by David Barry
‘Freddie! What’s happened?’
Michelle rushed to my side and threw her arms around my waist
‘Car bomb,’ I cried. ‘Probably meant for me.’
‘Dad! Dad! Are you all right?’ I heard Olivia cry from the bottom of the stairs.
‘He’s fine. Your Dad’s OK,’ Michelle shouted back. ‘But stay back, Olivia. D’you hear me? Stay back.’
I stared at the wreck, and saw in my mind the charred corpse of my friend, but I knew the image was false. I took a deep, shuddering breath, and let it out again.
‘Someone’s going to pay for this,’ I sobbed. ‘I’ll find the bastard, and he’ll pay - by Christ, he’ll pay.
I felt Michelle’s arms stiffen before she took them away. Then she stood in front of me, blotting out the appalling destruction in the street.
‘What the fuck are you involved in, Freddie? You can’t do this to your family. You hear me? Whatever it is you’re involved in, you’ve got to stop it. Stop it right now.’
I pushed her to one side and waved a hand at the smouldering wreck. ‘You see that. That’s one of my best mates in there. So don’t start with the accusations, darling. All right?’
Her lips tightened into a narrow loathing as she stared at me, her bitterness growing like a tumour. I suddenly felt a deep loneliness. What if this destroyed my family? What if Michelle left me? How could I cope? These questions raced through my head as I stared at her, seeing nothing but hatred in her eyes. Hatred for what I had become. A vigilante. Someone who confuses justice with revenge.
I heard the familiar and distant wail of sirens. The sounds which had haunted me only two days ago as Rick lay bleeding in a park with his throat slit. And now Bill, an ex-soldier who had come through a tour of duty in Northern Ireland, and then a spell as a mercenary in Angola and the middle east, who had come through them all relatively unscathed, had met his end in an ordinary suburban street in Wanstead.
‘Whether you like it or not, Freddie,’ Michelle hissed, ‘the police are now involved. So you’re going to have to tell them everything... everything you know.’
Chapter 20
Michelle started to show the two police constables, one male and one female, into the living room. As I followed them in, my eyes focused on the occasional table which I had moved away from the wall and I suddenly felt very nervous. A firearm hidden beneath the floorboards was not something I wanted anyone to find, especially Michelle. I had already made up my mind who to blame for the car bomb, and I needed Bill’s gun to protect myself, because knowing what I knew about Chapmays, there was no way I was going to involve the police, in spite of what Michelle had said..
‘All this broken glass,’ I protested. ‘We can’t sit in here. Why don’t we go out the back to the kitchen?’
Through the broken window I saw the fire services using fire extinguishers on what was left of my car, while more police officers cordoned off a large area of the street, for by now crowds had gathered to watch the scene unfold..
Michelle, who had abandoned her shower during the explosion, and was clad in nothing but her bathrobe, looked down at her bare feet and the fragments of splintered glass on the carpet.
‘Yes,’ agreed the female PC. ‘You haven’t got your shoes on. We need to get you away from this broken glass.’ She sounded like a teacher reprimanding a misbehaving child.
As we walked through to the kitchen, I made a mental note to excuse myself at some stage, so that I could move the occasional table back into place.
‘I’m Constable Fowler,’ the female PC said. ‘And this is Constable Evans.’
She stood opposite us by the refectory table and gestured for us to be seated. She pulled a chair away from the table, causing Michelle to wince at the scraping noise. Her male colleague remained standing, awkward and ill-at-ease, as if he was a rookie and this was his first day on the job. I noticed how his eyes darted to Michelle’s legs as she sat down, her bathrobe opening slightly and revealingly. Staring at him as she tucked it back in place, he blushed and looked away.
PC Fowler sat opposite me at the table and took out a pen and notebook, while her colleague stood stiffly at attention.
‘Now then...’ the female PC began, but was interrupted by Olivia entering. She had thrown on a pair of old jeans, trainers and a Billy Elliot T-shirt. She hurried over to Michelle and sat on her lap.
‘Mum, what’s going on? What’s happening? Where’s Bill?’
I felt tears welling up again as I watched Michelle stroking her hair and cuddling her.
‘Who’s Bill?’ the female constable asked.
‘My friend and business partner,’ I said. My voice sounded peculiar, as if I was listening to someone else talking.
‘And where is your friend?’
My mouth felt dry and I swallowed before answering. ‘He was in the car when it blew up.’
Olivia moaned loudly, ‘Oh, no! Not Bill!’ She clung tightly to Michelle, buried her head in her neck and sobbed.
PC Fowler stared at me. ‘What happened to the car? Do you know how the fire started, sir?’
‘It didn’t catch fire,’ Michelle shouted angrily. ‘It was an explosion. A car bomb. Bill was murdered. Someone planted a bomb in my husband’s car.’
***
Half an hour later Michelle was dressed in jeans and a denim shirt, and the interview was now being conducted by a Detective Inspector Carton and a Detective Sergeant Myers in the living room.
After the uniformed constables discovered it was a car bomb, and not a mechanical fault which caused fire and an explosion, we became part of a major crime scene. As they took action, summoning the CID and a SOCO team to the area, Michelle managed to run upstairs to get dressed hurriedly, while I swept the glass up in the living room and moved the table back in place.
Our living room is luxuriously large, and we have space enough for two three-seater settees in an L-shape. DI Carton and DS Myers sat on one settee, and Michelle and I sat on the other, with Olivia sandwiched between us.
DI Carton looked like a humble and overweight pen-pusher with receding hair, but his eyes looked as shrewd and focused as a bird of prey. His sergeant was dapper, slim and expensively attired in a three-piece suit, with meticulous hair cut short. Neither of them looked like a soft touch.
‘Mr Weston,’ Carton began, ‘have you any reason to suspect anyone of wanting to kill you and your partner?’
‘Yes, I have.’
He raised his eyebrows, affecting surprise. ‘Really. Now before I ask you for the name or names of any persons you suspect of planting this bomb that killed your business partner and not you - ’
He paused, and I could see where this was heading. He would want to know why I hadn’t been in the car with Bill when it exploded.
‘Why would someone want to kill you or your partner?’
‘Revenge,’ I replied.
‘Which implies you have done someone a disservice of some sort.’
‘You could say that.’
‘Would you like to elaborate?’
‘Have you heard of a villain called Mark Lennox?’
‘Yes, but he’s never been part of our manor, and I believe he’s getting on in years. Please continue.’
‘Forty-seven years ago my father committed suicide, and I always suspected Lennox had something to do with it. Then last year my mother found a letter in her loft proving my dad was being blackmailed by Lennox.’
Myers, who was taking notes, stopped writing to ask, ‘What did he blackmail your father about?’
‘It transpired that my father was gay.’
I heard Michelle’s intake of breath.
‘Surely,’ Myers continued, ‘that was not a strong reason for blackmail.’
‘It was illegal back then. The law wasn’t ch
anged until the late sixties. So I guess he was scared of the disgrace - scared of ending up in prison for being homosexual.’
Carton’s eyes were like piercing laser beams. ‘Did you know your father was gay?’ He shook his head slightly, as if he knew in advance what my answer would be.
‘No, none of the family knew.’
‘So how did you find out?’
‘Through my friend Bill. He snatched Lennox one night, and got him to confess. He must have leant on him a bit too heavily, because Lennox ended up with a stroke and is now in a home somewhere with senile dementia.’
Carton put fingers to his lips briefly, parodying bewilderment. ‘Let me get this straight. Your friend, Bill Turner, snatches a villain on your behalf, and tortures or frightens him into confessing about blackmailing your father? So what part did you play in this?’
‘Nothing. Bill owed me a favour from our army days.’
Sorry, Bill. I know if it had been the other way round you’d have done the same thing, my old mate.
‘So are you trying to tell us that a senile old villain puts a price on your head?’
‘It was probably someone in his firm. Like I said: revenge.’
Carton looked towards Michelle. ‘Did you know about this, Mrs Weston?’
‘I hadn’t a clue. I mean, I knew for years Freddie suspected Lennox of having something to do with his father’s suicide. But I didn’t think, after more than forty years, Freddie would be so stupid as to...’ She stopped, wondering if she’d said too much.
‘Do what, Mrs Weston? Were you going to say he wouldn’t be so stupid as to snatch Lennox with the aid of his friend? I don’t think it’s something a person could do on their own, do you?’ Carton switched his focus to me. ‘I’m right, aren’t I, Mr Weston? If what you’re telling me is true about this gangster, you’d have wanted to interrogate him yourself. Isn’t that right?’
I shrugged. ‘I left it to Bill to interrogate him. Interrogation was his speciality. If you don’t believe me, check his military record.’
‘The Jaguar was your car I believe.’
The sudden change of tack. I had to admit, I hadn’t seen it coming, but I could guess where it was leading.
‘Yeah, it was my car, but Bill was included on my insurance and he offered to drive as we were going to meet someone in Peterborough.’
‘Are you sure it wasn’t the other way round? You asked him to drive.’
‘No, he offered. So I took him up on it.’
‘Mrs Weston?’ Carton threw the question at Michelle, eyeing her acutely.
‘I’ve no idea. They were down to breakfast before I appeared. I only came down to say goodbye to Bill.’
Silence. Her words triggering a raw iciness from the recent death.
Carton cleared his throat before continuing. ‘What business were you and Mr Turner in?’
‘A private enquiry agency.’
‘As in private detectives you mean?’ Surprise in his rising inflexion, making it sound ridiculous.
‘If you like.’
Now Sergeant Myers decided it was time to go for the jugular. He leaned forward on the edge of the settee and locked eyes with me. ‘Let’s get back to the business of the car. Even if, as you say, he offered to drive, how is it you didn’t get in the passenger seat at the same time?’
‘I’d forgotten something and had to come back to get it.’
‘What did you forget?’
‘The address of the bloke we were going to visit in Peterborough. I’d left it on the work surface in the kitchen.’
I didn’t think Michelle would remember if she had or hadn’t seen a scrap of paper in the kitchen when she came down to see Bill off, so I felt the lie was beyond challenge.
Carton resumed the questioning. ‘That seems suspiciously convenient.’
‘Convenient. What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means, coming back into the house because you had forgotten something was a convenient way to stay alive if you knew a bomb was going to go off.’
My eyes burned with anger and I felt a constriction in my chest. ‘Are you suggesting I had something to do with Bill’s death? Jesus Christ! We were close pals. Years ago, when we were in the services, we looked out for one another. There was no way... now way I would have done anything to harm Bill.’
Carton stared at me deadpan and his voice didn’t waver as he spoke. ‘I’m sure you appreciate that in a serious murder like this we have to investigate every angle, including your relationship with your business partner.’
It crossed my mind to ask him if there were ever any non serious murders, but I buried the inappropriate thought.
‘Mrs Weston,’ he said, ‘your husband’s friend and business partner spent the night here. What sort of evening did you have?’
‘We had fun. Freddie cooked us a lovely dinner, and he and Bill told us loads of funny stories from the past. It was just a nice relaxing evening, especially now that this evil internet troll seems to have stopped pestering Olivia.’
‘Oh?’ Carton stared at our daughter. ‘What was all that about?’
Olivia’s voice was hushed and timid when she replied, and we strained to hear her. ‘A few weeks ago I talked to someone in a chat room, who sounded OK. But whoever it was sent nasty emails to my friends. And then it got...much worse.’
‘In what way?’
‘He said he was going to come and get me, and lock me up in a room like some girl in Austria.’
‘Did this person have a name?’
‘He called himself Eclipse.’
Carton threw his next question in my direction. ‘Do you think this internet creature had something to do with the explosion?’
‘It’s possible. But I doubt it. Especially as I managed to get someone to put a stop to the internet attacks.’
‘How did you manage that?’
‘I was put in contact with a computer expert in Kent - a brilliant hacker I’d heard about through our office manager. I don’t know what he did - I’m not that computer literate - but whatever it was, it seems to have done the trick. Thank God!’ I smiled at Olivia and patted her leg.
I knew I had to keep Rick’s name out of this. If, like me, they suspected it wasn’t a brutal robbery, but because it might have had something to do with Eclipse and Peter Chapmays, their investigation would certainly put the kibosh on our own. And it was still at the forefront of my mind that the killer may have been an undercover cop; and then there were Ed Warren’s observations about the mysterious visit to Bayne’s firm from what looked like a high-ranking police officer. So there was no way I was going to trust any of them. And now that Bill had been murdered, I was even more determined to continue with my own investigations.
Maybe it was telepathy as these thoughts raced through my brain because the sergeant stared at me through narrowed eyes as he asked, ‘So what were you and your partner investigating at the moment?’
I could feel Michelle looking at me intently as I replied.
‘A young woman who asked us to search for what became of her father.’
‘What’s her name?’ the sergeant asked, his pen poised ready.
I hesitated as I tried to recall her married name. I knew if I said Alice Bayne it might stir media memories of the shooting in Scotland. Fortunately, her married name surfaced after only a short pause. ‘Mrs Egerton. Alice Egerton.’
I hoped my hesitation merely showed a reluctance to divulge our client’s name for reasons of confidentiality.
‘And are you confident this investigation had nothing to do with the car bomb?’ Carton asked.
I chuckled to show how ridiculous that idea was. ‘Absolutely. Why would an investigation into what became of a young woman’s father have anything to do with this terrible tragedy?’<
br />
‘So you think this Lennox’s firm might have been responsible.’
‘The only explanation I can think of.’
‘I noticed you have a garage. Why did you decide to leave the car in the street.’
‘Well, for a start, Michelle’s car is in there, and we planned to leave for Peterborough much earlier than her running Olivia to school.’
‘Did you hear anything suspicious in the night?’
‘I slept like a log. I expect Bill did too. We’d both had a fair bit to drink.’
‘Planning to drive only six hours later.’
I glared at Carton. ‘So what if Bill’s alcohol level was slightly over the limit? It’s not going to make much difference now, is it?’
It was hard to know what Carton thought as he stared impassively at me. It was Michelle who broke the silence.
‘So what happens now?’
‘We’ll need you and your husband to come along to the police station to make official statements, independently of one another. It’ll be very thorough, and I should warn you it may take some time. Meanwhile, the wreck of the car will be taken away and examined carefully by our forensic team. And I think we may be able to dodge any media frenzy by avoiding any mention of car bombs, which will help with our investigations. Our uniformed officers are already under strict instructions not to speak to or leak this to the press.’
Although I was still numb from the terrible loss of my close mate, I was relieved the police decided to keep the details of the explosion from the press.
My next move was to try and excuse myself, use the loo and text Nicky and Alice to let them know what happened.
