Dark Side (24 page)

Hopkins grunted.

‘As well as your official duties as doorman did you act as some kind of bodyguard for a man using the name, among others, of Nick Hamsworth when he was on the premises?'

‘No.'

‘No?'

‘I've never been nobody's bodyguard.'

‘You do know him, though.'

‘No.'

‘He was there, in charge, that night at the club when you seriously assaulted two of my operatives.'

‘We didn't know they was the law. There was a buzz goin' round that a mobster from Bristol was goin' to try to take over the club.'

‘Answer the question. Do you know this man?'

‘S'pose I do, then,' Hopkins muttered.

‘And because of this rumour the decision had been made to break into a part of the building that wasn't included in the rental agreement – in order perhaps that you could remain on the premises at night to guard it and use it as a hideaway.'

‘I don't know about rental agreements and stuff like that.'

‘I think you're lying. Were you aware that the club was being run as an illegal brothel?'

‘I don't know nothin' about that either. I just did as I was told.'

‘Orders issued by Hamsworth – who also liked to be known as Raptor.'

The man just shrugged.

‘Where is he, by the way?'

‘God knows.'

‘It looks as though he's done a runner and left you to take the blame.'

‘No.'

‘So what were you doing there? Hiding in a bathroom, wasn't it?'

‘I haven't got nowhere else to go, have I?'

‘No home or digs?'

‘I got chucked out for not payin' the rent.'

‘So as well as leaving you to take the rap, Hamsworth hasn't paid you.'

Again, Hopkins shrugged.

‘Left behind like all the rubbish,' Greenway murmured.

‘Who are you callin' rubbish?' Kev shouted.

‘I'm not. But it's the way you were treated. Abandoned with no money, no food and every prospect of soon being arrested for serious assault.'

‘It's only their word against mine,' Hopkins said with a hint of triumph and a jerk of his head in my direction.

I caught Greenway's eye and said, ‘According to one of the men arrested when two undercover officers were set upon by a group of thugs previously to the rear of Beckford Square, it was you who issued the orders, passed down from the boss. You've already been charged in connection with that. Like all of them, no doubt, this man had suffered violence from you and his relatives had been threatened if he didn't do as he was told. It's going to end up being several people's word against yours. And here you are, the one left behind to serve a long prison sentence. They always made fun of you too, didn't they, Kev?'

He glowered at me and I was glad that two other men were with me in the room.

‘They being Hamsworth and what Benny Cooper referred to as his private army, I mean,' I went on. ‘The ex-servicemen, not those in the club that night. Those were just the local hangers-on and odd-job boys, weren't they? And now they've
all
high-tailed it to London, leaving what they regard as stupid old Kev behind.'

Perhaps thinking that he might have to act as my minder if I carried on in this vein, Greenway quickly said, ‘So here you are charged with GBH and another charge of murder soon to follow.'

‘Murder?' Hopkins echoed, his small eyes popping.

‘Cooper. You were obeying orders just like you said and bludgeoned him with a hammer before finishing him off by cutting his throat.'

I had been thinking that the interview was not going at all well, without any proper structure, but it appeared that Greenway had his methods.

‘I wasn't involved with that!' the big man protested. ‘I wasn't even there that night they grabbed the cop and …'

‘Keep talking,' the commander ordered.

Hopkins leaned forward in his chair, winced and sat back again. ‘Look, I wasn't there. I was ill. I got a horrible bug after fallin' in the drain. It was just after that I got kicked out of the digs. Honest, I wasn't
there
.'

‘OK. They grabbed the cop, and then what?'

‘I'm not sayin' no more.'

‘But if you weren't there and completely innocent it's a good idea to provide a bit more information. That way I
might
believe you.'

Gazing at the ceiling for a moment, the man appeared to come to a decision. ‘All right. Cooper was making a real nuisance of himself. Right bumptious little sod he was. And then, when he started ordering everyone around when the boss wasn't there …'

‘Hamsworth decided to get rid of him,' Greenway said when the big man stopped talking.

‘Nah, he wasn't there then either.'

‘Oh?'

After a long pause, Hopkins said, ‘They all got a bit drunk.'

‘Who's all?'

‘The blokes at the club the other night. But not the boss.'

‘Names?' the commander demanded to know.

With the eagerness of a man endeavouring to save his own skin, Hopkins said, ‘There was Dave MacTavish and Ned Freeman.' With a furtive glance in my direction he added, ‘And Squinty Baker – the one with the funny eyes.'

‘Is his first name Terry or Jerry?' I asked.

‘Dunno. Everyone just calls him Squinty.'

‘Tell us what happened,' Greenway said.

‘Look,' Hopkins pleaded. ‘If I tell you how it was, how they told it to me, will you get me off the murder charge?'

‘Only if you're found to be telling the truth. I can't do anything until we know for sure.'

‘That's not good enough.'

Greenway thumped a big fist down on the table and DI Campbell, standing over by the door, was the only one who jumped. ‘But they might have been giving you a stack of lies, mightn't they? Just give us the story and then everyone can get on with investigating to see if there's any truth in what you say!'

‘OK,' Hopkins said reluctantly. Then, after another long pause, continued, ‘They decided to cart him off to the tip and chuck him in a skip or something like that – to teach him a lesson, like. But it went wrong. They went to Cooper's in Dave's car and he'd got this can of motor oil that he'd pinched from work – he works at that place that sells and services posh motorbikes. It wasn't quite full and he hadn't put the top back on right – it fell over and spilled all over the back seat. So they had to clear that up a bit and Dave was furious as the oil was posh too and he already had a buyer for it. When they got to Cooper's Mallory was there. He's a real creep, a junkie. Cooper treated him like a doormat, made him run errands all the time. They was in the middle of a row as Mallory wanted money, and a fix, and Cooper was saying no. He was horrible to that man and hit him several times and—' Here Hopkins broke off and actually seemed distressed.

‘Please continue,' Greenway urged quietly.

‘The boys all took exception to this as … Well, OK, Mallory's a creep but he's weak and pathetic and no one likes to see a man kicked when he's down.'

I put a large exclamation mark on my notepad but made no comment.

‘They got hold of Cooper, really keen to take him to the tip now and chuck him into something he couldn't get out of in a hurry. Then this cop rolled up. The boys didn't know he was a cop but Cooper and Mallory did. The bloke was drunk, stoned out of his mind and was raving that he was going to get Cooper if it killed him. Then he collapsed. Went down like a ninepin. And he was burning hot, perhaps sick as a parrot rather than been on the booze.'

I looked at Campbell, who dropped his gaze.

‘Anyway,' Hopkins went on, really getting into his stride now. ‘They looked in his wallet for some kind of identification, to double-check, like, and as well as finding out that he was a DCI Dave found a photograph of the boss so they knew the cop was on to him too. He kept it. Then they used the cop's car – he'd left it nearby on the double yellows – as they couldn't all get into one. They didn't know what to do with him really but took him along and Dave drove it to the tip with the others following in his, Ned driving it. God knows how, Ned could hardly walk he was so pissed, let alone drive. Mallory wouldn't be left out and went along as well. They couldn't stop him.'

‘And?' I said.

‘Mallory killed Cooper. He went mad when they'd broken into the tip. Hunted through Dave's and the cop's car boots – they didn't know what the hell he was after until he found the hammer – and shoved Cooper over before bashing him over the head with it. He was crazy, insane, right off his rocker and threatened all the guys with it, demanding some kind of knife. Dave had one, a Scottish thing which he said was a good luck charm but he didn't want it no more as it hadn't brought him any. Someone helped Mallory heave Cooper – they all thought he was dead, actually – into a skip where Mallory used the knife on him. God knows what he did – we couldn't see and didn't want to. Then everyone scarpered before Mallory could climb out and start on them too.'

‘They took both cars?' Greenway asked sharply.

‘Too right. Didn't want to leave the lunatic with any transport.'

‘So wasn't Mallory's car parked near Cooper's place?'

‘God knows. Perhaps they'd both arrived together.'

‘They didn't see where the man went or what he did with the hammer and the knife?'

‘No, and they shoved the cop out of sight somewhere. No one wanted that madman to get him as well.'

‘
Really?
' Greenway enquired in utter disbelief.

‘Not bloody likely. It would have made them accessories, or whatever you lot call it, to murdering a cop. Not only that, Dave said it would've been like leavin' a baby to drown.' And, on an afterthought, ‘They
was
stoned, of course.'

‘But they'd found the photo,' I said, needing to get one small detail right in my mind. ‘And as you said, that meant the cop was on to Hamsworth. Wasn't that an unwise thing to do, to just leave him there, a danger to the boss?'

Hopkins frowned deeply. ‘Look, lady, I wasn't there, and as I keep sayin', they
was stoned.
There had been talk of us all gettin' out and leavin' him with his London boys, a right dodgy lot. Too much trouble, too many risks of us gettin' blamed for anything
they
did out of line. As it was, Dave told him the cop went off his head and killed Cooper in case he got mad at us for not stoppin' Mallory. We wanted out and to hell with him.'

‘But they've gone off, presumably with him, now,' Greenway pointed out.

‘Yeah, well, he offered them more money, didn't he?'

‘But not you?' the commander went on to ask, I'm sure also from the need for absolute accuracy.

‘No, not me,' Kev muttered.

I didn't
quite
feel sorry for him.

‘He's far too unimaginative and stupid to be able to make all that up,' Greenway said a little later. ‘And so probably are the rest of them, come to think of it. My only slight reservation is that they remembered afterwards what had happened.'

He and I were in Campbell's office, the DI having arranged coffee and biscuits.

‘I reckon he'll plead guilty to the lesser charges if a deal's done with him and he's told he'll probably be out of the frame for Cooper's murder,' the commander went on. ‘That story is so perfect, so absolutely believable I think I could write the screenplay if Hollywood ever wanted to film it. What say you, Ingrid?'

‘Likewise,' I replied.

‘So what's it to be, Detective Inspector?' Greenway continued. ‘Do I go and pay a quick call on your DCI to admire the new baby and tell him he's no longer charged with murder and free to come back to work as soon as he's well enough?'

‘I've already put out a warrant for Paul Mallory's arrest and Lynn Outhwaite's gone round, with backup, to his address,' Campbell hastened to say. ‘It's likely that Mallory did see where they put Carrick and was rational enough by that time to think it might save his skin if he wiped the knife and then got Carrick's fingerprints on it before tossing it into the skip. We don't yet know what he did with the hammer. And yes, sir, by all means.' He added, ruefully, ‘I'd better go and pack my bags.'

The commander got to his feet. ‘I hardly think that'll be necessary if you make suitably regretful noises. I won't be able to come down again but I'd like Patrick Gillard to interview Hopkins if we can't manage to track down this Raptor character. Just to see if he can give us any leads, however small, as to his possible whereabouts. I suggest you don't release him on police bail – partly for his own safety but mostly to prevent him from communi-cating with anyone.' When we had left the room Greenway said to me, ‘There was a bank raid last week in Ascot that the Met thinks was Hamsworth's doing. Very efficient and run on military lines, according to witnesses.'

But Patrick Gillard remained off the map.

I
had established, from Carrick, that Lynn Outhwaite was still keeping in contact with the girl at the club who had been ordered to compromise him that night. Other than saying that it was Kev who had told her what to do she was continuing to refuse to answer any more questions about the club or the people who had worked there, out of fear, Lynn knew. The DS rang me while Greenway and I were at the Carrick's to tell me that Mallory had not been at home, and, according to others questioned who lived in the same terrace, his car had disappeared two or three days previously.

An obviously delighted James, in a mood to get in his car and head for Bath on the receipt of the news, had merely smiled broadly when informed that Campbell was all ready to pack his bags. Then he had said, ‘I'll take him out and we'll get drunk together.'