The young girl had a good memory. When she read ‘her’ statement, she was shocked at the changes. She quickly made a further statement and promised to keep quiet about the matter. Karen laid it on thick for the father, who looked the type to be bragging it around the local pub later, that this was top secret and not a word of it should leak. This was a very sensitive matter and if things got out, lives could be at risk.
Back in the Jeep, Donaldson said, ‘Two down.’
‘ They’ve taken dozens of statements in this investigation. How many more have been tampered with? In the end everyone will have to be revisited.’
‘ Yup.’ He started the engine.
‘ And where the hell did you disappear to?’
‘ Couldn’t resist,’ he admitted with a big grin. He held up his pocket knife with a gleeful smile.
‘ They’re moving away, boss,’ Hunt said into the mobile. He gave Morton the second address, then ended the call. He allowed Donaldson enough time to move off before he slipped his car into first and followed.
After only a few metres he realised that the car would be going no further. It was limping sadly along like a cripple. He drew in and raced round the back where he saw that the two rear tyres were as flat as two-day-old beer.
He swore and pulled his jacket up around his neck.
‘ Bastards!’
Henry Christie faced John Rider across the interview-room table for the second time that day.
Siobhan sat frostily to one side.
The tapes were running.
‘ When you were arrested, you said to me, “What the fuck am I meant to have done?”’ Henry said levelly to Rider, referring to his notes. The interview had been going forty minutes. Henry had given Rider the opportunity to admit the killing, but the prisoner was not forthcoming. Henry had therefore switched gear and gone into ‘verbal-up’ mode. ‘I then told you and you replied, “Yeah, you’re fucking right. I shot the bastard. He well deserved it”. What do you say to that, John?’
Henry’s voice was affable, unflustered, but underneath he was churning. His stomach felt like someone was dragging a rake around inside it. His hands, though visibly calm, were on the verge of trembling. His nerve ends tingled at the lies he was putting to Rider.
Rider made no reply, but folded his arms and glowered contemptuously at his captor. So this is it, he thought. The beginning of the fit-up. The opening salvos in what would probably be his downfall. Rider had been confident there was no evidence against him and now they were resorting to these tactics.
‘ Both myself and DC Robson here heard you. Do you deny you said those words?’
No reply. No response.
‘ During the journey back to the police station, I reminded you that you were still under caution and that it was in your interests to be quiet until we reached the police station where an interview would be conducted formally. However, you continued to talk throughout the journey, though we did not invite you to do so. You said, and I quote — because DC Robson made notes of the unsolicited remarks — “I had to kill the bastard. He would have done me in otherwise. It were him or me and I made fucking sure it were him. I blasted him in those changing rooms and he didn’t have a chance in hell. Bang fucking bang! Dead Munrow”. Any comment John?’
As if.
Henry persisted with this for thirty further minutes, having to change the tapes partway through. Not surprisingly he got nothing out of Rider, who at the end of the interview declared he wanted a solicitor for the next one and refused to sign the tape seal when he was invited to do so.
They led him back to the custody office and handed him back to Sergeant Taylor. Henry said, ‘Interviewed in accordance with PACE and the Codes of Practice. No admissions made.’
Rider was taken back to his cell.
Siobhan linked her arm with Henry’s and drew him to one side. ‘Well done, Henry. I’ll tell the boss you’re trying.’
‘ I feel like dirt.’ He pulled his arm away.
She smiled. ‘You’d better start thinking about finding some evidence at his place now. Like a ski mask, or something, maybe splattered with blood.’ She left the custody office.
Henry walked back to the charge desk where Taylor was scribbling in a custody record.
‘ Eric?’
Taylor looked up defiantly. He placed his pen down.
‘ How much did they give you?’
‘ You should know, Henry.’
‘ Don’t talk shit. You know I never sent that money. I just don’t operate like that. I’d rather get convicted of assault than pervert justice.’ Which he knew was rich coming from someone who was in the process of doing just that to another person.
‘ Five grand in a briefcase.’
‘ And where would I get that sort of money from? I haven’t got five hundred in the bank.’
‘ How do I know?’
‘ Have you still got it?’
Taylor nodded.
‘ I suggest you keep it very, very safe, Eric, while I think of how we can both get out of this mess and still be in employment. Understand?’
Henry was astounded by the level of threat in his voice. It frightened him a little as he said, ‘Because if it disappears, I’ll throw you off the Tower, Eric, and I’ll enjoy watching you fall and splat onto the shops below. And I mean it.’
Their faces had got closer as if they were hypnotising each other. The gaoler came back from the cell corridor and broke the spell. ‘Rider says he wants to see you, Sarge,’ he said to Henry.
‘ Right,’ Henry nodded, eyes on Taylor. ‘Put it down in his custody record that I visited him and spoke to him through the cell hatch on an unrelated matter.’
Rider’s face was pressed into the hole in the door.
‘ Henry fuckin’ Christie.’
‘ My middle name’s James, actually.’
‘ I wouldn’t mind, Henry, but I don’t even speak like that! I mean: “It were me or him, I made sure it were him”! I might be a toe-rag to you, but my English grammar is just as good as yours.’
‘ So? What’re you getting at?’
‘ You’ll have to do better than that if you want to stitch me up.’
‘ I haven’t finished yet,’ Henry said coldly.
‘ I thought not, but I’ll tell you something.’ Rider changed the position of his face. ‘I’m surprised at you. I don’t like you and I’ve only known you a week, but I’d thought to myself, “Here’s an honest cop. A bastard, but honest”. And I respected that — but you’ve let me down. Big style. What does it feel like to be someone’s puppet, doing someone else’s bidding? How does it feel to be out of control?’
They met at midnight in the conservatory. Kate had gone to bed, leaving Henry, Karen and Donaldson.
‘ Two out of four ain’t bad for a first strike,’ Donaldson said quietly. He took a sip from a cool can of Colt 45. He was referring to the fact that the other two witnesses had been out. ‘We’ll get ‘em tomorrow.’
Henry was tired. His chest was sore and he had made his ear bleed again by fiddling with the dressing. He sat back in the bamboo chair and took a sip of the malt whisky he only brought out on special occasions. It flowed silkily down his throat and put up a temporary barrier against the pam.
‘ We were followed,’ Donaldson told him. He recited the registered number of the car and the make.
‘ Tch,’ Henry uttered. ‘Sounds like an NWOCS car.’
‘ It means they’re onto us, Henry,’ Karen said quietly. There was a note of warning in her voice. ‘They might have figured out what we’ve been doing.’
‘ And it means you’d better watch your step, Henry, because if they’ve put it together, they may act on it…
