Gareth Dawson Series Box Set

by Nathan Burrows

  “Sure, I’ll get it for you.” I got to my feet and walked into the bedroom where my phone was sitting on the bedside cabinet. After a couple of deep breaths, I returned to the lounge pretty sure that this would turn out okay. I’d been a bit worried at one point earlier on, but the fact I was being interviewed here as opposed to down at the station had to be in my favour. I walked back into the lounge and handed the phone to Malcolm. He looked at it before stabbing a finger at the home button. “The PIN’s 0109,” I said. The first of September. Our wedding anniversary, but Malcolm didn’t need to know that. He turned the phone over in his hands.

  “Do you mind if we look at the phone down at the station?” I paused before replying. I’d not been expecting that. “It won’t take long.”

  “It’s my work phone, though,” I replied. “I’m kind of stuck without it.” Although I didn’t want them taking my phone away and analysing it, I thought back to when I’d got the thing and remembered that it was after I’d gone straight. There wouldn’t be anything incriminating on it, anyway.

  “I’ll have it back as soon as I can, Gareth. I promise,” Malcolm said. “There are a couple of simple tests we can do on it to back up your movements, that’s all.” I knew there were, which is exactly why I’d left it in the pub with Big Joe for the evening. I also knew handing it over without putting up a bit of a fight would look odd.

  “Well, can I get it back as soon as they’re done then?” I asked Malcolm.

  “Sure, I’ll bring it back myself. How about that?” I nodded in reply. “Constable Barnes, could you do a receipt for the phone please?”

  I signed the paperwork for the phone, including ticking a box to say I was content for the police to look at the data on the phone, and watched as Constable Barnes put it into an evidence bag.

  “I’ll try to get it back to you by lunchtime if I can. At least you’ll have it back for the weekend.” Malcolm said. This reassured me as if they didn’t have it for too long then they wouldn’t be able to do much to it. Or could they copy everything onto a computer somewhere? I didn’t know and wished I’d looked into this more beforehand. David would know, but it was too late now, anyway. I answered a few more questions for Malcolm. What route I’d taken back from the pub to my flat, that sort of thing. About ten minutes later, he wound up the interview.

  “Gareth, thanks for cooperating on this.” He glanced down at his notebook. “I’ll speak to Mr Hayworth and Mr French, and get your phone back to you.” Malcolm got to his feet and headed for the door to the lounge, putting my phone into his pocket. Constable Barnes followed him out of the lounge and the two men stood at the front door. Malcolm turned and extended his hand. I shook it out of habit and tried to read his face. It was back to being impassive. “I’ll be in touch.”

  “How is the little shit, anyway?” I asked, realising that I’d not asked or been told about Robert’s condition. Malcolm stared at me, blinking once or twice before he replied.

  What he said next made my heart race. I didn’t have to fake the surprise on my face as it was real. Malcolm didn’t say anything else, but just turned and walked down the steps to the pavement. I closed the front door behind them and took a huge breath in before blowing it out of my cheeks. That explained why the Old Bill had turned up so quickly. I walked back into the lounge, feeling faint as my heart pounded at God knows what speed. Sitting down, I took another deep breath. I swallowed, wondering for a second if I was going to throw up.

  Robert Wainwright was dead.

  20

  Malcolm came back to the flat just after lunch with a policewoman and another male copper. At first, I assumed that they were returning my phone, letting me know they’d checked out my alibi and that I was off the hook. But that wasn’t why they were there at all.

  There was a piece of paper in Malcolm’s hand when I opened the door. He waved it at me, explaining that it was a warrant to search my flat. A Section 8 warrant, apparently. He then turned and introduced the policewoman who was standing next to him. What she said would be burned into my memory forever.

  “Gareth Dawson, I’m arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Robert Wainwright. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand?” She stumbled a few times over the order of the words, and I wondered if she’d ever arrested someone before.

  “You’re joking?” I looked from the policewoman to Malcolm and back again. “You are joking, aren’t you?” The next thing she said surprised me.

  “Are you okay? Can I get you a glass of water or anything?” This couldn’t be happening. She’d just arrested me on suspicion of murder, and now she was offering me a glass of bloody water?

  “I don’t believe this,” I said, realising that my hands were shaking.

  “We can talk down at the station, Gareth,” Malcolm said. I held my hands out in front of me to see how badly they were trembling. Malcolm misunderstood the gesture. “I’m not going to cuff you, Gareth.” As he walked me to the police car that was waiting outside my flat, he leaned over and whispered in my ear. “Don’t say a word until you get a solicitor. Understand?” I nodded in response and looked at my next door neighbour who’d chosen that exact moment to put his recycling bin out. Nosy bastard.

  As I was driven from my flat to the police station, I looked out of the window at the lush green trees and wondered how long it would be before I saw things like that again. We drove over a bridge that spanned the Norfolk Broads, and past a park called Whitlingham Broad where Jennifer and I had spent many happy hours. I racked my brains for what could have gone wrong. I was sure I’d covered everything. The only thing I could think of was that someone had blabbed. I was sure it wouldn’t have been Tommy — he was my oldest friend — and it wouldn’t be Big Joe. He had a reputation to protect, and being known as a grass would mean that the bulk of his customers would go nowhere near The Heartsease again. The only one left was David, but I couldn’t see him rolling over either. Why would he?

  When we arrived at the police station, I’d been "processed". Fingerprinted, swabbed, photographed, the whole works. I’d said nothing during the whole thing, doing exactly what Malcolm had advised. The only words I’d spoken were my name, address, date of birth, and the words "I’d like a lawyer, please". I couldn’t see any point winding up the Old Bill. I was deep enough in the shit as it was. I’d been expecting to be put in a cell while I was waiting for the duty solicitor, but Malcolm had shown me into an interview room instead. It was still a locked room, but it had to be more comfortable than a cell. I wouldn’t know for sure as I’d never been in one before.

  The only furniture in the interview room were four chairs and a small table, with a complicated looking recording machine on top of it. The walls were covered with pale blue carpet tiles, and there was an air conditioning unit on the wall behind me. It whirred occasionally but did nothing about the stench of sweat in the room. There were at least two cameras in the small room that I could see. Was there someone on the other end of them watching me? I had no idea.

  After what felt like hours, the door opened and Malcolm walked in. He was followed by the same policewoman from earlier. It was showtime. Malcolm put a grey laptop on the table and sat in one of the chairs opposite me. He left the door open and a young man walked in a few seconds later. He looked as if he was in his late twenties, very thin, and dressed in an off the peg suit. His blonde quiffed hair might have been fashionable in the eighties, but not since. He extended his hand and as I shook it, he introduced himself.

  “I’m Toby Cooper, the duty solicitor. You must be Gareth Dawson?” He spoke with a Norfolk accent, but not a broad one. His handshake was firm and reassuring, and I reappraised my initial negative assessment of him. He smiled, showing a brief glimpse of white teeth, and the skin crinkled around his pale blue eyes. He looked like a man who smiled a lot, but I didn’t know if this was
a good sign or a bad one.

  Malcolm shuffled in his chair and prodded at some buttons on the recording machine until a small green light came on.

  “This interview is being recorded and may be given in evidence if your case is brought to trial. We are in interview room one at Wymondham Police Station, Norfolk. The date is the 24th November, and the time by my watch is 15.25.” He was staring straight at me while he spoke, not reading from a card, and I guessed he’d done this a fair few times before. “I am Detective Inspector Malcolm Griffiths. The other police officer present is Sergeant Gemma Fitzsimmons. Also present is Mr Gareth Dawson, who has been charged on suspicion of murder. Gareth, please state your full name and date of birth.” I did as he requested, my mouth dry. I thought about asking for a glass of water but decided against it. “Also present is Toby Cooper, duty solicitor,” Malcolm continued before asking me if I agreed that there were no other persons present. I looked at the cameras before nodding in reply. “For the tape please, Gareth,” Malcolm said. A bit pointless when there was a video camera pointed at me, but rules were rules.

  “I agree, there’s no one else in the room,” I replied, my voice quiet. Malcolm rattled something off about free and independent legal advice, but I tuned him out and turned to look at the solicitor. He was sitting listening to Malcolm, an A4 size notepad at the ready. I glanced at the notepad. The page was empty, apart from my name and the date and time of the interview written across the top in neat, blockish handwriting.

  “So, Mr Dawson. I interviewed you this morning at your flat, voluntarily,” Malcolm said. No more first names then. “You informed me that last night you spent the evening at The Heartsease pub in the company of Mr Tommy Hayworth and Mr David French. Is that correct?” I nodded before remembering the tape.

  “Yes, that’s correct,” I replied, glancing at the solicitor who gave me an encouraging smile.

  “And you state you were there for the whole evening?”

  “Yes, I was.”

  “For the tape, we have obtained initial telephone statements from both Mr Hayworth and Mr French corroborating this statement. We have also recovered CCTV footage from The Heartsease pub which shows the suspect entering and leaving the establishment at the times he states.” Malcolm’s language had changed, becoming much more formal, but from what he was saying it was so far so good. They wouldn’t have arrested me without something, though. There had to be a reveal on the way. The only thing I knew so far was that I’d been wrong to doubt David. He’d come through.

  Malcolm continued. “We’ve also analysed the suspect’s phone, which shows that the phone was in The Heartsease pub for the stated period with several texts being sent during that time.” Good old Big Joe had done what I’d asked him, too. Malcolm looked at me, inscrutable as always. “Do you maintain that this was the course of events last night, Mr Dawson?”

  “Yes, I do,” I replied, trying to put some authority into my voice for the tape. “I spent the evening with my friends, in the pub, having a few beers and talking nonsense.” Malcolm’s stare bored into me, making me uncomfortable. He knew something, he had something else, I was sure.

  “Were you anywhere near The Griffin pub on the Yarmouth Road last night, Mr Dawson?” he asked.

  “No,” I replied. “I was not.”

  “Did you attack Mr Robert Wainwright last night, with a baseball bat, in an alleyway to the side of the pub?”

  “No, I did not,” I said, my voice wavering despite my attempts to keep it strong.

  He reached down to pick up his laptop and placed it on the table. He also pulled out a bunch of photographs from his briefcase which he lined up face down on the table between us. Malcolm opened the laptop and stabbed at a button to turn it on. We all sat in silence while the computer whirred into life, Malcolm's face was bathed in the blue light of the screen. After a few seconds, he flipped the laptop around so that the screen was pointing at me.

  “For the tape, I am showing the suspect the footage recovered from the occupants of a house in Yarmouth Road. The property is almost directly opposite The Griffin pub.” He leaned forward and pressed a button on the laptop. I watched as a grainy video started playing. The camera was focused on a car parked by the side of the road, and in the background, the outline of The Griffin could be seen. A figure appeared from the door of the pub. It was Robert. I watched, knowing what was coming as he raised his phone to his ear before disappearing down the alleyway to the side of the pub. I knew what the next thing the camera would show and, sure enough, I could be seen crossing the road a few seconds later. Although the camera was showing my back, I looked left and right as I crossed the road and my face could be seen in profile both times. As I got to the other side of the road, the video showed my right hand pulling the baseball bat halfway out of my pocket.

  In the bottom corner of the screen there was some white flashing text, showing a date of 1st January and 00:00hrs. I guessed that the date and time hadn’t been set up properly on the camera, but I couldn’t see how that would make any difference at all. I was still fucked. We sat in silence for a few seconds before I reappeared on the screen, this time walking directly toward the camera. My face could be seen without any problem at all this time, and Malcolm paused the video just before I disappeared from the shot. He turned over the photographs on the table to reveal screenshots from the video. There were three of them, one of my face from the right, one from the left, and one showing me looking directly at the camera. The camera which I hadn’t seen despite scouring the area repeatedly. The photographs looked as though they’d been tidied up in Photoshop to remove some of the grain from the video, but there was no doubt they were of me.

  “Officers have since visited Mr French, Mr Hayworth, and Mr Walcott to gain formal statements,” Malcolm said, looking directly at me. Who on earth was Mr Walcott? Malcolm must have seen my confusion. “Mr Joseph Walcott, the landlord of The Heartsease,” he continued. In all the time I’d been drinking there, I’d never known that was Big Joe’s name. I must have passed under the sign above the front door with his name on it a thousand times without reading it. Malcolm carried on. “All three gentlemen have retracted their earlier telephone statements, claiming they were operating under extreme pressure from you. Additionally, Mr Walcott has admitted to sending text messages from your phone on your instructions.” So, all three of them had rolled over. The only way that this could have happened is if the police had threatened them with perverting the course of justice or something like that. In a murder case as well. I think that would get me thinking if I was them. Me threatening Big Joe was a bit of a laugh though, and Malcolm must have known that.

  He leaned forward and straightened up the three photographs, lining them up. Looking at me, he pressed his lips together before speaking.

  “I think we’ll give you a few minutes with Mr Cooper.” He looked at his watch. “I am pausing this interview at 15:35 hours.” That had been the longest ten minutes of my life. Without another word, Malcolm got to his feet and left, followed by the policewoman. As the door closed behind them, Toby stood and shuffled round to the other side of the table so he was facing me. The look on his face was one of disappointment, almost as if he was looking at a child who's just been caught eating the posh biscuits. Not looking at a man who’d killed someone.

  “Well?” he asked. “Where do we go from here?”

  “I’m fucked, aren’t I?” I sighed. “Absolutely fucked. They’ve got me on camera walking toward him with a baseball bat, and I’ve got no alibi for the evening. Plus he was the man who killed my wife, so there’s motive in spades.”

  “Er, I think it’s safe to say you’re not in a fantastic position at the moment,” Toby said. “Now you know this conversation is protected, don’t you? The video cameras are now off, they can’t hear us, and anything you say is confidential.” I nodded to show that I understood, glancing toward the cameras. The red flashing light had gone off. “I take it you hit Mr Wainwright, then?” Toby asked. />
  What could I say to that? They had me on CCTV, and I had no alibi anymore. I felt numb.

  “Yeah, I hit him. I knew he’d be there, and I made sure I was there as well.” Toby scribbled in his notepad, glancing up at me a couple of times. “I’m surprised that the others rolled over so easily, though. I thought I was watertight with them.”

  “There were probably police with them up to the point that you were arrested. Just to be sure they couldn’t warn you,” Toby said. “And in terms of them rolling over, they were probably threatened with being arrested themselves. The maximum sentence for perverting the course of justice is life. It’s rarely given out, but that’s a big stick for the police to have.” I sat back in the chair, thinking about what Toby had just said. What would I have done if I’d been in their situation? If it was Tommy asking me for an alibi? I thought for a few seconds before realising that I would do exactly what they’d done. Friendship could only go so far.

  Toby and I chatted for maybe about ten minutes before he summarised my situation.

  “So, I think it’s fairly sure you’re about to be charged with murder.” Hearing him say that in such a normal tone of voice made my blood run cold. “They’ve got a motive. They’ve got evidence which places you at the scene, and they’ve got evidence to suggest that you planned it throughout to try to get away with it.” Toby looked at me, his face neutral. “That’s a no-brainer for the Crown Prosecution Service.”

  “But I didn’t mean to kill him,” I said, knowing I was close to tears. “I only wanted to hurt him, to pay him back.” Toby looked at me, his brow creased as he thought about what I’d said.

  “Well, we’re getting ahead of ourselves here but there may be legal options we can talk about further on down the line. Manslaughter might be your best option, but we’ll get to that later,” he replied. “Now DI Griffiths has got twenty-four hours to charge you, but knowing him he’s probably already got the go ahead from the CPS to charge you now. There’s nothing you can do, but I would advise saying nothing when you are charged.”