They pull up two chairs and sit down opposite me:
Dick Alderman and Jim Prentice.
They don’t look well.
Not happy.
‘Bob?’ says Prentice.
‘What’s going on?’ I ask.
‘Thought you might be able to tell us that?’
‘Come on,’ I say, looking from one to the other. ‘You here to question me?’
‘Chat,’ winks Prentice.
‘Fuck off,’ I say. ‘This is me, Bob Fraser. If something’s going down, just tell me.’
‘It’s never as simple as that though, is it Bob?’ says Jimmy Prentice and he offers me a fag.
I shake my head: ‘I don’t know, Jim. You tell me.’
They look at each other and sigh.
I say, ‘This is to do with John Rudkin, isn’t it?’
Dick Alderman shakes his head. ‘All right, Bob. Cut the crap and just tell us what happened to you between six o’clock the night of Saturday 4 June and six o’clock on the morning of Wednesday 8 June?’
‘Why?’
He smiles, ‘You do remember?’
‘Of course I fucking remember.’
‘Well that’s a bloody start, because up to now no other cunt seems to have a fucking clue.’
I pause and then say, ‘I was with Rudkin and Ellis.’
Prentice smiles. ‘That’s what they said.’
I start to speak, smiling, relieved and eager to expand.
But Alderman leans forward, ‘Yeah, that’s what they
I stare at him, at the face full of pride at the way he’s stuck the boot in, and I shrug my shoulders.
He smiles, a bloated smile: ‘What you say now, Bobby?’
I turn to Prentice. ‘You think I need someone from the Fed here?’
He shrugs: ‘Depends what you been up to Bob, depends what you done.’
‘Nothing.’
Alderman stands up. ‘You might want to have a think about that,’ he says. ‘Before we come back.’
And they leave, locking the door behind them.
The door opens, I look up.
Detective Superintendents Alderman and Prentice come in.
They sit down in the two chairs opposite me.
Dick and Jim.
They look better.
But not happy.
‘Bob?’ nods Prentice.
I say, ‘Just tell us what’s going on, will you?’
‘We don’t know, Bob. That’s why we’re here.’
‘To find out,’ adds Alderman.
‘Find out what?’
‘Find out what you got up to between Saturday night and Wednesday morning.’
‘What if I was to tell you that I went home? That I was with my wife?’
Alderman looks at Prentice.
Prentice says: ‘Is that what you’re saying?’
‘Yeah,’ I nod.
And they leave again, locking the door behind them.
The door opens.
Detective Superintendents Alderman and Prentice come in.
They don’t sit down.
Richard Alderman and James Prentice.
They look really fucked off.
Not happy.
‘Fraser,’ says Alderman. ‘I’m going to ask you for the last time: what you did, where you went, and who you saw between Saturday night and Wednesday morning?’
‘And don’t fucking lie to us, Bob,’ Prentice is saying. ‘Please, Bob?’
I look at them, the pair of them leaning over me, staring down at me, knowing they’d have beaten the truth out of me by now if I wasn’t who I was, what I was.
‘I was drinking,’ I say, say quietly and slowly.
They pull the chairs back and sit down.
‘And what should you have been doing?’ asks Alderman.
‘I was supposed to be on surveillance with Rudkin and Ellis.’
‘OK. So what were you doing?’
‘Like I say, I was drinking.’
‘Where?’
‘In my car, in the park,’
‘You see anyone?’
‘No.’
But I’m starting to see Karen Burns and Eric Hall, knowing I’m fucked.
‘I’m going to ask you again,’ says Alderman. ‘You see anyone, anyone at all during this time?’
‘No.’
‘OK,’ nods Alderman. ‘You want to tell us why you were drinking when you were supposed to be watching a suspect in a murder investigation; an investigation into the murders of four women that now, on one of the nights that you were supposed to be tailing our prime fucking suspect, now has risen to include the murder of a sixteen- year-old virgin.’
I’m staring at the table-top.
‘You going to tell me why you were drinking?’
‘Domestic problems,’ I whisper.
‘Would you care to elaborate?’
‘Not really, no.’
Prentice says, ‘It goes no further, Bob.’
‘Bollocks,’ I laugh. ‘It’ll be on other side of Moors before breakfast.’
‘You got no bloody choice,’ says Alderman.
‘The fuck I have. I want to know what this is about?’
‘You can fuck off,’ spits Alderman. ‘I am asking you as a senior officer, asking you why you were drinking for eighty-four hours, eighty-four fucking hours when you were supposed to be on duty?’
‘And I’ve already told you, I had domestic problems.’
‘And I’m telling you that answer will not suffice. So I’ll ask you one last time, what kind of fucking domestic problems?’
We stare into each other’s purple faces, eyes wide and teeth barred.
Prentice leans forward, tapping the table-top: ‘Come on, Bob. This is us.’
‘And this is me, Jim. This is me.’
He nods and Alderman follows him out, locking the door behind them.
About another half-hour later, the door opens.
Detective Superintendents Alderman and Prentice come in, three teas between them.
