Time and Tide

by Peter Grainger

  Outside in the corridor, and apparently ignoring the congratulations, Murray said quietly to Smith, ‘He hasn’t mentioned the twenty notes I gave him, DC. Should I before it gets out? If the first time it comes out is in the trial…’

  ‘You’ve told me as your line manager, so you’re in the clear. I’ll log it but I don’t see any need to go public with it for now. A new DI will probably obsess about it. Tally Crick might be hoping for something more, but that’s not the only reason he’s here, and it doesn’t affect the truth of what he’s told us already. If we get a good enough case and they plead, it will never be up for discussion, will it?’

  ‘No. Fair enough.’

  ‘What made you talk to him in the first place?’

  ‘Nothing specific. He was always in the bar. It was in the back of my mind, that was all, that he might have seen something or know something… Lucky guess.’

  As word went around the offices and among the detectives working on the case, there would be cheers and clenched fists and congratulations, but John Murray stood there apparently unmoved. If things had just gone disastrously wrong, he would have had pretty much the same expression on his face, the same air of acceptance mingled with self-deprecation; in all the time that Smith had worked with him, that had not changed. Only once, in the days after his son had been born, had there been a sort of shining about the eyes.

  ‘John, you’ve heard me say this a hundred times at least – the harder we work, the luckier we seem to get. I’d better go and find out what the management are planning next.’

  They were a few feet apart before Murray said, ‘DC?’

  ‘Yes, John?’

  ‘A pity I’m not going to hear it another hundred times.’

  Terek was leading the discussion in Alison Reeve’s office, and it was about at what time tomorrow it would be best to arrest Peter Vince and Johnny Fisher, and whether Mark Williams should also be arrested, or interviewed under caution again. As well as the arrests, of course, they would need to search both men’s businesses, their homes and their vehicles for anything that might offer forensic evidence that could corroborate the story that Crick had told them. Vince’s Hilux would be seized and taken to the specialist unit in Norwich to be examined in minute detail. All this must be done simultaneously to avoid alerting the men involved, and so there would be at least two teams in the operation. By the time Smith arrived in the DCI’s office, decisions had been made and plans were being laid down – Vince and Fuller would be arrested at midday tomorrow.

  He knew that if he waited and said nothing, eventually Reeve would have to ask him what he thought. It was a matter, then, of deciding how to say what he had to say, but when the moment came there seemed to be no point in dressing it up.

  He said, ‘If it was down to me, I wouldn’t arrest them before I’d interviewed Williams again.’

  Wilson, sitting to his right, muttered, ‘Here we go…’

  The looks of surprise went around the table, and Terek said, ‘Why? Nothing that the witness has told us implicates him directly. Obviously, he should be questioned again. It might be that Vince and Fisher will give us good cause to arrest Williams as well, but… I don’t see it. We know that Vince and Fisher lied about their encounters with Sokoloff, and now we know why.’

  Terek looked around at the faces of the senior detectives and sergeants, and added, ‘We know they murdered him.’

  Smith said, ‘With respect, sir, we don’t. We’ve been told it by one person who claims to have seen it.’

  ‘Of course I understand that but his statements are convincing. Used properly in interviews, we can-’

  ‘With respect again, sir, convincing or not, these are the statements of an alcoholic, known to the accused, who any good defence brief will show had probable cause for grievance. Witnesses don’t come much more unreliable than that. If Vince and Fisher deny it all and you still get the CPS to run with it, I’d say your chances with a jury are no better than seventy thirty against a conviction. Unless, of course, we do get forensic corroboration – but we only get one chance to look for that while they’re not expecting it. At the moment, they’re beginning to believe they’ve got away with it.’

  ‘You mean,’ said Reeve, ‘that as soon as we arrest, we’ve declared our hand…’

  ‘And they’ve already had time to clear up properly. If we don’t get good forensics, all we have is the statement of the local drunk. Even if we prove they lied to us about the meetings with Sokoloff, so what? If we charged people every time they told us fibs, we’d do nothing else all day long.’

  In the following silence, an old and familiar truth became apparent once again but it is one understood only by those who have done this kind of work, and lay people would be astonished by it; almost all of the time, the detectives know who committed the crimes that they investigate. Sometimes they know from the outset, and often they know during the early stages on an investigation. What takes up their time, the days, the months and sometimes the years of their lives on a single case, is gathering and presenting the evidence in such a way that twelve individuals randomly selected from our streets and roads and avenues and lanes and closes will be convinced by it. Those individuals will never ‘know’ in the same way that experienced detectives do, but they will have been persuaded – or not, as the case might be.

  Reeve said, ‘OK. So why Williams again?’

  The simple answer was five words long and written in the notebook in his pocket, and he could not tell her. There would be an uproar.

  ‘It comes back to what I said about Crick’s credibility as a witness if we don’t have anything else. Or anyone else. We’ve said all along that Williams wasn’t telling us everything about the encounters with Sokoloff, haven’t we?’

  ‘Yes. Go on.’

  ‘Well, now we can lean on him hard about that – we let him know that we know the truth. Also, Crick’s statement doesn’t implicate Williams at all in what they did to dispose of Sokoloff, so there’s a chance that Williams wasn’t actually involved in that. Do you see what I’m driving at? We disclose enough to make him see that we’ve just about got it all anyway, and then we offer him a way out – tell us what you do know and you dodge the main charge, maybe. No promises, but maybe.’

  DS Wilson was staring out of the window as if he had just missed the last bus home but Reeve and Terek were considering what Smith had just said. Did they need one more nudge?

  ‘There’s a simple enough test to see whether this works. I’ll phone him and invite him to come back in.’

  Terek said, with a rare smile, ‘Really? I’m sure you won’t take this personally, but he hates your guts!’

  ‘I reckon that’s just a misunderstanding. People get some funny ideas about me… If I can get him to come back voluntarily, I’d say that means he’s got something to tell us. If he then believes it’s in his own interests to tell us, he might go for it. What have we got to lose but some time?’

  Wilson said, ‘Vince and Fisher. Williams tells you to eff off and calls them. At best you give them time for a final tidy up, at worst, there’s no sign of them when we knock on the door. Then we look stupid.’

  ‘Not we, John – just me. But I’ll say this much before I back off; if you get Williams to give us what he knows about Vince and Fisher on top of Crick’s eyewitness account, then your odds are the other way around. You’d then have at least seventy thirty on a conviction.’

  Would Detective Chief Inspector Alison Reeve take one more gamble on him, maybe just for old time’s sake? The three men in the room watched her and waited.

  She swiped across her iPad and read what was there.

  ‘SOCO can have someone out there this afternoon. If he’ll cooperate, we’ll have Mr Crick in the back of an unmarked car to show them the spot. Then we bring him back here and look after him properly – he can’t go back to whatever boat he lives on until this is resolved, in view of what he’s told us. If there is still a scene of crime, I want what that ca
n give us before we interview Vince and Fisher, so… DC - make your call.’

  Chapter Thirty Nine

  As he waited, Smith re-read the paragraph that summarised the last things he had said to Mark Williams in the phone call – ‘And Mark, at some point we’re going to ask to see your mobile. In your own interests, make sure that the last thing listed in “Recent Activity” is the conversation you and I are having right now. Do you understand?’

  Williams had understood – had understood everything, apparently. There had been surprisingly little resistance. No swearing, no abuse, no protestations, no accusations of harassment. The Welshman had listened as Smith explained that if he, Williams, was involved in anything that he regretted, he had this one final opportunity to get it off his chest. They, the investigating officers, had almost the whole story now, and the rest of it was just a matter of time. It could make a significant difference for him if he came into the station of his own accord and made a clean breast of things.

  Williams had said, ‘I know how you got this number.’

  ‘Yes. It’s like I told you before, Mark – we’re pretty good at this.’

  ‘Is it you I’ll be talking to?’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be - you can ask for someone else if you wish. I won’t be offended.’

  ‘No, that’s alright. Better the devil you know… Will I be coming back here tonight, then?’

  ‘I don’t know because I don’t know exactly what you’re going to tell me. Maybe not. I’ll be honest with you – that won’t be my decision. But if you’re not going back, I’ll sort something out for your aunt. She won’t be left there on her own.’

  That more than anything else had seemed to clinch it; less than an hour later, Mark Williams had been sitting in an interview room at Kings Lake Central with the duty solicitor. Smith had checked beforehand, and Andrew Brown was still available – a lucky break, absolutely the best man for the job from everybody’s point of view.

  Smith would have been happy for anyone from his team to sit in but he thought that Reeve herself might take the seat beside him – it was her call. She chose Terek, and he could sense why that was – a critical decision had been influenced by one of his sergeants instead of the new detective inspector, and this was a way of keeping him right in the game. In Reeve’s shoes, Smith would have done the same. The two of them, Smith and Terek, talked it through for several minutes before heading for the room where Mark Williams had been waiting for a quarter of an hour. In addition, the pre-disclosure notes given to the duty solicitor, and his conversation with DCI Reeve, would have made it clear to the interviewee that an arrest at some point was more likely than not. As far as Smith was concerned, they had played this interview straight with Mark Williams.

  It was Smith who began with the caution, something that had not been given in his previous encounters with the Welshman. From the notes in front of him – which, of course, somehow made it more threatening – he read out the details that he, Reeve and Terek had agreed to disclose; that the Kings Lake police now knew Bernard Sokoloff’s movements for the 9th and the 10th of September, that they knew why he had twice visited The Queens Arms in Overy and how the encounter on the 17th of July had ended, that at this very moment forensics officers were examining the likely crime scene and that, crucially, an eyewitness had come forward with an account that explained how Bernard Sokoloff had met his end.

  When that was done, Smith said, ‘As you can see, Mark, we’re getting close to dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s, but by coming in voluntarily you’ve given yourself a chance, a small window of opportunity. But it doesn’t last any longer than this interview.’

  Williams was still processing what he had just been told, and it’s a fine judgement call as to whether you hurry them on while they’re still uncertain, or whether you let them sit and think it over; nine times out of ten, Smith opted for the latter – it always looks better on the video.

  ‘So, Mark, this is where we are. I’ve turned over all the cards that I’m allowed to because I want you to make the right decision for yourself and your aunt. Not that I think she was involved in any way, but this has got to be sorted, hasn’t it? She must be worried sick about all this. It’s time to put an end to it so that she can move on and make some new arrangements. Because we think that you, Mark, were involved in what happened to Bernard Sokoloff – we just don’t know to what extent, yet. We’ll find out but it will be better coming from you.’

  Williams glanced at the solicitor beside him and received a nod, and that was enough to show that he, Williams, had been told pretty much what was coming. Then Williams looked directly at Smith and Terek for the first time.

  ‘I didn’t plan it, didn’t plan any of it. It was all ’appening before I knew anything about it.’

  Smith said, ‘Tell us exactly what did happen, Mark.’

  ‘Like a bloody evil presence, he was. Sat there grinnin’ and making comments for two hours. We only had a couple staying in one of the rooms but there was such an atmosphere they went out of the bar and left early the next morning. Said he would be back every few days until no-one would ever stay again. Or if I gets fed up with that, he said, when they’d gone out, the old place might just go up in flames…’

  ‘You’re talking about Bernard Sokoloff on the 10th of September? We have to be clear on the facts, Mark.’

  ‘Who else? Evil bastard, he was. It got so bad I was going to call the police, even though she wouldn’t want it – Julie, that is – but then, Peter, he said…’

  ‘Peter Vince?’

  The hardest part is invariably for them to say the names – Williams had to pause then, as if he needed to re-think this, but it was too late, far too late for that now.

  ‘Then Peter Vince said to let them take care of it. After last time, he said, he’s got it coming.’

  ‘Let “them” take care of it? Who did you think he meant when he said that?’

  ‘Himself and Johnny. Johnny Fisher.’

  ‘They were both present in the bar on the 10th and had heard what Sokoloff was saying?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what did he mean, Peter Vince, when he said “after last time”? What did you take that to mean?’

  Occasionally there was a pause, some hesitation, before Williams answered but it was not the deliberate evaluation of the professional villain – instead, the Welshman was more like an innocent lost in the deep, dark forest for the first time. Except, thought Smith, you can’t be entirely innocent.

  ‘Well, you said you knew. He floored them, didn’t he, the first time he came, put them on their arses. Peter’s a hard man, you’d think twice before you tackled ’im, but this Londoner was a pro, you could see it. Laughed as he knocked them down, stood there like he’d done time in the ring, even posed like it.’

  ‘That was on the 17th of July. When Peter Vince said to you on the 10th of September, “He’s got it coming”, what did you think he meant by that, Mark?’

  ‘That they were going to pay him back. Give him some sort of a kickin’, you know. Couldn’t see how, but…’

  Smith raised his eyebrows, folded his arms and leaned back – to Williams it might seem as if he had not been believed then but Terek understood the signal and took up the questioning.

  ‘Mr Williams, what you have told us so far has helped your own situation, just as Sergeant Smith told you it would. But we need to be clear on this – how were you involved? Bernard Sokoloff was murdered that night. Did you help to murder Bernard Sokoloff?’

  Saying it aloud had the desired effect and resulted in a glance to Williams’ left to make sure that the solicitor was still there.

  ‘No, I did not.’

  ‘Did Peter Vince or John Fisher ask for your help in what they planned to do to Mr Sokoloff?’

  ‘No. Peter told me to go.’

  ‘Go where?’

  ‘To see Pauline. I’d told him that’s where I was supposed to be and he said go, great, get you right out
of it.’

  And that’s exactly what you want, as the investigating officer – that “get you right out of it” speaks volumes to the legally-trained minds that examine the evidence. In saying it, Peter Vince showed intention and premeditation. The attack on Sokoloff was not the result of a brawl outside a pub that got out of hand, and if Vince was convicted, those six words would double his sentence. Do detectives measure their successes by the lengths of sentences handed down? Of course they do.

  Terek said, ‘How did you find out exactly what had happened to Mr Sokoloff?’

  A nice question, including the assumption that Williams had been told. Williams could hardly answer that he didn’t know until he heard it on the six o’clock news. It produced a lengthy pause because Williams had realised that though his story had not involved him in any chargeable serious offence up to now, that might be about to change. Terek gave Smith the nod.

  ‘Mark, I can’t speak for anyone else but I can accept that you were not involved in planning to sort out Sokoloff. I can also accept that Peter Vince didn’t tell you what they had got planned for him, and so much the better for you. But I cannot accept that they never told you anything afterwards.’

  Williams understood well enough that once he had admitted that he had been told, he was admitting an offence, even though he would not have recognised the term “an accessory after the fact”; simply failing to report a crime that you know or believe has been committed is viewed as assisting the perpetrator, and it will attract a punishment proportionate to the seriousness of the original offence. Failing to report a murder can put you behind bars for several years.

  Smith said, ‘Alright, Mark – let’s try this another way. After you left the pub and went to Pauline Beavan’s house, did you communicate further in any way with Peter Vince or Johnny Fisher?’