Clarke could feel himself becoming flustered. “My apologies,” he said, hurriedly rummaging through the papers on his lap until he found the document he’d written on his client’s behalf during their consultation.
“Yes, a prepared statement. Here we go…” He cleared his throat and then began reading. “This is a prepared statement written by my solicitor but dictated by me, Gifford Mullings. I have asked my solicitor to read it out on my behalf. I will then be exercising my right to remain silent and will reply ‘no comment’ to all questions asked from that point onwards. I want to make it abundantly clear that I –”
“Use that word a lot, do you, Gifford?” Murray said, interrupting the solicitor. “Do you even know what abundantly means?” he scoffed.
“If I might be allowed to continue without further interruption,” Clarke snapped, absolutely livid with Murray for disrupting his flow.
Murray shrugged the rebuke off. “Just confirming that it was something he would normally say and not words you’ve put into his mouth,” he said with a saccharine smile.
Clarke’s features contorted with rage, but he knew he had to tread carefully because he had put words into Mullings’s mouth. In fact, he had written the prepared statement off his own back while Mullings read through the sports section of The Sun.
“As I was saying,” he said through gritted teeth, “… I want to make it abundantly clear that I had no idea my friend and his two associates were planning to break Claude Winston out of custody when I drove them to the hospital yesterday. Had I known what they intended I would not have allowed myself to become involved. I was told that Mr Winston was being discharged after an operation and that they wanted to take him home in style, which is why they had stolen a top of the range car. I was there as a chauffeur, not as a getaway driver. I do not know the names of two of the three people who were in the car with me. The only one whose name I do know is my friend, Errol Heston. I’m sure he will vouch for me if you ask him.” Clarke looked up and smiled triumphantly at Sergeant, who completely stonewalled him. It was clear from the frosty stare she was giving him that she didn’t believe a word of it.
He didn’t care what she thought. What he’d told them was complete bollocks, and everyone in the room knew it but, with Errol dead, the police would struggle to refute anything in the prepared statement. He cleared his throat again, feeling that he had regained the upper hand. “That concludes Gifford Mullings’ prepared statement,” he said piously. “I sincerely hope that you will now respect my client’s wishes, and refrain from asking him any more questions.”
Mullings nodded, seemingly impressed. “Can I go home now?” he asked.
“Not gonna happen,” Murray said flatly. He turned to face Clarke, regarding the man as though he was something unpleasant that he’d just trodden in. “Your client can sit there and say as much or as little as he wants, I don’t really care one way or another. Not only are we entitled to ask him any questions that we feel are relevant, we also have a sworn duty to the victim and his family to do exactly that, and for that reason, we intend to continue the interview as planned.”
Clarke made a show of huffing and puffing and protesting on his client’s behalf, but it was all gamesmanship and the police officers knew it. The bottom line was that Mullings was completely fucked. He was going to be charged with a Joint Enterprise murder; the only question was would it happen later today or would they grant him technical bail while they assembled all the outstanding statements, forensic evidence and CCTV at their leisure.
If they granted technical bail in regards to the murder, Mullings would still be remanded in custody for the TDA and drugs offences. When the poor naive fool had asked about his prospects of bail at Magistrates Court, Clarke had advised him not to hold his breath. The truth was there was no way in hell he was getting bail, not with his previous offending history. Mullings already had several convictions for failing to appear at court. Coupled with the fact he was looking at an imminent murder charge, it made him a considerable flight risk. Clarke reckoned there was more chance of persuading DS Sergeant to participate in one of his sexual fantasies with him, and getting DC Murray to pay for their hotel room than there was of a Magistrate granting Mullings bail.
Chapter 17
Dean Fletcher popped his head around Tyler’s office door. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said, looking over the top of his reading glasses, “but I thought you might be interested to hear that I’ve found out where Angela Marley is living.”
“Excellent,” Jack said. “Have you passed on the good news to Mr Quinlan?”
“Not yet,” Dean said. “You’re my boss, not Mr Q, so I wanted you to be the first to know. Well, the second if you count Mr Dillon.”
Jack couldn’t help but smile. Throughout the day, his team had been calling him with updates on the actions they had been given by Andy’s MIR. They all knew that this went against protocol, and they should either be reporting back to a supervisor on Andy’s team or calling it into his MIR, but they also all knew that, with his team seconded, Tyler had been left twiddling his thumbs with not a lot else to do. The fact that they were reporting back to him first was their way of keeping him involved, and it was very touching.
“Much appreciated, Deano,” he said, “but you really should be telling Mr Quinlan or one of his supervisors this, not me.”
“Don’t care,” Dean said with belligerence. The researcher tended to see things very much in
