This was the man who’d driven my brother’s killers away from the scene of their brutal crime, and who’d gone on to commit numerous others. For years I’d built him up as a monster who’d not lost a moment’s sleep over what had happened to John. And maybe he hadn’t. I don’t know because I was always careful never to raise the subject with him, but in the three months I’d spent getting to know him, he’d become far more human in my eyes. A flawed character, certainly, an uneducated thug unafraid to use violence when he considered it necessary, but a funny, generous guy as well, who was popular in the pubs we drank in, who doted on his dog, and who genuinely seemed to like me.
Usually, I was good at compartmentalizing the different lives I led. I looked at my undercover one as a fantasy, a risky role-playing game where the people I worked with were little more than fleshed-out characters. A game which came to an end only to be replaced by a new scenario with new characters. But it was different with Tommy. A part of me hated his guts for what he’d done to me and my family, but like some deluded victim suffering from a form of Stockholm Syndrome, another part of me genuinely liked him. Either way, I knew that getting him arrested would give me a lot less satisfaction than I’d been expecting when I first started out on this job.
As I turned away and walked up to my front door, Tommy’s words rang out in my ears:
Fourteen
‘I can’t believe this,’ said DCI MacLeod as Tina sat opposite him across the desk in his office. ‘We question him on and off for the best part of twenty-four hours and then, while he’s twiddling his thumbs in his cell, he suddenly remembers that he’s got an alibi.’ His tone was more confused than angry, and he was pulling on one end of his moustache, which was a habit of his when stress was getting the better of him.
Tina nodded. ‘He said the anxiety of the arrest made him forget about it. Also, we’re charging him with five murders so he’s not going to remember immediately that he had an alibi for one.’
‘You don’t believe him though, do you?’
She threw up her hands in frustration. ‘I honestly don’t know. The fact is, he’s got what might be a cast-iron alibi for one of our five murders, and as far as I remember this particular murder had exactly the same MO as the others. So, if he didn’t do one. .’
‘We don’t know he didn’t do it. He could just be messing us about.’ The way MacLeod said it suggested he was clutching at straws.
‘I don’t think he is, sir. He seemed adamant. I’ve had to give him permission to call his solicitor.’
MacLeod sighed. ‘Fair enough, I suppose. You know, Tina, I’ve been doing this job for getting on for twenty- five years—’
‘You look too young for that, sir,’ she said, spurred on by the vodka.
He gave her a strange look, clearly not expecting a flippant comment like this from his normally serious DI, particularly in the midst of a serious conversation, and Tina cursed herself for being stupid enough to drink on duty.
‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘in all my years, I can’t remember the last case I came across where the suspect’s guilt was so bloody cut and dried. He has to be guilty, Tina. He just has to be.’
She was about to say she agreed when his phone rang. MacLeod looked at the handset, clearly pondering whether it was worth picking up or not, before deciding it was.
He was on the line for about two minutes, during which time he hardly spoke as he listened to the person at the other end. Finally, he said that he’d get back to the caller and hung up, banging down the receiver hard enough to startle Tina.
‘That was Jacobs,’ he said wearily, referring to Kent’s solicitor. ‘He’s just been speaking to Kent’s mother and grandmother. According to them, the funeral did indeed take place on the day the pathologist said Roisin O’Neill died, and Kent was in attendance. Easyjet have also confirmed that he was on the flight going up to Inverness the day before the funeral and on the flight coming back to Luton two days later. Jacobs says he’s going to collect more witness statements testifying to Kent’s presence, and in the meantime he wants the charges dropped since it’s obvious he can’t have killed Ms O’Neill. Ergo, he can’t have killed any of them.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘What do you expect me to do?’ he said, raising his voice. ‘We’ve got the murder weapon by his bed, with his DNA and the DNA of at least two of his victims on it, as well as the graphic footage on his computer. I can’t very well let him go, can I? Whatever his brief might like me to do.’
‘No, I understand that, sir.’
‘Sorry, Tina, I know you do.’ He wiped a hand across his brow. ‘But this has really thrown things off kilter. Has Kent come up with alibis for any of the other murders?’
She shook her head. ‘No. Just Roisin O’Neill’s.’
‘So we’ve got enough evidence to hold him.’
‘But we’ve still got the problem of explaining his alibi to a jury. If it really does turn out that he couldn’t have killed Roisin, then our whole case is up the creek. The MO was the same for Roisin as it was for all the others, wasn’t it? I thought it was, but I didn’t join the team until after her murder.’
MacLeod nodded slowly. ‘It was.’
He sat back in his seat and tugged hard on the edge of his moustache, as if he was making a concerted effort to pull it off completely. He looked red-faced and unwell, the stress of the case clearly getting to him. It was known that he liked a drink, and Tina wondered if she might end up looking like him one day, burnt out by the job, an early grave beckoning.
‘Andrew Kent committed the murder,’ he said firmly. ‘I don’t know how he’s worked this alibi, but it’s bullshit, and one way or another we’ll be able to prove it. In the meantime, we’ve got more than enough evidence for the magistrates to remand him in custody tomorrow. So I think the whole team deserves a celebration drink. Including you.’ He made a valiant effort to smile. ‘Are you going to grace us with your presence tonight?’
His tone suggested he was just ribbing her, but there was also an underlying issue wrapped up in it. Tina rarely socialized with the members of her team. These days, she preferred to finish up at work and head home to the flat where she lived alone, make a bite to eat and then get slowly and steadily pissed alone in front of the TV, unseen by her colleagues, and unbothered by the problems of the outside world. But she was also aware of her responsibilities now that she was a DI and in charge of people, and she knew she was going to have to at least show willing. ‘Sure, I’ll come along for a while.’
‘Good. It’ll be nice to see you let your hair down.’
Tina doubted that. When she hit the bottle, she tended to hit it hard, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. But she didn’t say anything.
‘And let’s not spoil it by going on too much about Kent’s alibi in front of the others,’ he continued. ‘It’s just a last-ditch attempt by a man who’s been caught near-enough red-handed to pull the wool over our eyes.’
She nodded. ‘OK. You’ve convinced me.’
But the problem was, he hadn’t.
Fifteen
One of the nastiest people I ever had to deal with was an up-and-coming Essex-based gangster by the name of Jason Slade. Slade owned a security company that ran the door on nightclubs across Kent and Essex, and controlled all the illegal drugs being sold in them. He also ran a team of thieves who stole and re-badged luxury cars, before exporting them for sale in Russia and the Middle East, which was a hugely lucrative business, estimated at the time by the National Crime Squad to be worth several million in profits per year, making him extremely rich for a twenty-eight-year-old without a qualification to his name.
Like Tyrone Wolfe, Slade was surveillance aware and very careful in his dealings. He was also a sadist, who
