Deadly Friends (6 page)

Then, with a blunt black fibre-tipped pen, I carefully drew a line through all the clues for the lines that I’d filled in. You need inspiration like that for the Guardian crossword.

I was admiring my work when a pair of hands fell on my shoulders. ‘Need any help?’ Sparky asked.

‘Er, n-no thanks,’ I stuttered, guiltily, ‘I, er, think that’s as far as I can go.’

‘Read the clue out,’ he invited.

‘Clue!’ I gasped. ‘Clue! Since when did we bother with clues?’

He’d come to tell me that the interview room was set up and Skinner and the duty solicitor were waiting
for us. We discussed tactics for ten minutes and went downstairs.

Skinner was smoking. We, the employees, are not allowed to smoke in the nick, but stopping our clients doing so would be to violate their civil liberties. I found him an ashtray. Sparky switched the tape recorder on and did the introductions. It was ten thirty a.m. and we had him for another twenty-three hours. I verified that he was Ged Skinner and his main place of residence was the squat.

‘Did you know Dr Clive Jordan?’ I asked.

‘Yeah,’ he grunted.

‘How did you know him?’

‘’Cos he was prescribing methadone for me.’

‘Why?’

He looked straight into my eyes and said: ‘’Cos I’m a fucking dope-head, ain’t I?’

I said: ‘I know why you were taking methadone. What I want to know is why was Dr Jordan prescribing it for you? He wasn’t your GP, was he? And as far as we know he wasn’t attached to any programme.’

Skinner galloped his fingertips on the table. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Sorry. I, er, met him about five weeks ago, at the General. The wife was sent to see him, by her doctor. Women’s problems. She was worried – scared – so I went in with her. He was good about it. Brilliant. Said she was pregnant but there was nothing to worry about, if she was careful with herself. Gave her some pills and told her to come back in a month. Then he
looked at me and said: “That’s her fixed up, now what are we going to do about you?” I said “How do you mean?” and he told me that if I didn’t get off drugs I might not live to see my kid.’

‘Who told him you were on drugs?’

‘Nobody, I don’t think. He could see from the state I was in.’ He raised his arms and said: ‘This is sound, for me.’

‘Go on,’ I invited.

He folded his arms and sat for a few moments with his chin on his chest. ‘I’ve done all the cures,’ he began. ‘All the do-gooders have had a go at me. St Hilda’s, Project 2000, the City Limits Trust. You name it, I’ve done it. But nobody talked to me like he did. They’re all sympathy and encouragement and “I know what you’re going through.”’ He raised the pitch of his voice for the last bit and affected a posh accent. ‘There was none of that with the doc. He said: “Get off it now or you’re dead. D-E-A-D fucking dead!” He said he’d help me as much as he could, but he couldn’t do it for me. It was up to me. I said right. Let’s give it a go.’

‘So he started prescribing methadone for you.’

‘That’s right. One day at a time. He’d leave a script for me either at the hospital or, later, I’d collect one from his flat. I’m down to twenty milligrams.’

‘From what?’

‘From whatever I could get. ’Bout hundred milligrams, plus horse.’

‘And you were doing OK?’

‘Yeah. You don’t gouch out on it, but it helps you through the bad times, which is all the H does, when you’ve been using it as long as me.’

‘So when did you last see him?’

‘Day before Christmas Eve, ’bout half past six.’

‘At his house?’

‘That’s right.’

‘How long were you with him?’

‘Not long. Two minutes. We just stood on the doorstep chatting for a while. He gave me a script for two days and a letter to take to this GP in London.’

He was anticipating my questions. I sat back and let Sparky take over.

‘What GP in London?’ he asked.

‘A GP in London. When I told him that I wanted to go there he persuaded me that a script for a week wasn’t a good idea.’

‘Where were you going in London?’

‘Wandsworth.’

Sparky made an encouraging gesture with one hand. ‘You’re allowed to elaborate,’ he said. The new caution has been a big help. Suspects now know that silence, or being obstructionist, might ruin their defence, so they usually give an answer of sorts, but Skinner was almost being helpful.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘I have some good friends in Wandsworth. Jim and Mary. We was in care together, from being about ten. We split up when we were sixteen, but we’ve always kept in touch. I go see them every
Christmas, if I can. I told the doctor and he asked me to find out the name of a GP down there. He rang him and did me a letter of introduction, so I got my scripts no problem.’

‘We need Jim and Mary’s address, and the doctor’s,’ Sparky told him. Skinner recited them from memory and I wrote them down to save time waiting for the tape to be transcribed.

‘So where were you at eight o’clock that night,’ Sparky went on.

‘Easy. In a van on my way down south.’

‘Can you prove it?’

‘My brother-in-law was driving it. Well, he’s not really my brother-in-law. He picked me up at home just after six. We went round to the doc’s and then set off. Will that do?’

‘No.’

‘I don’t want to drag him into it, if I can. He’s not supposed to take passengers.’

I chipped in with: ‘Did you stop anywhere?’

‘Yeah. We stopped for a fry-up.’

‘Where?’

‘Don’t know the name of the place. It’s on the Peterborough road, just after the long red wall, after you pass the airfield.’

Sparky and I looked blank. There’s a whole culture of travellers who never use a map, never remember a road number; they navigate by landmarks, like the early fliers did.

‘Near the greenhouses,’ he explained.

‘Right,’ I said. ‘And did you save the receipt?’

‘No.’

‘What a pity.’

‘The brother-in-law claimed it. He insisted on separate receipts and kept them both. For his expenses. He’ll have it.’

We were supposed to be tying him up and he was doing it to us. ‘Two fry-ups in one day,’ I said. ‘He’ll clog his arteries.’

‘No, he didn’t eat them both,’ Skinner told me, earnestly. ‘I had one of them. He just told his firm that he had, for the money.’ Now he was taking the piss.

Sparky said: ‘How did you learn of the doctor’s death?’

‘Jim and Mary have a phone. The wife – she’s not really the wife – rang me, Christmas Day. Said it’d been on Radio Leeds.’

‘What did you think?’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘What am I going to do for my scripts? That’s what drugs do to you.’

‘Who did you get your drugs off before the methadone?’ I asked.

A look of panic flashed across his face. ‘I can’t tell you that. I’d be a dead man.’

‘OK. If you didn’t kill the doctor, who did? Were you in with anyone heavy? Had you told your supplier about him? Was he losing a good customer because of the doc?’

‘No. I didn’t tell a soul, except the wife. And I bought my H casual, like. Nothing regular. Half a gram, when I had the money. That’s all. It’s all the other stuff they put in it that fucks you up.’

‘Are you all right for today?’ I asked.

‘Yeah, but I haven’t got it with me.’

‘And tomorrow?’

‘I need to fix something for tomorrow.’

‘Want our doctor to see you?’

He hesitated. ‘I don’t know. Maybe now’s the time to break with it.’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘We’ll leave it at that, for now.’

He was taken to one of the cells. Judging by his trousers, the duty solicitor went for a round of golf and Sparky and I trudged up the stairs to the CID office.

‘What do you reckon?’ Sparky asked. Someone always asks it. I knew what I reckoned, but I wasn’t admitting it, yet.

‘Check it all out,’ I said. ‘Let’s see what they turn up at the squat – a gun would be nice. Talk to the brother-in-law, get the receipts. Then let’s have a look at Jim and Mary in Wandsworth and the doctor down there. Have a word with traffic. Try to arrange for someone local to get a receipt for a breakfast from the cafe-near-the-wall-by-the-silverstream-under-
the-trees
-by-the-flyover. Could be worse. It could have been in Welsh.’

Maggie was in the office. ‘It’s on your desk,’ she said. ‘That was quick.’

‘We don’t mess about. When are we going to have a word with him?’

‘Darryl?’

‘Mmm.’

‘Not yet,’ I told her. ‘I want to concentrate on the doctor job, if you don’t mind. Makinson will be back on the second, and I’ve a feeling he’s not going to be pleased with what I have to say. Maybe we’ll go for Mr Buxton when the debris has fallen to the ground, eh?’

‘What about tomorrow? We could get him then.’ ‘Tomorrow, Maggie, is a bank holiday. I suggest we all have the day off. What’s good enough for Mr Makinson is good enough for the rest of us.’

‘Blimey!’ she exclaimed. ‘I don’t believe what I’m hearing.’

‘Well just keep your fingers crossed that our Darryl doesn’t strike again.’

‘I never thought of that. Do you think he might?’

‘I doubt it. Hopefully this was a one-off.’ I wondered if I was making a mistake. Maybe we should put the scarers on him as soon as possible. ‘Have you an Almanac handy?’ I asked. ‘There is one avenue we can try.’

Maggie fetched it from where it hung on a piece of string from a nail in the notice board. I thumbed through it after studying the map and dialled a number.

‘Pendle Police Headquarters,’ a voice sang in my ear. ‘Good morning,’ I said. ‘Could you please put me through to DI Drago at Burnley Padiham Road CID.’

‘Putting you through.’

After the usual beeping and clicking a voice said: Tadiham Road CID. DI Smith speaking.’

I said: ‘Hello. This is DI Charlie Priest at Heckley CID. Is DI Drago available, please?’

‘Drago? DI Drago? Sorry, Mr Priest, I’ve never heard of him.’

I looked at the date on the front of the Almanac. It was eight years old. ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘He must have moved on. Doesn’t time fly? Peter Drago owed me a favour and I was calling it in. We were at the Academy together a long time ago, and one night I saved him from a
six-foot
bald-headed nympho-maniac. I wonder if you can help me. How’s your local knowledge?’

‘Not brilliant, I’m afraid. Only been here three weeks. I was at Chester before that.’

‘Right. Well, I’d be very grateful if you could make a few enquiries on my behalf with your intelligence officer or any other local men.’

‘I’ll see what we can do, Mr Priest.’

‘Good. Thanks. We are about to have a talk with a character called Darryl Buxton, about an alleged rape on Christmas Eve. He has no form, but we think he may have come from Burnley. If I give you his description do you think you could see if he’s known to anyone, please?’

‘You mean, informally?’

I winked at Maggie. ‘Yes, informally. Just between ourselves.’

He told me that I wouldn’t be able to use it and I said yes, I was aware that I wouldn’t be able to use it, and he eventually said he would, so I gave him the description. Computers are good for storing information, but there are some things you just daren’t put on them. I wanted to know if there was anything like that for Darryl Buxton. All’s fair in love and law.

‘What was all that about?’ Maggie asked as I replaced the handset. ‘What’s Burnley got to do with it?’

‘It’s a long story,’ I replied, settling back in the chair. ‘It all started in the First World War.’

The East Lancashire Regiment was in the thick of it. In 1914 they recruited locally: men from one town, or one street, enlisting together to form what were known as Pals Battalions. Brother trained and fought side by side with brother, father with son. They escaped the drudgery of mill or coalmine to take the King’s shilling and fight to make the world a better place. They yelled blood-curdling war-cries as they stabbed bags of straw with their bayonets and imagined they were killing Germans. The only difference, they were assured, was that the real thing would be running away from them. Nobody told them that their enemy was probably a blond-haired Adonis who’d grown up in the fields and mountains of Bavaria, not stooped over loom or shovel breathing foul air for twelve hours per day.

Nobody told them about machine guns.

Nobody told them about the Military Police who
followed behind and shot anyone who turned to run, even though their comrades were falling around them like over-ripe plums in the first autumn gale.

And nobody ever mentioned the firing squads that were waiting for the frightened or the feeble or the ones who simply saw more suffering than anyone could bear.

When it was over, when the politicians saw the opportunity to save face, when Satan himself was sickened by the carnage, those that remained limped their way back towards the Channel, towards home. They left behind their friends, their sight, their youth and, some of them, their sanity.

For the East Lancs, a ragged remnant of their former selves, luck changed. They regrouped and billeted at Fecamp, in Normandy. Centuries before, the Benedictine monks who lived there had devised the medicinal brew of grape and herbs that now bears their name. It was offered to the soldiers of the East Lancs to soothe the pain, and, being fifty per cent proof, it worked. They asked for more. To men who were still young enough to remember every pint of weak beer they’d had, it had a kick like a field gun.

They brought the pestle-shaped bottles home with them, to stand on the sideboard alongside the shell cases, the uniformed photograph and the framed message from the King. And they brought a taste for the contents with them, too.

Like the gene for brown eyes, or cystic fibrosis, or the
belief in God, it passed down the generations. Eighty years later a handful of pubs and clubs around Burnley still do a thriving trade in Benedictine, serving it to the great-greatgrandchildren of that ragtaggle army that left its dreams ‘hanging on the old barbed wire’.

Sparky had joined us. ‘You know some stuff,’ he said, when I’d finished.

‘It doesn’t win quizzes,’ I admitted.

‘So you reckon he comes from Burnley,’ Maggie said. ‘I’d bet on it.’