by Steven Dunne
‘I was wondering if you could gather everything on file about Black Oak Farm and send it to my email,’ said Brook quietly. ‘Film, witness statements, forensics – the lot.’ Cooper stared back at him as though he hadn’t understood. ‘You know the case I mean?’
‘Of course,’ said Cooper. ‘Last year. DI Ford closed it.’
‘Ex-DI Ford. And there’s still an outstanding warrant attached.’
‘Ray Thorogood,’ nodded Cooper.
‘Right.’ There was an awkward pause.
‘If I do a search, my ID will be on the record,’ said Cooper.
‘And?’
‘And if somebody asks what I’m doing looking at another officer’s closed case, what should I say?’
Brook paused. ‘If somebody asks, tell them I wanted to see the material.’
‘And if nobody asks?’ Brook gave him a piercing stare and headed towards the door. ‘Then keep it to yourself, Dave,’ Cooper concluded.
Eleven
Brook was silent on the drive out to Ticknall, unaware of the occasional glance from Noble.
‘Everything okay?’
‘Fine,’ said Brook.
‘Terri okay?’
‘Fine,’ repeated Brook, keeping his eyes on the road as they approached a brick bridge. ‘Nice old bridge.’
Noble gave him a lingering stare, returning his gaze to the road. ‘It’s called the Arch. It was part of a horse-drawn tram system transporting stone and bricks to the canals.’
Brook looked across. ‘I didn’t know history was your thing.’
‘My grandad had a canal boat near Ashby-de-la-Zouch. He used to take me out as a kid and told me all about it.’ He smiled. ‘Many times.’
At a pub called the Wheel Inn, Noble turned on to Banton’s Lane and drove towards the five-bar gate that fed on to a track a hundred metres away. They passed several well-maintained brick and stone cottages on the way, the windows, gates and doors all painted in muted tones.
‘We’re in the heart of Farrow and Ball country here,’ said Noble. ‘Posh paint,’ he added when confusion clouded Brook’s features.
They parked in front of Gibson’s SUV on the drive of a brick garage belonging to the last property on the lane. Beyond was lush countryside, a pall of mist rising from the cold ground.
They walked through the gate towards the large two-storey house set back from the road. To the left stood a half-ruined stone barn with scaffolding on one side. The drone of a cement mixer filled the country air and two men – one middle-aged, one young – heaved large honey-coloured stones into position ready to add to the freshly laid course already fixed. At their approach, the older man laid a large stone on the ground and fixed Brook and Noble with a beady eye. He had short greying hair, arms covered in tattoos and wore a single gold earring, cut-off jeans and work boots. His bare legs were hairy and covered in cement dust, his knees soiled from kneeling on the wet ground. Through his chunky fleece jacket, steam rose from his torso into the cool air.
‘Help you?’ he called in a Scottish accent.
‘We’re looking for Matthew Gibson,’ said Noble, holding up his warrant card.
‘Police,’ said the man, not bothering to look at Noble’s ID.
Noble smiled his acknowledgement. ‘Mr Gibson?’
‘Up at the house.’ Brook and Noble resumed their trudge along the path. ‘Can you no’ leave the man alone?’ said the man, pacing after them. ‘He just lost his parents.’ The two detectives pressed on as though not hearing, aware of a string of muted expletives aimed in their direction. Brook glanced at Noble, who hung back to intercept while the DI walked on.
‘Mr Trimble, is it?’ asked Noble.
Brook reached the patio doors at the rear of the house just as Gibson emerged with a tray carrying three steaming mugs and a packet of chocolate biscuits. He wore similar garb to the agitated Scotsman and was equally grubby.
He stopped in his tracks when he saw Brook and put the tray down on a wrought-iron table. ‘That didn’t take long,’ he said.
‘The miracle of computers,’ said Brook.
‘I was just making tea,’
‘Just milk for me. One sugar for my sergeant.’
Gibson stared at Brook before breaking into a lopsided smile. ‘You’re very sure of yourself, aren’t you, Inspector?’
‘I’m a DI,’ replied Brook. ‘People expect it. Inside I’m a quivering wreck.’
‘No doubt.’ Gibson picked up the tray. ‘Just let me—’
‘You don’t have to speak to them, Matthew,’ barked the Scotsman, marching towards them, Noble in close pursuit. ‘You’re in mourning, for feck’s sake.’
‘It’s okay, Jim,’ said Gibson. ‘We knew there’d be more questions.’ He removed his mug of tea and held out the laden tray towards his partner. ‘I’ll be down when we’ve finished.’ Trimble hesitated, his cold blue eyes searching Gibson’s face. ‘It’s fine, really.’
The Scotsman nodded faintly, then walked up to Gibson and gave him a long, lingering kiss on the mouth. After a defiant glare at Brook and Noble, he took the tray and turned in the direction of the barn.
Gibson ushered Brook and Noble into a spacious kitchen, a mixture of modern fittings and classical wooden units, cupboards painted in washed-out blue. Expensive chrome gadgets populated the surfaces, including a kettle, which Gibson filled at a Belfast sink in an island in the middle of the room. The Mediterranean-red floor tiles were old and scuffed, and generous windows allowed bursts of low winter sun to flood the room with a warmth accentuated by the colour scheme, the ambience that of a comfortable Provençal home.
‘Nice room,’ said Brook.
‘Yes, we gays are wizards at the old interior decor,’ said Gibson tersely, flicking on the kettle and tossing tea bags into mugs. ‘I assume my past is why you’ve come.’
‘Amongst other things,’ said Brook. ‘You understand we have to ask.’
‘It was nearly forty years ago.’
‘There’s no sell-by date on sex offences,’ said Noble.
Gibson exhaled a little laugh. ‘Offences, you say? Giving and receiving pleasure from other consenting adults is still offensive, is it?’
‘Things have changed for the better on that score,’ said Brook. ‘But when it comes to sex, the law has always frowned on money changing hands.’
‘Then the law’s an ass,’ snarled Gibson. ‘Look around you, Inspector. This is Britain. Everything’s for sale.’
‘There’s the added complication that you weren’t an adult when you were picked up for soliciting,’ added Noble.
‘I was sixteen,’ said Gibson angrily, plonking down two mugs of tea. ‘An adult as far as heterosexual acts were concerned but a criminal when it came to exploring my own sexuality.’
‘Society has moved on, Mr Gibson,’ said Brook, taking a sip of tea. ‘And the law has moved with it.’
‘And yet my record is still on the books,’ he said softly. ‘If I’d been a sixteen-year-old girl turning tricks, I would have been treated like a victim instead of a criminal.’
‘I wish we could go back and alter the past for you,’ said Brook.
‘I almost believe you,’ answered Gibson. His manner softened and he managed a humourless laugh. ‘Actually, don’t bother. It’s all water under the bridge. And between you and me, it was character-building. That period of my life was the making of me, and I look back fondly. Though I dare say I’ve forgotten most of the wailing and gnashing of teeth that happened with my parents.’
‘They didn’t approve?’
‘That’s putting it mildly.’
‘Is that why they threw you out?’
‘Nothing so dramatic, Inspector. My departure was mutually agreed and brought mutual relief. I was sixteen and gay. I didn’t belong in seventies Derby, so I left as soon as I could scrape together the coach fare. My parents were glad to see the back of me.’
‘Were they religious?’
‘About average, I guess,’ sai
d Gibson. ‘Church of England – not really a religion, is it?’
‘No?’ enquired Brook.
‘No, it’s more of a Conservative Party social club. You’re a Catholic, I think.’ Brook raised an eyebrow. ‘I can always tell.’ Gibson smiled maliciously. ‘The look of pain and guilt in the eyes never goes away. My best customers back in the day.’
‘We’re here about your sins,’ said Brook. ‘Not mine.’
‘Well my sins weren’t the reason my parents were glad to see me go. It was just that my lifestyle, or the lifestyle I hankered after, was alien to them. They had no comprehension of how to communicate with me.’
‘Nothing unusual there, straight or gay.’
‘I suppose not,’ said Gibson sadly. ‘But parents want some kind of normality. A little common ground they can share with their kids. Without it family life becomes one long round of discomfort and embarrassment. No one wants that in their home, so when I was old enough, I left.’
‘And arrived in London with little money and nowhere to live.’
‘Something like that,’ said Gibson.
‘The money ran out and you were on the streets, hungry and cold,’ said Noble.
‘And forced into prostitution,’ added Brook, sympathetically. ‘Believe me, we hear the same story about runaways and missing persons every day.’
Gibson’s stern features slowly broke into a grin. ‘My God. You lot are so patronising, spewing out this identikit spiral-of-degradation crap for every missing teenager that crosses your desk. Do you ever stop to think that people are different, not just some damn statistic to be … interpreted?’
‘That wasn’t you?’ said Brook.
‘I was never forced to do anything I didn’t want,’ said Gibson. ‘I was gay, and once I realised as much, I wanted to get fucked by men and fuck them in return.’
‘Thanks for clearing that up,’ said Brook, thin-lipped.
‘My frankness upsets you,’ sneered Gibson, pleased to have caused offence.
‘More your inability to source appropriate verbs.’
‘Very well. I wanted to have sex with men. Is that less offensive? And do you know something? I enjoyed it and I was good at it. And because I wasn’t forced into it, I wasn’t desperate enough to dose myself up with booze and drugs to get through. I never turned tricks for cigarettes and dime bags like some of the poor bastards on the meat rack – I earned top money. And since it was before the property boom, I managed to afford a little flat in Soho. I learned young that economic security was the key to happiness. Remove that security and you’re at everybody’s mercy, like the poor bastards who had to pimp themselves out for rough trade or give in to the limo-driving chauffeurs collecting jailbait for the House of Commons. I did whatever I wanted with whoever I wanted and got paid handsomely for the privilege.’
‘But inevitably you were arrested.’
Gibson shrugged. ‘Occupational hazard.’
‘And did time.’
‘A few months.’ He grinned. ‘The arresting officer said he’d let me off with a warning if I sucked his cock, but I wasn’t going to pass up the chance to get locked up with hundreds of men, was I?’
Noble was stern, but Brook was briefly amused. ‘What a heart-warming story,’ he said. ‘How did your parents react to your conviction?’
‘I’ve no idea. I was in London, they were in Derby, living their dull little life, washing the Ford Anglia every Friday, roast beef on Sunday. As far as I’m aware, they didn’t know anything about my life. I’d severed all ties.’
‘But you were a minor,’ said Noble. ‘Surely the police contacted them.’
‘If they found them. I certainly didn’t volunteer information about my parents to the police. Said I was an orphan. Things were different then. It wasn’t difficult to slip through the net. Child protection wasn’t the big deal it is nowadays. The police didn’t care and nor did social services. I was living my own life and wasn’t bothered what anyone else thought, so even if Mum and Dad were told, I wouldn’t have cared. They were miles away.’
‘And when you moved back?’
‘I never broached the subject with them – not out of shame, you understand, but because it would serve no purpose.’
‘It never came up?’
‘Never. And I was protecting them, not me. The older they got, the less relevant it became.’
‘And before you left?’ asked Brook.
‘The only thing my parents ever said about my sexuality was that I was a disgusting little queer. Dad’s phrase. When I came back to Derby, it was never mentioned. I wasn’t sixteen any more and I guess they assumed I’d grown out of it.’
‘How did they find out?’
‘There was a boy at school. I misinterpreted some signals.’
‘And was being a disgusting little queer why your parents disinherited you?’ asked Noble.
Gibson smiled faintly. ‘Probably, but I didn’t care. They wanted grandchildren, and Pete and Jeanie were in a position to oblige. The irony is, having got their wish, the twins were whisked away to a better life in Australia, never to be seen again. Except in photographs. That hurt them, particularly Mum, and they wore it every day like a death in the family.’
‘You weren’t resentful?’
‘About losing my birthright? No. I suppose I might have been had I not done so well for myself. I don’t begrudge Pete. I never wanted a thing from my parents.’
‘Except the rent,’ observed Noble.
‘They were my parents,’ said Gibson, in an acid tone. ‘They fed me and put a roof over my head for sixteen years. I had some kind of duty to house them, and the rent money was their idea, Sergeant. I didn’t ask for it, but you know how proud old people are.’
‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be,’ said Brook.
‘Words my dad lived by. Besides, the rent barely covered my expenses. I only took it for their sake.’
‘Big of you,’ said Noble.
‘What can I say? I’m a giver,’ Gibson snapped back, unwilling to be embarrassed.
‘Your offences …’ began Brook before correcting himself. ‘Your criminal record spans a two-year period, but when you were eighteen, you enrolled at Golders Green College.’
‘I’d had my fun and made good money doing it,’ replied Gibson. ‘But you only had to see some of the walking dead on the rack to know there was no long-term future in that game. And this was before we knew about AIDS, remember. Seventeen-year-olds who looked twice that, boys even younger doped up like zombies. I’d been lucky, but that life will claim you eventually. The wrong trick at the wrong time. Bent coppers. It was time to get serious. And respectable. I went to college. Ferdy helped.’
‘Ferdy?’
‘My late sponsor.’
‘A sugar daddy?’ observed Noble.
Gibson looked calmly at him. ‘If it pleases you.’ He laid down his cup and walked over to a drawer in the kitchen island. His hand disappeared and a second later he pulled out a gun, pointing it at Noble. Brook and Noble froze, mugs held halfway to their faces. ‘Found it,’ grinned Gibson, tossing the weapon in the air and catching it by its muzzle. ‘Under the stairs.’ He held the gun grip-first towards Noble. Both detectives stared at him.
‘I’m starting to get the impression you don’t care for the police, Mr Gibson,’ said Brook, his voice soft and carrying a tremor of threat. He gestured at Noble, who drew out an evidence bag and held it open for Gibson to drop the gun.
‘If you’d taken the shit I’ve had from your lot …’ retorted Gibson. His grin tempered but its ghost remained. ‘I’d like a receipt. Is there anything else?’
‘Yes,’ said Brook, gesturing at Noble, who extracted an envelope from his jacket and removed a pair of photographs before laying them in front of Gibson. ‘Do you recognise these two men?’
Gibson stared at the photos, then looked sideways at Brook. ‘These were the two men murdered last month. I read it in the papers.’
‘Did you know the
m?’
‘Why?’ said Gibson angrily. ‘Because I’m gay, you think I killed them in some kind of hissy fit?’
‘We think the murder of your parents is connected to the murder of these two men,’ said Brook patiently.
‘The papers said they were shot,’ said Gibson, his eyes narrowing. ‘Same gun?’
‘It’s too early to know that,’ said Noble.
‘But the same method as my parents.’
‘We can’t go into details,’ said Noble.
‘You don’t have to, I was there,’ said Gibson. ‘I saw how Mum and Dad died and I know you’re looking for an experienced shooter, someone who knows their way around guns. Someone like me. Even from close range, hitting the heart with one shot is not as easy as you think. And to do it twice …’
‘Four times,’ said Brook. ‘From three metres.’ Noble glanced at his DI. It was unlike him to volunteer information. ‘So I’ll ask again.’ He tapped a finger on the photographs. ‘Do you know these men?’
Gibson looked into Brook’s eyes, then away. ‘We met them, Jim and me. On a march, and at a couple of parties. Stephen and Iain, right? They seemed nice enough, if a bit …’
‘A bit what?’
‘You wouldn’t understand,’ said Gibson sullenly.
‘Give us some credit,’ said Brook.
‘They were a bit … gay,’ said Gibson, his eyes challenging Brook to comprehend. ‘Flaunting it, if that makes any sense. It was tedious.’
‘You had little in common.’
‘Apart from arse and interior design, not a thing. Look, I had nothing against them. It’s just … this is going to sound bitter, but they came from nice middle-class homes with understanding parents and all the support that implies. And like it or not, that support softens you. Makes you think the whole world will let you cry on its shoulder.’
‘Is that a problem?’
‘Not for me,’ replied Gibson.
‘But it set you apart from them,’ said Brook.
‘Jim and I had it tough, and what we both went through growing up left its mark. So we don’t slap people in the face with our sexuality. We don’t flaunt it, because that shows a lack of confidence, a search for approval. We take people as we find them and expect others to do the same with us.’
