Blood of the Innocents

by Collett, Chris

  ‘He used to go off for the day at weekends,’ Mariner said, recalling the conversation with Colleen. ‘Is this all going to the press?’

  ‘It might have to. Fiske is desperate to get them off his back. How does a berk like him get to be in his position?’

  ‘Gift of the gab,’ said Mariner. ‘Did you ask Colleen about Yasmin?’

  ‘Yeah, and nearly got a black eye for it.’ Glover recounted the conversation conducted under the beady gaze of Steven Marsh. ‘He didn’t seem to appreciate the timing.’

  Mariner grimaced.

  ‘And Colleen, of course, took it as further proof that we were more concerned with Yasmin than with Ricky, but basically the answer was no. She couldn’t see how Ricky would have known that “posh little Asian kid”, even when I told her about the phone.’ Glover paused. ‘Question is, though: would Colleen have even known?’

  Mariner reported back on what Glover had said as he and Knox drove over to Allah T’ala. For once, Knox seemed unnaturally chipper, his jaws working hard on a gobbet of chewing gum, which he’d lately taken to chewing almost constantly. They were shown up to the same office where Mariner and Millie had first gone, and where Mohammed Akram, in shirtsleeves, his tie hanging loose, was poring over some architect’s drawings. He jumped up as they went in, his face a turmoil of emotions. ‘You’ve found something? ’

  ‘Nothing more. I’m sorry,’ said Mariner, wishing that he could read that face. ‘PC Khatoon has kept you up to date?’

  ‘She told us about the boy, and that Yasmin’s phone was nearby. Do you think—?’

  ‘We’re trying to establish the facts,’ said Mariner,

  ‘which is why we need to clarify a couple of things with you.’

  ‘My wife is teaching a class.’

  ‘That’s fine, I think you should be able to help us. The printer you were at in Kingsmead on Tuesday afternoon,’ said Mariner. ‘It’s some distance from your school. Why there?’

  ‘My last supplier closed about a year ago. I happened to mention this to Yasmin’s teacher one parents’ evening. Yasmin had been awarded a certificate and I asked where they had got it printed. She recommended the place. I decided to try them.’

  ‘And tell me again, what time were you there on that Tuesday afternoon?’

  ‘Around four o’clock. I left twenty or thirty minutes later. The meeting didn’t take long. I just needed to look at some proofs. But you know all this. I already told you.’

  ‘Will the printer be able to confirm that timing?’

  ‘I’m sure that he will.’

  ‘And from there you drove up to Bradford.’

  ‘As I’ve already told you,’ said Akram, irritably.

  ‘Did you go anywhere near Kingsmead Station?’

  ‘No. I had no reason to do that.’

  ‘Yasmin would have just been leaving school at that time.’

  ‘I suppose she was. I didn’t really think about it.’

  ‘You weren’t tempted to meet her to discuss your recent disagreement?’

  ‘As I said before, that matter had been resolved.’

  ‘Mr Akram, do you own a brown suit?’

  A slight pause. Surprised about the question or thinking about an answer? ‘Yes, I do. As a matter of fact I have it here. It’s due to be dry-cleaned.’

  That was a piece of luck. ‘Could we see it?’

  ‘Er, yes.’ Akram left the room and after several minutes returned with the suit, protected in a plastic cover. It was a shade of mid-brown. For a suit that was going to the cleaner’s it seemed spotlessly clean.

  ‘Mr Akram, I’m going to ask you again. Do you have any idea about the whereabouts of your daughter?’

  Akram looked him straight in the eye. ‘And I will tell you again, Inspector. No, I have not.’

  ‘That suit looked OK to me,’ said Knox as they cooked again in the car.

  ‘We didn’t ask him if he owns more than one.’

  Knox gave him a sidelong look. ‘Just because all your suits are exactly the same colour—’

  ‘Two colours, actually,’ Mariner corrected him.

  ‘All I’m saying is: most of us have a bit more imagination. ’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Any time.’

  ‘Akram is consistent about the timing, though,’ conceded Mariner. ‘Did the printer verify it?’

  ‘Over the phone, yes.’

  Mariner sighed. ‘Even with the techies’ enhancements on the CCTV footage, I’m not sure that we’ll be able to determine the licence plates or the driver of that car.’

  ‘And if he’s telling the truth, he’d have left the city before that was filmed.’

  ‘Did you believe him, that he didn’t realise that Yasmin would be at the station at that time?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Knox nodded. ‘You’re not thinking about your kids all day long, especially when they get to that age. You’re starting to lead separate lives.’

  ‘Some more than others,’ said Mariner. ‘It just would be nice to know for sure.’

  As it turned out, they soon did. The appeal the night before had brought forward a young woman.

  ‘A Miss Devreaux called in just after you left,’ Millie told them. ‘Her fiancé met her from the station in his midnight-blue Mercedes. He parked exactly where the camera is pointed. They even had a row because she was late.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Does it rule Akram out?’ Millie asked.

  ‘It confirms that he wasn’t at the station then.’ Mariner sighed. ‘But Yasmin’s phone was found between the station and the printer. I want to go and talk to the printer.’

  ‘Nothing like going over old ground,’ muttered Knox.

  ‘It’s called being thorough,’ said Mariner.

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  Printer Tim Randall was pretty certain about the timing of Akram’s visit. On arrival, they’d walked through the warm and humid prefabricated hangar, where the dominant smell was of warm plastic. Stepping around an obstacle course of thrumming computers and boxy digital printers, they ducked under the spaghetti tangle of cables and wires tossed carelessly over the fragile steel beams and into the quieter design office, where a couple of graphic artists were laying out proofs on long tables. ‘We were in the middle of a big print run,’ Randall went on, ‘and as he left, I remember looking at the clock to see how much time we’d got left to finish up. We were cutting it a bit fine.’

  ‘And what time was it?’

  ‘A couple of minutes off half past four, give or take. That clock probably isn’t a hundred per cent accurate.’

  So that was that.

  ‘He didn’t drive off straight away.’ The young man who spoke up was leaning over the drawings, cornrows sprouting from his head.

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked Mariner.

  ‘I went out for a fag about quarter to five and he was still there, his flashy Mercedes parked down at the end of the loop, by the bins.’

  The lad wasn’t wearing a watch, Mariner noticed. ‘How can you be so sure of the timing?’

  He grinned. ‘I’m trying to quit, so I’m spacing them out. This week I’m out there at five o’clock, last week it was quarter to.’

  ‘Did you see him drive off?’

  ‘No. He was still out there when I came back in. Doesn’t take long to smoke a fag and I’m only allowed the one.’

  ‘Was Mr Akram definitely in his car? Was there anyone with him?’

  He swayed his head doubtfully. ‘All I saw was the car.’

  Outside, they looked down towards ‘the loop’- the neck of the cul-de-sac - to the row of industrial-sized steel bins. They were backed up against the wood-panelled fence, on the other side of which was the reservoir.

  ‘The kid saw Akram’s car parked outside at quarter to five. It doesn’t mean that he was in it. He could have easily been down there with Yasmin.’

  ‘When we were on the bridge we didn’t look to see if you could get on to the reservoir from this industrial
estate.’

  ‘If there was a way through, surely we’d have noticed it.’

  ‘Not if we weren’t looking for it. And it may only have been used once or twice. If Akram did have unfinished business with Yasmin, it would have been a much more private place to meet her.’

  They found what they were looking for in minutes. Behind the giant bins a panel of fencing had split, creating an opening easily large enough for someone to squeeze through. Standing on the concrete plinth, Mariner could look down towards the bridge and the sludge beyond. Running through the long grass was the unmistakable pale line caused by a single passage through it.

  ‘So what now? Back to Mr Akram?’ Knox asked.

  But Mariner shook his head. ‘We need to keep on to everything else, too. I’d like to have a closer look at what you found on Shaun Pryce first.’

  But the database had turned up little of interest. ‘Only one minor offence in the past, boss: possession of cannabis.’ Knox closed the record sheet. ‘I thought this was more interesting.’ He’d book-marked a site and when he double-clicked it, a whole web page appeared devoted to Shaun Pryce: actor and model. On it, Pryce was described as a ‘talented and versatile’ character actor who’d played a range of diverse and challenging roles, most notably as a romantic lead, and who was also available for modelling and voice-over work. ‘I bet he wrote that himself,’ said Knox. ‘Shame we can’t bring him in for blatant self-promotion. ’

  ‘I want to talk to him again, though,’ said Mariner. ‘He frequents the reservoir area and I’d like to know what he really does there. SOCO found spliffs and condoms. I want to see if there’s anything else we can shake out of him. I wonder if Charlie Glover would like to come.’

  ‘Sounds like fun,’ was Glover’s reaction.

  The daytime contact Shaun Pryce had given them belonged to a property about three quarters of a mile from the reservoir; a collection of houses in what estate agents would refer to as a ‘much sought after area’. Consequently, most had been extended in one way or another. The addition Pryce was working on was huge, almost doubling the size of the property. Plenty of electrical work here to keep him busy. There was no sign of his VW Golf in the line of assorted vehicles parked outside, but when they asked Mrs Paleczcki, the owner of the house, she took them through to where Pryce was working alone, in what looked like a newly created ground-floor room.

  ‘Shaun, there’s someone to see you.’

  Their footsteps echoed as they went in. Pryce turned from where he was kneeling on the bare floorboards, screwing a double socket to a freshly plastered wall. Raw wires sprouted from the walls elsewhere around the room, waiting for his attention, and the air was clouded with fine dust. A tinny radio blared some kind of phone-in progamme that ricocheted around the emptiness. Elsewhere in the house were the sounds of other work progressing.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea, love?’ Today Pryce was in T-shirt and shorts, his tattoos standing out vividly against his bronzed skin, and there was no mistaking the look on Mrs Paleczcki’s face as she spoke to him. Knox had guessed right: it was Confessions of an Electrician all over again.

  Pryce grinned at her. ‘You know just what to say to a man.’

  The hospitality wasn’t extended to Mariner or Glover: Mrs Paleczcki not encouraging them to hang around any longer than was necessary.

  ‘How can I help?’ Pryce asked, his demeanour casual, but the voice guarded. He seemed to have lost some of the confidence he had a couple of days ago. But then a lot had happened since then, and he would know that they’d found Ricky.

  ‘By stop pissing us around and telling us what you really get up to at the reservoir,’ said Mariner, without ceremony.

  ‘Is that where they found that kid?’

  ‘You know that very well. We’ve found your little retreat, too.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘So? What is it you do there?’

  ‘I go there to top up my tan.’

  ‘Most people sunbathe in their own gardens or in the park.’

  ‘I haven’t got a garden. I live in a flat. And anyway, some of the modelling work I do, my tan needs to be . . . comprehensive.’

  ‘You sunbathe nude.’

  ‘I’m not harming anyone.’

  Mrs Paleczcki came back in with a mug of tea. Mariner wondered if she knew about Pryce’s all-over tan. He decided that she probably did. When she’d gone he asked:

  ‘When was the last time you were there? And this time we’d like the truth.’

  Pryce hesitated. Debating what to say to avoid incriminating himself?

  ‘The day I met you lot.’

  ‘Don’t be a smart arse, I mean before that.’

  ‘The week before.’

  ‘Day?’

  ‘Tuesday.’

  Bingo. ‘What time?’

  ‘About one o’clock.’

  ‘Till when?’

  ‘I don’t know. Half one, two.’

  ‘Is there anyone who can verify that?’

  ‘The rest of the crew here can vouch for me.’

  Mariner looked around him pointedly. ‘And they are?’

  ‘Upstairs right now. We started on the loft conversion this week.’

  Mariner could only guess at the motley bunch that comprised Pryce’s co-workers. He’d have laid bets that, like Pryce, they’d be mainly casual labourers with more than a couple of criminal records between them. He didn’t have much confidence in any of them as a solid alibi. Nonetheless, Glover went up to check it out.

  ‘So what were you doing for nearly an hour? And don’t give me any bird-watching bullshit. We all know you wouldn’t know a redshank from a shag.’

  ‘I was chilling out. It may not look like it to you but this is bloody hard work, especially in the heat. Sometimes I have to help with the labouring too.’

  ‘My heart bleeds. Take Mrs Paleczcki with you?’

  ‘She’s a married woman.’

  ‘But you’ve taken women there before. Either that or you’re the only man I know who practises safe sex with himself.’

  ‘You sure they’re mine? I’m a good Catholic boy, me.’

  ‘When’s the last time you took a woman there?’ repeated Mariner.

  ‘Not for a while.’

  ‘Oh? What about your insatiable sexual appetite? Losing your touch?’

  ‘The last one I took there didn’t like the long grass. Said it scratched her. Got into all those uncomfortable little places. So I haven’t bothered since.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Ages ago. Probably sometime back in May. It’s hard to remember.’

  ‘See a lot of women, do you?’

  ‘I can’t help it if they find me irresistible.’

  ‘Anything else? Had a smoke, did you?’

  He could see that they’d found the cannabis. No point in denying it. ‘I might have smoked a couple of joints.’

  ‘Does your employer know about your habit? It must improve your wiring skills no end.’

  ‘I know what I’m doing. I’m careful.’

  ‘Do you know a boy called Ricky Skeet?’

  ‘Is that—?’

  ‘—the boy whose body we found yesterday afternoon by the reservoir? Yes. He’d been bludgeoned to death. We have the time of death as sometime on Tuesday afternoon.’

  Shaun Pryce looked as if he was about to throw up. ‘Did you know him?’

  Pryce’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘No.’

  ‘What do you wear when you’re working?’ Mariner asked suddenly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘What do you wear? Your clothes?’

  Pryce splayed his arms. ‘What you see. Jeans, T-shirt, shorts if it’s a hot day.’

  ‘Do you own a brown suit?’

  Pryce sneered. ‘Shit colour, you mean? No thanks.’ ‘What about overalls?’

  ‘Too restrictive.’

  Glover appeared in the doorway and gave the faintest nod.

  ‘Right,’ said Mariner. ‘That
’s all for now. Thanks for your time.’

  ‘What do you mean “for now”?’ said Pryce, uneasily.

  ‘You’ve admitted to being close to the scene of a murder at around the time it was committed. We may have some further questions. Don’t worry, we’ll see ourselves out.’

  As they were leaving, Mariner turned back to Pryce. ‘Where’s the car today?’

  ‘I left it at home. Came on my bike. I do, when I get up early enough. Helps keep me fit.’

  ‘Is that what you did on Tuesday? Were you on your bike then?’

  ‘I might have been. I don’t honestly remember.’

  Glover and Mariner got reluctantly back into their sweltering car.

  ‘He seems pretty cool,’ Glover observed.

  ‘Meaning, he has nothing to do with this?’ Mariner was disappointed.

  ‘Or that he’s good at covering up. He’s an actor, after all.’

  ‘He didn’t hesitate about owning up to being at the reservoir on that Tuesday.’

  ‘He must know we’d find that out, anyway. Yeah. As long as he sticks to the timing there’s not much we can do about it. What about his alibi?’

  ‘The other guys are saying that he was back after lunch and then they didn’t knock off until nearly six,’ Glover said.

  ‘So we may have to accept that Pryce probably wasn’t there when Ricky was killed.’

  ‘If we choose to believe them. Or if they even know. The other three have been working on the loft all week while Pryce has been downstairs, more or less on his own. Would they even know if he disappeared on his bike for an hour? He could easily get down to the reservoir in that time. I can’t shake off the feeling that he knows something, that there’s something he’s not telling us. Do you believe the nude sunbathing?’

  ‘Yes, it fits in with the image.’

  ‘But he denied having a brown suit. We could have pushed him on that.’

  Mariner turned to face Glover. ‘We’ve seen his suit already, most of it: a light brown suit? It’s this famous all-over tan he keeps bragging about. Wouldn’t have to take that to the dry-cleaner’s, would he?’