associate of yours, Tony Franks, has a house-’
‘Never heard of him.’
‘And where you were seen by witnesses on a number of occasions, including only two weeks ago, when you were emptying out the property and claiming you were Mr Franks’s brother.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘And I don’t know where this is leading,’ Carroll interjected. ‘I’m going to have to ask you to desist with this line of questioning. It’s completely irrelevant.’
I bent down beside my chair and picked up an evidence bag. I held it in front of Merriweather’s face. ‘Guess what this is.’
Merriweather squinted. ‘I can’t see anything.’
‘Look closer.’ I pointed my finger at something almost intangible in the bag. ‘It’s a fibre, Jack, or two fibres to be precise. They came from the coat Robert Jones was wearing on the day he died, and guess what? We found them in the house you were emptying the other week. What do you think of that, then?’
‘There must be some mistake.’ There was no doubting the fear on his face now. Carroll also looked wrong- footed by this unwelcome new development. ‘I don’t know anything about a dead kid.’
‘Are you sure about that, Jack?’ asked Knox.
‘Course I’m fucking sure.’
‘How do you explain it, then?’ I asked. ‘How they got there.’
‘It’s nothing to do with me. I didn’t live there.’
‘Why were you emptying out the place, then?’ Knox said.
‘Where’s Tony Franks, Jack? We can’t seem to find him.’
‘I don’t know a Tony Franks.’
‘Why were you emptying out his house, then?’
‘I wasn’t-’
‘We’ve got a witness who says you were. She even spoke to you.’
‘Fuck this, I don’t want to answer any more questions.’
‘I think my client would like a break in proceedings,’ said Carroll.
‘We haven’t finished yet,’ snapped Knox.
‘
‘Don’t you want to have a look at this photo?’ I asked, taking it out of my pocket and sliding it along the table towards Merriweather. ‘It’s the last one ever taken of Robert. Christmas Day lunch last year, six weeks before he died. It’s a good one, isn’t it?’
Merriweather continued to look away, but I could see that his jaw was quivering.
‘I really must protest about these methods. My client has already said he doesn’t want to answer any more questions on this matter. I am therefore requesting, in the strongest possible terms, that you terminate this interview.’
‘Were you aware, Jack, that a company called Dagmar Holdings paid the rent on Tony Franks’s house?’
‘I’ve never heard of Dagmar Holdings.’
‘Really?’ I said, and Merriweather immediately knew he’d made a mistake. You could see it in his eyes. ‘Two cheques from Dagmar Holdings totalling a grand total of nine thousand three hundred and twenty pounds were paid into a bank account belonging to your wife, one in February, another in June. You were also at the home of the company secretary of Dagmar Holdings when we arrested you.’
‘With an unlicensed firearm,’ added Knox for good measure.
‘As your representative, Jack, I advise you to make no further comment at this time.’
‘No comment,’ said Merriweather.
‘One way or another someone’s going down for this child murder, Jack,’ said Knox. ‘We’re not going to rest until we find the person responsible.’
‘And for some reason, you seem to be lying a lot during the course of this interview.’
‘And you’re connected very strongly to the house where we believe he died.’
‘Where’s Tony Franks, Jack?’
‘No comment.’
‘Did he kill Robert Jones, or did you?’
‘What did you kill him for, Jack? Did he see something he shouldn’t have done?’
‘No comment. I told you! No fucking comment!’ He turned to the brief. ‘Come on, Melvyn, tell ’em I’m not answering any more fucking questions about stuff I don’t know nothing about.’
‘You heard my client,’ said Carroll. ‘He’s saying nothing further at this time.’
Knox and I looked at each other and nodded. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘We’ll return you to your cells while we continue our enquiries. Before we finish, though, there’s one thing I’d also like to show you.’ I picked up another evidence bag, again seemingly empty. ‘It’s one of Robert Jones’s hairs, also found at Runmayne Avenue. Amazing what you can discover when you look hard enough, isn’t it?’
‘Not a very good clean-up job, was it?’ said Knox with a sympathetic smile.
Merriweather tried to stare us both down, tried to appear calm and aloof in the face of our threats, but it wasn’t working. A single bead of sweat ran down the middle of his forehead and onto the bridge of his broken nose. He was immediately aware of it, and knew we could see it. Knew we knew.
‘Interview terminated at twelve forty-five p.m.,’ I said, and switched off the tape. I stood up and smiled at Merriweather. ‘We’ll talk again soon,’ I told him.
When the two of us were safely ensconced in Knox’s office, along with Berrin, we discussed what we’d gathered from the interview.
‘It’s still tenuous, John. If he holds out, we’re in trouble. He’s consistently denying his involvement with the case, and the witness statements and that little bit of forensics are hardly enough to pin him for the murder. At the moment, all he’s down for is possession of an illegal firearm, which he’s denying. He says it belonged to Iversson. If it carries on like this, he could easily get bail. Is there no way we can get Iversson to talk and let us know what was happening there?’
Iversson had been captured after a short but dramatic chase through the streets of Clerkenwell, but he wasn’t co-operating either.
I sighed. ‘He’s even more of a no-comment merchant than Merriweather. Iversson’s linked with the massacre at the farm and the kidnapping of Krys Holtz, so I think he figures he’s got nothing to gain by talking, and nothing to lose by staying silent.’
‘What about Toms? Can’t we prise anything out of her?’
I shook my head. ‘She knows a lot more than she’s letting on but she’s not stupid. Her story’s that she was with Merriweather, whom she knows vaguely, when Iversson turned up and tried to rape her. He beat up Merriweather but somehow she managed to get his gun off him and shoot him in the shoulder. She claims it was self-defence and it’s a story she’s sticking by. Therefore, in the absence of Franks, who we can’t find anywhere, our best bet’s got to be Merriweather. He knows what’s going on, I’m sure of it, and he’s got the most to lose by not co-operating.’
‘But will he crack?’
‘No one wants to be labelled a child killer,’ I said, ‘especially a macho gangster type like him, and I don’t think he’s as much of a hardman as he likes to make out. Yes, in my opinion, he’ll crack.’
Ten minutes later, while we were still talking, the phone on Knox’s desk rang. He picked it up, listened for twenty seconds, smiled, and told the caller we’d be right down. He looked at me with the sort of expression my wife’s lover would pull if he’d just stumbled on a story that would put the prime minister out of a job. ‘It looks like you’re right, John,’ he said, and I think there might even have been some admiration in his voice. ‘He wants to talk to us.’
‘That’s good.’
‘Better than good. He wants to do it without his brief present.’
‘First things first. I want immunity.’
‘You haven’t told us anything yet, Jack,’ said Knox, lighting his cigarette for him.
‘I’ve got stuff, all right?’ he said, looking at us both in turn. ‘Stuff that’ll put people away, but if I help, I don’t
