In Vino Veritas

by Peter Turnbull

  ‘Ah!’ Claire Highmore, a bespectacled young woman with close-cut blonde hair, dressed in a plum-coloured suit and black patent leather shoes, raised her pen, which she held poised over her notebook. ‘He … that is Mr Cragg, my client, may possibly be charged with the crime of accessory after the fact but only a jury can decide whether he is guilty of the crime or not.’ Sitting beside Andrew Cragg, she looked over the top of the rim of her spectacles with a piercingly disapproving look directed at Frankie Brunnie. ‘Let’s keep it correct, shall we?’ She added, ‘For the benefit of the tape.’

  Frankie Brunnie paused and breathed deeply. ‘Very well, Miss Highmore, point taken. So, Andrew, you may be charged with being an accessory after the fact, which could carry a sentence of up to five years in prison. If convicted.’ Again Brunnie paused. ‘You have told us that you were present when the murder was committed, which might make the jury agree that you are guilty of conspiracy to murder.’

  ‘That’s a life sentence,’ Swannell added.

  ‘I’ve told you all I know.’ Cragg’s head sagged forward. ‘I agreed to help “Chinese Geordie Davy”, but it wasn’t until we got to the lock-up that I knew what the job was about. I was set to leave but the other guy had a gun and I knew I wouldn’t have made it to the door … and “Chinese Geordie Davy”, he knew what I was thinking and he said, “Look, Andy, she’s past caring now, it’s a good wedge and you’re in it now anyway.” I was in debt to a heavy crew and I was to be paid enough to clear the debt and give me a bit of a float. I reckon that’s why I stayed. The heavy crew were going to break my legs if I didn’t come up with their money within a few days.’

  ‘Can we be clear on a very important point, please, gentlemen.’ Claire Highmore spoke slowly. ‘My client informed me … he insists that he didn’t know that the “job” as he calls it involved the crime of murder until after a man, whom he did not know, emerged from the shadows and shot the victim. That is no more than accessory after the fact. So what can the police offer?’

  ‘Nothing much yet,’ Brunnie replied. ‘Just the advice that you probably would give … being to go “guilty” and get one third remission for a guilty plea … three years … but if you know more, Andrew, if you can help put a bigger fish away … if you’ll climb into the witness box then, perhaps … the dropping of all charges and you’ll disappear into the witness protection programme. New identity … new start.’

  ‘I honestly don’t know much,’ Cragg appealed to Brunnie. ‘I have told you … it isn’t good to know too much if you’re only a gofer. Gofer’s who know too much, they vanish in the fog. Never seen again.’

  ‘So what do you know, Andrew?’ Swannell persisted. ‘You sound as if you know something, more than you’re letting on.’

  ‘I know that you should really speak to “Chinese Geordie Davy” – he does favours for some geezer.’

  ‘Favours?’

  ‘He gets rid of bodies.’ Cragg sighed. ‘OK, he’s a refuse collector … a “dustman”. He sweeps up after the other guy has done the business. When Davy …’

  ‘“Chinese Geordie Davy”, aka David Danby?’ Brunnie confirmed.

  ‘Yes … Davy … him. When the other guy has done the business he contacts Davy … David Danby … to make the bodies disappear, and if Davy wants a bit of help, he offers a wedge to someone who might need it.’ Andrew Cragg spoke softly.

  ‘Someone like you, Andy?’ Swannell pressed. ‘So how many bodies are we talking about?’

  ‘A couple?’ Cragg sighed.

  ‘So … what you mean is what … ten … fifteen …’ Brunnie’s voice hardened. ‘That sort of couple?’

  ‘Don’t put words into my client’s mouth,’ Claire Highmore snapped. ‘Confine yourself to simple questions and remember that nothing my client tells you, despite the tape recording, is worth anything until he signs any statement he may care to make. The criminal justice system will not accept tape recordings, only written and signed statements. Oral admissions or statements are not acceptable, unless given under oath in the witness box.’

  ‘It’s all right, miss.’ Cragg turned to Claire Highmore. ‘I want to get all this off my chest.’

  ‘Very well, but I will be here to advise you.’ Claire Highmore spoke clearly and confidently. ‘And we will not be signing anything unless we have good and fair offers from the police, in the sense of reduced charges or the dropping of charges.’

  ‘All right … so where are they all buried, Andrew?’ Swannell asked firmly. ‘What on earth is in the allotments all over London?’

  ‘They are not buried.’ Andrew Cragg spoke calmly. ‘They’re in the river … you’ll never find them. They are cut into little bits and fed to the fishes. He puts them in the river at low tide into the mud at Shadwell Stair or Greenwich Reach, and when the river floods the rising water swallows the bits. It’s done at night, just as the flood begins. If over the years a severed leg or an arm is found at the side of the river it might be “Chinese Geordie Davy’s” work but it’s not likely; the parts he leaves at the water’s edge are cut up small, in weighted bags with holes torn in the bags to let the Old Father in.’

  ‘So you have conspired in at least two murders …’ Swannell ran his fingers through his hair.

  ‘That is still to be determined.’ Once again Claire Highmore held up her ballpoint pen. ‘Let’s not rush our fences … and my client seems to be admitting to conspiracy after the fact, not the murder.’

  ‘Very well, fair enough,’ Swannell murmured in agreement and then thought, Softly, softly, that’s the ticket. ‘So,’ he continued, ‘what do you know about the other victims of “Chinese Geordie Davy”?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Cragg replied firmly. ‘They are not his victims. You see, this is how it works … or used to work when I knew Davy. He comes in … he used to come in afterwards to tidy up. So who the victims were I don’t know, I never knew. All I ever saw him deal with was a pile of body parts. I never wanted to know ’cos I didn’t want to end up like that. Davy said that to me once … he said, “A lot of geezers end up like this because they know too much … so learn to keep yourself in the dark. The less you know, the safer you’ll be.”’

  ‘So what you’re saying is that the other victims you helped dispose of were members of the underworld? Criminals?’ Swannell clarified.

  ‘I believed so … I still believe so,’ Cragg replied with a shrug. ‘I don’t think Davy knew who they were. The Big Man … he liked it like that.’

  ‘The “Big Man”?’ Brunnie echoed. ‘Who is that?’

  ‘Or was … I mean, I haven’t seen “Chinese Geordie Davy” since we buried the girl. I don’t know what he’s doing now. I don’t even know if he’s still alive,’ Cragg replied meekly.

  ‘He’s still alive,’ Brunnie growled. ‘In fact, he’ll likely be joining you in here before too long. So who is the Big Man?’

  ‘The guy that Davy works for … or worked for … big in terms of power, but if he was the guy who shot the girl then he’s quite short.’

  ‘So what you’re saying is that the Big Man is some kind of hitman … a contract killer?’

  ‘Seems so,’ Cragg replied. ‘He “offs” them then he cuts them up, then “Chinese Geordie Davy” takes the bits away.’

  ‘So why didn’t he cut up the body of Victoria Keynes?’ Swannell sat forward. ‘Why did he bury her whole?’

  ‘You’ll have to ask him that.’ Cragg looked to his left. ‘I thought it was a bit out of the way to bury a whole body rather than the usual script of dropping small bits of it into the river. But I didn’t say anything … I never want to know too much. I just took Davy’s advice. I kept my old loaf of bread down and my old north and south shut. That way I get to live … so I thought.’

  ‘And you don’t know the identity of the shooter … the Big Man?’

  ‘Nope,’ Cragg smiled a thin smile, ‘and I don’t want to either. I keep telling you.’

  ‘So what’s his MO?’ Swannell asked. ‘How doe
s the Big Man work?’

  ‘I only know what Davy told me,’ Cragg protested.

  ‘All right, that’ll do for now,’ Swannell advised. ‘That’ll do for a start. What did Davy tell you?’

  ‘He’s given a target,’ Cragg advised. ‘He has heavies who bring the target to his lock-up.’

  ‘He murders for money?’ Brunnie clarified.

  ‘Don’t know,’ Cragg shrugged, ‘whether he’s an independent operator or whether he’s on the payroll of some firm … I don’t know.’ Cragg sat back in his chair. ‘He shoots the victims in the head in his lock-up. Then he lets them cure.’

  ‘“Cure”?’ Swannell repeated. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Well … I mean, that’s just the word Davy used,’ Cragg whined. ‘Davy told me that the Big Guy, he chills them, then he and the heavies strip the dead men naked, get rid of all their clothing and other possessions … then he leaves them for three or four days, during which time he ensures the clothes and other stuff are got well rid of. Anyway, after three or four days when the victims’ blood has dried he cuts them up with a woodman’s bow saw … not a carpenter’s saw but a bow saw … the sort of saw which is designed to saw tree branches up. It cuts right through the bone, so Davy said.’

  ‘It would,’ Brunnie sighed. ‘Anyway, carry on, Andrew. This is good – you’re doing well.’

  ‘So he saws them up … cuts them into little pieces, Davy told me: feet, hands, forearms, upper arms … head, thighs, calves … They all get put in shopping bags or rucksacks or suitcases which he buys from charity shops – all used gear, can’t be traced to him. He adds a weight – a lump of concrete, a brick … He picks them up from demolition sites and cuts a hole in the bag so the water can get in, to make sure the bags sinks, or that it at least doesn’t rise with the tide because, like I said, the Big Man likes them put at the water’s edge at low tide, but I’ve been with Davy when he drops ’em off a bridge … the Big Man doesn’t check and Davy, well, sometimes he takes risks … at least he did ten years ago.’

  ‘All right … keep talking, Andrew, you’re doing well,’ Swannell encouraged.

  ‘Very well,’ Brunnie echoed in agreement.

  ‘Davy said the problem was the stomach gases …’ Cragg paused and patted his stomach. ‘They can’t escape and they’ll cause a body to float so the Big Man has to puncture the stomach …’

  ‘Yes …’ Brunnie nodded.

  ‘So the Big Man does that at night,’ Andrew Cragg informed the officers in a matter-of-fact manner, ‘so Davy said. He carries … what is it called?’ Cragg put his left hand up to his neck and his right hand down to his stomach. ‘This bit … without head or arms or legs?’

  ‘The torso,’ Swannell advised. ‘That’s your torso.’

  ‘OK … this bit,’ Cragg continued. ‘He carries that out of the lock-up and into the street.’

  ‘The street?’ Brunnie gasped. ‘The street, did you say?’

  ‘Yes … the street … at night, so Davy told me once.’ Cragg continued to speak in a calm, matter-of-fact manner. ‘No people about then … all business premises round about. No houses, no pubs, no late-night shops and takeaway eating places … just a dark street full of lock-ups. So he carries the … what is it …?’

  ‘The torso,’ Swannell repeated.

  ‘Yeah … that bit. Anyway, after three or four days it’s getting bloated, so he carries it outside on to the pavement, does a quick shuftie in case there is someone about … takes a deep breath, turns his head away and sticks a carving knife into the stomach. The gases escape with a loud hiss, Davy told me. Then the Big Man shreds the stomach, just to make sure, and carries it back to the lock-up, bungs it into a weighted suitcase which has been holed to let water in then leaves the suitcase with the other bags until “Chinese Geordie Davy” collects them and puts them in the river … feeds them to the fishes off Shadwell Stair, or if he’s feeling lazy, or lucky, he’ll drop the bag off Tower Bridge. So I helped him once or twice when I needed the cash.’ Cragg took a deep breath. ‘Oh … and then we burn the cloth.’

  ‘The cloth?’ Brunnie queried.

  ‘The cloth,’ Cragg repeated. ‘Davy says that when the Big Man is letting a body cure he lays it on a cloth, like an old bit of curtain, which he spreads on the concrete floor of the lock-up. He cuts the bodies up on the cloth as well, so once the body is in bits and in bags and suitcases, the cloth is folded up and given to Davy, and once the bags have been fed to the Old Father, Davy douses the cloth with petrol and puts a lighted match to it. Davy always does that in a remote place, well out of the way. So, I have helped myself … yes?’ Andrew Cragg appealed to Brunnie.

  ‘You haven’t harmed yourself, put it like that,’ Brunnie replied. ‘So how many bodies do you reckon you helped “Chinese Geordie Davy” get rid of, would you say?’

  ‘Over the years … about ten,’ Cragg replied, ‘or fifteen … I have lost count.’

  ‘And my client can’t be charged with any one of the incidents.’ Claire Highmore folded her notepad. ‘Not without any corroborative evidence, which leaves you only with the part he played in the murder of Victoria Keynes, where he was but an accessory after the fact. But you will need my client’s testimony if you are going to successfully prosecute David Danby and the so called “Big Man”, and for that we need the assurance that all charges against my client will be dropped.’

  ‘Well … that all depends.’ Brunnie stood and pressed the bell on the wall beside the door. ‘So, to use your own expression, Miss Highmore, let’s not rush our fences … either of us. But for now your client will be charged with accessory after the fact in respect of the murder of Victoria Keynes. He’ll appear before the magistrates again tomorrow and will almost certainly be remanded back into custody.’

  Harry and Kathleen Vicary, she raven-haired and slender, fetching in a calf-length skirt, he tall and neatly but casually dressed, sat quietly, side by side, in a large room containing, perhaps, Vicary estimated, seventy to eighty persons sitting in rows facing the front of the hall. To Vicary’s right the curtains over the window had been left open so as to permit the mid-evening sun to stream into the room. The windows themselves, where possible, had also been left open to provide ventilation. The chairman who was sitting facing the audience, and who was well known to the regular attenders, stood and introduced that evening’s guest speaker. Upon being introduced, the immaculately dressed speaker stood and said, ‘Hello, my name is Steve and I am alcoholic’, to which all the persons in the room replied by saying, ‘Hello, Steve’. That evening’s guest speaker then proceeded to tell the audience of his personal descent into his ‘own private hell’, via the bottle, and how he reached his ‘gutter’, losing everything – his job, his marriage – and then he went on to talk about his slow but steady road to full recovery, not, by that evening, having consumed a single drop of alcohol in five years. Upon the completion of his talk he earned what Harry Vicary thought to be a well-deserved round of applause, because Steve, unlike so many previous guest speakers, did not seem to ever exaggerate his consumption. He had admitted to reaching a level of consuming only one bottle of whisky a day, whereas other speakers, often frail and finely made females, would lay claim to consuming three bottles of vodka a day for twenty years – all highly unlikely, Vicary had always privately thought. But Steve’s ‘hell’, the loss of his job and his marriage, and his relatively modest consumption of alcohol, made his story far more believable than the stories of many other speakers, many of whom claimed to have sold their children’s toys to buy alcohol. And all of whom, Vicary had always thought, with the cynicism of a long-serving police officer, to be self-pitying attention seekers, but Steve seemed to be genuine and Harry Vicary was pleased to put his hands together for him.

  After staying for thirty minutes after Steve’s talk to enjoy coffee and a chat with friends, the Vicarys made their farewells and took their leave. From the public meeting rooms the Vicarys walked to The Raven’s Nest where they s
at in the lounge, both drinking soda water with lime and sharing a bag of dry roasted peanuts. Just because they were both ‘dry alcoholics’, they argued, was no reason to deny themselves the joy of the English pub. Later they walked home to their house in Hartley Road, via Bushwood Road, so that they might enjoy the breathable dusk air of Wanstead Flats, Leytonstone, London, E11.

  Frankie Brunnie and the nurse sat facing each other in the corner seats of the Old Swan Inn in Walthamstow. The short nurse gazed at Frankie Brunnie: he was tall and dark haired, with a striking black beard which he always kept immaculately trimmed. Frankie Brunnie, in turn, gazed at the nurse, enjoying his smooth, aesthetically pleasing features and the sparkle in his eyes. To an observer, the nurse and Brunnie would appear to be good friends – two men who liked each other and who had momentarily exhausted their conversation while out for a few beers. In fact, for Brunnie and the nurse, the silence was a thing of value, of great depth and great beauty, because they were deeply and utterly in love with each other.

  It was Thursday, 22.40 hours.

  FIVE

  Friday, 10.15 hours – 17.35 hours

  ‘Food suit you, Davy? In Brixton Prison?’ Swannell took out his notepad and laid it on the table surface in the agent’s room. ‘You did tell us that you wanted some food and clean linen to sleep in. Is it all to your liking, Davy?’

  ‘I’ve tasted worse food and I’ve tasted better.’ David Danby shrugged his shoulders. ‘But I reckon it’s all there … the vegetables are boiled to nothing, the meat is always stringy with too much fat, but if the alternative is starving … well, then it’s all right.’

  ‘You should complain to the management,’ Brunnie advised with dry sarcasm. ‘You might get a refund.’