The TV Detective

by Simon Hall

  ‘This is your last chance, Mr Stead,’ Adam said. ‘If you don’t talk to us now, I’ll have no choice but to charge you with murder. I know you didn’t do the actual killing, but I’ll have no evidence to prove it wasn’t you. And that means a long time in prison.’ He waited, then spelled out the words again.

  ‘A – very – long – time – in – prison.’

  Stead was shaking his head, slowly, but still he didn’t speak.

  ‘This is what you’ll have to get used to,’ Adam continued, gesturing to the confines of the cell. ‘A tiny little, cold, miserable home. In fact, even that’s not the truth of it. This is luxury compared to what’ll happen to you. Prisons are dreadfully overcrowded these days. You’ll be sharing a cell this size with a couple of other men. You’ll hardly have the room to breathe. And they’re unlikely to be the sort of people you’d want to share a country with, let alone a little cell. Hardened criminals … gangsters … murderers … rapists …’

  The detective waited, then his voice changed, became more chirpy. ‘Mind you, they do let you out of the cells occasionally. I suppose that’s something to look forward to. You’ll probably get – I don’t know, say … maybe half an hour a day for a little walk around the prison yard.’

  As a note of optimism, it was beautifully and effectively discordant.

  ‘And there’s something else I should mention,’ Adam went on. ‘You’re probably imagining that you’ll be in a prison somewhere near here, so whatever’s left of your family – whoever still wants to know you, if that’s anyone at all – can come and visit. Well, I’m sorry to have to say, that’s not going to happen either. We don’t have any prisons fit for newly convicted killers anywhere close to Devon. Most murderers get taken to a jail miles up north. You’ll be lucky to see a friendly face twice a year.’

  And now another change of tone, more sympathetic. ‘I don’t envy you for what you’re having to cope with, I can certainly tell you that. All this – and at Christmas too. When the rest of us are looking forward to going home and being with our families and having some good food and drink and enjoying ourselves, and you’ll be sitting in the cells. Your so-called mates Gordon and Andrew have really dumped you in it, haven’t they?’

  Stead raised his hands, clamped them over his ears. Adam leaned forwards, so his mouth was just a few inches from the side of the man’s head and said, ‘Still, let’s look on the bright side. At least it’ll give you time to get used to how the next fifteen years of your life are going to be, eh?’

  He took a step backwards, into the doorway of the cell.

  ‘Last chance, Mr Stead. If you talk to us now, I promise you I’ll tell the judge it wasn’t your idea to kill Edward Bray and that you were dragged along by the other two. And that’ll mean you’ll get out of prison much more quickly. Your – choice …’

  Adam waited expectantly, his eyes fixed on the thin, hunched figure sitting in the miserable cell. But Stead didn’t move, didn’t even react. And now Suzanne stepped forwards and sat gently next to him, her voice that of a kindly and favourite aunt.

  ‘We can help you, Jonathan. Let us help you.’

  Stead flinched, shifted a little away from her, but on the tiny bed there was nowhere to go.

  ‘Let us help you,’ she repeated, kindly. ‘And perhaps more importantly, let us help your family. That poor wife of yours, imagine how she’ll feel when you’re locked up for life. How’s she going to cope? And what about your son? It’s poor Joseph I feel for the most in all this. He’s going to grow up without a dad. What’s your wife going to say when he starts asking questions about where you are?’

  ‘I couldn’t imagine not seeing my son growing up,’ Adam added from the door. ‘Every day is a joy. That’s the point of fatherhood, isn’t it? You’ll miss out on all that. Bizarrely enough, knowing what little I do of you, I think you might have made a good father. And of course, when he gets a little older, he’s going to need his dad, to help him through the troubles of adolescence. And where will you be? In a prison cell, rotting away.’

  ‘So,’ Suzanne said. ‘Let us help you. None of that needs to happen. If you just talk to us.’

  Stead pushed himself further against the cold bricks of the unyielding wall and clamped his hands harder over his ears. They were white with the pressure. He was muttering to himself, repeating, ‘No, no, no, no,’ over and over again.

  Adam and Suzanne exchanged looks, nodded to each other. The tiredness had left Adam’s face. He looked keen, alert, his eyes bright.

  There was a crack in the fortress. They were close to the breakthrough.

  But it was five to nine.

  ‘Come on, Jonathan,’ Suzanne said. ‘Just talk to us. It wasn’t your idea, any of this, was it? It was Gordon’s. Andrew got caught up in it and pulled you along too. I know you think they’re your friends, but look what they’ve got you into. You don’t owe them a thing. They told you that you couldn’t possibly get caught, didn’t they? And now look what’s happened.’

  ‘You’re sitting in a police cell,’ Adam continued. ‘On Christmas Eve, when you should be with your family. And you’re looking at a life sentence for murder.’

  Stead was rocking now, just a little, back and forth, his hands still clamped to his ears, his lips mouthing unintelligible words. He’d shrunk into himself, as if to try to escape this place of torment.

  ‘So talk to us, Jonathan,’ Suzanne said. ‘And we’ll look after you.’

  Adam glanced at his watch. It was almost nine o’clock. They had minutes, if that. Julia Francis and the other solicitors could be on their way here, even at the police station’s front desk, demanding to see their clients.

  Suzanne was leaning forwards, had laced an arm around Stead’s shoulders. He didn’t react, didn’t even seem to notice. Adam was staring intently, his fists in tight knots.

  They were so close.

  The scales were balanced. Just another little ounce of pressure would do it.

  Dan nudged Adam. The detective’s head snapped round. Dan leaned over, whispered a couple of words in his ear. Adam’s brow furrowed. The disbelief was clear. But then came a slight nod.

  Stead let out a low whine, his feet twisting on the cold concrete floor.

  Dan swallowed hard, found his voice. It felt breathless and hollow and he had to concentrate hard to form the words.

  ‘You know what I’d miss most about being locked up for so long, Jonathan?’ he said. ‘I think it’d be my hobby. Every man needs his little passion, something to get lost in and love. I’d be desperate without mine. I go walking with my idiot of a dog. We hike across the moors, around the coasts, anywhere really. I love the sense of space and nature and escape from the everyday world. I suppose, in a way, yours gives you the same sort of thing. With you it’s fishing, isn’t it?’

  Stead’s feet stopped their continual shifting. Dan could have sworn the man’s hands lost some of their pasty whiteness as they released a little of the pressure on his ears.

  So often in life, words don’t come remotely close to being able to describe a feeling. They can be as solid as clouds. And to Dan, this was just such a moment. Absurd, idiotic, ridiculous, any one of a range of similar descriptions didn’t have a hope of doing it justice.

  He was trying to trap a man into confessing to his part in a murder by talking about fishing.

  But Stead was listening. He was sure of it.

  And so he went on. There was nowhere else to go.

  ‘I used to go fishing,’ Dan continued. ‘When I was a kid. Freshwater fishing, not in the sea like you. I loved those summer days when the sun beat down and the river just slipped by and occasionally you’d get a bite. I think it was the excitement of not knowing what it was you were about to reel in. That’s the fun of it, isn’t it? Knowing that at any moment the big one could bite.’

  Stead straightened a little, his eyes flashing up from the floor.

  It was working. Dan had no idea how or why, he just knew the word
s were having an effect. Perhaps it was because his was a different voice, not the stern and intimidating sound of the law that was Adam, or the false friendliness of Suzanne, but someone else. Someone who was not a part of this new hell into which Jonathan Stead’s life had been transported.

  Or perhaps it was the vision of a favourite escape, a treasured pastime, a way to be free from the confines of the cell and the threat of many more years of incarceration to come.

  But whatever, it was working.

  Adam was nodding hard.

  But the clock was ticking ever on. It was now a couple of minutes past nine.

  The tannoy crackled and boomed.

  ‘Mr Breen, you have a visitor in reception. Urgent.’

  Adam’s eyes widened. Francis was here. Their time was almost up.

  He nudged Dan with a sharp elbow.

  ‘You know,’ Dan said, wondering what else to say, but just aware that he should keep going, ‘I used to like doing fishing stories. When I covered the environment I did quite a few, it’s such a popular hobby. I used to like going out and talking to anglers and reporting on what they were up to. I suppose it took me back to my childhood. Mind you, that was before my job got changed. I do miss it sometimes.’

  Stead had raised his head, was almost looking up. His eyes were unfocused, as if he was lost in his imagination.

  The tannoy boomed again, the voice more insistent now.

  ‘Mr Breen, you have an urgent call to reception. Please respond.’

  Adam stretched out a foot and eased the cell door closed.

  ‘You fish in the Sound, don’t you?’ Dan continued. ‘I did a story there last year, about how the water company kept releasing polluted …’

  ‘I know.’

  The words were only thin and soft, but they stopped Dan in a second. Stead was looking up at him, nodding gently. Adam, Suzanne, both were frozen, as if frightened to break the moment.

  ‘You gave us the news,’ Stead said softly. ‘You told us. They tried to keep it quiet, but you told us.’

  Dan nodded, but found he hardly knew what to say. ‘Yes. Yes, I did. I thought you deserved to know. Is – is the Sound your favourite place to fish?’

  ‘No. I like the river, but Andrew...’

  Stead stopped. Something unpleasant had intruded on the vision.

  And Dan saw the opportunity.

  ‘You don’t like him, do you?’

  Stead raised a hand, bit at a fingernail.

  ‘No. I used to, but …’

  ‘He started to tell you what to do?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Bullied you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Him and Gordon?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Dan swallowed hard, could scarcely breathe so tight was the tension in his chest.

  ‘And they – they forced you to do … they pushed you into what happened with Edward Bray?’

  A slight hesitation, but then came the beautiful word.

  ‘Yes.’

  Stead’s eyes were shining now. Suzanne put her arm back around his shoulder.

  ‘Tell us all about it,’ Dan said quietly. ‘Just tell us everything and we’ll sort it all out.’

  Chapter Twenty-five

  CHRISTMAS EVE TRADITIONALLY COMES with a knocking-off early, if indeed work has the temerity to intrude at all, a few warm-up drinks as a prelude to the day itself, and a general spirit of a time to relax. Dan did get to enjoy the drinks, eventually, but it became a day of very little relaxation and plenty of work, both in the service of his official job, and even more in what he had secretly come to think of as his second, secret, and far more exciting role.

  In the early part of the morning alone they had solved the case, and in the greatest tradition of thrillers and dramas, the kind aired annually at this holiday point of the dying year, only just in time.

  It was indeed Julia Francis in reception, burning with a stellar legal ferocity and harassing the desk sergeant ever more with each passing minute. She must, she insisted, be allowed to see her clients at this very instant, or she would bring thundering down upon the police all the mighty force of hundreds of years of statute, case law, natural justice, human rights, and whatever else she could spout from the vast gamut of legal gobbledygook.

  Suzanne escorted her, first to see Andrew Hicks, then Gordon Clarke. By the time she got round to Jonathan Stead it was too late. He had been interviewed, and recorded, in sane possession of his faculties and happy to dispense with the services of a lawyer. In a catharsis of release he had described in detail exactly how Edward Bray had been killed, who by, how, why the plot began and how the murder was covered up.

  Under stern advice from Francis, Clarke and Hicks would say nothing, apart from denying the allegations against them. But Adam was content that with the wealth of circumstantial evidence, the detail of the fibres on the shotgun and most importantly Stead’s confession, they had plenty to secure a conviction.

  The police also found a way to give themselves an early Christmas present. The parking around Charles Cross is limited to an hour. Julia Francis had far more work to do than that, and so with the assistance of an understanding traffic warden she was duly given a ticket.

  It was petty, yes, Suzanne admitted, perhaps juvenile, or arguably even small minded, but it most enjoyable nonetheless. And no one disagreed.

  Dan would have his story, it would make the lunchtime news, it would be an exclusive and it would be good, just as the insatiable Lizzie had demanded. Adam reckoned by the time all the allegations had been put to Hicks and Clarke and they had the chance to rebut them, as the law required, the time would be around noon. The two men would then be charged, just nicely in time for the half past one bulletin.

  Sitting in the MIR, Adam raised a cup of coffee, and Suzanne and Dan joined in the sober toast.

  All that remained was to go through Stead’s statement and check that what he had said tallied with how they believed the murder had been committed.

  Adam sipped at his drink, was about to speak, then turned to Dan.

  ‘It was a defining moment in the case. So, why don’t you do it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Tell us how it was all done, and how you realised.’

  ‘Me? But I’m just a hack, and …’

  ‘It’s your first time, so call it beginner’s privilege,’ Adam said levelly. ‘Just get on with it please.’

  And so Dan did.

  Edward Bray had been, if not the author of his own downfall, as the old saying goes, then certainly the instigator.

  The story began when Clarke, Hicks and Stead met at court on one of the days given over to cases brought by Bray. They had their shared passion in hating the man, they supported each other and they got on well. The friendship continued and grew.

  The mutual grudge against Bray had often been discussed and nurtured, even to the extent of the now infamous “Kill Edward Bray game”, as played out in the Red Lion.

  ‘But,’ said Dan, ‘at that point, I think it was only fun. However sick, it was just drunken friends having their idea of a laugh. There was no real intention to harm Bray. But then however, things change. Eleanor Paget comes on the scene.’

  At that point in Dan’s narration, Adam did something strange. His face became thoughtful and he nodded slowly and said, ‘Yes, indeed she did,’ but he wouldn’t say anything else, instead prompted Dan to carry on with the story.

  Gordon Clarke took a fancy to Paget, and it grew fast, into a fascination and then perhaps even an obsession. There were the endless flowers and that ill fated date, but most importantly in the chain of events was her time-honoured excuse for why she couldn’t get involved in a relationship.

  She was too busy with work, particularly dealing with, and fending off, the relentless demands of Edward Bray.

  ‘And that was the catalyst for all this,’ Dan explained. ‘First, Clarke becoming infatuated with Eleanor. Then, she says she can’t reciprocate any feelings because of B
ray. And now Clarke has another reason to hate the man. This time it’s fresh and new and all the more powerful for that, enough to shift his thoughts from fantasy to fact. He starts to actively plot how to get rid of Bray.

  ‘And so the plan grows. Clarke does some research on methods of killing and the best ways to evade detection, probably using an internet café so there are no traces left on his own computer. He finds that a shotgun is good, as the pellets can’t be definitely linked back to the weapon itself. Plus they’re easy to get hold of. He might have bought it second hand, maybe even stolen it, but he gets himself one, and in such a way that there’s no link back to him.’

  Dan paused, thought his way through the case. ‘Now I’m on less firm ground, as I don’t think we can prove this, but it’s my guess at what happened anyway.’

  ‘Go on,’ Suzanne said. ‘You’re doing fine so far. We’ll pick you up if you get too creative, don’t worry.’

  So Dan went back to his story.

  ‘Gordon Clarke probably spent a great deal of time trying to work out how he could kill Bray, but still have an alibi which would free him from suspicion. He would know that his past, his threats against the man, the website he set up to attack Bray, all that would soon have the police knocking at the door. But he couldn’t find a way to distance himself sufficiently from the crime. The only possible method was to have an accomplice, to enter into a conspiracy. He needs someone to help him. And he realises in fact he has two possible candidates, Andrew Hicks and Jon Stead. So, he comes up with a plan which includes them both.

  ‘They know enough about Bray’s way of working and the property business to set a trap. They lure him to the lay-by with that appointment and talk of a lucrative parcel of land nearby. They know too that Bray’s always punctual, so they can set their timings to give them all decent alibis.

  ‘Clarke’s the ringleader, and he’s going to do the actual killing, so he needs the strongest alibi of all. Hence his visit to Bristol. He was on the train coming back to Plymouth when Bray was murdered, the mobile phone trace puts him there. We’ve got CCTV of someone who looks like him going into the station, his cashcard being used in Bristol, texts to his secretary containing information only he could know. It’s not conclusive, but it’s not far off. Except – except that he wasn’t in Bristol. He was in Plymouth all day, and then, later, at the lay-by, waiting for Bray. Which raises the big question. How could that possibly be?’