‘He?’
‘Isn’t it a he? Did she …? Was it …?’
‘Did she have a nickname for you, Mr Waters?’
‘Nickname? What is this?’
‘Would you just answer the question, sir?’
‘If it’s that important I’m not often in the UK, so she called me her Sojourner. Oh, God!’ There was the sound of a deep intake of breath down the phone and then a spate of coughing. When the voice came again it sounded croaky: ‘My apologies, Chief Inspector. There was some poem or other Kara knew that said something about the sojourner returns. Kind of thing. Was it … was it bad for her?’
‘It wasn’t quick and it wasn’t pretty.’
‘Oh, God!’ The pain in Waters’s voice should have been enough to confirm his innocence, but Femur was taking no chances. ‘Can you give me your full name and address and details of your hotel and your flight?’
Dale Waters dictated all his details, including his planned time of arrival the following week and promised to answer any questions the police might have then. ‘I’m an attorney, sir,’ he added, surprising Femur. ‘I’ll do all I can to help. But I need to know what happened to Kara. I can’t … Oh, God! Why didn’t I stay with her that night?’
‘I don’t know, sir. Why didn’t you?’ asked Femur, interested.
‘Because I didn’t want to drive to the airport in rush-hour traffic,’ the American said drearily. ‘It’s much quicker at night. What’d he do to her when I’d gone?’
‘I’d rather give you the details when you’re here.’
‘Come on, Chief Inspector. I have to know.’
‘She was attacked in her cottage and died. But don’t think too much about it, sir. However bad it was for her, it’s over now. She’s at peace.’
‘Sure.’ His voice was raw enough to make Femur wish he could let him go, but there were things that still had to be asked.
‘While you’re on the line, will you tell me whether she ever talked to you about drugs, or drug dealers?’
‘No. I don’t think so. She wasn’t a user, Chief Inspector, and neither am I, if that’s what you’re asking. She liked a drink now and then. No more than that.’
Femur heard him gulp, cough, try to say something else and fail.
‘We know she herself wasn’t an addict,’ he said, giving the man time to get control of himself. ‘The post-mortem made that clear enough. D’you know if she had any enemies?’
‘There were people at work who were difficult.’ His voice was working reasonably well again, but it was thickened and ragged at the edges. As well as the pain, Femur thought there was anger, perhaps even stronger than his own. ‘She put some noses out of joint trying to clean the place up and cut budgets, but nothing to explain murder. Though there was a guy called Jed Thomplon, who –’
‘We know all about him. He’s in the clear. Anyone else?’
‘Yeah, there was a man I wished she’d cut loose from. She was sure he wasn’t dangerous any more. But he sounded … Oh God, if it’s him, I’ll never forgive myself. I should’ve made her see how –’ His voice cracked and then there was silence.
‘I understand, sir, believe me,’ said Femur, keeping his compassion in check with difficulty. ‘Who is he, this man she didn’t think was dangerous?’
‘He was a colleague, kind of.’ There was a pause and then the sound of a nose being vigorously blown. ‘His name was Blade or Blain. No, Blair. That was his first name. I don’t know his surname. She talked about him often, trying to kid herself she liked him. She didn’t, I could tell. He was a creep, and he made her skin crawl. And he’d been in trouble with the police years ago. But she tried to see the best in him, and she used to let him come to her house and talk to her about his fantasies by the hour.’
‘Have you any idea where this man lives?’ Femur felt cold all over. All his theories about Spinel, about drug dealers, and about the wrong sized bruises ruling out the Kingsford Rapist suddenly seemed pathetic in the face of this news of a creepy man with a police record whom Kara had let into her cottage to talk about his fantasies. God almighty! How could she have taken such a risk?
‘Somewhere in Kingsford. You’d find him in her address book.’
‘Right.’ Femur wanted to get straight back to the station and Kara’s address book but he owed Dale Waters something, so when he’d got all the relevant phone and fax numbers, he said, ‘You’ve been very helpful, and I’m sorry – very sorry – you had to hear the news this way.’
‘It’s been … rough. I’ll call you from the airport when I get in.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ Femur pulled his mobile out of his raincoat pocket and rang the incident room.
As he waited for an answer, holding on to his impatience with difficulty, he looked once more around the simply furnished room, wondering how Kara’s Sojourner could have left so little evidence of his existence. If they had been on the sort of terms he suggested, there should have been something, a photo at least.
‘Incident room.’
‘Tony?’
‘Guv. What’s up?’
‘Have a look in Huggate’s address book, will you, for someone called Blair? Now. I’ve no idea of the surname so start at the As and carry on till you find him. And then have a car ready. We’ve got to bring him in. I’m on my way back.’
‘OK, Guv. I’ve got a girl from the drugs squad here, who wants to see you.’ There was a muffled conversation, then Blacker came back on the line. ‘Sorry. Not a girl. Guv, I’ve got Constable Bethany Deal here, who wants to talk to you urgently. She won’t tell me why, says the confidentiality she promised means that she must speak to you direct and to no one else.’
The last thing Femur wanted now was any distraction from Blair. It had been a long day already and he wasn’t going to be able to get his head down for hours. But he’d have to find out what she wanted.
‘Tell her I’ll be there within ten minutes.’
He saw her as soon as he walked back into his office, a young woman in her early twenties with a calm, sensible face and a lot of luxuriant dark hair blowing about her face. She wasn’t in uniform, but wearing slim-cut dark trousers, not jeans, and a long, loose, knobbly kind of sweater of some sort of shiny wool.
‘Right,’ he said, as he showed her into his room. ‘Now, I haven’t much time. What is it that you couldn’t tell Sergeant Blacker?’
‘A young man called Wes Jones approached me this evening, sir,’ she said, with an admirable lack of excuse and shilly-shallying. ‘He works for a used-car dealer in Kingsford called Martin Drakeshill, along with several other lads who’ve been in young-offender institutions.’
‘Like this Wes himself?’
‘Yes, sir. Spot of ABH. But he’s been out six months and got this job as a car mechanic’s assistant. I think he’s a good lad, as reliable as they ever are and –’
‘Why?’
‘Because of the way he talked about what was worrying him, sir. Which is that one of the other mechanics at the garage, who has always frightened him, has been strutting round the place, looking – in his words – too puffed-up and too much on the edge.’
‘Oh, yes?’ In spite of the lack of shilly-shallying, Femur was impatient. ‘What’s his name?’
‘Charles Chompton, always known as Chaz or Chompie, depending on whether he likes you or not. Chompie is only for the inner circle.’
‘Right. So?’
‘So, Wes thinks that Chompie’s scary strutting could have something to do with the social worker who was killed, sir.’
Femur frowned. That was the last thing he’d expected.
‘Wes says that Chompie’s eyes were glittering like he was on something the morning after it happened, and he’s never stopped talking since about how she deserved everything that happened to her because she was an interfering slag who caused trouble wherever she went. Wes thinks she might have been Chompie’s social worker and that, maybe, just maybe, she’d been interfering in his life so that he’d
decided he had to stop her.’
‘Right.’ Femur felt like putting his head in his hands and giving up. To have a whole slew of new suspects dumped in his lap within half an hour and no evidence against any of them was just what he didn’t need. He’d been up since six, working to no effect whatever; Cally was long gone to her actress; the rest of the team had knocked off for the night, even Steve Owler. Only Blacker was out there in the incident room, trying to get an address for this Blair character. ‘And has Wes got anything to back up this theory?’
‘No, sir. But I thought you ought to hear what he had to say.’
‘Right,’ he said, trying to recover his temper. She’d done the right thing; it wasn’t her fault he felt he was losing the plot. ‘Yes, and you were right to tell me. You’d better give me all the details while you’re here.’ Femur pulled a pad out of the desk drawer and grabbed a felt-tip.
‘There aren’t any details, sir: only Wes’s feeling, based on the violent inmates who terrified him when he was doing time, that Chompie had committed some kind of serious assault around the time the social worker was killed and later slagged her off.’
Femur raised his eyebrows. ‘Couldn’t he just have been turned on by the thought of it? Some violent young men are excited by that sort of story.’
‘It’s possible, but I’m inclined to believe Wes, sir. He knows about violent young men from first hand, in a way that I don’t, and he was scared shitless, if you ask me. He hated coming to talk about Chompie, but I think he felt it was his duty.’ Bethany Deal got up to go, putting her chair tidily straight against the wall. ‘You look tired, sir. I’ll get out of your way.’
Just a minute. Why did this Wes come to you with his worries?’
‘Oh, he didn’t. He came looking for Sergeant Spinel because he’s picked up on the fact that Drakeshill sometimes gives Spinel information he hears on the street about drugs coming into Kingsford. That’s why Wes thought Spinel would be the most appropriate person to give this piece of information to.’
‘Right.’
‘But the sergeant was out,’ she went on calmly, ‘so I filled in for him. As soon as I realised the kind of thing Wes wanted to say, I took him out for a walk. When he got brave enough to tell me what he had, I said I’d handle it for him and the best thing he could do was go back to work and pretend he’d never come to talk to anyone. That way he’d be safer.’
Femur frowned. The constable’s eyes were clear of malice and nasty knowingness. ‘Safer, eh? And was that why you came to me instead of waiting until the morning to give the message to Sergeant Spinel himself, Constable?’
She opened her mouth then shut it again, before taking a careful breath and trying a shy smile. Femur didn’t respond. She’d have to say it, whatever it was. Did she have the bottle? If not, he’d be disappointed in her. ‘I don’t know how well you know Sergeant Spinel,’ she said, her pleasant voice shaking just a little, ‘but I’m not sure how safe he would be as a confidant for a frightened boy trying to report the violence of one of Drakeshill’s staff.’
‘Ah. Would you like to sit down again, Constable Deal, and tell me more?’
‘Not really, sir. I think I’ve probably said too much. And I haven’t any evidence in any case.’
‘Is it Spinel’s discretion that worries you? Or his likely treatment of the boy? I am a safe confidant and I have no loyalties here in Kingsford.’
‘No, I know. That’s why I thought I’d come and talk to you. It was a little bit of both actually, sir. And Martin Drakeshill is a … well, a friend, I think, of Sergeant Spinel as well as a snout, and he’s sometimes been in a bit of bother, so if he thought one of his lads was grassing up one of the others, it might not go so well for the lad who’s doing the grassing. If you see what I mean, Guv.’
‘Clear as crystal, Constable Deal. I’m impressed all round. And that you waited here this long to tell me. You’d better get off home now, and don’t worry about a thing. I’ll look into it and no one will ever know where it came from. OK?’
‘Yes, thank you, sir.’ She sounded grateful, but not in any exaggerated way. Femur began to think quite well of whoever had been recruiting young officers for Kingsford. Between Deal and Owler, they had the beginnings of a good, honest, painstaking team. Even if Owler had cocked up the search for Kara’s lover and missed Blair completely.
‘By the way, Constable Deal?’
‘Sir?’
‘Have you ever heard of a local man called Blair something? Blair as a Christian name?’
She thought for a moment then shook her head.
‘OK. What’s Wes’s address in case we want to talk to him?’
‘He wouldn’t tell me, and I couldn’t force him, but you could always find him at Drakeshill’s. They wear name badges there.’
‘Right.’
As soon as Bethany Deal had gone, Blacker put his head round the door. ‘Blair Collons, Guv. Flat four, Holmside Court, Park Road, Kingsford. You want me to drive you?’
‘Thanks, Tony. I’ll fill you in as we go.’
It was still pouring with rain, but Femur’s mac felt wet inside as well as out. He left it dripping over the back of his chair and made a soaking dash to Blacker’s car.
Blacker listened in silence to Femur’s outburst of fury that the team who were supposed to have trawled Kara’s life for anyone who could have done her damage had missed not only the Sojourner but also this Collons character, who was actually in her address book, for God’s sake.
‘But not in her diary, Guv,’ Blacker said, apparently trying to be fair. ‘I checked while you were with that girl just now. They are working through her address book, but I think we’ve all been so hung up on the idea that it’s S we’re looking for, that someone whose initials are BC just wouldn’t have registered. They’d have got to Blair Collons in time.’
‘We don’t have time,’ Femur said, rubbing his eyes again. Then he blew, a great gust of frustration. ‘And then again, this Collons character may be a decoy.’
‘You mean if the Sojourner isn’t on the level?’
‘Right. It’s possible he was phoning to establish the idea of his innocence in case we’d got on to the fact of his existence some other way.’
‘It’s a bit far-fetched, Guv.’ Blacker was peering through the rain, looking for a street sign. ‘But if you’re right, maybe he was just frustrated. I shouldn’t think any of the US papers are reporting the case, so he could’ve rung Kara’s number in the hope that someone would answer and he’d get news of how far we’ve got with the investigation.’
‘Bloody nowhere.’ Femur knew he was sounding morose, but he was so tired and so angry he didn’t care.
‘What did that girl have to say?’
Femur told him that, too, feeling as though he was trying to keep afloat in a murky pond full of oil slicks and rubbish. All he needed was one solid bit of evidence and he could climb out and start doing something useful.
‘No wonder you look punch-drunk, Guv. It could still be any of them. Though I’m not sure that I’d put the overtime budget on the word of a frightened boy’s assessment of the glitter in the eyes of a bully who’d always scared him. Would you?’
‘No. But we’ll have to take a look at them both, and Drakeshill. Can’t ignore anything in a pig of a case like this.’
‘Guv, I know you’re hung up somehow about Barry Spinel, and you’re probably right. I’ve never known you wrong when it comes to bent cops. But have you thought of turning him over to CIB3?’
‘I’ll do that if I have to. But I want to get Kara’s killer first. If we bring them in to investigate Spinel’s perversions of the course of justice, or bribery, or whatever it is, they’ll only get in the way. We’d get the killer in the end, but that wouldn’t be their priority. Still …’ Femur caught sight of the number of a building on their left. ‘This is it. Pull up as near the door as you can. I don’t want to get any wetter than I have to.’
He stayed in the car while Blacker le
aned on the bell for Flat 4. Failing to get any answer, he rang 6 and then, when that didn’t produce any voice, 5.
‘Yeah?’
‘Blair Collons?’
‘Christ, who wants him now?’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘There was some woman after him earlier on, ringing my bell. She got him in the end, though, and they went off together in her car. I should think he’s with her now.’
Blacker looked back at Femur and beckoned. Femur picked himself out of the car and splashed through the puddles to the inadequate shelter of a shallow-tiled porch.
‘May we come in and have a word, sir? We’re from the Metropolitan Police,’ said Blacker.
The owner of Flat 5 admitted them. On the way upstairs, Blacker told Femur what the householder had said. The first thing Femur asked when he opened the door to his flat was: ‘What did she look like, the woman who came back to see Mr Collons?’
‘Tall, thin, dark. Short hair. Driving an Audi.’
Trish Maguire, thought Femur, almost shaking with rage. So this is what she didn’t tell me. How much does she know? And who
the hell is Blair Collons? And why hasn’t anyone mentioned him
till now?
Chapter Twenty-Six
The repeated ringing of his bell didn’t help, or the demanding voices, but they weren’t the problem. Blair could ignore them if he tried hard enough. But Kara had gone, and there was no way he could ignore that.
He lay in bed with his limp prick drooping between fingers that didn’t seem to be his at all. He hated it, and Kara. In spite of all the stories he told himself about her, her photos, and even the knickers he had stolen from her bathroom, nothing happened. Tears oozed out of his eyes. After everything he’d done, it didn’t seem fair that he should have lost her now.
If she’d lived she’d probably have despised him just like everyone else. Just like Trish Maguire. He’d thought for a while that Kara might have been right about Trish Maguire, but she was as bad as all the rest. Now he had no one. He was going to be alone for ever, like he was before he’d found Kara. He’d been like other people when he’d had her. She’d cared about him; she’d talked to him, told him things she didn’t tell other friends. He’d mattered to her.
Fault Lines Page 22
