‘It’s very nice of you to take an interest in me,’ Zoe said. ‘But I think I need to get going now.’
Zoe was flustered when the woman reached out and took her by the elbow. For the first time she noticed the woman was wearing very heavy make-up. Her cheeks were caked in some kind of powder, and her dark eyes were accentuated by stark black lines and thick mascara.
‘Before you go, how about joining me for a coffee?’
There was a note of insistence in the woman’s voice that made Zoe uncomfortable. No longer attempting to conceal her reluctance, she pulled her arm out of the woman’s grasp and shook her head.
‘No, I’m sorry, I just remembered I’m supposed to be meeting my friends. They’ll be wondering where I am.’
She was about to turn away, but the woman seized her arm again in a surprisingly strong grip.
‘I just want to help you,’ she said. ‘Trust me, I understand your situation. I’ve met so many young people struggling to adjust to adulthood. It takes time. Now, there’s someone I want to introduce you to, someone who can help you.’
‘What? What are you talking about? I don’t need your help and I don’t want to be introduced to anyone.’
The woman’s features twisted in disappointment. ‘You think because you’re young, and pretty, you can cope on your own. Well, you’re wrong. Your looks aren’t going to help you forever.’
‘What are you talking about?’
Too startled to feel scared, Zoe struggled to free herself from the woman’s grasp. Just as Zoe raised her voice, shouting at the woman to let go of her, a couple of young men came into view around the corner.
‘Hey,’ one of them called out as they approached. ‘Are you all right?’
At the sound, the woman let go of Zoe’s arm and strode away, leaving Zoe shaken and shocked.
‘Are you all right?’ the man repeated as he reached her.
‘Yes, yes,’ she snapped, almost shouting in her agitation. ‘I’m fine thank you very much. I’m quite capable of looking after myself.’
‘OK, keep your hair on, I was only asking,’ the man replied, and he and his companion walked on, muttering insults at her.
Zoe made her way home, keeping to the main road as far as she could. Her legs were trembling. Now that it was over, she wasn’t sure what had just happened. Either she had chanced to meet a lunatic or else she had overreacted to a friendly overture from a sympathetic stranger. Admittedly there had been no need for the woman to take her by the arm, but some people were more tactile than others. It was possible she had just wanted to be supportive. Yet she had talked about Zoe’s looks fading, and her rambling had made no sense. So she must have been drunk, or drugged, or just plain crazy. On reflection, Zoe thought she had done well to get away from her. Zoe’s big mistake had been in talking to the woman at all, and she should certainly never have confided in her, inviting her to share a kind of intimacy. Now she just wanted to forget about the embarrassing encounter.
Reaching her digs, she decided not to call her mother. She didn’t need anyone keeping tabs on her. She could just imagine what her mother would say if she found out a weird stranger had tried to drag Zoe off the street. Still, her mother need never know about it, and in any case Zoe felt she had handled the situation well. No harm had come of the encounter and if she ever saw the counsellor again she would simply avoid talking to her. She felt an unfamiliar surge of confidence in her ability to take care of herself. So, in a way, the woman had helped her after all.
40
Haunted by the thought that Daryl had been killed as a direct consequence of informing on his associates, Geraldine confided her concern to Ian.
‘If those two boys found out he was a grass, they would have turned on him. What if he was killed because he spoke to us?’
‘That’s pure speculation,’ he replied. ‘But even it’s true, we’re never going to get those two thugs to admit it, so you might as well put it out of your mind. They were violent kids, drinking and probably high as well. You can’t think we’re in any way responsible for what happened.’
‘We have to try and find out the truth. If he was killed for betraying their trust, we can’t just let them get away with it.’
‘What exactly are you proposing to do?’
Briefly Geraldine outlined her idea and he listened, frowning.
‘We’ll do it all by the book,’ she added quickly, ‘but if we can persuade Carver to tell us the truth –’
‘By lying to him?’
‘No, that’s not fair. I’m only suggesting we do everything possible to encourage them to tell us the truth. If they weren’t lying to us, we wouldn’t need to resort to these underhand tactics. They’re the ones in the wrong here, not us, and remember Nelson’s eighteen and Carver’s nineteen. They’re not minors. They could be lying and obstructing us in a murder enquiry. And one of them did it. So don’t make out they’re being abused in some way. We’ve treated both of them with kid gloves, and for all we know they deliberately murdered Daryl knowing they would get away with it as long as they both stuck to the same story. All I’m suggesting is that we introduce an element of doubt into their pact, and try to get at least one of them to tell us the truth.’
‘But we’d be lying to them. Even if we got them to tell us what happened, it would never stand up in court if we got at the truth by tricking them into confessing. And in any case, we don’t know the two boys lied to us, and we don’t know Daryl was murdered,’ he insisted.
‘If they’re telling us the truth, they’ll stick to what they said. But we ought to do everything we can to find out.’
Ian shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Geraldine. We’ve followed procedure and got statements from them both, and there’s an end of it. There’s nothing more to be done.’
‘So you won’t come with me to speak to Carver?’
‘No, and if I were you I’d forget about this, and I certainly wouldn’t go and speak to him alone.’ He paused, staring at her. ‘If you go ahead, and something goes wrong, you do know I won’t be able to protect you.’
‘Like we failed to protect Daryl,’ she muttered sourly.
‘Geraldine,’ Ian called out as she turned to leave his office, ‘I’m warning you against this. It’s not a good idea.’
She walked out without a backward glance. That evening she searched for Carver. Nelson was crafty, but Carver hadn’t struck her as particularly smart. In one of the pubs he frequented she found him sitting alone at a table in the corner, his eyes flicking around nervously as though he was expecting someone.
‘What the fuck do you want?’
‘The truth,’ Geraldine replied, pulling a stool over and joining him.
‘Jesus, I already told you what happened. Now fuck off, will you? I’m waiting for someone.’
‘It’s lucky for us your friend is more helpful,’ Geraldine fibbed.
Aware that she ought to feel guilty at the subterfuge, she ignored her qualms and carried on. She had already scuppered her own career by impersonating her twin sister in a drugs deal. Although she had lost any hope of advancement, she didn’t regret having saved her sister’s life. Even if she now landed herself in trouble for lying to a potential witness, it didn’t matter much because, whatever happened, her own career was going nowhere. There was a certain liberation in knowing that she had little left to lose. The worst that could happen to her was that she would have to leave her job altogether, and she didn’t think that would happen. Now, with Daryl’s death weighing on her conscience, she felt she owed it to him to take that risk.
‘Nelson’s told us what happened to Daryl,’ she said softly.
And the lie was told.
‘Then you know it was him holding the bottle.’
‘That’s not what Nelson told us, and that’s not what happened, is it?’ she replied, without taking her eyes off Car
ver. ‘Nelson said it was you holding that bottle and he said you could have moved out of the way when Daryl fell.’
Carver’s heavy brows lowered. ‘Nelson’s a filthy liar.’
‘Or I am,’ Geraldine thought.
But the memory of the sixteen-year-old boy in the mortuary spurred her on.
‘Nelson said you struck Daryl, deliberately, with a broken bottle.’
‘That’s a lie!’ Carver retorted, banging his fist on the table.
A couple sitting nearby looked round. The constable Geraldine had brought with her stirred, but she deterred him from approaching with a slight shake of her head, and he resumed his position at a table by the door.
‘Why don’t you come down to the police station and give us your statement? And this time stick to the truth. Or,’ she went on seeing Carver hesitate, ‘you can leave us to draw our own conclusions. But I have to warn you, Nelson was very detailed in his account of how you murdered Daryl.’
‘Oh fuck him. All right, I’m coming.’
Once Carver had agreed to revise his statement he co-operated fully, and refused to wait for a lawyer to arrive.
‘Let’s get this done,’ he said. ‘I’m not letting that motherfucker stitch me up. Fucking hell, I thought he was my bro. I’ll get him for this.’
‘Like you got Daryl?’
‘I told you, that wasn’t me.’
Once he had finished giving his version of the circumstances surrounding Daryl’s death, Geraldine had Carver locked in a cell. He was furious.
‘Now, now,’ the custody sergeant said, shaking his head at the angry youngster, ‘there’s no call for all this.’
‘I haven’t been charged with anything,’ Carver fumed. ‘You can’t keep me here.’
‘Well, I expect they’ll let you go home in the morning then,’ the sergeant replied cheerfully. ‘After we set you up with a nice breakfast. That’s something to look forward to.’
‘I’m going home now,’ Carver replied.
‘Now come along, son,’ the sergeant said. ‘There’s no need for all this. Come on, let’s get you in handcuffs until we get you in the cell, just to make sure you don’t do anything stupid. There we go.’
Geraldine left them to it. She had what she wanted from Carver. Accompanied by a constable, she went to look for Nelson and found him at home. When he resisted her request to accompany her to the police station, she handcuffed him and the constable assisted him to the waiting car. Unlike Carver, Nelson insisted on representation. It was growing late by the time the stout lawyer arrived and they took their seats in an interview room.
‘Your friend Carver told us everything,’ Geraldine said. ‘He explained how you argued with Daryl –’
‘He had it coming,’ Nelson said as he had before, only this time his expression was wary. ‘He was –’ He hesitated.
‘Go on.’
‘I’d like to confer with my client –’
‘Your client is trying to talk to us. Are you sure you want to stop him?’ Geraldine turned back to Nelson. ‘Go on.’
‘Daryl was trouble, right from the start. Carver and I, we got along just fine till he came along.’ He paused and narrowed his eyes, calculating. ‘Carver never blamed me for what happened. I don’t believe it, not for a minute. You’re lying. Like we both told you, what happened to Daryl was an accident, a tragic accident.’ His voice sounded sad, but his expression remained wary.
‘Carver told us you brought the bottle with you.’ Geraldine stared evenly at the boy, trying to interpret his reaction. ‘We can easily check that. All we have to do is track you on CCTV and find out whether you bought a bottle of vodka on your way to the lock up. Or perhaps one disappeared from a store you visited recently? You know it won’t take us long to find out.’
Nelson leaned back in his chair, adopting a nonchalant posture.
‘Sit up,’ Geraldine snapped so fiercely he jolted upright in surprise. ‘We know you went to the garage armed with a bottle that evening.’
‘So I took a bottle with me. So what? I never said I didn’t. I took it so we could have a drink. There’s no law against three friends having a drink, is there? I shared what I had with my mates. You know we were all drinking together. Why would I want to shiv one of my mates?’
‘If you’re such good mates, why has Carver accused you of murdering Daryl?’
‘He hasn’t.’
Geraldine switched on the tape she had brought with her, set to the right place.
First, they heard her own voice. ‘So Daryl’s death wasn’t an accident. Is that what you’re telling us, Billy?’
‘Oh Jesus, yes. I’m telling you, Nelson had a problem with Daryl. They was always at it, them two. It had nothing to do with me. It did my head in the way they was always at it.’
‘At what?’
‘You know, arguing.’
‘Had they ever been in a fight before?’
‘Sure they had. All the bloody time.’
‘What happened on this occasion? Tell me in your own words.’
‘Nelson went for him.’
‘How exactly did Nelson go for Daryl?’ Geraldine’s voice enquired patiently.
‘He bottled him.’
As he listened, Nelson’s face turned pale, then flushed with fury.
‘And you lied to cover it up?’ Geraldine’s recorded questions continued.
‘Yeah, well, Nelson’s my man. We go back a way.’
‘Well, I’m not his man anymore!’ Nelson burst out. He was trembling now with fury, or perhaps fear. ‘The scumbag. He’s a fucking snake. We had an agreement. Anyway, you can’t prove it was me. As for Daryl, he deserved what he got, the snivelling piece of shit. Carver and me, we was fine until he came along. Served him right.’
The lawyer held up his pudgy hand. ‘I need to speak to my client,’ he said urgently.
‘Wait. How did you find out?’ Geraldine asked, speaking over the lawyer.
‘What?’
‘How did you find out he had spoken to us?’
‘What you talking about? Who spoke to you?’ He turned to the lawyer. ‘What the fuck is going on here?’
Almost speechless with relief, Geraldine shook her head. ‘It’s nothing,’ she muttered. ‘Andrew Nelson, I’m arresting you on suspicion of murder –’
‘What the fuck?’ he cried out as she read him his rights. ‘You can’t do this. I never done it. I’m innocent. It was an accident.’
‘That’s for a jury to decide when you take your chances in court. And your friend will be charged along with you, as an accessory. Take him back to the cells.’
‘Eileen wants to know how you managed to convince Billy to talk,’ Ian said, pausing by her desk later that day.
‘Did you tell her what I was planning to do?’
‘I told her you can be very persuasive,’ he replied, and smiled.
‘I never actually lied to Carver,’ she said, although he must have known that too was a lie. ‘Anyway, let’s hope they both go down for murder.’
‘And now you know they never found out about Daryl’s betrayal, and his co-operation with us had nothing at all to do with him being killed,’ Ian said.
Geraldine nodded. Whether Carver or Nelson was convicted for murdering Daryl was out of her hands, but at least she had done everything in her power to ensure his killer was brought to trial.
‘We did a good job,’ she said.
‘You did a good job,’ he replied. ‘I’m still not condoning what you did, mind.’
‘You don’t know what I did,’ she said, although of course he did. ‘You don’t think the ends ever justify the means?’
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘And once you start making exceptions, it’s a slippery slope. You’re going to end up getting yourself in serious trouble if you bend the rules aga
in.’
After he had gone, Geraldine thought about what Ian had said. He was right, of course. Even now she wasn’t sure why she had been prepared to put her job itself at risk for the sake of one dead delinquent. Nothing she did could make any difference to Daryl now. She hoped it was more than just a sense of guilt that had driven her relentless pursuit of his killers. Someone had to pursue justice on behalf of the voiceless dead and, for better or worse, she had devoted her life to doing just that. But Ian was right. She wouldn’t play such a dangerous game again.
41
Zoe stared at the other girl in dismay, wishing she had kept quiet about her unsettling experience. As soon as the words left her lips she regretted having mentioned it, but after a couple of beers she had blabbed and told Josie everything. Her new friend’s reaction had been disappointing, to say the least.
‘Now I’m confused,’ Josie frowned, shaking her head so violently that her pink hair fluttered around in an untidy halo. ‘First you tell me this woman assaulted you, and then you say she wanted to buy you a coffee?’
‘Accosted me,’ Zoe corrected her. ‘She accosted me.’ In her inebriated state, the word sounded unlikely. ‘She accosted me,’ she repeated as firmly as she could. ‘She didn’t assault me, she accosted me.’
‘So? Jesus, you made it sound like she attacked you in the street.’ Josie’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. ‘You said you were lucky to get away from her, like she was some violent maniac prowling the streets looking for victims to murder. And now you’re saying all she did was offer to buy you a coffee?’ Josie looked as though she was trying not to laugh. ‘So you met a lonely old woman. So bloody what?’ She muttered something about birds of a feather that Zoe didn’t quite catch.
Zoe hesitated. Josie hung out with all the cool students, and was confident and independent, just how Zoe wanted to be. But the attempt to impress her had backfired, and Josie was dismissing her as an idiot.
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