Secret of the Dead (32 page)

Hunter could have sworn there was a twinkle in her eye. He returned his gaze to Alan Darbyshire, whose face was the colour of beetroot. Hunter said, “I want you to get dressed now Alan and then we’re taking you down to the station for questioning. You’ll already know this, but you’ll be able to contact a solicitor once we get there.”

“Meanwhile, I’ll be overseeing a search of your home,” added SIO Dawn Leggate. “Is there anyone else in the house we need to be aware of?”

He gulped, “My wife, Pauline, but she’s not very well. She’s made up with flu. She’s sleeping in the back bedroom.”

“Well, we’ll inconvenience her as little as possible, and we’ll try our best not to damage anything. Now if you’d get dressed please and my officers will escort you back to the station. I will see you later and update you.” The SIO beamed a broad smile at him. “After all, we want to make sure you have no grounds for complaint.”

Hunter thought he heard Alan Darbyshire swear beneath his breath as he trudged his way upstairs to dress.

* * * * *

Once they had left Darbyshire’s house, Hunter wanted as little contact as possible with their prisoner before his interview. He arranged for the retired DCI to be escorted back to the station by Tony Bullars and Mike Sampson, and for them to book him in at the custody suite. He knew that what lay ahead would challenge everything he had learned over the years, and so when he returned to the office he drafted an outline plan of how he intended to approach the interview. Twenty minutes later his pre-interview notes were ready. He cast his eye back over them, double-checking, matching times and dates against the evidence and information which had been recorded on the incident white boards. Finally he selected the exhibits he required, checked they were all labelled correctly, and that they corresponded with his notes. He slipped everything into a folder.

“Ready?” he asked, looking across his desk to Grace. She was resting her head in her hands.

“This is a first,” she said getting up, “You making notes prior to an interview. After all these years, you’re finally going to conduct an interview according to the rules.”

He smiled. “You’re know what they say about wit?”

“Anyway while you were preparing your stuff, I nipped next door to the HOLMES team and had a chat with Isobel. Things are really stepping up a gear.”

“Oh yeah?”

“She tells me that they’ve done quite a few checks on Peter Blake-Hall and Ronnie Fisher. Associates, vehicle ownership and premises checks mainly. They’ve got an address for Ronnie and guess what?”

Hunter raised an eyebrow.

“Swansea have confirmed a black Mitsubushi Shogun Sport listed to that address. Ronnie is right in the doo-dah now. The boss has asked Tony and Mike to do some discreet enquiries to confirm if he’s still living there and see if they can spot the vehicle. The gaffer’s apparently trying to get hold of Headquarters Surveillance Team to target him and Peter, especially now that we’ve pulled in Alan Darbyshire.”

“Well, we’d better make sure we can sign, seal and deliver everything at our end then.” He picked up his folder and a pen and made for the door.

In the interview room Alan Darbyshire was already seated at a table with the duty solicitor Miles Harper. As solicitors went, Hunter knew that Miles was one of the more amenable ones, who, providing the rules of PACE were adhered to, would allow the interview to flow without interruption.

Hunter had already decided he was going to play it straight down the line.

From chest height Hunter dropped his folder on the table and let some of the papers and exhibits spill out. The file was bulging, and his actions were deliberate. He wanted Alan Darbyshire to see exactly how much evidence they had against him. Hunter was determined to take a psychological advantage. He lowered himself into a seat opposite his adversary and tried to fix him with a stare. The retired DCI immediately dropped his gaze. Hunter loosened his shirt collar and slackened the knot in his tie. Then slowly he unfastened his shirt cuffs and rolled them back over his forearms. He clasped his hands in front of him, resting on the table.

Grace dropped into the seat next to him and switched on the tape recorder. A buzzing noise filled the room for several seconds.

When it stopped, Hunter said, “This interview is being tape recorded.” He then went into the starting preamble to any police tape recorded interview, strengthening the tone of his voice as he reminded Alan Darbyshire that he was still under caution,

“You understand why you have been arrested this morning?” he asked across the table. Darbyshire was beginning to sweat. Droplets of sweat teased his Brylcreemed hairline.

“Yes, and all I want to ask is when this is supposed to have occurred?”

“Nineteen-eighty-four. The trial of Daniel Weaver ring any bells?”

“A long time ago now, but yes I remember it.”

Hunter opened his folder and picked up his pre-interview notes. He scanned them, then looked up at Alan Darbyshire. This time he held Hunter’s stare.

“Mr Darbyshire, in nineteen-eighty-three you were a detective Sergeant in headquarters CID, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“And in August of that year, the twenty-seventh to be precise, you received a phone call from Peter Blake-Hall to the effect that his wife was missing. Is that correct?”

“It is.”

“Can you lead me through what you did regarding that missing person enquiry.”

Alan Darbyshire licked this lips, then answered, “Peter rang me early that Saturday morning and told me that his wife hadn’t come home, and that he was worried because he had rung her parents, and round her friends and no one had seen or heard from her. I went to his house with Jeff Howson, made the decision that this was not a usual missing from home, and therefore took a few details and got a recent photo from him of his wife Lucy, then went back to the nick and began making enquiries.” He paused, but he still held eye contact with Hunter across the table.

“Go on, tell me exactly what you did.”

“You know what happened after that, because I’m guessing that since we last spoke you will have read the file, otherwise why would you be asking these questions?”

“Please Alan, just go through what you did regarding your enquiries.”

He shook his head. “Well, as you know we found out that Lucy had been seen arguing with a man the night before in Barnwell Market place - the Friday, it was a Bank Holiday and there were quite a few folks about who had witnessed it. Anyway we found out that the person she had been seen arguing with was a Daniel Weaver. That was the last anyone had seen of her and so, early Sunday morning, me and Jeff went around to his flat and had a chat with him, hoping that Lucy was there. She wasn’t, of course. He admitted he’d been having an affair with her, and that he’d asked her to come and live with him, but she’d told him it was over and they’d ended up rowing about it. We noticed scratches to his face and when we asked him how they’d come about he said that Lucy had done them when he’d grabbed hold of her and she’d pulled away. When we asked him what had happened after the argument, he told us she had left to go home. We weren’t happy with that story and so we arrested him and carried out a search of his flat.”

“And did you find anything?”

“Not in his flat we didn’t. Later, Scenes of Crime found her prints there, but we knew from what he’d told us that she had spent some time there, so they were valueless. But we did find her handbag in a shed in the garden at the back of the flats, which was his. It was hidden in some sacking. He couldn’t account for it being there.”

“And it was definitely Lucy’s handbag?”

“Definitely. Peter identified it.”

“So you then interviewed him back at the station?”

“Yes.”

“And what form did that interview take?”

“I interviewed him and Jeff wrote down everything.”

“You made contemporaneous notes?”

“Yes, that was how interviews were conducted in those days.”

“These notes?” Hunter opened up his folder and removed three clear plastic exhibit bags each containing a set of interview notes from the original prosecution file. “I am showing the prisoner exhibit numbers HK one, HK two and HK three.”

Alan Darbyshire separated the bags, lined them up straight in front of him and scrutinised their contents. Then he replied, “Yes these are the original notes of those interviews with Daniel Weaver.”

“And they are all signed and dated by yourself and Jeffery Howson.”

Alan Darbyshire nodded. “Yes as I’ve already said, that is what we did in those days. Once the notes were completed, Daniel would be invited to read them and if he agreed with their contents he signed them and then we signed them.”

“I just want you to look carefully at the notes Alan and confirm that numbers HK one and HK two were signed by Daniel, but in the case of the set of contemporaneous notes HK three, instead of Daniel’s signature there are the words ‘refused to sign’ at the bottom of each page.” Alan Darbyshire’s face started to flush pink. “Why is that Alan? Especially given the fact that in those notes he has admitted to killing Lucy and burying her on Langsett Moor.”

The retired DCI gulped. “I can’t answer the reason why he didn’t want to sign them. He just didn’t. But what’s in them is almost word for word of what he said. ”

“Okay, fair enough Alan, I will come back to that later, but for now we’ll move on.” He put the three exhibit bags to one side. “So, based on his admission and the evidence of the handbag found in the shed, Daniel Weaver was charged with Lucy’s murder and remanded to prison?”

“And of course the witness evidence of him and Lucy arguing in the market place yes.”

“And in May the following year he went for trial, and you stood in the witness box and gave evidence regarding everything you have just said.”

“Yes, you know all that. It’s in the file.”

“Okay, thanks Alan. I want to move it on a bit now. You know we are investigating the murder of your old colleague Jeffery Howson, because we told you that when we came to see you on twenty-sixth November.

“Yes, terrible thing that. Have you found out who killed him?”

“We have some leads.” Hunter paused and watched for a reaction as he let the words sink in. Alan Darbyshire’s look remained steadfast. “Putting those to one side, while we have been investigating his murder we have come across some disturbing evidence which impacts on the Daniel Weaver trial.” He caught a reaction in Darbyshire’s face. The retired DCI blinked several times, and gulped, but managed to re-compose himself. Hunter sifted through his exhibits and pulled out the plastic bag containing the contemporaneous notes from Jeffery Howson’s safe. “In his house we found these. I want you to look at them carefully and see if you recognise them?” Hunter turned the clear plastic bag towards him and pushed it across the table. He watched as a trickle of sweat fell from Alan Darbyshire’s hairline and down the side of his face until it collected at his jaw line.

The retired DCI spent the best part of a minute scrutinising the evidence inside the clear plastic bag and then looked up. He shrugged.

Hunter asked again, “Do you recognise them?”

“Should I?”

“Is that your signature at the top and bottom of the notes?”

He glanced at the exhibit again for a few seconds, then looked at Hunter. “Looks like mine.”

“Well those notes are timed and dated exactly the same as the ones I have previously shown you, exhibit HK three, but they are signed by Daniel Weaver and what is interesting Alan, is that in those notes, just like as in exhibits HK one and HK two, he denies his involvement in the murder of Lucy Blake-Hall. What if I also tell you that those have been analysed by forensic scientists and they can be dated back to nineteen-eighty-three. You’ll know what I mean when I say they’ve been analysed, won’t you Alan? The grading of papers and the watermarks have been compared, as well as the chemical compositions of the inks. They were also ESDA tested. For the tape that is Electro Static Detection Apparatus testing, where graphite is poured onto paper and it fills in any indentations. You understand that process, don’t you Alan?”

He nodded.

“The tape can’t pick up nodding.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Testing found indentations of lettering transferred through from exhibit number HK two. You know what that means, don’t you Alan?”

“Enlighten me.”

“These notes from Jeffery Howson’s house must have been at some stage been beneath the contemporaneous notes, exhibit HK two, for the handwriting impressions to have indented through. I therefore put it to you that these notes are the original ones Daniel made during your interview with him, and that notes HK three are a fabrication you and Jeffery Howson put together after interview to convict Daniel Weaver.”

Alan Darbyshire stared hard at Hunter. The corners of his mouth set tight and then he answered, “No comment.”

“You went into the witness box at Crown Court and told lies, didn’t you?”

“No comment.”

Hunter sat back in his seat and grinned. After several seconds of silence, he leant forward. “I want to now ask you questions about the murder of Jeffery Howson.”

“What?”

 “When we spoke with you at your home, one of the questions we asked you was, when did you last speak with Jeffery? If I remember rightly, your response was ‘It’d be about two weeks ago now.’ In fact, we know from phone records that Jeffery rang your home on the evening of twenty-second November, the day he was murdered.”

Alan Darbyshire bit down on his lower lip, pondered on the question for a good ten seconds, then the look on his face lightened. “Now now, detective sergeant, I think you need to check your notes there. If I remember rightly you asked me when I had last seen Jeff, not when I last spoke with him.” He threw his own smug grin back at Hunter.

Hunter glanced at Grace for support. She shrugged. He quickly gathered his thoughts.

“Okay Alan, my mistake. Moving on regarding that call he made to you, what did he say.”

Darbyshire looked to the ceiling momentarily then answered, “Nothing much, just passing the time of day, this and that. I think he just wanted to talk to someone.”