Deadly Friends dcp-5

by Stuart Pawson

  A panda car was parked two streets away from the squat, with Sparky's Escort behind it. I pulled in behind them and spoke to the crew of the panda.

  "Let's get on with it," I said.

  One of them lifted a radio. "Mr. Priest is here. Ready when you are."

  "OK," came the reply. "Let's go go go!"

  We didn't make a fuss. Just drove to the front and back of the house and marched into the yard. I hammered on the door.

  Sparky nodded at my jacket. "Expecting bad weather?"

  I nodded and sniffed. "Smell that breeze," I said. "That's ice, straight from the Arctic'

  He looked up at the sky and sniffed audibly. "And polar bear shit," he confirmed.

  A bleary-eyed woman in a pink candlewick housecoat came to the door. It was only seven a.m. but she'd no doubt still be wearing it at noon. She had a ring through her nose and on her throat was the biggest ripe blackhead I've ever seen. I could hardly take my eyes off it. The nearest she got to soap was on TV five evenings per week.

  "Police," I said. "We believe Ged Skinner is here. Could you find him, please."

  "I'll, ergo look," she mumbled, and tried to close the door. I put my arm out to hold it open and went in. Sparky and a City DC followed me.

  "Ged!" the woman shouted. "It's the police, for you!"

  We were standing in a dismal passage with brown walls and lino on the floor. A pram and a bike took up most of the room and several kid's toys lay around. Doors opened and inquisitive faces, mainly children's, poked round them. A little girl appeared, wearing a short vest and no knickers. She stared up at us, fingers in her mouth.

  Sparky spoke to her. He's good with kids and I'm grateful.

  Skinner came bouncing down the stairs wearing a T-shirt with the Nike logo on the front and shell suit bottoms with don't-I-look-stupid stripes under one knee. He was about five foot nine, with longish hair and a little wisp of a beard. His complexion looked as if it came with extra mozzarella. "What's up?" he asked.

  "Ged Skinner?"

  "Yeah. What of it?"

  "We'd like a word with you, somewhere more private. How about coming out to the car?"

  "What's it about?"

  "We'll tell you there."

  "I'm having my breakfast," he protested. "I've just come in."

  "We won't keep you long," I said. Fifteen years was the time I had in mind. The passage was filling with people of assorted ages and states of dress.

  "E's only just come in," a spotty youth in what looked like a Dodgers nightshirt confirmed. I didn't know they did nightshirts.

  "Look," I told Skinner. "We need to talk to you. It can either be here or down at the station, the choice is yours."

  "I'm not going anywhere 'less you tell me what it's about."

  The woman with the blackhead had adopted a protective stance alongside him. "Why don't you leave us alone?" she ranted. "We 'aven't done nothing."

  I was waiting for the next line: "Why aren't you out catching murderers," but she said: "Aven't you anything better to do?"

  "Are you coming out to the car?" I demanded.

  "I'm not going nowhere unless you tell me what it's about."

  "OK, have it your way. Ged Skinner, I am arresting you on suspicion of being involved in the death of Dr. Clive Jordan. You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something that you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand? Good, let's go."

  The spectators were stunned into silence, except for the little girl who started to cry. "The doctor?" Skinner said, shaken. "You think it was me what did the doctor?"

  "Take him in," I told Sparky, 'and let's have this place searched."

  "Let's see your warrant," Skinner insisted.

  "I'm all the warrant we need," I told him. "Let's go."

  "Hang on," Skinner protested. "I haven't got any shoes on."

  I looked down and saw his bare feet for the first time. "For God's sake, someone fetch his shoes," I yelled.

  "Where do you want him taking, guy," the City DC asked.

  "Heckley. We're still allowed to make our own tea there."

  While Skinner was being processed I had a toasted tea cake in the canteen then ran upstairs to see if anything was happening in the office that I needed to know about. Maggie was hanging her coat up.

  "Did you get him?" she asked.

  "Bet your ass," I replied with a wink and a jerk of the head. "But we had to arrest him. We'll let him settle in, have a word with the duty solicitor, then I'll put the thumbscrews on him."

  It had worked out well. The evidence was a bit weak, all circumstantial, and the custody sergeant might have thrown it out, so I'd normally have done an initial interview and hoped something would have come from that. We'd arrested him because he wouldn't cooperate, and that meant that I could now authorise a property search.

  "Have you time to hear about Darryl?"

  "You may not believe it, Maggie," I told her, 'but Darryl is my number one priority. I'm just Makinson's running dog in this murder case.

  Fire away what have you got?"

  She tucked her blouse into her skirt and sat down opposite me. Her hair was wet, several strands clinging to her forehead. "We went looking for him last night," she began. "Janet and me, that is. Found him in a town-centre pub. The Huntsman. It was fifties night you'd have been at home. Darryl was leaning on the bar, chatting to anyone who came to be served. Got the impression that was his technique. It was early, about eight thirty. Looked like we'd have a long wait and Janet was upset, so I phoned for a taxi and sent her home. Hope that's all right?"

  "No problem. Go on."

  "Darryl stayed until chucking-out time. He drove home alone and I followed him to a flat in that posh new block near the canal. The address matched the one on record for the owner of the Mondeo he was driving. He's called Darryl Buxton and he's clean, I'm afraid. All the other details are on your desk."

  "Brilliant, Maggie. We'll make a detective of you yet. Looks as if you'd better take an afternoon off when things settle down you heard what Mr. Wood said about overtime."

  "That's OK. There's more. This morning I followed him to his place of employment. He works in the town centre, for someone called Homes 4U.

  That's number 4, capital U. Snappy, eh?"

  "Speaks volumes about their clientele," I said. — "Quite. They're some sort of estate agents, special ising in cheap rentals, DHSS work, that sort of stuff. They're big around Manchester and are just expanding to this side of the Pennines. I rang them up and had a girl-to-girl chat with their receptionist. She sounded a bit dim.

  Darryl is the local manager."

  We were sitting at Nigel's desk and I'd straightened most of his paper clips as I listened to Maggie. I pulled at his middle drawer to find some more and saw the Guardian, open at the crossword. My proudest achievement is that I've created the only department in the force where officers dare to be seen reading the Guardian. I slid the drawer shut again.

  "Now you've sorted that out," I said, "I don't suppose you'd like to have a go at this murder case would you? Sort that out, too?"

  Maggie smiled and her cheeks flushed, just a little. "If you need me, but what I'd really like is a bacon sandwich in the canteen, if you don't mind."

  I nodded my approval and she asked me if I was joining her. "No, I've just come from there," I said.

  When she'd gone I pulled the crossword out and read through the clues.

  They might as well have been written in Mandarin Chinese. One across was "Editor rejected ruse set out (6)." Possibly an anagram of set out, but nothing flashed into my brain. I put potato. Two lines below was nine across: "Comes down, about to fix forest in grand planned development (9,9)." The second nine referred to twelve across. I wrote apple pies and crocodile in the appropriate squares. For fifteen, nineteen, twenty-two and twenty-seven across I put: haddock, ruminant, frog spawn and Zatopek.

  Then, with a
blunt black fibre-tipped pen, I carefully drew a line through all the clues for the lines that I'd filled in. You need inspiration like that for the Guardian crossword.

  I was admiring my work when a pair of hands fell on my shoulders. "Need any help?" Sparky asked.

  "Er, n-no thanks," I stuttered, guiltily, "I, er, think that's as far as I can go."

  "Read the clue out," he invited.

  "Clue!" I gasped. "Clue! Since when did we bother with clues?"

  He'd come to tell me that the interview room was set up and Skinner and the duty solicitor were waiting for us. We discussed tactics for ten minutes and went downstairs.

  Skinner was smoking. We, the employees, are not allowed to smoke in the nick, but stopping our clients doing so would be to violate their civil liberties. I found him an ashtray. Sparky switched the tape recorder on and did the introductions. It was ten thirty a.m. and we had him for another twenty-three hours. I verified that he was Ged Skinner and his main place of residence was the squat.

  "Did you know Dr. Give Jordan?" I asked.

  "Yeah," he grunted.

  "How did you know him?"

  "Cos he was prescribing methadone for me."

  "Why?"

  He looked straight into my eyes and said: "Cos I'm a fucking dope-head, ain't I?"

  I said: "I know why you were taking methadone. What I want to know is why was Dr. Jordan prescribing it for you? He wasn't your GP, was he?

  And as far as we know he wasn't attached to any programme."

  Skinner galloped his fingertips on the table. "Yeah," he said. "Sorry.

  I, er, met him about five weeks ago, at the General. The wife was sent to see him, by her doctor. Women's problems. She was worried scared so I went in with her. He was good about it. Brilliant. Said she was pregnant but there was nothing to worry about, if she was careful with herself. Gave her some pills and told her to come back in a month. Then he looked at me and said: "That's her fixed up, now what are we going to do about you?" I said "How do you mean?" and he told me that if I didn't get off drugs I might not live to see my kid."

  "Who told him you were on drugs?"

  "Nobody, I don't think. He could see from the state I was in." He raised his arms and said: "This is sound, for me."

  "Go on," I invited.

  He folded his arms and sat for a few moments with his chin on his chest. "I've done all the cures," he began. "All the do-gooders have had a go at me. St. Hilda's, Project 2000, the City Limits Trust. You name it, I've done it. But nobody talked to me like he did. They're all sympathy and encouragement and "I know what you're going through."

  He raised the pitch of his voice for the last bit and affected a posh accent. "There was none of that with the doc. He said:

  "Get off it now or you're dead. D-E-A-D fucking dead!" He said he'd help me as much as he could, but he couldn't do it for me. It was up to me. I said right. Let's give it a go."

  "So he started prescribing methadone for you."

  "That's right. One day at a time. He'd leave a script for me either at the hospital or, later, I'd collect one from his flat. I'm down to twenty milligrams."

  "From what?"

  "From whatever I could get. "Bout hundred milligrams, plus horse."

  "And you were doing OK?"

  "Yeah. You don't gouch out on it, but it helps you through the bad times, which is all the H does, when you've been using it as long as me."

  "So when did you last see him?"

  "Day before Christmas Eve, 'bout half past six."

  "At his house?"

  "That's right'

  "How long were you with him?"

  "Not long. Two minutes. We just stood on the doorstep chatting for a while. He gave me a script for two days and a letter to take to this GP in London."

  He was anticipating my questions. I sat back and let Sparky take over.

  "What GP in London?" he asked.

  "A GP in London. When I told him that I wanted to go there he persuaded me that a script for a week wasn't a good idea."

  "Where were you going in London?"

  "Wandsworth."

  Sparky made an encouraging gesture with one hand. "You're allowed to elaborate," he said. The new caution has been a big help. Suspects now know that silence, or being obstructionist, might ruin their defence, so they usually give an answer of sorts, but Skinner was almost being helpful.

  "Right," he said. "I have some good friends in Wandsworth. Jim and Mary. We was in care together, from being about ten. We split up when we were sixteen, but we've always kept in touch. I go see them every Christmas, if I can. I told the doctor and he asked me to find out the name of a GP down there. He rang him and did me a letter of introduction, so I got my scripts no problem."

  "We need Jim and Mary's address, and the doctor's," Sparky told him.

  Skinner recited them from memory and I wrote them down to save time waiting for the tape to be transcribed.

  "So where were you at eight o'clock that night," Sparky went on.

  "Easy. In a van on my way down south."

  "Can you prove it?"

  "My brother-in-law was driving it. Well, he's not really my brother-in-law. He picked me up at home just after six. We went round to the doc's and then set off. Will that do?"

  "No."

  "I don't want to drag him into it, if I can. He's not supposed to take passengers."

  I chipped in with: "Did you stop anywhere?"

  "Yeah. We stopped for a fry-up."

  "Where?"

  "Don't know the name of the place. It's on the Peterborough road, just after the long red wall, after you pass the airfield."

  Sparky and I looked blank. There's a whole culture of travellers who never use a map, never remember a road number; they navigate by landmarks, like the early fliers did.

  "Near the greenhouses," he explained.

  "Right," I said. "And did you save the receipt?"

  "No."

  "What a pity."

  "The brother-in-law claimed it. He insisted on separate receipts and kept them both. For his expenses. He'll have it."

  We were supposed to be tying him up and he was doing it to us. "Two fry-ups in one day," I said. "He'll clog his arteries."

  "No, he didn't eat them both," Skinner told me, earnestly. "I had one of them. He just told his firm that he had, for the money." Now he was taking the piss.

  Sparky said: "How did you learn of the doctor's death?"

  "Jim and Mary have a phone. The wife she's not really the wife rang me, Christmas Day. Said it'd been on Radio Leeds."

  "What did you think?"

  He shrugged his shoulders. "What am I going to do for my scripts?

  That's what drugs do to you."

  "Who did you get your drugs off before the methadone?" I asked.

  A look of panic flashed across his face. "I can't tell you that. I'd be a dead man."

  "OK. If you didn't kill the doctor, who did? Were you in with anyone heavy? Had you told your supplier about him? Was he losing a good customer because of the doc?"

  "No. I didn't tell a soul, except the wife. And I bought my H casual, like. Nothing regular. Half a gram, when I had the money. That's all. It's all the other stuff they put in it that fucks you up."

  "Are you all right for today?" I asked.

  "Yeah, but I haven't got it with me."

  "And tomorrow?"

  "I need to fix something for tomorrow."

  "Want our doctor to see you?"

  He hesitated. "I don't know. Maybe now's the time to break with it."

  "OK," I said. "We'll leave it at that, for now."

  He was taken to one of the cells. Judging by his trousers, the duty solicitor went for a round of golf and Sparky and I trudged up the stairs to the CID office.

  "What do you reckon?" Sparky asked. Someone always asks it. I knew what I reckoned, but I wasn't admitting it, yet.

  "Check it all out," I said. "Let's see what they turn up at the squat a gun would be nice. Talk to the
brother-in-law, get the receipts.

  Then let's have a look at Jim and Mary in Wands worth and the doctor down there. Have a word with traffic. Try to arrange for someone local to get a receipt for a breakfast from the cafe-near-the-wall-by-the-silver-stream-under-the-trees-by-the-fly over Could be worse. It could have been in Welsh."

  Maggie was in the office. "It's on your desk," she said.

  "That was quick."

  "We don't mess about. When are we going to have a word with him?"

  "Darryl?"

  "Mmm."

  "Not yet," I told her. "I want to concentrate on the doctor job, if you don't mind. Makinson will be back on the second, and I've a feeling he's not going to be pleased with what I have to say. Maybe we'll go for Mr. Buxton when the debris has fallen to the ground, eh?"

  "What about tomorrow? We could get him then."

  "Tomorrow, Maggie, is a bank holiday. I suggest we all have the day off. What's good enough for Mr. Makinson is good enough for the rest of us."

  "Blimey!" she exclaimed. "I don't believe what I'm hearing."

  "Well just keep your fingers crossed that our Darryl doesn't strike again."

  "I never thought of that. Do you think he might?"

  "I doubt it. Hopefully this was a one-off." I wondered if I was making a mistake. Maybe we should put the scarers on him as soon as possible. "Have you an Almanac handy?" I asked. "There is one avenue we can try."

  Maggie fetched it from where it hung on a piece of string from a nail in the notice board. I thumbed through it after studying the map and dialled a number.

  "Pendle Police Headquarters," a voice sang in my ear.

  "Good morning," I said. "Could you please put me through to DI Drago at Burnley Padiham Road CID."

  "Putting you through."

  After the usual beeping and clicking a voice said: "Padiham Road CID.

  DI Smith speaking."

  "I said: "Hello. This is DI Charlie Priest at Heckley CID. Is DI Drago available, please?"

  "Drago? DI Drago? Sorry, Mr. Priest, I've never heard of him."

  I looked at the date on the front of the Almanac. It was eight years old. "Oh," I said. "He must have moved on. Doesn't time fly? Peter Drago owed me a favour and I was calling it in. We were at the Academy together a long time ago, and one night I saved him from a six-foot bald-headed nymphomaniac. I wonder if you can help me. How's your local knowledge?"