The Glass Wall

by Clare Curzon

  Salmon appeared less interested in his immediate surroundings and scorned to take one of the seats on offer. ‘Mr Allbright,’ he launched straight in, ‘we are not satisfied with your account of the theft from your bank account. Particularly since examining the film taken at the cashpoint where the money was withdrawn.’

  That was blatant bluff. All the team had examined the film. If Allbright had been present then he’d had the sense to stand well out of view. But there was no mistaking the way Micky Kane had glanced up before touching the keyboard as if memorizing a number or waiting for instructions.

  Allbright’s mouth opened but he checked himself in time. He could have been about to deny being at the cashpoint. His mind was working overtime to deflect suspicion. And he had no idea of the range of the video camera lens.

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I wasn’t quite straight before. The truth is I felt sorry for the kid. I saw him begging at the station; had a cardboard box he’d spent the night in. He never stole the money. I offered to lend him – well, give him, I suppose – something to tide him over and get him back home.’

  ‘Fifty pounds?’ Salmon sneered. ‘He was a Londoner, only came from Wimbledon.’

  Allbright shrugged. ‘It was to cover a decent meal and his train journey, with a bit left over to cheer him up. I ran away from home myself when I was a bit older than him and I remember how godawful it was.’

  Salmon took on a masterful stance. ‘There was no cardboard box. Since the attempted rapes on women travelling late at night, there’s been a regular security sweep at and around the station. No homeless hanging out there; no beggars.

  ‘And you don’t need to travel by train, Mr Allbright. You work locally, and beyond that you’ve a more than adequate car for the purpose, and a Harley-Davidson besides. It’s because you’ve no reason to visit the railway station that you know so little about it. Now, suppose you tell us why you’ve found it necessary to lie to the police, and exactly what services you were paying this young boy for.’

  Allbright looked more than scared. Almost sick. And Beaumont was impressed that the DI had already followed up on his registered vehicles.

  ‘When did you first meet the boy?’ Salmon pursued. ‘How long has he been living under your roof since then?’

  Allbright sank on to the breakfast bench. His bathrobe fell open to reveal more of the gorilla legs and the edge of striped silk boxer shorts. Not a pretty sight.

  He was silent, staring at the floor, fists bunched, a tide of crimson rising up the bull-like neck to flood his face.

  ‘While you’re thinking up something suitable to tell us,’ Beaumont suggested pleasantly, ‘how about a tour of the house, and in particular the place where he was sleeping.’

  From that point Allbright put up no resistance. Micky had actually been allocated a single room of his own, and searching the wardrobe there produced a school duffel bag with Smiley stickers and a name tape on it. Inside were his neatly folded school uniform, two books – one on the night sky, the other a paperback thriller – a Parker pen and a well-thumbed notebook which Salmon pocketed for later examination. No change of underclothes, so perhaps the boy hadn’t meant to stay away overnight. Nevertheless he had certainly settled in here. So much for Allbright’s solicitous intentions to pack him off home.

  ‘You can’t take that stuff!’ Allbright protested as he started putting the stuff together. ‘It’s Micky’s.’

  Now it was Salmon’s turn to be caught with his mouth agape and the wrong words nearly out. He caught himself in time. Either Allbright didn’t know the boy was dead or he was more quick-witted than his appearance suggested. Let the doubt stand for the moment.

  ‘I must ask you,’ the DI said sourly, ‘to come with us to the local police station where you may be required to answer further questions.’

  ‘Are you arresting me?’ He sounded incredulous.

  ‘Not at this point.’ Salmon almost smirked. ‘That’s not saying that the possibility won’t arise.’

  Allbright rose from where he’d slumped on the bed and stared back with intensity. ‘I prefer to make a voluntary statement. And I want my solicitor with me.’

  ‘You have that right, Mr Allbright. Would you care to make that call now?’

  He chose to do this from another room, although there was a wall-fitted white phone right there. Salmon nodded Beaumont towards it, and stood listening by the open door ready to give the sign to lift the receiver. Beaumont, adept at interceptions, complied.

  Allbright spoke to a woman receptionist at Callendar, Fitt and Travis. After a certain amount of faffing and fussing while he explained his requirement, Fitt himself came on to explain unhappily that they didn’t normally cover criminal cases, but he would send someone along who could advise him on how much, or how little, to admit when questioned.

  At that point Beaumont replaced the receiver in synch with the man cutting off the call. Salmon strutted after Allbright and could be heard instructing him to get dressed.

  Wrapped against the weather, a tight-lipped Allbright climbed into the rear of the unmarked police car, having been denied his own. ‘We shall provide a lift back,’ Salmon intoned, ‘if that becomes necessary.’

  Alyson Orme sometimes claimed that, like any ITU nurse, she was good at management by crisis. This time she knew she was out on a branch and alone. Two further phone calls to the Judd house had produced progressively surly negatives from Sheena’s mother.

  ‘I honestly don’t know what she thinks she’s up to,’ the woman said in final exasperation. ‘It’s having this new boyfriend. It’s quite gone to her head.’

  ‘Do you mean she’s still missing? When did you last see her, Mrs Judd?’

  Sal Judd thought back. ‘Yesterday midday before she went off to work. She was looking sort of pleased with herself. Like she was planning some treat.’

  ‘And she didn’t come home last night? So maybe we can reach her through this man friend. Can you give me his number?’

  ‘I don’t know it. Nor who he is neither. Well, you know what girls are these days. Never tell their mums anything.’

  Rebuffed, Alyson said goodbye, rang off and dialled Ramón’s number. She would need him to cover for Sheena since she didn’t appear to be coming in. Time was running out for Alyson to be at the ITU herself.

  Again at the Crown hotel someone was sent to find him. When he came on she explained the fix she was in. ‘Did Sheena say what she had in mind for yesterday evening – where she was going?’

  ‘No. She tell me nothing,’ he said cautiously.

  ‘Did she ever mention a man friend to you?’

  ‘No name, but – there is a person interested, I think.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘He visits. I find coffee things used. Two mugs.’

  ‘Ramón, I need someone to fill in for her. Emily can’t be left alone and I have to get to work. I could be late already.’

  ‘You want I come? I regret, impossible.’ Over the phone her silence got to him. ‘I work here. In hotel.’ It sounded like a confession.

  ‘I see, but surely someone there could replace you. I have nobody at all. You know how helpless Emily is.’

  ‘Emily, yes. I am sorry.’

  ‘I will pay double. If you could arrange …’

  He made up his mind then. Monday lunch service in the bar wasn’t heavy. It was mostly regular drinkers who only wanted a stuffed baguette or crisps besides. Roseanne could manage on her own and he would give her something extra. Also today’s duty manager had his restaurant lunch brought to the office, and probably slept it off there afterwards.

  ‘I arrange something. I come in half an hour.’

  Alyson drew a deep breath of relief. She thanked him and rang off. When she was connected with ITU she found Bernice was already in charge.

  ‘Well, if it can’t be helped,’ she grumbled, ‘I’ll expect you when I see you. Are you sure it’s not a mammoth hangover from last night?’

  ‘No mammoths
in it, pink or otherwise,’ Alyson assured her. ‘I don’t do hairy monsters.’ Suddenly her spirits had soared. Crisis over. She’d been near panic point a few minutes before at realization of what fragile arrangements kept Emily going. Somehow she’d have to organize a back-up system, though it wasn’t yet clear how. Perhaps an agency nurse.

  There was no chance to exchange more than a greeting when Ramón arrived. As she dodged through the traffic on her way to the hospital it struck her fully what he’d said about the hotel. He was actually employed there. That was why it took time to find him when she rang. He didn’t have a guest’s room with a phone, but would live in cramped staff quarters. And he had that only because of the job. He could have put it at risk by pulling out from whatever duties he was responsible for that afternoon.

  She felt a rush of sympathy for the little man. It wasn’t just the offer of double pay that had made up his mind. She remembered his voice softening as he said, ‘Emily, yes. I am sorry.’ Real regret. It could be he already felt some bonding with his patient. There had been none of that with Sheena. If only he could take her place on a permanent basis.

  She scuttled into the unit, locked away her outer clothes and went through to confront Bernice’s raised eyebrows. ‘Panic over,’ she assured her, pulling on plastic apron and latex gloves. ‘Now, what’s new here?’

  The wind had turned north-easterly, slicing with Siberian savagery. ‘Too cold to snow again,’ Beaumont predicted as Z stepped out of her car at the mortuary door.

  ‘I’m not sure that follows.’

  ‘Aw, leave me some sort of comfort. I’ve had all morning with the Charm Fairy and just left him grilling Allbright.’

  ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘He’s a definite maybe. Let’s go in.’

  Z watched him throw down a half-smoked cigarette behind him and grind his heel on it. Something had started him off again. It seemed he’d given up on the nicotine patches too soon. Or there was some new irritant in his home life.

  ‘How’s the family?’

  ‘Huh! None-too-subtle extensions of female empire. She wants the living-room redecorated. The boy’s dormant at present. I haven’t dared ask after his grades. How’s your love life?’

  ‘Also hibernating. Max has gone to Iraq. Doesn’t really need to. He just wanted a wider view of things, so he’s with the Americans up north.’

  Beaumont gave a sympathetic grunt. Max wasn’t the investigative kind of journalist but his commentaries on everything from the use of loofahs to the human condition made lively reading. ‘He’ll be all right,’ he assured her. He knew as well as she did that serendipity was the real enemy when terrorists were involved.

  They removed their coats and went to join the mortuary attendant who was readying the body. Professor Littlejohn appeared from the ante-room snapping on his surgical gloves. ‘A bright good afternoon to all,’ he boomed.

  Opposite the two detectives the coroner’s officer took up standard police at-ease stance as the pathologist clipped the mike to his apron.

  ‘We have the body of an adolescent male.’ He raised one eyebrow at his assistant who promptly reeled off height and weight measurements.

  ‘He appears to be fine-boned, lean, but well nourished. No obvious disease or disablement.’ He droned on, only looking up and nodding as the swing doors opened to allow Superintendent Yeadings to join them.

  ‘Lividity over the chest and abdomen indicate that the body was left face down on a solid surface for a period of well over two hours after death and before immersion. So we can exclude drowning from the actual cause of death.

  ‘We’ll look at the head injury. Can I have him turned over?’

  The boy’s water-bloated features had sickened Zyczynski. She had a poignant image of him in the hospital bed, vulnerable but trying to act cool, as kids do when burying emotion. To see him now was worse than expected. And now, when he was laid face down, the shattered skull made the breath catch in her throat.

  The examination proceeded at a brisk pace, Littlejohn as ever interspersing his commentary with rumbles of song, half-voiced and half lost in his beard. There were more negatives: no possibility that injuries were self-inflicted; no needle marks apart from where, in hospital, the wrist cannula had been inserted for the IV, and a single puncture when his blood was tested; no river water in the lungs, therefore, again, no case of drowning. There was no evidence of long-term drug abuse and homosexual activity.

  Littlejohn looked up and stared pointedly at his audience. ‘The present anal tearing was recent.’

  ‘Rape?’ Beaumont demanded harshly.

  ‘Certainly rough handling,’ the pathologist allowed. He grimaced ironically at the over-eager DS. ‘We have nothing to indicate whether consent was given or not.’

  Z felt a surge of anger. She drove her fists deep in the pockets of her jeans and blinked hard to keep her eyes from brimming. If it was Allbright who’d done this to an innocent she couldn’t hate him enough.

  There was more to endure as Littlejohn opened the body. A young boy she’d briefly met and felt some sympathy for became dehumanized before her eyes. Despite the chill conditions of the room she felt stifled and longed to get into the outside air. But at last it was over. No startling new discoveries. They must wait a day or two for the lab’s toxicology report, which would possibly confirm what was discovered from earlier samples taken in the ITU. Micky had been found with a mixture of drugs in his bloodstream, which included smack and ecstasy.

  Outside, it was already dark, frost making the lights seem even brighter. They stood in a subdued little group. Centrally Yeadings huddled, bear-like, in his winter crombie. ‘Better get off home now while you can,’ he advised. ‘We’ll meet up for an 8.30 briefing in the morning. DI Salmon will task the extended murder team.’

  Keith rang through to ITU at about four, and it was Alyson who took the call. ‘I’ve dropped in to take Audrey home, but there’s time to snatch a coffee first. Can you take your break now?’

  ‘In ten minutes?’

  ‘Splendid. Thanks.’

  I shouldn’t have agreed, Alyson thought. This is getting addictive. Another last time.

  She fixed it with Bernice, went down by the stairs and found Keith at a corner table in the staff diner with two cappuccinos. He was contrite.

  ‘There have been so many loose ends to tie up before I take leave that I couldn’t even get round to seeing Emily. Another day would have helped, but Audrey’s desperate to get home.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ she told him. ‘If Emily needs anything I’ll give Dougie a ring. She won’t care for the substitute but I’ll try to explain.’

  They drank their coffee in silence, surrounded by the subdued babble of staff chat and the scraping of chair legs on the wood block floor. Then, ‘I think I need your advice,’ she said. ‘Well, not so much advice, because I may not take it. Opinion, certainly.’

  ‘I’m intrigued.’

  So she told him about Sheena’s unexpected failure to turn up, and how she’d had to call Ramón in.

  She paused before diving in. ‘I’d like to take him on full-time. He seems so much more reliable, but he has a bar job at the Crown and it’s live-in. It means he’d lose that. There’s room enough for him at Emily’s and it would be good to have someone else always on hand. What do you think?’

  Keith frowned. ‘I can’t say, because I’ve never met him. You should really find out much more about his background. You say he’s a foreigner. Has it struck you his papers may not be in order?’

  ‘He’s Spanish I think, so, as an EU citizen, there should be no difficulty about a work permit. He seems a private sort of person. I doubt he’d get under my heels.’

  There was a silence while Keith considered the pros and cons. It would halve the weight of duty Alyson was labouring under, but having an unproved man move in presented unknown risks he didn’t want her to take.

  ‘You’re uneasy because he’s male,’ she said. ‘Look, nowadays
men and women are flat-sharing on an equal basis all over the place, and it’s taken for granted. And if I’m in charge, the boss figure with power to sack him, he’s not going to take advantage of the situation, is he? In any case he may turn down the offer out of hand.’

  It was clear she’d made up her mind already, had merely used him as a sounding board. All the same, he wanted to protest.

  She rose to go. ‘I have to get back. By the way, we still have your scarf. You left it behind. If you ever get out shopping or whatever, drop in and pick it up.’

  Shopping: all he was reduced to now. It angered him, and he simply nodded as she took her departure.

  Allbright hardly needed the solicitor with him. His stonewalling had Salmon fuming inside. Micky was a young vagrant he’d felt sorry for and so offered him somewhere to stay. After that, ‘No comment’. They had reached a solid impasse when a constable knocked on the interview room door and handed in a note. Superintendent Yeadings had phoned in the salient points of the post mortem findings.

  Salmon clucked with satisfaction.

  ‘There have been developments,’ he told the man opposite. He stood up.

  ‘Stanley Allbright, I am arresting you on suspicion of the sexual assault of a minor.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  A summons to Kidlington to consult with the ACC (Crime) kept Yeadings from Tuesday morning’s briefing. Without him his Major Crimes team assembled in the CID office to compare notes before joining what Beaumont termed ‘the rabble’ of their extended murder-case personnel. Most of the chatter ceased on the instant as the DI and his two sergeants entered the prepared Incident Room.

  News carries fast in an Area station, and expectations were high since a suspect was already cooling off in a cell between questionings. By five that afternoon the twenty-four hour rule would apply: he must be either charged or released. Nobody had any doubts about which way it would go.