Lies That Blind

by Tony Hutchinson

  Tara stared at the desk, nodded.

  Sam sat down, kept her voice deliberately soft. ‘I don’t know what you’re mixed up with here Tara, but you need to start talking to me.’

  Tara folded her arms and slunk down the plastic seat. ‘Nothing to talk about. I don’t know anything.’

  ‘I think you do.’

  Ed sat next to Sam.

  Tara gave her best surly teenager impression.

  ‘Who’s this?’ Sam took her mobile out of her pocket, showed the photograph of Tara’s ‘uncle’.

  Tara glanced at the screen and looked at the wall to her left, her words barely audible. ‘Never seen him before in my life.’

  ‘Funny, he was at your house last night,’ Sam said.

  Tara kept her eyes on the wall and her mouth shut.

  ‘Okay Tara, no problem,’ Sam said. ‘I’ll go to the press with this, get the guy’s picture out there, the police are keen to trace…’

  Tara suddenly pushed the chair backwards and was on her feet. ‘You can’t do that!’

  Sam smiled, voice still soft. ‘Yes I can. Sit down.’

  Tara sat and stared at the table.

  ‘Lester Stephenson,’ she said sullenly. ‘He’s a businessman, lives on a farm in the sticks somewhere.’

  She paused and swallowed. ‘Look the man’s nice, married, wife, grandkids. Don’t cause him any shit.’

  ‘He should have thought about that before visiting you,’ Ed said, speaking for the first time.

  Tara gave him ‘fuck you’ eyes and a pout.

  Sam changed tack.

  ‘What do you know about the rabbit suit in your loft?’

  ‘Nothing, that’s what I know about it,’ Tara sat up, stiffened her shoulders, her voice loud and her words quick. ‘That loft goes straight through to Zac and Lucy’s. Anybody could have put it there.’

  Sam eased back into the chair and kept the smile of satisfaction off her face. Tara had made the classic mistake – spoke faster than her mind was thinking.

  ‘When was the last time you were in the loft?’

  Tara’s eyes belonged to a bullfrog. ‘What?’

  ‘You heard. You’ve obviously been up there. Otherwise you wouldn’t have known there was no dividing wall. So, when was the last time?’

  ‘I’m saying nothing whilst he’s here.’

  She folded her arms, leaned back in the chair, and stared at Sam.

  ‘What have you got against Detective Sergeant Whelan?’

  ‘He’s a bloke. I’m not speaking in front of any coppers with a cock.’

  Ed left the room. This wasn’t the time for an ego. ‘You want to tell me what you’ve got against Ed?’ Sam said when they were alone.

  ‘The only bent coppers I’ve ever heard about are men. I don’t trust any of them. You though, they’re always a bit wary of you, so I know you’re not in anybody’s pocket.’

  ‘I can assure you neither is Ed Whelan.’

  ‘Yeah well, better safe than sorry.’

  ‘So, the rabbit suit?’

  Tara looked away.

  Sam had witnessed this moment in every interview that started with a denial, the moment when a cough was imminent, the admission that was the light at the end of the tunnel.

  Tara started talking.

  Chapter 25

  Luke Skinner answered the mobile in his remand cell.

  The detective monitoring his calls sat upright, pen poised, recording running.

  Getting mobiles into prisons was easy – throw a dead bird over the wall with a phone hidden in the carcass, fly them over the wall in a bag on a drone, bribe or blackmail a prison officer – but when your name was Skinner it was even easier; everybody wanted to please.

  The covert police team had used the heady mix of fawning and fear to their advantage. When an empire is about to crumble, some foresee the collapse and look for a better deal. So in the interests of self-preservation, a trusted member of the family’s inner circle had been coerced to deliver a mobile to Luke Skinner. All the police had to do was wait and listen.

  Skinner was two weeks from trial and getting desperate; the prosecution’s star witness was still walking the streets.

  ‘Yeah?’ Skinner said into the phone.

  ‘In last night’s game The Reverend was killed.’

  The detective wrote down ‘The Reverend’ and circled it three times.

  Luke Skinner and his associates never used names across the airwaves.

  ‘Fuck,’ Skinner muttered.

  On the outside he would have shouted his rage. Not in here. No point in attracting attention.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘We’re working on it.’

  ‘Don’t take too long,’ Luke said. ‘Time’s running out. Any joy with the…’

  The detective then wrote down and circled ‘source’ three times.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Can Pugsley help?’

  ‘Pugsley’ received the same circle treatment.

  ‘Pugsley’s status unknown at the moment.’

  ‘What the hell’s happening out there? You need to get a move on.’

  Skinner abruptly ended the call. No niceties, just business.

  Now was the time for a cool head and measured reaction, not gung-ho emotion, something his older brother had never grasped.

  Luke Skinner sat on the lower bunk and stared at the magnolia wall.

  If Harry Pullman gave evidence he was finished. He stretched out on the bed, hands behind his head, eyes closed.

  Pullman could be anywhere, hidden away and mollycoddled by his nursemaid detectives. Each time they moved him it took more time to track him down. And time was running out.

  Skinner twirled the phone in his hand, brain turning.

  Harry Pullman had more lives than the proverbial cat. Even the North Sea couldn’t take him. Overboard in those dark, pitiless waters, but like the fucking Man from Atlantis, Pullman had somehow survived.

  Now, betrayed and angry, Pullman was a wounded animal fighting to survive.

  The police, the security services, the military…they all relied on intelligence systems. Organised crime families were no different and when an asset is lost, be it a well-placed informant or an undercover operative, the organisational intelligence systems take a hit.

  And now Luke Skinner had one whose status was ‘unknown’. What did that mean? Dead? Dying? Disappeared?

  Whatever had happened to Pugsley, getting a replacement wouldn’t be easy.

  Sam answered her mobile and raised two fingers at Tara, indicating how many minutes she would be out of the room.

  ‘Boss, it’s Ranjit.’

  Ranjit Singh, Intelligence Cell.

  ‘We’ve checked the contents of the SIM card from Scott Green’s sock.’

  Sam stood by the interview room door, gripped the phone between shoulder and cheek, and repeatedly scratched the arm that had suddenly become itchy.

  ‘And?’ she said, knowing something revelatory was coming her way. Otherwise Singh would have just fed it straight into the HOLMES room.

  ‘There’s footage,’ Ranjit Singh was trying hard to keep the excitement from his voice. ‘It’s not brilliant because it’s dark, but you can see an altercation on a yacht, two onto one. The one gets battered then thrown overboard.’

  Sam looked around, moved further along the corridor, away from the door, then checked she couldn’t be overheard.

  ‘Do we know the name of the yacht?’

  ‘Yeah, the camera zooms in on it. The Conquistador.’

  Revalatory was right! Questions flooded Sam’s head, a hornet’s nest hit with a stick.

  What was Scott Green doing with the footage?

  Had he been there?

  Had he got the recording from somebody else?

  Had that person been trying to send a message?

  Who to?

  If Scott Green recorded it, why?

  Insurance?

  Blackmail?

  S
am thought of Bill Redwood. What was his boat called?

  ‘Get it to the techies, see if you can get the footage enhanced. Anything else?’

  ‘Couple of interesting text messages on Paul’s phone.’

  Again, Sam glanced around to make sure she couldn’t be overheard.

  The sense of impending doom turned her stomach into tumble dryer spin mode; her mouth stretched out her next two short words, an almost subconscious effort to delay the response.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Paul gets three text messages in the space of forty minutes on Saturday. Last one is about an hour before he calls in the shooting.’

  ‘What do they say?’

  ‘It’s the same message, sent three times:

  Please, please I need to see you. I can’t discuss it on the phone. It’s really important. Please I’m begging you. Come as soon as you get this.’

  Sam’s body slouched and she leant her right shoulder against the wall.

  Was Paul lured there?

  ‘Do we know who sent it?’ she asked.

  ‘Well we haven’t got the phone that sent it. In Paul’s directory the number is listed under the name Jezza.’

  ‘Jezza?’ Sam repeated.

  ‘Yes. All the other texts from that number have been deleted but we’ve already retrieved some of them. It’s obviously a woman he’s…’

  Ranjit Singh fell silent.

  ‘What?’

  ‘A woman he’s…’

  ‘Spit it out Ranjit. Having an affair with?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘This isn’t the time to be coy,’ Sam said, already racing through possibilities.

  Paul could have used ‘Jezza’ in case his wife checked his mobile.

  ‘Might be short for Jezabel,’ Sam said now. ‘That would fit.’

  ‘Jezza for Jezebel,’ Ranjit was impressed. ‘He would need to keep his wife off the scent, definitely.’

  ‘That the voice of experience?’

  Ranjit Singh didn’t respond, thankful Sam couldn’t see his cheeks burning.

  Did she know about him and Steph Crosby? Worse still, did she know tonight he was out with Bev Summers?

  If anyone checked his phone, Steph was listed under ‘Bing’ and Bev was ‘Mungo.’

  He had always liked ‘In the Summertime’, Mungo Jerry’s biggest hit.

  Ranjit wasn’t married but he was paranoid about other detectives getting into his phone as a prank.

  He concentrated on keeping his voice level.

  ‘And just to confuse things, Boss.’

  What, more than they already are?

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Marcus received exactly the same text, only his came from Lucy Spragg’s phone.’

  ‘We’ve got both of their mobiles. It’s word for word identical.’

  Sam moved away from the wall and began to process the information.

  Two identical text messages to get two men to an almost identical location, both of whom ended up being shot dead.

  ‘Ranjit, what about the times the messages were sent?’

  ‘Marcus got his text first. His only message is at 1.20pm. Paul’s first is at 2.05pm.’

  ‘Okay, thanks.’

  Sam scrolled through her contacts and made a call, Shane ‘Tucky’ Walton, 45-years-old, experienced Detective Sergeant and a trusted HOLMES room office manager, answered at the second ring tone.

  Walton was 5’9” with broad shoulders, jowls, a beer belly and brown hair styled like a monk because he refused to shave the sides to match his bald head: Tucky to everybody in the office after Robin Hood’s friendly friar.

  ‘Shane. It’s Sam. Raise an action. I want to know what time Marcus’s car is first seen in Malvern Close. Between you and me I want to know if it’s there before 2.05pm.’

  Sam wondered if Marcus was lured there before Paul received his first text.

  ‘Check CCTV. Have the FLO establish what time family or friends last saw him. And get Ian Robinson to add a question to the house to house questionnaire asking people how long the Porsche has been there.’

  ‘Will do,’ Shane said.

  She contemplated a quick cigarette, but she’d already left Tara over two minutes.

  ‘Jezzer’ she thought, walking back towards the interview room. Jezebel possibly, but would you refer to your girlfriend, even in your phone contacts, as a Jezebel?

  She took three more steps before the light went on.

  If you were trying to be clever, what about a little word association: Jezzer, Jeremy, Jeremy ‘The TV Inquisitor’ Paxman, Tara Paxman.

  Sam pushed open the interview door.

  ‘What did Paul have you down as in his phone contacts, and what do you know about a man on a yacht?’

  Chapter 26

  Ed Whelan was on the phone in Sam’s office. He ended the call as soon as Bev Summers walked in. Lester Stephenson could wait.

  ‘Morning Ed. I got a text from the Boss asking to meet me here. Do you know where she is?’

  ‘She’s interviewing Tara Paxman.’

  ‘Never thought I’d work on one of these,’ Bev said.

  ‘Me neither.’

  He stared out of the window, replaying his final conversation with Zac Williams.

  Bev picked up on it immediately.

  ‘Shit, I’m sorry Ed. I forgot you were there last night.’

  He didn’t move. ‘Forget it. Not your problem.’

  Bev’s phone pinged. Text alert. From Sam Parker.

  I’m downstairs in the interview room.

  ‘I’ve got to go Ed. Sam wants to see me.’

  She got as far as the door, stopped and turned around.

  ‘You ever need to talk.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Ed’s phone triggered, the text alert the sound of a hunting horn. He read the message.

  ‘Hold up Bev, I’ll walk with you. She wants to see me too.’

  Sam was in the corridor outside the interview room, pacing up and down. She started talking while they were still walking.

  ‘What she has to say is so incredible it might just be true.’

  Ed and Bev joined her, the three of them in a circle, whispering like conspirators.

  ‘Long and short of it,’ Sam said, ‘she puts Harry Pullman in the frame and says Paul was the target.’

  ‘Paul?’ Ed was thrown.

  ‘What’s Paul got to do with it?’ Bev asked, like Ed trying to make sense of it.

  ‘All sounds a bit far-fetched if you ask me,’ Ed said, thrusting his hands into his pockets. ‘Don’t you think?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sam said, rubbing her brow. ‘I really don’t know. It explains the second rabbit suit. She says Harry Pullman was dressed in one, shooting people.’

  Ed shook his head. ‘Hang on, it was Zac Williams who came to the window with a gun.’

  He took his hands out of his pockets, shrugged his shoulders, stretched out his arms, palms facing upwards.

  ‘Otherwise how did he end up dead?’ he said.

  Sam nodded.

  I know, I know. She says Zac didn’t shoot anybody, but we need more. All we’ve got at the minute is her story and you’re right, it’s hard to believe.’

  They each stared at the floor.

  ‘What if,’ Sam said, her words quiet, measured, slow, ‘the gun was stuck to Zac’s hands?’

  They all digested that thought.

  ‘Okay,’ Ed said. ‘But I wasn’t talking to Harry Pullman. I know his voice.’

  ‘All staged according to Tara. Harry threatened to kill Lucy if Zac didn’t say to you exactly what he was told.’

  Ed leaned against the wall, rolled his eyes. ‘I don’t know Sam.’

  ‘Bev. I want her whisking away…’

  ‘What’s the rush?’ Ed broke in.

  ‘She’s paranoid there are leaks everywhere and she doesn’t trust male officers. She keeps going on about Ray Reynolds.’

  ‘Ray Reynolds!’ Ed said, moving away from th
e wall.

  ‘You heard me.’

  ‘Ray’s dead,’ Ed said. ‘What’s a deceased Detective Superintendent got to do with it?’

  ‘She’s convinced there’s a bent cop because she overheard Ray say so to Harry.’

  Ed shook his head again.

  Bev said nothing.

  ‘To make her feel safe I want her away from Seaton,’ Sam told them. ‘Anyone any ideas? Ed?’

  Ed stared at the wall, wondered absently when it had last seen a lick of paint.

  ‘All sounds a bit on the back of a fag packet to me, but if you’re dead set on her going, what about the place we took Harry?’

  Sam remembered The White Lion, a quiet pub in The Lake District.

  ‘Perfect. Far enough away and he’s not going to look there. Last place he’d think we’d hide her, back to where we took him.’

  Sam made eye contact with Bev.

  ‘She can’t be left. She’s convinced he’ll find her. Thinks this place leaks like a sieve.’

  ‘Best get your waterproofs Bev,’ Ed said grinning, knowing Bev Summers’ idea of the great outdoors was walking outside for a smoke. ‘You’ll love it. Cracking little boozer, you can stretch your legs on the fells, and Ullswater’s bloody gorgeous. A bit wet this time of year, but still…’

  ‘The bloody Lake District!’ Bev’s face had dropped. ‘You’re winding me up.’

  ‘Keep your voice down,’ Sam said. ‘Walls have ears. It’s a quiet pub and the owners are sound.’

  Bev’s whole body seemed to slump and turn in on itself.’

  ‘The Lakes’, she said in a muttered whisper, knowing she was well and truly stuffed. ‘I’m supposed to be out tonight with a toy boy.’

  ‘Tell the young romeo he’s cancelled,’ Ed, face beaming, was loving this. ‘Least you’ve still got a hot young date. Just a different gender.’

  Bev looked up and stuck her tongue out at him.

  ‘You’ll need to stay over there a few days,’ Sam said.

  Ed laughed. Bev looked like she might weep.

  ‘And…I’m sorry, but I can’t send anybody with you. I can’t spare the staff.’

  ‘Fine,’ Bev said, resigned.

  ‘I want you ready to go in the next half-hour and I don’t want anybody knowing where you’ve taken her. I don’t even want anybody knowing we’ve got her. Anybody on the inquiry asks, let’s just say we don’t know where she is. It’s a free country. She can come and go as she pleases.’