by Oliver Tidy
Pandemonium ensued. Sansom found himself dragged to a police van and hurried away to the station.
He was processed and deposited in a holding cell where he lay down on the hard surface that passed for a bed in search of rest that he knew he’d need, hoping that Bishop had finally done something right and provided him with that final, compelling bit of evidence to bolster his claims of innocence.
*
A burly uniformed constable woke him with the toe of his boot. Sansom had managed sleep, good, deep, untroubled sleep. The way he felt, he guessed it had also been long. A clock in the area outside confirmed this. The powers that be would have had plenty of time to do whatever they needed to do. That made the soldier feel good.
He was led through clusters of malevolently-staring police officers to a drab interview room. Chief Inspector Shelby was already seated at the single table with another smartly-suited man who did not look like any rank of policeman. Sansom was led to the vacant chair opposite them and encouraged to take it with a gentle pressure on his shoulder.
Shelby told the constable to wait outside. He waited for the door to shut before he spoke again. ‘I’m still not sure whether I should be feeling sorry for you or helping to dig the hole that they’re planning to bury you in.’
‘I don’t need your pity,’ said Sansom.
‘What do you need then?’
‘Coffee would be nice. And then some good news.’
‘What sort of good news?’
‘Tell me Bishop shot himself.’
‘Why would that be good news?’
‘Because anything else would be too good for him. And given the circumstances, if he took his own life it would add weight to my claims that I am innocent of six counts of murder.’
‘How do you arrive at that conclusion?’
‘The videotape that you took off me this afternoon shows those two deep in discussion regarding the people they have had killed in my name.’ He said it because he had to keep up the charade. In any case, when the original did arrive on Shelby’s desk everything he said here and now would be relevant.
‘Which two?’ said the policeman.
Sansom looked from one to the other of the men.
‘Who are you?’ he said to the silent, suited man.
‘An observer.’
‘Bishop and Smith,’ said Sansom.
Shelby broke eye contact with the soldier when he said, ‘There was only Bishop in the house when my men went in. He had shot himself but he didn’t make a very good job of it. Not dead. Sorry to disappoint you.’
‘You’re lying. When I left, Smith was secured in one of the armchairs in the front room. You’re covering up for him. Look at the tape you took from me. He’s on there.’
Shelby shifted in his seat. ‘The tape has been appropriated,’ he said without pleasure.
‘Appropriated by whom?’
‘A higher power.’ He glanced briefly at the man sitting next to him, leaving Sansom in no doubt where that higher power was. The higher power maintained his neutral expression.
‘Then ask Bishop.’
‘He’s being operated on. His condition is not yet clear. We certainly can’t speak to him. So you see, we’re back to people’s words for things. And yours isn’t particularly good currency around here at the moment.’
‘You said you spoke to Mrs Tallis – and what about Susan?’
‘They are the reason we’re having this conversation.’ The policeman didn’t mention the added and compelling influence on his reasoning of the extremely disconcerting interrogation he had made of an elderly woman who had been an eye-witness to Sansom’s late night visit to his ex-father-in-law’s property. ‘But neither of them is an eyewitness to anything that can help you. Everything is hearsay and uncorroborated. You might just be a very clever and convincing liar and murderer. A sociopath. A cop-killer. And until it is proved otherwise with evidence, I’m afraid that in your case you are guilty until proven innocent.’
Denial of Smith’s presence was something Sansom had failed to consider. But as he quickly thought it through, he realised that perhaps he should have expected it the same way that he had been right not to entrust the original videotape he had made to the authorities. With his special clauses and his powerful position, Smith would have identified himself to whoever was in the building first – he would have insisted, threatened and blustered that his identity was to be left out of anything official.
‘You’ve still got the tape. Get a television in here now and watch it. That should clear things up,’ said Sansom.
Shelby turned to look at the man beside him. As the officer in charge of Sansom’s manhunt, he would feel a right to see that evidence. As an ordinary person, he would also harbour a natural desire to understand more of the extraordinary events of the previous fortnight.
‘Not until it’s been looked at by us,’ said the man.
‘Who is ‘“us”’?’ said Sansom.
‘You heard the Chief Inspector – a higher power.’
‘But you hold the proof of my innocence on that recording. It’s outrageous that you wouldn’t share it with the police investigating my case.’
‘When we’ve looked at it, we will decide whose best interests it is in to ‘share’ what’s on it.’
‘So where does that leave me? What happens now?’
‘Now,’ said Shelby, ‘we follow procedure by the book. You’ll be interviewed, statements will be taken. Evidence will be gathered. It will all be put before the CPS and we do what they say. In the meantime you’ll be remanded in custody until we decide what to charge you with.’
Sansom looked suitably sobered by this little speech and said nothing. A nasty thought occurred to him. If Susan hadn’t managed to retrieve the tape and then follow his instructions, he was finished. It would be words against words and the policeman was right: his was worth less than nothing.
The mystery man spoke again. ‘And when the police have finished with you, we would like a chat.’
‘What about?’
‘One of our officers that ended up dead in the boot of a car, for a start. And then we will want to know what you know about Bishop’s dealings with Botha.’
Sansom sat back in his chair and sneered. ‘So you must be one of that bunch of cowards who’ve sat on their hands since your department screwed up, leaked information of my return to the UK, which resulted in the deaths of innocent people. You know why I’ve come back to the UK – to help you with your enquiry, by the way, at no personal gain to me – and you say nothing to help me when you could. You disgust me.’
The man pushed back his chair and stood to leave. ‘You’re just an Army grunt, Sansom. Try to remember that. Don’t pretend to know anything of what this is about.’ As he approached the interview room door, Sansom took a shot in the dark.
‘Iran and its nuclear weapons programme ring any bells?’
The sound of very expensive leather footwear on industrial linoleum in an almost empty room ceased abruptly. Sansom didn’t turn around. He could see what he needed to reflected in the policeman’s face.
‘What did you say?’ said the man.
‘If you hadn’t heard me and it hadn’t meant something to you, you wouldn’t have stopped.’
The man came back to the table and arranged himself in the seat once again.
‘What do you know?’
‘Probably something that you don’t, but you’d like to. And I’d like to discuss it, I really would, but I’m sure you understand that I have more pressing issues to concern myself with than helping people who are prepared to use and then abandon me like something soiled.’
‘We’re talking about your country.’
Sansom barked out a harsh cynical laugh. ‘Would that be the same country that appears not to give a fuck about me, one of its citizens? Maybe that’s because I’m just an Army grunt.’
‘The lives of innocent people could be at risk. I repeat, what do you know?’
�
�I know that I want my life back. I know that I am an innocent victim in all this. I know that I want you to share that video with the police.’
The man tapped the table a couple of times, evidently in thought. ‘When we’ve looked at it I give you my word that what we can share of it we will.’
‘Not good enough.’
‘It’s the best offer you’ll get.’
‘Want to bet?’ said Sansom, and held the man’s glare.
The man didn’t like that. He stood again and looked down on Sansom, whose eyes were now elsewhere, before striding out noisily.
‘What was that all about?’ said Shelby.
Sansom smiled at him. ‘Nothing personal, Chief Inspector, but I’ll save it for him. He’ll be back.’
‘You seem very sure about that.’
‘When do you want to take my statement?’
‘I have some calls to make. Then we can get on with it.’
‘Suits me; I’ve got lots to say.’
‘You’re very confident for a man facing at least six charges of murder.’
‘That’s because I didn’t kill them. I know, I know, that’s what they all say. How is Mrs Tallis?’
‘She’s well. We had quite a chat.’
‘She’s smart and sharp.’
‘Oh yes. But you’re going to need more than her on your side if you think you’re going to get out of this.’
‘It’s coming, Chief Inspector.’
‘I hope so. For your sake.’
As Sansom was led back to his cell to await his interview, he forced himself to radiate a confidence that he was suddenly not particularly feeling.
***
23
Sansom was glad to hear that Shelby didn’t want the story from the very beginning; he’d relived the events in the Pacific more times than he would want to. The policeman said that, interested as he was in the history of the affair, that could wait. He had murders to solve and people on his back.
Sansom was happy to talk to the policeman. He was still alive and he was exercising an opportunity that at any time in the last week he might only have fantasised about – having his say to the officer in charge of the investigation who was also, unless he very much missed his guess, prepared to listen with a sympathetic ear.
Shelby wanted to take him back first of all to the death of Hatcher, the investigative journalist. Shelby had heard one version from Mrs Tallis – the version that her son, Detective Inspector Tallis, had given her. Interesting as that was, as hearsay it would count for nothing in a court of law. Now he wanted it from the horse’s mouth.
‘I was there,’ said Sansom. ‘I was taken there to meet Bishop and Smith when they got me out of Headley Court. I didn’t know then that the reason they got me there was so that my prints could be all over the place in order that the finger would automatically point at me when Hatcher was discovered. I never met him. I didn’t know anything about him. I didn’t know it was his home and I certainly didn’t know that he was lying with his throat cut in the next room. Stan Tallis told me about how they had fitted me up for that when he found me in Bodrum.’
‘It begs the question, why would Bishop be so open, so reckless about his presence there when you could simply implicate him through your testimony?’
‘They got me out of the country quickly after that. I don’t think either of them expected me to live to be in a position to testify against them. With hindsight, I imagine their plan was that if I didn’t die in Turkey then they’d take care of me themselves. Events would seem to support that idea, wouldn’t you say?’
They moved on. Sansom provided a brief outline of his time in Turkey, his reasons for it and how Tallis tracked him down in the coastal resort of Akyarlar. The soldier skated over the details of his business there and, being well outside his jurisdiction, Shelby accepted that.
Sansom told him of the reasons for and logistics of his return to England. He told him how he was picked up at RAF Lyneham by men who claimed to carry no service identification but had guns. He told how they took him to a services on the M4 on the pretext of getting something to eat and drink and then tried to kill him. That was when he realised he was in trouble. He explained how he contacted Tallis, who lived in the next county, and how the policeman, his friend, agreed to drive up to Newbury and help him. He recounted how the agents, who he thought he had lost, emerged from the shadows of the train station to shoot Tallis dead – after he had identified himself as a police officer – club him over the head and take him in the boot of their vehicle for disposal in a New Forest grave.
‘How did you escape? What happened to them?’
Sansom glanced at the recording device to indicate that there were some things he was prepared to discuss and some that he wasn’t. ‘I managed to slip away in the darkness. I can’t say where they are now.’ Shelby let it go, for the moment. Operatives of the intelligence services were not his business. And after what he now had good cause to believe regarding the death of Stan Tallis and the two uniformed officers, he felt no great compassion for their probable deaths.
Sansom also declined to share where he had spent his days following the Tallis incident. And again Shelby was prepared to leave it for another time. He was very interested, however, in what had happened when Sansom resurfaced at his father-in-law’s property.
Shelby had had frank and enlightening interviews with a very convincing Mrs Tallis, as well as the equally-believable reporter. Both had vouched in the strongest terms for Sansom. Sansom would understand something of this. What he wouldn’t know was that following the double shooting of uniformed police officers the Chief Inspector had also been convinced by a neighbour that the shots that terminated the lives of the officers had been fired after a man carrying a box had fled across her garden. Even under significant pressure the old woman had stuck resolutely to her assertion that whoever that person had been they couldn’t have fired the shots because they were long gone.
‘Tell me what happened on the night that two uniformed officers were shot dead at the house we found you at today.’
‘Firstly, you didn’t find me; I asked you to come. It was an invitation extended after I had got the proof that I sought of my innocence that incidentally has been appropriated by a higher power.’
‘Point taken. What happened? Why were you there?’
‘I was there because it might well have been the last opportunity I had of retrieving something that carried great sentimental value for me.’
‘What was that?’
‘A box of family pictures, my island diary and important personal documents that my father-in-law had been keeping for me. Nothing to interest you. The police turned up when I was in there. I don’t know why. I knew the house better than they did, especially in the dark with no power. While they were searching it, I slipped out the back, over the wall and across the garden behind. My father-in-law kept a car in a lock-up garage. It was a spur of the moment idea. I took it.’
‘Where did you go?’
‘South. I went to find Stan Tallis’s home and certain evidence I believed he had that might help me prove my innocence. What I found was his mother.’
‘And she just helped you, knowing who you were?’
‘She helped me because of who I am and because Stan had confided everything in her.’
‘And I don’t suppose you have this “evidence”?’
‘It’s tape recordings of Bishop when he came to see me at Headley Court with his offer, a letter from the Captain of the Military Police who passed stuff on to Stan. And if you think I’m going to give it up to you so that it can be “‘appropriated’” and probably “‘lost’” by a higher power you know what you can do.’
‘It’ll keep,’ said Shelby.
‘You believe me, don’t you?’ said Sansom, turning the tables on the senior officer.
Shelby turned off the tape.
‘I believe that you are far from squeaky clean. You probably killed those agents who were sent to d
eal with you. You’ve flouted laws and you’ll have to face some consequences. That man Harper in Portsmouth, for instance. You won’t be able to wriggle out of that one. But I don’t believe you killed or were complicit in the deaths of Hatcher, Martins, DI Tallis, or the two uniformed officers. However, you’re still up shit creek and that videotape was your paddle. Without it, I don’t see how this can end well for you at all.’
There was a tap at the door.
‘Come.’
A constable put his head around the door. ‘A call for you, sir. The reporter woman who was here earlier. She says it’s important.’
Shelby caught a hint of a smile teasing at Sansom’s features.
‘You know something about it?’ he said.
‘I hope so. It could be the start of my better offer.’
Shelby instructed the constable to watch Sansom while he went in search of the phone.
He returned a few minutes later and dismissed the young officer.
‘She’s got the recording that you made. There is a copy on its way here by courier.’
A banging at the door signalled the arrival of a television set and DVD player. It was wheeled in on its noisy metal trolley, plugged in and turned on.
To the departing policeman, Shelby said, ‘There is a courier bringing something for me. When it arrives see that it comes straight to me here.’ When the constable had left the room, Shelby said, ‘So what did you bring out of the house with you?’
‘A blank.’ Sansom detected a suggestion of appreciation in Shelby’s features at his subterfuge.
‘The higher power isn’t going to like that.’
‘He’s going to like it even less when the original ends up on every journalist’s desk in London.’
Shelby raised his eyebrows. ‘Is that wise?’
