Bleed for Me (38 page)

‘Try Benidorm next time, or Jamaica. Get yourself some black bootie. What do you want?’

‘I got a hypothetical,’ says Ruiz.

‘I hate fucking hypotheticals. Don’t you fairies ever deal with real situations?’

‘We weren’t boy scouts like you, Eddie.’

‘Dib fucking dob. What’s your hypothetical?’

Ruiz pitches the question: ‘You’re at trial. You discover the foreman of the jury meeting up with an acquaintance of the defendant. This particular acquaintance has a history of violence.

And this particular defendant has a history of getting away with murder. What do you do?’

‘Am I the defence or the prosecution?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Sure it fucking matters.’

‘You’re neutral.’

‘Could it be an accidental meeting?’

‘Doubtful.’

Eddie sucks air through his teeth. ‘The trial is probably fucked but the judge might just cut the foreman loose. Warn the jury. Keep going.’

‘So you’d tel the judge?’

‘Nah, I’d tel the police.’

‘Wil you help us?’ I ask.

Eddie laughs. ‘Now
there’s
a fucking hypothetical!’

42

Tuesday morning, sunny and warm - the forecast said rain. The roads are quiet on the drive to Bristol. Ruiz has one hand on the wheel and an elbow propped on the window.

His contact in the Met got back to him overnight. The name Mark Conlon threw up one match - a bank manager from Pontypool who lost his licence four years ago for drink-driving.

Five ten. Brown hair. No tattoos. He’s not the Crying Man. The plates on the Audi were either stolen or copied. We’re back to square one. Maybe Ronnie Cray wil have more luck.

We decide to breakfast near Queen’s Square in a modern place ful of chrome furniture and hissing steam. The waitresses are Romanian girls in short black skirts, who slip outside for cigarettes while it’s quiet. Ruiz orders a fried egg and bacon sandwich (‘On proper bread not that sourdough shit’). He flicks through the paper. The Novak Brennan trial is stil page one.

Marco Kostin wil resume giving evidence today. I can picture him in the witness box with hyper-real clarity, every tremor and blink and turn of his head. The cross-examination is stil to come and three barristers wil be queuing up to pick holes in his story.

The door opens. A tangle-footed teenager comes in wearing cycling gear. Multicoloured. A courier. He talks to a Romanian waitress. Kisses her lips. Young love.

‘I got a strange feeling about yesterday,’ says Ruiz.

‘Which bit of yesterday are we talking about?’

‘When I was fol owing the freak with the tattoos, I stayed wel behind him. I wanted to make sure he didn’t know he was being tailed. When he dropped off the pavement princess.

When he picked her up. When he went to the shithole hotel. I stayed out of sight.’

‘What’s so strange about that?’

‘It’s probably nothing.’ Ruiz shrugs. ‘I just got an impression that maybe he knew I was there. Once or twice he seemed to slow down, like he didn’t want the lights to change and for me to miss them.’

‘He
knew
he was being fol owed?’

‘That’s what it seemed like.’ Ruiz pushes his plate away. ‘Maybe we should check out his gaff before we talk to Cray. We could take a run over to the hotel; have ourselves a sticky.’

‘What about the trial?’

‘It’s not going to end today.’

On the street outside, Ruiz drops a coin into a busker’s hat and keeps walking, crossing the pedestrian precinct. We pul out of the underground car park, passing over the floating harbour to Temple Circus where we turn north along Temple Way. Taking the exit at Old Market Street, we pass close by Trinity Road Police Station on our way to Easton.

Stapleton Road has notices stuck to power poles warning against kerb crawling and drug dealing. It’s early and the crack whores and street dealers are stil in their coffins. We park in Belmont Street around the corner from the mosque. A Muslim woman with letterbox eyes waddles past us, pushing a pram. She could be seventeen or seventy-five.

The Royal Hotel is a crumbling three-storey building with metal bars on the lower windows. An old black man sits in the sunshine on the front steps. His hands are dotted with liver spots and they shake slightly, not with Parkinson’s but some kind of palsy. He’s reading a newspaper, holding it at arm’s length. An unwrapped sandwich rests half-eaten on a brown paper bag.

‘Morning,’ says Ruiz, ‘beautiful day.’

The cleaner blinks and shields his eyes with a hand. ‘You right about dat, mon.’

‘You taking a break?’

‘Been cleanin’ since first ting.’

Ruiz sits on the steps. ‘I’m Vincent and this is Joe.’

The old man nods. ‘Dey cal me Clive.’

‘Like Clive Lloyd.’

‘Wel , he from Guyana and I’m from Jamaica, but dat’s close enough.’ His chuckle sounds like he’s playing a bassoon.

Folding his newspaper casual y, he takes another mouthful of his sandwich, wondering why two white men are interested in talking to a hotel cleaner when most people treat him like he’s invisible.

Ruiz raises his face to the sun and closes his eyes. ‘I’m a former police officer, Clive, and we’re looking for a man with dark hair, slicked back, and tattoos on his face like he’s crying black tears.’

The old cleaner reacts as though he’s been scalded. He gets up from the steps and shakes his head so that his thin frame quivers.

‘Don’ talk to me about dis biznezz.’

‘Why not?’

‘The Lord gonna cal his chil un home before dat man bring anyting good to dis world.’

‘Is he staying here?’

‘He’s got himself a room. Don’ know if he sleeps in it.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Don’ see him much. I mind my own biznezz.’

‘But you clean his room?’

Clive shakes his head. ‘He don’ want no cleaning. He puts a sign on his door says, no cleaning. Suits me. Dem pay me by de hour not de room.’

The cleaner taps the newspaper against his thigh. ‘Wel , I better be gettin’ back to work.’

‘The man with the tattoos - do you know his name?’

‘No, mon.’

‘You ever talk to him?’

Clive shakes his head, his forehead ful of creases. ‘Mon like that, don’ wanna talk to someone like me. He don’ like my colour.’

‘What gave you that impression?’

‘Couple of black kids were breaking into his motor. Dey was running away, but he caught dem. Made one of dem boys eat dog shit. Made him kneel on de ground and chow down.

Never see dat before. D’other boy won’ be eating solids for a while. His mama gonna be feeding him strained bananas.’

Swal owing drily, he leans down to rewrap his sandwich, no longer hungry.

‘You’ve been very helpful,’ says Ruiz, shaking the cleaner’s hand. Clive looks at the ten-pound note in his palm. Closes his fingers. Opens them again just to be sure.

‘Maybe you could do one more thing for us,’ says Ruiz. ‘This guy must have signed something. You could show us the hotel register.’

Clive pockets the money, putting it deep inside his jeans, and then glances up and down the street before shepherding us into a tired-looking reception room with faded wal paper and worn carpet. The register is a long rectangular book with ink stains on the cover. Opening the pages, he runs a knobbly finger down the room numbers.

Room 6. Paid for in cash, a month in advance. A signature rather than a name - but he included the registration number for the Audi.

It doesn’t help us.

Clive closes the book, sliding it into a desk drawer. ‘Wel , I got work to do.’

‘You should clean Room 6,’ says Ruiz.

The old cleaner looks horrified. ‘Don’ you be tinking like dat.’

‘Like what?’

‘Tinking I’m gonna open up dat mon’s room.’

Ruiz tilts his chin to the ceiling and sniffs. ‘You smel that?’

Clive raises his chin. ‘Don’ smel nothing.’

‘Smoke,’ says Ruiz.

‘There ain’t no smoke.’

Ruiz vaults up the crazy network of stairs runs between the floors. He stops on the first landing. ‘Definitely smoke; coming from one of the rooms. Might be a fire.’

The cleaner drags himself up to the same level. Ruiz is outside No. 6.

‘I think we should cal the fire brigade and evacuate this place.’

Clive is shaking his head back and forth. ‘No, no, no, don’t be doing dat, mon.’

Ruiz touches the door. ‘Feels a little warm. Maybe you should open up - just to be sure.’

‘Get away with you.’

‘You ever heard of something cal ed probable cause, Clive? It means you have the right to enter if you think there’s a good reason.’

‘But there ain’t no fire!’

‘You don’t know that for certain.’

The keys jangle on the cleaner’s belt. He looks at us sadly and shakes his head in surrender.

The key turns and the door opens into gloom. Ruiz reaches for the light switch. The bed hasn’t been slept in and the curtains are drawn. There’s a wardrobe with double doors and a mirror in between. A side table next to the bed, a suitcase pushed under the springs. I can hear a dripping sound, which might be outside the wal s or within.

Ruiz is moving through the room, opening the wardrobe and the drawers, peering beneath the bed. There is a strange smel to the place that tightens the nostrils and crimps the lips.

‘Ain’t nuttin here, mon.’ says Clive. ‘Let’s go.’

Somewhere below I hear a door open. I glance over the railing, down the stairs, but can’t see anyone. At that moment a pigeon takes off from the window ledge, battering its wings against the glass. My heart takes off as wel .

‘Maybe we should leave,’ I say.

Ruiz has pul ed the suitcase from under the bed. He uses a handkerchief on the handle and covers his fingers as he slips each latch, lifting the lid, exposing the contents.

There are folders of newspaper clippings and photographs. Street scenes. Faces. Headlines. I recognise Bristol Crown Court. Protesters are waving placards and banners. Police are shown confronting the crowd, pushing them back. A face is circled with red marker pen: a woman in a grey jacket with an ID card around her neck. Police are al owing her through a checkpoint. I recognise her. Another juror.

Ronnie Cray doesn’t want to meet us at Trinity Road. This is unofficial, off the record, deniable. She chooses a snooker club in the old part of the city where the buildings look like compacted teeth and sacks of rubbish have stained the footpaths. The baize tables are upstairs and I can hear bal s being racked up and broken.

Cray is waiting at a table in the bar, nursing a cup of tea. She glances at me, then at Ruiz, her eyes neutral, then picks up her cup and takes a sip.

‘I thought you’d gone back to London,’ she says to Ruiz.

‘Stil sightseeing.’

A long bar runs down one side of the room, most of it in darkness except for a plasma TV screen showing sporting highlights. The exposed beams are decorated in old Christmas tinsel and squashed paper bel s.

We start at the beginning, tel ing Cray about seeing the jury foreman being roughed up outside a pub.

‘He met with the guy I told you about - the Crying Man - the one who’s been sitting in the public gal ery during the trial, chaperoning Novak Brennan’s sister.’

Cray doesn’t react. Her short-cropped hair is sprinkled with grey and the lines on her face seem deeper today.

‘You approached the foreman of the jury?’

‘Yes. No. Not real y.’

‘Do you know how many laws you’ve broken?’

‘We had to be sure.’

Somewhere above us a cue bal cannons into the pack. The sound echoes like a shot. Cray looks like she’s suddenly developed a toothache.

‘Tel me again why you were fol owing this guy?’

‘Sienna remembered him. On the night Gordon pimped her out - there was a second man in the car. He drove her to the address.’

‘You’re sure it’s the same man?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where does the Hegarty girl come into this?’

‘What if she had to sleep with someone involved in the case? She’s underage.’

‘Blackmail?’

‘Gordon El is and Novak Brennan knew each other in col ege. They shared a house. They could have stayed in touch.’

‘Yeah, but El is’s name has never come up in the intel igence files.’

Ruiz interrupts. ‘He used to cal himself Freeman. He took his mother’s surname after his first wife disappeared.’

Cray grunts dismissively, not convinced. Her eyes come back to mine. ‘The names and addresses of jurors are kept secret. They’re protected and after each trial they’re destroyed.’

‘This wasn’t a coincidence.’

Her voice drops to a whisper. ‘So you’re saying Brennan rigged the jury bal ot?’

‘Maybe he got hold of their names or he had them fol owed home. The trial has been going for weeks.’

Cray’s forearms are pressed flat on the table. ‘You’re talking about jury tampering. Conspiracy. Bribing an officer of the court. Brennan has been in custody for eight months. Every cal and letter is monitored. Even if he got to one juror, it won’t do him any good. He needs ten to get an acquittal.’

I glance at Ruiz. He pul s a dozen photographs from his jacket. Slides them between her forearms. The DCI doesn’t look down. For a brief moment I think she might simply stand and walk out. Her eyes stay fixed on mine, clouding.

Final y she lowers her gaze. Her face remains empty of expression but I see her throat swal ow drily and her chest rise briefly against her shirt.

‘The red circles identify members of the jury,’ I say.

Cray’s eyes cut sideways to me, her lips parting slightly. ‘Should I ask how you got these?’

‘They were in a suitcase under a bed in a hotel room. The Royal. It’s off Stapleton Road. This guy had photographs, a list of witnesses, newspaper cuttings, maps - serious research.’

‘What guy?’

Ruiz answers: ‘The Crying Man. He took the room three weeks ago. Paid cash. Signed in under a false name.’

Colour has died in Cray’s cheeks. Her next statement is almost an intel igible whisper. ‘Don’t tel anyone about this.’

‘What are you going to do?’

She doesn’t answer.

‘You have to tel the CPS,’ says Ruiz.