Now the affectations fell away. ‘Poor Lyle, that was terrible,’ he said.
‘Did you know Lyle, then?’
‘Know him?’ He perked up. ‘I think I was the last person to talk to him the night he died.’
This was far more than Carol could have hoped for. ‘That’s interesting. Sorry, I don’t know your name?’
He frowned. ‘Are you police? Only, you haven’t identified yourself.’
‘My name’s Carol Jordan. I used to be a police officer. A detective. But I’m . . . retired.’ It was a hard moment. The first time she’d admitted that as her status.
‘So why are you looking to talk to Gary about Sugar Lyle?’
‘There’s some question over the validity of Saul Neilson’s guilt.’
He gave a harsh bark of laughter. ‘You’re kidding me. You telling me you fucked it up? And now you’re, what? Trying to get out from under?’
‘Not me, no. It wasn’t my team who investigated Lyle’s murder. I wasn’t even a BMP officer at the time. And I’m freelance now.’
‘So who you working for? Who cares what happens to the bastard who offed Lyle?’
‘An organisation called After Proved Guilty. Look, can I come in and talk to you? It’s freezing out here.’ She gave him her best smile. These days, she didn’t think there was much wattage, but it was better than nothing.
He stuck his head out of the door and looked past Carol, checking nobody was watching. ‘I suppose,’ he said, leading her down a narrow hall. Someone had painted a mural along one wall. Carol recognised a stylised version of a corner of Temple Fields, the rainbow flag flying above the frontages of bars, fast food joints and a tattoo parlour. There was even a corner of the Indian restaurant where she and Tony had often sneaked off for a curry in mid-investigation.
‘Nice work,’ she said.
‘Cheers. I did it when I moved in last year to stop the place looking like a complete shithole.’
She followed him into the living room. Another mural, this time of the park in Temple Fields with its riotously decorated bandstand. ‘Is this what you do, then? Murals?’
He shrugged. ‘These ones are for me. Mostly I do shit for rich bastards who want a Caravaggio on their dining room wall.’
Apart from the mural, it was a typical young man’s flat. Bean bags, futon sofa with a grubby cover, ratty carpet with more stains than original colour. Dirty mugs on a cardboard side table made to resemble a stack of pizza boxes. The room smelled of stale takeaways overlaid with coffee. ‘You live here alone?’ Carol asked.
‘Yeah, for as long as I can afford to.’
‘You didn’t tell me your name.’
‘Not just a pretty face, then?’ The archness was back.
‘It’ll take me about seven minutes to find out, so do yourself a favour and save me the bother.’ She smiled to take the sting out of it.
He snorted. ‘Sit down, Carol Jordan. I’m Captain Scarlett. No, really,’ he added, seeing her frown. ‘I changed it by deed poll as soon as I was eighteen. I’ll show you my passport if you don’t believe me. People call me Cap.’
She eyed the futon. She’d sat on a lot worse. She grinned at him and perched on the edge. ‘So, Cap, how come you didn’t come forward to say you’d seen Lyle that night?’
‘Simple, love. I didn’t know anything about it. The next morning I was off at the crack of sparrowfart to Australia.’
‘Australia?’
‘Yeah. Big island in the Pacific. Where Kylie comes from.’
Carol rolled her eyes. ‘What were you doing in Australia?’
‘Following my boyfriend. He was a DJ. He’d scored a long-term gig in a club in Sydney so off I went like a good little camp follower.’ He gave a flounce and fell back into one of the bean bags. ‘We weren’t exactly keeping up with events in the Old Country. So the first I knew about Sugar Lyle was when I came back last year. Gary knew he was going down and he wanted somebody to sublet the flat to. I asked what had happened to Sugar Lyle and he told me the poor boy had been murdered. And nobody had seen him since the night before I’d left.’ He caught her eye. ‘And don’t go looking at me like that, I could no more murder a sweet boy like Sugar Lyle than fly back to Australia without a plane. Where I would not be welcome since the DJ and I did not part on the best of terms.’
‘So when exactly did you see Lyle?’
‘I’d been for a farewell burger with a couple of pals. Graphic artists, they’ve got a studio in Manchester, in the Northern Quarter. They’d gone off to get a train around ten so it must have been about half past.’
After Saul Neilson claimed Lyle had departed. ‘Where did you see him?’
‘There’s an alley just off the main drag in Temple Fields. It opens out about halfway down into a courtyard. There’s an old reading room or something there with a little porch, three steps up. It’s a bit of a hang-out for boys looking for custom. Lyle was the only one there, he was all huddled up on one of the steps. I stopped to say hello but he wasn’t up for a chat. He said he was on his way home, but he’d come over all faint. He’d had a nosebleed, he said. He was really fucked off. Said it had totally wrecked his evening. I left him to it and carried on my merry way.’ He lolled back and pulled a shiny scarlet vape from his pocket. He pressed the button and took a couple of quick primer puffs before delivering a cloud of coffee-scented vapour into the room.
Carol kept a straight face, not revealing what this information meant to her. ‘I don’t get it,’ she said. ‘It was my understanding that Lyle didn’t show up on the CCTV around Temple Fields that night.’
A shout of laughter. ‘Oh, such beautiful innocence. Dear Carol Jordan, all of us
