Brass in Pocket

by Stephen Puleston

  ‘Have you been looking after Stevie Dixon?’

  ‘Oh yes. First-class treatment. Generous to a fault. We even took turns to gob in his coffee.’

  Caren winced and Drake stifled a laugh.

  Stevie Dixon and his solicitor were already waiting in the interview room. The windowless, soundproofed space had a small table pushed against a wall.

  Drake made the necessary introductions, sat down and thought he noticed something floating on the surface of the cold coffee in one of the plastic cups standing at one end of the table. He scanned Dixon and his brief. The custody sergeant had been right about the solicitor. The suit was a designer label and the shirt an expensive cutaway-collar design with a knitted silk tie. Drake noticed the Liverpool accent through the cultured tone Marcus Frome adopted.

  Stevie Dixon had no neck to speak of; his head protruded off massive shoulders, the short sleeves of his shirt bulging from the definition in his arms.

  Dixon’s stare was hard – Drake sensed this would be a difficult interview.

  ‘Do you know why you’ve been arrested?’ he began.

  ‘Spare me that fucking do-you-know-why-you’ve-been-arrested bullshit. I know why I’m here. Some young snivelling policeman, who’s just had his first wank, assaulted me without reason. I defended myself, as I am entitled to do.’

  ‘I’m investigating the murder of two road traffic officers on the Crimea Pass the night before last.’

  ‘What the fuck does that have to do with me?’

  ‘One of the police officers was Constable Paul Mathews and the other Constable Danny Farrell. Do you remember them?’

  Stevie Dixon pushed back the chair, balancing on the two rear legs, all the while staring at Drake.

  ‘Is my client a formal suspect in these two murders?’ Marcus Frome said.

  ‘I was asking your client if he remembered the two officers.’

  ‘And I was asking if my client is a formal suspect.’

  Drake ignored the solicitor and turned to Dixon again.

  ‘Did you know Constable Paul Mathews and Constable Danny Farrell?’

  ‘They’re the bastards that stitched me up.’

  ‘Can you account for your whereabouts the night before last?’

  ‘I was home, shagging the missus. Then out at a party.’

  Caren was busy writing in a notebook. Drake continued with questions, asking about specific times, wanting Dixon to give a detailed account that could be double-checked. Dixon sounded casual and unconcerned, almost convincing. The solicitor gave up interrupting and satisfied himself by keeping detailed notes of the questions and answers.

  ‘You were arrested yesterday on suspicion of assaulting a police officer.’

  ‘It was self defence.’

  Drake scanned the papers in front of him. ‘The medical report states that Constable David Howick suffered a severe assault resulting in a broken nose and a black eye.’

  He looked at Dixon and caught the end of a smile crossing his face.

  ‘These injuries are serious.’

  Dixon tried to sound authoritative. ‘It was a legitimate act of self defence.’

  Drake had satisfied himself before the interview that he had sufficient grounds to charge Stevie Dixon with assault, giving them enough time to check out his alibi. He could tell Dixon wanted to give his version of events; very few suspects said nothing – that was for television soaps.

  ‘Tell me what happened yesterday.’

  Dixon brought the front legs of the chair back to the floor, straightened up and cleared his throat. The solicitor looked uncomfortable but Dixon was enjoying the attention.

  ‘I was acting in self defence. How many times do I have to say this?’

  ‘The officer wanted to question you about a serious matter. You refused to cooperate.’

  ‘That’s fucking shit.’

  ‘Once the officer told you were being arrested you assaulted him without provocation.’

  ‘He assaulted me. Doesn’t the law say that I can act in self defence?’

  ‘You failed to cooperate after you were cautioned and arrested.’

  ‘He didn’t caution me. If he says so, he’s fucking lying.’

  ‘Are you saying that three police officers are lying?’

  Dixon folded his arms and said nothing further.

  Once the interview had finished, Drake and Caren returned to the custody desk. ‘Well, did he cough?’ the sergeant asked.

  Drake sat down on a hard plastic chair and let out a slow groan. The sergeant nodded as Drake told him the details.

  ‘So you want me to deny him bail on the grounds that he might abscond, interfere with witnesses and because he’s a fucking toe-rag.’

  ‘That’s about it.’

  It took another hour to finish the formalities. Despite quoting a Court of Appeal decision Marcus Frome failed to intimidate the custody sergeant and settled on having his representations noted in writing. Once Dixon was back in a cell, Drake left.

  He stepped into the warmth of the evening sunshine. He shook his jacket and brushed away some imaginary flecks of dirt before folding it over one arm. His hands felt dirty, his face grimy, but he was glad to be in the fresh air, out of the stifling atmosphere of the custody suite.

  He loosened his tie, pointed the remote control at the Alfa, and then laid his jacket on the passenger seat before allowing the smell of the leather to invade his nostrils. It was time to go home.

  Drake drove to headquarters instead.

  The Incident Room was quiet, the offices tranquil and he slumped into the chair by his desk. Then he reordered all the papers on his desk and tidied the pens and biros in the pot by the telephone. Finally, he began on the bookcase, rearranging the files and folders into piles that made sense, that had order. When Price knocked on his door, Drake was on the floor, rummaging through papers.

  ‘Jesus, Ian. What are you doing at this time of the night?’

  Drake scrambled to his feet. ‘Just tidying the papers.’

  Price gave him a puzzled look. ‘You’ve got a family. Go home.’

  Once Price had left, Drake brushed the dirt from his trousers and sat back into his chair. An hour later he left, after he’d heard the approaching cleaners and realised the time.

  .

  Chapter 8

  Thursday 3rd June

  Caren woke a few minutes past six and stared at the alarm clock.

  She abandoned trying to sleep and padded downstairs. From the kitchen window she saw Alun moving in the fields below the farmhouse, tending to the alpacas. She and Alun had been married for five years and on mornings like this, she didn’t want to interview murderers, thieves or burglars for a living. She caught herself brooding about children, a prospect they had discussed although they had never come to a final decision. And she wasn’t certain that she would be a good mother. She knew from colleagues that combining a career as a police officer and being a mother was stressful.

  She busied herself making tea before tidying away the remnants of supper from the night before. She listened to the radio announcement about a special programme on the television that evening on the horrific murder of two police officers in North Wales. Instantly she imagined herself back at the top of the Crimea Pass, looking down at the bodies of Mathews and Farrell. Since the murders she’d slept fitfully, often waking thinking about the investigation. Normally she could forget about work at home but the murders had invaded her comfort zone and challenged the routine she took for granted.

  She heard Alun grunting by the back door as he struggled to take off his boots. He smiled when he saw her. ‘Couldn’t sleep?’

  She consigned the investigation to the corners of her mind, realising that his presence in the kitchen had brought her back down to the normalities of life.

  ‘Tea?’ she said.

  He nodded.

  After breakfast, she soaked in the bath, allowing her body to sink into the hot, clean water, and her mind turned to her interv
iew with Anna later that morning.

  It was another clear summer’s day as she pulled the back door closed behind her. Approaching the car she heard a rustling sound in the narrow ditch – a field mouse, more afraid of her than she was of it. A buzzard clung to the air currents high above her head and the cloudless sky promised more high temperatures.

  Driving east on the A55, her progress was slowed by the early morning traffic and she caught sight of the whirling blades of the wind farm far out to sea. The colourless estates of bungalows on the outskirts of Rhyl made Caren realise how much she valued her farmhouse. She passed the sprawling caravan parks and amusement arcades that disfigured the coastline and wondered how people could enjoy themselves in this environment. Where was the attraction in spending two weeks by a funfair?

  The directions she had scribbled on a piece of paper were unclear and she became more and more frustrated as she turned into one cul-de-sac after another until she spotted Anna’s car and parked behind it.

  Anna opened the door as Caren raised her hand to ring the bell. She led Caren into a small sitting room at the front of the house. The room was airless and stuffy. A display cupboard in one corner was full of tea sets and various china trinkets.

  ‘How are you this morning?’ Caren said.

  Gone was the heavy make-up of the night before. Gone were the high heels and the fashionable clothes. She wore an unflattering tracksuit. Her eyelids were swollen and red – the bags under her eyes suggested a night of little sleep.

  Anna grunted a reply. ‘Do you want tea or coffee or something?’ she said, without conviction.

  ‘No, nothing thanks. I need to ask you about Paul.’

  Anna blinked heavily and Caren thought she saw a tear gather in the corner of one eye.

  ‘I knew what he was like, you know.’

  Caren ignored the remark. ‘How did you meet?’

  ‘He picked me up one night when I was at the Sports Club in town. He was with his friends.’

  ‘Which club?’

  ‘It was the Archery Club. He used to go there a lot. He could be a real charmer. He knew all the right things to say. One of my friends told me to be careful.’

  ‘How long have you been going out with him?’

  ‘Fifteen months.’

  ‘Did he talk about work at all?’

  ‘Sometimes he used to talk about Danny and some of the other lads.’

  Anna could remember some names and she described some faces of the officers she knew had been friends with Paul, but she looked blank when Caren asked about any court cases involving Paul.

  ‘What about the children? How often did he see them?’

  ‘He saw them once a month, sometimes more often. It was the one constant thing in his life. He loved them.’

  Caren moved to the edge of her chair, her attention focused – this was very different from Fiona Trick’s account. ‘Would you be with him?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ she said. ‘Usually he saw them on his own. Sometimes he took them bowling and always to McDonald’s.’

  Caren nodded: it sounded typical. ‘Did that get in the way of what you wanted to do?’

  ‘I didn’t want kids.’ Anna averted her eye contact. ‘And I knew Paul didn’t want any more commitments. I knew what he was like.’

  Anna looked away and then repeated her offer of tea. Caren hesitated and read her notes, sensing Anna’s pain.

  ‘Did he confide in you?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so. As much as he did to anybody.’

  Caren continued. ‘Do you think he had any enemies?’

  ‘Anybody who might want to kill him you mean?’ She grimaced. ‘The husbands of all the women he slept with?’

  ‘Anyone in particular?’

  ‘He didn’t give me the names. But …’

  Caren looked up. ‘But what?’

  ‘He caught chlamydia from someone. I only found out when I happened to find an empty packet of pills. He didn’t tell me about it. He never knew about it for a long time.’

  ‘Did he pass on to you?’

  ‘No, we always took precautions.’

  ‘Did he pass it on to anybody else?’

  ‘Can’t say.’ Anna seemed to be tiring. Her head drooped and her concentration lapsed.

  When Caren ended their conversation, the relief on Anna’s face was obvious.

  Feeling the sun on her face, Caren was pleased to be outside, and as she drove away, she raised her hand to Anna, still standing by the front door, still looking quite different from the night before.

  Drake read the CSI report from start to finish, trying to fix the details in his mind. There were no samples, no footprints, no traces – he often wondered how the CSIs could enjoy fingertip searches of crime scenes, looking for the merest scrap of evidence. He ticked off each paragraph, the frustration that they had found nothing to help the investigation building. He found a piece of plain paper and in the middle drew a large circle in which he wrote the number four. He always found this exercise calming, directing his mind by the physical discipline of writing something down.

  Through the closed door of his office he could hear the voices of the officers in his team. He thought about the sudoku in the newspaper that morning. Despite sitting in the car concentrating on the puzzle, pencil in hand, he hadn’t managed one square and it was starting to rile him. He sipped from his mug of coffee. The packet had said finest Italian, but Drake regretted not sticking to his usual brand, as the coffee was weak and tasteless. He continued drawing arrows into the centre of the circle on the paper. At the beginning of each arrow he scribbled an explanation – house number, unlikely; clue to another song, maybe; connection with the Crimea Pass, tentative; counting down to more killings, frightening. He couldn’t shake off an overwhelming feeling of foreboding.

  He placed the report into one corner of the desk before leaving his office. In the middle of the Incident Room, Winder was sitting at his desk, staring at the computer.

  ‘Something odd about these messages, boss.’

  ‘Explain, please.’

  ‘I put together a log of where the patrol car had been that night. Everything seemed to be normal until midnight. They did the usual sort of patrol. Up and down the A55 then stationary, waiting for speeders. They called in when they stopped for something to eat. Then they stopped to fill the car with petrol – we have the exact time from the petrol station. The first hoax call took them from Porthmadog over the causeway.’

  ‘Have we traced the caller?’

  ‘It was a mobile number and he left a message.’

  ‘Haven’t they got protocols about taking details?’

  ‘Normally, they would get a date of birth and a contact telephone number. I’ve listened to the recording of the call. This guy didn’t let them interrupt at all – he just kept talking. His voice sounds like a tape-recorded message.’

  ‘And the second call?’

  Winder looked grim. ‘That was the one that took them to the Crimea. After the first call, they were the closest patrol car. Same as the first call – no details – just a message. Our man must have been following them.’

  ‘He could have followed them all night,’ Drake said slowly.

  ‘Bastard.’

  ‘Might be two, of course.’

  ‘Fucking bastards.’

  Drake ignored the anger in Winder’s voice. ‘Any CCTV pictures?’

  ‘Nothing so far. I haven’t been able to identify every single CCTV camera that they might have passed but—’

  ‘If we can identify a car that was following them, we might get a lead?’

  ‘Yes, boss.’ Winder turned back to the computer screen.

  Drake stared at the photofit likeness and he knew that, despite the artist sitting for two hours with Rio Hawkins and Mildred, the owner of the taxi firm who had delivered the original message, the image wasn’t going to help.

  Rio Hawkins was scratching the tattoos on his arms and Mildred had a wide-eyed look on her face tha
t suggested she had no idea what was going on. Drake decided that Mildred was probably responsible for the smell of dirty clothes and unwashed bodies in the room.

  He longed for a case where a photofit would be an exact representation of the culprit.

  ‘Can we go now?’ Mildred asked.

  Drake ignored her. The artist gave a half-hearted cough but it didn’t interrupt Drake’s concentration as he willed himself to believe that somehow the exercise of creating this face would help.

  ‘What was his accent like?’ Drake asked.

  ‘We get all sorts.’ There was an irritated edge to her voice.

  Drake looked at her. She was rotund and her cheeks had been coloured a damp-grey, probably from hours spent in a small room with only a telephone for company.

  ‘Answer the question’.

  She swallowed nervously.

  ‘Was it a Scouse accent? You’ve heard it a hundred times.’

  ‘Ah …’

  ‘Or Mancunian?’

  ‘I don’t—’

  ‘Think very hard, Mildred,’ Drake said, getting just the exact amount of menace into his voice that he’d intended. ‘You are almost certainly the only person to have spoken to the killer.’ He leant forward. ‘He’s killed two police officers. He’s capable of killing again.’

  Mildred blinked and then her eyes darted around the room as she gathered her thoughts.

  ‘It wasn’t Scouse. Definite, I’d remember that.’

  ‘Mancunian?’

  She gave him a puzzled look.

  ‘Manchester,’ he said, adding, ‘what did he say?’

  ‘I can’t remember every word. He just wanted the envelope delivered to Police headquarters.’’

  The smug look on her face disappeared when Drake responded, ‘That’s all?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Nothing else.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about the fare?’

  ‘He left twenty quid on the counter.’

  Drake sat back, imagining the scene in the small taxi office.

  ‘And the accent?’ he said, giving up any realistic prospect of anything substantial coming from Mildred.