by L M Krier
Ronnie tried to look scornful but clearly there was going to be no fun in asking to be addressed by her surname by someone who could master it perfectly. Instead she shrugged and said, ‘Whatever.’
‘So, Zofia, you’ve now had time for further consultation with your solicitor and we’ve had time to look through some of the security camera footage from the building where you were arrested. We’re interested in your reasons for being in the building. We’ve seen that you’ve so far visited it four times this week.’
As she spoke, Jezza was placing printed-out stills, date-stamped and showing the young woman in the entrance to the building where Abigail Buller’s flat was. Ronnie merely shrugged.
‘For the recording, Ms Wieczorek has not made any answer other than a shrug. Zofia, it would be helpful if you said something.’
‘No comment, then.’
‘Where do you live, Zofia? Because we have you down as of no fixed address and that’s going to present us with a problem. You’re facing a charge of assaulting a police officer, for which you could receive a prison sentence. Especially with your record. Which raises the question of whether to release you on bail pending further enquiries, or to apply to have you remanded in custody. And as your solicitor,’ she made an elaborate show of looking at her notes for his name, ‘Mr Denby, has no doubt already told you, we would seldom willingly bail anyone without a fixed address.’
She looked from Ronnie to her solicitor and back again, then went on, ‘So do you have an address to go to, Zofia, and if so, may I have it, please?’
Denby leaned closer to her again, reminding her once more that she didn’t need to say anything.
‘But if I’ve got an address to go to, I’m more likely to get bail, yeah?’
‘I’m not saying that, Zofia. That’s not for me to decide. I’m just saying, in general terms, that it could go in your favour if you have an address. And also if you’re seen to be cooperating with the police.’
Ronnie hesitated, weighing up her options. Then she said, ‘I got a mate there. In them flats. I stay with her sometimes. I’ve not seen her for about a week now. So is it her that’s snuffed it, then?’
‘You say you haven’t seen her for a week, yet the security camera footage shows you’ve visited the flat several times in the past week.’
‘Yeah, well, she’s a mate, innit. I ain’t seen her for a bit so I was checking up on her. Only I never got no reply. Is she all right? Where is she?’
‘Can you tell me the name of this mate, please?’
‘Abi, she’s called. She lives on the first floor. Where that black bloke tried to grab me. I legged it ’cos I didn’t know he were a fed.’
‘We’ll come back to that point, Zofia. But for now, could you please tell me how you came to meet Abi.’
‘At the shops. I’d got to the till wi’me stuff but I couldn’t find me purse. She were next to me in the queue so I asked her to lend us some money. And she did. So I helped her carry her stuff back to her flat and she asked me in. We got talking.’
‘I see,’ Jezza replied, keeping her tone neutral. ‘How, exactly, did you communicate?’
She saw the questioning look the solicitor gave her and went on, ‘Zofia, how exactly did you “get talking” to someone who is profoundly deaf and has limited speech?’
‘We got on dead well. I talked, she nodded. We understood each other. She said I could stay there if I wanted. I had nowhere to crash.’
‘Do you know any sign language, Zofia?’
Her expression a sneer, she raised a middle finger and made a gesture with it towards Jezza.
‘I know some,’ she said.
‘So despite almost certainly limited understanding between you, you say that Abi allowed you to move in and stay there. Is that right?’
‘Yeah. Well, not all the time. Sometimes I went to see other mates. But she let me move my stuff in there and I stay there sometimes. She likes the company.’
‘Does anyone else stay there?’
Her expression turned wary in an instant.
‘She’s got loads of friends. Always people coming and going.’
‘Can you give me any names of anyone?’
‘No comment.’
‘But you say Abi let you move your stuff in there. So there’s a chance that anything we find in the flat which isn’t Abi’s might belong to you, is that what you’re saying?’
‘Where is this going, detective? This seems to be well outside the circumstances surrounding the assault for which my client has been arrested. And that was a very leading question.’
Jezza turned to face the solicitor and spoke in the firm but patient tone she often had to use with her brother Tommy.
‘Mr Denby, you’ve been watching too many American cop shows. The correct way to address me is DC Vine, please. Or Detective Constable.
‘Zofia, I need to tell you now that inside the flat, where you say Abi was allowing you to stay and to store your stuff, we found a large quantity of drugs. An amount far bigger than could possibly be deemed as being for purely personal use. I can’t emphasise enough that it will only work in your favour if you tell me now anything you know about those drugs, or about anyone else who might use that flat.’
Ronnie wrapped her arms protectively around herself and seemed to shrink down into her chair in a defensive gesture.
‘I ain’t saying nothing more. If I tell you owt now, I’m dead.’
‘I’m happy to sign off on a twenty-four hour remand in police custody for her for now,’ Ted said when they met up to discuss progress. ‘Denby will complain but we clearly can’t let her go, with no known address. We can charge her with the assault on you, Mike. That’s enough to hold her on for now. But we need to know more about her involvement with the drugs. You did a good job, Jezza, but she’s clearly scared to say anything more.
‘With what we have so far, we can’t yet make any direct link between her and what happened in the flat. And until the PM on Monday, we don’t know if that’s a murder or not.
‘As far as the drugs go, if we’re looking at a drugs gang connection, which her fear would seem to indicate is distinctly possible, this might be one for Drugs rather than us. It’s possible there’s an ongoing operation we don’t know about and we don’t want to go blundering in treading on any toes. I’ll see what I can find out about that.
‘What I suggest we all do now is write up everything we have so far then get off home to our families while we can. I’ll come in again tomorrow to brief Jo and the others and we can take it from there. See what else turns up.’
‘Boss, if it does turn out to be Abi who killed Latte, is this even going to get to trial?’ Jezza asked. ‘I mean, if we don’t find any witnesses or evidence to what exactly happened. And there’s only Abi to try to tell us what really went on there. Is it actually a goer?’
‘I don’t know, Jezza, is the short and honest answer to that. That would be up to CPS. It’s our job to build a file to go to them and for them to decide on what course of action, if any, to take, in the public interest.’
The desk phone next to Mike Hallam rang. He answered, said, ‘Yes, he’s here. Put him through,’ then put his hand over the mouthpiece. ‘Rick Boyle, boss, asking for you in person.’
‘Interesting,’ Ted said as he reached for the phone, then, ‘DCI Darling.’
‘Hello, again. This is Rick Boyle.’
There was a slight hesitation, so Ted prompted, ‘Yes, Rick, what can I do for you?’
‘I didn’t lie to you when I said I didn’t see anyone I knew. I didn’t want to get involved in anything. But if I’m going to go into law, I need to consider that not disclosing everything, even something perhaps insignificant, isn’t very honest, either.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, I did see a girl on the security cameras here in the kitchen once, and I thought I recognised her. I went to the chippy, a few weekends ago now, and she was hanging about outside, trying to get people to give her mo
ney. She said she was hungry and hadn’t got any cash. It sounded like a scam to my suspicious mind, so I wasn’t falling for it. She was trying to chat me up. Hinting that it could be my lucky night if I bought her chips. She was very persistent, but in the end I decided to give up on the chips and go somewhere else instead.’
‘Thank you, Rick. Is there anything else at all you can tell me about her? I don’t suppose she gave you a name or anything?’
‘She did. She said it was Beth, but she pronounced it like Beff. Y’know, more like a southern accent than from round here. Unless it was put on.’
‘That’s excellent, Rick, thank you. Can you give me a description of any sort, for us to be going on with, please?’
‘White, late teens, about your height, maybe an inch or so shorter. Long straight hair, light brownish. Average build but, erm, this sounds bad, I know, but well-endowed. Y’know. Big boobs. Hard not to notice.’
‘Good, thanks, Rick. By any chance would you be free at any time tomorrow to come into the station and have a look at some of the security tapes? To see if you can point her out to us? The person you think you recognised? I’ll give you my direct number, then you can call me in the morning to arrange a time. Will you be at your father’s tomorrow? You’re not going out, or going back to where your mother lives?’
‘Not until late. They tend to forget about me until the last minute. So I can come in. I’ll be studying most of the day, despite what my father believes. I’m sorry I didn’t mention this earlier. I needed time to mull it over.’
‘That’s fine. It sounds as if you have the right credentials for studying law. Thank you for this, and I’ll see you tomorrow.’
He ended the call and told the others, ‘Rick Boyle. The lad Mike and I spoke to earlier, who said he’d never seen anyone he knew at the flats. He was phoning to correct himself. No one he knew going in and out, but there was one girl he thought he’d seen before. He’s given me a description and will come in tomorrow to pinpoint her on the tapes. Says she gave her name as Beth but pronounces it Beff. I’ll ask Uniform. If anyone knows her, someone there will.’
‘Hey, you, two meals in one day with my husband? I am honoured,’ Trev greeted him as Ted strode into the kitchen, moving carefully to avoid the cats who came swarming round, scooping up Adam who writhed in delight at the shameless favouritism.
‘Make the most of it,’ Ted told him, planting a kiss on the cheek Trev turned towards him, deftly avoiding the knife in his hand from preparing a meal. ‘I’m going to have to go in again tomorrow, I’m afraid. We still don’t know if this case is a murder or not, but it’s going off in several directions at once, so I need to pull the threads together to present to Jim, probably on Monday after the PM. Then he can decide who gets what bit of it to work on.’
‘Well, I can’t complain. I’ll be getting my revenge when I’ll probably have to work all next weekend. It’s this week Geoff goes off for his operation. I still haven’t plucked up the courage to ask him what it involves. I’ll have to cover his usual Saturday shift, and because he does all the grown-up admin stuff and leaves me to do the charm offensive, I thought I’d go in on Sunday, too. That way, if I try to set a day aside to keep on top of the paperwork, I shouldn’t either bankrupt the business or leave the books in too much of a sorry state before he gets back.’
Ted had carefully put Adam down, stroked each of the others in turn for balance, hung his jacket on the back of his chair – his tie had already been relegated to his pocket – and started to lay the table.
‘Have you got some wine on the go or do you want me to open a bottle?’
‘I haven’t yet. It’s part of my new resolution. One glass with the meal and that’s it.’
‘Times aren’t that hard, you know. If you want to cut down, that’s great. But the household budget can run to a few glasses of wine for you, if that’s what you want. You enjoy it, and I don’t mind.’
Trev stopped his food preparations to wrap Ted in a hug.
‘I know you don’t mind. I just think I sponge off you too much. Time for me to start adulting a bit more. Beginning by living within my means. Especially now I actually have to play at being a business partner, instead of just swanning about and playing with big bikes, like I usually do.’
Ted was in early on Sunday morning. He wanted to catch the Uniform briefing at the start of the new shift. That way he could ask as many officers as possible at the same time. One of them would certainly know who Beth, or Beff, was. Once retired Sergeant Bill Baxter was in on Monday morning, Ted planned to get him to view security camera footage from the flats to see what familiar faces he could pick out. Bill was the station’s fount of all knowledge.
When the duty inspector had finished briefing, Ted stood up and went to stand next to him at the front of the room.
‘I need your help again, please, to identify a potential suspect.’
He gave them Rick Boyle’s description of the young woman and finished up, ‘She gave her name as Beth but pronounced it with two F’s at the end, rather than a th, if that helps.’
An officer in the front row, with a good few years’ service under her belt and her pension firmly in her sights, said, ‘Busty Beff? I think a good many of us have felt her collar a time or two, guv. What’s she done this time?’
‘She’s a person of interest in this suspicious death we have in the old mill flats. What can you tell me about her, Julie, please?’
‘She must be eighteen or nineteen now, I think,’ she said, looking round at her colleagues for confirmation. A few heads nodded in agreement. ‘We’ve known her since juvenile days. She comes from up Portwood way, originally from outside the area. But the family kicked her out long ago. Religious lot, didn’t approve of her having two kiddies before she was sixteen, to different lads who were never seen again. Kids were taken into care. Probably just as well.’
‘What’s her form for?’
‘Public order offences. She’s inclined to drink too much then lamp anyone who looks at her the wrong way. Petty theft and shoplifting. Some drugs stuff, but she’s lucky enough to have been treated lightly as it’s mostly been small enough amounts to pass as personal use rather than supplying.’
‘Any connection to Ronnie?’
‘Not that I know of from the top of my head, guv, but you’d find more on her file. Bethany Hayes.’
‘Thank you. I’m going to need some help identifying visitors to the building from the security cameras. I’ll start by asking Sergeant Baxter tomorrow.’
Everyone in the station, from the top down, still called Bill Baxter by his rank, although he was retired. He was an institution there and had earned the respect of all.
‘If he doesn’t know any of them, I’ll need to ask you all again.’
There were chuckles in the room and the duty inspector said, ‘Guv, there isn’t anyone on our patch that Sergeant Baxter doesn’t know. Not unless they’ve literally just landed here from somewhere right outside the area.’
Chapter Nine
‘I’ll get a twelve-hour extension to continue questioning Zofia, also known as Ronnie, but we need something of a miracle to get her to say any more for now. She’s clearly scared and that fear seems to be linked to the drugs find. Much more so than the suspicious death,’ Ted finished off his summing up to the team members present.
Jo Rodriguez, Rob O’Connell, Maurice Brown and Steve Ellis were in for the day. Ted still hadn’t called everyone in at once, always conscious of his budget. Time for that if and when they got the green light that it was a murder case. Or at least a serious crime of some sort.
‘She’s many things, but not stupid. She’s going to know that the only safe way for her to tell us anything which might help save her own skin is to agree to tell us everything, and then to testify in court. She’s smart, street-wise, so she’ll know the risks she’s taking. The only way she’ll consent to those terms, no doubt, is if we can offer her a witness protection programme.
�
��But to get anywhere near that stage, she’s going to have to find someone she might be willing to trust to start the dialogue. Which is where you come in, Maurice. Have a catch-up from the notes on where Jezza was up to with her and see if you can take it any further. Just don’t make her any promises, and check with me before you start discussing what, if anything, we can do to help her.
‘If she’s likely to talk to any of us, it will be to you in Daddy Hen mode. Give it your best shot, please.’
‘Boss, from what you’ve told us, there’s a pattern emerging. Both Ronnie and Beth seem to use the old “oh, whoops, I forgot my purse, lend us a few quid” ploy to get near to potential targets. It’s not exactly original but if we can find out which shop Ronnie was talking about where she claims to have met Abigail, and which chippy for Rick Boyle, I could perhaps start doing some digging. Maybe ask around some other shops, if anyone’s noticed that sort of thing going on.’
‘Mind-reader, Jo. I was about to come to that,’ Ted told him. ‘Yes, well worth a look, I would say. It might lead to some others, as it’s clear from the flat that there’s been more than a couple of them staying there with Abigail.
‘Steve, can you run face recognition on all the footage we have so far, please? We’re trying to ID people the old-fashioned way but it’s just possible you can pick up something much faster with the help of technology. The person I’m particularly interested in at the moment is this Data. Abigail’s notes declare undying love for them, and Abigail is pregnant. So without jumping to conclusions, there’s at least a strong possibility that Data is male and might possibly be the father of the baby.
‘I’m interested in that nickname, too. Unless it happens to be a real name. Perhaps in a foreign language. It makes me wonder if it might be someone with the techie brains to be manipulating Abigail’s finances, perhaps. To find out about that in detail, we’re going to need access to her bank accounts and so on, if she has her own and they’re not solely controlled by her parents. And until we know more from the post-mortem tomorrow about what we’re dealing with, I’d rather not rattle Councillor Buller’s cage.’
