Knox and I looked at each other, then back at Merriweather. Jackie Slap stared straight ahead at me, his eyes cold. His expression was a simple one. It said: You can’t touch me. I held his gaze, looking back at him expressionlessly. The room was silent for several seconds as the two of us stared each other down. Carroll opened his mouth to say something, but it was me who spoke first.
‘What do you know about the murder of Robert Jones?’ I asked, and something in Merriweather’s expression cracked. The composure was restored within the space of a second, but it was too late. I’d caught it. I knew I was on the right track.
He shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t know nothing about anything like that. Never heard of the bloke.’
‘You’ve never heard of Robert Jones, the paperboy who got murdered six months ago?’
‘Oh yeah, yeah, that. I heard about it, but I don’t know nothing about it. Why should I?’
‘That’s a good question,’ said Carroll. ‘What has the murder of a paperboy got to do with the charges my client is being questioned in connection with?’
‘We think Mr Merriweather may be able to throw some light on the child’s murder,’ said Knox, emphasizing the word ‘child’.
‘Look, don’t try to fit me up with something like that!’
‘No need to shout, Jack,’ said Knox.
‘I’m surprised you thought you hadn’t heard of him,’ I continued, ‘because it was, and is, a very high-profile case, and the last place he was seen alive, before he was so brutally murdered, was Runmayne Avenue where an associate of yours, Tony Franks, has a house—’
‘Never heard of him.’
‘And where you were seen by witnesses on a number of occasions, including only two weeks ago, when you were emptying out the property and claiming you were Mr Franks’s brother.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘And I don’t know where this is leading,’ Carroll interjected. ‘I’m going to have to ask you to desist with this line of questioning. It’s completely irrelevant.’
I bent down beside my chair and picked up an evidence bag. I held it in front of Merriweather’s face. ‘Guess what this is.’
Merriweather squinted. ‘I can’t see anything.’
‘Look closer.’ I pointed my finger at something almost intangible in the bag. ‘It’s a fibre, Jack, or two fibres to be precise. They came from the coat Robert Jones was wearing on the day he died, and guess what? We found them in the house you were emptying the other week. What do you think of that, then?’
‘There must be some mistake.’ There was no doubting the fear on his face now. Carroll also looked wrong-footed by this unwelcome new development. ‘I don’t know anything about a dead kid.’
‘Are you sure about that, Jack?’ asked Knox.
‘Course I’m fucking sure.’
‘How do you explain it, then?’ I asked. ‘How they got there.’
‘It’s nothing to do with me. I didn’t live there.’
‘Why were you emptying out the place, then?’ Knox said.
‘Where’s Tony Franks, Jack? We can’t seem to find him.’
‘I don’t know a Tony Franks.’
‘Why were you emptying out his house, then?’
‘I wasn’t—’
‘We’ve got a witness who says you were. She even spoke to you.’
‘Fuck this, I don’t want to answer any more questions.’
‘I think my client would like a break in proceedings,’ said Carroll.
‘We haven’t finished yet,’ snapped Knox.
‘I’ve fucking finished,’ said Merriweather, folding his arms and making a great play of looking away.
‘Don’t you want to have a look at this photo?’ I asked, taking it out of my pocket and sliding it along the table towards Merriweather. ‘It’s the last one ever taken of Robert. Christmas Day lunch last year, six weeks before he died. It’s a good one, isn’t it?’
Merriweather continued to look away, but I could see that his jaw was quivering.
‘I really must protest about these methods. My client has already said he doesn’t want to answer any more questions on this matter. I am therefore requesting, in the strongest possible terms, that you terminate this interview.’
‘Were you aware, Jack, that a company called Dagmar Holdings paid the rent on Tony Franks’s house?’
‘I’ve never heard of Dagmar Holdings.’
‘Really?’ I said, and Merriweather immediately knew he’d made a mistake. You could see it in his eyes. ‘Two cheques from Dagmar Holdings totalling a grand total of nine thousand three hundred and twenty pounds were paid into a bank account belonging to your wife, one in February, another in June. You were also at the home of the company secretary of Dagmar Holdings when we arrested you.’
‘With an unlicensed firearm,’ added Knox for good measure.
‘As your representative, Jack, I advise you to make no further comment at this time.’
‘No comment,’ said Merriweather.
‘One way or another someone’s going down for this child murder, Jack,’ said Knox. ‘We’re not going to rest until we find the person responsible.’
‘And for some reason, you seem to be lying a lot during the course of this interview.’
‘And you’re connected very strongly to the house where we believe he died.’
‘Where’s Tony Franks, Jack?’
‘No comment.’
‘Did he kill Robert Jones, or did you?’
‘What did you kill him for, Jack? Did he see something he shouldn’t have done?’
‘No comment. I told you! No fucking comment!’ He turned to the brief. ‘Come on, Melvyn, tell ’em I’m not answering any more fucking questions about stuff I don’t know nothing about.’
‘You heard my client,’ said Carroll. ‘He’s saying nothing further at this time.’
Knox and I looked at each other and nodded. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘We’ll return you to your cells while we continue our enquiries. Before we finish, though, there’s one thing I’d also like to show you.’ I picked up another evidence bag, again seemingly empty. ‘It’s one of Robert Jones’s hairs, also found at Runmayne Avenue. Amazing what you can discover when you look hard enough, isn’t it?’
‘Not a very good clean-up job, was it?’ said Knox with a sympathetic
