The Murder Exchange

by Simon Kernick

  You are a dead man, and you know it.

  And then two things happened.

  First, Jack Merriweather sat up, rubbing his head and uttering the immortal words, ‘What the fuck’s going on?’

  Second, the naked man kicked out with his right leg and struck Elaine Toms in the calf of her left one, knocking her off balance. She slipped, then fell forward, and the gun went off, the bullet ricocheting off the carpet before flying harmlessly into the ceiling. She landed on her front, gun arm outstretched, but still holding it. As she tried to right herself, I took my chance, running forward and stamping as hard as I could on her wrist. She yelped in pain, but didn’t release the gun, so I stamped again, and this time she did. I pulled it up by the barrel, stepped back, resisting the urge to kick her in the face for scaring me senseless, and turned the gun round. Toms massaged her wrist, wailing in pain and accusing me of breaking it, while Merriweather continued to rub at his head and face, smearing the blood over it, still unsure, it seemed, about what was happening. The naked man simply sat where he was, shivering and silent.

  ‘All right,’ I said, holding the weapon gingerly, and praying that no one chose this moment to make a break for it, ‘everyone stay where they are.’

  ‘I need a cloth for my face,’ said the naked man, and slowly got to his feet. ‘Please.’

  He stood where he was for a moment, wiping the blood from his eyes. Something about him looked familiar. Very familiar, though the beard made it difficult to tell for sure.

  In the distance, I could hear the sirens. ‘Just stay where you are for a moment, sir.’

  ‘Please, I need water.’ He stumbled forward into the room from which Elaine Toms had just emerged. At the same time, she started edging along the floor in my direction, eyes watching me like a hawk in search of a weakness.

  I pointed the gun directly at her head. ‘Do not move,’ I told her.

  ‘The man with no clothes’, she said, motioning over her shoulder, ‘is Max Iversson. He’s wanted for murder.’

  Iversson. Shit!

  I heard a window opening in the other room, and the sound of someone clambering out. A second later, a noise like a crash came from outside. I stayed put, hoping he wouldn’t get far without any clothes, knowing that I had to make sure Toms didn’t escape. I cursed myself for not clocking Iversson immediately. It’s amazing what some blood and the Grizzly Adams look’ll do to a person’s face.

  Toms looked like she was going to make a break for it. ‘You’re letting him get away,’ she said mockingly.

  I smiled at her, holding the gun steady. ‘Then I’d better make sure I don’t make the same mistake with you.’

  She gave me a very unladylike sneer but didn’t make any move. At the same time, the sirens seemed to close in from all sides, cars screeching to a halt in front of the building. There was a loud bang as the front door to the building was forced, followed by the sound of heavy footfalls on the stairs.

  The cavalry had arrived.

  Wednesday, three days later

  Gallan

  ‘So, Jack, tell me. Why were you in Elaine Toms’s apartment armed with an illegal handgun and silencer?’

  Merriweather looked at his solicitor, who gave a slight nod, then back at me. ‘No comment,’ he said, scratching absentmindedly at the plaster on his broken nose.

  ‘How do you know Elaine Toms?’

  There was a pause. ‘No comment.’

  ‘Is it through Dagmar Holdings?’ Again, he looked at the solicitor, a bald, pinch-faced individual with outsize glasses and an officious air. This was the infamous Melvyn Carroll. Again, he gave that little nod.

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘What do you know about Dagmar Holdings?’

  ‘No comment.’

  I sighed. ‘You’re not helping us much here, Jack.’

  ‘Or yourself,’ added Knox, who was sitting beside me. ‘You’re facing very serious charges. Charges that carry a substantial prison sentence. We’re talking years, Jack, not months. Years. I suggest you think about that next time you get asked a question.’

  Merriweather yawned ostentatiously. ‘Are you lot going to charge me with anything or are you just going to sit here wasting my time?’

  Melvyn Carroll leant forward. He smelt strongly of eau de cologne. ‘My client insists he has done nothing wrong, and, as he has informed you repeatedly, has nothing further to say on the matter. I would therefore strongly request that you let him go.’

  Knox and I looked at each other, then back at Merriweather. Jackie Slap stared straight ahead at me, his eyes cold. His expression was a simple one. It said: You can’t touch me. I held his gaze, looking back at him expressionlessly. The room was silent for several seconds as the two of us stared each other down. Carroll opened his mouth to say something, but it was me who spoke first.

  ‘What do you know about the murder of Robert Jones?’ I asked, and something in Merriweather’s expression cracked. The composure was restored within the space of a second, but it was too late. I’d caught it. I knew I was on the right track.

  He shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t know nothing about anything like that. Never heard of the bloke.’

  ‘You’ve never heard of Robert Jones, the paper-boy who got murdered six months ago?’

  ‘Oh yeah, yeah, that. I heard about it, but I don’t know nothing about it. Why should I?’

  ‘That’s a good question,’ said Carroll. ‘What has the murder of a paperboy got to do with the charges my client is being questioned in connection with?’

  ‘We think Mr Merriweather may be able to throw some light on the child’s murder,’ said Knox, emphasizing the word ‘child’.

  ‘Look, don’t try to fit me up with something like that!’

  ‘No need to shout, Jack,’ said Knox.

  ‘I’m surprised you thought you hadn’t heard of him,’ I continued, ‘because it was, and is, a very high-profile case, and the last place he was seen alive, before he was so brutally murdered, was Runmayne Avenue where an associate of yours, Tony Franks, has a house—’

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  ‘And where you were seen by witnesses on a number of occasions, including only two weeks ago, when you were emptying out the property and claiming you were Mr Franks’s brother.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘And I don’t know where this is leading,’ Carroll interjected. ‘I’m going to have to ask you to desist with this line of questioning. It’s completely irrelevant.’

  I bent down beside my chair and picked up an evidence bag. I held it in front of Merriweather’s face. ‘Guess what this is.’

  Merriweather squinted. ‘I can’t see anything.’

  ‘Look closer.’ I pointed my finger at something almost intangible in the bag. ‘It’s a fibre, Jack, or two fibres to be precise. They came from the coat Robert Jones was wearing on the day he died, and guess what? We found them in the house you were emptying the other week. What do you think of that, then?’

  ‘There must be some mistake.’ There was no doubting the fear on his face now. Carroll also looked wrong-footed by this unwelcome new development. ‘I don’t know anything about a dead kid.’

  ‘Are you sure about that, Jack?’ asked Knox.

  ‘Course I’m fucking sure.’

  ‘How do you explain it, then?’ I asked. ‘How they got there.’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with me. I didn’t live there.’

  ‘Why were you emptying out the place, then?’ Knox said.

  ‘Where’s Tony Franks, Jack? We can’t seem to find him.’

  ‘I don’t know a Tony Franks.’

  ‘Why were you emptying out his house, then?’

  ‘I wasn’t—’

  ‘We’ve got a witness who says you were. She even spoke to you.’

  ‘Fuck this, I don’t want to answer any more questions.’

  ‘I think my client would like a break in proceedings,’ said Carroll.


  ‘We haven’t finished yet,’ snapped Knox.

  ‘I’ve fucking finished,’ said Merriweather, folding his arms and making a great play of looking away.

  ‘Don’t you want to have a look at this photo?’ I asked, taking it out of my pocket and sliding it along the table towards Merriweather. ‘It’s the last one ever taken of Robert. Christmas Day lunch last year, six weeks before he died. It’s a good one, isn’t it?’

  Merriweather continued to look away, but I could see that his jaw was quivering.

  ‘I really must protest about these methods. My client has already said he doesn’t want to answer any more questions on this matter. I am therefore requesting, in the strongest possible terms, that you terminate this interview.’

  ‘Were you aware, Jack, that a company called Dagmar Holdings paid the rent on Tony Franks’s house?’

  ‘I’ve never heard of Dagmar Holdings.’

  ‘Really?’ I said, and Merriweather immediately knew he’d made a mistake. You could see it in his eyes. ‘Two cheques from Dagmar Holdings totalling a grand total of nine thousand three hundred and twenty pounds were paid into a bank account belonging to your wife, one in February, another in June. You were also at the home of the company secretary of Dagmar Holdings when we arrested you.’

  ‘With an unlicensed firearm,’ added Knox for good measure.

  ‘As your representative, Jack, I advise you to make no further comment at this time.’

  ‘No comment,’ said Merriweather.

  ‘One way or another someone’s going down for this child murder, Jack,’ said Knox. ‘We’re not going to rest until we find the person responsible.’

  ‘And for some reason, you seem to be lying a lot during the course of this interview.’

  ‘And you’re connected very strongly to the house where we believe he died.’

  ‘Where’s Tony Franks, Jack?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘Did he kill Robert Jones, or did you?’

  ‘What did you kill him for, Jack? Did he see something he shouldn’t have done?’

  ‘No comment. I told you! No fucking comment!’ He turned to the brief. ‘Come on, Melvyn, tell ’em I’m not answering any more fucking questions about stuff I don’t know nothing about.’

  ‘You heard my client,’ said Carroll. ‘He’s saying nothing further at this time.’

  Knox and I looked at each other and nodded. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘We’ll return you to your cells while we continue our enquiries. Before we finish, though, there’s one thing I’d also like to show you.’ I picked up another evidence bag, again seemingly empty. ‘It’s one of Robert Jones’s hairs, also found at Runmayne Avenue. Amazing what you can discover when you look hard enough, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not a very good clean-up job, was it?’ said Knox with a sympathetic smile.

  Merriweather tried to stare us both down, tried to appear calm and aloof in the face of our threats, but it wasn’t working. A single bead of sweat ran down the middle of his forehead and onto the bridge of his broken nose. He was immediately aware of it, and knew we could see it. Knew we knew.

  ‘Interview terminated at twelve forty-five p.m.,’ I said, and switched off the tape. I stood up and smiled at Merriweather. ‘We’ll talk again soon,’ I told him.

  When the two of us were safely ensconced in Knox’s office, along with Berrin, we discussed what we’d gathered from the interview.

  ‘It’s still tenuous, John. If he holds out, we’re in trouble. He’s consistently denying his involvement with the case, and the witness statements and that little bit of forensics are hardly enough to pin him for the murder. At the moment, all he’s down for is possession of an illegal firearm, which he’s denying. He says it belonged to Iversson. If it carries on like this, he could easily get bail. Is there no way we can get Iversson to talk and let us know what was happening there?’

  Iversson had been captured after a short but dramatic chase through the streets of Clerkenwell, but he wasn’t co-operating either.

  I sighed. ‘He’s even more of a no-comment merchant than Merriweather. Iversson’s linked with the massacre at the farm and the kidnapping of Krys Holtz, so I think he figures he’s got nothing to gain by talking, and nothing to lose by staying silent.’

  ‘What about Toms? Can’t we prise anything out of her?’

  I shook my head. ‘She knows a lot more than she’s letting on but she’s not stupid. Her story’s that she was with Merriweather, whom she knows vaguely, when Iversson turned up and tried to rape her. He beat up Merriweather but somehow she managed to get his gun off him and shoot him in the shoulder. She claims it was self-defence and it’s a story she’s sticking by. Therefore, in the absence of Franks, who we can’t find anywhere, our best bet’s got to be Merriweather. He knows what’s going on, I’m sure of it, and he’s got the most to lose by not co-operating.’

  ‘But will he crack?’

  ‘No one wants to be labelled a child killer,’ I said, ‘especially a macho gangster type like him, and I don’t think he’s as much of a hardman as he likes to make out. Yes, in my opinion, he’ll crack.’

  Ten minutes later, while we were still talking, the phone on Knox’s desk rang. He picked it up, listened for twenty seconds, smiled, and told the caller we’d be right down. He looked at me with the sort of expression my wife’s lover would pull if he’d just stumbled on a story that would put the prime minister out of a job. ‘It looks like you’re right, John,’ he said, and I think there might even have been some admiration in his voice. ‘He wants to talk to us.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘Better than good. He wants to do it without his brief present.’

  ‘First things first. I want immunity.’

  ‘You haven’t told us anything yet, Jack,’ said Knox, lighting his cigarette for him.

  ‘I’ve got stuff, all right?’ he said, looking at us both in turn. ‘Stuff that’ll put people away, but if I help, I don’t want to fucking go down. I’m going to need the works. Immunity, new identity. All that shit. Understand?’

  ‘If what you tell us is the truth,’ said Knox, ‘and it’s a big if, and if you’re prepared to testify, then obviously special arrangements will be put in place for you. But no decision’s going to be made on that until we hear what you have to say.’

  There was a long silence while Merriweather thought about what had just been said. ‘You know, I’ve never done nothing like this before,’ he said eventually. ‘I’m no grass, I’ll tell you that now. If it hadn’t been for that fucking kid – that’s when it all went wrong.’

  ‘What happened?’ I asked, unsure whether I felt excited or depressed that we were so close to the truth.

  ‘I wasn’t even there at the time, and that’s a fucking promise. I had nothing to do with it. I’d never kill a kid. I mean, I’ve got three of my own, haven’t I? I’m no fucking nonce.’

  ‘Let’s start at the beginning, Jack,’ said Knox. ‘What was the house being used for?’

  He took a drag on his cigarette, then answered without looking at us. ‘Smuggling. A lot of the smack from eastern Europe went through that gaff. It used to get dropped by the couriers at sites in Kent and then Franks and whoever else he was using would go and pick it up and bring it back to the place for storage. We always reckoned it was the perfect cover because it wasn’t the sort of place you’d expect to find gear. You know, it was a nice posh area.’

  ‘And the gear was paid for by Stefan Holtz, right?’ I said. ‘It was his stuff ?’

  ‘It belonged to the organization, yeah.’

  ‘So what’s this got to do with Robert Jones?’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t just smack that was being smuggled. You see, Tony Franks, me and him both report to Neil Vamen, and there was other sidelines Neil had going that the boss, Stefan, didn’t know about, because he wouldn’t have approved.’

  ‘What were they?’

  ‘Guns, that was the main one. And not just any guns either
. All sorts. Grenade launchers, AK-47s, even anti-fucking-tank missiles. You see, Tony had been a mercenary or something over there, and he got us involved with the drug-smuggling routes through Bosnia. It was his idea to do guns because we had the route set up and the place was chock-a-block with firearms. Well, Stefan never liked that idea, he didn’t think we should be putting weapons in the hands of people who could use them against us, but Neil had contacts. Not just here but in Ireland, and he reckoned he could make a serious packet out of it, and there was no need to let the boss know, so that’s what we did.

  ‘It worked pretty well, too – so well that Neil began to get this idea that maybe things would be better if he ran the organization rather than Stefan. He used to say that Stefan was too traditional in the way he did business, that he didn’t think big enough. A couple of years back he even got us to plant a load of rifles on Tommy Holtz to get him put away. I think Neil’s idea was to start taking out the Holtzes one by one. Anyway, things were going nice, Tony’s doing most of the work, I’m just checking up on him now and again, and then suddenly I get a call one morning last February from Tony saying he’s got a problem. A big problem. I get round there and I can’t fucking believe what I see. I still can’t fucking believe it. There’s this kid, this Robert Jones, and he’s laid out on the floor with his paper bag, and he’s dead, and Tony’s standing over him with this geezer, Shaun Matthews, who used to help him out sometimes, and they’re saying what the fuck are we going to do?’