When the Music's Over: The 23rd DCI Banks Mystery

by Peter Robinson

  Warner looked disconcerted and turned to Jessie Malton, who whispered a few words in his ear. He clearly didn’t like what he had heard. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘It’s a simple enough explanation. I’ve been with Albert a few times on road trips.’

  ‘Including Sheffield, the day of Mimosa Moffat’s murder?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And the person who took delivery there will vouch for you?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know about that. I mean, I got Albert to drop me off in the city centre so I could do a bit of shopping, so he wouldn’t have seen me.’

  ‘What did you buy?’

  ‘This and that.’

  ‘Got the receipts?’

  ‘I threw them away.’

  ‘Pity,’ said Annie. ‘Did you use a credit or debit card?’

  ‘I paid cash.’

  ‘Right,’ said Annie. ‘Why did you head to the local recycling plant with a bin bag full of clothes and a pair of shoes as soon as you got home from your last interview here?’

  ‘I’d been meaning to take them for ages. I don’t know why I did it then, particularly. I just wanted something to do.’

  ‘Why not take them to a charity shop? They were in perfectly good condition.’

  ‘Never thought.’

  ‘Are you sure you weren’t feeling anxious about what they might reveal?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say I was anxious. I just felt like it. OK?’

  He had raised his voice for the first time, and Jessie Malton tapped him on the arm and whispered in his ear.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘This is putting a lot of stress on me.’

  ‘Why is it stressful, Paul, if you’ve got nothing to hide?’ Gerry asked. ‘You were helpful enough before. Remember? You told us that Albert Moffat was with you the whole time after you got back home from the pub on Tuesday until eleven the following morning.’

  ‘Well, I thought he was. I mean, I suppose he could have slipped out if I dozed off or something.’

  ‘If?’ said Gerry. ‘Did you doze off?’

  ‘I might have done. I don’t remember. Like I said, we were drinking.’

  ‘Are you trying to tell us that Albert nipped out and murdered his sister?’

  ‘No. I’m not saying that. Just that I could have been mistaken. He might have gone out, if I was asleep.’

  ‘Were you asleep?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘How about if you went out when he dozed off?’ Annie said. ‘Is that a viable scenario?’

  ‘That’s not how it happened.’

  Annie paused. ‘There is one other thing.’

  ‘Oh. Yes?’

  ‘Yes, Paul. You see, we found one of your fingerprints under the outside door handle, on the driver’s side.’

  ‘Sure. I spelled Albert for a while. He was a bit hungover. We changed places. I drove.’

  ‘Very considerate of you. But the fingerprint, your fingerprint, was a bloody fingerprint. And the blood was Mimosa Moffat’s. What do you have to say about that?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘I thought so.’

  Jessie Malton looked as impassive as ever.

  Annie went on. ‘Well, I’m sure you know what that means. I’m just trying to clear up the events of that Tuesday night. We have your bloody fingerprint under the door handle of the van, not Albert’s. Now, Albert has used the van since then, we know, but he didn’t mention you being with him. Luckily for us, your bloody fingerprint was in an out-of-the-way spot. Easy to miss when you gave it a quick wipe down. It seems as if you might have been a bit shaken or agitated when you first tried to open the door after beating Mimsy Moffat to death.’

  ‘Detective,’ said Jessie Malton. ‘Can we have no more of that?’

  ‘Sorry. Slip of the tongue. But I’m sure both you and Ms Malton will realise that this needs a bit of explanation.’

  ‘I must have cut myself before I spelled Albert on Wednesday, that’s all.’

  Annie sighed. ‘Paul. Paul. I’ve already told you it was Mimosa Moffat’s blood. Believe me, we’ve checked. It’s hers. No doubt about it. How did you come to have Mimosa’s blood on your hands on Wednesday in Sunderland, if indeed you were there at all?’

  ‘You must have made a mistake. Lots of people probably used that van since . . .’

  ‘Since when, Paul? Since you used it?’

  ‘I was going to say since it was parked at the back of the flat.’

  ‘But they haven’t, Paul. Yes, Albert Moffat drove it back to Jim Nuttall’s after his delivery to Sunderland the following day, and you say you were with him, but since then nobody but Mr Nuttall has used it. We checked. Albert’s and Nuttall’s fingerprints were close to yours, but they didn’t overlap, they didn’t obliterate yours, and there was no blood on them. He’s so used to opening that van door, he probably grasps the same spot every time by habit. You, on the other hand, being shaken up, as I said, reached too far the wrong way and left a clear and well-protected print. There’s no way around it, Paul.’

  ‘This is all just circumstantial. You can’t go to court with a case as flimsy as this.’

  ‘Can’t we, Paul?’ Annie turned over a sheet. ‘What about the pills?’

  ‘What pills?’

  ‘The ones in the bin bag you were trying to get rid of. We’ll be doing further analysis, but for the moment we have it on good authority that they’re Flunitrazepam, more commonly known as Rohypnol, or roofies. Inadequate men give them to unsuspecting females to put them to sleep before sex. When the girls wake up, their memories are vague. Sometimes they don’t even remember they’ve been raped. Is that what happened to you, Paul? Did women forget they’d had sex with you? Was it that forgettable? Did you give one of those pills to Mimosa and rape her? Did she forget? Or did she remember and taunt you with it?’

  ‘Again, Detective, I shouldn’t have to tell you to give up the fishing expedition,’ said Jessie Malton.

  ‘Sorry.’ Annie took a deep breath and released it slowly. ‘Sometimes when you go fishing you catch something. That’s not what you used them for the other night, though, is it? Sex. That time you slipped one to Albert and he went out like a light after all he’d had to drink. You’d been carefully pacing yourself, pretending to keep up with his drinking, but you hadn’t had all that much, had you?’

  Warner looked at Jessie Malton. ‘This is preposterous,’ he said. ‘Can’t you stop them?’

  ‘If you don’t wish to comment, then say so,’ said Jessie Malton. Annie could hear her distancing herself from Warner.

  ‘No comment,’ he said.

  ‘Let’s talk about the shoes, then,’ Annie went on. ‘The Doc Martens you were about to get rid of at the recycling plant.’

  Paul squirmed.

  ‘They look as if they’ve been cleaned thoroughly, but we found traces of blood on those, too,’ Annie said. ‘And do you know what? It was Mimosa Moffat’s blood. You tried to get rid of it, didn’t you, scrubbing and polishing, but it’s hard, Paul. It gets in the seams, and it’s hard to get out.’ Paul seemed to be shrinking deeper into his chair. Annie pressed her advantage. ‘And do you know what’s worst of all,’ she went on. ‘What’s probably the most appalling thing anyone can do to another human being.’ She let the silence stretch. ‘You jumped on her, Paul. I don’t know whether you did it while she was still alive or after you’d killed her, but you stamped on her, and that stamp made an imprint. And that imprint – from Mimosa Moffat’s skin, Paul – matches the right shoe you were about to get rid of when Superintendent Carver’s men apprehended you. There are several scuffs and scratches on the sole that act as unique identifying features. What do you have to say to that?’ Annie let the silence stretch again. ‘Nothing?’ she said after a while. ‘Well, that shouldn’t surprise me. I mean, what is there to say after you’ve punched and kicked a defenceless young girl to death and stamped on her when she was down?’

  ‘I didn’t . . . I didn’t . . .’

&nb
sp; Annie leaned forward. ‘You didn’t what, Paul? Come on, I’d like to know. Because right now I’m just thinking you were such an arrogant bastard that you didn’t even bother getting rid of the shoes you kicked her to death with after until you were worried we were getting close. Don’t you think it’s time to come clean with us? I told you it was the end of the road.’

  Paul looked at her. His eyes were red-rimmed, his face drained of colour. ‘I didn’t mean to.’

  ‘Didn’t mean to what, Paul?’

  Jessie Malton leaned over to whisper something, but Paul brushed her off and said, ‘Kill her. I didn’t mean to kill her,’ before she could stop him. Jessie Malton dropped her pencil on her legal pad and looked up at the ceiling, muttering something under her breath.

  Annie felt the tension leave her body like air from a tyre, but there was still more work to be done. ‘You’re admitting you killed her, are you, Paul?’

  ‘Yes. I killed her. But I didn’t mean to. The silly bitch.’

  ‘Why did you kill her?’

  ‘Can’t you guess?’

  ‘You loved her?’

  ‘Loved? I don’t know. Maybe. I wanted her. Or I thought I did.’

  ‘Did you sleep with her?’

  Warner stared down at the bare desk for a few seconds before answering. ‘Once. Yes.’

  ‘How did that happen? Did you give her a roofie and rape her?’

  ‘No. She came around looking for Albert, but he was off somewhere. You know . . . one thing led to another.’

  ‘Are you sure you didn’t give her a roofie?’

  ‘No way. She was a bit drunk.’

  ‘She was very young, Paul. Underage, in fact.’

  ‘But she could seem so mature. I could see something in her. I don’t know. I thought if I could get through to her, you know, I could change her. I could save her.’

  ‘Save her from what?’

  ‘From being just like all those stupid empty-headed young sluts she spent her time with. She was really talented. An artist. We talked about her going to art college. She could study design, and with my practical skills we could make beautiful stuff, maybe get rich. She just had a bit of growing up to do first, that’s all.’

  It was certainly what plenty of women tried to do with men, Annie thought, change them, improve them, and more often than not to no avail. ‘It was a nice dream,’ Annie said. ‘So what went wrong?’

  ‘You’re right about what Albert said. He’d known for a week or so that Mimsy was seeing the Paki, though I don’t think he knew the full story of what was going on. You’ve probably figured it out for yourselves that Albert isn’t exactly the brightest bulb in the chandelier. It didn’t take me long to figure it out from his drunken ramblings that night. Sure, he was the one who fell asleep. Passed out would be a better word. And yes, he had a bit of help from me.’

  ‘Go on, Paul,’ said Annie. ‘You were jealous?’

  ‘Not just that. You can’t psychoanalyse my feelings that simply. It was far more complicated than mere jealousy.’

  ‘Tell us, then.’

  ‘You wouldn’t understand. The impurity. The defilement.’

  ‘Mimosa was hardly a paragon of virtue, Paul.’

  ‘I know that. But I . . . I mean, with the right person . . . She didn’t have to be a write-off. She wasn’t stupid, she just liked a good time. She was young. She would have grown out of it, all that silliness. I could have helped shape her, make something of her. I could have changed her.’

  ‘Proper My Fair Lady business again,’ said Gerry. ‘Teach her to talk properly and all that?’

  Warner scowled at her. ‘You can talk like that if you want,’ he said. ‘Cheapen it. It’s just what I’d expect. I told you you couldn’t understand how complex my feelings are.’

  ‘Well, let’s not worry ourselves too much about your complex feelings, then,’ said Annie, ‘and you can just tell us what happened. The facts. Pretend we don’t care why.’

  ‘I’d had a few drinks, too, so maybe I was a bit drunk, I don’t know. You know how you get these ideas fixed in your mind and you can’t get rid of them. The idea of her with them just wouldn’t go away.’

  ‘Was this the first time you knew anything about what she was doing, her connection with the grooming gang?’

  ‘Yes. She never said anything to me.’

  ‘I don’t suppose she would,’ Annie said. But hadn’t you noticed any change in her over the past few months?’

  ‘She was a bit more sophisticated, but I put that down to . . . well . . .’

  ‘You? The Henry Higgins effect?’

  Warner looked away. ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘She was more moody. I didn’t really see a lot of her, so it’s hard to say.’

  ‘Was she avoiding you?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘So what did you do on Tuesday night?’

  ‘I slipped Albert a roofie, like you said. It was easy enough. He was out in no time.’

  ‘Why did you do that?’

  ‘So I could take the van without him knowing.’

  ‘Why did it matter whether he knew or not?’

  ‘I . . . I . . .’

  ‘Were you planning to do something to Mimosa at this time?’

  ‘No. No way. I just couldn’t get the image out of my head. Her with them. I thought I might get into it with the Pakis, break a few bones, but there was no way I was going to hurt Mimsy.’

  ‘Why didn’t you take your own van?’

  ‘Because it’s got my name splashed all over the fucking side. I know about CCTV on the roads and all that. They can even get your number plate.’

  ‘You didn’t want to be seen, didn’t want to be on record?’

  ‘Well, no.’

  ‘Why not? Unless you were planning to do something illegal.’

  ‘I told you. All I wanted to do was see if Mimsy was there, reason with her, but I thought I might get into a rumble with the Pakis. If I hurt one of them really bad, maybe the police would try to find me. Why make it easy? The Pakis could beat seven shades of shit out of me and that would be fine. I’d deserve it. But if I do it to them it’s not only GBH, it’s a fucking hate crime, too. Racism.’

  ‘But you are a racist, Paul.’

  ‘I’m entitled to my opinions. I’m not the only one.’

  ‘That’s a spurious argument. Never mind. So Albert Moffat had nothing to do with Mimsy’s murder at all? You didn’t take his car in order to implicate him?’

  ‘No. But I told you, it wasn’t murder. I didn’t mean to kill her.’

  ‘I forgot. It was an accident, right? Kicking her to death. How did you know Mimosa was going to get in a van with three Asian men that night?’

  ‘I didn’t. But Albert had said he’d seen her getting in a taxi next to the takeaway the week before, that she was hanging out with them. It had been preying on my mind all evening, that she was with them. I knew about the grooming business going on around the country. She hadn’t answered any of my phone messages. I wasn’t really thinking clearly but I just had to go down there and see for myself. I thought maybe she’d be there, at the flat.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. I didn’t have a plan.’

  ‘Maybe you’d beat up Sunny and carry Mimsy off?’

  ‘Something like that. But not Mimsy. I’d never . . . I never expected that. I would never . . . if she hadn’t. It was her own fault.’

  ‘Oh, spare us that, at least, Paul. What time was this when you set off for the Strip?’

  ‘I don’t know. Eleven. Half eleven. Something like that. I took the keys and drove the van down the Strip, parked on the other side down the road. Like I said, I was just going to watch for a while, you know, see if she came in or out. I suppose I must have been a bit pissed but I felt like I was sobering up fast. The takeaway was still open. There was only the cook bloke working there, but it wasn’t busy so he mostly sat reading the
paper. I thought of just going to the flat and walking up, just like that, and confronting them, but I stayed put. Then, when I’d been there about twenty minutes, half an hour, the door opened and out they came. There was the owner of the takeaway and Mimsy, along with three other Pakis. Mimsy and the three men got in a dirty white van that had been parked just down the street, then the owner bloke waved goodbye and went into the takeaway and started chatting and laughing with the cook bloke. I gave them a few minutes, then I followed the van.’

  ‘Why did you do that?’ Annie asked.

  ‘For crying out loud! Mimsy was in that van with three Pakis. I wanted to know where they were going, what they were going to do. Maybe I could intervene at the other end, persuade her to come back, beat the shit out of them, get her away from them. I’d no idea what they were planning, but I mean she obviously needed help. She was going in a totally wrong direction here.’

  ‘So you were going to rescue her? Play the knight in shining armour?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘What went wrong?’

  ‘I waited about ten minutes or so at the top of Bradham Lane. I knew they’d see me if I set off down there straight away, and there was really only one way to go at the end unless you’re heading for the high dales or the local villages, and that’s the main road into West Yorkshire. I figured they were probably from Bradford or somewhere like that where there’s a lot of Pakis, and that’s the road they’d take. I knew I could catch up with them and the other roads would be a bit busier, so they wouldn’t notice me.’

  ‘But something unexpected happened, didn’t it?’

  ‘I was driving down Bradham Lane and I saw her – Mimsy – staggering towards me. She had no clothes on and she was filthy, half covered in mud. I stopped to give her a lift and when she saw it was me, she stopped in her tracks. She was stoned on something, but she was hurt, too, I could tell. Them Pakis, they’d done stuff to her. I told her to come with me, I’d take care of her. She just stood there, so I grabbed her wrist. Then she started struggling, calling me names, saying she’d rather walk home or go back with them than with someone like me. I couldn’t believe it. There she was, all dirty and bloody and I was offering to help her, to get away from all that and take care of her, and she just said of all the people she had to bump into it had to be me.’