by Simon Hall
The only hope remaining was a confession, or for one of the men to let slip something which could incriminate them. And they had an hour and a half.
Adam’s view was that it was probably now or never. If they couldn’t build a case today, he thought they were unlikely ever to have sufficient evidence to charge anyone with the murder of Edward Bray.
They would always believe they knew what had happened, how the killing had been carried out and by whom, but never be able to prove it.
The faltering pulse of justice would suffer another wound.
The detective’s mood wasn’t improved by the phone call he received on the way down the stairs to the cell block.
‘Yes sir,’ he said wearily. ‘Yes, I know this is probably our last chance. Yes, I’m aware it’s a huge case. No, I haven’t forgotten the annual report. Yes, I know it’s important to you. Sorry, sir, yes I do mean extremely important. Yes, I know you’re relying on me. Yes, I will call as soon as I have any news. Thank you sir.’
‘Deputy Chief Constable?’ Dan ventured.
‘Well deduced,’ Adam grunted. ‘You really are showing a flare for this job.’
The sergeant swung open the thick, metal barred gate which marked the entrance to the custody block. The police doctor, Silifant, an ageing crab of a man, had pronounced Hicks and Stead fit for questioning, saying they were only showing fairly typical reactions to arrest.
A doctor more used to dealing with the factory line of fresh corpses which it was the police’s lot to process, Silifant’s less than endearing habit was to award the newly deceased marks out of ten for efficiency of dispatch. It had become a trait well known and much commented upon in Greater Wessex Police.
‘As you didn’t have any dead bodies for him this time, he wanted me to pass on that he gives you nine out of ten for getting him out of bed unnecessarily,’ the sergeant said, with a thin attempt at a grin.
Adam didn’t smile, hardly even seemed to notice the man’s words. He was too intent on the cell door ahead, the name “Jonathan Stead” written in chalk on the board beside it.
‘Nice and nasty?’ Adam whispered to Suzanne.
‘Yes, sir. As ever.’
‘You ready?’
They waited for a few seconds outside the door, then Adam nodded and Suzanne opened it.
Jon Stead was still sitting, staring at the floor. He looked up, then quickly back down again.
‘Mr Stead, can you come with us please?’ Suzanne asked pleasantly. ‘We need to talk to you and we’ve got somewhere more comfortable where we can chat.’
The man didn’t move, didn’t even look at her.
‘Mr Stead?’ she persisted. ‘Please?’
Still no reaction.
‘Stead!’ Adam barked. ‘Either you get up and come with us or I have you carried.’
Suzanne slipped a gentle hand under the man’s arm and led him down the corridor. She walked slowly, giving him plenty of time to take in the raw, whitewashed brick, the row of steel doors, the light catching in the distortions of their pits and dents, the metal bars and the grim, echoing coldness.
It was a precursor of the taste of prison. And it was making its mark. Stead’s frightened eyes darted around as he walked. At one point he stumbledand half fell, but righted himself again.
From behind, Adam watched carefully.
At the end of the cell block, the sergeant let them through the gate, making sure, just as he would have been told, to take his time and jingle the thick and heavy keys in the indomitable lock. The man could have been a jailer from medieval times.
And Stead stood and stared, his thin frame looking even smaller in the white glare of the electric strip lights.
Suzanne pushed open the door of Interview Room Two and guided Stead to sit down at the table. He lowered his head and stared once more at the floor. Adam and Suzanne settled opposite. Adam made a big play of turning on the tape recorder, introducing them and emphasising that they were conducting an interview with Jonathan Stead, a man who was a suspect for murder.
And after that final, lingering word, he left a long silence.
Even Dan, standing over by the door, arms folded across his chest, innocent and set apart from the scene though he might be, felt himself swallow hard.
‘Right Jonathan,’ Suzanne said, at last, in a friendly voice, ‘Let me try to help you. We know how you and Andrew and Gordon worked together to kill Edward Bray. But we also know it wasn’t your idea and that you didn’t do the actual killing. But, nonetheless, I have to be honest and fair with you and tell you that you are part of a murder conspiracy, and that means you’re in very serious trouble. We want to help you make it as easy as possible for yourself. So, it’s probably best if you tell us in your own words exactly what happened.’
Stead didn’t reply.
‘We know about the switch of identities,’ Suzanne persisted, ‘and the phone call you made, to be sure the timings worked for all your alibis.’
Still no reply.
‘We know about you swapping your mobile phones …’
She waited, but there remained no reaction.
‘And how important the weather was to you that day, and why.’
Stead shifted a little in his seat, but said nothing.
‘In short,’ Suzanne said, ‘we know everything.’
She sat back on her chair and looked at Stead. He didn’t move. His eyes were still set on the floor.
Suzanne glanced at Adam. He was studying the man, waiting for his moment. When the silence had ticked on, he barked, ‘Stead! I don’t think you realise how serious your position is. You played a significant part in a murder. The judge will see that in exactly the same way as if you’d pulled the trigger yourself. You’ll be sentenced to life – that’s life– in prison – to serve a minimum of fifteen years or so, maybe even more. That baby son of yours – little Joseph – will be a young man by the time you get to see him again.’
Adam waited, but there was still no response from Stead.
The detective slapped his hand on the table. ‘That’s if you ever get to see him again at all! Some kids disown their parents, you know. They’re so ashamed at what they’ve done. They can’t live with it. Joseph might well feel that way. And as for that pretty young wife of yours …’
Adam lowered his voice, to a sly whisper.
‘… how do you think she’s going to cope, not having you around? And do you really think she’s going to wait for you? They always say they will, I’ve seen it often enough. But come on – they never do. She’ll be off with someone else and she’ll forget all about you. It won’t take long. One of those letters will arrive in your cell. You know the sort of thing – “Darling, I don’t know how to say this, but …” And you’ll have nothing to help you through those fifteen long and lonely years in that prison cell. And nothing and nobody will be waiting for you when you come out – that is – unless …’
A wave of rain sprayed on the tiny barred window.
‘Unless, you talk to us, so we can tell the judge you were forced into what you did – that you went along with it because Gordon and Andrew pushed you to. And that will mean you’ll get a substantially shorter sentence.’
No reaction.
‘Which will mean you do get out in a reasonable time. And you do get to see your wife and son again. And you’ve got some chance of a future.’
Still no response.
‘Mr Stead!’ Adam barked. ‘Are you listening to me? I’m trying to help you!’
The man looked up, but only briefly. His eyesquickly slid back to the floor. And there they stayed, despite the questions, threats and cajolements Adam continued to rain down upon him, an armoury of pressure and persuasion built up over the years of the detective’s experience.
The time was a quarter to eight. They had seventy-five minutes left, and so far they’d made no progress.
Nice and nasty had quickly turned to not so nice and noxious. But whatever they tried, it still wasn’t working.
&n
bsp; Stead shivered occasionally, squirmed and shifted in his seat once or twice, but stared resolutely at the floor and would not answer the questions.
‘Jonathan,’ Suzanne said quietly. ‘We want to help you. But we can only do that if you talk to us.’
Then, still without lifting his head, and in a faltering voice, Stead said, ‘I have nothing to say to you until my lawyer is here.’
Suzanne and Adam exchanged glances. The words came like a schoolchild reciting something drilled into them in long and repeated lessons, learned by rote and repeated by instinct.
Adam got up and stalked out of the door.
There are different forms of silence, and in that dawn hour they heard three. Stead’s was nervous and frightened, Hicks’s smug and Clarke’s arrogant, but all were steadfast and effective, and none of them were any use as evidence.
And they were fast running out of time.
It was half past eight and they’d trudged back upstairs to the MIR. Adam stood at the felt boards, Suzanne by a desk, Dan next to the windows. After last night’s sleeplessness and the busyness of the last ten days, the tiredness had started to creep up on him. He’d tried perching on a desk, but then stood back up again. This was no time for sitting down.
He would have a rest tomorrow, Christmas Day, but not before.
‘The bastards,’ Adam hissed. ‘They’ve planned this damn well. Not just the cunning of the bloody killing, but what to do if we got close to them. They know staying silent is the best way to frustrate us. They must have agreed beforehand and drilled it into each other, not to say a thing.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Suzanne agreed. ‘I think you’re right. And I don’t know what we can do. We’ve tried just about everything. Unless you’ve got any other ideas?’
It was a measure of the growing desperation of the moment that she even glanced at Dan, but neither he nor Adam replied. There was nothing to say. They’d used up an hour of precious time, and had got nowhere. In perhaps a little over thirty minutes Julia Francis would arrive and fleeing quickly before her would be any hope of solving the case.
After talking to Stead – or trying to, as the case might more accurately be described– they’d had Hicks brought to the interview room. The moment he walked in the door it was apparent they would get nothing. The man was smirking.
Adam stood over him, said simply, ‘We know what you did. We know all about your switch of identities.’
‘No comment.’
‘We know about your little away day.’
‘No comment.’
‘We know about Bristol, the phones, the cashpoint, the texts, the lot.’
‘No comment.’
‘You might as well admit it. We’ve got you.’
And now the smirk became a smile.
‘No comment.’
‘You’re going to be charged with your part in murder and you’re going to prison for many long years.’
The smile grew, and the scorn in the voice with it.
‘Really? No comment.’
‘I hope you’ve got something more convincing than that to say when you’re standing in the dock, before a jury.’
And now Adam succeeded in forcing the longest response in the series of interviews he’d carried out this morning, but it was by no means any more helpful.
‘You’re not getting this, are you?’ Hicks said, sarcastically. ‘Then let me spell it out for you, nice and simply. I have no comment to make. I will not be saying anything until my solicitor arrives. Is that clear enough?’
Finally they had tried Clarke, all the while aware that it was hopeless. As they were now sure, he was the ringleader, the brains behind the plan and the motivator. Of the three, he was the least likely to crack.
Still, Adam and Suzanne did their best. Not get on though they may, Dan had to admit her opening question was a stinger.
‘How does it feel to be a murderer, Mr Clarke?’
But the only reaction she got was a look of amusement.
‘Funny is it?’ Adam added. ‘Killing someone? Taking their life?’
Now the look changed to contempt.
‘No comment.’
‘We know what you did. How you hid in that lay-by. How you waited for Bray to arrive. How you shot him, right in the heart, how you kicked him in the face afterwards and watched him die and how you dumped the gun in the field.’
‘No comment.’
‘How you planned the crime and how you covered it up.’
‘No comment.’
‘How you did it because you thought it gave you a chance with Eleanor Paget. So, what chance do you think you’ll have with her when you’re charged with murder and sitting in a cell, waiting for your trial?’
Clarke shook his head contemptuously. ‘You can try whatever you like, but I won’t be saying anything until my solicitor arrives.’
And nor had he. Clarke gave a long and very pointed yawn, folded his arms on the table, rested his head on them and ignored every other question that was put to him.
The interview was finally concluded when the businessman started emitting melodramatic snores.
By this time, Adam’s neck was red and throbbing, and two more conversations with the Deputy Chief Constable had only frayed his temper further. Dan too had received an unwelcome call of his own. It was Lizzie, it was Christmas Eve, there was nothing happening in the world of television and she wanted a story.
‘Every selfish sod is out having fun rather than creating news,’ she said. ‘So I want a report on the Bray case, I want it exclusive, I want it good and I want it by lunchtime.’
Dan had tentatively raised the question with Adam as they walked back up the stairs and been surprised by the reaction.
‘You’ll be getting a story OK,’ he grunted. ‘It’ll be – “pissed-off police admit defeat and give up on trying to find the killer of Edward bloody Bray”.’
The clock laboured around to twenty to nine.
‘So,’ Adam said, heavily. ‘Last chance. We’ve got twenty minutes. Any thoughts? What do we do?’
Suzanne shook her head. ‘We’ve tried everything. We’ve got nothing left to throw at them.’
‘Dan?’ Adam prompted. ‘Come on, you’ve come up with some decent ideas. I’ll take anything at this stage.’
‘I have to say, I agree with Suzanne. I reckon we’ve tried everything. I thought Stead was the most likely to break, but he’s been too well trained. He’s been conditioned into saying nothing.’
‘So that’s it? We’re done? We’re beaten? Is that it?’
Sometimes a silence can say much more than mere words.
The clock ticked on. A quarter to nine.
‘Let’s try Stead again,’ Dan heard himself say. ‘I still reckon he’s the only hope. Let’s give him anything we can think of. It must be worth a go.’
Adam shrugged. ‘Yeah, why not? What else have we got?’
Chapter Twenty-four
A MANNER OF WALKING can give away a great deal. As they headed back down the stairs to the Interview Room, Dan thought how very different Adam’s gait had become in just a couple of hours. Before the raids he was moving fast and upright, full of purpose and energy. Now he walked slowly and with a weariness befitting someone who expected only defeat.
It was as if the passage of only a short time had sapped a disproportionate degree of spirit.
A couple of young, uniformed cops bid them chirpy good mornings as they passed on the stairs, but Adam only grunted in return.
All the way down to the custody suite, Dan searched the recesses of his mind for a way to get Stead talking. Adam was convinced that if they could just get a few sentences out of the man, break through his conditioning of silence, he would open up and the case would be cracked.
There had to be a way. His was the most fragile of the defences they faced. It could be breached. It was surely only a question of how.
There was just the one possibility teasing Dan’s thoughts. He let it linger and grow, then
felt the weight of reality come to bear and dismissed it. It was far too ridiculous a way to try to tempt a man to admit to his role in a murder.
Anyway, it was hardly his part, at this most crucial moment of the investigation, to start chipping in with his own far-fetched ideas.
The professional detectives, Adam and Suzanne would handle the final questioning, as so they should. He would play the part he had been given from the start. He would watch and learn.
But Dan stored the thought, just in case, like a desperate gambler with a last card.
They reached the entrance to the custody suiteand were about to head for the Interview Rooms when Dan said, ‘Hold on.’
‘What?’ Adam replied. ‘Come on, we don’t have time to mess about.’
‘Why don’t we talk to him in his cell?’
‘What? How does that help?’
‘Psychology. Let him see the reality of what he’ll face in prison. Metal bars and cold brick, surrounding him.’
‘Bit wild, isn’t it?’
‘I’d take any possible advantage at the moment, wouldn’t you?’
Adam rolled his eyes, but headed for the cells. Suzanne, though, nodded and said, ‘Good idea.’
Dan was too surprised to reply.
They walked along the corridor, passing the steel doors, one by one, heading towards Stead’s cell. The hard soles of Adam’s shoes beat harsh and loud in the narrow space. From behind one door came the sound of a man being violently sick.
It was ten to nine.
One of the lights towards the end of the corridor was fading and flickering. The smell of strong disinfectant lingered in the still air.
The shadow of a mouse slipped around a corner.
They reached Stead’s cell.
Adam hesitated, then opened it.
The man was still sitting on that thin blue mattress, staring at the floor. In his face, as he looked up, there was an expression of hope.
Adam saw it and leapt upon it. ‘No such luck I’m afraid. No one’s come to free you. And no one will be coming. You’ll be spending a very long time in prison, unless you start talking to us.’
Stead returned to his study of the ground. They edged into the cell, fanned out around him, Dan and Suzanne to each side of Adam. They were packed together, side to side. The tiny space now felt chokingly claustrophobic.
