Nemesis

by Roger A Price

  Anyway, he still had a spare set of keys for the place, which still had three months lease left; it would make a perfect safe house, plus it was already fitted with police alarms. It was a ground floor flat in a block of six, with a rear garden, so should have everything Johnson would need to keep him content. The only problem would be keeping the idiot in the flat; he didn’t have the staff to put someone with him 24/7. It was time to scare the crap out of him.

  Vinnie spent the rest of the journey back into the city laying it on really thick about what they thought Moxley was capable of, based on recent events. He could see Johnson’s reaction via the rear view mirror. Especially, when he gave him his hypothesis on what they assumed had befallen Foster and Gregg.

  “And they were supposed to be his bestie mates,” Rob added, clearly picking up on Vinnie’s strategy.

  “How do you know for sure Moxley killed them? I mean, you’ve not found their bodies, have you?” Johnson asked.

  Vinnie had been keeping the best bit until last, “No, but we’ve seen this year’s fashion in wigs,” he said, before going on to explain.

  “Okay, okay, I get it, Johnson said, as they pulled into the small car park adjacent to the flats.

  “I won’t budge an inch until you tell me to.”

  Judging by the expression on his face as he turned to face him, this time Vinnie believed him.

  Chapter Sixteen

  After showing Johnson around the flat and checking on the food supplies, Vinnie sent Rob to the corner shop for some fresh dairy produce and a few cans of lager. The shop was only twenty metres away. Vinnie also gave Johnson some cash with strict instructions that he could only go out to visit that shop, and he could only do it once a day. They agreed when that should be so that Vinnie would always know where he was. He also checked that the phone was working and told Johnson that it only worked for incoming calls. It didn’t, but Johnson seemed to accept this.

  “I’ve no need to ring anyone, anyway. There’s only the cat,” Johnson had said.

  Vinnie assured him that they’d pay his neighbour a visit to keep her sweet and make sure she wasn’t out of pocket. He noticed Johnson was sitting on the cheap PVC settee with a faraway look in his eyes.

  “Penny for them,” Vinnie said as he heard Rob shout his return from the hall.

  “Just thinking about what you said. The sicko was wearing the hair from one of the other two.”

  Vinnie suspected more and had been awaiting Rob’s return. Rob walked into the lounge and took a seat in an armchair next to Johnson. Vinnie grabbed a kitchen chair and sat leaning on its back as he faced Johnson.

  Looking around and clearly taking the seating arrangements in, Johnson asked, “Hey what is this?”

  “This is time for the truth, and before you blither at us we know there’s more between you and Moxley than you’ve told us. So, it’s truth time, Bill. We need all the facts. And just so we are clear, we aren’t investigating you; we are only interested in finding Moxley,” Vinnie, partially lied. He knew it was a promise he might not be able to keep, depending on what came out of Johnson’s mouth.

  “Look guys,” Johnson started, “I don’t know what you’re trying to say here, but I’ve given you all I know …”

  “Bollocks,” Vinnie interrupted, and noting the uncertainty in Johnson’s face he pressed on, “Just tell us, in your own words, we don’t care about ethics or prison rules, we just need to know all we can about what makes Moxley tick. So, save the ‘he bullied me’ bullshit.”

  After a long and telling pause, Johnson spoke, “Okay, but it’s not what you probably think.”

  Vinnie wasn’t actually sure what he did think, he only knew there was more, but he tried to look as if he did. Detectives were good at pretending to know something, albeit without all the details; when they actually knew nothing.

  “Go on then.”

  A further pause, which looked to Vinnie as if Johnson was choosing his words in advance. Then, as he opened his mouth to speak, he was interrupted by Vinnie’s phone ringing. Damn, talk about timing, Vinnie was going to ignore it until he saw Delany’s name on the display. He held his hand up and shrugged at Johnson as he took the call.

  “Vinnie, can you speak?” came Delany’s voice. He sounded under pressure.

  Vinnie stood and made his way to the small kitchen.

  “I’m with Rob settling Johnson into his new home. Problems?”

  “I need you back in the incident room ASAP. Straight away, okay?”

  “Okay,” Vinnie said as the line went dead. Double damn.

  He told Rob to stay put and take over the questioning; he’d ring him after he’d seen Delany. He didn’t want Johnson to dry up when he was about to give. He hurried out of the flat.

  *

  Twenty minutes later Vinnie walked into the incident room at Rochdale nick. Delany was seated in his office with the door open. He looked hotter and more ruddy than normal. Too much time behind a desk had also added too many unwanted pounds, though Vinnie knew he shouldn’t think this as he had always been naturally slim and no doubt his middle age would change all that. He walked into the office and Delany looked up and asked him to close the door before pointing at the spare seat in front of his desk.

  “Things aren’t adding up, Vinnie,” Delany said.

  “I’ve been thinking the same, boss.”

  “Call me Harry when we’re on our own.”

  “Okay, Harry. We are on the point of getting more out of Johnson, I think he is ready to spill; I’ve left Rob to finish off what we’d started.”

  “Good, and I’m sorry to drag you away, but I need you to help me conduct an urgent interview.”

  This took Vinnie by surprise, not least because superintendent SIOs didn’t do interviews, in fact DIs rarely did. The current thinking was that those who were conducting interviews every day were the best at it. The detective sergeants and constables. Gone were the days when senior ranks conducted interviews on serious jobs.

  “Interview who?”

  Delany reminded Vinnie of one of the early lines of enquiry he’d actioned – for someone to speak to the retired Lancashire detective super who’d acted as SIO on the original rape and murder committed by Moxley – the one he got the twenty years for.

  “Bob Dawson, I think you called him. Didn’t you work together on that job?”

  “Yes, and yes,” Delany said. “I was a DS in Lancs back then – before I transferred on promotion to GMP – and did the interviews with Moxley, which were worthless as he no-commented every question. And in those days, the jury wasn’t even allowed to draw any influences from his refusal to speak.”

  “No, but they must have, human nature being what it is,” Vinnie said.

  “I guess, but it wasn’t worth anything legally. Anyway, Dawson was the SIO now retired to Spain.”

  Vinnie remembered Delany telling him this, before he went on to explain that a DC had tracked Dawson down through the pensions department and spoken to him on the phone in Alicante.

  “How did that go?” Vinnie asked, hoping they were heading to a point.

  “Weird. Dawson refused to speak to the DC, said he’d only speak to me, said he remembered the job and me, but that was yesterday and I’ve not had chance yet.”

  “So, who are we interviewing?” Vinnie asked again, not sure what the connection was.

  “Dawson, who do you think?” Delany said, his voice rising slightly.

  Vinnie didn’t get it. Delany had dragged him in here to help the old git do some sort of video conference call. “What, on Skype or similar?”

  “Sorry, Vinnie, I’m not making myself clear. No, not Skype. Here in Manchester in half an hour.”

  “But how?”

  “He’s just rung me from a hotel at the airport. He’s taken a night flight from Spain, and is booked on a return flight in four hours’ time. He said this is a one-off. No tapes, no notes, said I could bring you. Then added that I’d never hear from him again, and as he w
as about to head off on a world trek, I’d never find him again either. He sounded one worried man.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The man Vinnie assumed was Bob Dawson was sat at an occasional table in his spacious hotel bedroom. The door had been left ajar, so they knocked and walked in. He looked like an older version of Delany, but tanned. Yet his ruddy cheeks still shone through, no doubt thanks to all the Sangria. He’d often thought that all detective supers had a similar presence, perhaps after time they transmogrified into a common look; like dogs and their owners. An old mate of his, who had reached assistant chief, had once said that when they reach superintendent, they all go around wearing imaginary ten-gallon hats.

  There was one main difference between them, though; Dawson was wet with sweat.

  After the usual salutations, all three sat around a coffee table and Dawson spoke.

  “If Moxley’s on the loose, then he’ll be coming for me.”

  “Why do you say that?” Delany said.

  They had agreed on the journey over from Rochdale that Delany would do the talking, while Vinnie watched Dawson.

  “Look, he is a dangerous bastard that terrorised that poor lad in Preston before he brutalised and murdered him. He had to have it. Different rules.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Christ, Harry, do I have to spell it out?”

  “Look, what you say here in this room, stays in this room. But you’re the one who wanted a face-to-face. You’re the one who’s gone to great effort and cost to facilitate it; so yes Bob, you do.”

  Vinnie watched Dawson take a deep breath before speaking.

  “If you recall, Harry, there was no DNA. Moxley had been very thorough to avoid that. The voicemail we recovered from the deceased’s phone was obviously Moxley, but the voice expert wouldn’t say so for sure.”

  “Go on.”

  Dawson did, but side-tracked himself into a rant about voice and handwriting experts, how they never nailed their colours to the mast, took large fees and gave ambiguity in return. Vinnie couldn’t help but agree; the number of reports he had read with phrases like ‘could possibly be’ or ‘is similar to’ and so on. All strawberries to defence lawyers. Delany brought Dawson back on track and he continued.

  “As you know, he admitted sod all on interview; you weren’t even called to give evidence.”

  “I know; I was glad as well. If you remember, I was on holiday in Greece when the trial was listed and would have had to cut it short.”

  “Do you remember the surprise witness we traced? The one who saw Moxley bundling a ‘large – body-shaped – package’ into the boot of his motor?”

  “Yeah, the knock-off motor we recovered the body from,” Delany said.

  “It was a fit-up. There was no witness, well, no real one. We paid some idiot to do the business. He gave his evidence behind a screen and due to the danger posed by Moxley he was given a new identity, and a new location, and a thick wedge in his pocket.”

  Vinnie watched Dawson sit back in his chair as nobody spoke. He hadn’t seen this coming and clearly, by the look on Delany’s face, neither had he. Convention out of the window, Vinnie decided to fill the void while Delany no doubt was figuring out what to say and do. “Why are you telling us this now?”

  “Because, after he got sent down I got a phone call from one of Moxley’s contacts on the outside. Said he had a message to pass from the man I’d fitted up. Said he’d be out one day and then he was going to come for me. Said he would find me and my bent witness, and he would take us both to hell before he killed us.”

  “Is that why you retired to Spain?” Delany asked, looking like he had got over the initial shock.

  “Not ‘cause of that slag, no. We’d always intended to retire there.”

  “We’ll need the witness’s true identity and location,” Delany said.

  “I know, that’s why I had to do this face-to-face.”

  Vinnie hadn’t realised he was shaking his head until Dawson turned to face him.

  “Don’t shake your head at me, sonny. Even the bloody cleaner would have recognised Moxley’s voice on that bloody tape. We had to do something to get the twisted pervert off the streets.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to judge. I was thinking how our problems have suddenly got a whole lot worse. No offence.”

  Vinnie hoped that would appease Dawson and keep him on-side. As much as he didn’t like the man, he knew they had to keep him sweet. Delany would know this too, as he then suggested a break and asked Vinnie to use the room facilities to make some tea. Delany meanwhile engaged Dawson in trivial talk and the atmosphere eased a little. Clearly, he hadn’t forgotten all of his tradecraft, which Vinnie was glad of seeing that it was his involuntary movements that nearly ended the chat. He’d apologise later, he’d just been taken aback.

  Refreshments taken, Dawson wrote down on a piece of paper the witness’s details. Delany asked who he was, really.

  “An old snout of mine,” Dawson said. “Known him for years, a good kid. I trusted him, still do.”

  “Am I to take it that we don’t let him know what you’ve told us?” Delany asked.

  “Not if you don’t have to. He’ll be as good as gold with you though. He wanted to start a new life. ‘Start from scratch’ as he’d put it. He was a bright kid, but with all his juvenile form he was locked into the life of a petty crim. No one would offer him a decent job, but this way, he got moved, and cash, and most importantly, an official – clean – new identity.”

  “Have you spoken to him recently?” Vinnie asked.

  “Not since the trial. We decided to end all contact for security reasons.”

  “And do you think that Moxley, now he’s free, will still be bothered to make good his threats?” Vinnie asked. He went on to elucidate his comment. When Moxley had passed his original message he would have been sore and very angry. Ten years had now passed; he was out, with his ‘lover’ – which was another problem – so why risk anything? When he could just do one. It was a fair question, he thought.

  Dawson didn’t answer straight away. Instead he went on to say that he had actually left his villa, which was only rented, and set up a post office box to handle all his correspondence while he was on his world trek.

  “Why, are you off now?” Vinnie asked, another coincidental feature of Dawson, he thought. Then he got the answer.

  “There’s one last thing I’ve not told you,” he started.

  “Go on,” said Delany.

  “An hour after your DC rang me I got a further call.”

  “Who from?” Vinnie asked.

  “Moxley. Said he was coming after me. Said he wanted me to run as it would add to his fun. And trust me, as of now; I’m running.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Johnson was relieved to see Vinnie Palmer leave the flat. He’d felt enormous pressure to tell them everything. He knew he had to tell them something, they were his only defence against Moxley. He’d thought the cops would have picked him up fairly quickly, but that had not happened, and the wig story had really scared him if that’s what he did to his friends. He didn’t want to think beyond that.

  As relieved as he’d been for the break in the pressure by Palmer’s sudden exit – which, was a potential worry in itself – it didn’t last long.

  “Come on, Bill, tell me what you were about to say,” Rob asked.

  “I think I should wait until your boss is back, don’t you?”

  “I can brief him, don’t concern yourself about that, it’s time to tell us.”

  Johnson wondered if he could water it down a bit. “Look, it’s no biggie really; just an arrangement, you know.”

  “No, I don’t know; and that’s the problem. Like the boss says, we aren’t going to report back to your professional standards department, or whatever it’s called in the prison service. We simply want to catch Moxley.”

  “Believe me, Rob, that’s all I want, then I can go back to work and restart my life.”


  “Well, go on then.”

  The pressure was back. “I thought my arrangement was history, but if he’s done away with the two who helped him escape, then I’m well down the pecking order and no doubt fair game.”

  Rob looked at him with a confused expression.

  Johnson went on to explain that what he’d told them before about Moxley picking on him was all true. He told Rob he could ask the other screws, if he didn’t believe him. But recently things had become much better. Now he half wondered if that was why Moxley had taken Tim and not him, a sort of final pay off.

  “Pay off for what?”

  “Well, when Moxley first found out he was to be moved to Broadmoor, he went nuts – if you pardon the pun – said he was as sane as any of those idiots on the assessment panel. We had to try our best to keep him as calm as we could.”

  “And did you?”

  “Yes, he said he knew he had made my life a misery, and knew about the investigation.”

  “What investigation?” Rob said, looking surprised.

  Johnson took a deep breath and told him.

  *

  Vinnie had just about got over the initial shock as they got back into his Volvo. Delany’s countenance was still fixed and he hadn’t spoken since they left Dawson’s room. Vinnie broke the silence. “What the hell do we do now?”

  Delany seemed to be collecting his thoughts for a few more seconds before he spoke. Then said, “Nothing’s changed with regard to finding Moxley, he’s still a fugitive, wanted for new crimes, including the murder of prison officer Tim Knowles, and no doubt including Foster and Gregg. That remains our primary goal. The protection of the public is paramount.”

  “No disrespect, but I know that bit, Harry. I was referring to …”

  Delany cut across him.

  “I know what you are referring to, Vinnie. I’m just having trouble wrestling with the huge moral dilemma that bastard Dawson has thrown us. It crossed my mind to lock him up there and then; but there’ll be time enough for that at a later point. If we go public.”