by Ben Sanders
‘Did you push him?’ Bowen said.
Devereaux shook his head. ‘Not my style.’ He looked at McCarthy. ‘I leave the arm-bending to others.’
McCarthy didn’t budge. Not even a dent.
Devereaux said, ‘He was apprehensive of me. I think even if he did have useful information, I would have struggled to get him to divulge it.’
Bowen nodded and looked down at the little triangle of table corralled by his forearms, as if consulting notes. ‘Your description of events to Inspector McCarthy on Tuesday when he found you at the address was that you’d found the house empty. Is that correct?’
‘That’s what I told him, yes.’
‘So in fact you lied to him?’
‘Yes.’
McCarthy let his chair down soundlessly. Devereaux didn’t look at him.
Bowen said, ‘You realise the gravity of that admission?’
Devereaux nodded. ‘It was necessary, based on what Turner had told me.’
Bowen’s eyes went back and forth a couple of times, clock-like. ‘Elaborate for me.’
‘Turner told me he had been questioned in relation to robberies dating back to October. He claimed he was assaulted by one of the officers interviewing him.’
‘I struggle to see how that entitled you to provide a false verbal report to a senior officer.’
‘If you could indulge me a few moments longer, I’m hoping I can alleviate your confusion.’
The thin smile again. Bowen spread upturned palms: please continue.
Devereaux said, ‘Turner couldn’t name the officer who assaulted him. The description he gave was vague. We were seated in his kitchen, and heard a car pull in off the street. Obviously, it was a police vehicle. Turner saw it and panicked, told me not to let anyone inside.’
‘Which is what you did.’
‘Which is what I did.’
‘Okay. So your contention is that Turner was so traumatised after being interviewed, he couldn’t face further contact with the police?’
‘It wasn’t the interview that bothered him. It was the physical assault that came with it.’
‘And knowing you’re a police detective, why was he prepared to talk to you?’
‘I told him I knew Howard Ford.’
‘And he believed that?’
‘He recognised my name. Ford had told him about me.’
Bowen smirked. ‘So you came highly recommended.’
‘I think he described me as an “okay dude”.’
Bowen’s face didn’t change: not even an eyebrow waver. ‘Sergeant, I’ll be honest with you. This all sounds like total bullshit.’
Devereaux didn’t answer.
Bowen said, ‘What? And because the guy’s dead, I’m meant to say, “Well, there’s no way to find out now so I guess we’ll have to take your word for it.”’
‘The postmortem might confirm whether he was recently assaulted.’
‘Yeah. Keep your fingers and toes crossed.’
Devereaux didn’t reply. He flipped his cellphone over, slid it across the table to Bowen with a flick.
Bowen looked down. He smiled. ‘I think it’s meant to be you that’s offered the phone call.’
‘Read my last received text.’
Bowen’s eyes took a long time to drop. He looked down and picked up the phone. Dampened keypad clicks seemed amplified in the quiet. He paused. He read.
Devereaux pictured it: Duvall’s file note says: Informed by Const. Charles Easton that Leroy Turner assaulted by Det Frank Briar during Q&A.
Bowen licked his lips and slid the phone left, to McCarthy. The Don leaned forward, skimmed the message, leaned back.
Bowen folded his arms. He looked at the table and ran a thumb down a sideburn. ‘Did Turner mention the name Charles Easton when you spoke to him?’
‘Here I was expecting an apology.’
Bowen didn’t reply.
Devereaux said, ‘No, he didn’t mention the name.’
The room was quiet. McCarthy’s face had lost a little blood. Bowen cocked a loose fist and checked his nails. ‘What did you do when you saw the unmarked car arrive?’ he said.
‘I went outside to meet it.’
‘Why did you not stay indoors with Turner and get him to confirm whether or not the officer who had arrived had been involved in this alleged assault?’
‘He was panicked. Whoever it was, he didn’t want anything to do with them, irrespective of whether or not they’d attacked him.’
‘Right. So after Inspector McCarthy left, why did you not go back inside to confirm whether he had been involved in the assault?’
Devereaux smiled. ‘I didn’t even consider that Inspector McCarthy could have been responsible. Clearly, you know him a little better than I do.’
‘Glibness won’t win you points, sergeant.’
‘Turner wouldn’t let me back inside, so I left.’
The pair of them shared a glance. Bowen turned back and laid on a minatory stare. A pause strained, long and tight. ‘We’re done,’ he said.
THIRTY-THREE
WEDNESDAY, 15 FEBRUARY, 8.13 P.M.
His phone rang again as he left the room — the Herne Bay number. Devereaux didn’t answer. He called Pollard, but it went through to voicemail. He left a message: ‘I’m out of the interview, call me back ASAP.’ He hoped he didn’t sound too curt.
A mug on his desk held a finger of cold coffee. He downed it and found pad and pen, sketched the Turner address in plan.
What happened, Leroy?
Something made him feel pushed for time. His heart held a high tempo, urged on by some illusory deadline. He checked his phone again and re-read Pollard’s message.
Whoever Charles Easton was, Duvall had obviously felt compelled to verify the claim. But the chronology lacked clarity: had the killer walked in on Duvall and Turner, or had he arrived first and struck when Duvall arrived?
One thing was almost certain: Turner knew the assailant. The house showed no signs of forced entry. Plus Turner had been paranoid. He wouldn’t risk admitting strangers if he could avoid it. Which raised the question of how Duvall had gained admission. Maybe proof of PI status had been sufficient. Or maybe he confessed knowledge of Turner’s interview session with Frank Briar. I know who beat you up, sonny. Now let me in.
He realised he was still standing, hunched there above the desk as if conducting some furtive search. He hooked his chair in and sat down, dropped his face into waiting hands.
If Pollard was right, Bowen had already pegged Douglas Allen for the deaths. The timing seemed compatible: he could have fled to Turner’s address following his run-in with John Hale. Turner lets him in. Doug’s wired on adrenaline. He spills his story in a breathless panic:
There’s some private investigator after me.
He ambushed me in my own house.
I took a shot at him.
I’m in deep shit.
Douglas would have stayed on edge. The shakes take a long time to fade. A knock at the door would have re-twisted tortured nerves. Devereaux pictured it. Hale hadn’t thought Douglas got a good look at him; if someone showed up claiming they were a PI, Doug’s survival instinct would have snapped the leash.
Mitchell Duvall, mistaken for John Hale.
Devereaux looked at the floor sketch and saw theories crystallising. He pictured Douglas poised in the living room entry as Turner opened the front door. Duvall entering. Douglas Allen smashing the back of the guy’s head in with the butt of a shotgun. Turner awestruck, Turner screaming. Douglas silencing him with a blow to the face.
His desk line rang. He forgot to check the ID screen to vet the number, and picked up without thinking. It was Ellen.
‘Sean, where are you?’
A strange question: she’d had to dial his desk to reach him. ‘I got a call,’ he said.
‘What? And just up and left? You said you were going to stay for dinner. You didn’t even say goodbye to anyone.’
He strained for
background noise: was that guest chatter, or just a bad connection?
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It was urgent.’
‘You can’t just vanish.’
The line went quiet. He couldn’t pick whether she was fuming or just sad. He sensed crying on the horizon.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘Dinner’s at nine, like I told you. I would really, really love you to make it. Everyone would. So can you?’
I can’t do this right now.
‘Ellen. Look.’
She cut him off: ‘No, come on.’ She paused, and he could hear her breathing. ‘It’s eight-thirty. If you leave now, you can get here and not be late.’
He had his eyes closed, one hand buried in tufts of hair, both elbows on the desk.
‘Ellen.’ It sounded weak and contrite. He was oddly conscious of his own voice, like a quiet bystander to his own private moments.
‘Please, Sean. It’s just one dinner. It’s just one goddamned dinner. Please just come. It’ll only be an hour. Nobody’s going to keep you late.’
‘Ellen.’ He grimaced as he said it. ‘I really can’t.’
‘You really can’t.’ A heavy waver: here comes the crying. He gnashed his molars, braced for some shouting. But she just said, ‘Well, I’ll see you then, Sean.’
She ended the call. It felt a little more final than he would have preferred. The farewell a little too firm, the hang-up a little too gentle. But she’d probably call back. He sat with his elbows on the desk and the dial tone in his ear a moment, then placed the handset in the cradle.
He leaned back in his chair and turned on the desk light. Interesting how things deteriorate: his evening had slipped from wine and sunshine to thoughts of murdered men. Was there something tragic in the fact it didn’t bother him? Maybe it was a symptom of something. Preferring the dead to the living.
You have no life.
No, that wasn’t right: he had a life, he just liked work better.
The phone rang again.
Second time round he was more prudent: a caller ID check showed Don McCarthy’s office. Tempting just to let it ring through, but that wouldn’t stop McCarthy visiting in person. Devereaux picked up.
McCarthy said, ‘Come through. We need to talk.’
‘Now’s a bad time.’
‘Don’t give me cheek, boyo. I want to see you.’
Devereaux hung up. He gave it a minute, and then walked through to The Don’s office. McCarthy was standing in front of the desk, back to the door. Ceiling lights splayed his shadow in weak triplicate. A bottle of Jack Daniel’s Black Label stood beside the computer monitor, an inch of whisky in a tumbler hanging in one hand.
‘Close the door,’ McCarthy said. He tipped his wrist back and forth. The whisky rolled side to side.
Devereaux closed the door to the hallway. The tongue gave that clean little click, reminiscent of his interview.
McCarthy nodded at the Jack. ‘I’m off the clock so don’t say anything sanctimonious.’
‘I was hoping not to say anything at all.’
McCarthy didn’t answer.
Devereaux said, ‘What do you want?’
‘Who was that you were on the phone to?’
‘It’s none of your business.’
McCarthy’s mouth downturned, and he shrugged. ‘I didn’t mean anything by it. Just wondering.’
‘My apologies. I thought it was just casual intrusion.’
McCarthy showed no response, like he’d been deaf to the jibe. He said, ‘My wife left me, I think it was almost the phone calls I missed the most. Those little domestic intrusions, you know?’
He saw something in Devereaux’s face and laughed, humourless, scraped off the back of the throat. ‘Don’t worry; I wasn’t listening in.’ He paused for a moment. ‘I see a hunched, elbows-on-the-desk phone conversation, I know it’s probably wife trouble. Or something similar. Anyway.’ He winked. ‘I hope it all works out hunky-dory.’
‘What do you want?’
He took a small sip and smiled on the swallow. He set the glass on the desk and topped it up with the bottle, head sideways to gauge the level. ‘What makes you think you can walk in here and use that tone with me?’
‘It’s probably a respect thing.’
The photographs on the desk presided over a mess of paper: arrest sheets, photocopied handwritten notes. McCarthy took another hit off the whisky, set the tumbler down again. Creamy ellipses where his fingers had imprinted the glass. He turned around and stepped close. Near enough they could have waltzed.
‘I don’t give a shit what you say to Bowen,’ he said. ‘I know there’re things you keep to yourself.’
A long spell of cold quiet. For once he actually looked worn out: eyes bagged and half-lidded, crowning hairs swirled. Devereaux said, ‘Is there anything else?’
McCarthy smiled. ‘I just get the feeling that when all of this is wrapped up, we’re going to find you knew more about certain things than you let on.’ He sucked his top lip gently, waved the fingers of one hand, watched their far-off trajectories. ‘I see little personal motives flitting about, but God knows what they mean.’
Devereaux kept his face empty. He said, ‘Have you spoken to Frank Briar about why he’s been accused of assaulting a suspect?’
McCarthy’s mouth curved upwards at one edge. ‘Someone will chat to him in due course,’ he said. ‘But that’s not for you to concern yourself with.’
‘Chat sounds a little informal. I think the seriousness of the allegation would merit a pointed discussion.’
McCarthy didn’t answer. He stepped back to the desk and knocked back the tumbler contents. He sucked a hissing breath and set the glass down beside the bottle, appraised the framed accolades as if taking the measure of his own life.
‘Don’t ever lie to me again,’ he said. ‘You have no idea how much it pisses me off.’
He stepped to the door and disappeared into the corridor, leaving Devereaux alone in the office.
THIRTY-FOUR
WEDNESDAY, 15 FEBRUARY, 9.28 P.M.
The bleeding didn’t stop.
Hale relented and visited an Accident and Emergency. The nurse joked it looked like he’d been shot. Hale told her he’d fallen against something. He tried to look abashed. Prayed it seemed plausible.
A brisk and over-taxed doctor applied sutures and admonished him to avoid heavy lifting. Hale left and drove home, one shoulder hunched to alleviate stitch strain.
A Fiat Punto hatch was parked at the top of his driveway when he got back to the house on Scenic Drive. He pulled in beside it. The driver waved at him through the glass, then slid out. He smiled back and climbed out, motion rendered awkward by bandaging.
‘Hello, Ellen.’
‘How you doing, John?’
He read it immediately: boyfriend trouble. Give me some Sean Devereaux insight. He wondered how long she’d been out here. A chance visit from his friend Douglas would not have played well.
‘Moderate,’ he said. ‘You want to come in?’
‘You want to stand out here in the cold?’
She said it with a grin, and he smiled again. He retrieved the shotgun from the back of the car, and she followed him up the stairs to the front door. Locks undisturbed: he stood aside and let her enter first. She found the light switch by trial and error: third swipe lucky. The entry hall and kitchen blinked awake in weary succession.
‘You want a drink?’ he said.
‘What have we got on offer?’
‘Tea, coffee. Maybe even something a little firmer.’
‘Maybe just tea. I’ve got to drive.’
They went through to the kitchen. Hale leaned the gun beside the fridge and set the jug going. Ellen scraped a chair back from the table and sat down.
‘You carry that thing round with you all the time?’
‘Only when things are a little edgier than normal.’
‘What DEFCON level are we on at the moment?’
He laughed. ‘I just like to be
cautious.’
‘So is my car going to be safe out front?’
‘Should be. My aim from the front deck is normally pretty good.’
He checked the fridge. Beer predominated by an order of magnitude. He took the milk bottle from its slot in the door and set it on the bench.
‘Is that blood?’
She pointed out a lone scarlet speck on the table top.
‘Probably.’
‘There was some on the stairs outside, too.’
‘Yeah. I injured myself.’
Headlights strafed the window, whorls of grime sharply white and then invisible as the car passed. His breath caught until dark returned.
‘How?’ she said.
He made a face. ‘Being careless.’ He indicated his newly repaired torso. ‘I got stitches, though.’
She didn’t push him further. She folded her legs and smoothed her skirt and leaned forward onto folded arms. Steam from the kettle plumed and beaded against the window.
‘I thought Sean would be here,’ she said.
He settled himself in the crook where the bench turned a corner. ‘No. Just me.’
‘It smells like cigarettes.’
‘Yeah. He was here this afternoon.’
Her nails clicked a shy rhythm on the table top.
‘Do you ever worry about him?’ she said.
‘Sean?’
She nodded.
He shook his head. ‘No, I don’t.’
She waited for further exposition.
He said, ‘I never have. I’ve known him a long time. It’s just the way he is.’
‘What way is that?’
He shrugged, and the stitches made him regret it. ‘I don’t know. Whatever way that’s concerning you enough to ask if I worry about him.’
She passed a hand through her hair. Surprised strands sat up loosely and then eased back into place. ‘Well. The current concern is that he’s got no peripheral vision.’
‘In what sense?’
She turned and placed both hands knife edge on the table, palms parallel. ‘He’s got a narrow focus. He can see work. And that’s it.’
‘I don’t know whether it’s narrow focus or an addictive personality.’
