‘This letter?’ Larry asked. ‘Do you still have it?’
‘It’s barely legible, childish in how it’s constructed. It’s further proof against McIntyre, but it wouldn’t be admissible, and even if it were, it wouldn’t hold up.’
‘Why didn’t you tell the police?’
‘I was more interested in protecting myself.’
‘Why are you telling us now?’ Vincent said. ‘You’ve had plenty of time before.’
‘You’ll be asking me about Bedford Gardens next.’
‘We will,’ Larry said.
‘The deaths will not stop, not until I tell you all I know,’ Stanford said. ‘It was a long time ago. I defended a colleague of McIntyre’s. I got to know them both well. The colleague died a few years later, shot in the back, a gang war, a dispute over territory. He wasn’t missed by anyone, least of all by me.’
‘McIntyre?’
‘I confronted McIntyre after Toxteth’s death, accused him directly. It was the same as it had been with Yanna White. He laughed in my face, although he was no longer a local hoodlum and I wasn’t a lawyer starting out on his career. Now, he was a major crime figure, and I was about to become a judge. Both of us had plenty to lose, although I had more.’
‘He had a hold on you?’
‘It was the man’s colleague from years before. I had advised McIntyre, naively, that a certain witness would cause trouble, and it would help if he changed his testimony.’
‘You told McIntyre to deal with the man?’
‘It was early in my career; I’d lost three cases in a row, and I was desperate. I wasn’t advocating anything, just saying that it would help. Probably a little too passionately.’
‘The witness?’
‘He didn’t turn up the next day, or any day after that.’
‘Murdered?’
‘What else?’
‘Bedford Gardens?’
‘McIntyre told me he wanted the place for private discussions, to store certain items.’
‘What did you think?’
‘I should have gone to the police, but my reputation was at stake. I knew what had happened to Stephen Palmer, to Devon Toxteth. I didn’t want it to happen to me.’
‘But now you are telling us.’
‘I never committed a crime, only made a comment in error, early in my career. It’s haunted me ever since.’
‘Marcus Matthews?’
‘I can’t help you there.’
Larry and Wally left the house a lot wiser than when they had entered it. Yet Larry was still concerned about whether it had been the whole truth. Each time Charles Stanford was confronted, a little more was revealed, although the last visit had given more than the previous ones, and in Larry’s hand, Devon Toxteth’s hand-written note. Faded as it was, the large letters, the poorly written content, still represented proof of McIntyre’s murder of a man in a warehouse twenty years previously.
Chapter 34
Gareth Armstrong sat in a cell at Challis Street. He looked around at the walls, expecting to see graffiti, a drunk’s attempt at humour, but there was none. To him, it was sterile, but it was no better, no worse, than others he’d been in.
It was, he knew, the start of a lengthy prison sentence; not much chance of release before he was old and decrepit. He should have felt sorry for himself, but he was beyond that. The thought processes that had served him in prison were resurrecting themselves; take one day at a time, keep on the side of those who were in charge, keep his nose clean. Little victories each day had been his creed; he would adopt it again.
In the interview room, two hours and fifty-five minutes after arriving at the station, two hours and six minutes after the door had slammed on the cell door, Armstrong sat on the chair indicated.
On the other side of the table, Isaac Cook and Wendy Gladstone. On Armstrong’s side, Fergus Grantham. The man did not seem pleased to be there.
‘Mr Armstrong,’ Isaac said after the formalities had been dealt with, ‘you’ve been charged with murder. How do you plead?’
‘My client exercises his right not to answer,’ Grantham said.
‘It’s first-degree murder, and we have proof. If Mr Armstrong doesn’t want to help his case, then that’s up to him.’
‘My client understands why he’s here.’
Wendy looked over at Armstrong. ‘We’re confused here. We can prove Mr McIntyre’s vehicle was at the murder scene.’
Armstrong said nothing, looked at Grantham.
‘You’ll not get an acquittal on this,’ Isaac said.
Grantham looked at Isaac and then cast a glance at Wendy. ‘My client is innocent until proven guilty. A vigorous defence will be conducted.’
‘Vigorous it may be, but we’ve got your client cold. We can prove the vehicle was there, and we have witnesses that will testify he was in the company of the two men on the day in question.’
Wendy preferred that Isaac hadn’t mentioned the witnesses.
The woman at the hotel reception, upon learning that one of the three men had been murdered, changed her tune. ‘Oh, yes, now you mention it, I can remember what they looked like, and the man in the middle, I did speak to him.’
The woman, since identified as Joyce Langley, had numerous charges against her for prostitution, heroin addiction, a propensity for making complaints about clients who either hadn’t paid or had abused her. She wouldn’t be credible, not in a court. The Mercedes had been picked up by CCTV not far away, and the only person identified had been Jacob Wolfenden.
‘I’m awaiting further instructions,’ Grantham said.
‘From Mr Armstrong or Mr McIntyre? Who are you representing here?’
‘Mr Armstrong.’
‘Let me put it to your client, and I suggest that you, Mr Grantham, take note as well. A claim of coincidence can’t be used here. Mr Armstrong was seen in the Stag Hotel, and a frequent customer of that establishment is
