by Adam Croft
‘Yes you were, you were shitting your pants. I’ve interviewed enough scrotes over the years to know a pant-shitter when I see one. Who’s been on your back, Tyrone? Who’s been threatening you?’
‘No-one.’
Culverhouse nodded slowly. He reached inside his jacket pocket, took out a mobile phone and dropped it on Tyrone’s chest, watching as the man doubled over and yelped in agony.
‘Forgot to say, we brought this back for you,’ Culverhouse said. ‘Standard practice to have a little flick through if a crime’s been committed. Like assault, say. We occasionally find the odd clue or two. By the way, you really should change your PIN number. The person’s year of birth’s always the first thing we try.’
Tyrone looked down at the phone, knowing damn well what was coming next. If they’d got into his phone, they would have read his messages, checked his call logs. He knew it would be easier for him if he told them everything. At least, everything about the text messages and what they meant with the homophobic slurs.
He sighed, closed his eyes and swallowed.
37
‘Gay?’ Steve Wing asked, his voice showing signs of both shock and disgust in almost equal measure.
‘Apparently so,’ Culverhouse replied, perched on the edge of a desk. ‘He doesn’t know who sent the messages, but that’s what they’re referring to.’
‘I still don’t get what that’s got to do with the Trenton-Lowe thing, or with Freddie Galloway’s death, though,’ Ryan said, as she cleaned her glasses.
‘Well I don’t think we’re likely to get a confession from the lad in writing unless it involves immunity from prosecution, but between you and me and every other fucker who’s listening, Tyrone Golds was one of the people involved with the Trenton-Lowe job. And he’s a boxer.’
‘Bruno!’ Steve Wing yelled out.
‘Got it in one. So another suspect for Operation Mandible, right? Wrong. He’s got an alibi, and somehow I doubt very much that he’s lying about it. He was with a rent boy he uses regularly. Guy by the name of Lenny Harvey.’
‘I still don’t get it, though,’ Frank Vine said. ‘Why would he tell you all that? We didn’t know he was one of the Trenton-Lowe boys. No-one’s worked that out in the last eleven years, so why turn up out of the blue and tell us, just to point out he’s got an alibi? He would never have been a suspect.’
‘Because he thinks he was being blackmailed,’ Wendy said. ‘He thinks whoever did kill Freddie Galloway is someone he knows. Someone involved with the gang somewhere along the line. And this guy is making sure Tyrone keeps his mouth shut.’
‘But Tyrone doesn’t know who it is. So what good’s that going to do? All it’s done is get us involved, which is the last thing he’d want, surely?’
‘You’d think so,’ Culverhouse said. ‘But I’ve got a feeling it’s a lot more complicated than that. Let’s break it down. Let’s assume for argument’s sake it’s John Lucas who started the fire. Let’s pretend for a moment he actually is fucking stupid enough to leave his boots and accelerant in his own bloody garage. Why would he then go to the effort of setting up some elaborate blackmail scheme against Tyrone Golds? So what if Tyrone suspected him? It’s not Tyrone’s suspicions he had to be worried about with that amount of evidence knocking around in his house. It doesn’t make sense to me that he’d focus his efforts there. If it was John Lucas, there was no planning or forethought whatsoever. It’d be a half-bottle of scotch and a spark of fury at best.’
‘What if it was Tyrone?’ Ryan asked. ‘What if he set John Lucas up to look like the killer, and set up this whole blackmail thing to strengthen his case?’
‘Like I said, he would never have been a suspect. He didn’t need to put his head above the parapet. It would’ve been pointless,’ Culverhouse said.
‘Not pointless at all, sir. Look at your response there. That’s exactly what I mean. What if it was the ultimate double bluff? After all, why the hell would we suspect him if he’d come to us with that? It’d just strengthen suspicion against John Lucas or the others.’
‘I dunno. He’s got too much to lose by coming out with that. I don’t imagine admitting to being gay on that estate is a particularly great idea.’
‘Homophobia comes in all shapes and sizes,’ Ryan said. ‘Trust me.’
‘Tyrone had no motive for wanting Galloway dead, either. He and Galloway both got off scot free. It was the other two who went down. He’s least likely to have a motive out of the lot of them. So let’s say for argument’s sake it’s our other suspect, Benjamin Newell. He’s got form for reacting violently when he hears something he doesn’t like. And we now know that Tyrone Golds got in contact with Newell on the night of his wedding, the day after Freddie Galloway’s house was burnt down. They arranged to meet at the foot of Mildenheath Common. And before you ask why he’d admit that if it was innocent,’ Culverhouse said, looking at Ryan, ‘he didn’t have much choice. We had his phone records.’
‘What was said at the meeting?’ Steve asked.
‘Well, we’ve only got Tyrone’s word for that at the moment. But he says he was sounding Newell out. Trying to see how he reacted when the subject was brought up. Tyrone’s instinct was that Newell was hiding something. It might just be that he was shocked by the news, or that his mind was on what’d just happened at his wedding reception. But either way, Tyrone suspects Newell.’
‘He’s got an alibi, though,’ Wendy said. ‘He was in a pub in town the night before, celebrating his last night of freedom. Then he went back to his best man’s house, where he stayed the night. His phone’s cell trace seems to back that up, but of course there’s no guarantee he took his phone with him. If he went, that is.’
‘Well someone bloody went,’ Culverhouse barked. ‘And that means someone’s lying to us, if not more than one person.’
‘What, you reckon they’re all in on it?’ Frank asked.
‘Wouldn’t surprise me. But they’re either dumb fucks bringing Tyrone into the mix or they’re playing an absolute fucking blinder, running rings around us. Either way, we’ve got to probe a lot deeper and a lot harder, and not in the way that’d give Tyrone Golds a boner. No offence,’ he added, looking at Ryan.
‘What about charging John Lucas?’ Wendy said. ‘That’d give us a lot more time to interview him under caution, and we’d be able to investigate a lot further.’
‘Dependant on the CPS. Might be worth putting in for a charge, see what they say.’
‘And in the meantime?’
Culverhouse sighed. ‘In the meantime, we need to rip up everything we know — or thought we knew — and chuck it in the bin. We need to go straight back to square one.’
38
Culverhouse’s head was starting to buzz, either through exhaustion, stress or a caffeine overdose. He hoped it wasn’t the latter, though, as he poured himself another mug of black coffee.
‘Going to be a long day,’ Ryan said, as she sidled up next to him and made herself a cup of tea.
‘Mmmmm,’ came the response.
‘Any matches yet?’
Culverhouse looked at her, waiting for her to elaborate.
‘On the app.’
‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Yes you do. I can tell. And I can tell something’s happened with it, too.’
‘Isn’t there some filing you can be getting on with?’
‘It’s my job to know when people are hiding something from me. Come on, out with it.
‘If it’ll bloody shut you up, I got a message from some woman yesterday.’
‘What did she say?’ Ryan asked.
Culverhouse took his phone out of his pocket, opened the app and plonked the phone down on the sideboard. Ryan picked it up and scrolled through the messages.
‘Hey there, Casanova. You’ve got the hang of this, haven’t you? Why didn’t you reply, though?’
Culverhouse shrugged. ‘Didn’t know what to say.’
‘Did you think about “yes”?
’
‘Thought about it,’ he replied, shuffling his feet.
‘Then say it. You do know she can see that you’ve read her message, right? It says 8.16pm. All she can see is that you read the message straight away, then didn’t bother replying.’
‘How?’
Ryan held the phone towards him. ‘Look. The little indicator there. If it’s just an outline of a heart, it means the message has been sent. If it’s filled in red, it means it’s been read. She can see you read her message, and as soon as she asked for a date you just bombed out and ignored her.’
Culverhouse had to admit he really didn’t understand technology, nor did he like it particularly when it had a habit of spying on him like this.
‘So what now?’ he asked.
‘Now you reply to her as quickly as possible and apologise for not doing it yesterday. Say something came up at work while you were replying and you got sidetracked. Make up some excuse. But whatever you do, say yes. Don’t leave her thinking you were just trying to come up with a way to blow her off.’
Culverhouse stood and stared at the phone.
‘You do want to meet her, don’t you?’ Ryan asked.
Culverhouse let out a long lungful of breath. ‘I dunno. I mean, yeah, I think so. It’s hard to explain, though. It’s... It’s been a long time.’
‘I know. I get that.’
‘No you don’t, you’re twelve.’
‘If you say so. But I know what it’s like to be out of the game. Mandy was my first proper girlfriend. Not only did I have no real experience of dating before her, but I didn’t even know who or what I wanted until then. All I knew is I wasn’t particularly interested in boys, and that my love life had been completely non-existent until then. That happens for a lot of people. Sometimes, if you don’t know what it is you want, you just assume you want nothing. Until someone comes along and surprises you, and then you realise that was what you wanted all along.’
‘I’m not about to turn gay if that’s what you mean.’
Ryan laughed. ‘No, I guessed that. What I meant was you should meet up with her. See how you get on. You might be surprised. And if you don’t like each other, so what? You’ve lost nothing. But at least this way you know the answer. If you don’t meet with her and find out for yourself, you’ll never know.’
‘Yeah. That’s what I’m worried about.’
‘What, not knowing?’
‘No, turning up and finding out she’s some sort of fruit loop, or worse that she’s perfect but doesn’t like me. I’m too old to be getting into all that shit again. I’ve been there, done it, got the t-shirt. And it doesn’t fit any more.’
‘Fashion changes. Some women like tight. I was talking about the t-shirt, by the way. Listen, just reply to her. Suggest meeting up somewhere for a few drinks and a chat. It’ll be better than forever wondering what could have happened.’
‘Listen to you,’ Culverhouse replied. ‘It’s some bird who’s sent me three messages on a dating app. We’re hardly Bonnie and Clyde.’
‘No, but you like her and you want to meet her. I can tell. You want to find out more. You’re just scared of finding out more because you’ve been close to women before and you’ve been burned. There’s a large part of you that thinks if you keep yourself to yourself and stay out of the dating scene, you can’t get burned again. And you think that a lifetime of solitude and loneliness is better than risking being hurt again, even if that does come at the expense of your own happiness.’
‘You sound like a bloody horoscope.’
‘I sound like someone trying to make sure you don’t make a daft mistake. Someone who wants to see her boss happy. After all, you’ll be less of a git to us if you get your leg over.’
Culverhouse looked at Ryan, ready to admonish her, but smiled. ‘Alright. I’ll message her back. But if she turns out to be a crazy cat lady with a Barry Manilow obsession I’m blaming you, alright?’
39
It was at times like this that John Lucas wished he had his mobile with him. Although he’d tried to memorise the route, Google Maps would have come in very useful.
He’d left his phone at home, knowing the police would likely be able to trace him otherwise. For all he knew, they were already tracking his movements. He knew they wouldn’t have officers staking out the house, though. Not with budget cuts the way they were at the moment.
He’d picked a very specific route to Benjamin Newell’s house. After he’d managed to track down his home address through an associate, he’d worked out a route using an old Ordnance Survey map — a route which would minimise his chances of being seen on the way, either by human eyes or CCTV.
When he reached the corner of Newell’s road, he pulled the peak of his cap down, and pulled his hoodie tighter around his face, keeping his head low as he occasionally glanced up to check the house numbers. Once he’d got to number sixteen, he marched up the front path, took a deep breath and knocked on the door.
His head was buzzing, either from adrenaline or the half-bottle of whisky he’d drunk before coming here. He felt the muscles in his calves tensing and loosening as he bobbed on the spot, waiting for the front door of Benjamin Newell’s house to open.
He waited almost a minute, watching as the hall light came on and the figure behind the door fumbled with the keys before opening the door.
As the door opened, Lucas shoulder-barged his way in, shoved Newell backwards and kicked the front door shut behind him.
Newell scrabbled backwards, trying not to lose his footing as Lucas grabbed hold of the front of his polo-shirt and pulled him back through the house, into the kitchen.
Lucas shoved him up against the kitchen worktop, Newell’s head banging on the bottom of an overhead cupboard, as Lucas brought his face in close.
‘Come on then. What the fuck’s this all about? What the fuck are you playing at?’
‘Me?’ Newell replied, almost shrieking. ‘You’ve just barged into my fucking house! What am I meant to have done?’
‘You know exactly what I’m talking about,’ Lucas sneered, the whisky fumes hitting Benjamin Newell square in the face. ‘What is it? You still can’t get over the fact you had a few months in the slammer for being thick enough to get caught? Listen. I did nearly eleven years. Eleven years.’
‘You shot a fucking copper in the face!’ Newell yelled.
‘Yeah, and I did my time. But hey, if I hadn’t done that, you wouldn’t have done any time at all, would you? You would’ve had a fifty quid fine for driving without insurance. And that’s what you couldn’t let go, isn’t it? You couldn’t handle that you were up to your neck in it just as much as the rest of us.’
Newell tried to squirm free of Lucas’s grip, but it was impossible. The man was pushing him hard against the kitchen units, the bevel of the worktop digging into the bottom of his back. He felt around behind his back with his hands, trying to do so without Lucas noticing.
‘I didn’t do anything,’ Newell said, Lucas’s grip tightening.
‘Don’t make me fucking laugh. Someone’s tried setting me up big time here. I know it wasn’t Bruno. He had no reason to. So who else is there? Oh yeah. How about the guy who blames me for him having to do bird?’
Newell’s hands rested on the knife block behind him, and he felt around for the biggest carving knife he could as his eyes locked with Lucas’s.
‘Me, blame you? Don’t flatter yourself, mate. You’re the one who’s spent the last eleven years whingeing about how you were going to do Footloose over the second you got out.’
‘Yeah, and didn’t you just know it. Perfect cover for you, eh? You knew the filth would be straight round to my gaff. Had it all worked out, didn’t you?’
Lucas moved his right hand up and gripped Newell’s throat, squeezing tightly.
Newell took his chance. In one smooth movement, he pulled the carving knife out of the block and brought it round, aiming to pull it straight into John Lucas’s back.
Luc
as spotted the movement just in time and used his arm to block Newell’s movement. As the knife went clattering to the floor, Lucas grabbed hold of Newell’s polo shirt again and pulled him sideways, using his right foot to swipe his legs in the opposite direction.
Within a second, Lucas was on top of him and had him pinned to the floor as Newell groped around for the knife.
‘Oh, you want this, do you?’ Lucas said, reaching for the knife and pinning each of Newell’s arms down with his knees. ‘You’ve realised setting me up didn’t work, so now you’re going to kill me. Is that it?’ Lucas had the point of the knife right in Newell’s face. One slight slip, and there’d be bloodshed.
‘I’m telling you. I didn’t set you up. I was getting married, for fuck’s sake! I’ve had it with all that. It’s in the past. I’ve not done nothing like that in years. I’ve got a wife — had a wife — and I wouldn’t get involved with anything like that. I swear!’
‘Yeah? And why should I believe you?’
‘Because it’s the truth!’
‘Well you’re the only person who’d want to set me up like that. I haven’t spent my life trying to make enemies, you know. I’ve tried to get along, tried to make myself some money, tried to make a name for myself. Tried to do my old mum proud. There is no-one — no-one — who’d try to pin something like this on me. So that just leaves one possibility, doesn’t it?’
Newell swallowed hard. He didn’t know what Lucas was getting at. ‘What?’
‘You think I did it, don’t you?’
Newell looked Lucas in the eyes and said nothing.
40
He didn’t know whether it showed she was keen or just tragic that Christine wanted to arrange to meet up that evening. No time like the present, she’d said. That was a maxim Jack lived by, so he found it somewhat encouraging — if a little weird — that she wanted to meet up so quickly.
He’d spent the afternoon thinking about how things might pan out. It had been a long time since he’d been on a date, and he wasn’t sure what to expect. Was there a different etiquette these days? He wasn’t one to worry about etiquette at the best of times, but he really didn’t want to mess this up. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had taken any sort of interest in him. He’d largely given up since Helen had left. Of course, for the few years preceding that he hadn’t had to worry either. He’d been married — happily, he thought — so that side of his brain had been used to free up space for other stuff, much like an ageing computer hard drive.
