Six Years Too Late

by Phillip Strang

  Bridget handed Larry a black coffee in a mug. ‘You’d better get this down you,’ she said. ‘And suck on a mint.’

  ‘People are willing to talk, more than they were before,’ Larry said. ‘That’s why I was in the Stag Hotel, talking to another barman. He goes back a long time, and he does relief when the regular man takes a day off or calls in sick.’

  ‘What did he have to say?’

  ‘Marcus Matthews used to go in there regularly.’

  ‘Anything interesting?’

  ‘He knew him well enough, remembered when he disappeared. He reckoned it was strange at the time, as the man had seemed contented enough.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘He also remembered Stephen Palmer. He said it wasn’t until the man’s body was found that he thought back to when he had last been seen. He said that Matthews had been in the pub nine or ten days after the man had been murdered, not that he knew that at the time. Matthews had kept to himself, slowly drinking, getting drunk. Once or twice, he’d gone outside, lit up a cigarette, and vomited. Not that it stopped him drinking though.’

  ‘What are you telling us?’

  ‘Matthews wasn’t a drinker, but after Palmer had been murdered, the man’s there drinking away, trying to forget. It confirms what we’ve been told.’

  ‘We’ve been working with that premise. How does it help our case?’

  ‘The barman said that Marcus, once he had stopped drinking himself into oblivion, started to become friendly with Fred Wilkinson, long chats together.’

  ‘Is Wilkinson involved?’

  ‘Wilkinson, a model citizen; Matthews, a man who had been forced to kill. There’s enough there to raise the possibility.’

  Isaac looked over at Bridget. ‘Wilkinson was in the Army. His records should be accessible. Check it out, and see if there are fingerprints.’

  ‘It was a long time ago; they may not be on a database.’

  ‘If they’re not, then find out if they’re stored on microfiche somewhere.’

  Two hours later, Bridget came back. ‘It would be easier if you get them from the man himself. It depends where he served, if the records are still available, and if they’ve been stored correctly.’

  ‘Leave it to us,’ Larry said.

  ‘Are you suggesting we make the man give us his fingerprints? We’ve not charged him with any crime,’ Isaac said.

  Larry, who had in the interim taken the opportunity to sober himself up and to wash his face, comb his hair, replied, ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’ll need to find him, ask him if he’ll agree. And if he doesn’t, then we’ll charge him. This could go pear-shaped. There’s no evidence against him, other than he was friendly with Matthews, and he disliked his cousin.’

  ‘DCI, it’s not the first time you’ve acted on a hunch.’

  ‘It’s my skin, your hunch.’

  ‘It’s ours, skin, that is.’

  They found Fred Wilkinson in the Stag Hotel. The man was sitting with his wife; she was drinking a sweet sherry; he held a glass of beer in his hand.

  ‘We need to eliminate possible suspects,’ Isaac said. ‘Mr Wilkinson, we need your fingerprints.’

  ‘I’ve no objection. Where? Down at the police station?’

  Larry produced a mobile fingerprint scanner and placed it on the table.

  ‘What’s this for?’ Gwen Wilkinson said.

  ‘Technology’s caught up with us,’ Isaac said.

  Fred Wilkinson said nothing, only looked at his wife and the two police officers. He complied and placed his fingers on the scanner.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Wilkinson,’ Larry said.

  The man hadn’t been charged, and he had previously not been a suspect. He picked up his glass of beer and took a drink from it. He said nothing.

  Larry moved away from the table and found a quiet spot in the bar. He then sent the prints via his mobile to Forensics, a person there waiting to receive them.

  ‘I think we should go,’ Wilkinson said to his wife. ‘I’m not feeling well.’

  The husband and wife stood and headed to the door of the pub. It was Larry who stood in their way.

  ‘What’s the result?’ Isaac said.

  ‘They’re a match. It’s your arrest,’ Larry said.

  ‘It was your hunch, it’s only right that you do it.’

  A deathly hush settled over the pub, all eyes focused on the Wilkinsons and the two police officers, as Larry arrested Fred Wilkinson and put the handcuffs on him. Gwen Wilkinson, the loyal wife, stood by, unable to comprehend the situation, a tear rolling down her right cheek. Another woman who had been in the pub put her arm around her and led her away.

  A marked police car arrived after a few minutes, and Fred Wilkinson was placed in the back.

  Neither Isaac nor Larry were pleased with themselves. A man who had caused no harm to anyone, had even served his country with distinction, was going to jail for a very long time.

  ‘The villains still get away with it,’ Larry said later that night back at Challis Street, the cell once again occupied.

  ***

  Fred Wilkinson sat in the interview room; his wife waited outside. The man explained how he and Marcus had formed a friendship over many years, the result of hatred for one man. How, in time, a pact was agreed that one or the other would kill the man, the other assisting as he could.

  ‘It had been thirteen years. Marcus said that he would complete the task within one year, and if he didn’t, then I was to kill him.’

  ‘But why? That makes no sense,’ Isaac said.

  ‘You’d not understand, but Marcus did. I knew about his early life; I knew about the death of Stephen Palmer.’

  ‘Will you testify that Hamish McIntyre was present when Palmer died?’

  ‘It would be pointless. I shot Marcus; I’ll admit to that. But it wasn’t murder, it was an agreement between two men who held strong views.’

  ‘Your Army training?’

  ‘In part. But I had grown up with Hamish; I knew what the man had become.’

  ‘It’s bizarre,’ Larry said. ‘We could arrest McIntyre with your testimony.’

  ‘He’ll die in his bed. I’ll die in a prison cell. Marcus died in the room at the top of a house. I only hope that my wife is looked after.’

  Fred Wilkinson sat there and wrote out his confession. He had not requested legal aid. In the end, he stood up and was taken back to his cell.

  Isaac knew that the man was right; he’d die in a prison cell, alone but not unloved. His wife would always be at their house, waiting for the day he would come home.

  ***

  Wally Vincent and Larry visited Charles Stanford’s house in Brighton.

  Outside the house, an eerie silence. In the house, no lights were visible, nothing to indicate that the man was at home.

  Larry knocked on the front door; nothing could be heard from inside.

  The two men walked around to the back and tried the back door; it was locked.

  ‘I’ll break a window,’ Vincent said.

  ‘He may have a key hidden,’ Larry said.

  They looked under a potted plant to one side of the door.

  ‘I’ve found it,’ Vincent said.

  Inside the kitchen, the hum of the refrigerator.

  ‘Something’s up,’ Larry said.

  They put on shoe protectors. Both men had gloves on. Progressively they moved through the house, careful what they touched. They used the torches on their phones to guide their way.

  On the second floor, the man’s bedroom. On the bed, the body of Charles Stanford.

  ‘There’s a letter,’ Vincent said.

  ‘Leave it. This place is for the crime scene investigators. It’ll be a confession about how he became involved with Wilkinson and Matthews.’

  ‘And I thought he’d told us everything.’

  ‘He was always smarter than us. How did he die?’

  ‘Poison, probably. It doesn’t matter, not now, does it?’

&n
bsp; Outside the house, a dog walked by on Stanford’s side of the street. Unable to run away, it started yapping.

  Wally Vincent knelt down and patted the dog on its head. He didn’t have the heart to give it a swift kick; not that day.

  The End

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