place?”

  “Go on.”

  “We pay better.”

  Henry nodded, a smile of understanding passing across his lips. “Go on, Mr Lynford.”

  “Mick, Henry. Please call me Mick.” He sipped the liquor, appeared happy with the aftertaste and proceeded. “You sure I couldn’t smoke?”

  “Christ’s sake.” Henry rolled off the bed and slid the French door open a couple of feet. Light belched into the room.

  “Very kind.” He pulled out his cigarettes then fumbled the lighter
and dropped it. “Clumsy me.” He got on his knees and made a slow grab for it, eyes roaming as he did so.

  “What do you want to know?”

  Mick retrieved the lighter. There was nothing of note beneath the wardrobe that he could see from this angle. “I don’t want you in trouble. Seriously, I don’t. Please, though, just be straight with me and then I’ll be out of your hair and you can get on with whatever it was you were doing.”

  “Is it about my father? Because if it is–”

  “Do you know the name Lincoln Farrier?”

  Henry shook his head.

  “Thought not. Lovely bloke, seventy-eight years old. He died a week ago. Someone shot him with his own World War Two antique. Can you imagine that? How awful.”

  Henry shrugged.

  “He’d visited your father on the day he was shot.”

  “I’m still listening.”

  “Your father killed him.”

  “Wouldn’t have thought so. My father’s fingers are always spotless.”

  Mick struggled to conceal his surprise at Henry’s blasé attitude. If someone accused his father of murder, Mick would have hit them, after picking his chin up off the floor. Not Henry. Henry sat there checking over his nails. “Then who dirties their fingers on his behalf?”

  Henry shrugged again.

  “One last time before I have to begin threatening you again. And I do hate threats, they’re so ungentlemanly, don’t you think?”

  “Listen, I think we’ve exhausted our charitable conversation.”

  “Did you know that part of Morley Police Station burned down in the early hours of today?” Mick watched.

  Henry looked away. “No. And I don’t fucking care.”

  “The part that caught fire was the CSI office. That’s the place where all these forensic types work from. You know the ones, they go to murder scenes and burglaries and the like, and they find evidence. Clues. Can you imagine it! The place that houses evidence is burned down? How absurd, you’d think they would have a shit-hot kind of fire prevention system in place to protect all that sensitive evidence, wouldn’t you?”

  “Is this leading somewhere?”

  Mick sipped his drink, flicked ash through the French window and said, “It does have a shit-hot fire prevention system. The foam sprinklers came on almost immediately and put the thing out,” he waved an arm, “squat. Just like that.”

  Henry sat up.

  Mick could see his cheeks throbbing as he ground his teeth. “Good, eh? So all that lovely evidence will still be intact.”

  “So how does this relate to me?”

  Mick smiled. “Well, when you came home last night, sorry, this morning, did you notice a blue Ford Focus parked at the end of your street?”

  “No.” Henry shuffled on the bed, “I didn’t come back here at any time this morning. I was in my bed from around midnight.”

  “Strange. That blue Ford Focus belongs to me. I was sitting in it. I had my camera with me. It’s a beauty, one of those long range digital things that takes wonderful–”

  “Okay, okay, get to the point!”

  “The point is, the police will pop round and ask some questions, since that building houses evidence against you. But without hard evidence of your involvement with the arson, they’ll soon be on their way again. After all, they can’t force you to give your fingerprints to compare with those they will find at the scene. And since Sir George has protected you from ever having a police record, the fingerprints from the scene will mean nothing because you’re not on file. But if I were to… help them, perhaps giving them the information I have, they might try a little harder. I’m not sure, but I think if they have a named suspect for a job they can insist you give fingerprints and DNA. Even your dad might not be able to lend you a hand. See what I mean?”

  Henry stood up, straightened his trousers and fixed himself a drink. And while he did, Mick had that warm feeling inside that comes only from being able to tell lies based upon a hunch so slender that it was transparent. And subsequently being proved correct.

  “Let’s assume you’re right, Mr Lyndon, how do I know you won’t carry out your threat anyway?”

  “Henry.” Mick’s eyes looked earnest. “I am interested only in Lincoln Farrier’s murder. I assure you. I’m not interested in the bloody CSI office, and I certainly don’t give a flying shit about Mr Archer on Leeds Road.”

  “Then why say you have friends on the forensics team?”

  “Because I do, sort of. I used to go out with a girl from the labs in Wetherby. Shame though, she was married–”

  “Let me make myself clear. I’ll offer you the information you need, Mr Lyndon, but if anything ‘leaks’ out, I will have you killed.”

  “But–”

  “I’ve listened to your threats. Now have you listened to mine? Do you understand?”

  “Why not have me killed anyway?” It was a thought that speared Mick’s mind as soon as the words ‘I’ll have you killed’ fell out of Henry’s bloodless lips.

  “I have my reasons, Mick Lyndon of The Yorkshire Echo. You’ll be of use to me.”

  “I will?”

  “You think you’re the only one to benefit from this little meeting?”

  “I have to admit it, I thought I was.” Mick was on the defensive now; he prayed he wasn’t in over his head. He was a hero, it was true. But only inside his own mind.

  “Do we have a bargain?”

  Mick nodded. “You can trust me.”

  Henry gulped the liquor, refilled and paced the bedroom. “His name is Sirius; that’s all I know; don’t know if it’s his first name or his last name, whatever. He’s the one who carries out my father’s dictates. And if what you’re saying is correct, about this old chap visiting my father on the day he died, then that’s where I would be looking.”

  “How do you know this Sirius man?”

  Henry stopped pacing. “Because he’s the one my father sent to help me sort out the Jaguar and then burn the CSI building.”

  Mick showed huge restraint; he almost fell off the sofa. Instead, he drained his glass, looked indifferent. He pictured the front page, the meetings with Rochester. He coughed, lit another cigarette and then asked, “I’m curious to know how he’s going to get you out of this mess if it does escalate. I mean, I have solemnly promised not to tell the police about your involvement, and I will stick by my word, Henry; but if they find out through the course of their own investigations, what will he do to help you then?”

  The question brought a smile to Henry Deacon’s pale face. He sat back on the bed, sipped his drink. “There will be no more help.”

  “Surely, he can’t let you…”

  “Die? As you said, they’d take great pleasure in executing me; a Home Office bullet can cost more than one life. But it would never get that far.”

  “You saying your old man would fly you out?”

  Henry laughed. “He’ll have me killed. But he won’t wait until the full story comes out.”

  Mick puffed furiously on the cigarette until it burned his lips. “Forgive my asking this, but if he’s so determined to keep you out of the press and out of the slaughterhouse, because he’s worried about his career, then…” Mick stopped. Even though Henry Deacon was a walking turd, he found his tact had abandoned him.

  “Why didn’t he kill me earlier?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Because I blackmailed him.”

  “With what?”

  “Right now, I can look forward to a swift departure, but if I gave out my secret before I died, and especially to a member of the press, my departure may be elongated somewhat.”

  “Shit.” Mick slurred the word. “You say, ‘before you died’? What do you mean by that?”

  “I have things to say, but I daren’t say them while I’m alive.”

  “Then, how will–”

  “Search for them. I’m sure if anyone can find my secret, Mr Lyndon, it will be you.”

  “Is this the
‘use’ you have for me?”

  55

  Thursday 25th June

  Eddie pressed end, put the phone away. He knew from their conversation last night that Mick would be paying Deacon Junior a visit this morning, and had wondered if news of the arson might interest him.

  He stood at Ros’s side looking at the state of their building. The side windows had blown out where the small storeroom and exhibits lockers were. The rest of the building appeared not too badly damaged; warped gutters, charring to the entrance door, melted UPVC window frames, smoke staining above them, cracked glass in some of the others, and even the drinks dispenser in the foyer had melted.

  Steam, or maybe the last tendrils of smoke, curled out of the windows and was dragged away by the breeze.

  “Hope you didn’t have anything of a personal nature in there.” Jeffery strode towards them from the main building, clipboard in hand, frustration glowing on his face.

  “What time did it happen?” Eddie asked. “Did the upload happen?”

  “Don’t know, and don’t know.”

  “What about our physical evidence, you checked on it yet?”

  “Don’t want to examine the Jaguar again,” sighed Ros.

  “The shirt sleeve,” Eddie said. “And the DNA, we’ve lost it all.”

  Jeffery’s clipboard flopped against the side of his leg. “Done a full inventory, everything is still there, no damage at all.”

  “Really?”

  “No, not fucking really!”

  “Can we go in?”

  Jeffery looked from Ros to the building. “No one’s going in there until a surveyor’s checked it out.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then we get suited up, go and see what caused it. I’ve got a fire investigator on the way. And someone’s coming from the lab too.” He looked directly at Eddie, “Evidence in the store is last on the list.”

  “Who’s doing the work with you?”

  “I called over Aadi from Bradford.”

  “I want to do it,” Eddie said.

  “Forget it, I have–”

  “Look, it’s our stuff in there–”

  Jeffery pointed his clipboard at Eddie, “Don’t question me again. I’m short of people, I have jobs coming out of my ears and I don’t have time to fanny about looking after your ego.”