by M A Comley
“Christ, don’t say that. Lots of things could go wrong between now and then, as you’re fully aware.”
Katy winked. “Confidence. Exude it, and people will never doubt you have it by the bucket load.”
“When did you grow up?”
“Overnight. I had to, with the new promotion.”
The phone on Lorne’s desk rang again. Swallowing hard, she answered it. “Hello, DS Warner, how—”
“Cut the speech, Lorne. It’s me, Derek.”
She leaned back in her chair. “Derek, what can I do for you on this fine day?”
“You’re too chirpy by half, woman. I’ve got a name for you.”
Sitting upright again, Lorne grabbed her notebook and pen. “Shoot.”
“Troy Wardley.”
“Just to confirm, this is one of the gang members touting around the fake booze, yes?”
“That’s right. Only he’s not a gang member, Lorne, he’s the gang leader. Tread carefully, he comes with a dangerous reputation. If you need a hand, give me a call.”
“Aw…Derek, that’s so sweet of you. I’m sure we girls can handle it though.”
“Now I’m offended.”
“Don’t be. Hey, while you’re on the phone, I want to bend your ear about something, except I’d rather do it in private. Any chance we can meet up?”
“Sure. This afternoon about four?”
“Just a sec.” She placed her hand over the phone and spoke to Katy, “Can we meet up with Derek around four? It might be good to have him on side when we hit the gang on Friday, and he’s discreet. You know that.”
“Sure, why not? The more trusted people we have on board the merrier.”
Lorne spoke into the phone, “Okay, four it is then. I’ll be with my DI…you remember Katy, don’t you?”
He whistled down the phone. “Yeah, the hot number with the cute arse.”
“I’ll tell her you said that.” Lorne laughed at Katy’s peeved expression.
“I’d rather you didn’t. Although on second thought, tell her if she wants to try out her handcuffs anytime soon, I’m up for that.”
Lorne rolled her eyes. “See you at four, Derek.”
“What did he say? Wait—” Katy raised her hand and shook her head. “I’ve changed my mind, don’t bother telling me. I have a feeling I wouldn’t want to know.” She walked into her office and left Lorne to go around to the rest of the team and find out what the morning’s investigations had uncovered.
“Karen, do me a favour and run this name, will you?” Lorne handed the young DS the piece of paper with Troy Wardley’s name on it. When Karen looked at the paper, she frowned. Lorne asked, “Is something wrong?”
“I recognise that name, Lorne. Let me find out where from and I’ll get back to you.”
“You’ve certainly piqued my interest there.”
Just then, a breathless AJ pushed through the doors. He passed her the mobile and collapsed into his chair. “I hear regular exercise is good for that particular ailment, AJ.” She winked at him and waved the phone around. “Thanks for this. I’ll drop it over to my brother-in-law later. Do you have anything new—workwise, I mean—that you want to share?”
AJ tilted his head and wrinkled his nose. “Nope, nothing as yet.”
Karen waved at Lorne to approach her desk. She said excitedly, “Here you go. I knew I recognised that name. He’s got rather a long list of petty crimes to his name, nothing major, but if you add them all together he’s been a very busy boy for someone of his age.”
“Which is?” Lorne asked, leaning over Karen’s shoulder at the screen.
“He’s an old boy of twenty. Let’s see what else we can find, bear with me one more minute.” Her hands flew across the keyboard as if they were dancing over hot coals. Then she pointed at the screen. “Ah, what’s this? He was arrested along with another boy called Paul Rathbone, aged nineteen. Usual thing for both of them. They come from single-parent families, no father in sight.”
“Same old, same old. Get me an address for both, Karen? I’ll be back in a mo.” Lorne ran into Katy’s office to apprise her of Karen’s findings. “Fancy a trip out to see these guys? Strike while the iron is hot instead of lukewarm?”
Katy tossed a few unopened letters back in her in-tray and slipped on her jacket. “Paperwork can wait until later, questioning a suspect can’t. We might as well pick up something for lunch while we’re out. I’m feeling generous, let’s see what type of sandwiches the others want.”
Lorne raised her eyebrow to her colleagues in the incident room to inform them of Katy’s offer. “We’re popping out for a while, and the DI has offered to treat you all to a sandwich. Jot down what you want, within reason. Karen, have you got the addresses for me?”
She waved a sheet of paper in the air while she wrote her lunch order out on another sheet. Lorne collected the addresses and thought about where the two houses were located in relation to the station. “Ten minutes, maybe fifteen at the most,” she said to Katy, then to the team, “Come on, peeps, roll up and get your orders in sharpish. Some of us have work to do.”
The team quickly passed the order sheet from one person to the next. Finally, Graham gave the list back to Lorne. Shaking her head, she said, “I see we have some budding doctors amongst us. Right, if I can’t read it, you’ll have to appreciate what you’re given.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Stop! It’s this one, I think.” Lorne pointed to the rundown house with the unsightly jungle filling its front garden.
Katy parked a few doors away, and they walked back to the house. Lorne took one of the plastic gloves she kept in her pocket, slipped it on, and then knocked on the paint-chipped front door.
At first there was no answer. Lorne took a step back and looked up at the bedroom window. The curtain twitched. “There’s someone up there.” Lorne lifted the flap on the letterbox. “We know you’re in there. Police, open up.” She placed her ear close to the door and heard what sounded like an elephant descending the stairs. Then all went quiet. “Shit! I bet he’s trying to escape out the back.”
Lorne took off, leaving Katy at the front door. A few doors down, she found a narrow passageway that led to the back of the terraced houses. She caught sight of a slim, lanky figure wearing a hoodie as it flew over the fence into a nearby garden. “Damn, how am I supposed to catch that whippet?”
Instead of chasing the youngster over the fence, Lorne searched the area and discovered another lane at the back of the gardens. Following the path around the bend, she discovered the row of houses backed onto open wasteland. She kicked out and stubbed her toe against a garbage bin. The youngster had disappeared. Dejected, she made her way back to Katy, who was leaning on the brick gatepost at the front of the house.
“He was too quick for me.”
“Not to worry. Let’s hop over to the other address before this guy has a chance to warn his mate.”
Lorne trotted back to the car and jumped in the front seat beside her partner. Katy put her foot down hard to the pedal, reluctant to use her siren or light. The house they were en route to was only a few streets away. Before Katy could apply the brake, Lorne jumped out of the vehicle.
Approaching the front garden, Katy whispered, “At least this is a better neighbourhood. Hold on. We don’t want the same outcome. I’ll take the front, and you find a way around the back,” Katy instructed. “Use the pepper spray if you have to, okay?”
“Gotcha. Give me two minutes to get in position before you raise the alarm.” Lorne sprinted up another alley and quickly located the back door of the property. She stood with her back pressed against the wall so that anyone trying to escape wouldn’t see her silhouette through the glass door. In the distance, she heard Katy knocking at the front door. The back door shot open, and a figure tried to leave the house. Lorne stuck out a leg, and the cursing teenager fell to the ground. Lorne shouted for Katy to join her.
Katy came rushing around the corner within a
few seconds and stopped dead. She burst out laughing when she saw Lorne lying across the wriggling teenager’s back.
“Don’t just stand there, help me cuff the bugger. Keep still, will you?” Lorne swiped her captive across the back of his head.
He hollered in agony. “You can’t touch me. I know my rights. I ain’t done nothin’. Get off me you crazy woman.”
Katy grappled with the boy’s flailing arm and slapped a handcuff on it, much to his surprise.
“What the—? You can’t do that,” he sputtered.
“Oh, but I can. Get up, dipshit!” Katy sneered at the youth.
Lorne rolled off the youngster, stood up, and brushed herself off. Then she helped Katy pull the youth to his feet, which proved to be a difficult task as the teenager went intentionally limp. Lorne swiped him on the back of the head again. “You’re coming down the nick with us.”
“What for?” he repeated in a whiny, girly voice.
“We just want to ask you a few questions,” Lorne told the bemused youngster. He continued to struggle and even tried to break free as they steered him to the car. Lorne jumped in the back and pulled the cuffed youngster in beside her. “Sit still and shut up. I’ll use force if necessary to restrain you, got that?”
“Yeah, but I ain’t done nothin’.”
“Yeah, I heard you the first time. Now shut up.”
Luckily, they had stopped at the cake shop already, in anticipation of taking the suspects back to the station.
Upon arrival, Lorne and Katy got the youngster out of the car and took him into the station. “John, sort out a solicitor for this young man, will you? I think he’ll be needing one.”
“Rightio, ma’am. Interview room one is vacant if you’d like to get settled in there in the meantime.”
“Thanks. Ring the incident room and call AJ down too, please?”
AJ arrived within a minute or two, Katy handed him the keys to her car. “Lunch is in the boot. Lorne and I will be in the interview room with this guy. We’ll have our sandwiches later.”
Inside the interview room, Lorne and Katy stared at the youngster for the next ten minutes. No one spoke until the solicitor walked in.
The female solicitor shook hands with the detectives and opened her notebook. Lorne hit the record button on the tape machine and said the usual speech before Katy took over.
“Why did you try to run from us today, Mr. Rathbone…Paul?” The suspect smiled a toothless grin at her.
“On what charges have you brought my client in, Inspector?”
“Suspected murder.”
That got the suspect’s attention. His jaw dropped open, and then he started to stutter, trying to sort his words into the correct order. “Murder? You’re kidding me, right?”
Katy shook her head. “If, however, you see fit to cooperate with us, we can ask the court for leniency.”
Paul sharply turned to look at his solicitor. “But I ain’t done nothin’. I told them that when they brought me in. In fact, I want to bring action against that one.” He pointed at Lorne and glared. “I’m sure she’s broken a few ribs, sat on me she did. It felt like a bloody elephant sat on me back, stupid woman.” The two detectives and even the solicitor had trouble disguising their smirks. “It ain’t funny.” He pulled up his T-shirt to see if he was bruised, which he wasn’t. “Well, the bruises ain’t showing yet, but they will.”
“We’ll get the doctor to see you before we throw you in a cell and transfer you to prison, how’s that?” Katy smiled wickedly.
“Locked up? What for? I keep telling you I ain’t done nothin’. Why won’t you believe me?”
“Okay, suppose you tell us where you were last Tuesday around eleven p.m.?” Katy asked.
His gaze dropped to the table, and Lorne heard the guy swallow noisily. He knew perfectly well why he’d been pulled in for questioning. All they needed now was for him to admit it and offer up the gang leader’s role in the crime.
“Out with my mates,” the teenager mumbled.
“Where? Oh and we’ll need the name of your mates.”
He shrugged. “Around…nowhere special.”
“So you didn’t stop by, uninvited I might add, to an eighteenth birthday party?”
His eyes remained firmly focused on the table, and he refused to answer.
Bluffing, Katy said to the solicitor, “You might want to point out to your client what a waste of time—his, yours, and ours—it would be denying the facts when we have witnesses who have named him, and also CCTV footage showing him en route to and at the scene.”
His head swiftly turned between Katy and his solicitor. His solicitor gave him a “they’ve got you by the balls” kind of look. “What do you have to say?”
“I…wasn’t—”
He began before Katy warned. “Think carefully. It’ll do your case no good at all if you deny being there, and the evidence stacked against you proves to the contrary. If the jury sees that you’ve lied once,” she clicked her fingers together then continued, “anything you tell them after that will cause them to distrust you.”
Again he glanced at his solicitor for guidance. She answered him with a shrug and a nod. “It would be better if you told the truth. I’m sure the detectives will do all they can to help you obtain a lesser charge.”
Katy nodded. “You have my word, providing you cooperate, that is.”
“Okay, yes, I was there. I didn’t want to be, but Troy got wind of the party and thought it’d be a laugh if we turned up.”
“So, you jump when he says jump, is that what you’re telling me?”
“No! Not always.”
“But you did that night? Tell me, Paul, are you aware of the outcome of your idiotic actions that night?”
“Nope. We gate-crashed a party, so what?”
Katy made everyone in the room jump when she slammed her fist onto the desk. “So what? So what? Is that what you think when you kill someone. When a young girl’s life is snuffed out just like that?” Again Katy emphasised her point by clicking her fingers together.
“I didn’t kill nobody, I’m telling you!” he cried out in frustration.
“You might not have done it intentionally, but your stupid actions did. Where did you get the booze from?”
Rathbone remained quiet.
Katy prompted, “If you tell us, then there’s every possibility the people who supplied the alcohol will have a greater charge thrown at them, and yours will be reduced. Am I making myself clear enough for you, Paul? Spill everything you know, and you’ll come out of this better off than when you walked into this station, got it?”
“I ain’t no snitch.”
Katy rose from her chair, and his wide eyes followed her. Tucking her chair under the table, she tapped Lorne’s shoulder. “Our job is done, Sergeant. We’ll get the desk sergeant to charge him with Wendy’s murder and continue our search for Troy. We’ve wasted enough time on this already today.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Lorne started to stand up, but the boy’s trembling voice stopped her.
“All right. You’ve gotta help me though. I’m innocent in all this. I only went along with it because I thought it’d be a laugh. I didn’t know someone would end up dying.” His hand ran through his spiked hair.
Katy withdrew her chair and sat down again.
“Then you have my word that we will help you all we can. Now, where did you get the vodka?”
“I don’t know, and that’s the truth. Troy always deals with that side of things.”
“Meaning that this isn’t the first lot of booze Troy has bought? Does he always get the booze from the same supplier?”
“I guess. I think he bought a cheap lot a few weeks back. We got rid of that without any hitches.”
“I take it you mean you sold it? I just need to make that clear for the tape?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you, or do you, sell the booze?”
He looked up at Katy and hitched one shoulder up t
o his ear. “Here and there. To whoever is in need of cheap booze for a party. Troy always makes a joke about barbecues, bar mitzvahs, births, deaths, and marriages being a speciality.” He laughed, but no one else seemed to appreciate his warped sense of humour.
“You must know where he picks the gear up from?”
“I don’t, I swear. He deals with that, scared that we might cash in on getting some gear of our own to sell, I guess.”
His answer sounded plausible enough to Lorne.
“Did you know the booze had been tampered with?”
“No!”
“Is there anything else you can tell us? Obviously, we’ll need to question Troy Wardley, who evaded us this morning. Any idea where he could be hiding out?”
Smirking, he shook his head. “Nope.”
“I think you’re lying. Why aren’t you telling us, Paul?”
“Because I don’t know.” The lack of eye contact proved he was telling lies.
“Anything else you can tell us that will help your case, Paul? This is your last chance. There’ll be no going back after this interview has finished.”
“Nope, nothin’.”
“Very well. Come with me, and I’ll get the desk sergeant to charge you.” Katy stood up again. This time she made it all the way to the door before Paul pleaded.
“Really, that’s all I know. You can’t charge me if I don’t know anything.” In panic mode he turned to face his solicitor. “Tell her.”
“Get up and follow me,” Katy hissed at Paul.
Slowly the youngster rose to his feet. “But what am I going to be charged with?”
“At the moment, we’re going to charge you with handling counterfeit-stolen goods. We might add to those charges if further evidence comes to light as to your involvement in the murder of Wendy Fuller.”
The youth dragged his feet as he followed Katy out of the room. Lorne thanked the solicitor for attending and brought the interview to a close via the tape. A commotion in the hallway made Lorne sprint from the room.
She found Katy lying on the floor, rubbing her head, and Paul Rathbone shouting and pulling at the security door to be let out. Lorne called for help and two uniformed PCs came to their assistance, while two more PCs grabbed the suspect and forced Rathbone into one of the cells.
