If It Bleeds

by Bernie Crosthwaite

  “He says you consented to sex.”

  “I… I was trying to find a way out of the situation.”

  Naylor leaned forward. “Did you consent to sex or not?”

  “He might have thought so, but I —”

  “This isn’t the first time you’ve been involved in a fracas, is it?” Laverack interjected.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “There was a very unpleasant incident outside the police station a couple of days ago.”

  “You mean Patricia Ramsey? She attacked me! And I’ve got the scratches to show for it.” I pointed at my ravaged face.

  “I don’t believe she was responsible for all those injuries.”

  “No… I slipped climbing down a wall, and… and I fell in the river.”

  The two detectives glanced at each other.

  Charlie leant over towards me. “Jude, what’s going on here? I’m slightly confused,” he muttered.

  “You’re not the only one.”

  “You lose your temper very quickly, don’t you, Judith?”

  “My name’s Jude! Only my parents and Methodist ministers ever called me Judith!”

  He sat back with a smug look on his face. “Like I say, short-tempered.”

  Charlie put his elbows on the table and hid his face in his hands.

  “Let’s move on,” said Laverack. He turned the sheet of paper over. “You seem to have set yourself up as some sort of vigilante in the case of Lara Ramsey.”

  “It’s not like that at all.”

  He ploughed on as if I hadn’t spoken. “You interviewed Annie Molloy at length the day after the murder. When we got round to speaking to her this morning she wasn’t very helpful. I’ve been through all this before were her precise words. We had some difficulty persuading her to co-operate.”

  “It’s a free country. I can speak to whoever I like.”

  “Unless by doing so you obstruct the course of a serious investigation.”

  “I didn’t mean to. Perhaps you should have spoken to her sooner. You can’t blame me for your…” The word incompetence hovered in the air. “For your lack of manpower.”

  “And yesterday you drove up to Gunnerston and interfered in our enquiry there as well.”

  “How?”

  “By entering a potential crime scene — and by the way, we’ll need fingerprints.”

  “What for?”

  “To eliminate you from the scene,” said Naylor.

  “Lara wasn’t murdered at Chapel House.”

  “There may be important forensic material and you’ve muddied the waters by blundering in. Not only by your presence, but by removing evidence.”

  Charlie seemed to be half-asleep, but he perked up when he heard that.

  “What evidence?”

  “Brandon Hill said he saw you pick something up and put it in your pocket.”

  I was about to vehemently deny it, then I remembered. He was right. I reached into my jeans pocket. It was still there. “You mean this?” I put the bottle top on the scarred table. “I wasn’t stealing. I pocketed it without thinking. It’s just litter, isn’t it?”

  Naylor poked at it with a biro. She read the unfamiliar brand name. “It’s one of those European export beers. Dutch, I think.”

  “Put it in a plastic bag,” said Laverack quietly. “Then send it to the lab.”

  While Naylor was dealing with the bottle top, Laverack gave me a sermon on the importance of every last piece of evidence, however small, and the irresponsibility of obstructing a police investigation.

  “OK. I get the message. Though I can hardly believe you’ve brought me in here just to retrieve that bottle top and lecture me about my social duty. Can I go now?”

  “My client wishes to go home, so if there’s nothing else…” said Charlie, rising unsteadily from his chair.

  “I haven’t finished,” said Laverack in a steely voice. “Ms Baxendale is accused of assault, remember? And there are some other things I wish to discuss.”

  Naylor returned to the room, nodded at her superior officer and sat down.

  He pulled out a third sheet of paper, which could have been instructions on how to construct a bookshelf for all I knew. It all seemed part of the theatricality of the occasion, designed to intimidate me.

  “Now we come to a very serious matter.”

  Charlie lit a cigarette. Naylor wrinkled her nose and waved the smoke away.

  “How did you know about the marks on Lara Ramsey’s body?”

  I stared directly at DC Naylor. “She told me.”

  Laverack glanced at his colleague sharply. “Is this true?”

  She coloured up. “I only asked whether her son had ever dabbled in black magic —”

  “You said a black-magic symbol had been carved on her chest.”

  “I never said it was a pentagram!”

  This was where I had to decide whether Ben Greenwood stayed out of trouble or not. “I made a lucky guess, that’s all. Was it a pentagram? Well, what do you know.”

  “I didn’t mention blisters either,” Naylor protested. “I just said there were marks. I don’t know where she got blisters from.”

  “So let me repeat the question,” said Laverack. “How did you get this information?”

  “You don’t have to answer that,” muttered Charlie.

  “No comment.”

  The two officers were silent.

  “I think my client needs a break,” said Charlie.

  They ignored him.

  “You know exactly what the killer of Lara Ramsey did to her body. I repeat, how do you know?”

  Still thinking about protecting Ben as long as possible, I shook my head.

  “Ms Baxendale shook her head,” Laverack said into the tape recorder, “which I understand to be a refusal to answer.”

  I stared at the burn marks on the table. Should I tell them about the Scorching Desert, about my theory that Lara suffered the same torture as the Spanish girl in the film? But thinking about it now, it seemed a lightweight premise, if not totally preposterous.

  Then I remembered Lara’s car. Surely the mechanic at Raven Motors had phoned the police by now?

  “Your son Daniel…” Laverack said, going on to the next sheet of paper.

  “What about him?”

  “I think it’s fair to say you’re an over-protective mother?”

  “No, it isn’t fair. I’m a very slapdash mum.”

  “He’s often at the doctor’s, I believe. And he’s just had a spell in hospital?”

  “He suffers from asthma. The shock of Lara’s death triggered a really bad attack. Apart from that one episode, he’s been a lot better recently.”

  “You keep a close eye on him?”

  “Do you have children?”

  “I’m not married.”

  “Even so, you must realise that when your child has a serious illness you can’t relax. But I do try to make sure he lives a normal life. There’s just one thing I nag him about, and that’s taking his medication with him wherever he goes. That hardly makes me over-protective, does it?”

  He wrote a word or two on the paper, then looked up at me again.

  “He’ll be leaving home in September?”

  “Yes. He’s going to art college.”

  “How do you feel about that?”

  “Fine.” I’d been telling myself for months that I felt fine about it, in the hope that I’d start believing it.

  “Will you miss him?”

  “Of course. What do you expect?”

  Laverack tapped the table with his pen. Behind his stony exterior I guessed there was a powerful ambitious streak. Had he made a conscious decision that marriage and children would get in the way of his progress? Then I wondered idly if he was gay.

  “Was Lara his first girlfriend?”

  “No. He’s had one or two others, but no one significant.”

  “So Lara Ramsey was just another casual relationship?”

  “Thi
s was different. He was serious about her and I know she felt the same way. I think they were very much in love.”

  “What was your impression of this girl?”

  “I didn’t know her that well.” I reflected that the last few days had changed that. “Not when she was alive,” I added.

  “But you didn’t approve of her?”

  Charlie coughed into his fist. A warning.

  “I never said that. She seemed nice. Daniel was happy and that’s all that mattered to me. I didn’t interfere. For all I knew, it could have been all over in a week or two. That’s what teenage love affairs are like.”

  “Had his previous relationships ended like that?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you were glad to see them end?”

  “Neither glad nor sorry. He always got over the girl and moved on. That’s life. Surely even you remember what young love was like?” Gay or straight, I thought, he must have felt passion at least once.

  He pursed his lips but didn’t answer.

  Naylor took over. “You don’t like the thought of Daniel having a serious relationship with a girl, do you?”

  “Where do you get that from? Like I say, I just want him to be happy.”

  “Were you jealous of Lara?”

  I looked at her in astonishment. “Jealous? Why on earth would I be?” Though my brain was fogged with exhaustion I began to see where this was going.

  “I suggest you’d be jealous of any girl who took your son’s affection away from you, especially one as attractive as Lara Ramsey.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  Charlie sat upright. “My client needs a break. Now.”

  “That’s not possible,” said Laverack. “But she can have a coffee. Do you want something to eat?”

  The lasagne and lemon tart I’d eaten earlier were churning around my gut and the thought of more food made my stomach muscles contract. I didn’t want to throw up over Laverack’s expensive suit. “No thanks.”

  He gave Naylor instructions and we waited until she came back with four lidded paper cups on a tray. My hands felt so weak I couldn’t lever off the plastic lid. Charlie stubbed out his cigarette and did it for me. I took a sip. It tasted disgusting, but the caffeine hit my bloodstream as effectively as the finest arabica.

  Laverack read from the current sheet of paper. “If Lara ever hurt him I’d wring her neck. Do you remember saying those words?”

  I knew he’d get round to this. It didn’t mean I had an answer ready.

  “I think you’re misquoting me. I was talking to my friend, Matt Dryden, after Lara’s death. I said something like, if she had hurt him or broken his heart, I think I would have wrung her neck.”

  “Isn’t that the same?” asked Naylor.

  “No. I was saying that I liked her, that she and Daniel were good together. But if she had ever hurt him I wouldn’t have liked her at all.”

  “Your actual words were, I’d have wrung her neck,” said Laverack.

  “It’s just a figure of speech, for god’s sake!”

  “And we already know that you have a short fuse and can be violent.”

  Charlie coughed again.

  “You’re twisting everything to fit some ludicrous theory that I…” I couldn’t say it. I didn’t want the words that I killed Lara given any credence by being uttered aloud and recorded on tape. I started to pant, breathless from anger and frustration. Matt had said the police tried to trick you into saying things that made you seem guilty, and he was damned right.

  Laverack sat there patiently, cool and unruffled. No doubt Chief Superintendent Rollins had told him they needed a quick result with this high-profile case. The local police force would look like incompetent fools in the full glare of the media frenzy if they didn’t pin this shocking crime on someone soon. Laverack resented me for showing him up at the press conference, so who better to haul in for interview and beat into submission?

  Only he’d picked the wrong person. In every sense.

  “Where were you on the night of Monday, January 1st?” he asked.

  “I was at home.”

  “Can anyone verify that?”

  “Only Daniel.”

  Laverack put his papers together and tapped them into a neat pile. He laid them squarely in front of him. “I suggest that you took a dislike to Lara, that you went to her flat that night to remonstrate with her — leave my son alone or else — that you lost your temper and strangled her.”

  I stood up. “I’ve had enough of this rubbish. My head’s beginning to hurt, from banging it against a brick wall.”

  “That you know all about the marks on her body because you inflicted them yourself.”

  “I want to speak to my client in private,” said Charlie Tait.

  Laverack waited for a response from me. I began to sway, my ears buzzing. I gripped the pock-marked table to keep my balance. Now was the time to tell him about being pushed in the river, almost certainly by the person who killed Lara. But I knew exactly what his response would be. Were there any witnesses? Then why should I believe you? You could have jumped into the river yourself. But I nearly died! Then he would have checked my background and found I gained a 25-metre swimming certificate when I was eight, therefore I was a champion swimmer and just pretending I was in danger.

  “She needs a break, dammit!” Charlie’s words came from some distant echoey place.

  Laverack loosened the knot of his tie. “Ten minutes.”

  *

  Naylor came with me to the toilet. She stood outside the cubicle while I emptied my bladder. After I’d sat there for a while with my head in my hands I got my dizziness under control. I checked the window. Shut and barred. When we went back into the corridor, Charlie was waiting. Naylor stood at a discreet distance while we talked.

  “Jude, I’m getting out of my depth here. Criminal law isn’t really my thing. You’d better ask for the duty solicitor.”

  “How bad is it?”

  He turned aside and took a swig from his hip flask. “He’s got you in his sights and he’s trying to build a case against you.”

  “How’s he doing?”

  “Pretty well, to be honest.”

  “Charlie, I had nothing to do with Lara’s death!”

  He raised one of his purple hands. “It’s no business of mine whether you’re guilty or not. I’m just here to advise you on matters of law.”

  But I saw there was doubt in his eyes. If I couldn’t convince an old friend like Charlie of my innocence, I was lost.

  “Do you think they’ll charge me?”

  “It’s looking that way.” He leant close. I caught the reek of whisky on his breath. “You do realise that if it goes to court and you’re found guilty, it would mean a life sentence?”

  “Are you suggesting I confess?”

  “It might be a good idea.”

  “But Charlie, I didn’t…” What was the point?

  “Think about it.” He took one more swig and put the flask away

  Naylor’s mobile trilled. “OK. Right.” She called down the corridor to us. “Mr Tait, please take your client back to Interview Room Two. I have to collect a file from the front desk. Tell DI Laverack I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “All right,” said Charlie.

  She strode away importantly.

  We were approaching the men’s toilets when Charlie muttered, “I need a piss.” He staggered into the gents, weaving like a boxer who’d already gone nine rounds.

  I stood still for a moment, feeling abandoned. A cleaner, wearing a sleeveless blue tunic over her clothes, walked past me. She opened a cupboard, reached in, collected a bucket and hurried off. I looked up and down the corridor before opening the cupboard door. A spare blue tunic hung on the back of it. I stepped inside. I put the tunic over my head and pressed the velcro fastenings together at the sides. I grabbed a broom, then stepped back into the corridor, shutting the door behind me.

  I walked quickly away, in the opposite directio
n from Interview Room Two with its diseased-looking table and air of defeat. As I turned the corner I heard the distant clatter of crockery and the murmur of voices — the staff canteen, no doubt serving the night shift endless bacon sandwiches and mugs of strong tea to see them through the small hours. Keeping my head down, I moved towards the noise, stopping to clean the floor every time someone went by. No one questioned my right to be there.

  The corridor ended abruptly in an internal security gate. I started brushing the same patch over and over again, keeping out of range of the surveillance camera. I stole a glance at my watch. I seemed to have been at the station for hours but it was only ten to eleven. A woman in civilian clothes approached me. My heart pounded under the nylon tabard. She was reading from a file in her hand and didn’t feel the need to acknowledge a scruffy-looking cleaner. It was strange how even a hint of a uniform took away individuality, especially if you were one of the lower orders of the hierarchy.

  “Gate!” she called out absently, and with a click it slid open. I edged through behind the woman before it clanged shut. The canteen was very close now. I sniffed my way there, the odour of fried food increasingly strong.

  I pushed open the swing door and walked straight past rows of tables and chairs, my head down, unchallenged. I was nearly through to the kitchen when two police officers, carrying loaded trays, came towards me, blocking my way. If I barged past they would look at me properly and see that I wasn’t a regular. Game over. I turned sharp right, following a sign to the ladies’ toilet. I marched in, looking purposeful.

  One of the two cubicles was in use. I went into the empty one. The window had no bars, but the part that opened was far too small to squeeze through. I waited till I heard the toilet flush next door, the rush of tap water, the dragging of the roller towel and the squeak of sensible shoes on the tiled floor. Then I walked out and back into the canteen.

  This time there was no obstruction in my way. The kitchen was a low-ceilinged area full of stainless steel. One bored-looking cook was flipping burgers with one hand and shaking a basket of chips in the fryer with the other. Eyes forward, I went through to the back where a jumble of rubbish bags and tins of oil nearly filled the narrow passage. I felt a blast of fresh air — the door at the end, slightly ajar to get rid of the greasy fug.

  A few seconds later I was breathing in lungfuls of bitterly cold night air. My leather jacket was still hanging on the chair in Room Two, but there was no going back. I seemed to be in the staff car park. Bending low, I ran between the white police cars and vans until I found the exit.