by Conrad Jones
“You can remember exactly which bin?”
“I might be able to.”
“Might?”
“Well, things are a bit tight at the moment.” Tibbs shrugged. “I know you pay informers. Would there be a reward or anything?”
“We might be able to sort something out,” Annie said irritably. “I’ll ask you again. Can you remember exactly which bin?”
“Probably,” he grinned, “and there’s something else.”
“What?”
“This is where I need assurances.”
“Go on.”
“I saw the men who put it in the bin and I saw the van which they drove away in.” He smiled slyly and tapped his nose. “I think that I recognise one of them. He’s a real bad lad.”
“His name?” Annie snapped.
“Until you can guarantee me protection and a reward,” Tibbs sat back and shook his head stubbornly, “his name has slipped my mind.”
“Okay, we’ll park the name for now.” Annie called his bluff. “We won’t be making any arrests until we know if you’re telling us the truth or not.”
“What?” Tibbs said shocked.
“Get up,” Stirling growled. “You can wait in the cells until we’re ready to go and have a look at exactly where you say you found this.”
“In the cells?” Tibbs spluttered. Spittle flew from his thin lips. “What for?”
“Withholding information, wasting police time,” Annie shrugged, “that’ll do for a start.”
Chapter 2
The drive from Liverpool city centre took them along the coast road heading north. The docks were busy as usual; a five mile rainbow of coloured containers stacked ten high dominated the river bank. For the following half hour of the drive, the city turned to suburbs and then the vista changed to agricultural land and golf courses. They took a left through Crosby village towards the beaches and reached the coastal reserve ten minutes later. The approach road took them through overhanging trees, annuals, deciduous and evergreens. The trees thickened and the boughs formed a canopy, making it dark and gloomy until they reached the sand. The smell of the sea drifted into the vehicle through the vents, mingling with the scent of pine.
Annie pulled off the tarmac into a sandy car park, which serviced the dunes, the beach and the nature reserves. It was a school day and raining heavily. Only the diehard dog walkers and bird watchers braved the coast on a day like this. Uniformed officers were taping off the paths which ran through the sharp grasses. To the left, the paths ran to the wooded areas of the nature reserves. The trees thickened the further inland you walked. On the right they threaded their way through the dunes and around a huge boating lake to the beach. She shivered as a powerful gust of wind shook the Volvo. The anticipation of leaving the car made her subconsciously cold inside. The rain fell almost horizontally and the wipers struggled to keep up with the downpour.
“The van was parked here?” she asked Tibbs’ reflection in the rear view mirror.
“Over there in the corner.” He pointed towards the trees. “The back doors were right next to the path.”
“Were there any other vehicles?” Stirling turned around to look at him.
“One or two, but I couldn’t tell you what they were.”
Annie rolled her eyes skyward. “So you saw a white transit size van but you can’t remember what make?”
“I might be able to.” Tibbs winked in the mirror. “You know if I was a real informer, on the payroll so to speak, then my memory might be sharper.”
“Don’t fuck me around, Tibbs.” Annie twisted in her seat. “I’ve told you that we’ll sort something out but right now, your information is going to get us nowhere. I need results to give to my governor before he’ll authorise a penny.”
“Well, I suppose I’ll have to trust you then won’t I.” Tibbs shrugged. “Although it goes against the grain after how you lot have treated me over the years.”
“Can we cut the sob story and get to the facts, please,” Annie snapped. Her eyes said all that Tibbs needed to know. She was at her limit.
“It was a Mercedes.”
“Big or small?” Stirling asked. “Sprinter or Vito?”
“Now then,” Tibbs toyed. “Let me think. It was the smaller type, the Vito. Did I say it was white?”
Annie opened a tourist map of the area and spread it over the steering wheel and the dashboard. It showed the paths, ponds, bird watching hides and picnic areas. It wasn’t to scale but it had far more detail of the paths than an Ordinance Survey map. “You’re sure the bin is on this path?”
“Positive. I’ve walked it a hundred times.”
Annie followed the path with her finger and when she saw where it led to, she realised immediately that Tibbs was telling the truth. She felt anger bubbling inside her, but decided to hold her tongue for the moment. She would confront him later, once she had the information that she needed. “How far down is the bin?”
“A hundred yards, no more than that.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
“On the left or the right?”
“The right.”
“What were you doing here, Tibbs?”
“I come here often for a walk.” He flushed red and looked out of the window. His eyes gave something away; an untruth. The glass was beginning to steam up and visibility was further hindered by rivulets of rain trickling down. “It clears my mind coming here. Gets me out of the city and doesn’t cost a fortune in petrol.”
“Shut up and get out.” Annie sighed as she opened the door. “You make me sick, you lying bastard.” Rain hit her immediately and the wind tugged violently at her trench coat. She grabbed the collars with her right hand to keep the weather out, but the wind blew through the material as if it wasn’t there. A uniformed officer was struggling to keep the crime scene tape from blowing away. “Get out now, Tibbs,” she shouted angrily.
“I didn’t sign up for this,” he grumbled as he reluctantly opened the door. The wind made the map flap against the windscreen. “It’s bloody freezing.” Dark clouds raced across the sky releasing tons of rainwater before they headed inland. He looked at Stirling for moral support. “What’s she being so arsey about?”
“I’m not sure, Tibbs, but I would think it has something to do with something she’s seen marked on the map at the end of that path,” Stirling growled. “You must think that we were born yesterday. Get out!”
“I don’t know what her problem is,” Tibbs grumbled as he climbed out. “Bloody cheek of it.” His protestations went unheard. “I am an innocent man.” He whistled the riff to the tune but the look from the big detective cut his rendition short. “I thought Liverpool was famous for a sense of humour,” he mumbled.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
“Right, Tibbs,” Annie shouted over the wind. “Take us to the spot.” She leaned into the wind as they trudged across the sand. A uniformed sergeant approached. His ruddy face was craggy and water dripped from his nose. “Anything, Sergeant?”
“The council last emptied the litter bins on Monday.” He looked at Tibbs and frowned. “Your informer said he found the dog collar yesterday?”
“That’s what he said,” Annie nodded. She understood the look of distaste on his face as he recognised Tibbs. “So they haven’t been emptied?”
“No, Guv.” He pointed to the trees. “We’ve taken the contents of every litter bin from here up to the housing estate on the far side of the nature reserve, eight in total.”
“Good work,” Annie said taking hold of his arm by the elbow. She led him out of earshot of Tibbs. “I know he’s a scumbag, but that dog collar belonged to Lacey Taylor. Now I’m assuming the worst here, but I think she’s pushing up the daffodils in there somewhere and he’s the only solid lead we’ve had since she went missing.”
“I understand, Guv.” The sergeant smiled thinly. “Most of my informers come from the slime beneath the city too. She’s b
een gone a while, it doesn’t look good, does it?”
“Not good at all.”
“We’ll get the bins to forensics as soon as we’re sure we’ve got them all. Do you think we should widen the search?”
“Yes, I do,” she grimaced. “Sorry. I know it’s a nightmare in this weather but we need to take them all. Have your men empty every bin within the reserve but tell forensics to focus on the ones from this path first, okay?”
“Guv.”
“The K-9 team is here,” Stirling shouted. A dark blue van pulled to a halt near the tree line. The dog handlers waved hello through the window. “They’ve allocated us two cadaver dogs. I’ll send them along the path first?”
Annie nodded in agreement, waved her hand to the dog handlers and walked back to Tibbs. “Okay.” She pointed her finger at his chest. “You walk me right through everything you did and saw yesterday. If I think you’re pissing me around or leaving something out, I’ll nick you for breaching your bail conditions. Do you understand me?”
“What do you mean breaching my conditions?”
“Don’t push me, Tibbs.” Annie shook her head. “We both know where that path leads to don’t we?”
“I don’t know what you’re on about. I’ve never been all the way down there.” Tibbs nodded, meekly. Breaching his bail by any description could earn him a three year spell behind bars. “I parked over there near the hotdog van.” Annie noted with surprise that the trader had chosen to persevere despite the weather. “He’s here every day regardless of how severe the weather is,” Tibbs said reading her mind.
The trader looked on cheerfully as the police cordoned off the reserve. His tea, coffee and hotdog sales would double with the influx of uniformed customers. Business was business. She turned to Stirling. “Has anyone spoken to him yet?” She looked towards the happy trader.
“Not yet, Guv.” He looked over. “I wanted to talk to him myself first.”
“Good, do that.”
“I could murder a cup of tea,” Tibbs grinned. “It would warm me up.”
“Shut up,” Annie snapped again. Tibbs looked like a slapped child, unsure of why he’d been hit. “You parked up and then what?”
“I bought a hotdog and a nice cup of tea,” Tibbs emphasised the words sulkily, “and then I walked across the car park and down the path there.”
“Show me exactly where.” Annie waited for him to move before following. Her face was darker than the clouds. They stepped onto the sandy path and headed for the trees. The canopy of leaves offered some relief from the driving rain but the wind whistled between the boughs, finding them easily. It seemed to search for the gaps in their clothing seeking out their flesh. No matter how tightly she pulled her coat fastened, icy drafts sneaked through. Uniformed officers nodded silent hellos as they past. They carried black bin bags which were tagged and sealed in clear plastic liners. They eyed Tibbs with suspicion and revulsion. “Looks like you’ve got a lot of fans,” Annie commented, sarcastically.
“They’ve got me all wrong,” Tibbs moaned. His bottom lip drooped sulkily. “I sat here for a while on that bench. I like to watch the ducks on the pond.” He pointed to a wooden bench positioned next to a kidney shaped pond. Reeds grew around the edges and mallards meandered across the water heading for shelter; chevron shaped ripples spread behind them. “I was finishing my tea when I saw them dumping the collar in that bin.”
“So they came from further up the reserve?”
“No.” Tibbs shook his head. “That’s why I thought it was odd. They came from the car park the same way we came. There are bins all around the car park so I wondered why they walked up here. The guy stuffed the collar under the other rubbish. If he had just thrown something in then it wouldn’t have seemed out of the ordinary. That’s why I looked. I don’t normally go rummaging through bins.”
Annie looked down the path towards the car park. “So you didn’t pass them on the way here?”
“No.”
“And they didn’t follow you down the path?”
“No.”
“How can you be sure that they weren’t behind you?”
“I just am.” Tibbs blushed and his eyes darted to the floor.
“You’re lying to me.” Annie scowled.
“I’m not.”
“It’s no more than seventy yards from where you said the van was parked, to that bin.”
“About that.”
“So it took you, what, a minute to reach here?”
“I walked slowly, just ambling.”
“So we’ll call it a minute and a half tops,” Annie pushed. “How many times did you look behind you in ninety seconds?”
“A few.” He coughed nervously. “I get nervous, you know, in case someone recognises me from the papers. I’ve been beaten up three times, no thanks to you lot.”
“How many times did you look behind you?”
“I don’t know for God’s sake!”
“Guess.”
“What?”
“Have a guess. Humour me.”
“I don’t remember.” He looked away. Annie was afraid that he would clam up completely.
“I think you should get us some tea,” she turned to Stirling. He frowned. She winked at her colleague and looked at Tibbs. “Do you want some tea and a hotdog like you had yesterday?”
“Yes,” Tibbs nodded defiantly. “Extra onions and mustard and three sugars in my tea.”
“I’ll have a coffee,” Annie said, thoughtfully, “and ask the trader if he can remember Tibbs from yesterday.” She winked again. “I don’t understand why he’s helping us out here. He’s got his own agenda but I don’t know what it is yet.” Stirling appeared to get the message. He grinned and walked back towards the car park. “Sit down, Tibbs.” She gestured to the bench.
“It’s soaked,” he whinged but her demeanour dared him to challenge her. He pulled his coat beneath his behind and slumped onto the bench, folding his arms grumpily. “I’m trying to help you out here and you’re treating me like a criminal.”
Annie ignored him and walked back to the bin. Tibbs was right in the fact that there were at least two bins closer to the car park. She wandered off the path into the trees looking for footprints. Twigs and rotting foliage covered the sand but she ascertained that if anyone had walked beneath the trees, there would be evidence somewhere. It didn’t add up. Neither did what he had told them so far. Yet he had walked into the police station and handed in a crucial link to a missing person. What was he playing at? Usually when that happened, someone was trying to deflect guilt. She walked back onto the path when she saw Stirling returning. He had a cardboard carry tray with three polystyrene cups and a grease stained brown paper bag balanced on top.
“How do you know they were in the white van if you were walking the other way?” she asked Tibbs, as the refreshments were handed out. The greasy hotdog looked like it had artery hardening nutritional value. “You can’t see the car park from here so how did you know which vehicle they were in?”
Tibbs opened his mouth to speak and then stopped. He took the lid from his tea and blew on it thoughtfully. Annie knew that he was composing his next set of lies. “I must have seen them when I went to the bin to see what they’d thrown away. I think so anyway, my memory is not too sharp.”
“No you didn’t,” Annie frowned. “I’ve stood next to the bin and you can’t see the vehicles on the car park from there. There’s a bend in the path which obscures it from view.”
“Maybe I walked down the path a bit to make sure they had gone.” He slurped his tea nervously. “My memory’s a bit cloudy on that bit.”
“Bullshit.” Annie smiled sourly. She looked at her partner. “What did our friendly hotdog man have to say?”
“Funny but he doesn’t remember anyone fitting your description buying a hotdog with extra mustard and onions,” Stirling raised his eyebrows as he spoke. Tibbs seemed to shrink into himself. “However he did say that you’re a regular here and he doe
s remember you buying six quid worth of sweets and chocolate and a cup of tea.” Stirling shook his head in disgust. “The only bit of your tale which is true is that you bought tea; the rest is bullshit.”
“So you bought the sweets,” Annie surmised. “Then you walked through the reserve to the school at the end of the path, handed out the sweets, had a peep at the kids for a while then walked back. That’s how you saw them near the bin isn’t it? You were coming from the other direction.”
“School?” Tibbs croaked.
“Don’t wind me up, Tibbs.”
He looked at his feet and slurped his tea. “I wasn’t doing any harm.”
“You’re in serious breach of you bail conditions, sunshine.”
“I know. That’s why I bent the truth a little bit.” Tibbs stared into his tea. His hands trembled. “I wanted to help you without dropping myself in the crap. I didn’t want to get into trouble but I did see them dumping that collar, honestly.”
“You don’t know the meaning of honesty.”
“I couldn’t ignore it,” Tibbs insisted. “They dumped the collar and I knew it was evidence that something terrible has happened to Lacey. I had to come in and tell you.”
She listened to his argument and thought that despite her personal feelings, she needed him to talk. “Where did you see them first?” Annie asked calmly.
“Over there on the far side of the pond.” Tibbs indicated to a path fifty yards further on. “They were coming through the trees so I watched them.”
“Go on.”
“I thought they might be a couple of queers until I recognised one of them,” he shrugged. “Then I saw one of them dump the collar in the bin. I walked on and saw them get into the van. Once they’d gone, I went back to see what they had thrown away.”
“And you recognised one of them?”
“Well,” he paused, “sort of.”
“What do you mean, sort of?”
“He looks like a member of a family, which is well known in town for all the wrong reasons.”
“Looks like?”
“He had a very strong family resemblance,” Tibbs slurped again. “You know what I mean. He has to be related.”
